Authentic News with Jim Fetzer, March 16, 2026 Hour 1

“‘Pete Hegseth Needs To Be Fired—Immediately’ after Slaughter of 150 Iranian School Children”

After he’s fired, he needs to be tried, convicted, and hanged.

“Working in tandem with the bombing of German cities was the ‘targets of opportunity’ policy on the countryside. Under this order, anything moving in the Reich was fair game for Allied fighter planes. Ships, trucks, cars, ambulances, bicyclists, farmers in fields, animals in pastures, even children in school yards, provided potential targets.” (Thomas Goodrich; Hellstorm)

The GIs, the All-lies, delighted even in murdering “children in school yards”.

Imagine this.

You are flying low and slowly in a fighter plane. Painted on its side is “the stars and stripes”, a symbol that assures you that you are righteous, noble, and admirable and that the “enemy” is evil and subhuman. You have no more inkling of the possibility of wrong-doing while “serving your country” and “doing your patriotic duty” than a psychopath does while stabbing his latest victim. Suddenly, there on the ground you see a woman and her little four-year-old blonde girl! They have heard your plane and, knowing they can expect no mercy from “the stars and stripes”, they are attempting to run to safety! Your lips curl upward in a contemptuous smile; they are just making it more fun for you. As your heart pounds and you feel an erection starting, you adroitly manipulate the controls and align your guns on the back of the girl. A short burst shreds her torso. You laugh when you see the mother throw herself on her daughter’s body, and you think that it was perfect that the Nazi bitch had to witness the slaughter of her child! Then you kill the Nazi bitch, too. As you turn to fly back to your base, you think of what a great story this will be to tell the “boys” and to write about to your relatives back home. This will make their eyes even more teary the next time they gaze with adoration on “the stars and stripes”.

“A leading organ of public opinion—of Northern, or New England public opinion—says: ‘We have the power to subjugate, or to annihilate, the South, and one or the other we are going to do.’ This programme is plainly announced. No robber ever stated his point more boldly; and we suppose we must take it as a correct declaration of New England morality. The principle, though shocking, has the merit of simplicity. Let us test it in another relation. A man may say, ‘I have the power to whip my father and to beat my mother, and I am going to do it.’ This may suit New England politics, and New England Christianity, but can it pass for an enlightened public morality? The question is not what we have the power to do, but what we have the right to do.” (The Old Guard, Feb. 1865, p. 49)

“[They] have at last dropped the hypocritical cry of war for the Union, and have boldly run up their own true black and piratical flag of war for subjugation and extermination….

“‘The South shall be destroyed!’ is the hellish watchword inscribed upon the black banners of the Republican party. ‘The South shall be destroyed!’ is the damnable eloquence of Congress. ‘The South shall be destroyed,‘ is the brutal jargon of the pulpits! ‘The South shall be destroyed,‘ is the cry of slavering ignorance in the streets! These accursed words of barbarism are everywhere belching forth like hot flame out of the bottomless pit.” (The Old Guard, July 1864, pp. 146–147)

“Lincoln’s ghastly war against the South … startled Europe by its bloody barbarity, so outrageous that Lord Palmerston for some time refused to believe the news from the United States, saying that such savagery was impossible for civilized men.” (Revilo P. Oliver; Liberty Bell, Aug. 1988)

“‘[W]hen any female shall by word, gesture, or movement insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation.’

“This in essence was a ‘right to rape’ order which he [General Butler] issued to his troops…. Palmerston, the British Prime Minister, wrote to Charles Francis Adams, the U.S. Minister in London the following concerning Butler’s order:

“‘I will venture to say that no example can be found in the history of civilized nations till the publication of this order of a general guilty in cold blood of so infamous an act as deliberately to hand over the female inhabitants of a conquered city to the unbridled license of an unrestrained soldiery.‘” (Sam Dickson, “Shattering the Icon of Abraham Lincoln”)

“On July 8, the entire town … was burned to the ground. Having destroyed the entire town, only the population remained, most of them women and children with a few men. The women and children were separated from the men and herded into wagons. The wagon train then set off for Marietta, Georgia, some 16 miles away. During the journey the women were forced to endure the sexual advances of the Union soldiers. [They were raped.] … Not one woman or child is known to have returned to New Manchester.” (Sam Dickson, “Shattering the Icon of Abraham Lincoln”)

“[T]he Second Massachusetts negro infantry, 700 strong, Col. Draper, a white man, commanding, with one hundred white cavalry, … started for the Northern Neck….

