Why don't we learn from history? Japan (Post-WWII) vs. Iraq (Post-Invasion)?

Question

After the second World War, Gen. McArthur (who was bascially running Japan at that time) faced a similar situation as the US faced with Iraq and Saddam.

The Emperor of Japan of the time (a man named Hirohito) was a far worse seed than Saddam Hussein. He was very much hated by his people but he did maintain control over Japan (as did Saddam of Iraq). Sensing this, McArthur decided to spare Hirohito from criminal sanctions or public humilation and keep him on board as a puppet. Why? To maintain stability!

Why haven't we learned from this? The US could have done the same thing! Kept Saddam in power as a puppet to maintain some sort of stability! When Saddam was toppled, chaos insued. Undoubtedly, the same would have happened in Japan if Hirohito would have been ousted.

Answer 1

see, you're slightly incorrect here....

Bush 2 (and for the record, sequals are always worse), didnt learn squat from anything ever, especially foreign history, but all the ppl around him like cheney and rove did learn something, they learned what happens after a war, and they realized how you can manipulate the masses during a war, and in doing so, you can profit from it financially.

bush and his buddies just looked for the quickest way to do what they wanted, how they wanted, and didnt care about anything else. they're not even pretending to care about our country. their regime is the most thinly veiled corruption ever. dont get me wrong, Saddam was a tyrant, but there are worse, and more dangerous out there, why didnt we go after them?

Answer 2

The situations and cultures are completely different. There are many, many reasons why this wouldn't be the same, but I'll hit on just one.

Hirohito was an Emperor from a royal family that some believed was descended from the gods. He was the leader of the longest continuing monarchy in the world. Japan was a country where the people embraced the concept of a nation-state. His people did NOT universally hate him.

Saddam took power in 1979 and ruled a country of factions with strong tribal/local affiliations rather than a national identity.

So while Hirohito was able to unite the country from a cultural and historical perspective, Saddam had never done this and could not. Saddam kept Iraq together through fear, death and military might. Once he lost his ability to torture and execute there was nothing left.

Answer 3

One thing. The part,
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The Emperor of Japan of the time (a man named Hirohito) was a far worse seed than Saddam Hussein. He was very much hated by his people but he did maintain control over Japan (as did Saddam of Iraq).
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This is wrong. Japanese had loved the emperor and he was respected by ppl even at that moment.
When he visited MacArthur for the first time, he admitted "Whole responsibility is mine. I will leave all decision upto you (MacArthur) and there are no responsibility to Japanese people."
In fact, Hirohito had never run away, hidden, and disappeared, like the Saddam, Iraq, or tried to defect as Marcos, Phillipines.

At first, MacArthur was thinking, the Emperor must be the same with the Hitler or Mussolini. However, his attitude was very different.
That is why Mac decided to spare Hirohito then.
When Horohito left MacArthur's house, Mac had seen him off until his car.

Even today, quite a bit of Japanese loves Emperor.

Answer 4

You have made an interesting assertion: that Hirohito is similar to Saddam (in the political context). However, I think if you explore history a bit more you'll find they're are quite different.

I'm not sure where you learned that "He [Hirohito] was very much hated by his people", when in reality we was very active pubicly in post-War Japan (helping with the reconstruction). It's true McArthur did use him, especially for this role, but Hirohito was a willing accomplice.

Saddam on the other hand is publicly hated by many in Iraq. To imagine he would somehow help the U.S. (willingly) is a bit far-fetched. Saddam was the military in Iraq - unlike Hirohito: that distinction was vital to MacArthur.

Answer 5

Actually, we kept Hirohito there because times were very different then they are now and we had dropped two nuclear bombs which did not make us many friends in Japan.
Keeping Saddam in power would have done nothing for stability. And actually, when Saddam was overthrown it was not unstable. It has become unstable due to the in-fighting with lots of help from Iran.
I think we did learn something from Japan - which is why we didn't drop a nuclear weapon on Iraq. Although, as this drags on.............

Answer 6

Because the circumstances were vastly different.

In World War II, we were fighting the "Japanese". It was specifically identifiable that we were fighting a country -- indeed, a race and a culture, when you consider the internment camps that thousands of Japanese-Americans were forced into.

But in Iraq, the government was extremely clear that we weren't fighting Iraq, but fighting Saddam. He, personally, was the enemy. Given that, he couldn't be made a puppet, any more than Hitler (had he survived) could have been made a puppet to run Germany after WW2.

Answer 7

for the time of WWII Japan change into nonetheless in a feudal state devoid of critical authorities. Germany change into likely a touch in the direction of the Iraq project than Japan because we did not enable Japan have a militia (cuz properly they're only loopy like that). both change into its very puzzling to study both circumstances. i wager you may want to study the religious fanaticism of the Muslims in the middle East with the acute Nationalism the German human beings had. you may want to also likely make a evaluation between Saddam and Hitler because both assumed dictatorship prestige. They both dealt with their enemies further. submit WWII is a touch diverse project. once the dictator in Germany had fallen which include his regime something else kinda fell in position. Saddam falling has just about opened the doors to international places like Jordan, Syria, Saudia Arabia, and Iran to covertly invade. there change into no longer something like that in reconstruction of Germany. we've not in any respect considered something like this earlier. So the better ideal evaluation might want to be between Saddam and Hitler no longer submit WWII and Iraq.

Answer 8

Because there is no way to puppetize a president that you find in a spider hole? That and the people causing problems were supporters of Saddam, so, unlike Japan, people wouldn't have revolted sagainst Saddam because they kind of like him.

Answer 9

Think about it. George knows nothing of history(among other things), has his own ideas and will only accept from his advisers only things that support his original ideas.
This is what you get when you surround your self with yes men/woman. Powell has a great deal of the blame in this whole thing. He should have forced George to listen or resigned.

Answer 10

the reason for difference is very simple -
in case of japan , they had the excuse that real power was with militory leaders of japan and harihito was just a puppet in thier hands . hence the war was against evil japanease imperial army , not harihito . ( and who told you that harihito maintained control over japan ? he was respected very very much by japanease , but real power was with militory leaders )
in the case of iraq , war was not against iraq but against saddam, so how could they keep saddam ?