Japanese and American War Atrocities

The US criticized the bombing war tactics because the country believed that killing noncombatant civilains was unnecessary. However, this changed once its allies began to use this type of warfare because if the United States continued to refuse to use such tactics, these tactics could be used against them and the US would not have a way of retaliation if it did not develop the intelligence to do so. Also, in wars such as Vietnam where citizens were part of the opposition group Vietcong, destroying entire villages, seemingly of all citizens, was not the case. Japan attacked the Chinese capital at the time without direction from the "person in charge." They continued to destroy villages in and around the capital as well as take prisoners without actually declaring them POWs, rather killing them or treating them brutally. The Japanese attacked civilians mostly during this war. In the case of the US against the Japanese in WWII, the US attacked Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atom bombs, which mostly killed civilians. The difference however is that the attack on China was, from what the author states, unprovoked. The attacks on Japan were not necessarily justified, however they were retaliation from the attacks on Pearl Harbor.

The war memories in Germany were one of the first attacks by the US on an area that was made up of noncombatant citizens. The attack was on Dresden, Germany during World War II, which left the city devastated and nearly completely destroyed. However, the United States never formally apologized for the attacks or made reparations.
The author, throughout the text tries to draw comparisons between the Japanese conflict in China and the Iraq War in reference to how civilians were treated. He states that the US focuses on the more positive aspects, not really telling its citizens about the atrocities taking place. I think this is a common wartime practice, and the author criticizes it too closely. It is obvious that if a current administration attacks a country or something inside a country unjustifiably that they mostly likely are not going to apologize. International law is not set in stone, its just there to be abided by but when rules are broken, there are no serious consequences. Especially in war time, when such atrocities are committed, proceeding administrations may apologize and offer reparations (particularly in the US) but even so is not always the case. The fact that Japan is going off this, and not apologizing for its actions does reflect how the United States conducts itself, and while the author makes a valid point, Japan is using the US's actions as an example to justify its own.