And it’s Helen for the win

40 thoughts on And it’s Helen for the win

1. I wonder if Helen would berate FDR about how many Germans we killed. The Iraq war is NOTHING like Nazi Germany. I understand that. But civilians die in war. But there were MILLIONS of German civilians killed in WWII. We regret that, but there were some other good reasons for carrying out that war. Among them preventing larger genocide Helen is suggesting we are intentionally killing civilians, not making any coherent argument about the Iraq war being wrong or why should bring our troops home. She spouts off talking points that, if taken to their logical conclusion, would require absolute pacifism under all circumstances. Civilian costs of war are tragic and should very much be taken into consideration when making decisions. Plenty of arguments to be made that the wrong decisions were made with respect to the Iraq war. But pointing out that regretting the loss of innocent life does not bring back that life isn’t one of those arguments.

2. Helen is brilliant and lovely.

   pointing out that regretting the loss of innocent life does not bring back that life

   does a great job of pushing an issue- civilian deaths- that the White House does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to recognise.
   Somewhat OT, but Dana Perino reminds me so strongly of Ainsley from West Wing (but not in a good or intelligent way), and I just cannot get over it.

3. *sigh* i went to college with dana perino, and now every time i see her name i wince.

4. I hated how condenscending Perino was towards Helen. She sits there and lectures her. I guess that’s the best she could do considering that Helen was making a point that makes tarnishes the good name of the military (which Perino is presumably there to support). Anyway, you’re always going to have people that agree and disagree with war, but the US definately played the agressor in Iraq. We had a huge *choice* rather to go to war or not. WWII is an entirely different war with an entirely different circumstance.

5. Ah, the non-apology apology. “I understand you think I hurt your feelings, and I’m sorry you feel that way.”

6. Leo: I don’t agree. There’s a huge middle ground between demanding complete pacifism in any situation and pointing out that “well of course we regret it” is not an adequate response to civilian deaths.

7. Helen is suggesting we are intentionally killing civilians

   She’s doing nothing of the sort (though she would certainly have grounds to do so — members of the U.S. military have gotten in trouble for that sort of thing, you know). Her implication, I believe, is that even where the civilian deaths are unintentional, they are needless. Needless accidental civilian deaths are nearly as bad as intentional ones, wouldn’t you agree?

8. But civilians die in war.

   Tell that to the victims of September 11th.

9. So perhaps Perino should can the indignation.

   Oh, come now. It’s all she really has. That, and superciliousness.

   Leo: I should certainly hope that Helen, had she been around, would have held some feet to the fire over the destruction of, say, Dresden, or (not that you seem to care about the Japanese civilians, but we’ll go with it) Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The civilian lives lost there can hardly be called “collateral damage.”

10. How dare she be so condescending when she herself does not answer the questions asked of her! *seeth*

11. The civilian lives lost there can hardly be called “collateral damage.”

    Indeed, they were intentionally killed. But their sacrifice saved Japan.

12. Its about time someone recognized Helen Thomas. She has always been the image of why I wanted to pursue journalism; what journalism is truly made up of today is why I ended that pursuit in my second year of college.

    Helen is fantastic and there will be a huge hole in the press room once she’s gone.

    She also doesn’t get half the recognition she deserves.

13. Helen rocks. Of course, then, smart women with good comebacks always do. 🙂

14. “Regret” does not equal accepting responsibility. As someone else said above, that is a sorry excuse for an apology.

15. But their sacrifice saved Japan.

    Henry, that’s really creepy. They didn’t volunteer, so they can’t have sacrificed themselves. Japan didn’t volunteer them, either. And they didn’t belong to the US to sacrifice.

    So, just who “sacrificed” them, and on what basis?

16. Perhaps “sacrifice” is the wrong word, but the point is valid (I’ll agree it is awfully morbid though). In the final tally, it was probably either the people in Hiroshima/Nagasaki or the rest of the Japanese civilization. Had we needed to invade, we probably would have eradicated the Japanese.

