By the final stage of the war, Japan’s defeat was evident worldwide. This essay examines indiscriminate bombing, atomic targeting plans, and the narrative built to obscure responsibility.

2016-03-19

By the final stage of the war, Japan’s defeat was obvious to everyone around the world—except to the Japanese citizens who were reading the Asahi Shimbun.

At a time when the Allied powers had already begun considering postwar arrangements such as the Potsdam Declaration, they were not satisfied merely with having used incendiary bombs to indiscriminately bomb 127 cities and, within a very short period, kill more than three million people—most of them ordinary civilians who were non-combatants.

In addition to that, there was a show of force toward the Soviet Union, racial discrimination against Asians, and an utter lack of understanding and ignorance toward Japan and the Japanese people. The fact that Kyoto was originally slated as the first target for the atomic bomb proves their ignorance and brutality.

In order to conceal what can be called, without exaggeration, the greatest war crime in human history and a grave crime against humanity, the United States portrayed Japan as a bad country and the Japanese people as villains.

To be continued.