We have been following assaults on academic freedom not just in the United States in recent years but abroad in recent years. This includes a researcher in Sweden who recently stopped Covid research after a harassment campaign due to his findings of the low risk poised by children returning to school. In South Korea, another such battle is waging over a publication by J. Mark Ramseyer, the Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, suggesting that Korean “comfort women” from World War II were likely contracted, not forced, by the Japanese military. It is a theory that is understandably outrageous and hurtful for many. Ramseyer’s writings have been denounced and even cities like Philadelphia have passed condemnations of his work. What is more concerning is the effort to fire Ramseyer or bar the publication that ran his theory. Now South Korean faculty who stood up for academic freedom are being targeted, even though they did not write in support of Ramseyer’s theory as opposed to his right to publish his views.
Ramseyer published an article in an academic journal, the International Review of Law and Economics, that described the comfort women as prostitutes who willingly consented to contracts for sex. He further caused an uproar with an op-ed in a Japanese newspaper describing the “comfort-women-sex-slave story” as “pure fiction.”
The publications set off a firestorm in Korea where surviving comfort women have been given a special nursing home and are honored as victims and called “halmoni”, the term for “grandmother.” There are many reports of rape, beatings, and abuse of such women from various countries by the Japanese military. The atrocities of the Japanese during the war were systemic and brutal. The account of comfort women being forced into sexual bondage is consistent with this record and is widely accepted by historians. However, Professor Ramseyer sought to offer a contrary view that many women may have been consensual sex workers and published his research in International Review of Law and Economics.
The International Review has refused to take down the article despite a campaign for such removal — and now a campaign for academic databases to ban the journal itself for refusing to delete the article. When you go to the page of the journal, you are met with this warning:
“The International Review of Law and Economics is issuing an Expression of Concern to inform readers that concerns have been raised regarding the historical evidence in the article listed above. These claims are currently being investigated and the International Review of Law and Economics will provide additional information as it becomes available.”
The abstract of the article entitled “Contracting For Sex In The Pacific War” explores how the “dynamics” of situation reflected “‘credible commitments’ so basic to elementary game theory.” It is clinical in its economic analysis and puts the matter in strictly contractual terms:
Realizing that the brothel owners had an incentive to exaggerate their future earnings, the women demanded a large portion of their pay upfront. Realizing that they were headed to the war zone, they demanded a relatively short maximum term. And realizing that the women had an incentive to shirk, the brothel owners demanded a contractual structure that gave women incentives to work hard. To satisfy these superficially contradictory demands, the women and brothels concluded indenture contracts that coupled (i) a large advance with one- or two-year maximum terms, with (ii) an ability for the women to leave early if they generated sufficient revenue.
There have been prior researchers who have suggested that some women were not forced but contracted by the Japanese. Most academics reject such claims and insist that these women were forced sex workers. Critics have attacked the article as “denialism” and others have insisted it is not based on hard research or documentation. That is the type of debate that should be able to waged between academics without calls for termination or banning whole journals. My interest is not with the merits but right of such opposing views to be published and debated.
There are now campaigns against South Korean professors who argued for academic freedom in being able to discuss such theories and the underlying evidence. Two such professors are Joseph Yi of Hanyang University (South Korea).and Joseph Phillips of Yonsei University (South Korea). The professors wrote not in defense of Ramseyer’s theory but his right (and their right) to debate such issues as academics without threats of retaliation or termination. Their essay in The Diplomat opposed the suppression of such work in South Korea and other countries. As a result, students and alumni at Hanyang University demanded the firing of Professor Yi, proving the very point of their article about the destruction of academic freedom and free speech values.
Yi wrote about his experience growing up in South Korea and the long period of restrictions on academics questioning anti-communist narratives and other subjects. He celebrated the emergence of academic freedom in being able to discuss such topics and challenges majoritarian views. That ended when he and Professor Phillips stood up for academic freedom on the subject of comfort women.
The two professors wrote a compelling account of academic freedom based on the work of such theorists as John Stuart Mill. I have previously written from the same Millian perspective in support of subjects like free speech, privacy, and academic freedom. See, e.g., Jonathan Turley, The Loadstone Rock: The Role of Harm In The Criminalization of Plural Unions, 64 Emory L. J. 1905 (2015).
This week in a column in the Asian Times, Yi described how prior South Korean researchers have cited interviews that contradicted the mainstream view of comfort women and faced suppression and even a threat of criminal prosecution. He wrote:
“Disagreements over history, including the interpretation and veracity of personal accounts, have filled journals and books for centuries. Resolving such disagreements requires empirical research and analysis that expand, test, and – if warranted – contest each other’s claims. If an article’s evidence, such as on comfort women contracts, is (allegedly) faulty, then critics should produce another with, better evidence.
But this process breaks down when politically offensive research is subject to intense, moralistic critique, while ideologically correct claims are not.”
The move to bar the journal itself is an example of this anti-free speech movement. We have seen such efforts in the United States and they can amount to a sanitized version of book burning.
Professor Ramseyer is a scholar with a stellar background that includes an extensive background in Japanese studies and considerable time spent in that country. He is a serious academic who put forward research that he believes challenges the dominant theory on comfort women. Rather than engage him on his research, many have turned to a cancelling campaign to have him fired and, now in South Korean, a campaign to fire those who defend his right to publish such opposing views.
The campaign has worked. Relatively few academics have voiced their support for Professor Ramseyer’s right to publish his research and views. Indeed, there is not a groundswell of support for academics like Yi and Phillips in fighting for academic freedom. That is the point of cancelling campaigns. They are meant to not only silence opposing views but also to intimidate others in supporting or publishing such views in the future. In both Senate testimony and House testimony, I have discussed how we are witnessing an unprecedented attack on such core values in our country and around the world. There are historical precursors but we have never seen the alliance of academics, the media, and major corporations in pushing for speech controls and censorship with government officials.
We have been discussing efforts to fire professors who voice dissenting views on various issues including an effort to oust a leading economist from the University of Chicago as well as a leading linguistics professor at Harvard and a literature professor at Penn. Sites like Lawyers, Guns, and Money feature writers like Colorado Law Professor Paul Campos who call for the firing of those with opposing views (including myself). Such campaigns have targeted teachers and students who contest the evidence of systemic racism in the use of lethal force by police or offer other opposing views in current debates over the pandemic, reparations, electoral fraud, or other issues.
As a history nut, I would like to read both sides of this issue, including the views of Professor Ramseyer. However, many are seeking to prevent me and others from having access to those views. The effort is to stop others from considering his evidence and his analysis rather than refuting his views. As Professors Yi and Phillips have courageously stated in South Korea, it is the quintessential fight over academic freedom and free speech. The fact that so few have stepped forward to add their voices of support only shows how much ground has already been lost to these campaigns of intimidation and harassment.
“My interest is not with the merits but right of such opposing views to be published and debated.”
And another big issue still persisting since WW2 with many implications is the so-called “Holocaust”. On hardly any other issue are opposing views NOT allowed to be published and debated. By both de jure & de facto measures, almost all debate on this subject has been canceled. This, despite the fact that no on has ever proved fantastic claims of six million victims. Isn’t it long since time that the so-called “Holocaust” & the politics surrounding it also enjoy the full right to widely published opposing views & debate?
