28th June 2003, 9:53 PM
Darunia, as I thought I made clear in my talking about WW2, I was talking about psychology, not economics... well I was talking about both but economics doesn't get them off the hook for atrocities. It goes a long way to explaining why they went to war, but not why they did what they did during it.
It is the psychology part that does that. And as I said it doesn't absolve them of war crimes... it just explains why what happened happened. I happen to find that stuff very interesting... so the Japanese were awful to prisoners, and killed large numbers of civilians too. And commited large numbers of suicide attacks. Why? "They are crazy" isn't the answer... its a complex mix of religion, honor, duty, and tradition that led them to where they were... and it pretty much shows, when you understand the causes, that they honestly felt that they were doing what was both right and the only thing to do. And they kept the general civilian population from knowing anything about the atrocities they committed in the war, as well. Some people well might have lost their (absolute) faith in the government if they had known all that was going on... but they didn't really, or they ignored any reports... and the Japanese people were fanatically loyal to their leaders.
As for the Germans, in some ways it was similar -- a leader who commanded lots of loyalty and could get past the few that tried to revolt against him, absolute control over the military, hiding the atrocities from the general public, finding someone to blame for national problems, wanting territorial expansion and resources...
It is the psychology part that does that. And as I said it doesn't absolve them of war crimes... it just explains why what happened happened. I happen to find that stuff very interesting... so the Japanese were awful to prisoners, and killed large numbers of civilians too. And commited large numbers of suicide attacks. Why? "They are crazy" isn't the answer... its a complex mix of religion, honor, duty, and tradition that led them to where they were... and it pretty much shows, when you understand the causes, that they honestly felt that they were doing what was both right and the only thing to do. And they kept the general civilian population from knowing anything about the atrocities they committed in the war, as well. Some people well might have lost their (absolute) faith in the government if they had known all that was going on... but they didn't really, or they ignored any reports... and the Japanese people were fanatically loyal to their leaders.
As for the Germans, in some ways it was similar -- a leader who commanded lots of loyalty and could get past the few that tried to revolt against him, absolute control over the military, hiding the atrocities from the general public, finding someone to blame for national problems, wanting territorial expansion and resources...
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