you know, i listened to this and i'm just baffled how you can have this discussion (and even go so far as to absurdly claim that dropping the bombs on japan was 'racist') without even bothering to talk about the atrocities that japan carried out in manchuria and nanking and all over china, and really all around southeast asia. they killed twenty million chinese civilians, in a vicious imperialist war that intended to wipe out or enslave every ethnic type that wasn't them, and they literally refused to surrender unless they were killed.

but we're racist for trying to stop them? it's absurd.

so, this entire discussion is based on what's called a false equivalency and it's an idea that the left has generally been pretty good at working through, but these two guys are just failing at, horribly.

killing a nazi (and the japanese were nazis, too - just as so many muslims are, today) is not the same thing as killing an innocent person, and if you walk around with that kind of mentality, we're going to end up enslaved by fascists in no time. we can't put these crimes on the same level, morally - it's not comparable, and shouldn't be considered that way.

regarding germany, attitudes did change after what was called the "phony war". and, the reason that happened is that the germans started sending v2 rockets into london. the british - quite reasonably - decided that if the nazis were going to bomb their own civilians, then they would bomb theirs, too. if we address our enemies with superior moral convictions, they're just going to wipe us out. that's not "taking the high road", it's taking the dumb road.

what's important is not instigating and, for that reason, i have more criticism for a rumsfeld or cheney than i do for a truman or eisenhower. the nuremberg trials explicitly specified a difference between self-defence and "planning and waging an offensive war". they got it right; kuznick doesn't.

now, i just have one further thing to point out, which is that, while world war two was particularly vicious, it was not the first time we saw millions slaughtered, and attitudes towards this kind of mass murder is something that shifts over time. it's an attitude that comes in and out of history. so, the mongols, for example, destroyed entire cities to the ground. they wiped out irrigation systems, so the victims couldn't rebuild. they raped millions of people at a time. the romans carried out repeated genocides against multiple people. the muslims and christians gave people the choice to convert or die.

but, the greeks were very different and the british were - sometimes - a little more humane, as well. the wars that happened during the hellenic period often occurred without any fighting at all. it was partly why the romans were able to conquer so quickly - and were view as such ruthless, violent killers. that was, after all, what mithridates fought against - and eventually lost the battle against.

so, i don't have a lot of sympathy for the dead japanese civilians, given what their empire did to the area around it.

and, i find it rather ridiculous that we spend our time complaining about interned japanese, and scolding ourselves for doing what was necessary, rather than condemning them for what they did.

https://theanalysis.news/interviews/why-did-u-s-public-accept-barbaric-slaughter-of-japanese-civilians-peter-kuznick/