“On the route six negroes violated the person of Mrs. G. eleven times, she being the wife of a soldier of the Ninth Virginia cavalry….

“Where they went they were led by their officers and told, ‘You can go loose and do as you please.’” (The Old Guard, September 1864, p. 200)

“‘Two weeks ago 300 rebels passed 7 miles south of Waynesboro at night. At daybreak, 2 rebel prisoners were brought in. I felt much chagrin that the pickets had brought in the 2 and I reprimanded … [the lieutenant] for not having obeyed my orders and yours which were to bring in no prisoners. Lieutenant Kerr … took the 2 prisoners out of the guard tent and shot them dead.‘” (https://www.republicbroadcastingarchives.org/the-rebel-and-the-renegade-roundtable-w-mike-gaddy-steven-douglas-whitener-november-23-2025 ; 35:51)

“‘Well,’ said Gen. Butler’s Chief of Staff to a tall sergeant, ‘you had a pretty tough fight there on the left.’ ‘Yes, sir; and we lost a good many good officers and men.’ ‘How many prisoners did you take, sergeant?’ ‘Not any alive, sir,’ was the significant response. Gen. Smith says, ‘They don’t give my Provost Marshal the least trouble, and I don’t believe they contribute toward filling any of the hospitals with Rebel wounded.’

“The amount of all this is that Butler’s Chief of Staff and the New York Tribune chuckle over the account the ebony devil gives of murdering wounded soldiers. It is a source of delight to them that these negroes take no prisoners, but assassinate their victims in cold blood. In any other country such acts would be punished with death; here, in this land demonized with the implacable, the hellish spirit of Abolitionism, they are sources of delight to all who keep company with the Republican party.” (The Old Guard, August 1864, pp. 172–173)

“At Palmyra, in Missouri, General McNeil murdered, in cold blood, ten soldiers of the Confederacy [prisoners of war]…. President Davis ordered by telegraph the execution in retaliation, of ten Yankee prisoners…. [T]he telegraphic order was never executed; … and the Palmyra massacre was … unavenged….” (Edward A. Pollard; The Third Year of the War (1864); p. 199)

“Sherman used Southern prisoners of war to clear mine fields by marching them back and forth across land outside Savannah where mines were suspected. Southern prisoners were also herded in front of Northern emplacements under Confederate artillery fire so as to force Southerners to fire on their own men. Thus in the siege of Charleston, 50 Confederate officers were placed in a holding pen in front of Fort Wagner on Morris Island, so as to expose them to the fire of Confederate batteries shelling the Northern positions.” (Sam Dickson, “Shattering the Icon of Abraham Lincoln”)

“The despatches found on the body of Col. Dahlgren, who was killed near Richmond, will be quoted in disgrace of the name of the United States as long as our name shall last. They prove that the object of the last ‘raid on Richmond’ was to set fire to the city, full of women and children, without notice, and to murder its inhabitants…. This is not warfare; it is assassination. By the laws of war all who were taken in the act of attempting to execute such a plot were liable to be treated, not as prisoners of war, but as spies and assassins. Their lives were forfeited, if the Confederates had chosen to adhere strictly to the laws of war.” (The Old Guard, April 1864, p. 95)

“Abraham Lincoln was the leader of the greatest and bloodiest rebellion ever recorded in the annals of mankind. His whole course was a rebellion, or a war, against not only the fundamental principles of liberty, but it was a war upon civilization and upon society. His generals not only plundered private property, but they murdered nonbelligerent and unarmed people, not even sparing women and children.” (The Old Guard, June 1867, p. 460)

“The Yankee—who has followed up an extravagance of bluster by the vilest exhibitions of cowardice—who has falsified his prate of humanity by the deeds of a savage—who, in the South, has been in this war a robber, an assassin, a thief in the night, and at home a slave fawning on the hand that manacles him—has secured for himself the everlasting contempt of the world.” (Edward A. Pollard; The Second Year of the War (1864); p. 303)

“Japan was not really ‘opened’ to foreign commerce until after a British fleet had bombarded the city of Kagoshima and reduced it to rubble, and another British fleet, with a few American, French, and Dutch vessels added to make it seem international, levelled Shimonoseki in 1864….” (Revilo P. Oliver; “The Yellow Peril”)

The Yankees and the English sailed halfway around the world in 1864 to destroy a city in a country that was no threat to them, a country that had no modern weapons with which to defend itself.

