Letter of a dying Iraq war veteran to Bush

[MTC]

It's not a 'overall blame-America narrative of historical revisionism' It's realizing that America isn't perfect and recognizing mistakes and atrocities committed by our country as to try to prevent them again in the future. As long as you subscribe the narrative that we are a perfect nation projecting our greatness on the rest of the world you'll be just as brainwashed as any other patriot of any other country. Nationalism is bull and patriotism is brainwashing. You can try to justify the evil that America has done, but you can't outright deny it calling your opponents the 'blame America first' crowd and never accepting an objective view of history.

You're not going to win many friends (or not with me, anyway), by telling me what I subscribe to, or accusing me of being brainwashed or "not accepting an objective view".

Any potential for agreement is squandered or goes by the wayside when someone brings up lists of grievances against the United States on behalf of a foreign power, especially in the skewed manner it was presented.

 

[jdmack79]

The Japanese were engaging in a step-by-step campaign of military conquest to establish what would be the new Japanese Empire. (See Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere)
They were going to do it with or without appeasement from others.
Having conquered huge areas of southeast asia, their next targets were the Philippines, Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies. Japanese military leaders reckoned (correctly) that an invasion of the Philippines would involve war with the United States. The decision was made by the Japanese High Command to attack and cripple the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, with the calculated risk that they could maintain military supremacy long enough to conquer, consolidate, and defend the new empire against any existing or potential enemies.

They lost that gamble.

Agree.

How do you not see the irony here? Japan was creating an empire by taking territories from other empires. The places that you listed were controlled by western nations. Japan was doing the EXACT same thing that the west had been doing for centuries. Apparently it was alright for the USA or England to commit atrocities in foreign lands, but it was evil as soon as Japan did it.

The United States of America was not randomly attacked because they hated our freedom. We were attacked as a consequence of our foreign policy in Asia. Japan wanted raw materials and they wanted respect, they had neither.

If Europe and the United States continue to treat developing countries the same way that we treated Japan our nation is doomed.

 

[Jludo]

You're not going to win many friends (or not with me, anyway), by telling me what I subscribe to, or accusing me of being brainwashed or "not accepting an objective view".

Any potential for agreement is squandered or goes by the wayside when someone brings up lists of grievances against the United States on behalf of a foreign power, especially in the skewed manner it was presented.

You're not doing the exact same thing calling someone with an opposing view part of the 'blame america first' crowd? I've found far, far more people blindly follow the American exceptionalism doctrine than have a balanced understanding of history and that American isn't always doing the right thing, nor always on the right side.
Most people in this country are absolutely brainwashed from birth, you are taught you are exceptional by simply being born here and you are indoctrinated in public schools with one sides view of history.

 

[MTC]

How do you not see the irony here? Japan was creating an empire by taking territories from other empires. The places that you listed were controlled by western nations. Japan was doing the EXACT same thing that the west had been doing for centuries. Apparently it was alright for the USA or England to commit atrocities in foreign lands, but it was evil as soon as Japan did it.

The United States of America was not randomly attacked because they hated our freedom.

Neither said nor implied such. Didn't make any comment on any irony, mostly since history is replete with it and I'm not interested in playing the game of moral equivalence. My post was mainly to correct what I consider to be historical innaccuracies.

We were attacked as a consequence of our foreign policy in Asia. Japan wanted raw materials and they wanted respect, they had neither.

There's where we disagree. As I pointed out, they wanted not only raw materials, but the expansion of the Empire and domination of most of Asia through military conquest, and they were determined to get it one way or the other.

When we study these events in history, it is enough sometimes to simply acknowledge the timeline of events - the how and the why. One can understand something without necessarily agreeing with it. Or agreeing, either way.

(You might have just stayed with your original point on the inappropriate use of Pearl Harbor as a justification for whatever the current topic was.)

 

[jdmack79]

There's where we disagree. As I pointed out, they wanted not only raw materials, but the expansion of the Empire and domination of most of Asia through military conquest, and they were determined to get it one way or the other.

Please back up your opinion with facts then. Tell me why we were attacked because they hated our freedom. Tell me why their expansion wasn't about raw materials and was about attacking the "innocent Americans".

We had an empire and the UK had an empire, so why was it so horrible for the Japanese to have an empire?

 

[IndyDave1776]

Please try to think for just a minute. You think that if the Japanese had found their own steel and oil the war could have been prevented. You then criticize them for attacking China and expanding into the Pacific.

One of the main reasons that they invaded China was for the raw materials. In your world how would the Japanese get raw materials if nations refuse to trade with them and they have few domestic sources?

