Thursday, February 4, 2016

Anniversary coming up: The systematic destruction of Manila and its inhabitants by the Japanese.

Bushido bushwah. With the American and Filipino liberators just on the other side of the Pasig River, the Japanese soldiers and sailors, and the Korean marines proceeded to go from one city block to another, burning and looting the homes, raping the women, and murdering as many citizens of Manila as they could, in biblical proportions. The Ermita, Malate, and Pasay districts were most greatly affected. The Japanese Military, in Manila, declared war on its civilian population. Conservative estimates state the the Manila Massacre, which took place in February, 1945, claimed the lives of over 111,000 civilians, an estimate of 35,000 more than either Nagasaki or Hiroshima.

10 comments:

Darkwing said...

WW 2, a war that should not have been fought, it was none of the US of A business. FDR allowed Pearl Harbor to happen, even when he knew all about it.

Anonymous said...

And no mention of it in Filipino media... Too busy promoting ladyboys, singing, dancing, and mindless entertainment...

Chiu ChunLing said...

The lessons of history are always more general than most people appreciate.

The atrocities of Germany and Japan both arose not from any peculiar strain of inherent viciousness in their peoples but from a common virtue, both cultures emphasize social cooperation and voluntary obedience to legal authority. This trait was essential in the establishment of a post-war order based on acceptance of their defeat...with the Japanese being more clearly something of a historical anomaly in their continued loyal adherence to a form of government imposed on their nation by force.

But following orders is only as virtuous as the orders themselves. Any culture that forgets this, and treats submission to authority at virtuous despite any defect in those wielding that authority, is not far from committing the same atrocities on an equivalent scale.

It is something Americans would do well to remember.

On a more particular note, it would be nice if foreign policy architects would remember that Japan and Germany both became model allies and pillars of the U.S. imposed post-war global security and economic order for reasons that fundamentally make it very difficult for either to exert independent moral leadership. The E.U. has already failed catastrophically, both in fiscal and security policy, because of depending on Germany for clear moral direction. A Pacific alliance centered on Japan would be even worse...but that is the default option left by the leadership vacuum left by American policy blunders.

It isn't just that other nations can't trust them to lead, or even that they can't trust themselves. Neither culture has rebuilt their appreciation of social order from a foundation of unambiguous morality that exists prior to any such order. The global social evolution of the last century has not been premised on the idea that such morality exists apart from the social order. Now the world is being challenged by Islam, which exists independently of any given social order, and has no answer...though at least the Japanese realized they had best not import such an ideology without having any antidote to it.

Anonymous said...

All the Japanese involved in WW2 are dead or soon will be. ++90% are already dead. So should we hate the Grandchildren, the Great Grand children or the Great Great Grandchildren of the Imperial Japanese Army? Because WW2 is no longer modern day Japan. The children of those men are in their 70's and 80's. The grand children in their 60's and 70's. Even living memory of the atrocity that was the Tokyo "fire raids" and both Atomic bombings are rapidly fading away. The men who fought the pacific war for Japan mostly (+97% of those who fought the Americans) died in combat. So who shall we punish, and for how long? All war is evil Mike. It is naked murder, rape, theft, and slavery. It is the torch and sword. You should know that by now.--Ray

Anonymous said...

What a ghastly statistic at the end....higher by 35K than Hiroshima or Nagasaki?

Bad Cyborg said...

The whole Japanese standard of personal conduct is based on not causing shame for one's family. There is a saying in Japan, "A man away from has no family." Add to that the fact that Japan in NOT a "Christian" nation and thus does not really have any of the Christianity-based notions such as mercy and you have a perfect recipe for such atrocities.

PNW_DPer said...

Yup, the Japanese learned well from their US mentors, who killed over twice as many Filipino civilians in a genocidal spasm of exactly the came kind of rape and mass murder during the "Phillipine Insurrection" just 45 years earlier.

Remember, it was Teddy Roosevelt and the US that goaded Japan into a policy of conquest and war, by enticing them into committing a sneak attack on Russia in 1904-1905, in order to weaken the Russian empire as part of the "Great Game".

As always, the "winners" get to write the history books.

Anonymous said...

The fact is that NO ONE knows the exact numbers killed in the Atomic bombings. The Tokyo Fire Raids or the "Rape of Manila" Just as no one knows the numbers of dead in the carpet bombing of Germany or the battle of Stalingrad. Giving an exact number is a patent falsehood as at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the suspected dead were burned to ash as fuel in enormous "firestorms" or buried in rubble and never recovered. . We which pyre consumed the most flesh. The revision of the historic death toll numbers is purely political. We will never know the numbers that died in the war to any close account. Nor will we ever know the numbers who died of wounds, radiation, starvation, infection, rape ,murder, civil war and the plagues that swept the world after WW2. Death that carried on long after the war "ended". ----Ray

Richard said...

Sometimes one can only read and weep. Such a concentrated mass barbarism defies reason and does not answer to reason. This level of evil deed, in miniature, has happened in all war everywhere since war by its nature is as prone to infamy as it is to the highest virtue. In bad men, it brings out the worst; in good men, the best. And when leadership is corrupt and insane, as in this orgy of atrocity, the insanity is contagious. The only answer is enough enlightened leadership in enough corners of the globe to bring about greater goals than that same tired old urge for domination by force rather than wisdom.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for reinforcing my belief that it's better to die in the mud fighting alongside partisans than to die unarmed at the mercy of people hell-bent on killing everyone.. "Those who cry appease, appease get hung by those they try to please"..