Communism = mob rule.
Little red book
Follow the science…unless it contradicts your feelings or politics, apparently.
Both these statements can be true: the Japanese forced Korean women into sexual slavery, abusing them terribly. Some Korean prostitutes may have either willingly worked for the Japanese, or at least decided to profit off of them.
During the Allied Occupation of Japan, after WWII, prostitutes dressed up like geisha and serviced the soldiers. During the War, the Japanese government told their citizenry that the Allies were voracious rapists and would torture them. This is one of the reasons why women would grab their children and jump off a cliff rather than surrender. Every man, woman, and child would have literally fought unto death. The Japanese regime was infamous for torture, themselves, so people took the warning seriously. In order to prevent the raping and pillaging of the countryside, prostitutes were encouraged to work for the soldiers, as a way to protect others. It was considered a patriotic duty, like a shield of self sacrifice.
Therefore, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that some prostitutes not only agreed to service Japanese occupiers, but perhaps were encouraged to do so in order to protect others. This might be true, as well as the fact that the Japanese did, in fact, rape and pillage most infamously. There were those who collaborated or benefited from the Nazis, why not the Japanese?
It must also be pointed out, however, that some of these allegedly willing prostitutes might have found themselves in the position of either starving, or being beaten, or being amenable. That would be making the best of a terrible situation, rather than seeking it out as a grand idea. Others might have viewed it as a financial incentive.
The proper way to respond to the paper is to read and verify the sources, and follow where the data leads you. If you can disprove his theory, then do so in a dueling submission.
This is certainly a fraught topic, but I wouldn’t pillory the author until or unless I had checked the underpinnings of the paper.
It appears that the response is emotional rather than academic.
Pitchfork mobs are quite the thing these days.
I did have family who fought in WWII. They are gone, now, but the stories they returned with were sufficiently traumatic that I don’t think people in safe, modern times are fit to judge the choices of anyone like the Comfort Women during the War. If the paper proves true, and some agreed to sex work, then “willingly” is still an adverb hard to apply to the situation. There were many variables involved, and many individual situations.
Good post Karen and not only mostly true from what I’ve read, but a decent explanation of people’s reaction to horror.
In the 1940s through 1950s many Americans recalled the evil terrorist and criminal action of the Japanese in WWII. It was ine to call a Japanese person a Jap.
Now people want to have no knowledge of the “rape of Nanking”.
The Germans still get more criticism for the Holocaust. The Stalinists action are ignored and forgotten.
Never Forget! And if you don’t know: Learn!
Misspelled a word. It was “fine” to call …
(song to tune of Your a jet)
They were Japs the they were Japs!
They were Japs all the way!
From their first rape in China ..
To their last dying day!
The A Bombs were good but hardly killed them enough.
We needed to bomb farther until
Japland was all dust!
Not to worry.
Everyone just passes right over your incoherence.
To be sure, it doesn’t make you a bad person; merely repulsive.
Anonymous: Which commenter are you replying to?
My God, man, look in the mirror.
Read your rubbish.
And, if the shoe fits,…
Liberty2nd
There is no evidence that six million Jews were murdered, nor that Hitler ordered such a crime. Many rich Americans thought our proper enemy should have been the Soviet Union, not Germany.
The low estimates are about 3.5M, no matter what millions of people – mostly jews were killed by the Nazi’s.
But the most repellant thing about the Nazi’s were that White Educated Europeans committed genocide.
There are myriads of examples accross the planet that are worse than the Nazi’s
Stalin’s death toll is between 20-80M, Mao’s between 60-120M.
Pol Pot killed over 2M in a tiny country.
The North Vietnamese probably killed near 1M.
The Hutu’s killed nearly 1M Tutsi in little more than 90days in the modern era mostly with machette’s while the world watched.
Each and every one of these groups (and many many others) were on the political left.
Most were avowed socialists.
Are we precisely sure of the numbers ? No.
When hundreds of thousands even millions of people are killed getting the totals right withing a factor of 2 is near impossible.
Did 6.5M jews die in the hollocaust ? Maybe not. But Millions died in the concentration camps, and most were Jews.
And many many more were killed – murdered by the Nazi’s as they occupied countries.
Were the Nazi’s the worst butchers in history ? Not even close.
But we are fascinated because they are so closely related to us.
I do not know what the exact death toll from Japanese Butchery during WWII was – but it was quite high. Certainly millions.
As to the Russians – We were not capable of taking on Russia – not even with Germany’s help near the end of WWII.
“We were not capable of taking on Russia – not even with Germany’s help near the end of WWII.”
****
Yes we were; we had the atomic bomb and they didn’t.
But I think we could have beaten them without it.
History is complicated — it is not a Wikipedia post, nor even a hundred of them (becaue Wikipedia is not a rigorously vetted site; it is amateurs and the self-interested competing to get their account on line). Nor is history a docudrama or a miniseries. It is a long, drawn-out story of individuals and groups doing pretty much everything humans can do — look at our present, we have woke culture running amok, drones that monitor and murder, Europeans pretending that bureaucrats are democrats, and Americans pretending that a virus is the plague, while the Chinese buy up schools in the US and the UK, and the rest of us are periodically confined to our cells . . . .
I posted the link to the 100-man killing spree because it underscores the difficulty of getting history ‘right,’ not writing ‘correct’ accounts of the past. Whether the author is correct is not the point. We only know the detritus history leaves behind, and the best we can do is try to interpret it honestly.
Karen S nailed it — contradictory things happen at the same time, and we call them by different names. We bombed the Germans, and then made 12 O’Clock high and other movies and TV series extolling our brave airmen. The Germans bombed Guernica and London, and we condemned them for killing civilians, something “Bomber” Harris made a norm.
There was no prosecution for bombing at Nuremberg for obvious reasons, as there was no prosecution for unrestricted submarine warfare, which we used to sink Japanese merchantmen in the South China Sea and the Pacific and the British used to sink Axis merchantment in the Mediterranean.
John W. Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War is a well done history in which neither side comes out particularly well. Albert Seaton’s The Russo-German War is an excellent account of the Nazi-Soviet war, but Alexander Werth’s account is better if you want to understand the Russians, just as Russell Stofi’s Hitler’s Panzers East. World War II Reinterpreted is useful if you want to understand how incompetent German generals and Hitler actually were. There is no one book that is authoritative, something fans of White Fragility should bear in mind. Even Freud had competition form his former students and other psychoanalysts.
In 1945, we could not manufacture and deliver enough atom bombs to destroy the Soviet industrial areas in the Urals, but the Soviets had a large tactical airforce, excellent fighters, and lots of them. They had also just destroyed the German army and air force, and we had nothing comparable to the heavy Russian tanks or rocket launchers, nor the logistical services it would have needed to support forces moving toward Moscow. In all likelihood, had the Soviets not taken Paris before Patton finished insulting his Russian allies, the American and British would have bogged down in the mud by October or November. The British were pretty much exhausted, there were Communist cells throughout Europe, and we had armed and funded more than a few, and Tito was not a democrat. Even without an invasion of the USSR, the Greeks had to undergo a brutal insurrection through 1949. Those were the realities, whether or not we want them to have been, and reality is what historians try hard to reveal, They should not be in the business of myth and legend, and that is why pseudo-history, like The 1619 Project, is so damaging.
