Bury your sentimentalism in Iwojima

Because US is wounded, they look Japanese soldiers as a better enemy.
Why Iwojima now? That's a typical response of Japanese who have almost forgotten it until a pair of movies are about to come. We discussed it and defined the current US citizens. The result of our diagnosis is "They(americans) are very sentimental these days!"

In spite of incorporating RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs), the situation in Iraq is still not clear. Italy is not on the side of US any more before you know. Shiite, Russia, and China are having a gloat over the stranded US in the middle east. It's like "This is not what we thought it would be!"

Looking back to the recent history, US hasn't experienced enough amount of clear success in wars. Black Hawk Down, air strike of Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia, and so on. Although US may as well claim their moral approach in any cases these days, a threshold comes up from nowhere and wreck the completion of the mission. It is guerilla or citizens' feelings, which meddles in all the time and make the reputation of the US worse.

And you would think, "Although it traumatized us once upon a time, the battle at Iwojima against Japan made us forget about those discomfort which is not necessary in wars. It was just a pure battle like a sport where no others are involved. After the war, we handshake each other like now."

I'd say it's not a coincidence that a movie made in US is trying to depict also the figures of Japanese soldiers in detail. US citizens don't want to see a didactic movie where a hero beats evil like we saw a lot in 2001 and 2002. "After the six soldiers hoisted the flag, no resentment is left. Japan fought very well, and we decently treated Japanese POWs after that," you may say. Now US citizens know there are full of evils who use kids as a wall. It finally seems that people in US began to yearn toward Japanese soldiers because US has seen worse enemies too much these days.

This trend is actually welcome to me because we wish the rehabilitation of honor of Japanese war dead in WWII. First of all it's my principal standpoint in this blog.

Japanese soldiers were acually better opponent.
Let me take up a story to represent MY feeling about Iwojima. I came across a website that opens a diary written by a Japanese soldier who fought till end in Iwojima and was rescued by US military. I learned several interesting facts that were overlooked. Here are some of war stories he left: Since the island is a volcanic island, soldiers couldn't have enough sleep because of sulfur gas and heat. His superior officer ordered him to crash into tanks with 20kg of explosives, so he couldn't help thinking about his family at that night. His officer did it first and showed an example. Before the night, what they discussed for the significance of this suicide attack is if they hold as much as possible, Japan can make better peace with US. Well, as a descendent of them, I found no reason to disgrace them. They had a very clear purpose!

What surprised me the most was that he describes the opponent as "Mr. opponent". I don't see the correct reason, but I guess he wanted to think the opponent was also human being. Otherwise he couldn' keep himself under fiercest bombardments.

The last part of his diary writes how better he got due to proper care and food provided by US. Yes, at least you have an example of the pretty good treatment of US to Japanese POWs.

Such a war never comes again.
You may want to watch the movie, and after that you may not be as proud of US soldiers as other movies. But that's OK. Everyone knows it was a mere fight in a good way.(Keep in mind that this movie is not a simple hero movie. Nevertherless, they faithfully executed their mission, purely fought against their enemy, and weren't stigmatized as civilian killers.) In other words, don't simply anticipate satisfied victories or pure battles from now on. Israel also had to retreat for the same reason with an infamy of "killing innocent civilians". Bury your sentimentalism in Iwojima if you still imagine, at the back of your mind, that Iraqi people some day become to happily wave their hands to US military for liberating them from a dictator. There's no way to satisfy both Sunni and Shiite to begin with.