This blog is a random collection of information, partly in support of my quotations web site. Other topics include wine, military news, economics, history, libertarianism, and other random things which happen to strike my fancy. Backup site is at http://quotulatiousness.blogspot.com/ (if there are no posts showing, hit the backup blog for explanation). Comments have been turned off, as the spam was getting too much to handle. Comments can be emailed to me for posting.

August 09, 2007

Historical revisionism

I realize I'm behind in posting this, but I thought the conclusion to be worth repeating:

What is absent from these comments (and many others like them) is any awareness of things like the Rape of Nanking or the Bataan Death March, or the Holocaust for that matter; or of the fact that America's supposed determination to crush her enemies manifested itself in rebuilding postwar Germany and leaving Japan with a political system that allowed it to become a strong economic rival to America herself. A few commenters suggest that America should have allowed the Soviets to end the war by invading Japan, blithely unaware of the hell on earth that would have awaited the Japanese under Soviet occupation. This isn't mere ignorance; it's a profound conviction that only evil done by the West, and above all by "psychopathic bully" America, truly matters. Meanwhile, posters who point out Japanese atrocities in World War II are rebuffed with accusations of "the implicitly racist overtone [of] recounting the endless 'savagery' of the Japanese."

When anti-Americanism becomes so extreme that it turns the U.S. into the bad guy of World War II, that's truly frightening and depressing. As for whether the bombing was indeed the least evil of all available options: again, I don't know. I'm sure there is room for legitimate debate on this issue. But that debate is almost entirely drowned out by hate and self-righteousness. The insistence on moral purity has turned to moral blindness.

Posted by Nicholas at August 9, 2007 09:03 AM
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