I am not an expert in the subject under discussion here, but if it follows most historical controversies, there is no black and white settlement possible. It will probably remain open, but for historians to function properly, they must be allowed to follow the data, like scientists, and to offer their interpretation of the data, like historians.
Old Guy: “I am not an expert in the subject under discussion here”
***
You sound impressively well informed and thoughtful.
We did not have the Atomic Bomb in April of 1945.
Even by august we had only 3, and no prospects of further bombs anytime soon.
Had we had more atomic bombs – the situation in Japan was quite different from Russia.
The Japanese were defeated and starving. The Atom bomb was mostly an excuse to allow them to surrender.
Many many more people were killed by the firebombings of Tokyo, and other major japanese cities.
The US had total air superiority in the skies over japan.
With respect to Russia – WE would be starting a war of aggression.
We would be fighting a large and populous nation. Not only wouldn’t we have the atomic bombs to use, but we would not have had the targets to use them on or the means to deliver them. The USSR is huge. Japan was a small island nation that could be isolated from resouces and starved.
the USSR could not.
What would you do ? Nuclear bomb wheat fields ?
Taking on the USSR at the end of WWII is just plain nonsense.
It was not possible.
Toward the end of WWII the size of the Russian army was just short of 30M.
Total US forces at the end of WWII was about 12M.
The US would have massively long supply lines.
We would be fighting on a huge front.
We would be fighting people fighting for their homeland.
Yes, and we would have won. We were much nearer the bad end of the stick at the beginning of WWI and WWIi and yet we surmounted the challenge.
In WWII we fought a two front [and more] war around the globe while the Soviet Union had only one front and relied heavily on material support, millions of tons of it, from the West and still almost lost.. There are other factors. Your pessimism is common but unjustified.
No one is looking to discount the accomplishmentes of US forces in WWII.
But “we would have won” is hubris.
It is highly unlikely that we would have.
Further any fight with Russia would have been a war of aggression on our part.
It also would not likely have had much popular support.
Hubris, War of Agression, and No Popular Support are not real obstacles to winning a war.
Hubris read as confidence is good in any war. War of Aggression is a nonsense issue raised after a war is won. From ancient times governments have always been able to create justifications for war. Popular Support is only a propaganda issue. What the Soviet Union was doing in countries it occupied was revolting and every bit as criminal as Nazi Germany. Remember the murders in the Katyn Forest, the invasion of Finland, the seizure of the Baltic states. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union began WWII as allies. Both were evil.
Germany beat Russia in WWI and would have again in WWII without the tons of support the West sent to them.
Actually they are all significant obstacles to winning a war.,
As is having a fraction of the force – and over 1/3 of that as naval forces which would be near useless.
British naval forces had a significat impact on Germany during WWI simply by virtue of maintaining a distant blockade of German ports and pushing the country to starvation. Read “Castles of Steel”. With fewer ports, some of which are miserable in the winter, the Soviet Union would be much easier to blockade than Germany. Mahan’s famous treatise on sea power would explain some of this to you. Sea power is far from useless. The U-Boat war nearly did for Britain in both wars.
Moreover we wouldn’t need to bomb wheat fields. Virtually all major Russian cities were within range of a B-29 and the ports, much of the country, vulnerable to aircraft carriers.
You are fixated on the idea that the Soviets couldn’t be defeated by us after the war. Probably absorbed it in university. But it is wrong.
“British naval forces had a significat impact on Germany during WWI simply by virtue of maintaining a distant blockade of German ports and pushing the country to starvation. Read “Castles of Steel”. With fewer ports, some of which are miserable in the winter, the Soviet Union would be much easier to blockade than Germany.”
Absolutely The USSR could be trivially blockaded.
that would be meaninful if the USSR was a trading nations or dependent on foreign trade.
The USSR was not Germany or Japan. they were a HUGE nearly landlocked country that has limited reliance on trade.
Stalin traded land for time when he was caught by surprise by operation Barbarosa. He moved Russian manufacturing over the Urals beyond reach of German aircraft. The USSR was fundimentally self sufficient, and unblockadeable.
“Mahan’s famous treatise on sea power would explain some of this to you. Sea power is far from useless. The U-Boat war nearly did for Britain in both wars.”
All correct – and completely inapplicable to the USSR.
Even today the US is fundimentally unable to intervene militarily in conflicts between Russia and its neighbors – because distances are just too great. Russia was not a sea power – aside from a decent submarine force during the cold war Russia has never been a sea power, conversely it is not vulnerable to sea power.
How are you intending on blockading the USSR – and from whom ?
“Moreover we wouldn’t need to bomb wheat fields. Virtually all major Russian cities were within range of a B-29 and the ports, much of the country, vulnerable to aircraft carriers.”
That is not even true today.
Whatever the range of a B29, at the end of the war US forces were an order of magnitude farther from Russian Cities and more importantly Russian heavy industry than the Germans were when they reached Stalingrad.
Absolutely the B290 has substantially greater range than German bombers – but it also would have started with far further to travel.
Russia was a peak production of T-34 which proved superior to anything that either the germans or the allies produce.
The US was still fighting with Shermans.
This whole argument is idiocy. The great dan ger in 1945 was that the Russians were not going to stop.
Absolutely there were many who were iching for a fight with the USSR.
And I will completely agree with anyone who claims that the USSR was the most serious threat facing the US at the time.
But continuing into the USSR would have been absolute idiocy.
US forces fought valiantly against the Chinese hordes a decade later – and STILL were driven to retreat.
We were better armed at that time, and facing a less capable enemy, But we were vastly outnumbered, and far from naval and air support,
And the distance problems in NK are completely dwarfed by those in eastern europe.
Mahan was brilliant, and Sea power is absolutely incredible – and determination within a hundred miles or so of the ocean.
The PRC’s ability to bully its neighbors is severely constrained by the fact that China has not been a sea power for 500 years and likely will not be one for at least another 50. US Sea Power – or even that of Japan, and Taiwan is a formidable threat to China’s ability to export power.
But NO ONE is going to invade China either.
There is an infinite difference between the ability of Sea power to limit aggression and the ability of sea power to conquer territory.
You are offering these wierdly conflicting views.
On the one hand you seem to think the US was able to take on the USSR in 1945 – a country nearly invulnerable to sea power and where most production was out of range of air power.
On the other you seem to think that Japan – where both sea and Airpower could and were effectively being brought to bear and where that vast Japanese Army you talked about was zero threat – BECAUSE IT WAS IN CHINA, not Japan.
Absolutely if Russia was an island nation with its military deployed hundreds of ocean miles away from the country. If it was completely encircled with US air forces having free range over the country, and quick access to the entirety of the nations productive capability.
If the USSR was dependent on trade for raw materials and energy – then we could have defeated it.
But all of these were true of Japan in 1945 and none were true of the USSR.
“You are fixated on the idea that the Soviets couldn’t be defeated by us after the war. Probably absorbed it in university. But it is wrong.”