17. The Iraq war is NOTHING like Nazi Germany. I understand that.

    Funny that you mention this because whooops, it was Germany that started with the invasion of Poland. Let’s see what the Iraq did. Um, nothing. And furthermore, once the war was over, few Germans were murdered by soldiers/mercenaries as opposed to the situation in Iraq, where many many people now die after the war is supposedly over.

    Of course it would be better if WWII had never taken place. But it’s too late to change. So don’t use a totally different situation to beat up someone who is demonstrating how screwed-up the White House and its ideas about a just war are. Wanna beat someone up? Take those who didn’t learn a jota from history.

18. Indeed, they were intentionally killed. But their sacrifice saved Japan.

    Well, that seems awfully revisionist.

    The United States had spent months firebombing Japanese cities. Their “sacrifice” wasn’t made to save Japan- it was made by Americans in an effort prevent us from having to get involved in an invasion of Japan. The concern wasn’t with saving Japan, it was with the difficulties that the US armed forces would have faced. The US wasn’t particularly concerned with saving Japan, and certainly, nobody asked the civilians there “Listen, we’re thinking of bombing you, but it’ll save your country- what do you think?”

19. WII was completely different, I thought I stated that pretty clearly. But what it had in common with the Iraq war was that it was a war against a country who happened to not have attacked us. And civilians died in that war.

    Had Helen attempted to hold FDR’s feet to the fire about Dresden, I would hope he would ask her how she planned to win the war. And hopefully someone would ask her how she planned on stoppoing the Holocaust (unfortunately, that was not on the top of priority lists for FDR). She would have very few responses because she does not ask intelligent questions. She makes crazy general questions and assertions that are so out of context they are impossible to respond to in an intelligent way.

    With respect to Japan, I didn’t realize you were familiar with the level of my concern for Japanese civilians Zuzu. Thanks for looking into my soul.

    On a general note I think it was an insanely tragic event. But we were attacked by Japan and we would have had to invade. By most counts, millions of American and Japanese soldiers would have died and G-d knows how many civilians. Much of the Japanese civilian population was brainwashed into looking at their Emporer as a diety. They would have fought till the end if we invaded. That’s one of the reasons we didn’t get rid of him but instead made him tell the obey the occupying forces. So does that make the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “right”? Hard to make that argument when you kill over 100,000 civilians. But I think putting it in the proper context makes it less than evil. Helen, however, does not care such nuances of history.

20. WII was completely different, I thought I stated that pretty clearly. But what it had in common with the Iraq war was that it was a war against a country who happened to not have attacked us.

    It did attack our allies, however. And it was allied to a country that had attacked us. And it was a legitimate threat to us, had it been allowed to go unchecked.

    None of that was true of Iraq. Every single death in Iraq – civilian or soldier – is a murder.

21. Tens of thousands is a vast underestimate. Even the Roberts et al paper which suggested 1 million+ more than the number that Saddam Hussein killed in a similar time period is an underestimate. If one must make WWII analogies, it is as if the US got the bomb in 1941, “liberated” every concentration camp by nuking it, and proceeded to nuke every city in Germany, Japan, and every occupied territory it could find. Would you not agree that if FDR had done that he could reasonably have come in for some criticism, even though Hitler, like Hussein, was clearly not a nice person?

22. So does that make the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “right”? Hard to make that argument when you kill over 100,000 civilians. But I think putting it in the proper context makes it less than evil.

    No, putting it in the proper context explains why we did it. It doesn’t make it less evil.

    I really don’t get how Japanese civilians taking up arms in a time of war to defend their country is a sign they were brainwashed. Yes, it was a traditional belief that the Emperor was a deity, or a scion of one. But other people have expressed similar sentiments. In fact, I’m pretty sure there was some other guy in World War II who said something like:

    “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in [redacted], we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender….”

    Clearly also a victim of brainwashing.

23. Much of the Japanese civilian population was brainwashed into looking at their Emporer as a diety.

    That’s one of the reasons we didn’t get rid of him but instead made him tell the obey the occupying forces.