What we are trying to say is that there are repercussions to US policy decisions. We decided to take a tough stance with the Japanese, and they decided to retaliate.

The disparity between what they wanted and what they had was not our problem. Had they refrained from invading China in the most ruthless fashion since the fall of the Assyrian Empire, they would not have faced the trade embargo. What people like you fail to understand is that appeasement succeeds at one and only one thing: The creation of a larger and more powerful enemy to face later. For example, had some fortitude been shown when Hitler clearly violated treaty terms, we may not have had World War II in Europe by virtue of Germany's inability to sustain a war without the armor, navy, and combat aircraft which were in inventory in 1939.

As for your last sentence, that could be used to justify most any crime on the books.

We had an empire and the UK had an empire, so why was it so horrible for the Japanese to have an empire?

I would chalk it up to a combination of competing interests and public inability to supply imperialist expansion with the level of indiscriminate and often recreational carnage in which the Japanese engaged.

 

[jdmack79]

Had they refrained from invading China in the most ruthless fashion since the fall of the Assyrian Empire, they would not have faced the trade embargo. What people like you fail to understand is that appeasement succeeds at one and only one thing: The creation of a larger and more powerful enemy to face later.

Why did we care what the Japanese did to China? The USA should have been worried about its own problems like the great depression. They didn't have to be our enemy. We could have easily traded with them, stayed out of their business, and simply made money off of their expansion into other countries. We decided to make them our enemy.

 

[MTC]

You're not doing the exact same thing calling someone with an opposing view part of the 'blame america first' crowd? I've found far, far more people blindly follow the American exceptionalism doctrine than have a balanced understanding of history and that American isn't always doing the right thing, nor always on the right side.
Most people in this country are absolutely brainwashed from birth, you are taught you are exceptional by simply being born here and you are indoctrinated in public schools with one sides view of history.

No. That's not the way I remember it. Some might be a certain way, and others not. Especially at the collegiate level, it's often more the other way around. In some cases far the other way.

At any rate, it is possible for someone to have a balanced understanding of history while holding a belief in American exceptionalism, and yet not be "blind" at all.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Why did we care what the Japanese did to China? The USA should have been worried about its own problems like the great depression. They didn't have to be our enemy. We could have easily traded with them, stayed out of their business, and simply made money off of their expansion into other countries. We decided to make them our enemy.

Stop. Focus. The reason the Japanese were so f**king pissed off about the oil and steel embargo is that they NEEDED OIL AND STEEL FOR THE WAR EFFORT IN CHINA. As I asked earlier, should we have also been as willing as you deem right and proper to have supplied poison gas and crematoria to the Nazis? Maybe in your severely lacking sensibilities draw a line between industrialized genocide and doing it on the fly?

Another problem. What a given person or group will do to someone else, they will do to you given a chance. Intervention isn't always a good idea, but you sure as hell don't have to actively assist in evil acts.

 

[MTC]

Please back up your opinion with facts then.

I already did, several posts upthread. (#39)

Tell me why we were attacked because they hated our freedom.

Didn't say that. Read it again. (#39)

Tell me why their expansion wasn't about raw materials and was about attacking the "innocent Americans".

Didn't say that, either. Read it again. (#39)

 

[Hohn]

I never used the word 'caused' why quote me into your little spat? America did a lot to provoke the attack is all I'm saying.

No, the OP used the word "caused", which you may have notived, since I never said YOU said it.

Go back and follow the train again and it will be clearer to ya.

 

[steveh_131]

Our only material act to contain Japanese police was refusal to sell them materials needed for their attack on China.

First of all, why is our government telling people who they can and cannot sell their products to? Shouldn't that be left up to the people who own the product? We weren't at war with Japan.

And secondly, we had plenty of other areas where our government was sticking its nose. There was a long list beyond the embargo.

Likewise, had the Japanese minded their own business and found their own oil and steel, there wouldn't have been a problem as they failed to mind their own business by the invasion and senseless carnage they perpetrated in China and other places they saw fit to invade. Japan gets zero sympathy here.

Nobody is offering Japan sympathy. I certainly am not. They were conquering and 'nation building', or whatever you want to call it. They reaped the results, just as we often do.

 

[remman]

Funny, all the soldiers I've talked to that served in Iraq sounded the exact opposite from this case. He is definitely an outlier. When taking surveys, they usually throw out the samples that vary greatly from the majority. Example: if they poll 100 people on something and have the options of 1-10, and 96 of them answer in the range of 4-7 the 4 people that answered 1 or 10 are thrown out because they are outliers and do not truly represent the sample group.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Funny, all the soldiers I've talked to that served in Iraq sounded the exact opposite from this case. He is definitely an outlier. When taking surveys, they usually throw out the samples that vary greatly from the majority. Example: if they poll 100 people on something and have the options of 1-10, and 96 of them answer in the range of 4-7 the 4 people that answered 1 or 10 are thrown out because they are outliers and do not truly represent the sample group.

