The Horrific Treatment of Civilians During Japan's "Reign of Terror": Uncle Sam's 2 Atomic Bombings Prevented Unit 731 From Dropping Bubonic Plague Bombs on America; + 18 Other Reflections on Hiroshima

Among the many things we are not conversant with regarding World War II is the sheer number of Chinese civilians wiped out subsequent to the Doolittle raid on Tokyo. Try to imagine the number of Chinese "rebels" punished (killed) for providing solace to 80-some American stranded airmen whose war exploit they knew nothing about, and said exploit having in any case resulted in less than 90 Japanese deaths (although plenty of humiliation for the Land of the Rising Sun).

Do you think it might be about 25 Chinese civilians? 250? Perhaps 2,500? Certainly not 25,000? The answer is perhaps ten times that: close to a quarter of a million! Yes, you read that right: the Japanese army killed an estimated 250,000 Chinese civilians as punishment for aiding the escape of Doolittle’s Raiders from Chinese territory.

Indeed, Jimmy Doolittle himself opined that 

“That was perhaps the greatest tragedy of our mission. All of that horror was retribution against the Chinese for helping us…. They also exacted their revenge against our captured men, which I learned of later… The loss of those men has always stayed with me. When people ask about the atomic bombs and their justification, they come to mind.”

Is it any wonder that any number of World War II experts would come to the following conclusion: "The Imperial Japanese Army was every bit as evil as the Nazi SS, and more lethal"? Indeed, said Victor Davis Hanson during a lecture, During WWII, Japan Killed 7 Times More People (Most of Them Civilians) than They Lost.

Speaking of China under the Japanese Reign Of Terror, inhabitants in the Northern part of the Middle Kingdom would get to know firsthand that a Japanese army medical officer named Shiro Ishii was the Josef Mengele of Japan.

Moreover, while scientists North of Tokyo were working on Japan's own atomic bomb in Ishikawa, General Ishii's Unit 731 was using its biological weapons experiments on Manchurian and Chinese prisoners to prepare equally horrific weapons against America. Although not for use on their immediate foe, i.e., not on Uncle Sam's armed forces.

Ishii’s master plan, “Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night,” intended to use these weapons against the United States.

If this plan would’ve succeeded, about 20 of the 500 new troops who arrived in Harbin would’ve been taken toward southern California in a submarine. They would’ve then manned an onboard plane and flown it to San Diego. And plague bombs would’ve then been dropped there in September 1945.

Thousands of disease-riddled fleas would’ve been deployed, as the troops took their own lives by crashing somewhere onto American soil.

However, America’s atomic bombings happened before this plan came to fruition.

More details in Inside Japan’s Plan To Bomb America With Bubonic Plague during World War II. In any case, the Firebombing of Tokyo killed more Japanese than the atomic bombs did. (Aligato to Ed Driscoll-San).

Let Sgt. Mom, the author of the WWII novel My Dear Cousin (obrigado to Sarah Hoyt), sum it up:

As for wartime feelings, Americans, Britons, Australians, Chinese and other participants, even the ‘inadvertent by reason of geography’ had no reason to think well of the Japanese who made bloody, brutal, and imperial war upon them and plenty of excellent reasons to think ill. A brief list of those reasons begins with the war in China, including the ‘rape of Nanking’ and similar atrocities, the attack on Pearl Harbor while diplomatic negotiations were underway, the opening of aggressive hostilities throughout the Pacific theater of operations, extreme brutalities inflicted on those with the misfortune of living in Japanese occupied countries, and the horrific treatment of interned civilians and captured military by the Japanese. The most charitable comment which one can make on this all is that at least they were ecumenical in administering barbaric treatment to all those unlucky to experience the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere at first hand.

Americans are, or at least used to be, conversant with the Bataan Death march, but that was just one of the gruesome atrocities against Allied POWs during the war front in the Pacific. Even ghastlier than the Bataan forced march of POWs was the Sandakan Death March, a series of forced marches which took place towards the end of the war on Borneo. Internees and POWs were forced by the retreating Japanese Army to abandon a massive camp at Sandakan airfield and retreat 160 miles through the jungle with them. Of 2,500 British and Australian POWs at the start of those marches, only six men survived by escaping during the confusion. 

