the Americans barbarians in the Pacific War?

We all know the story that is World War II, but one would have to wonder with close inspection that in the Pacific War if the Americans were the real barbarians, I know that battleship row in Pearl Harbor was attacked but in fairness the Japanese hadn't intended for a very high casualty rate, and when Admiral Yamamoto stated he feared he had awoken a sleeping giant I doubt even he expected the war to go so badly for his side.



The Doolittle Raid in May of 1942 which saw 15 B-25's launched from the USS Hornet bombing military and industrial targets in Tokyo and Yokohama killing about 50 people, it was early on symbolized that the US could hit anywhere they wanted to in Japan and they were going to exploit that fact later on in the war.

The Japanese public had seen nothing yet.

After several vital IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) aircraft carriers were destroyed in the Pacific in the Battle of Coral Sea and Midway in 1942 the US begun to force the Japanese to retreat eventually having them hold up on their main islands while supporting Chinese forces fighting the invading Japanese in Nationalist China, the island hopping then begun.

The Japanese eager to hold their home islands had built up main lines of defence on several smaller islands (such as the famous battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa).



These massive battles saw thousands of casualties on both sides and truly horrific acts of war such as Japanese A6M Zeroes flying Kamikaze (divine wind) raids against US ships and Japanese civilians living on the outer islands killing themselves with hand grenades or throwing themselves along with their children off cliffs believing the American barbarians as they were described in Japanese propaganda would murder their families.

Most of the young and able men were sent to such islands to die in their thousands and on the mainland women, children and older men were urged to learn martial arts to defend themselves because of the shortage of guns thanks to the US naval embargo on mainland Japan.

As islands closer to the mainland were captured they were used as bases for US bombers such as the new B-29 which could go at a higher altitude than Japanese interceptors, this however also meant that the accuracy of the bombs hitting their target wasn't very good, keeping this in mind a group of B-29's flying low and using incendiary bombs firebombed 51% of Tokyo, this burned to death 100,000 civilians in one night!



Tokyo was a wooden city and completely burned, throughout May up until August 1945 the US continued to fire bomb Japanese cities in this way killing tens of thousands of civilians, examples of cities destroyed using incendiary bombs include:

99.0% of Chattanooga
85.2% of Tokushima
69.6% of Gifu
68.9% of Okayama
67.5% of Takamatsu
66.1% of Shizuoka
65.0% of Hachioji
63.9% of Imabari
63.4% of Kagoshima
58.0% of Yokohama
56.7% of Isezaki
56.0% of Ichinomiya
55.7% of Kobe
50.0% of Wakayama
48.3% of Tokuyama


The list goes on, it seemed nowhere was safe, the only cities that barely scathed were Hiroshima and Nagasaki which were to be completely leveled by the worlds first two and only two nuclear bombs used on live people, killing over 60,000 people in each case and poisoning thousands across Japan finally brought them to surrender after their whole country had been destroyed!

Now I don't think that's proportional to the attack on US naval warships at (at the time) territory of Hawaii which was a gesture to Japans actions in Nationalist China, the Japanese leadership at the time knew there would be consequences but they doubted they would have been as bad as to affect every Japanese man, woman and child!

looks like Pearl Harbor all over again!

I remember reading this article last month and laughing my ass off, North Korea is going to attack Hawaii?

So they really expect us to take this seriously, I mean the US have already deployed missile defences (probably some Patriot batteries) in Hawaii and Alaska, and today North Korea actually tested seven missiles.

Now I do see North Korea as a threat but attack Hawaii?



I know tens of thousands of Americans do live in Honolulu the city there but still, apart from the fact North Korea's longest range missile (the Taepodong-2) can reach 4,000km does the fact that Hawaii is 4,500km not dawn on them, maybe targeting a nuclear missile at Anchorage in Alaska would make more sense!


Congratulations you're an idiot!