    The first sentence is only true to a point…the Japanese population were inculcated with Japanese Nationalism and reverence for the emperor from at least the moment they started schooling. However, this was also backed up with coercive measures such as the use of social peer pressure to enforce conformity among the local populace. If that powerful social enforcement fails, the local and secret police/military forces were available to censor news media and to find and eradicate dissent among the local and colonized populations of the Japanese Empire. Any news contrary to what the imperial militarist government wanted to put out was harshly suppressed. Consequently, the few remaining dissenters lived in fear of the state’s security services while the larger population remained largely ignorant of the unsavory aspects of Imperial militarist rule.

    The second part is more an American perception created by their ignorance of the actual political situation within Japan along with effective secret negotiations/lobbying by Japanese government representatives and by American officials sympathetic to them like Joseph Grew, the pre-war US Ambassador to Japan.

    By the end of the war, the larger Japanese population felt the Imperial Militarist government which Hirohito headed was completely discredited by its propagandistic lies, tight media censorship, the increasing socio-economic disparity as the war went on, and defeat at American hands.

    While I was studying the Japanese Colonial legacy and its aftermath, I came across many magazine articles and accounts of the Japanese people calling for Hirohito’s abdication….or even the complete abolishment of the Imperial monarchy so Japan could rebuilt without the taint of its prior Imperial militarist legacy which brought Japan to ruin.*

    Of course, American political/cultural ignorance, political expediency, and later, fear of a Communist takeover caused the US occupation authorities not only to retain Hirohito and the Imperial monarchical institution, but also to rehire many officials who were originally purged for having been part of the Imperial militarist government before and during the war.

    This was one of the key factors in the Japanese government’s continual denial of the damages caused by Japan’s colonial legacy…the post-war Japanese government has too many institutional and even personal/familial ties to that legacy.

    This is demonstrated through the fact that Nobusuke Kishi, a former suspected Class A War Criminal for being part of the colonial administration in Manchuria during the war was able to become Prime minister as early as 1957…just five years after the end of the US Occupation in 1952. Moreover,
    Shinzo Abe, the immediate predecessor of the current Japanese prime minister is the grandson of Nobusuke Kishi. Not surprisingly, this grandson would be quite disinclined to endorse any actions which may embarrass his grandfather…such as fully acknowledging the depredations wrought by the Japanese Colonial legacy throughout Asia.

    * I strongly recommend Herbert Bix’s “Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan” to understand Hirohito’s reign and the amount of responsibility he actually had for the war….he was far from the commonplace post-war American portrayal of him as a mere figurehead.

24. Had Helen attempted to hold FDR’s feet to the fire about Dresden, I would hope he would ask her how she planned to win the war.

    I’m no expert on military strategy, but I don’t see how bombing a city without any significant war industry can help win a war. If anything, I would expect the opposite. If I were living in Germany during WWII*, I expect my support of the war effort would have been lukewarm at best. Until Dresden (well, until Hamburg, really). A gory bombing of civilians would probably have brought me in line, though: If the enemy is doing that, one might expect them to be pretty horrific occupiers, maybe even worse than a government that causes one’s neighbors and civil rights to disappear. That it turned out to be otherwise is an accident of history: if either the US or the Soviet Union (or France or Britain for that matter) had been the sole occupier of Germany after WWII, I doubt that they would have put the effort into rebuilding the country that they did.

    *And yes I realize that extrapolating from me to the “average person” is risky at best.

    And hopefully someone would ask her how she planned on stoppoing the Holocaust (unfortunately, that was not on the top of priority lists for FDR).

    Heh. Do you know where Dachau is? It’s a suburb of Munich, a city that was bombed pretty close to destruction during WWII. How did they miss the large set of railroad tracks leading into the concentration camp (railroad tracks being a major target of the targeted bombings, as opposed to the terror bombings). It was probably essentially accident, but in my more paranoid moments I really wonder…

25. While my post on Japanese post-war politics and the American influence on them is in moderation, I really think the lack of journalists like Helen Thomas is one reason why the US was lead down the road to the current Iraq war along and why we have a general politicized atmosphere which does too much to stifle dissent against the current administration due to the severe risk of being labeled “unpatriotic” and a “collaborator with the Islamofascists”.