It is not an idea, it is about as close to a fact as you can have militarily without actually testing it is practice.
And I have not be in a university in 40 years. Nor did I learn anything about Russia, Japan, or WWII in college.
I have however read myriads of books on WWII and other Wars.
I have probably forgotten more about most Pacific naval battles than most people ever learned.
Absolutely The USSR could be trivially blockaded.
that would be meaninful if the USSR was a trading nations or dependent on foreign trade.
***
Those ports saved Russia during the war because of Western convoys.
“Those ports saved Russia during the war because of Western convoys.”
That is highly debateable.
Stalin was far more interested in the allies opening a western front than the limited aid that reached Russia from arctic ports.
The Allies provided material aide to Russia primarily to assuage Stalin because opening a european front before 1944 would have been suicide for the allies.
I would further note that you are talking about attacking the USSR in 1945 – not 1940.
By 1945 the USSR was producing all the armaments it needed to defeat Germany.
Allied war production was higher – US war production was almost unimaginable.
But most of that was for ships and planes. While we produced lots of tanks they were inferior to German and Russian Tanks of the time.
But lets say that somehow you are right – the US – unlike Germany could have somehow defeated the USSR.
The military cost would have made your figures on invading Japan tiny.
Total US dead in WWII was about 400K, Total casualties – including wounded was about 1M.
German army dead on the eastern front alone were 1.2M, including wounded it was more than double that.
During the same period Russian army deaths were about 8M\
Yet the USSR ended the war with a larger and more capable military than it started with.
Even if you managed to win – which was not going to happen, the deaths would have been many times those of WWII
That the Soviet Union could not be defeated “is about as close to a fact as you can have militarily without actually testing it is practice”.
***
It was tested Germany defeated Russia if WWI and would have defeated her in WWII without tons of Western support.
By the way, compare the range of a B-29 with the distance from Berlin to Moscow.
Factories in the Urals, which could be reached by the way, are useless without the means to get the material to the battle front.
Germany never came close to defeating the USSR in WWII.
Even in WWI Absent absolutely stupid Russian military leadership, Russia should have obliterated the German forces on the eastern front.
I would suggest reading “the Guns of August” for an excellent review of much of WWI.
Germany got very lucky with respect to Russia, and frankly had Russia stayed in the war – even doing badly, Germany would have been defeated sooner.
In WWII the germans with a massive element of surprise, completely unprepared Russian army, never even managed to take Stalingrad.
the best they could have hoped for was to take moscow,
By the time Moscow was threatened Soviet war production had moved beyond the urals and Stalin was prepared to relocate the government.
I would further note that for much of the time period when the USSR was in the most dire straights – such as Stalingrad, the US had barely entered the war.
And US aid to the USSR was minimal.
I would further note that when Germany attacked the USSR – they started from eastern Poland, and they had a massive element of surprise against a very weak military that Stalin had decimated.
If the US wanted to take on the USSR in 1945 they would have started from central Germany, against a formidable, and well armed societ army with excellent and battle hardened leaders.
I have read The Guns of August more than once. It dealt with the beginning of the war, not with the Russian surrender.
In WWII German troops were close enough to Moscow to see its spires. Hitler redirected the armies to the south toward oil fields despite his generals begging to be allowed to take Moscow which was within their grasp. They stopped and were overtaken by a winter for which they were not prepared. Read General Von Mandtein’s “Lost Victories”. They were close to winning and could have won with different orders.
How did you get the idee fixee that the Soviet Union couldn’t be defeated?
The Russian’s did not surrender. They negotiated a separate peace.
Regardless the Guns of August did deal with the early actions on the Russian Front.
The Russian’s were expected to roll over the Germans on the east.
They outnumbered the Germans 2:1. As I recall the Russians had some initial success.
But the Russians were badly lead. They split their forces, and did not corridinate and the germans were able to defeat the armies separately.
Napoleon actually conquered Moscow, But the Russian government, and most of the people had left, and there was no food.
There is great debate over Hitler’s quirky military leadership.
But for Hitler the German army would not have attempted much of what they succeeded at.
But for Hitler the German army would not have attempted much of what they failed at.
Regardless, the Germans were close to winning battles – not the War. Capturing Moscow would have changed little.
The fact that the Germans were not prepared for Winter was consequential – and would have been a major problem regardless.
Capturing Moscow did not save Napoleans Grand Arme from a disasterous Russian Winter for which they were not prepared.
Most deaths in war do not come in battle.
“The Japanese were defeated and starving. The Atom bomb was mostly an excuse to allow them to surrender.”
****
Rubbish. Many in the Japanese military did not want to surrender even after the first two atomic bombs were dropped on them. Read “The Fall of Japan”. There was a last minute coup attempt to capture the Emperor and “save” him from bad advisors and prevent the surrender. Japan still had an enormous and powerful army in China. The surrender was a near run thing. Many wanted to fight to the last as they did on many islands on the approach to Japan.
“Rubbish. Many in the Japanese military did not want to surrender even after the first two atomic bombs were dropped on them. Read “The Fall of Japan”.”
Or you can try reading John Toland – probably the pre-eminent hostorian of WWII in tbhe pacific.
“There was a last minute coup attempt to capture the Emperor and “save” him from bad advisors and prevent the surrender.”
Well aware of that.
There was a powerful group in the military that wanted the entire country to fight to extinction.
The fact still is Japan was starving. The emperor and many others were well aware of this.
“Japan still had an enormous and powerful army in China.”
And absolutely no way to get them from China to Japan.
The Japanese navy and airforce by this time were non-existant.
The naval blockade of japan was near 100% effective.
“The surrender was a near run thing.”
Correct. Japan might not have surrrendered that day. It could have been the next, or a week later, or even a month.
But surrender was certain.
“Many wanted to fight to the last as they did on many islands on the approach to Japan.”
Only if we actually invaded.
Just to be clear – the US was not well aware of how bad conditions were in Japan prior to surrender.
But they were very bad.
I would note on those islands most civilians had been evacuated BEFORE americans landed.
Those fighting “to the last man” were die hards.
While you are likely correct that the Japanese army could be counted on to fight to the last man.
That is not inherently true of the civilian population on the mainland.
Nor would it have mattered. Japan was starving, and the situation was rapidly getting worse.
Reply Comments
“The naval blockade of japan was near 100% effective.”
***
Funny you would say that. You were just arguing that the navy would be usesless against the Soviet Union.
I read Toland several times. Some of it aloud to my daughter. The Japanese army in China didn’t have to come to Japan we would have to go to it. As for Japan, it was estimated we would suffer about 1 million casualties invading the home islands. When Tibbetts visited Japan after the war an older gentleman thanked him for saving his life. He knew he would likely die if we had invaded, as many civilians did on Okinawa and Saipan.
“Funny you would say that. You were just arguing that the navy would be usesless against the Soviet Union.”
Japan is an island nation dependent on the ocean for food, and energy. Further the entirety of the country was within easy range of not just B29’s but the entirety of US pacific air power by August 1945.
The Island of Japan had no remaining air defences, no remaining naval defences, and most of its army was deployed and isolated elsewhere in the world.
None of this was true of the USSR.
