Was it a war crime when US nuked Hiroshima & Nagasaki?

So what was the just cause for the US then? Humanitarian concerns? The cause for Chinese self-determination? Let me just cite Zinn on this (I don't know what you exactly mean by calling Zinn unreliable, I certainly don't think he lies about his numbers and sources, you might not like the way in which they are arranged, though)

Zinn cites a State Department memorandum on Japanese expansion a year before Pearl Harbor:

"...our general diplomatic and strategic position would be considerably weakened-by our loss of Chinese, Indian and South Seas markets (and by our loss of much of the Japanese markets for our goods, as Japan would become more and more self-sufficient) as well as by insurmountable restrictions upon our access to the rubber, tin, jute and other vital materials of the Asian and Oceanic regions"

Now, of course , you will raise the objection that this is taken out of context, that maybe it doesn't represent the opinion of all of the administration and the memorandum doesn't say anything about going to war to resolve the issue. Still it sheds some light on what might have been in the back of the heads of people in charge at that time (to put it benevolently)?

Do me the favor of not telling me what objections i will raise to Zinn's self-serving nonsense. There is a world of difference between access to markets for petroleum, strategic minerals and raw materials, and the actual conquest of the territories from which they come. If you are unable to grasp the distinction, then i'm sure you'll be gratified to adopt the Zinn stance of criticizing all the powers that be (or powers that were) as greedy, venal crooks in office. Someday, more broad and deep reading and some maturity may suggest to you that no one is perfect--neither perfectly bad nor perfectly good. So if you wish to, you could reduce this to a contest about who is worse, the Japanese crypto-facist militarist regime, or the American, allegely crypto-facist populist regime.

Your conclusion on such a topic, i can assure you, will be of no interest to me whatsoever.

Damn right I'm offended. I'm not in the habit of denying any of the terrible things that past generations did. Often, I'll be the first to bring injustices, massacres and broken treaties to public attention.

Monday-morning quarterbacking and facile moral judgements based on currently fashionable values is unlikely to help us understand history. One of the great values of historical study is that it can give us insights into how events unfold. The historian has be as objective as possible, and not to overreach. Given the tenor of the time, what was "known" and believed are important keys to unlocking the secrets of why decisions were made. If a hundred years later, we know something that the historical actors didn't or our values are different than those of the time, it is unfair to make judgements based on "now we know". The consequences of decisions can never be completly known. What appears to be a sound decision can sometimes lead to a whole chain of negative results. Good historians who have spent a lot of time studying their subject don't do those things.

We, as historians, want to know and understand the emotions and rational that motivated decisions, the important trends and how events were perceived at the time. Secondly, we want to know as much as possible about what actually occurred. No single source is ever totally faultless, so we study and think about a wide range of sources. If the source has an obvious agenda, is self-serving, and/or contradicts other sources in major ways, we are very wary indeed. Personal witnesses are very interesting, but they often see and know of only a very small part of the event. People caught up in events are emotionally involved, and they color their interpretation of events. Sometimes the best records are the dry lists and bills of lading kept for logistical and bureaucratic reasons. Occasionally, a historian will write a book or series on their subject that is worthy of our attention, and then it becomes just another source to be questioned and picked at. Often the best stuff is written in such a dry academic style that no one other than another historian is likely to spend much time with the secondary source.

Serious historians don't come by their knowledge, much less their understanding and interpretations, on the basis of a "popular" author or two. Historical trends and events are notoriously complex, and even if a student were to spend their entire life studying just one small decision/event they will die without ever fully comprehending it.

To make blank, oversimplified assertions that fly in the face of generally accepted history, is to reveal one's self as an amateur and probably with some crack-brained ideology to palm-off.

As Set said above, Zinn is a joke among serious historians, and to try to typify WWII by ANY simple theory is madness. To equate D-Day and Pearl Harbor can only be the result of profound ignorance, or blind Ideology that equates all the world's ills to some ideological theory. Lodp, we've given you the benefit of the doubt here and ascribed your offensive ignorance to untutored youth. If instead, you are a self-blinded True Believer, then you are no more worthy of our attention than those who deny the very real crimes of the Axis Powers.

Adding that if someone is announced as "the famous/popular historian" (what is done here in Europe re. Zinn), you always should be suspecious.

Of course, this doesn't say anything, but Zinn ... ...

Zinn? Some background on Zinn, anyone?

As I already explained, I wasn't equating D-Day and Pearl Harbor. I was just objecting to your simple-minded statement that "any sneak attack is unjustified". My point was, and I'm happy to repeat it, that the Pearl Harbor attack was not unjustified merely because it was a sneak attack, but even if they had announced it it the NYT they shouldn't have done it. The comparison to D-Day was made to illustrate that the legitimacy of war acts has nothing to do with whether the targeted enemy knew when and where it would happen.