    The second phrase was taken verbatim from an idiotic undergrad who used it to attack me and a few friends for criticizing W’s policies and the David Horowitz idiocy. As a result, most of the MSM has become effective…even servile indoctrinators of the current orthodoxy as that undergrad and others have demonstrated. Hope that Helen Thomas and others like her are able to fight to put an end to this “indoctrination as news” atmosphere which is so commonplace these days.

26. I really don’t get how Japanese civilians taking up arms in a time of war to defend their country is a sign they were brainwashed.

    While the Japanese civilian population may have been lead to believe that they were defending their homes by the Imperial militarist propaganda service, keep in mind that one key reason they were put into that position in the first place was due to Japanese aristocratic/economic/military elite’s decades-long desire for empire which caused unfathomable suffering and devastation for the colonized populations in Asia and eventually resulted in an unprovoked attack on the US which ended in a disastrous outcome.

    While the British are no better in the regards to empire, the siege they faced after Dunkirk was not caused by their unprovoked attacks on Germany or the colonization of it and its allies.

    In short, if the events were historically contextualized, you’re comparing apples and oranges.

27. I’m no expert on military strategy, but I don’t see how bombing a city without any significant war industry can help win a war. If anything, I would expect the opposite. If I were living in Germany during WWII*, I expect my support of the war effort would have been lukewarm at best.

    Dianne,

    The prevailing thinking among US Army Air Force strategists was that strategic bombing and yes, bombing of large cities in enemy territory would demoralize the civilian population enough to get them to sue for peace. This thinking was derived from Giulio Douhet, an early air power theorist who believed that bombing population centers would break the enemy nation’s will to fight and thus, bring a rapid close and a favorable outcome to the user of strategic bombing.*

    This, combined with the idea of Total War where everyone, including civilians were considered legitimate military targets, were factors which encouraged both sides to bomb population centers as a part of their war efforts. Incidentally, the earliest users of bombing civilian population centers were the Imperial Japanese armed forces in China, Fascist Italy in Ethiopia and Libya, and Francisco Franco’s efforts to topple the Spanish Republican government during the 1930’s.

    Your thinking, however, is correct and has been validated by a post-war study carried out by US Army Air Force surveyors. They found that bombing civilian centers in Germany and Japan actually galvanized the civilian population’s support of their regime due to their outrage at relatives and neighbors being killed by the enemy’s bombing of their homes and neighborhoods.

28. The death of civilians can’t be used as an argument to condemn the occupation of Iraq. We all know civilians die in war, and depending on who the enemy is, we’re all willing to accept such collateral damage.

    What the deaths of thousands of civilians shows is that the war is not going as smoothly as some would say, that it is far more chaotic and vicious than the images on CNN would suggest. This doesn’t amount to a moral condemnation, but, all things being equal, it should shake some people out of their glorious liberator delusions.

    That being said, it isn’t possible to make easy moral judgements about Iraq, or U.S. foreign policy in general. All of us here benefit enormously from U.S. foreign policy. It’s why we’re all so fat and rich. The American Empire keeps us all awash in material goods. I’d wager that even the poorest commentators on this site are still among the richest people in the world. Criticizing the actions of the American Empire over the last few decades is very often similar to cutting off the branch you’re sitting on.

    Easy talking points about dead civilians don’t cut it, and Perino handled the discussion in a professional manner.

29. Japanese aristocratic/economic/military elite’s decades-long desire for empire which caused unfathomable suffering and devastation for the colonized populations in Asia

    Much like the US, France, Britain…if WWII had gone the opposite way, I’m sure Japanese bloggers would now be discussing how evil the US and its allies were and how, even admitting the excesses of the Japanese military during WWII, it was all really justified.

    and eventually resulted in an unprovoked attack on the US which ended in a disastrous outcome.

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the US interfering with Japanese ships prior to the Pearl Harbor attack? If true, that doesn’t, of course, make the attack justified, but makes the claim that the attack was “unprovoked” a little strong.

30. In short, if the events were historically contextualized, you’re comparing apples and oranges.

    I freely admit that the Japanese were aggressors in World War II; I merely think it’s interesting that fighting to the end to defend the invasion of one’s country is cited as an example of brainwashing and rampant nationalism on one hand, and as an example of heroism and bravery on the other. Were the Japanese wrong? Certainly. Were they any less brave for being wrong? I don’t think so.

