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Comment by smegel | Hacker News Reader

When an entire nation becomes a support system for a war machine ravaging an entire region and killing tens of millions of innocent people, the notion of "innocent civilians" becomes a bit tenuous.

Japan was in the wrong. It was a criminal aggressor. The idea that the Japanese people should be able to sit back in their admittedly lovely gardens and sip sencha tea while their armies were committing massive crimes against humanity is a grotesque notion. The best way to show the Japanese people the horrific nature of war and occupation was to bring it to their doorstep. If they want to portray themselves of victims, it should be of their own leadership, not the countries that needed to defeat them.

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"Sipping tea in the garden" ⊕ "getting firebombed" is one hell of a false dichotomy.

So like 9/11 was awesome then?

This is ultimately the harmful conclusion of any absolutist idea that ascribes guilt to the citizenry for the actions of the state it is subordinate to. You will notice similar ideas spread in ostensibly democratic countries. If you vote and the nominee ends up going berserk, it's your fault for picking them. If you don't vote, it's your fault for not stopping them. The idea that the voting system used might be inefficient is completely discounted. Further, the idea that maybe most people have no real agency over the actions of their government is treated as a rather foreign one.

Sadly, and somewhat paradoxically, many of those who lament the bombing of Japan probably feel that way. For example, quoting the article, how do you think the author of this passage would respond to your question?

> the Israeli blockade of Gaza, US sanctions on Iran, and the new Saudi blockade of Yemen, as the infanticidal atrocities they are.

>how do you think the author of this passage would respond to your question?

I am the author, and I would respond that 9/11 was a despicable act of mass murder committed under the same terrorist rationale and collective guilt fallacies under which the above listed crimes are also committed. Two wrongs do not make a right, and neither do two atrocities. For more along these lines, see this other essay of mine: https://medium.com/dan-sanchez/the-symbiosis-of-savagery-68d...

> the same terrorist rationale and collective guilt fallacies

Collateral impacts on civilians is not the same as collective guilt. When did the US or Israel say they wanted to punish ordinary Gazans or Iranians for the crimes committing by their leaders? The unfortunate reality is that dealing with difficult international problems like this often lead to actions that impact the innocent - be it through bombs or sanctions. Yet the guilt should be attributed to those who create the problem, not those forced to take action. Or are you actually siding with Hamas and the Mullahs?

It's easy to point the finger of blame at those trying to resolve some of the most tricky and difficult problems in the world, coming up with solutions that work is an entirely different matter.

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