Establishment Media Hagiography and the Defense of Atrocity

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/20/1183140547/road-to-surrender-revisits-the-final-weeks-of-world-war-ii

Once again a mainstream reporter appeals to narratives that are hardly Left-wing or 'woke' but instead belong on FOX or Newsmax. The divide appealed to by so many on the Right is blurry at best and artificial at worst. And keep in mind this is Evan Thomas who spent decades working at supposedly Left-wing magazines like Time and Newsweek. Apparently it's Left-wing these days to produce an apologia for Truman's use of atomic bombs, for that in the end is the real purpose of his work. He defends their use, tries to argue that their use was moral, and that those who made the choice to use them are in fact heroes.

The European phase of World War II is treated only in passing and there's every hint that Evan Thomas follows the traditional American narratives regarding the defeat of Nazi Germany – most of which are self-serving exaggerations and in many cases outright fictitious. In this interview – which is meant to plug his book, he focuses on the war with Japan.

Choosing to more or less ignore Roosevelt's controversial demands for unconditional surrender issued at the January 1943 Casablanca Conference, the audience (unless otherwise informed) cannot hope to fully understand how the Japanese saw American demands. Thomas talks about Hirohito and the fears of the emperor being eliminated but he dances around what unconditional surrender means – it means a total loss of sovereignty and independence. You don't just lose the war, hand over your weapons, retreat, and even face penalties. No, you've lost everything, even your sovereignty. Your nation is completely subjugated. Even the warmonger Churchill thought Roosevelt's cowboy demands unwise and certain to drive Germany and Japan to fight to the bitter last – which they did. There has long been a suggestion that had Germany had some hope of a surrender 'deal' as opposed to the demand for unconditional surrender, the military might have intervened much earlier and ousted Hitler. It's a hypothetical of course and it can be argued both ways and even the motivations behind the July 1944 coup attempt are largely misunderstood – a point further confused by Hollywood.

As the documents surrounding Operation Ketsu-Go (the defense of Japan in the face of an American invasion) make clear, their goal was to decimate American morale and public support so that Washington would drop the demand for unconditional surrender. These are crucial points and their omission clouds the entire discussion.

Thomas further falsifies the historical record by ignoring the real dynamics of Potsdam. Beginning in mid-July 1945, the conference held in the suburbs of Berlin ended only four days before the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima – Thomas even plays little apologetic games about the target selection and defends General Curtis LeMay, even when his aide Robert McNamara later admitted that had they lost the war, it is the American architects of the bombing campaigns directed at Japan who would have been tried for war crimes.

One cannot enter Truman's deceitful head, but many historians agree that his announcement of the bomb (the Trinity Bomb was tested on 16 July) and its subsequent use (6 and 9 August) were as much about Stalin and the already nascent Cold War as it was about the final defeat of Japan. In many respects it anticipated the so-called Truman Doctrine that would openly emerge in 1947- by some estimations the official start of the Cold War. The Truman Doctrine pledged help to those resisting authoritarianism and Soviet encroachment but it was also revealed (if unspoken) that US power would seek to subvert those that opposed its domination and leadership. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were powerful declarations (almost gangster style) of what the US had to back its words. The Cold War didn't begin in 1947 – it began in August 1945.

Thomas can defend the use of the bomb all he wants and the 'heroes' that decided to use it – but it's clear enough the US government wanted to hide the evidence of its atrocity, something heroes would not do. It was only later that pictures finally emerged and the world began to understand something of the magnitude of what had occurred in those two cities in August 1945.

And it is in this light that the legend was born – the various narratives regarding the millions of lives saved and so forth. He tries to 'puff' the strength of the Japanese military in the summer of 1945, but never mentions the question of fuel – at least not directly. Perhaps in a momentary slip he does grant that they were sending out their last ships with no hope of return due to lack of fuel. The interview is filled with such contradictory statements and manipulations of the narrative.

It must be acknowledged that Japan did have some fuel reserves which they had kept aside for an invasion – mainly for their air force which would (they hoped) be able to inflict massive damage on invading forces. But as some have pointed out, their pilot corps had also been decimated and it's uncertain how long they would have been able to keep up a counter-assault. They certainly did not have enough pilots for the number of remaining aircraft they possessed.

The country was already destroyed and defeated. The reluctance to surrender was largely rooted in Roosevelt's demands – which Truman (a far simpler strategist and diplomat) did nothing to rescind, modify, or clarify.

In the end, Thomas resorts to sick and tortured Rumsfeld-esque arguments that the atomic bomb saved millions of America lives, Japanese lives, as well as the people in China and so forth. He's not a journalist or historian. He's a degenerate propagandist for the American Empire and the blood-maddened monsters who dominate its upper echelons of power. Even Thomas' Wikipedia page reveals him as a Court Historian, a creature of the Establishment. As CIA director, Robert Gates trusted Thomas to peruse the archives – he knew that Thomas would put loyalty over journalistic integrity and whitewash any findings.

A final note regarding the Casablanca Conference – it was in that setting that Roosevelt made (or by some accounts acquiesced to) the decision to delay the invasion of France. Instead Churchill and Roosevelt chose to cross over to Sicily and invade the Italian peninsula. While the decision is masked in the language of strategy – the reality is plain to see. They wanted more time to let the Russians and Germans kill each other on the Eastern Front. That's where the real war was – a point most Americans still fail to understand, having instead been subject to the puff history provided by the likes of Thomas, Ken Burns, and Stephen Ambrose.

This kind of cold calculation isn't pretty and it isn't the stuff of heroes – but it's how leaders think and plot. Lives are meaningless – mere commodities. What matters is winning and controlling the narrative. The ethical discussions surrounding the likes of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Truman are risible – as ridiculous as such categories being applied to the likes of Stalin. Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb was geo-strategic, the fact that it would also end the war was a bonus. He was more than happy to slaughter millions of civilians if necessary in order to preserve American blood and treasure – and frankly many Americans have no problem with this kind of reasoning and rationalisation. But it's not pretty and so they can rely on the likes of historians like Thomas to dress up the arguments for them in the garb of pseudo-morality. By the time he finishes with his smoke and mirrors demonstration – the average member of the public is feeling good about the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people. It was a war crime of historic proportions and had any other nation perpetrated it, they would be universally denounced and their reputation forever stained. What the Americans don't realize is this is exactly how they are viewed in many parts of the world – and rightly so.

Whatever paycheck Thomas gets – has certainly been earned. The Empire needs people like him and in reality he probably could demand more. It's a full-time and frankly epic task to defend the American blood machine.

And this isn't just revisiting the stratagems of ancient history – the same kind of calculations are being made today with regard to Ukraine. NATO (a tool or arm of the US Empire) has all but stated in stark terms that they are willing to let massive numbers of Ukrainians die if it means Russia will be weakened and marginalised. This is a geo-strategic calculation that's every bit as much about China as it is about supposed concerns regarding European security – let alone the bogus claims about freedom and democracy.

In the end, none of us should be surprised. Lost people will think and act like lost people. They will defend their idols and justify their idolatry – and their theft and murder, no matter how massive the scale. It's the tale of history. What continues to disturb me is how many Christians I know and have known that would listen to this filth and agree whole-heartedly with Thomas. Growing up, this was what I heard over and over again in the context of the Church. That is judgment – a sign of a seared conscience, and I fear the results of this sort of thinking and idolatry have played no small role in bringing the American Church to the point that it finds itself today – in a state of functional and rapidly metastasizing apostasy.