AUGUST 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Rep. Dan Crenshaw Rr-Tx) and Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark). Republican lawmakers spent the entirety of the Donald Trump administration hunting for and condemning government whistleblowers. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Rand Paul, Reps. Nunes and Takeyourpick—they all sternly warned of the threat posed by anonymous government figures coming forward with a new possible crime Trump or his team seemed to be committing. But that was then, and this is now, and if you're talking about whistleblowers willing to squeal about Secret Scary Wokeness hopping through government hallways or putting up sinister new motivational posters, that's different. That's the sort of stuff Fox News lives for.

Continuing the Republican tradition of pretending at maximum manly toughness while thumping through life with shows of weaponized gutlessness, it's Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw and Arkansas's Sen. Tom Cotton leading a new charge against Rampant Theoretical Wokeness in our nation's tough manly military. Crenshaw announced it on Twitter with suitable turgidity: "We won't let our military fall to woke ideology," he puffed. The Crenshaw-Cotton response is a new "whistleblower webpage" where you can "submit your story" of being, um, exposed to Wokeness. He promises to expose the "spineless military commanders" who have failed to oppose "progressive Pentagon staffers" who "have been calling the shots."

This feels a tiny bit like Biff and Taller Biff demanding the military oppose civilian control and "call the shots" themselves, but we're probably imagining that. Both Republicans have shown a truly stellar understanding of our military's structure and enforced limitations in the past, which is why most of America knows their names despite neither Biff showing much success in any government sphere that does not involve self-promotional shitposting.

Crenshaw and Cotton's push here is part of a larger Republican attack on the military for perceived anti-conservatism, and immediately follows a Sen. Ted Cruz bit of buffoonery in which he compared the turgid manliness of Russia’s military recruitment posters, under Vlad Putin, to the "woke, emasculated military" of the United States.

It's an organized Republican campaign to portray the military as "weak" so that conservative-minded changes can be made. Crenshaw and Cotton's quasi-populist, more-quasi-fascist goal is to ignite partisan battles within the military command itself—the promise to "expose" commanders that do not oppose Crenshaw-identified "woke" policies makes that clear enough—so that the military can be purged of conservatism's enemies in the same manner that Trump's allies purged whistleblowers, watchdogs, and perceived critics from civilian government agencies.

With Crenshaw's crude attempt, however, it was evident what was going to happen next. First, Crenshaw was going to start collecting some painfully butthurt stories from conservative soldiers upset that their new commander is a womanfolk or whatever, and after months of sorting through all the ones too obviously racist or sexist or ridiculous to put his name to will come up with some that Tucker Carlson can print out and roll around in on live television.

Second, it was a certainty that Crenshaw’s little form was going to be absolutely overrun by Americans trolling Crenshaw with frightening incidents of "wokeness" that may or may not have been culled from movies, television shows, or their own imaginations.

REVISITING THE HIROSHIMA MYTH

By Ronald T. Fox

Hiroshima After the Bomb 

In previous Phronesis posts about the atomic bombing of Japan, I challenged conventional wisdom in the United States that the use of atomic bombs forced Japan to surrender, thus ending the war. I referred to this as “The Hiroshima Myth.” In my post, I left little doubt that I believed Truman’s decision was motivated not by a desire to end the war quickly in order to avoid a bloody invasion of the mainland, but to end it before the Russians would enter the war and extend their influence throughout East Asia. I also argued that Japan’s decision to surrender was motivated more by fear of Russia’s invasion than the atomic bomb and Truman’s promise of a “reign of ruin” from the sky.

Since my original post in 2015, I have dug deeper into the historical record and have come to understand that Truman’s decision, and the Japanese response, was more complicated. Useful for my rethinking was Marc Gallicchio’s book, Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II.

I now believe that while the atomic bombs were not the driving force in ending the war, they played a larger role than I originally acknowledged. It was both the Russian entry into the war and the atomic bombings, along with Japan’s deteriorating military and economic situation, that motivated the country to accept a slightly modified version of “unconditional surrender.” Evidence points to both the bomb and the Russian entry into the war as necessary conditions for Japan’s acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. At the same time, my additional readings reinforced my belief that Truman was thinking beyond Japan, to the American-Soviet rivalry in the post-war world, when he decided to shun diplomacy and pursue a quick military ending of the war.

What follows is a complete revision of my original essays. I will post the revision, on the 76th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, in three parts. Part I covers Truman’s decision to use atomic bombs on Japan. Part II explores the Japanese Decision to surrender. In Part III, I speculate on the enduring legacy of the Hiroshima Myth. Part II will be posted tomorrow and Part III the next day.

PART III. THE LEGACY OF THE HIROSHIMA MYTH

By Ronald T. Fox

THE LEGACY OF THE HIROSHIMA MYTH

Parts I and II examined distortions of truth surrounding the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These distortions formed a mythology about the bombings that has become deeply embedded in the collective American conscience. Part III offers my thoughts on the legacy of the Hiroshima Myth.

Enduring American allegiance to the Hiroshima Myth—or, conversely, our collective failure to confront its truth—has had a profound impact on the United States, both at home and abroad. Perceiving the atomic bomb as the decisive weapon necessary to end World War II helped create a conviction that nuclear weapons could serve a useful military purpose. Americans came to embrace them as essential protectors of our nation. To be safe, we needed to stockpile nuclear weapons and be prepared to use them, a belief that would spark a massive nuclear arms race in the ensuing decades. Accepting the Hiroshima Myth meant accepting nuclear weapons as a fact of national and international life.

The United States has refused to renounce the first use of nuclear weapons, even if their use risks the end of human civilization. Ask yourselves: would this refusal be the U.S. stance if Americans did not so forcefully believe that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the winning weapons that forced Japan to surrender?

The belief that the bomb killed thousands to save millions imparted a moral righteousness to the bomb that today translates into a collective American numbness to matters of mass destruction, even genocide. Almost anything is permissible if used to “save American lives.” This numbness, along with our belief in American exceptionalism and the decisiveness of military power, helps explain why the US is prone to deploying extensive force and using increasingly destructive weapons against perceived international enemies, however non-threatening they may appear to the reasoned mind.