    It’s also possible my reasoning is fallacious, in which case, you’ll have to forgive me and perhaps suggest some reading material.

31. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the US interfering with Japanese ships prior to the Pearl Harbor attack? If true, that doesn’t, of course, make the attack justified, but makes the claim that the attack was “unprovoked” a little strong.

    Dianne,

    The only “interference” that comes to mind from studying US and Japanese history was FDR’s refusal to sell more oil and steel scrap to the Japanese Empire due in part to the American and international outrage over their brutality-laden invasion of China…with the Nanjing Massacre being the most famous example in 1937.

    I don’t see that as any more provocative than governments and human rights groups calling for a boycott of weapons sales and other commerce to Mainland China after the Tienanmen Massacre. Nations, after all, do not have a guaranteed right to buy commodities and products, especially if they will be used to advance morally dubious actions and causes.

    Much like the US, France, Britain…if WWII had gone the opposite way, I’m sure Japanese bloggers would now be discussing how evil the US and its allies were and how, even admitting the excesses of the Japanese military during WWII, it was all really justified.

    Agree largely with this…except that unless there were drastic changes within the state-orthodoxy which extolled a bastardized version of the Bushido ideology….those bloggers would not have seen the brutalities as excesses. If anything, they would have praised them as keeping with the bastardized Bushido martial spirit that was prevalent in the nationalistic education the vast majority of Japanese received. Combined that with the atmosphere of socially acceptable racism which privileged the Japanese race and culture above others…and they would have had even less problems with those excesses.

    Heck, considering the continuing Japanese racism against ethnic Koreans, Chinese, and other non-Japanese Asians living in Japan as well as viewing non-Japanese Asians as “more primitive” in recent past and current Japanese society from what I’ve read and heard from Chinese, Korean, and American friends who lived there, all losing the war meant for Japanese society was that such attitudes were greatly weakened, but not eliminated.

32. Were they any less brave for being wrong?

    Everstar,

    No, but the fact they were defending a nation that was industrialized, strengthened, and enriched through decades of oppressive and in many cases, brutal colonialism meant that the civilians’ efforts cannot be considered heroic for they were defending a regime whose brutality and wanton disregard for others’ lives rivals that of their Nazi allies.

33. That being said, it isn’t possible to make easy moral judgements about Iraq, or U.S. foreign policy in general. All of us here benefit enormously from U.S. foreign policy. It’s why we’re all so fat and rich. The American Empire keeps us all awash in material goods. I’d wager that even the poorest commentators on this site are still among the richest people in the world. Criticizing the actions of the American Empire over the last few decades is very often similar to cutting off the branch you’re sitting on.

    Our military is getting ground to nothing in a war whose every reason for existing has proven to be untrue. The enemies we defeated in Afghanistan are making a comeback because we ignored them in favor of Iraq. And now, just as things are looking a bit less apocalyptic in Iraq, Dubya is turning his attention toward Iran. International goodwill toward us is utterly nil as a result of all this nonsense.

    The branch is rotting. It needs to be cut off before infection spreads and kills the entire tree.

34. Easy talking points about dead civilians don’t cut it, and Perino handled the discussion in a professional manner.

    Making an overly sanctimonious response to a legitimate question in order to silence any substantiative discussion of it is “professional”?!!

    This sentiment is not too far removed from how many civilian supporters of the Japanese imperial militarists probably felt when they heard the minute few Japanese dissidents with the temerity to question regime policies were arrested and effectively silenced by the regime’s security services.

35. This sentiment is not too far removed from how many civilian supporters of the Japanese imperial militarists probably felt when they heard the minute few Japanese dissidents with the temerity to question regime policies were arrested and effectively silenced by the regime’s security services.

    You’d be right, if what I’ve said already was the end of my opinion on U.S. policy. I’m not arguing that the Empire is great, I’m argue that facile moral judgments about it will consistently prove to be useless.

36. Agree largely with this…except that unless there were drastic changes within the state-orthodoxy which extolled a bastardized version of the Bushido ideology….those bloggers would not have seen the brutalities as excesses.

