Michel Paradis on 'Last Mission to Tokyo'
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 August 2020
⏱️ 54 minutes
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Summary
Michel Paradis is a scholar of international law and human rights who has worked for more than a decade for the U.S. Department of Defense Military Commissions Defense Organization, where he has worked on a number of the landmark court cases to arise out of Guantanamo Bay. Most recently, he is the author of the book "Last Mission to Tokyo: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raiders and Their Final Fight for Justice." It's the story of two military commissions that arose out of the first U.S. bombing raid over Japan during World War II: One, the trial by the Japanese of a number of Americans who participated in the raid, and the other after the war, of the Japanese who conducted the first trial for their conduct of that trial. Benjamin Wittes spoke with Michel about the extraordinary history he uncovered, how he came to be interested in these cases and how they relate to the ongoing U.S. experiments with military commissions.
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | If you go back to the art of war, it's about knowing your enemy and knowing |
| 0:36.9 | yourself and what the Do-little raid ultimately did was change Japan's strategy, |
| 0:41.2 | change Japan's thinking about itself and about how it should win the war. |
| 0:45.5 | It went from a posture of trying to win a war to a posture of trying not to lose |
| 0:50.3 | a war. And that's ultimately a disastrous strategy in any conflict and any |
| 0:54.1 | competition and the Do-little raid is largely to credit for that real strategic |
| 0:58.8 | change in Japan's outlook towards the broader war. |
| 1:02.6 | I'm Benjamin Widis and this is the LawFair podcast August 3rd, 2020. |
| 1:08.8 | Michelle Paradeese is a scholar of international law and human rights who has |
| 1:14.0 | worked for more than a decade for the U.S. Department of Defense, Military |
| 1:18.4 | Commission's Defense Organization, where he has worked on a number of the landmark court |
| 1:24.2 | cases to arise out of Guantanamo Bay. |
| 1:28.0 | Most recently he is the author of the book Last Mission to Tokyo, the extraordinary story |
| 1:33.9 | of the Do-little Raiders and their final fight for justice. |
| 1:38.6 | It's the story of two military commissions that arose out of the first U.S. bombing |
| 1:44.7 | raid over Japan during World War II, one the trial by the Japanese of a number of Americans |
| 1:52.7 | who participated in the raid and the other after the war of the Japanese who conducted that |
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