Imagine this. After the shelling of their city begins, a Japanese couple and their little girl hastily seek shelter in their cellar. As the bombardment continues, the girl hears the yelping of her terrified puppy who is tied up in the yard. Before her parents can stop her, she runs outside to rescue him. A Yankee with a telescope in the crow’s-nest of his ship sees her and yells to the crew, “A little Jap bitch thinks she’ll save her dog! Give her hell, men!” As she is carrying her pet and running back to the cellar, she is brought down by a piece of shrapnel in her guts. As she lies screaming in agony, the Yankee yells triumphantly, “She’s down! The Jap bitch is down!” And then all of the Yankees on the ship laugh and spontaneously begin singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”.

“American aviators would be released from the Army, Navy, and Marine air corps to be hired as mercenaries through the Intercontinent Corporation, … which would hire them ‘under contract with the Chinese government’ …. Japan would thus be unable to prove that the Roosevelt government’s pretense of neutrality … was odious hypocrisy….

“The plan for the sneaking attack on Japan … [was one] that Roosevelt obviously had authorized no later than 15 April 1941, eight months before Pearl Harbor…. The bombers would use incendiary bombs to devastate Japanese cities and fry Japanese civilians.…

“Only difficulty and delay in diverting weapons promised the British prevented the plan from being carried out on schedule and enabled Japan to get in the first blow….” (Revilo P. Oliver; Liberty Bell; July 1989)

Thomas Goodrich (Summer, 1945: Germany, Japan and The Harvest of Hate):

“Soon after the outbreak of the European war in 1939, the Roosevelt administration staged numerous provocations against Germany in hopes of igniting a military response—freezing German assets, giving fifty naval destroyers to Germany’s enemy, Great Britain, depth-charging German submarines. [Despite] these breaches of neutrality, and more, the Germans did not fall into the trap and failed to retaliate.”

“Unaware of the vicious propaganda aimed at them in America, when proud SS units surrendered to the US Army they naively assumed that they would be accorded their rights under the Geneva Convention and respected by fellow soldiers as the unsurpassed fighters that they certainly were. Instead, moments after giving up their weapons thousands were simply beaten bloody, then slaughtered where they stood. No less than seven hundred troops of the 8th SS Mountain Division were massacred by the Americans soon after surrender. Likewise, members of the SS Westphalia Brigade were marched a short distance then shot in the back of the head. Elsewhere, other SS units fared no better for the unwritten but understood orders from above were ‘no members of the SS shall be taken prisoner.'”

“Although SS troops were routinely slaughtered upon surrender, anyone wearing a German uniform was considered extremely fortunate if he was merely punched, kicked, then marched to the rear.

“‘Before they could be properly put in jail,’ records a witness when a group of little boys were marched past, ‘American GIs … fell on them and beat them bloody, just because they had German uniforms.’”

“Even before war’s end, thousands of German soldiers who somehow escaped being murdered by the Americans when they surrendered and who actually did reach a POW camp, nevertheless soon died in captivity from starvation, neglect and, in many cases, outright murder. At one camp along the Rhine River in April 1945, each group of ten men were expected to survive in the open, on a plot of mud a few yards wide, in cold, wet weather, without shelter or blankets, with virtually no food. When the Americans finally ‘fed’ the prisoners, it was one slice of bread that had to be cut ten ways, a strip for each man. A voice on the camp loud speaker arrogantly announced: ‘German soldiers, eat slowly. You haven’t had anything to eat in a long time. When you get your rations today from the best fed army in the world, you’ll die if you don’t eat slowly.’ This mocking, murderous routine continued for three months. Once healthy prisoners soon became barely-breathing skeletons. Like clockwork, large numbers of dead were hauled away every day.”

“Expecting an army of heroic liberators, the Europeans were naturally surprised and shocked at the lack of discipline among the Allied forces, especially that of the Americans. Drunkenness, theft, wanton destruction of public and private property, casual sex on streets and in parks, but above all, violent sexual assault—many French soon referred to the American occupation as a ‘regime of terror … imposed by bandits in uniform.'”

