One Korean's view on the Smithsonian Enola Gay exhibit

[cstaylor]

Enola Gay and the Pacific War

Idealistic, anti-nuke people in this world seem to forget who started the tragic war in the Pacific and who ended the war. At a U.S. university, one Japanese woman student I taught believed that the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cleansed Japan of its war crimes. I uttered, "Not quite."

[cstaylor]

That's what they want to believe. Whenever I get the sour looks around the August 6th Hiroshima memorial, I always say, "for every one of you that hates the U.S. for Hiroshima, there's 10 Chinese that hate you for Nanking".

[AssKissinger]

the Japanese emperor and high command were so indifferent to their civilian populations that dropping of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs was not decisive in changing their strategic thinking.

Damn!

[jingai]

This sort of look at history is only interesting for what it says about contemporary Asian politics. The same with the textbook disputes, perennial Chinese cries of protest, etc. None of these folks give a damn about the past beyond how they can manipulate it to their ends.

[cstaylor]

This sort of look at history is only interesting for what it says about contemporary Asian politics. The same with the textbook disputes, perennial Chinese cries of protest, etc. None of these folks give a damn about the past beyond how they can manipulate it to their ends.

That's all history is really... or at least written history.

[GomiGirl]

...one Japanese woman student I taught believed that the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cleansed Japan of its war crimes.

And I thought it was the "victories" that washed away the evidence of war crimes. War is dirty on both sides - but it just the "Winners" that seem to be justified in prosecuting the war criminals.

Now before Alcazar jumps in with his justifications of doing criminal in order to "win" and are "necessary" to protect the greater good, I will jump in and say that the players on the other teams think just the same way.

We just don't hear about the evil things that "our" army does..

[Alcazar]

And I thought it was the "victories" that washed away the evidence of war crimes. War is dirty on both sides - but it just the "Winners" that seem to be justified in prosecuting the war criminals.

Now before Alcazar jumps in with his justifications of doing criminal in order to "win" and are "necessary" to protect the greater good, I will jump in and say that the players on the other teams think just the same way.

We just don't hear about the evil things that "our" army does..

Most people know that there are 'questionable' occurrences perpetrated by both sides in a war. Remember that people's perception of what is normal and acceptable in war changes due to the situation they are in-sometimes this is referred to as 'moral slippage'. It's easy for us to criticise if we weren't there-just a point.

What the Japanese woman said about Hiroshima etc absolving Japan of her war crimes is true to an extent. The hate-America crowd focuses on that incident caused by the US, to the detriment of Japan's war crimes, which the contemporary Left overlooks due to racial bias. Therefore, Japan is absolved of it's sins, while Western school kids are taught of the 'unfairness' of the J-nuking, with perhaps cursory mention of Japanese 'violence' throughout the war and their long occupation of China and Korea.

[cliffy]

Now before Alcazar jumps in with his justifications of doing criminal in order to "win" and are "necessary" to protect the greater good, I will jump in and say that the players on the other teams think just the same way.

We just don't hear about the evil things that "our" army does..

My best "Arts/History" Tutor always stated "History is ALWAYS written by the winners" note not by Historians or Diarists just the best battler

[Alcazar]

My best "Arts/History" Tutor always stated "History is ALWAYS written by the winners" note not by Historians or Diarists just the best battler

That's true.

Another point to remember is that whatever political group is in power at present (eg. within the Western World or anywhere), not only controls the present, but also the past. If you control the present, you can control the interpretation of the past.

You can look at GG's comment to gain an insight into this. GG is an educational product of a period where the political Left controlled the interpretation of our history. They still do control this interpretation of the past through having physical control of key institutions.

For example, in places like Australia and the US, the Left controls strategic areas in education such as the education unions, education bureaucracies within government, university faculties, and museum/art gallery boards. All of these groups decide what is to be taught to their students in their curriculum, and hence how history is interpreted. So why is this important?

If you can shape how people view history, you can shape how they view the world today-eg you can have significant scope to create new Leftists or Rightists. As you can imagine, the Right is working day and night to regain control of these institutions-and therefore control of the past. This battle is very real, but most people probably have no idea about it.

If GG had been through school and university during the 1950s and early 1960s (before the Left got really powerful in education), she probably wouldn't be expressing ideas of moral/historical relativism-a tool of the political Left. Sorry GG to use you as a class 'show and tell', but really it's no skin off your nose....