Howard Zinn's ZNet homepage


Roundup: Comments About Historians

Howard Zinn's Biased History

Howard Zinn online

Excerpt from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States

Walter - you're a prince!

Keep this a secret, especially, don't tell Gautam about it! :wink:

The great irony is that Zinn has doubtlessly gotten quite a comfortable income out of his tripe--but i'm sure he's sent that all off to the relief of oppressed peoples everywhere . . .

(insert ironic emoticon here)

That Howard Zinn sure is a drugged-up commie :wink:

Funny that the article is written by a guy who wrote a book titled "Why the Left Hates America: Exposing the Lies That Have Obscured Our Nation's Greatness"

This deserves comment, even if the author thereof has displayed an unwarranted hostility without reference to any offense given him. The D-Day invasion was a temporary tactical surprise, and was very competently executed in the course of a declared war, when both sides were prepared for combat. The continued success of the landing forces was a product of the idiocy of Hitler's policy and his clinging to a belief predicated upon his deaires rather than upon reality--to wit, that the main Allied effort would be made against the Pas de Calais, where the Germans were best prepared to deal with an attack.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a brilliantly conceived and conducted operation. Nevertheless, it was an act of war perpetrated when no state of war existed between the Japanese Empire and the United States. It was by no means certain that the attack could have been prevented if there had been some advance warning, such as a declaration of war. The special envoy to Washington, Admiral Nomura, was an honest, decent man, acting in good faith. However, his government were not acting in good faith, and the "negotiating position" which they provided him was nothing more than a thinly-veiled ultimatum to accept the status quo in east Asia. The Japanese government knew full well that the "terms" being offered were unacceptable to the United States.

From a military point of view, Lt. Gen. Short in Hawaii dropped the ball. Obsessed with a chimerical threat of "fifth-columnist" saboteurs from among the Japanese-American community on Oahu, he had clustered his pursuit aircraft ("fighters") in the centers of the airfields, and locked up the anti-aircraft ammuniiton. Even with the November 27th "War Warning" message in hand, Short's view that the fleet were somehow to protect him, rather than a realistic notion of his duty to protect the naval base and the fleet, coupled with his obsessive fear of sabotage--assured that no appropriate response could be made to the attack.

There is not the slimmest similarity in the descriptions of the Normandy landings and the Pearl Harbor attack to warrant any sort of coherent comparison, beyond that people killed and died. It is not surprising, however, that someone who is sufficiently gullible to swallow Zinn's rantings would believe that this were a valid comparison.

Walter: As always, a thorough and balanced selection of links. It's too bad that some people apparently can't recognize that.

It seems you're unwilling to comprehend my point, which remains untouched by your correct analysis (since the only comparison between the two events I did is the "sombody sneaking up on somebody in some way" - condition, that holds in both cases).

The Point was that the Pearl Harbor attacks were not unjustified and immoral merely because they were a sneak attack. And to say so is an instance of kindergarten sandbox moral judgement (which is no surprise when uttered by someone who writes about the Code of "Hanurabi").

Thanks for hitting on this :wink:

No, no one "sneaked up" on Normandy, which means you have failed to make a valid comparison. It is rather exceptional to see someone describe more than 4,000 vessels in the Bay of the Seine as "sneaking up" on Normany. By contrast, Nagumo's fleet launched aircraft at about 300 miles north of Oahu, and recovered at about 230 miles north of Oahu. The two events are not at all comparable, other than as i've already noted, that people killed and died.

In terms of international law, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a criminal act--for whatever the morality. Likening another member to a kindergarten child because of a misspelling is both a breech of on-line etiquette, usually intended to insult and belittle rather than address the substance of what was written, and is continued evidence that you have not come here to learn or teach anything, but simply to ridicule those who don't share your delusions, as it becomes increasingly evident constitutes your "knowledge" of "history."

You ignore the context of the two events. D-Day occurred in the midst of a war: Pearl Harbor occurred while the two nations were not in a state of war.


The attack on Pearl Harbor was unjustified because it was a violation of the Hague Convention (III) of 1907, of which Japan was a signatory. Under the convention, Japan and the other signatories (including the USA) pledged "that hostilities between them must not commence without a previous and explicit warning, in the form of either a declaration of war, giving reasons, or an ultimatum with a conditional declaration of war." The attack on Pearl Harbor violated this explicit injunction, and it violated it precisely because it was a sneak attack.

There is no such thing as a sneak attack, only attacks and warnings.

Hunh?

Set and Joe -- are you begining to feel that you're talking to a stone wall? Perhaps I was a bit out of line in adopting the tone that I did, but it does get a bit exasperating when someone insists on posting utter bilge.