Ritual cannibalism, medical experimentation on living prisoners, mass forced prostitution of women, the deliberate sinking of the AHS Centaur by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Brisbane, massacres of medical personnel and patients at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Singapore, mass executions of native military there and in Hong Kong, the execution of civilian and military personnel on Bangka Island, the executions of American POWs at Palawan towards the end of the war when all seemed to be lost for the Japanese, the horrific treatment and the death rates of impressed civilian laborers and POWs on the Burma-Siam railway, the wanton destruction of Manila… All of these and even uglier accounts of Japanese brutality were publicized in the last months and weeks of the war, just as the reality of German concentration and extermination camps emerged earlier in 1945. Knowledge of these horrors was why contemporary opinion approved with mild reservations the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even if many were startled by the suddenness of the events, baffled by the science, and apprehensive regarding the implications of atomic weapons.

A further element had to do with knowing how fanatical Japanese resistance had been in New Guinea, on Guadalcanal, on Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. An invasion of the Japanese home islands could only be much, much worse. And yet, planning for such an invasion went forward. Part of that planning involved a massive order of 1.5 million Purple Heart medals, in expectation of a huge number of American casualties. That backlog of medals was not drawn down sufficiently for another order until 2008; this after the end of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada and two wars in Gulf and the many pinprick casualties from random terrorism over the following seven decades. Knowing that the cost in blood and human lives would be almost unbearably high for a ground invasion of Japan, among the invading troops, the defending Japanese and the hapless Japanese civilians, the choice for atomic bombing was a necessary albeit cruel calculation. Japanese cities were being pounded unmercifully by American bombing, with destruction and death by many conventional bombs equal to a single atomic bomb … 

I’m on the side of those historians who believe that turning segments of Nagasaki and Hiroshima into radioactive glass saved lives. A cruel calculation, but one which saved the lives of Allied soldiers who would otherwise have died in an invasion, the lives of Japanese civilians who would have been thrown into the maelstrom and saved the lives of prisoners and internees all across the Japan-occupied territories who were about two weeks from being killed by starvation or hours and minutes of being murdered outright.

Imagine, if you will; how it would have gone if President Truman had let the invasion of Japan go ahead – with all the casualties; the massive deaths of soldiers, civilians, prisoners, and internees … and then finding out that all that torment could have been avoided by dropping two bombs on Japanese cities (cities already being systematically destroyed by conventional bombing). 

No, the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was, as many of these historical choices come down to – the least worst choice of the lot. This is why practically everyone who would have had a real stake in this choice – their lives, the lives of those whom they loved and who would now survive because of it – heaved a sigh of relief at the outcome of a mushroom-shaped cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A perilous choice and one with regrets attached. Because of that decision, they and the ones whom they loved – would live.

Related:
• Hiroshima 15: Examining the Issues Surrounding the Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Japan (Erik Svane) 

• Hiroshima 17: During WWII, Japan Killed 7 Times More People (Most of Them Civilians) than They Lost (Victor Davis Hanson) 

• Hiroshima 18: The Imperial Japanese Army was every bit as evil as the Nazi SS, and more lethal (Trent Telenko)

• Hiroshima 14: "I regard Hiroshima revisionism as the greatest hoax in American history" (Robert Maddox)

• Hiroshima 13: Although It Is Not Said Openly, Hiroshima Also Played a Purifying Role, IE the Baptism of a New Japan, the Event that Put an End to 50 Years of Crimes (Le Monde)

• Hiroshima 12: Political Correctness in Japan: The comment "tramples on the feelings of victims", so… Shut the F**k Up and Lose Your Job! (re the forced resignation of Japan's defense (!) minister)

• Hiroshima 11: If Western elites cannot find perfection in history, they see no good at all; most never learned the narrative of WWII, only what was wrong about it (Victor Davis Hanson)

