American "Gifts from Heaven"

One of my favorite countries in this expansive world of ours is the great island nation of Japan. It's an extremely advanced society with a level of ingenuity only matched by Germany and the United States. However, as everyone knows, there was a time when our beloved Asian ally was our most hated enemy (the Nazis didn't bomb Pearl Harbor...). After 1899, the Japanese set themselves squarely on a path of destruction. The imperialist cancer that spread within this society during what was called the Meiji Restoration, would eventually engulf over 1/7 of the world's surface. The militaristic and dogmatic sickness that propped this nation up would eventually lead directly to its complete and utter destruction.

I read a very fascinating article over the past few days called "Gifts from Heaven: The Meaning of the American Victory over Japan, 1945," by John David Louis in The Objective Standard (a subscribers-only publication). The author thoroughly discussed the mindset of the Japanese in the build-up to WWII and explains why only the virtual wholesale destruction of the Japanese nation would be enough to truly change this mindset. The religion of Shintoism was nationalized, the emperor was made into a living god (by the military elite as a means to gain power themselves), and all schoolchildren were taught that their lives only served the purpose of maintaining the "national essence" and to serve the emperor-god. Nationalist propaganda surrounded every citizen, every single day. The very fabric of Japanese society had been woven into a racist, imperialistic, and extremely well-disciplined war machine. The author argues that it is ignorant to think that the citizenry did not share the same sentiments of their aggressive military during the war years. The Japanese people were not only well aware of the terrible and violent acts of the army, but they actively participated in its creation, maintenance, and execution. It would take the most massive armada in the history of man, continual fire-bombings, blockades, and two super-weapons to finally stop this ideology.

Tokyo 1945

A few myths that revisionists like to push:
1. We could have dropped the a-bombs in a non-populated area.
-One of the cornerstones of the Japanese military was the belief that although the Americans may have excellent technology and large numbers, they lack the will to carry out a protracted war [sound familiar?]. The goal of the Japanese after mid-1944 was to simply cause as many American casualties as possible so that they could broker a deal. This "deal" would have left the destructive imperialistic mindset firmly in place and it would only have been a matter of time before it would resurface.
2. We could have just blockaded the islands and slowly defeated them that way.
- Thousands died in the a-bomb attacks. Millions would have died in a forced famine. Not to mention the tens of thousands of American POW's that would have perished first (after being worked to death).
3. We dropped the a-bombs for political reasons to scare the Russians.
-There is simply no evidence for this. All the evidence points to a much stronger desire to quickly end a war that had cost millions of lives and billions of dollars. See Truman's/Roosevelt's diaries and notes as well as other officials. Too much to go into here.

The whole point of the article is that the victory over Japan was the most profound American foreign policy success in history. The Japanese constitution was written by members of General MacArthur's staff in one week(!) and still remains today, with few changes. Japan hasn't had a war since and has become the most prosperous Asian nation (after being the most destroyed). Of course the Japanese had much to do with their own success, but it was America that knocked the demons loose in order for this to transpire. It's very easy to find hatred of the United States in the world today, I suppose my whole goal is to give those who love this country (and aren't too cool to admit it) something to grab and hold every once in a while.

Tokyo Today