“many French soon referred to the American occupation as a ‘regime of terror'”

“‘The French now grumble that the Americans are a more drunken and disorderly lot than the Germans and hope to see the day when they are liberated from the Americans,’ admitted one US general in disgust. ‘I am informed the Germans did not loot either residences, stores, or museums. In fact the people claimed that they were meticulously treated by the Army of Occupation.'”

“When French forces under Jacques-Philippe Leclerc captured a dozen French SS near Karlstein, the general sarcastically asked one of the young soldiers why he was wearing a German uniform.

“‘You look very smart in your American uniform, General,’ replied the boy. In a rage, Leclerc ordered the captives shot.

“‘All refused to have their eyes bandaged,’ a priest on the scene noted, ‘and all bravely fell crying “Vive la France!”‘”

“‘After the fighting moved on to German soil, there was a good deal of rape by combat troops and those immediately following them,’ offered Australian journalist, Osmar White, a war correspondent traveling with the Americans. Soon after entering towns and villages the rapes began. Indoors or out, night or day, on park benches, against walls, on shop floors, the sexual attacks continued as the American conquerors laid claim to the conquered. Often going house to house in search of victims, some rapists initially claimed that they were looking for weapons, or food, or German soldiers in hiding. All too quickly their true purpose was made clear. In one German town, a group of six GIs found an attractive mother and her teenage daughter home alone. In the struggle to drag the victims upstairs, the females escaped out the door and hid in a neighbor’s closet. Finding their hiding place, the soldiers immediately threw the mother and daughter onto beds and one after another took turns raping the females, even as the daughter cried out, ‘Mama, Mama.'”

“After raping one woman, a GI bragged that he had ‘liberated’ her. In an apparent attempt to make the job easier for their men, some US officers required all homes to state the names and ages of their inhabitants and then nail the lists to their doors.”

“As with the Soviets, the Americans seemed to have no age limit and an elderly woman of 65, or older, could expect to be raped just as could a child of seven, or younger. There were other similarities. Revealed an Allied official:

“‘German women were more frequently injured, beaten unconscious, abused more frequently in front of husbands or relatives and more frequently penetrated orally or anally by GIs than by the British or French.’

“‘Americans look on the German women as loot, just like cameras and Lugers,’ confessed a reporter for a New York newspaper.”

“Thus, in effect, each ‘reporter’ was expected to ignore or deny the looting, rape and murder committed by the Americans and exaggerate or invent the war crimes committed by the Germans; to dutifully deify their friends in the one breath and viciously vilify their enemy in the next. In essence, a corp of conscientious, diligent newsmen during times of peace had been transformed into an obedient herd of propagandists during times of war.”

“Although sexual assaults by French troops in Germany were fewer than other allies, perhaps only because there were fewer French troops to begin with, not so the African colonials under their command—Moroccans, Senegalese and others who raped on a massive scale. Just as with their American and Soviet allies, the French commanders seemed indifferent to the fate of German civilians, especially women. Indeed, many French officers seemed to gloat in their power and allowed their black troops to run wild, robbing, raping, and murdering. ‘In the next few nights,’ boasted one French sergeant, ‘no woman will go untouched.’ When Senegalese troops reached Stuttgart in southwest Germany, they herded thousands of women, and a number of men, into the subway then raped and sodomized them all at their leisure.”

“‘Hunger made German women more “available”,’ an American soldier revealed, ‘but despite this, rape was prevalent and often accompanied by additional violence. In particular I remember an eighteen-year-old woman who had the side of her face smashed with a rifle butt and was then raped by two GIs. Even the French complained that the rapes, looting and drunken destructiveness on the part of our troops was excessive.'”

“Nor did one notice any longer the thousands of black and bloating bodies lying in the German countryside, on farms, in pastures, along fields, by roads, in ditches, the bodies of gray old men and fresh-faced boys of the Volkssturm, or militia, the pathetic last line of defense; disarmed, beaten, then murdered in cold blood by the … American army … , murdered as they desperately tried to surrender, to somehow survive a war that was already over.”