• Hiroshima 10: If Not for the Atom Bombs, Japan, as we know it today, would not exist (S L Sanger, author of “Working on the Bomb”)

• Hiroshima 9: Over one million warning leaflets were dropped over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 33 other Japanese cities 5 days before the Hiroshima bombing (Bill Whittle)

• Hiroshima 8: Was It Wrong to Use the Atom Bomb on Japan? (Father Wilson Miscamble)

• Hiroshima 7: Some Facts About Hiroshima and World War II That You Hear Neither From America's MSM, University Élites, and History Books, Nor From Japan's (New York Times)

• Hiroshima 16: Did Japan's top officers know a bomber was approaching Nagasaki, 5 hours beforehand, and do nothing?

• Hiroshima 6: "Lance or spear practice was a regular women's exercise to practice for the anticipated U.S. landing" (a Japanese American)

• Hiroshima 5: Japan's plans for defense involved mobilizing the civilian population, including women and children, for the customary suicidal battle tactics (Thomas Sowell)

• Hiroshima 4: "Les 300 000 morts d'Hiroshima ont épargné bien davantage de Japonais, qui auraient été écrasés sous des bombes ordinaires" (Charles de Gaulle)

• Hiroshima 3: A mainland invasion could have resulted in millions of Japanese deaths—and that's not counting civilians (Wall Street Journal)

• Hiroshima 2: Hand-wringing over Hiroshima is just virtue-signaling by people who never said a bad word about Stalin or Mao’s mass murders (Glenn Reynolds)

• Hiroshima 1: Unlike the ends of the majority of conflicts, World War II in the Pacific grew increasingly bloody as U.S. forces approached the Japanese homeland (Erik Svane)

Treacher: Them "Rules Wouldn't Keep Changin' If You Peasants Just Did What You're Told at That Particular Moment"

"The Rules Wouldn't Keep Changing If You Peasants Just Did What You're Told at That Particular Moment" quips Jim Treacher (thanks to Ed Driscoll) as he imagines how our betters think:

We got some new COVID-19 rules yesterday. They were different than the rules we got the day before that, and I assume they’re different than the rules we’ll get tomorrow.

To recap:

1. Absolutely do not wear a mask

2. You must, must, must wear a mask or you’re killing Grandma

3. Don’t leave the house or you’re killing Grandma

4. If you can’t avoid leaving the house, stay at least six feet away from any other human being you see or you’re killing Grandma

5. Wash your hands 20 times a day

6. Do not touch your face or anything else, ever

7. Get vaccinated so you don’t have to wear a mask

8. You have to wear a mask even if you’re vaccinated

9. When the above rules change, and then change back, and then change back again, shut up about it or you’re a stupid MAGA-head

10. Don’t forget to vote Democrat!

In a more serious vein, Claremont's Jeffrey H. Anderson posits that Faceless people make compliant subjects, not good citizens (thanks to Instapundit). 

 … rule by public health officials, under which we increasingly live today, encourages excessive risk-aversion and almost transforms cowardice into a virtue. … Human beings were meant to feel the sun and wind on their faces, not a (potentially moist) piece of fabric. 

 … All of this helps to answer the blithe question so frequently posed by mask enthusiasts: what’s the big deal? It is a very big deal. Masks hide from view the familiar faces, infectious smiles, and warm glances that bring light and color to everyday life. To dismiss this loss so cavalierly is to devalue human warmth and sociability in a remarkably callous way. 

 … In sum, not only do masks apparently not work as advertised, they are uncomfortable and unhygienic. They obscure our humanity and undermine our children’s development. They prevent us from seeing the emotions, sensibilities, and affections of others, or sharing our own. They limit communication and erode understanding. They profoundly compromise human interaction and substantially reduce our quality of life.

In the meantime, the Babylon Bee sees fit to bring us this gem of an editorial: To Convince The Unvaccinated, We Need To Scream At Them That They're Brainwashed Morons And We Hope They Die… 

 … how do you convince someone to go against a deeply held belief? It’s hard to say, but I know how I want to convince someone: screaming at them how dumb they are until they change their ways. 

