The Good War Myth

Maybe with Ken Burn's documentary coming out on WWII there will be revisited discussion about the war.

To hear Americans today talk about WWII it is almost with a longing...as if, why, I wish we had such a noble war to fight. Noble? What was noble about this conflict? We're talking about a genocidal war. The Holocaust gets the most press - but there were multiple theaters of the war which both sides were simply annihilating one another's civilian populations.

Japan razed almost all of Asia from China to the Philippines to Korea to Malaysia. Croatians allied with the Nazis massacred Serbians and Muslims. Russians raped and pillaged Germany when they invaded. Germany killed nearly 20 million Russian soldiers and civilians. Germany bombed London for years. And we torched Tokyo, Dresden, and dropped the big ones on civilian cities.

50 million dead - in total. Entire populations of countries and religions set back generations. Note: there are still fewer Jewish people in the world today than there was in 1930.

Something like 60% of American POWs in Japan died because they treated us like dog shit.

At Nuremberg, the Russians and Churchill wanted the entire class of Nazi leadership summarily executed. We Americans said "No. If anything, this war was fought for the rule of law, and we are above that."

Would we feel differently if we had suffered the way England or Russian suffered? If we had been under siege for four years, or had been invaded and raped and pillaged and blitzkrieged. We sacrificed, suffered, and won...but isn't it a bit sanctimonious to talk about our moral authority and the good war, knowing what we know about how the war was fought?

What is it about WWII that captures our imagination? Is it because we were fighting evil Nazis and the treacherous Japanese? Were they worthier opponents?