“fresh-faced boys … disarmed, beaten, then murdered in cold blood by the … American army … as they desperately tried to surrender”

“Like the case above, whenever possible commissars made certain that German men—fathers, husbands, priests, soldiers—were forced to watch the rape of German women be it inside homes, schools, churches, in parks, on sidewalks, or by the roadsides.

“With machine guns trained on them, one large group of surrendering German soldiers, including the famous air ace, Erich Hartmann, were forced to look on as a mob of drunken Soviets threw captured women and girls to the ground, tore off their clothes, then, amid howls and laughter, began their violent sexual attacks.

“A young German woman, mother of a twelve-year-old girl, knelt at the feet of one Soviet and begged that he and the others take her, not the child. Ignoring her tearful pleas the man strode away, a mocking grin on his face. ‘Damned fascist pig!’ yelled a soldier nearby as he kicked the mother in the face then shot and killed her. With that the killer dragged the dead woman’s daughter behind a nearby tank. He was joined by others and for half an hour only the screams of the little girl and laughter of the men was heard. Then, their hate and lust sated, the rapists finally withdrew. Completely naked and unable to stand, the bloodied child crawled slowly back to her dead mother. An hour later the sobbing little girl at last stopped crying and joined her mother in death.

“At the same time as the above was transpiring, eight- and nine-year-old children were also being raped and sodomized repeatedly by the Soviets. Mothers who tried to protect their daughters were beaten unconscious and dragged to the side where they themselves were savagely raped and killed.

“‘Kill! Kill!’ urged the blood-thirsty propagandist, [the Jew] Ilya Ehrenburg. ‘In the German race there is nothing but evil; not one among the living, not one among the yet unborn but is evil! … Stamp out the fascist beast once and for all in its lair! Use force and break the racial pride of these German women…. Kill! As you storm onward, kill, you gallant soldiers of the Red Army.'”

“And thus, in the east, in the west, in their thousands, in their tens of thousands, in their hundreds of thousands, perhaps in their millions, the sexual assaults and spiritual slaughter of German females continued long after the war was declared over.”

“Reinforcing this dehumanization of the enemy were American political and military leaders. Hard-nosed navy admiral, William Halsey, US commander of operations in the South Pacific, seemed determined that not a single Japanese in his sphere of operations would live long enough to even reach a concentration camp.

“‘Kill Japs! Kill Japs! Kill more Japs!’ Halsey exhorted his men time and time again. ‘Before we’re through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell.’

“Thus, in what was perhaps the worst-kept secret throughout all branches of the US military, it was this tacit directive to all American servicemen, high and low, that there was to be absolutely no mercy shown the enemy either during combat or after capture.

“‘You will take no prisoners, you will kill every yellow son-of-a-bitch, and that’s it,’ yelled a marine colonel to his men as their landing craft was about to touch shore on one Japanese-held island.

“Following the very first fight on the very first island that the US invaded, Guadalcanal, the merciless, murderous pattern was set. ‘After an all-night, hand to hand struggle,’ admitted one marine, ‘the Japanese [wounded] were bayoneted on the beaches.’”

“‘Japanese,’ noted an American early in the war, ‘were known to come out of the jungle unarmed with their hands raised above their heads, crying, “Mercy, mercy,” only to be mowed down by machinegun fire.’

“Time and again, on every contested island and every spit of sand, Japanese soldiers and sailors were slaughtered the instant they raised their hands and walked forward to surrender. ‘If one gets to our rear area alive,’ admitted one US officer, ‘it’s only because we … can’t afford to shoot.'”

“In addition to the murder of prisoners, numerous other atrocities occurred. When one marine battalion captured a Japanese field hospital containing over four hundred unarmed men, including patients and medics, all were slaughtered on the spot.”

“Wrote a witness:

“‘When they flew Japanese prisoners back for questioning on a C-47, they kept the freight door at the side of the plane open, and when the questioning of each man was concluded, he’d be kicked overboard before they reached their destination.‘

“Other Japanese were captured alive, not for what they might know, but merely to provide hellish entertainment. According to one account from New Guinea, ‘they took forty-nine Japanese prisoners, tied them up in a tight ring, doused them with airplane fuel, and burned them all.‘ Another American recounted watching as a terrified Japanese captive was simply beheaded by a US soldier with a sharp machete.”

“US naval vessels and aircraft routinely sank all hospital ships, shelled all life boats, then machine-gunned any survivors still struggling in the water.

