6/8: Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia Hardcover – by Gary J. Bass
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2023
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Judgment-Tokyo-World-Making-Modern/dp/1101947101
In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor; shocking atrocities against civilians in China, the Philippines, and elsewhere; and rampant abuses of prisoners of war in notorious incidents such as the Bataan death march. For the Allied powers, the trial was an opportunity to render judgment on their vanquished foes, but also to create a legal framework to prosecute war crimes and prohibit the use of aggressive war, building a more peaceful world under international law and American hegemony. For the Japanese leaders on trial, it was their chance to argue that their war had been waged to liberate Asia from Western imperialism and that the court was victors’ justice.
1945 Singapore surrenderof Imperial Japanese Army.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You build, that's what you do. |
| 0:02.2 | Well, in reality, you stay overtime, fill out stacks of paperwork, |
| 0:06.9 | sorts through endless drawings, spend hours trying to project manage. |
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| 0:22.1 | Building. |
| 0:23.0 | Request a demo now at procore.com. Procore |
| 0:27.1 | building software for the people who build the world. I'm John Batcha with Professor Gary Bass. His new book is Judgment at Tokyo, |
| 0:38.6 | World War II on trial and the Making of Modern Asia. As the Professor has told us, 50,000 pages of transcripts. |
| 0:45.0 | And it comes to these Class A criminals, |
| 0:50.1 | alleged to have wage aggressive war. |
| 0:54.0 | Sixteen military, I'm following Gary's reporting, 16 military, 13 of them from the army, three |
| 0:59.4 | from the Navy. |
| 1:00.8 | Twelve civilians, five from the foreign ministry, one finance minister, and then Kito of the palace |
| 1:07.0 | itself. |
| 1:08.0 | They are sitting through these proceedings, the allegations, and then their defense attorneys who are in general I believe |
| 1:15.6 | American defense attorneys and a credit to them professor I think you say the defense |
| 1:19.9 | attorneys wear down the judges they do a very good job of scrambling in order to make |
| 1:25.8 | the case for their clients even though they're mostly in uniform I think and one |
| 1:31.8 | particular argument turns over the conspiracy charge was this new in |
| 1:37.0 | nineteen it was new in Nuremberg was it was also new in Tokyo was Tokyo borrowing from Nuremberg or did they come to this |
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