The United States and Japan in Twentieth-Century Asian Wars

Abstract

The record of American & Japanese wars in the Asia-Pacific region is examined regarding the impact on civilians, international law & terror to argue that the current military dominance by a single ruthless power must be rectified. A review of international & US law traces the evolution of guarantees for the rights of citizens & prisoners through the Hague Peace Conference (1897, 1907), WWII, the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 1999, & the post 9/11 discourse. A historical narrative of Japanese & US state terrorism in Asia & the Pacific identifies the institutionalized patterns of the war machine in the cases of the Nanjing massacre (1937) use of forced prostitution through the "comfort women," the chemical & biological warfare experiments of Unit 731, & forced prisoner slave labor. The US-Japanese War(1941-1945) systematic uses of airpower are described & related to the continuous air bombing of Iraq. The common structural aspects of US and Japanese abuse of human rights & the systematic targeting of civilians as a centerpiece of wartime strategy is concluded to have been calculated to assure heavy loss to civilians, particularly in the dispossession & destruction of life & society in nations that dared defy the US. J. Harwell