“Cursed a Japanese survivor after one such watery massacre:

“‘Seeing no one on board, they strafed those in the water. The swine! Not satisfied with sinking the ship, they must kill those swimming in the sea! Was this being done by human beings? We were utterly helpless.’

“‘We came to believe he was slime … ,’ admitted a US sailor, ‘not worthy of life; seeing dead Japanese in the water was like making love to a beautiful girl [i.e., “satisfying”].'”

“As late as October, 1944, it was announced that a mere 604 Japanese were being held in Allied POW camps.”

“Even when it was obvious to all that Japan would be defeated, a 1944 opinion poll found that a significant percentage of the US public still favored the utter extermination of all Japanese men, women and children, across the board.”

“Very quickly, another American pattern appeared at Okinawa that had begun on Guadalcanal and had continued to all other Japanese held islands. Just as with the earlier victories, the island-hopping massacres of the preceding years were played out on a vastly larger and much deadlier scale on Okinawa. ‘No quarter!’ was still the understood, if unofficial, command of all US forces. And unfortunately, just as American soldiers had demonstrated on Saipan, little distinction was shown between a Japanese soldier and a Japanese civilian. All would die.

“After urging Japanese soldiers from their caves and hiding places with promises of chocolate, tobacco and safety, Americans commonly murdered all in cold blood. Likewise, many terrified civilians who chose to seek greater safety under cover of darkness were slaughtered in their thousands.

“‘When dawn came,’ recalled a marine after his unit had massacred one such group, ‘[we] left our foxholes, observed the carnage strewed about the road … women, old men, children. My guesstimate, in the hundreds.'”

“Of all trophies, however, none were more sought out than gold-capped teeth. After any battle or massacre, the mouths of the fallen were often the first stop for many Americans. Like South Sea prospectors, fights broke out when ‘claim-jumpers’ attempted to steal the bodies claimed by others. One excited marine felt he had struck it rich after spotting a dead enemy. ‘But,’ according to a witness:

“‘ … the Japanese wasn’t dead. He had been wounded severely in the back and couldn’t move his arms; otherwise he would have resisted to his last breath. The Japanese’s mouth glowed with huge gold-crowned teeth, and his captor wanted them. He put the point of his [knife] on the base of a tooth and hit the handle with the palm of his hand. Because the Japanese was kicking his feet and thrashing about, the knife point glanced off the tooth and sank deeply into the victim’s mouth. The Marine cursed him and with a slash cut his cheeks open to each ear. He put his foot on the sufferer’s lower jaw and tried again. Blood poured out of the soldier’s mouth. He made a gurgling noise and thrashed wildly. I shouted, “Put the man out of his misery.” All I got for an answer was a cussing out. Another Marine ran up, put a bullet in the enemy soldier’s brain, and ended his agony. The scavenger grumbled and continued extracting his prizes undisturbed.'”

“Soon after US troops came ashore at Okinawa, sexual assault on a massive scale began. What immediately occurred on the Motobu Peninsula was typical. With all local men pressed into service for the battle by the Japanese, only women, children and the aged remained. Moments after reaching the various villages and finding no enemy opposition, the American soldiers spread out and began the hunt for hiding females. In broad daylight, with US officers looking the other way, the women and girls of Motobu were easily found, dragged out, then forced to endure gang-rape.

“In one area of Okinawa alone, during one ten-day period, over one thousand women reported being sexually assaulted. Since most victims, young and old, would never come forward and voluntarily suffer such shame in a society where chastity was valued above all else, the number of rapes was undoubtedly much greater than reported.

“When US troops landed on nearby Zamami, a small islet west of Okinawa, they immediately began the systematic rape of all women found. Many soldiers dragged the struggling females down to deserted coastal areas and gang-raped them at leisure. After being attacked repeatedly, most of the surviving women were allowed to return home … but only to face gang rape by the next wave of Americans. As often as not, there was nowhere to run.

“‘On the ground lay the body of a young Okinawan, a girl who had been fifteen or sixteen, and probably very pretty,’ remembered an American officer. ‘She was nude, lying on her back with arms outstretched and knees drawn up, but spread apart. The poor girl had been shot through the left breast and evidently violently raped.’

