Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Getting Started...
Here is something my father sent me one day in an email. I think you'll find it rather interesting...
LeMay and the Tragedy of War
When basic survival trumps civil liberties.
By WARREN KOZAK
On Sept. 12, 2001, it is highly doubtful that any member of Congress
was worried that our government would be too harsh in its treatment of
terrorists. When countries are threatened, basic survival trumps civil
liberties not just for enemy combatants but for citizens as well. Our
priorities change.
We saw that with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Days before Japanese
warplanes destroyed the U.S. Pacific fleet on Dec. 7, 1941, 80% of
Americans did not want to go to war against either Germany or Japan.
The day after the attacks, those numbers reversed themselves. Over the
next four years, the United States did things it would never do in
normal times -- Japanese-Americans were placed in prison camps, press
reports and the mail of American soldiers were censored by the
military, and the FBI tapped phones without court orders.
In peacetime, a country can deliberate the balance of its security and
civil liberties. It can even apologize for actions that were clearly
wrong. When a nation is in peril, however, a forceful defense takes
priority.
Following Pearl Harbor, this country asked its military leaders to
commit acts that, when taken out of context, can be viewed as war
crimes today. Between March and August of 1945, 38-year-old Gen.
Curtis LeMay ordered the deaths of more civilians than any other man
in U.S. history. No one else comes close, not William Tecumseh
Sherman, not George S. Patton -- no one.
On the night of March 9, 1945, LeMay sent 346 huge B-29 bombers loaded
with napalm from the Mariana Islands (Guam, Saipan and Tinian) to
Tokyo. The first planes dropped their incendiaries on the front and
back of the target area -- like lighting up both ends of a football
field at night. The rest of the planes filled in the middle. More than
16 square miles of Japan's capital city were gutted, two million
people were left homeless, and 100,000 were dead.
It didn't end there. Washington gave LeMay the green light as his
bombers burned 64 more cities. He used the World Almanac and just went
down the list by population. Altogether, an estimated 350,000 people
lost their lives. Anyone hearing this for the first time in 2009 would
be hard pressed to defend such an action.
Yet at the time, newspapers across America heralded the event as a
tremendous achievement -- not unlike the moon landing 24 years later.
The New York Times ran the story of the bombings on its front page for
10 straight days. Its lead editorial on March 12, 1945, warned the
Japanese that if they didn't give up more was on the way. The New
Yorker magazine ran a glowing three part series on LeMay. Time
magazine put him on its cover.
Today Japan, which has been one of the most successful and responsible
nations on earth for the past 64 years, doesn't seem like it should
ever have received such punishment. Without understanding the context,
some people would argue that the U.S. was just a wild, racist nation
bent on payback after Pearl Harbor.
What many Americans today do not know was that for almost 10 years
prior to LeMay's bombing, Japan was on a genocidal tear throughout
Asia. There was a second Holocaust in World War II that most Americans
are unaware of -- one that killed upwards of 17 million Chinese,
Koreans, Filipinos and other Asians.
So when LeMay finally figured out a way to bring the war to a faster
end, there was jubilation not just in the U.S. but throughout Asia.
LeMay also knew that both the U.S. and Japan were preparing for what
would be the largest invasion (and most horrific bloodbath) in
history.
With the fighting becoming more ferocious as the Americans came closer
to Japan, Washington focused its attention on landings scheduled for
November 1945 and March 1946. Combat troops who had survived the war
in Europe were being brought home, given a one-month leave, and then
shipped to staging areas in the Pacific. The Japanese were also
getting ready by mobilizing old men, women and children into suicide
squads. Squadrons of kamikaze planes were set aside to hit U.S. ships.
The atomic bomb would not be tested until July 16. No one could be
sure it would work.
In the strange calculus of war, LeMay helped prevent an estimated one
million American casualties and upwards of two million Japanese by
helping push Japan's Emperor Hirohito to surrender before the
invasion. Killing large numbers of people to save even more lives is
not a decision most of us would want to make. But at the time, the
majority of Americans were thankful that LeMay was willing to do it.
Today, some question whether the ends justified the means. In 1945, no
American with a husband, brother or son serving in the military did.
For them, the speediest end of that horrible conflict was the only
goal.