“I read Toland several times. Some of it aloud to my daughter.”
Good for you.
“The Japanese army in China didn’t have to come to Japan we would have to go to it.”
Because you say so ?
“As for Japan, it was estimated we would suffer about 1 million casualties invading the home islands.”
That is correct. US intelligence of the conditions on the japanese island was extremely flawed.
The japanese were starving in August 1945.
You noted the coup attempt. That was planned BEFORE the atomic bomb.
In August 1945 japanese surrender was only a question of time.
But WE did not know that.
“When Tibbetts visited Japan after the war an older gentleman thanked him for saving his life. He knew he would likely die if we had invaded, as many civilians did on Okinawa and Saipan.”
Or of starvation if we did not invade.
I am not finding fault with Dropping the Bomb.
It with certainty save many lives – Japanese lives.
Only quick action by MacArthur immediately after surrender – releasing US military food reserves stockpiled for invasion prevented mass starvation. Japan was receiving direct food aide from the US throughout 1946 atleast.
Food remained short in Japan for a long time AFTER the war.
The Japanese army in China didn’t have to come to Japan we would have to go to it.”
Because you say so ?
***
How do you defeat an army without closing with it?
The Soviet Union is not an island. No, but it is more landlocked than Germany and its few ports more easily closed. Effectively it is an island. Its historic goal has been to acquire ice free ports.
As I said earlier, most of Russia of value is within range of B-29s and sea power. Look up the range of the bomber. It is obvious.
“How do you defeat an army without closing with it?”
You do not win a war by defeating every army of the enemy.
You win when the government falls or surrenders.
The germans as an example did not have to defeat French forces in Algiers or indochina.
They just had to defeat those defending Paris.
“The Soviet Union is not an island. No, but it is more landlocked than Germany and its few ports more easily closed. Effectively it is an island. Its historic goal has been to acquire ice free ports.”
It is not an island it is a significant portion of a continent, and it is not dependent on foreign trade for anything critical.
Japan has no domestic energy and aquires a significant portion of its food either through trade or fishing. Both of which were shutdown.
Bringing the USSR to its needs by blockade is harder than doing the same to the US or Brazil.
Even Germany was weakened in WWI by blockade, but could not be crippled. The same was true in WWII.
In both WWI and the later parts of WWII Germany was effectively blockaded.
in WWII allied bombing then concentrated on key materials that were in short supply in the axis – like oil.
And the Germans still managed to make sufficient synthetic gasoline to continue the war.
The USSR would be far harder to cripple. It is self sufficient in food, energy, and war production.
And all of that would be out of range of B29’s
“As I said earlier, most of Russia of value is within range of B-29s and sea power. Look up the range of the bomber. It is obvious.”
The range of a B29 is 1500 miles. The Trans-siberian highway alone is almost 7000 miles – and that is Vladivostok to St Petersburg.
It is 1500mi from Munich to St. Petersburg.
The vast majority of the USSR is outside the range of B29’s and what is in range would require them to fly 1500 miles facing Russian fighters without support for more than 1/2 of that.
By the time B29’s raided Japan, the Japanese did not have any significant airforce in being, and certainly were not able to harrass B29’s for half the trip.
The payload of a B29 is about 20,000lbs. That is about half that of an F15.
Crippling the USSR by air in 1945 was outside the US’s capacity.
The entirety of russian production capacity had already been moved far outside of range of the Germans when they reached St. Petersburg.
If you want to defeat the USSR in 1945 – you are going to have to do it on the ground, against a formidable and much larger army.
The US would have SOME air superiority near the front lines, but 90% of the skies over the USSR would be controlled by the USSR.
The US would be fighting a highly experienced enemy with superior arms. Little ability to bring US air capability into play and almost no ability to take advantage of the US Navy.
This would have been suicide.
“You win when the government falls or surrenders.”
***
Everyone knew better during our Revolutionary War. The Brits had to defeat Washington’s army or they would never win. When they chased Congress out of Philadelphia and scattered members they were surprised that nothing much happened and nothing would happen unless they defeated the army.
Same thing to a degree in the Civil War. Getting Richmond was not going to count for much unless they could get Lee and his army, and Lee was a great general and had a very tough army.
When the Brits took Philadelphia the continental congress moved to Lancaster and then York.
Even the defeat of Washinton’s army would not likely have been a death blow to the continental forces.
Franklin grasped near the start of the war that the only impediment to continental victory was the loss of will of the american people.
Britian could not sustain a war with american forces across 2500 miles of ocean.
Americans had an entire continent.
Hirohito was NOT leaving the Japanese mainland.
Japanese forces in China were NOT getting to the mainland.
Britian also had no real ability to “blockade” america – colonials were relatively self sufficient.
The revolutionary war was a limited hardship on most americans.
In 1945 Japan was starving.
If Lee’s army had been in Texas, and Jefferson Davis and the leaders of the confederacy been surrounded by Grant in Richmond – the confederacy would have fallen.
Regardless as Clauswitz noted “war is politics by other means”.
War ends when the political leadership of the country is taken.
Sometimes that requires defeating the entirety of that nations military.
Sometimes it does not.
In the pacific the US defeated the Japanese airforce. They defeated the Japanese navy.
But we bypassed the vast majority of the japanese army stranding them wherever they were.
The Battle of Britian was for England very nearly the same thing.
When the Germans threatened to cross the chanel, Britian had no army in england of consequence to challenge them.
But they had the worlds most powerful Navy and Germany was not crossing the chanel without defeating that navy.
And by that time it was well understood that a navy – no matter how powerful could not operate in an area where the enemy controlled the air.
England did not have to win control of the skies over the english channel – they just had to not lose it.
But if the Germans managed to successfully cross the channel – England was done – though Churchill had made plans to withdraw the government and the navy and continue the fight.
Hirohito was not going anywhere.
By the way, Hannibal had no support from Carthage when he roamed Italy. What counted for the Romans was Hannibal’s army. Even when Scipio got to Africa he ignored Carthage because he knew that fighting Hannibal was where the war would be won or lost.
Because Hannibal was the leader.
The important thing was Hannibal – not the army.
Art– “the size of the country is far too large
The vast bulk of the territory is occupied by < 4% of the population as we speak. Siberia in toto has perhaps 15% of the population.
*****
Yes. Quite true. I more or less pointed that out to him when I said most of the good stuff is within reach or actually ports, but he is obsessed with the idea that it cannot be defeated because of its size. It makes it impossible for him to war game the problem which is kind of fun.
On a much smaller scale when we landed at Guadalcanal for a long time we held only the area around Henderson Field, not the whole island, because Henderson had tactical and strategic value while most of the rest of the place didn't. Same in Russia; populations and strategic assets are in relatively small areas, not smeared across the entire continent.
Looking at a map Canada looks huge and very formidable too. It isn't unless you are fighting grizzly bears in the woods.
You keep pointing out things that are either not True or irrelevant.
Foreign Trade by sea is not and never has been of any consequence for Russia or the USSR.
Absolutely many efforts have been made to change that.
You made a big deal of US aid to Russia during the war. That amounted to $11B. The Entire program – not just to Russia has a modern Value of about $570B or about 1/3 the current Covid Bill Spending. And the USSR’s share was less than 1/4 that.
