the state is not the nation

A quibble or two with James Lileks (skip down to “Warning: the following is Screedy”):

Well, don’t START A WAR WITH AMERICA, then.

Well, y’know, most of the bombees at Hiroshima didn’t. Is it overly pedantic to distinguish between the rulers and the ruled?

And I like the idea that because we had intelligence failings, we shouldn’t have prosecuted the war. Why, next thing you know, rape victims who didn’t check the closet before going to bed will expect the police to arrest someone.

Heh.

My father was part of the force that would have invaded the Japanese mainland. . . . And if he’d been torn to bloody ribbons like half his friends, I wouldn’t be here, and my amazing Gnat slumbering in the other room wouldn’t be here either. Most important: if Japanese militarism hadn’t conflated tyranny, racism, and territorial expansion with a mystical notion of national honor and ethnic destiny, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have looked the same in ’46 as they did in ’41.

Or if the President had not prolonged the war by insisting on unconditional surrender, when Japanese ministers were trying to make a deal (for the Emperor’s personal safety). But who’s counting?