Why should we remember the Rape of Nanking?
The nuclear bombs must be put in the historical context of World War II and the demonic behavior of Imperial Japan.
When Imperial Japan invaded China, Japanese soldiers violently raped women and little girls across territory they occupied. Japan committed genocide in Nanking, slaughtering at least 200,000 people in the city. Japan subjected the people of China to gruesome "medical experiments" just as depraved as what Josef Mengele did in Nazi Germany. Japan also forced women and girls into rape slavery in Korea as "comfort women" for their soldiers.
Every year on August 6, we get endless reports from the legacy media about the Hiroshima bombing and how terrible it was, while the Japanese government plays the victim. It is an utterly repulsive display of dishonesty and hypocrisy. President Truman did not wake up one morning and randomly decide to incinerate 80,000 people in a nuclear fire. Japan had been incredibly brutal and sadistic. Japan attacked the United States without provocation. Japan was determined to subjugate its neighbors and build an empire. Japan cannot be absolved of blame for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations, or for the bombings of other Japanese cities. Had Japan not invaded and brutalized its neighbors, none of that would have happened.
It is possible to believe that using nuclear weapons was sinful, and our justified patriotism should not make us unwilling to wrestle with our nation's past sins. However, there is absolutely no moral equivalence between the war crimes committed by Imperial Japan and the nuclear bombs used to end their reign of terror, especially since it is likely that using nuclear weapons resulted in fewer deaths of Japanese civilians alone than a full-scale invasion of the main island, not to mention the carnage that would have been inflicted on the United States armed forces. Here is one example of Japan's demonic brutality:
Pregnant women were not spared. In several instances, they were raped, then had their bellies slit open and the fetuses torn out. Sometimes, after storming into a house and encountering a whole family, the Japanese forced Chinese men to rape their own daughters, sons to rape their mothers, and brothers their sisters, while the rest of the family was made to watch.
And here is another example of Japanese war crimes:
According to numerous eyewitness reports and later analyses, between 20,000 and 80,000 women were brutally raped and tortured, including young girls and elderly women. Many of them—including victims of gang rapes—were mutilated and killed after being assaulted.
I could go on, with many more sources and descriptions of the Satanic behavior of Japan during World War II, but you should get the point by now.
The issue is not that we should "forgive" Japan for the genocide and sadistic war crimes they committed in World War II, nor does it matter that they are our ally and have been for 75 years. The issue is that if Japan is going to continue to play the victim, and the legacy media in the United States is going to continue to denounce our country's bombing of Japan, we have to put that bombing in the historical context of World War II and the demonic behavior of Imperial Japan. I refuse to mourn the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki without also acknowledging the innocent people massacred in Nanking and across Asia and the Pacific by the Japanese military with the full support of the nation. Historical context actually does matter, and we need to stop ignoring it.