This war was as much a war for democracy as Iraq and Afghanistan are. Not at all.posted by wilful at 4:29 PM on August 8, 2011 [2 favorites]
Empires that before the war repressed the local populations did the same thing after the war. From Indonesia to Vietnam the imperialist powers sought to re-establish their dictatorial rule over the peoples there.
This was not war for democracy but for imperial domination.
By 1943 it was clear the Japanese could not win. The war was no longer defensive from Australian capitalism’s point of view. It became an expansionist war in which Australian and American forces set out ‘to capture the South Pacific’.
US intelligence had intercepted and decoded messages passing between Tokyo and Moscow instructing Japanese ambassador Naotake Sato to attempt to interest the Soviets in mediating a Japanese surrender. "The foreign and domestic situation for the Empire is very serious," Foreigng Minister Shigenori Togo had cabled Sato on July 11, "and even the termination of the war is now being considered privately ... We are also sounding out the extent to which we might employ the USSR in connection with the termination of the war ... [this is] a matter with which the Imperial Court is ... greatly concerned." And pointedly on July 12:-- Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 684-685It is His Majesty's heart's desire to see the swift termination of the war ... However, as long as America and England insist on unconditional surrender our country has no alternative but to see it through in an all-out effort for the sake of our survival and the honor of the homeland.
But based on my readings I'd have to say that while the Soviet declaration may have been the final push, the emperor and other key leaders had been looking for a way to engineer a peace deal for months before the surrender.
At a meeting of the Cabinet on the afternoon of 7 August the War and Home Ministers made reports on the Hiroshima bombing. The Army, pleading the necessity of awaiting the results of the investigation which had been ordered, obviously intended not to admit the nature of the atomic atack, but to minimize the effect of the bombing. On the 8th I had an audience, in the underground shelter of the Imperial Palace, with the Emperor, whom I informed of the enemy's announcement of the use of an atomic bomb, and related matters, and I said that it was now all the more imperative that we end the war, which we could seize this opportunity to do. The Emperor approved of my view, and warned that since we could no longer continue the struggle, now that a weapon of this devastating power was used against us, we should not let slip the opportunity by engaging in attempts to gain more favorable conditions...Emphasis mine.
The members of the Supreme Council met at 11:00 A.M. I opened the discussion by saying that the war had become more and more hopeless, and now that it had no future, it was necessary to make peace without the slightest delay. Therefore, I said, the Potsdam Declaration must be complied with, and the conditions for its acceptance should be limited to those only which were absolutely essential for Japan. All members of the Supreme Council already recognized the difficulties in going on with the war; and now, after the employment of the atomic bomb and Russian entry into the war against us, none opposed in principle our acceptance of the declaration. None disagreed, either, that we must insist upon preservation of the national polity as the indispensable condition of acceptance.
The military representatives, however, held out for proposing additional terms--specifically, that occupation of Japan should if possible be avoided or, if inescapable, should be on a small scale and should not include such points as Tokyo; that disarmament should be carried out on our responsibility; and that war criminals should be dealt with by Japan.
Indeed, Americans did know from racism before the war, but viz the Japanese (to say nothing of the Chinese), to what extent, with what kind of flavor? Asians were in general merely amusingly different until hostilities broke out.
Frankly, the legislation was provoked by the Japanese problem and is aimed particularly at that race. In the first place, the Japanese are a people that can never be assimilated. Their physical features and characteristics are so different from the European as to prevent merger by intermarriage, in addition the the clash between Occidental and Oriental temperaments and traditions.Check out The 1920 Anti-Japanese Crusade and Congressional Hearings at the University of Washington web site.
Of their character, the Japanese morality, or lack of it, is one of the objectionable features to their presence in large numbers in California. That this is not an unfounded accusation, any observant traveler in Japan will testify that life in a house of prostitution is no bar to marriage for girls of any class. In money matters they are tricky and absolutely unreliable.
...In districts where loyalty prompted the farmers to stick together and refuse Japanese offers one orchard would be bought at an extravagant price and those surrounding it could then be gathered in for a song, for no white people will live next to Japanese, in city or country.
A NONASSIMILABLE ALIEN RACE.posted by XMLicious at 9:52 AM on August 10, 2011
The Japanese, with a few individual exceptions, and even when born in this country, are for various reasons unassimilable and a dangerous element, either as residents or citizens.
Perfect assimiliation or amalgamation can be had only through intermarriage. This is impracticable for several reasons:(a) A principle enunciated by biologists is to the effect that intermarriage between races widely different in characteristics does not perpetuate the good qualities of either race. The differences between Japanese and American whites are claimed to be so radical as to bring them within this category.
lyenaga, in his Japan and the California Problem, and Prof. K. S. Inui, in statement before the House Immigration Committee, in July, 1920 (see p. 997, vol. 3, of hearings), claim that through long residence in tne United States, and after some generations, the result of environment and climate and occupation will be such as to induce biological changes in the Japanese and 'approximate them to the composite American, and that thereafter they would be, perhaps, naturally fitted for intermarriage.
The answer to this is that the possibility is too remote. Even should it eventually happen, the American whites would have been swallowed up by the Japanese race before this biological change could have taken place.
(b) A natural pride of race on each side, and in a number of our States the law as well, acts as a bar against intermarriage. Even in Hawaii, where there is every encouragement for interracial admixture, the Japanese have maintained racial purity far beyond that of any other nation and to an extraordinary degree. (See report of survey commission to the Department of Education, Washington, Bulletin No. 20, 1920, Exhibit 17.)
(c) Another bar to assimilation by marriage is the fact that the Eurasian progeny of such intermarriages are accorded no social standing, either on this side or on the other side of the Pacific.
But I overstate and am duly chastised for neglecting attitudes during the 1860 to 1930 period,
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posted by localroger at 3:39 PM on August 8, 2011