Jon Stweart and Revisionist History
May. 1st, 2009 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kazariHere is your education, friendslist.
World War II. Do you all know it? Americans, remember the president who dropped the atomic bombs on Japan? Truman. Do you remember what your college history book said about him? They said he was a great man. They painted a picture of a president who made a difficult decision to drop two bombs to end a war. This, they argue, saved lives! If the war had continued, millions more would have died.
This is complete and total bullshit.
Your history lied to you. Truman's decision making process was supplemented by intelligence on the state of the war. This intelligence indicated that Japan was going to surrender. Had the war continued as it was, a broken and weary Japan was planning to surrender to the US. Truman knew this. Truman did not drop the bomb to end the war with Japan. The bombs were dropped to:
1) Prove the military might of the US to Russia.
2) Justify the cost of building the atomic bomb.
3) To field test the carnage an atomic bomb could cause on a city.
Truman did NOT drop the bombs to end the war. He didn't NEED to. He KNEW this. He had other things in mind and the continued slaughter of Japanese civilians served his goals. This is documented. The concentration on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki also gloss over the destruction and carnage of the US firebombing of Japanese cities. This firebombing killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed dozens of cities.
Why do I bring this up?
This is the extended version of a recent Daily Show interview about torture and war crimes that has since popped up on several blogs and whatnot. The commentary has been almost exclusively to put down Jon and cite the old, "dropping the bombs ended the war and saved many lives," followed by, "they didn't surrender immediately after the first bomb was dropped, so the second one had to be dropped." This is just plain not true.
War crimes? Yes.
As Americans, we like to think the best of our history and leaders. This doesn't mean they were saints. I agree that Truman was a war criminal. So was Hirohito, who commanded his military to conquer, rape, and pillage China and Korea. WWII was not a "clean" war. It wasn't the good 'ol days. It was just as messy and horrible and convoluted as any conflict today.
Know this. Remember this. Share this.
World War II. Do you all know it? Americans, remember the president who dropped the atomic bombs on Japan? Truman. Do you remember what your college history book said about him? They said he was a great man. They painted a picture of a president who made a difficult decision to drop two bombs to end a war. This, they argue, saved lives! If the war had continued, millions more would have died.
This is complete and total bullshit.
Your history lied to you. Truman's decision making process was supplemented by intelligence on the state of the war. This intelligence indicated that Japan was going to surrender. Had the war continued as it was, a broken and weary Japan was planning to surrender to the US. Truman knew this. Truman did not drop the bomb to end the war with Japan. The bombs were dropped to:
1) Prove the military might of the US to Russia.
2) Justify the cost of building the atomic bomb.
3) To field test the carnage an atomic bomb could cause on a city.
Truman did NOT drop the bombs to end the war. He didn't NEED to. He KNEW this. He had other things in mind and the continued slaughter of Japanese civilians served his goals. This is documented. The concentration on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki also gloss over the destruction and carnage of the US firebombing of Japanese cities. This firebombing killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed dozens of cities.
Why do I bring this up?
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 2 | ||||
| ||||
This is the extended version of a recent Daily Show interview about torture and war crimes that has since popped up on several blogs and whatnot. The commentary has been almost exclusively to put down Jon and cite the old, "dropping the bombs ended the war and saved many lives," followed by, "they didn't surrender immediately after the first bomb was dropped, so the second one had to be dropped." This is just plain not true.
War crimes? Yes.
As Americans, we like to think the best of our history and leaders. This doesn't mean they were saints. I agree that Truman was a war criminal. So was Hirohito, who commanded his military to conquer, rape, and pillage China and Korea. WWII was not a "clean" war. It wasn't the good 'ol days. It was just as messy and horrible and convoluted as any conflict today.
Know this. Remember this. Share this.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:15 am (UTC)... I wouldn't go that far, only given the context. We shouldn't glorify dropping the bombs like this douche bag did(Or WW2 in general, WW2 video games disgust the hell out of me; war sucks). It was a different time with a different context during a different style of warfare. Warfare in itself is a war crime. The problem though, is that the onus on war is entirely on the aggressor.
It shows incredible lack of wisdom and insight that this tool went that route. He's clearly not operating from a point of view that really has any real thought or philosophy behind it other than, "Torture is OK if we call it something else."
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:52 am (UTC)You mean the man in the video? Yeah. And this man has written extensively on the issue of torture. Jon's point about upholding a philosophy being most important in war seemed pretty poignant to me.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 03:47 pm (UTC)