Viewpoint Brief Bible Study #99 |
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The Christian religion is the worship and service of Jesus Christ. It’s not Mary we worship, but her Son. We worship neither saints, angels, a law code, nor even God’s Spirit. It’s JESUS who is to be honored. The Bible is our guide. |
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On Right and
Wrong and the rewriting
of History! Thoughts about the War in the Pacific
Date sent: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 11:02
From: James Wong <jwong@tidalwave.net>Subject: Nanking and Other Acts By Japanese Agressors in World War II
Richard Finn's March 5 letter, "The Real Numbers Are Bad Enough," states that the number of dead in the Japanese rape of Nanking may be overestimated and cannot be compared to the Jewish Holocaust. He thinks that "the Japanese" now recognize their wartime sins.
My two years of research into the casualties of the Asian Pacific war in preparation for a book on that subject shows that Nanking was only one of a long, disturbing list of atrocities committed by a militarist Japan from 1931 to 1945. The total dead from savagery easily equals the numbers lost in the Jewish Holocaust. All told, Japan took almost as many lives in the East as did Germany in the West.
The Asian Pacific war was devastating to 700 million people, one-third of the world's population. Starting in Manchuria in 1931, Japan invaded, among others, China, Indochina, Burma, Southeast Asia and many Pacific islands. More than 300 million people were occupied and terrorized, close to 100 million people were harmed, and some 22 million were killed.
About 19 million of those killed were civilian. Almost half died from brutality and forced-labor mistreatment. The rest died as a consequence of economic disruption, rice confiscation and other policies that caused widespread malnutrition, disease and starvation.
Ninety-nine percent of all Allied dead in the Asian Pacific theater were Asian. About one percent was American, British and Australian. [It would be interesting to know how James arrived at this conclusion!]
Today the memory of the Allied Asian toll has been relegated to the attic of history, the suffering unrecognized or treated as if it didn't count. Academic and media attention focuses on the casualties of the atomic bomb; few acknowledge the tragedy that preceded it. This myopia extends to the habit of focusing only on American lives saved -- excluding any estimate of Asian and other Allied lives spared -- when evaluating the use of atomic bombs to end the carnage and ensure a peaceful Japan.
On a recent trip to Japan, I spoke to many who were fully aware of their losses, particularly from the atomic bombs, but had no idea of the suffering their nation caused that led to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is important to note that Japan's aggression cost her 3 million lives in total, or about 12 percent of all lives lost in that war and some 3 percent of all civilian deaths. -- WERNER GRUHL
Columbia
Brief Bible Study #99 from Ray Downen. To go back to
Viewpoint's first page, click < here. For Ray's concluding remarks, click HERE.
