>>15037410No the American equivalent would be something like "Sherman's March was justified" or "Dresden Firebombing was necessary to break German war capacity" or "Japan needed to be nuked twice or they never would've surrendered". Essentially, lies that you tell the population because you get caught up in the destruction that your war campaigns are reaping. Something that, if the opposing side had won, would've been declared an atrocity and there would be show trials at the Hague over it. Rape of Nanking is similar. Yeah, the Japanese army rolled into the then-Chinese capital, burned/looted the city, and some soldiers had their way with the women. Then the Chinese took the incident and ran with it for propaganda purposes. It's not like any other hotly contested city in WW2 got it any better. Paris was probably the only major city that was spared, and mostly because of the speed with which it was captured both times. Look at post-war Berlin, Tokyo, Stalingrad, Warsaw, Rome. Rape wasn't even uncommon.
So naturally some Japanese people get upset about their army being singled out by their geopolitical enemies as being uniquely barbaric. As if the Chinese don't regularly purge enemy populations.
