I rarely watch Jon Stewart, so I rely on others (in this case Allahpundit) to cherry pick the interesting bits. His smirky and predictable brand of lefty humor appeals to some, I suppose.
But this particular clip takes the cake. Here, Stewart discusses detainee interrogations with Cliff May, a smart and capable guy who’s willing to wrestle with the moral issues involved. Stewart, on the other hand, slathers himself with moral vanity, insisting that killers be accorded the same treatment as honorable – and uniformed – soldiers. But as I noted, Stewart’s smug manner is unsurprising.
What is surprising, however, is Stewart’s classification of Hiroshima as a war crime. This gem comes at around 5.50 in the video. Here’s the whole clip. Feel free to skip ahead if you find Stewart as shallow and annoying as I do.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 2 | ||||
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But let’s look at some history about the decision to use the atom bombs before we view ourselves as superior to the generation that fought the Second World War.
1. The U.S. suffered a disproportionate share of its total casualties during the last eight months of the war – from the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 to Japan’s surrender on August 14, 1945. This is not particularly surprising when we consider that resistance stiffens as the enemy approaches the gates.
2. U.S. planners were deeply worried about the invasion of Japan. The battle for Okinawa – the last major land campaign in the Pacific – was a bitter foretaste of what we could expect: 12,000 dead U.S. soldiers, sailors and marines to secure a relatively small island. Japanese dead numbered over 100,000, including large numbers of Okinawan civilians used as pawns by the Japanese military. The invasion of the southernmost Japanese home island – Kyushu – was scheduled for October 1945 with the invasion of the main island of Honshu scheduled for the spring of 1946. Planners knew that the Japanese were husbanding significant resources and mobilizing the civilian population to fight to the last. Only after the surrender did we learn the full extent of Japanese planning – and what horrors awaited our troops.
3. According to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey conducted after the war, only 2% of total bomb damage and casualties inflicted on Japan were attributable to the two atom bombs. By August 1945 the XXI Bomber Command based in the Marianas had burned out most Japanese cities of any size – with horrific casualties. The March 10, 1945, firebombing attack on Tokyo alone burned out 16 square miles of the city and killed more than 100,000 people. The gruesome details are contained in works like Martin Caidin’s classic, A Torch to the Enemy. The atom bombs – apart from their psychological shock – pale in comparison to the horrors inflicted on other Japanese cities. Stewart would doubtless consider Curtis LeMay to be a war criminal as well as Harry Truman.
4. The historian Paul Fussell emphasized ‘the importance of experience, sheer vulgar experience, in influencing one’s views of the first use of the bomb.’ For Fussell, experience means ‘having come to grips, face to face, with an enemy who designs your death’. In 1945, Fussell was an Army lieutenant, badly wounded in Europe, who found himself on Okinawa waiting for the inevitable invasion of Japan. Fussell, like tens of thousands of GIs, had been shipped from Europe to the Pacific when Germany folded in May 1945. Here are Fussell’s thoughts on the use of the atom bombs:
I was a 21-year old second lieutenant leading a rifle platoon. Although still officially in one piece, in the German war I had been wounded in the leg and back severely enough to be adjudged, after the war, 40 percent disabled. But even if my leg buckled whenever I jumped out of the back of the truck, my condition was held to be satisfactory for whatever lay ahead. When the bombs dropped and news began to circulate that [the invasion of Japan] would not, after all, take place, that we would not be obliged to run up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being mortared and shelled, for all the fake manliness of our facades we cried with relief and joy. We were going to live. We were going to grow up to adulthood after all.
I submit that Stewart – and those like him - learn nothing from experience because they consider themselves altogether superior to mere mortals like you and me – or Paul Fussell. Those of his ilk will always be happy to have others do the bleeding for them – all the while rendering judgment on people better than themselves. I’m only surprised that a smart guy like Cliff May would waste his time trying to educate someone as ineducable as Stewart.
UPDATE: The following clips are taken from the History Channel’s extraordinary series, World War II in Color and carry the viewer from the surrender of Germany in May 1945 through the war’s end. The subject matter is difficult, but worth absorbing.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Don’t forget Japans standing order to kill all POW’s by any means if the homeland was invaded.
Kevin: You’re right, of course. The parade of ‘horribles’ would take an entire book, unfortunately. Thanks for the comment.
I think that Jon Stewart is an American hero.
The man that was lucky enough to be on his show was incapable of an actual conversation, only arguing.
They both have valid concerns but I agree with Stewart (and the Constitution, and the Geneva Convention and the Bill Of Rights) in that we, as in America, do not torture.
Torture experts agree that this is an unreliable method of information gathering.
Plus, who cares what Dick Cheney thinks? The guy is a damn criminal.