Good point. This explains why there isn't a lone voice of liberty reported in bastions of state-sponsored tyranny like Chicago.

 

[IndyDave1776]

First of all, why is our government telling people who they can and cannot sell their products to? Shouldn't that be left up to the people who own the product? We weren't at war with Japan.

And secondly, we had plenty of other areas where our government was sticking its nose. There was a long list beyond the embargo.



Nobody is offering Japan sympathy. I certainly am not. They were conquering and 'nation building', or whatever you want to call it. They reaped the results, just as we often do.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article I

Section 8

3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

 

[Jludo]

Funny, all the soldiers I've talked to that served in Iraq sounded the exact opposite from this case. He is definitely an outlier. When taking surveys, they usually throw out the samples that vary greatly from the majority. Example: if they poll 100 people on something and have the options of 1-10, and 96 of them answer in the range of 4-7 the 4 people that answered 1 or 10 are thrown out because they are outliers and do not truly represent the sample group.

No offense, but anecdotal evidence isn't exactly superior either.

 

[Jludo]

At any rate, it is possible for someone to have a balanced understanding of history while holding a belief in American exceptionalism, and yet not be "blind" at all.

I very much dislike American exceptionalism, not in and of itself but that it's only ever used as a guise to do things which Americans would otherwise find repulsive. There are dozens of countries which aren't free, don't have democracy and of which we care absolutely nothing about. If they play nice with Israel, export oil and in general don't cause international problems, we are more than happy to let their people live under a dictatorship, a Monarchy a whatever repressive statist regime. We'll even supply the govt weapons and money to that end.
Truth is that Americans only believe they are exceptional in that they've got the biggest stick and can do whatever they want with it. Not that we are somehow spreading freedom and democracy. We undermine democracy in foreign countries all the time, then bust out the 'democracy and liberty' line when it becomes convenient.

 

[IndyDave1776]

I very much dislike American exceptionalism, not in and of itself but that it's only ever used as a guise to do things which Americans would otherwise find repulsive. There are dozens of countries which aren't free, don't have democracy and of which we care absolutely nothing about. If they play nice with Israel, export oil and in general don't cause international problems, we are more than happy to let their people live under a dictatorship, a Monarchy a whatever repressive statist regime. We'll even supply the govt weapons and money to that end.
Truth is that Americans only believe they are exceptional in that they've got the biggest stick and can do whatever they want with it. Not that we are somehow spreading freedom and democracy. We undermine democracy in foreign countries all the time, then bust out the 'democracy and liberty' line when it becomes convenient.

I would have to disagree with this. The people in question apparently have no understanding of or desire for freedom as evidenced by the fact that every time we throw one of our repressive dictator friends under the bus for a popular regime change, they end up with a replacement which is more repressive and more hostile to everyone. For example, Arab Spring has brought the people less freedom, less security, and more official and unofficial threats to their well-being than they had previously. Few Iranians would tell you that the 1979 revolution improved the place. You might also consider that these people have always been hostile. The six original frigates of the United States Navy were ordered to fight these same people who considered our desire to peacefully sail past them too much to ask.

How do we undermine democracy in the hands of people who refuse to tolerate it. Again, given the chance, they will shuck one dictator and promptly 'democratically' elect another who is worse than the first.

 

[Jludo]

How do we undermine democracy in the hands of people who refuse to tolerate it. Again, given the chance, they will shuck one dictator and promptly 'democratically' elect another who is worse than the first.

It seems that you agree then, why bother instill democracy in these nations when, as Reagan put it, we can't understand the irrationality of middle eastern politics?
Countries are infighting about theocracy and secularism and leaders and factions so why would we have the arrogance to believe we can help fix any of their problems? Let alone that it would be somehow worth the costs.

As for undermining democracy, I can think of a half dozen times off the top of my head that we've overthrown democratically elected leaders. The fact that these leaders may be worse than the ones they overthrew is really irrelevant. If we believe everyone should have democracy we can't complain when they mess it up. Likewise we shouldn't be invading countries under the guise of spreading democracy, as you've admitted democracy might not work out for them.

 

[steveh_131]

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article I

Section 8

3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

I am aware of the constitution.

I am asking 'Why?' Is that a proper use of government?