Mr. Kozak is the author of the just published "LeMay: The Life and
Wars of General Curtis LeMay"
LeMay and the Tragedy of War
When basic survival trumps civil liberties.
By WARREN KOZAK
On Sept. 12, 2001, it is highly doubtful that any member of Congress
was worried that our government would be too harsh in its treatment of
terrorists. When countries are threatened, basic survival trumps civil
liberties not just for enemy combatants but for citizens as well. Our
priorities change.
We saw that with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Days before Japanese
warplanes destroyed the U.S. Pacific fleet on Dec. 7, 1941, 80% of
Americans did not want to go to war against either Germany or Japan.
The day after the attacks, those numbers reversed themselves. Over the
next four years, the United States did things it would never do in
normal times -- Japanese-Americans were placed in prison camps, press
reports and the mail of American soldiers were censored by the
military, and the FBI tapped phones without court orders.
In peacetime, a country can deliberate the balance of its security and
civil liberties. It can even apologize for actions that were clearly
wrong. When a nation is in peril, however, a forceful defense takes
priority.
Following Pearl Harbor, this country asked its military leaders to
commit acts that, when taken out of context, can be viewed as war
crimes today. Between March and August of 1945, 38-year-old Gen.
Curtis LeMay ordered the deaths of more civilians than any other man
in U.S. history. No one else comes close, not William Tecumseh
Sherman, not George S. Patton -- no one.
On the night of March 9, 1945, LeMay sent 346 huge B-29 bombers loaded
with napalm from the Mariana Islands (Guam, Saipan and Tinian) to
Tokyo. The first planes dropped their incendiaries on the front and
back of the target area -- like lighting up both ends of a football
field at night. The rest of the planes filled in the middle. More than
16 square miles of Japan's capital city were gutted, two million
people were left homeless, and 100,000 were dead.
It didn't end there. Washington gave LeMay the green light as his
bombers burned 64 more cities. He used the World Almanac and just went
down the list by population. Altogether, an estimated 350,000 people
lost their lives. Anyone hearing this for the first time in 2009 would
be hard pressed to defend such an action.
Yet at the time, newspapers across America heralded the event as a
tremendous achievement -- not unlike the moon landing 24 years later.
The New York Times ran the story of the bombings on its front page for
10 straight days. Its lead editorial on March 12, 1945, warned the
Japanese that if they didn't give up more was on the way. The New
Yorker magazine ran a glowing three part series on LeMay. Time
magazine put him on its cover.
Today Japan, which has been one of the most successful and responsible
nations on earth for the past 64 years, doesn't seem like it should
ever have received such punishment. Without understanding the context,
some people would argue that the U.S. was just a wild, racist nation
bent on payback after Pearl Harbor.
What many Americans today do not know was that for almost 10 years
prior to LeMay's bombing, Japan was on a genocidal tear throughout
Asia. There was a second Holocaust in World War II that most Americans
are unaware of -- one that killed upwards of 17 million Chinese,
Koreans, Filipinos and other Asians.
So when LeMay finally figured out a way to bring the war to a faster
end, there was jubilation not just in the U.S. but throughout Asia.
LeMay also knew that both the U.S. and Japan were preparing for what
would be the largest invasion (and most horrific bloodbath) in
history.
With the fighting becoming more ferocious as the Americans came closer
to Japan, Washington focused its attention on landings scheduled for
November 1945 and March 1946. Combat troops who had survived the war
in Europe were being brought home, given a one-month leave, and then
shipped to staging areas in the Pacific. The Japanese were also
getting ready by mobilizing old men, women and children into suicide
squads. Squadrons of kamikaze planes were set aside to hit U.S. ships.
The atomic bomb would not be tested until July 16. No one could be
sure it would work.
In the strange calculus of war, LeMay helped prevent an estimated one
million American casualties and upwards of two million Japanese by
helping push Japan's Emperor Hirohito to surrender before the
invasion. Killing large numbers of people to save even more lives is
not a decision most of us would want to make. But at the time, the
majority of Americans were thankful that LeMay was willing to do it.
Today, some question whether the ends justified the means. In 1945, no
American with a husband, brother or son serving in the military did.
For them, the speediest end of that horrible conflict was the only
goal.
Mr. Kozak is the author of the just published "LeMay: The Life and
Wars of General Curtis LeMay"
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