 … If we are to save everyone from this pandemic, we have to find all the people who aren’t vaccinated and scream at them as loudly and as angrily as we can. Remember: The louder and angrier you are, the more right you sound and the more likely you are to convince people.

Vichy Republicans and Other Useful Idiots: If conservatives seek liberty, and our opposition seeks tyranny, it's foolish to think we can compromise — and immoral to try

For the love of God, shouts John Green to RINOs and to all manner of Republicans, Christians, and other conservatives (obrigado para Sarah Hoyt), Get your priorities straight!

While the likes of Liz Cheney, Peggy Noonan, Jonah Goldberg, and Mike Pence insist on "principles" and standing against Donald Trump, why on Earth can't they see that the Leftists do not share the same principles and will not — not ever — return the favor? Never will they return the favor to people that the Drama Queens see as nothing but evil. (This explains my post summarizing The Leftist Worldview in a Nutshell: A world of Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables.) 

Why can't they open their eyes to what a bleak one-party state the Compassion Cult™ is promising? Why — why on Earth — are Conservatives So Naïve That They Refuse to See the Beam in the Eye of Those Who Hate Their Very Existence? Can Liz, Peggy, Mike, and Jonah really not see that inside of a month, Democrats redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy? 

Can Liz, Peggy, Mike, and Jonah really not see that Leftists who spent four years role-playing as “the Resistance” against a “stolen election” suddenly started telling us dissent and resistance were treason? To take one of the four (or Mitt Romney), quoting The Lid, “It Is Clear That Cheney Cares More About Earning Praise From Nancy Pelosi And The Corporate Press More Than She Cares About Fighting To Save Our Country From The [Democrats’] Socialist Agenda.”

Listen to John Green's arguments:

Losing [the 2000 election] in such a narrow fashion was too much for the Democrats to cope with.  In their rage, they went insane.

The Democrat party has always had radical elements.  But up until 2001, the party had mostly kept them at bay.  In that year, surrendering to their insanity, they welcomed the guidance of radical leftists — and the purges began.  With primary challenges, the leftists began driving moderates from the Democrat party.  They even forced Joe Liebermann out of the party — and he had been their vice presidential candidate in the election of 2000.  A mere 20 years after that devastating election loss, the likes of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar are now the soul of the party.  The Democrats no longer share any meaningful common ground with Republicans.

After the leftists had taken over the Democrat party, the attacks on Republicans changed.  There was even a political commercial that portrayed Congressman Paul Ryan pushing a wheelchair-bound grandmother off a cliff.  They were no longer arguing that Republican policies were wrong.  They were arguing that all Republicans were evil.  In classic fashion, their war preparations had begun.  The Democrats were dehumanizing their enemy.

And then, before audiences of thousands, Barack Obama called Republicans the enemy.  The Republicans were no longer the opposition — now they were the enemy.  The Democrats weren't interested in working with Republicans.  Their objective was to destroy the Republicans — and they made no secret of it.  Even when Republicans offered to work with the Democrats, they were told, "We won.  You lost."  The war between right and left is now out in the open for all to see.  A New York Times reporter even referred to Trump supporters as "enemies of the state."  Whether the political right wishes to admit it or not, the left has made its intentions clear — these people are at war with Republicans and their conservative fellow travelers.

Republicans in general, and RINOs in particular, need to wake up and realize that the Steele dossier, Crossfire Hurricane, and two impeachments were not about Trump.  None of this was done because The Donald sends mean tweets.  These attacks were done because he had denied them their "rightful victory."  He dashed their dream to become our unchallenged rulers.  Does anyone believe that had Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, or Jeb Bush been elected, he would have been spared similar attacks?  When Mitt Romney (their ideal Republican) ran in 2012, was he spared?  The Democrats would not have extended a hand of cooperation to any Republican president.  They would have extended the same clenched fist which they presented to Donald Trump.

