Quote:
Originally Posted by bill clarke
However there were no more war crimes trials of Japanese war criminals agter 1948, and you can point the finger of blame at Mcarthur and Truman for that.
Apparantly it was in order to make sure that they kept Japan in one piece and the Soviets out. I believe one war criminal whose name I do not know even made PM in 1955.
From my point of view this meant many war criminals got off scott free for political expediency.
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The numbers I posted for those tried and executed for war crimes do not reflect any of the numbers tried and convicted by the Soviet Union, who also held their own trials. The Japanese Prime Minister in 1955 was Ichiro Hatoyama (
not to be confused with Iichiro Hatoyama).
"
He was about to become prime minister in 1946, but was barred from politics for five years by Supreme Commander Allied Powers because they thought he had co-operated with the authoritarian government in the 1930s and 1940s." As far as I know, he was never accused or named as a war criminal.
I prefer to believe that the Japanese population was not executed indiscriminately during the war crimes trials because we (
the Allies) were not the same as them (
the Axis powers). Suspicion is not the same as proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't believe you, or anyone else, would want to be convicted and executed on mere suspicion.
Many people, including many Japanese citizens, believed that Hirohito should've been tried for his part in the war and his Army's atrocities.
I'll be the first to admit that I think MacArthur committed some very questionable acts (
or failures to act) during the war, but to suggest that he and Truman are complicit, or to blame for not administering
proper justice and turning a blind-eye, without considering
all the ramifications of the difficult decisions they were faced with, is to suggest that we should have acted in the same manner as the Japanese and Germans did in their execution of power over their subjugates.
"To err is human; to forgive, divine."
-Alexander Pope