Japanese Agonistes
I must concede a general antipathy toward Japan and the Japanese people, an antipathy not necessarily borne of Pearl Harbor since I wasn’t alive at the time and my family was spared the loss of any members in the conflagration that was World War Two.
Rather, my negative feelings toward the Land of the Rising Sun grew after reading James Bradley’s Flyboys: A True Story of Courage which is not as much a tale of courage on the part of American airmen who were unfortunate enough to be captured and imprisoned by the Japanese on the island of Chichi-jima as it was the story of the incredible brutality inflicted on those prisoners, brutality that included torture, beheadings, and cannibalism on the part of their captors.
As a child, all I remember of Japan was that we beat them in the war and that its exports were derided as junk; anything cheap was described as something that “looked like it was made in Japan.” However, both its economy and product quality improved greatly over the years and the Japanese evolved into a valued American ally and Japan took its rightful place among major world powers.
It may remain an ally but may not fully recover for many years after a powerful 8.9/9.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Pacific Ocean nearby Northeastern Japan at around 2:46pm on March 11 (JST). That catastrophic event was soon followed by widespread tsunamis, fires, explosions at nuclear plants, radiation contamination, severe aftershocks, and a devastating loss of life which could rival the Japanese war losses before it is all over.
When entire towns disappear, misfortune must be re-classified as cataclysm.
There’s no need to post pictures here or to detail the horrendous extent of the horror in terms of the devastation nature visited on Japan. For one thing, Japanese and American television are making that obvious. For another, the news is far from complete and the Japanese could merely be witnessing the preliminaries of what lies ahead, news that the Japanese government is withholding or minimizing.
What Japan endured during the Second World War was well deserved. The massive retaliation launched to defeat its maniacal armies, the relentless firebombings of Tokyo, the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were all consequences of the war that Japan initiated. The Sh?wa Emperor, Hirohito, may have escaped punishment but few other Japanese did.
However, nature’s merciless assault on Japan could eventually eclipse in severity even the horrors of war and was as unprovoked as it was unanticipated. For those reasons, the Japanese should be afforded every governmental assistance and American charity.
Click here for a listing of the various national and international charities responding: [http://tiny.cc/9cekw] Anyone wishing to contribute should skip the Red Cross and other organizations which pay executives exorbitant salaries at the expense of the afflicted and contact organizations like the Salvation Army which are more dedicated.
Rather, my negative feelings toward the Land of the Rising Sun grew after reading James Bradley’s Flyboys: A True Story of Courage which is not as much a tale of courage on the part of American airmen who were unfortunate enough to be captured and imprisoned by the Japanese on the island of Chichi-jima as it was the story of the incredible brutality inflicted on those prisoners, brutality that included torture, beheadings, and cannibalism on the part of their captors.
As a child, all I remember of Japan was that we beat them in the war and that its exports were derided as junk; anything cheap was described as something that “looked like it was made in Japan.” However, both its economy and product quality improved greatly over the years and the Japanese evolved into a valued American ally and Japan took its rightful place among major world powers.
It may remain an ally but may not fully recover for many years after a powerful 8.9/9.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Pacific Ocean nearby Northeastern Japan at around 2:46pm on March 11 (JST). That catastrophic event was soon followed by widespread tsunamis, fires, explosions at nuclear plants, radiation contamination, severe aftershocks, and a devastating loss of life which could rival the Japanese war losses before it is all over.
When entire towns disappear, misfortune must be re-classified as cataclysm.
There’s no need to post pictures here or to detail the horrendous extent of the horror in terms of the devastation nature visited on Japan. For one thing, Japanese and American television are making that obvious. For another, the news is far from complete and the Japanese could merely be witnessing the preliminaries of what lies ahead, news that the Japanese government is withholding or minimizing.
What Japan endured during the Second World War was well deserved. The massive retaliation launched to defeat its maniacal armies, the relentless firebombings of Tokyo, the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were all consequences of the war that Japan initiated. The Sh?wa Emperor, Hirohito, may have escaped punishment but few other Japanese did.
However, nature’s merciless assault on Japan could eventually eclipse in severity even the horrors of war and was as unprovoked as it was unanticipated. For those reasons, the Japanese should be afforded every governmental assistance and American charity.
Click here for a listing of the various national and international charities responding: [http://tiny.cc/9cekw] Anyone wishing to contribute should skip the Red Cross and other organizations which pay executives exorbitant salaries at the expense of the afflicted and contact organizations like the Salvation Army which are more dedicated.
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