It's almost like what's at stake in a terrible movie like Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil, or a season of 24, in which terrorists obviously want to blow up the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles for three years in a row, or maybe Kim Jong iL wants missiles that will reach Los Angeles in California because they refuse to help market and publish his homemade movies.

Maybe he saw Michael Bays Pearl Harbor and was jealous of the "special effects" and wants to better what he saw by dropping one of his missiles down there on Independence Day, like the nuking's from the movie Independence Day!

Apart from my strategical brilliant idea of having him nuke or partially destroy Seoul before launching a full scale conventional invasion most people disagree and until Hawaii and he seems to be going down the road of nuking Japan.

Now that just sounds pure wrong doesn't it, doesn't he know that they have been nuked twice less than a hundred years ago and were the only people in history ever to be killed in their thousands by nuclear weapons, I don't think it would be nice to do it again, in fact it would be downright evil!


"The No-Dong missile!"

And if they do attempt to do this US retaliation from South Korea backed by the US Pacific Fleet and air force from Okinawa would hit down on North Korea hard, China have even stated it has built mass refuge camps for North Korean civilians in case something like this happens!

Kim Jong Il is a moron and is leading the people of his country down a rough path of destruction!

If he was a true leader he would at least help feed his people instead of building ballistic missiles while his citizens live off grass and tree bark.

P.S. to my American readers especially the fifty or so from Hawaii that clicked here in the last two weeks, Happy Independence Day!

shallow justifications for the worlds biggest wars

For nearly one hundred years America has needed justifications to go to war against an opponent or another country altogether, and everybody knows that war kills many and destroys civilizations so you obviously need a good reason before going, and here are the four that prompted some of Americas biggest wars in the 20th and early 21st century.

Sinking of the Lusitania
On May 7th 1915 the ocean liner RMS Lusitania was struck by a torpedo from a U-boat, its ammunition exploded and went down in around 20 minutes taking with it 1,200 people, several of which were American, this sent a wave of indignation across the United States and finally gave the US government an excuse to go to war against Germany.

The only thing was that the German embassy had already put articles into the New York Times warning people that if they boarded the ship they boarded at their own risk as such a ship sailing from America to England through the war zone would more than likely come under attack.

Now you have to admit that was very sneaky.

Attack on Pearl Harbor
On December 7th 1941 the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor killing over 2,000 American servicemen, this was American's justification to enter the Second World War, although Roosevelt had done everything in his power to anger the Japanese.

And to make sure the war is justified if the bad guy fires the first shot (like the Japanese did in Pearl Harbor) then there will be no doubt who the aggressor actually is.

Even though claiming neutrality he:

Halted trade

Froze Japanese assets in the United States

Aided Nationalist China and the United Kingdom two of Japans enemies

And before this attack 83% of Americans didn't want anything to do with the war, shortly after the attack 1,000,000 men volunteered for the war.

Gulf of Tonkin Incident
In 1964 an incident known as the Second Gulf of Tonkin incident led Lyndon Johnson to start a war with North Vietnam, the alleged attack was North Vietnamese PT boats firing on the destroyer the USS Maddox, however it was later reported as an error which former sectary of defence Robert McNamara has confirmed, the "attack" led to the bombing of North Vietnam the USAF dropping more bombs then it did on all of Western Europe during World War II and the subsequent ground war that lasted until the last Huey's left Saigon in 1975, the war cost the lives of 58,000 American soldiers and 3,000,000 Vietnamese.

September 11th attacks
On September 11th 2001 two passenger airlines were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, both subsequently collapsed in just over ten seconds about an hour later, the Pentagon was also struck and another plane downed in Shanksville Pennsylvania.

15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabian terrorists and not one of the hijackers were Iraqi, yet it was followed by the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001 a mere 11,000 troops sent to find Osama Bin Laden who was believed to have carried out the attacks.

It was also hinted several times in 2002 and early 2003 that Saddam Hussein had funded and trained terrorists that had carried out the attacks, this helped the 2003 invasion and subsequent war in Iraq which has killed tens of thousands!