“Fresh arriving troops to Okinawa were initially surprised by the rape rampage. Incidents like the following, however, became common:

“‘Marching south, men of the 4th Marines passed a group of some 10 American soldiers bunched together in a tight circle next to the road. They were “quite animated,” noted a corporal who assumed they were playing a game of craps. “Then as we passed them,” said the shocked marine, “I could see they were taking turns raping an oriental woman. I was furious, but our outfit kept marching by as though nothing unusual was going on.”‘

“Some injured women, those who had suffered savage, repeated rapes or actual war wounds from the desperate fighting all around, awoke to find themselves being treated in local hospitals or even at US medical field camps. But even there the violent assaults continued. One victim, a child, was raped by a GI in front of her father who happened to be in the tent tending to her. Any Asian male—father, son, brother, stranger—who attempted to stop the attacks was himself murdered on the spot.”

“Over the next several days, the two sides discussed the details of surrender. Nevertheless, with final surrender pending and peace at hand, US air commander, Curtis LeMay, could not pass up the opportunity to strike one more terrible blow against the hated Japs. Assembling the largest air armada thus far—over one thousand planes—the general sent them raiding Tokyo, Osaka and other Japanese cities, adding to the destruction and death count. Indeed, the unconditional surrender between Japan and the US was signed before the returning aircraft touched down at their bases. And so, once again, thousands of Japanese, just as thousands of Germans, thus survived years of war only to die on the first day of ‘peace.’ Too, this final act of barbarity had no more to do with the surrender of Japan than did the two atomic bombs or the months of firebombing raids—it simply felt good.”

“Finally, that day, August 15, 1945, the thing which Japan had been trying to do since early that year—surrender—was at last accepted by the Americans and World War Two, the most destructive, the most deadly, the most evil, and the most avoidable war in human history, technically came to an end.”

“And Dwight D. Eisenhower—a man who himself knew more than a little about the mass murder of a helpless enemy—suddenly found a mote of pity when he registered his complaint against the use of the hideous new weapon. ‘The Japanese were ready to surrender … ,’ the European commander wrote. ‘It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.'”

“Admiral William D. Leahy, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, heartily agreed:

“‘It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was taught not to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.’

“‘The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul,’ former US president, Herbert Hoover, added shortly after the news reached him.”

“As the above comments angrily make clear, to many then, to many more now, it is difficult to bestow any moral equality, much less moral superiority, on any people who not only use a hellish weapon on women and children, but who use it on an utterly defeated people who admitted they had lost the war and who were trying desperately to surrender.”

“And for at least one enthusiastic military historian, his look back on the accomplishments of US air power more resembled a radio broadcaster recapping an exciting sports contest than the wholesale massacre of innocents:

“‘Highlights of the entire Twentieth AF blitz against Japan was the last five months of dynamic operation. In reaching this fiery perfection, which literally burnt Japan out of the war, the Twentieth came a long way from its meager [beginnings]…. In its climactic five months of jellied fire attacks, the vaunted Twentieth killed outright 310,000 Japanese, injured 412,000 more, and rendered 9,200,000 homeless…. Never in the history of war had such colossal devastation been visited on an enemy at so slight a cost to the conquerors.’

“One might add that never in the history of war had so many women and children been murdered, both in Germany and Japan, and never in the history of war had so many of the murderers felt so little concern for the victims or so little moral compunction over the deed itself. Truly, World War II was the dark divide at which man willingly, even eagerly, began his slide back down that slippery slope of human evolution.”

“In the spring of 1946, American GIs cut the phone lines in Nagoya and raped every woman they could get their hands on, including children as young as ten. At another city, US soldiers broke into a hospital and spent their time raping over seventy nurses and patients, including one who had just given birth. The mother’s infant was flung to the floor and killed. Male patients who tried to protect the women were themselves killed. In the same year, Australian troops in Kure routinely dragged young women into their jeeps then spent the night raping them at a nearby mountain. ‘I heard them screaming for help nearly every night,’ recalled a witness.”

“Clearly, much like his general on Okinawa, the commander of Japan simply had no desire to play ‘Santa Claus’ to a despised enemy. The conditions of hunger and homelessness did not improve for years under MacArthur. Millions of Japanese simply starved on scraps that ‘did not reach the level necessary to sustain a healthy life.'”

The world’s contempt and hatred for the Yankee and the GI must be—and will be—everlasting.