    It would have. Ever checked the American propoganda at the time? Not exactly politically correct…My expectation (based on, admittedly, very little) is that it would have taken longer and the transition would have been bloodier, but it would have happened eventually. Because, in the end, racism is simply wrong: the whole concept of “race” is suspect and even if one could define different races rigorously, there simply are no real differences between them. Whites aren’t smarter than blacks, no matter what Watson thinks, Japanese aren’t smarter than Koreans, etc. Reality will win in the end.

    from what I’ve read and heard from Chinese, Korean, and American friends who lived there, all losing the war meant for Japanese society was that such attitudes were greatly weakened, but not eliminated.

    As opposed to racism in the US and Europe, which is, of course, all gone and only of historical interest, right? Greatly weakened is an improvement and events like the apologies issued to the “comfort women” and confessions from elderly Japanese who committed war crimes during WWII will weaken it further. I hope anyway.

37. Because, in the end, racism is simply wrong: the whole concept of “race” is suspect and even if one could define different races rigorously, there simply are no real differences between them. Whites aren’t smarter than blacks, no matter what Watson thinks, Japanese aren’t smarter than Koreans, etc. Reality will win in the end.

    Dianne,

    I forgot to mention that the racist discourse within Japanese society, especially during the 1930’s and 40’s was stirred up by the Japanese nationalist propaganda at the behest of the Japanese Empire in order to justify their goal of creating the empire and to even try making it more palatable to conquered nations the “Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”.

    Moreover, you’re assuming that in the alternative history where Japan wins a resounding victory against the allies that the government would become pluralistic and free enough society to allow for critical discourse on their historical legacy.

    Considering that the Japanese Empire has been a quite class-conscious oligarchic state ran effectively by an aristocratic-economic-military elite which became even more oppressive by the 1930’s, I very much am doubtful the Japanese bloggers would have been allowed to express any opinions beyond those deemed compliant with the state ideological orthodoxy unless they want to risk immediate arrest, imprisonment, and even death. The only blogging I can visualize if the Japanese imperial militarists are ones which uncritically praises the victory with minor disagreements allowed in areas which does not call the state orthodoxy and thus, the regime’s legitimacy into question.

    As opposed to racism in the US and Europe, which is, of course, all gone and only of historical interest, right? Greatly weakened is an improvement and events like the apologies issued to the “comfort women” and confessions from elderly Japanese who committed war crimes during WWII will weaken it further. I hope anyway.

    While racism in the US (cannot speak to Europe’s) is still present, there is an open active movement to combat, question, and discuss it that is far more critical than what my Japanese resident friends and many Japanese classmates have seen. In fact, most of my Japanese classmates complain vehemently about this lack of genuine open discourse on race and ethnicity in their home country that they find here.

    Many Japanese, especially of the older generation still openly view non-Japanese Asians as being on a much lower level than their own race with little, if any social censure that they would see in most parts of the US. While this is starting to change in the younger generation (30’s and younger), the economic recession in the 1990s, fears of North Korea, and the pandering to the Japanese right-wingnuts by the LDP including Prime ministers Koizumi and Abe has not helped matters, to put it quite mildly.

    While I have been hoping that the Japanese government would finally own up to its Colonial legacy and the atrocities perpetuated on its behalf, I’ll continue to have my doubts until the Japanese Diet, Prime Minister, and the Emperor issues a genuine non-equivocal apology on behalf of the Japanese nation to the elderly living victims and the formerly colonized societies.

38. “Easy talking points about dead civilians don’t cut it, and Perino handled the discussion in a professional manner.”

    i doubt she would she have said something so condescending and disdainful if the reporter had been a man. shorter perino: “helen, don’t you know your place?”

39. Pingback: links for 2007-12-07 « no snow here

40. Helen’s questions aren’t hard-hitting, they’re just self-indulgent rantings. Even if you accept that the military is callously and intentionally targeting Iraqi civilians for death, her line of questioning doesn’t advance anything, it’s just repeating the same talking points that the antiwar movement has been saying for years.

    Whatever you think about her, though, it’s pretty hilarious that she faults blogs for making wild, unsupported accusations, and thinks they’re “dangerous.”

Comments are currently closed.