I am sure Stalin was glad for the aide.
But the USSR was never in danger of falling to Germany.
With better leadership – Moscow might have fallen. Or the Germans might have taken the oil fields in the caucuses.
Or in time both. The war might have been longer. Casualties might have been greater.
But Hitler was not defeating Stalin, or the Russian Army.
Winning Battles is not winning wars.
YOU pointed Washington’s loss of Philadelphia out. In fact Washington and the Colonials LOST most of the battles of the revolutionary war.
They LOST Boston ultimately, they LOTS NYC, they LOST Philadelphia.
In the War of 1812, the British took Washington DC. They still lost the war.
The Revolutionary war is an excellent comparison to WWII in Russia. The British were relatively free to roam through the colonies as they pleased. They could occupy whatever city they wished. But they could NOT bring down the colonial government.
Germany was LESS able to roam through Russia. Regardless, they could NOT put down the Russian government.
They enjoyed some very significant early victories – Driving the Russian Army nearly to Moscow.
And they came very near several more significant victories. They might have reached Moscow.
Though I would note that the Germans did ultimately capture Stalingrad – and that ultimately proved disasterous.
Taking Moscow could easily have had the same consequence – as it did for Napolean.
You seem to have no concept of how large Russia is.
You rant that key points were in range – in range of WHAT ?
There were no B52’s in 1945. Arial Refueling was not yet practical. The round trip range of B29’s was 1500mi.
Stalin moved all Russian Miltary production beyond the Urals
In 1945 starting from allied positions at the end of the war – how are you going to get to Russian war production ?
You are a smart person – but this whole debate is stupid. The germans were never going to defeat the USSR.
Nor could the allies have done so in concert with the Germans in 1945
The more serious concern was that the USSR could have taken all of Europe if it wanted to.
The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were more a message to Stalin – a bluff, because it would be some time before the US had more atomic bombs.
Guadalcanal is not Russia.
Further Henderson fields value was more symbolic than practical.
Of significantly more importance was that the Marines had taken possibly the most defensible position on the Island from the very start.
And the battle was still a near thing.
Further, Guadalcanal was a Battle – not a war. The US could have lost at Guadalcanal, and still prevailed in the war – though it was a setback.
The primary issue at Guadalcanal was to reverse the momentum of the War.
Outside of a deluded few the Japanese did not beleive they could win a “total war” with the US.
Their objective was to occupy as much of the pacific and asia as possible while the US was still on its heels and then negotiate for peace.
That was a radical misread of the american people.
The significance of the early war in the pacific was that despite being hit hard on Dec 7th – at Perl Harbor, the Philipines, and later Wake,
the US forces were not fighting for detente – they were fighting to WIN – from the very start.
By the time of Leyette Gulf Halsey’s task force alone dwarfed everything the US had before Pearl Harbor many times over.
Yet the actual battle was between the best of the Japanese Navy, and a handful of Jeep carriers, destroyers, and resurrected Perl Harbor Battleships, and those forces inflicted horrendous damage on the Japanese and more importantly drove them away.
I would further note the war in the pacific was primarily a naval war. that is radically different.
Russia is “not dependent on foreign trade for anything critical”
***
I wish you had explained that to us in WWII. Many lives and ships and cargoes were lost shipping tons of desperately needed.supplies to Russia. Why bother if, as you say, they can just get it in their own backyard?
I am assuming you mean WWII not WWI ?
Yes, many lives were lost.
To keep Stalin in the War.
the US and UK were deeply concerned that Stalin would negotiate a separate peace with Hitler.
After all Russia did so during WWI.
And Stalin constantly threatened the UK and US – because Russia was bearing the brunt of the fighting.
Regardless the USSR was never in danger of defeat by the Germans – the size of the country is far too large and resources and production were far out of range of the Germans.
Absolutely the Russian’s were in danger of ever more defeats in Battle.
US Aide to Russia was less barely 1/4 of all US war aide, and barely 1/3 of what went to the UK.
the size of the country is far too large
The vast bulk of the territory is occupied by < 4% of the population as we speak. Siberia in toto has perhaps 15% of the population.
several million people occupied Stalingrad – until the Nazi’s came.
Then they went elsewhere.
As I have noted the Russian’s moved production of war materials beyond the Urals to protect them from germans.
That was relatively easy to do. Further it move production closer to raw materials.
You seem to think that everything is immoveable.
The German invasion of the USSR relatively quickly captured a significant portion of the industrial and populated heart of the USSR.
People and factories MOVED.
The range of a B-29 appears to about 5,800 miles.
That is one way without any load.
B-29’s operating From China during WWII were only able to reach parts of the Japanese mainland.
This necescitated the capture of the Marrianas islands, bringing all of Japan within the 1500mi round tripp fully loaded range of the B-29’s.
But even that was not enough. The losses of B-29’s without fighter escort necescitated the capture of Iwo Jima – 750mi away from Tokyo
And you are expecting to send B-29’s into the USSR unescorted for half the trip, and survive ?
Tokyo to Petersburg is only 4,700 miles. A B-29 could take off from one friendly field to land at another and overfly the entire country.
Why do you beleive Petersburg would be a friendly field ?
In April of 1945 the US had gotten to the middle of Germany.
The one way distance from Tokyo to the Urals is 3770 Miles.
That is greater than the fully loaded Round Trip range of a B29.
Remember these are not good will flights they are bombing runs.
And if you do not deliver bombs at the end of the run – the trip was useless.
Further remember that US fighter cover can provide round trip protection for only 750miles.
That means 1/2 of the B29’s round trip range will be without fighter protection and subject to constant russian fighter attacks.
The Air War in europe was not truly successful until the aliies had defeated the Luftwaffe.
In the short trips of B17’s from England to Germany Losses were so great that the odds of an aircrew not being killed or captured before their tour ended were small.
The term “catch-22” dates from this era and this fact.
Why are we still debating this ?
b29 Flights from the marianas to Tokyo were only possible because the Japanese airforce had been effectively defeated.
And STILL it was necescary to take Iwo Jima to provide fighter support over Japan.
Any effort to hit Russian war production – which was on the east of the Urals would involve very long distance flights over hostile Russia, with a capable airforce and vast reserves, and aircover for at best 1/2 of the trip.
BTW B29’s would have better odds leaving from China – though China was in the beginings of a revolution.
And even that would likely just result in Stalin moving war production to near the arctic.
Russia is vast. you are correct it is mostly unpopulated. But that favors the russians.
They have enormous space to move factories. And they can place defensive airfields anywhere.
Further they need not capture downed aircrews. They are just not going to manage a thousand plus mile trek over incredibly inhospitable country merely to be captured. The Russians would likely let downed crews die in place.
I would further note that even if the rages were not impossible, they have a pronounced impact on the number of sorties that can be flown.
If the distances were half as large it is likely that B29’s could manage 4 times as many sorties.
A B52 has a bomb load almost 4 times that of a B29 and an unrefeuled range of more than double with that bomb load.
You seem to forget this is just post WWII.
The Korean War – which occured almost 10 years later, was initially a disaster for US airpower – even fighting in a much smaller theater.
