Letters to the Editor
-
Naivete On Display
Tigerr wrote: "I can't believe this. Who are "the Germans", who are "the Japanese"? Are they all guilty of what their government has done? So they all got what they earned? It is exactly this kind of dehumanizing war rhetoric that makes war, and public support for war, possible. We need documentaries like this to give innocent people who suffer from the atrocities of war a name and a face. Even more so today."
Dude/dudette:
I knew you'd write; you just don't get it: "the Japanese" and "the Germans" not only voted for their leaders but aided and abetted them in their vileness and evilness. They can't then turn and say "Oh, golly, we had no idea." They tried that at the Nuremburg trials; it didn't wash then and it won't wash now.
Those "Germans" and those "Japanese" worked at the factories that turned out the war materiel that killed our citizens. They weren't just peacefully tending their gardens or making beer or cuddling bunnies; they were ALL part of the war machine. And, I maintain that, as active war participants, whether they wore a uniform or not, they were legitimate targets. Period.
Now...as I wrote above...take the lessons of war and work for peace. I embrace that concept and have vigorously fought against the illegal "war" against Iraq by Dubya. I continue to warn people about the phony propaganda the Bush Maladmistration spews non-stop about Iran and the scarily likely prospect of war with THAT country.
By your naivete and revisionist history, you attempt to make the United States the predator viz-a-viz Japan and Germany. It wasn't true then and it isn't true today.
Being a pacifist for the future is admirable; being a revisionist of past history isn't. Big difference.