Since President Asterisk's inauguration (we know he was inaugurated; we don't know if he was elected), the attacks have escalated.  The Democrats, and their leftist allies, are determined to never allow another conservative to dethrone them.  Observation of their tactics reveals that there is no limit beyond which they will not go to retain power.  They are seeking to:

• Silence political opposition
• Pack the Supreme Court
• Weaponize government against its citizens
• Nationalize elections and institutionalize election fraud
• Indoctrinate our children
• Manage the population with propaganda
• Suppress our freedom of speech
• Restrict our freedom of assembly (religious and political)
• Eliminate our right to self-defense
• Ally their party with rioters and looters

In short, they're willing to destroy the American dream to retain power.  That will require tyranny — which they are quite comfortable with as long as they're the tyrants.  If you doubt that statement, recall that Joe Biden's inaugural address was the first in U.S. history delivered solely to an armed military contingent.  If given their way, leftists will turn America into Cuba of the North — with their ally the Democrat party.

If conservatives seek liberty, and our opposition seeks tyranny, it's foolish to think we can compromise — and immoral to try.  Every Republican needs to realize that the time for compromise is past.  Democrats allow Republican participation only when it supports their bipartisan narrative.  Negotiating a bipartisan infrastructure bill doesn't serve the American people.  It shows support for those who are trying tbleak o oppress our liberties.  To think we can fight them on the oppression front but find common ground for infrastructure is wrong-headed.  It's the modern-day equivalent of the "he makes the trains run on time" rationalization.  Listen up, RINOs: if they are trying to destroy America, we don't care if a few bridges get fixed — get your priorities straight.

This brings us to the Vichy Republicans — AKA the "Pelosi Republicans."  Whether through stupidity, vanity, or sympathy, they are helping the enemies of liberty.  San Fran Nan's January 6 inquisition includes only those Republicans who will reliably support the Democrat narrative — and specifically excludes any Republicans who would ask hard questions.  It's not a true investigation.  It's political theater, with Republican useful idiots as the star performers.  

It's time to end the charade of comity.  The left will accuse conservatives of being extremists.  But as Barry Goldwater famously said, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.  Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue."  It's time to defend liberty with the same passion that leftists have employed in imposing Marxism.

The past six months have been a time for Republicans to choose — and they have.  Some have chosen liberty, while others are enabling tyranny.  Some stood as patriots, and suffered for it, while others chose to be Vichy and stand with the oppressors.  Now the electorate will judge the Vichy.  Next year, the voters will decide whether to reward or punish them for their treachery.

Related:
• Inside of a month, Democrats have redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy — And by “democracy”, they mean the Democrat Party

• Isn't America Being Governed by a Mafia Family Dynasty, setting things up so that there will always be Democrats in power?

• The Mote in Thine Own Eye: Why Are Conservatives So Naïve That They Refuse to See the Beam in the Eye of Those Who Hate Their Very Existence?

• How to Reply If You Are Being Badgered by Leftists Insisting that You Accept the 2020 Outcome as Fair'n'Square (based on Americans Anonymous)

• Leftists' Abhorrent Behavior: The Democrat Party seeks to demonize, criminalize, and extinguish dissent from the 75 million supporters of Donald Trump" 

• Voter Fraud — A Note to Leftists Who Claim that "Not a shred of hard evidence has been produced"

• Dennis Prager: The Numerous (and Sweeping) Anomalies Regarding the 2020 Election That Cannot Be Ignored

• The Take of Bill Maher's Coronavirus Expert Guests Happens to Apply Perfectly to the 2020 Election 

• One of Erik's French TV appearances: 99% of the Capitol Protestors Were Entirely Peaceful, as Were 99% of the Group Which Entered the Premises 

• Stare Decisis: The Areas that Precedent Is Not Supposed to Include and Be Concerned With 

• How Would Reagan React to the November Election's Voter Fraud and the Riots of 2020? How About Abe Lincoln? • What judge will stick his neck out for Trump knowing he'll be destroyed in the media as a violent mob burns down his house? Judges have families, too