If US airpower was going to bring the USSR to its knees, why was it ineffective in Korea ?
Even in Vietnam – with total dominance of the sky and B-52’s dropping massive bomb loads, on a far smaller country we were still unable to bomb the NVA into submission.
The entire post WWII era inj Europe the US strategy was to be able to hold out against a massive land attack by the USSR.
And the primary means of hold out was the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Because the entirety of NATO was not going to be able to survive a socciet conventional attack without resorting to Nukes.
So why do you think the US would have been able to attack the USSR in 1945 ?
Remember if you disagree with the use of the kimchee girls the are prevalent all over the planet. Everywhere their number one supporters the US government and not just .although in sheer numbers. The US Government has always been the main supporter of such business including those stocked with imported sex slaves. The annual joke is the class on anti. However as a well traveled thanks to Sam I can state without fear of contra diction the number and quality to up when the current administration is in power including the brothels of the nations capitol.
“History is written by the victors.”
– Winston Churchill
_______________
“What is history but a fable agreed upon?”
– Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
___________________________
“History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe.”
– Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code
__________________________
If you seek academic freedom, the right to expose the theft of true history and to reveal the corruption of despotism and dictatorship, look no further than the “Reign of Terror” of “Crazy Abe” Lincoln. Why in blazes would the head of an anti-constitutional, mad dictator and tyrant be carved into a mountain in South Dakota? Because the despotism and brutality of Lincoln annihilated all opposition and wrote the history books. Lincoln inadvertently backed into the White House with 38.9% of the vote. No American wanted to die to end slavery so “Crazy Abe” savagely imposed a military draft and employed harsh coercive force to compel citizens to their deaths. Lincoln stole the nation through unconstitutional executive actions just as he stole the election in 1864 in part through the corrupt efforts of General Benjamin “Beast” Butler who bragged in a letter that he had done everything possible to stop Democrats from voting in New York. The invalid and still illegitimate “Reconstruction Amendments” and the three million illegal immigrants, who must have been deported in 1863 per the Naturalization Act of 1802, were and are unconstitutional and were forcibly imposed by barbaric military force under the duress of brutal post-war military occupation. The Constitution does not mandate the application of the duress of military force in the amendment process. “Crazy Abe’s” successors administered brutality and duress liberally with no regard for fundamental law.
Through barbaric force, “Crazy Abe” won.
Through barbaric force, the Constitution was dissolved.
Through barbaric force, history was written.
Nice cut and paste
The quotes are attributed.
The factual text is “from scratch?”
Presumably, you disagree.
Your perspective is inscrutable.
https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/04/a-family-on-trial-for-january-6/
While we’re at it, did you ever consider a thought experiment about what the social costs might be if we discontinued federal law enforcement?
did you ever consider a thought experiment about what the social costs might be if we discontinued federal law enforcement?
*****
I have been thinking about it and I think it would be a good thing. The history of Praetorian Guards has not been at all good.
We are seeing the results of very minor reductions in policing right now – we do not need a thought experiment.
In the US crime peaked in the late 80’s, and has dropped steadily until last spring.
There were myriads of debates as to why that drop occured. Rising standard of living. better policing, higher incarceration. better education, Higher abortion rates are all contenders for the CAUSE of that drop.
In the past 9+ months we have seen a significant reduction in policing, and we are watching crime in the places that reduction occured skyrocket. It is increasingly certain with each passing day that “broken windows” law enforcement was the CAUSE of the drop in crime.
Regardless, it is self evident as a REAL EXPERIMENT, not a thought experiment, that the changes to policing in the past 9+ months has been very bad.
I will be happy to discuss all kinds of real reforms to policing.
I fully support an end to the judge created nonsense of “qualified immunity”.
But what is clearly a very bad idea is LESS policing.
More unarmed minorities die each day in chicago from increased violence than die in the entire country all year at the hands of the police.
Absolutely we need to do a better job policing.
But EVERY proposal to “improve” policing MUST start by asking what the unintended consequences will be and will they be greater harm than doing nothing – and self evidently the changes we have made int eh past hyear were worse than doing nothing.
This is a common problem with those on the left.
There are an infinite number of problems out there.
But just because a problem exists and you propose a solution, does not mean the results of your solution may not be far worse than the problem. In fact that is the NORM.
I favor local and state police but have doubts about federal law enforcement. They are too heavily involved in shady and maybe seditious acts. The Marshal’s service still seems legit.
All government is a necessary evil.
I am ambivalent over the federal vs. local issue.
There is an extraordinary amount of local power that has no basis in either rationality of constitution.
The Supreme court once struck down the equivalent of Zoning laws as racist, yet today they are everywhere – and even the left is starting to grasp they are racist.
Though it is strange that the left is unable to see any infringements on libberty except racism
I am highly dubious about all law enforcement – but the problem starts with our LAWS not those enforcing them.
Whether you are black or white if you are unhappy about a police stop – whatever the abuse of the officer – it is enabled by the law.
Again, order maintenance is in the hands of state and local police. The three components which have something to do with that are the Customs and Border Protection, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Marshal Service. The Democrats are deliberately sabotaging border control. The FBI has demonstrated over the last five years that they’re grossly politicized and incompetent. See Conrad Black on federal prosecutors.
Yes, Conrad Black provides a good example of outrageous prosecutorial misconduct. As Allan mentioned before, Howard Root and d’Souza provide yet more shocking examples. The country would be safer if the FBI and DOJ were abolished. Right now it looks as if somehow East Germany transplanted their Stasi into America.
There are things we can agree on.
The constitution provides the federal govenrment with no general police power.
The country survived 100 years with no consequentuial federal law enforcement.
Is there something we are disagreeing on ?
I am NOT a big fan of local law enforcement.
But my criticism’s and efforts to seek reform and improvement are NOT the same is idiotic claims that we do not need police.
Nor do the flaws in modern law enforcement inherently mean that we should make changes willy nilly ignoring the unintended consequences.
Regardless the plight of minorities in this country are NOT the consequence of federal govenrment failures.
As much as I am no fan of the federal government.
In most instances they are NOT even tbhe failure of state governments. They are the clear failure of local governments.
And those local governments are exclusively democrat.
If there is a systemic racism problem in this country it is not white republicans in flyover country that are the problem.
It is an established fact that people with certain views attempt to dominate historical discussion. A good example is the so-called “Holocaust”. All that is really known for certain is that large numbers of Jews more or less disappeared and were never accounted for. The exact number is unknown but Jewish activists came up with the number 6 million and have been canceling anyone who challenges that number ever since. The Wikipedia page on the bombing of Dresden brands the author of a book on the subject as a “Holocaust denier” even though the book has nothing to do with the Holocaust. They even brand other Jews who don’t follow the party line. Then there is the myth advocated by black activists that mixed-race children are the products of black women raped by white men when, in fact, many mixed-race families were the product of impregnation of white women by black men, slaves as well as free. (And the black mothers of mixed-race children probably weren’t raped.) Blacks also play down the significance of black slave owners. As for the comfort women, it is a fact that prostitution was common in Asia at least through the 1970s and is still prevalent in some countries. I was stationed on Okinawa and in the Philippines and spent time in Vietnam and Thailand and visited Japan and Korea. There were prostitutes in every country. I asked one young woman I knew – who had a western appearance and was probably Amerasian – why she worked as a bar girl and she said “it beats working in the potato fields.” Koreans seem to forget that Korea was under Japanese rule and that Koreans accounted for large numbers of Japanese soldiers – and were particularly known for their viciousness. For example, the guards on the Bataan Death March were actually Korean. History is a pseudo-scientific field with certain academics seeking to dominate the conversation. I talked to a ranger at the Chalmette Battlefield in New Orleans. During the conversation, he revealed that he was a University of North Carolina graduate with degrees in history. He remarked that certain Northern schools write history as they see fit, not as it actually happened. For example, the whole world knows about the Mayflower and Yorktown but few know that the Battles of New Orleans and San Jacinto are the most significant battles in American history. In the case of the comfort girls, it appears that the history is being written, not by the victors since Koreans were Japanese subjects until 1945, but by the freed.
