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Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski
Not long after I read Chang's book, I visited the Hiroshima Peace Park. They had a small blurb in the museum about the rape of Nanking. And it was 90% bullshit. Boy did that make me angry.
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I've never been there, but would like to go. I really think that the Japanese people as a whole were victimized as well, although obviously not to the extent of the Chinese. One day when I have more time I'll give my complete opinion on why I think the war started and the dangers of a decentralized military structure.
When looked at in a vacuum, I'm personally of the opinion that the A-bombs were not only necessary but benevolent, in a strange way. If you don't scare Japan into surrendering, you're looking at a loss of maybe 500,000 more Americans or more, and several million Japanese - and even the A-bombs were nearly not enough, if you didn't have Hirohito going behind the ruling military's back. The undernourished Japanese citizens were being trained to fight us off at the beach with bamboo spears. People also forget that more people died in one night of firebombing in Tokyo than died in both A-bombs combined.
Quote:
Originally Posted by creekster
As you may know, Chang committed suicide. Her family has speculated in the press that the depressive effect of her work on the book was a significant cause of her decision to do so.
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It was only a couple of years ago, as I recall. I cannot dispute her family's opinion on this point; I would rather see pictures of holocaust victims than read about the Rape of Nanking. And that's coming from a guy who had a grandfather in a concentration camp and has heard a lot of crazy stories.