I failed to mention that the young woman who preferred the easy life of a bar girl to farming was Okinawan.
Sure, some women may have contracted to be comfort women. So what? The evidence points to that many young women were forced into prostitution. In many cases there is a thin line between forced and voluntary. These were brutal times and women (girls) had to do what they could to survive. Perhaps for some girls prostitution is not a demoralizing thing, but other it goes against there religious and family values. As for the women you mentioned that she would rather be a prostitute than work in the potato field may not be representative of all the girl trying to survive. Perhaps there was not enough farm work for all the girls, many farms are a family operation, and the girls are treated as slaves.The dynamics are complicated and in my opinion, writing that these comfort girls had other options and wanted to contract to be prostitutes is insensitive to the few women that are still alive today that lived through the horror of that time. Whats the purpose?
Also, when you state “the so-called “Holocaust” , to me your implying that perhaps it didn’t happen. There are pictures and movies of the horrors! I don’t know how many Jews were “Killed” (I have a had time saying what actually happen to them), but why question the holocaust. I knew many Jews that had their number tattooed to their arms. Out of respect to the survivors and the survivor’s families, why would you want to be so insensitive to these horrors?
Of course many mixed race children were from black men and white women, but that has nothing to do with the young black girl that had to have sex with the slave master that was probable three times her age or more and probably gross looking. And what happens to the young black girl that has the child by the slave owner? How did the other slaves treat her and the child? That child now is also a slave. By cherry picking by saying there were black slave owners has nothing to do with the horrors that went on in the plantations of the south.
I have no problem with academic interest in what happened 200+ years ago.
But the presumption that it has any bearing at all on this moment in time is nonsense.
The only evidence of systemic racism in the US today – is that it really sucks to be a minority and live in a democrat controlled city.
Your education will suck. your job prospects will suck. Your policing will suck. Crime will be bad.
If you were to listen to those on the left about US racism today you would have to beleive that Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, LA, etc are importing KKK cracker police from Alabama and Mississippi to police their cities.
The core debate is whether free speech allows the expoloration and exposition of repugnant Ideas.
It would be very difficult to convince me that millions of jews were not killed in the hollocaust, and that the “comfort women” were not forced into prostitution. But I am prepared to allow people to attempt to convince me.
Just as it would be very difficult to convince me that socialism small or large works EVER – but those on the left are free to try to persuade us.
What I find hillarious is that quite often in the name of supressing “fake news” the left is quite litterally supressing the truth.
The Hunter Biden story – was purportedly “russian disinformation” – until it turned out the DOJ and FBI have been investigating since 2019 and that the sources are nearly all from the US.
Right now Social media is censoring anything that suggests that C19 came from the lab in Wuhan. Yet, the zoonotic source hypothesis has pretty much completely failed, leaving a lab accident as the most likely probability.
HCQ is not gods gift to the world – but there are now over a hundred studies proving it is effective.
I think the current fight is over Invermectin.
The data is in on Masks int he real world – their effectiveness is extremely poor, Several orders of magnitude below what would be needed to be even a speed bump to C19.
The left moaned about herd immunity – but it is now clear that is the way C19 ends the only question is whether it ends through infection or vaccine
On issue after issue – the left has been completely WRONG.
Psaki is snarking about Trump providing advice regarding the growing mess at the border. But the mess was entirely predicatable.
During the Trump administration there was a bit over 400 unaccompanied minors who crossed the border and were detained.
Of these all but 5 were returned to their parents. Of those 5 most were not returned because their parents would not take them.
At the moment there appears to be more than 300 UAC’s per DAY getting caught. All of these are separated from their parents.
Right now there are between 4000 and 6000 illegal crossings per day – Obama considered 1000/day a crisis – The Biden admin refuses to use that word. They are arriving wearing T-Shirts saying “Biden please let us in”.
What did Democrats expect ?
“The exact number is unknown but Jewish activists came up with the number 6 million and have been canceling anyone who challenges that number ever since. The Wikipedia page on the bombing of Dresden brands the author of a book on the subject as a “Holocaust denier” even though the book has nothing to do with the Holocaust.”
– semcgowanjr
____________
And Mossad et al. conducted the 9/11 operation to compel deployment of the U.S. military to secure the Middle East for the benefit of Israel in perpetuity.
The 6 million figure may be inaccurate, but I don’t care. It was a lot. I met and spoke with a survivor of Auschwitz. If it were only one who was murdered then someone should hang for it, but it was many more than that. It is depraved to argue over the precise number murdered. Whatever it was, it was far too many.
“the whole world knows about the Mayflower and Yorktown but few know that the Battles of New Orleans and San Jacinto are the most significant battles in American history”
****
Utter nonsense. The war was already over when the Battle of New Orleans was fought.
History is not as settled as some believe, e.g., the fascinating discussion by Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, “The Nanking 100-Man Killing Debate: War Guilt Amid Fabricated Illusions, 1971-75,” The Journal of Japanese Studies (Summer 2000), pp. 3-7-340. BTW concludes the story may have been partly true, but appears to have been mostly false, for a variety of reasons, including a later admission by one of those involved who claimed he had boasted to ‘get a better wife’ upon returning home.
The lefties continue to attack anyone who disagrees with them rather than argue ideas.
Just look at this blog; there are a number of people (on both sides unfortunately) who attack the messenger rather than the idea. Some of them get quite ugly.
Another lazy approach is to justify every bad idea with their usual: “But Trump…”.
This whataboutism is both lazy and intellectually dishonest.
Everybody who engages in personal attacks or dishonest debate contributes to de facto censorship.
Isn’t whataboutism just a euphemism for pointing out hypocrisy?
Often but not always.
We can not get perfection in our leaders.
We must often accept the hypocracy of the best that can be expected over the alternative.
monument writes:
“The lefties continue to attack anyone who disagrees with them rather than argue ideas.”
I have yet to see him do anything but attack those he disagrees with.
Again, we owe you our thanks for standing up for freedom Professor Turley.
Good article.
Hear, hear.
Comfort girls are out but grooming gangs are in.
Slavery is bad but human trafficking is good.
Free speech is hurtful but gaslighting is social justice…
Such are the fashions of the left. We are in for a bad ride.
Your and A– H–e. How can you make such a disgusting comment?