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From Nanjing 1937 to Fallujah 2004: War Crimes in Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Herbert P. Bix
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The roots of the Japan-China War (1937-45) can be traced back to the surprise attack that Japanese army officers launched, in September 1931, on Chinese forces in Manchuria. Their premeditated coup led to Japan's seizure of the vast, resource-rich region. Initially carried out in the name of self-defense and national security, the Manchurian takeover was later justified as a step toward establishing a new status quo in Asia. A long series of clashes alternating with truces followed between Japanese forces and Chinese un-reconciled to Japanese rule.

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Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 2 , Issue 5 , May 2004 , e4
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
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Copyright © The Authors 2004

References

1. Herbert P. Bix, War Crimes Law and American Wars in 20th Century Asia,” Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1 (July 2001), pp. 119-132.

2. Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (South End Press, 1979), p. 317.

3. Nick Turse, “Report on Vietnam ‘Tiger Force’ Atrocity Only the Tip of the Iceberg,” posted Nov. 14, 2003, available at www.antiwar.com

4. Dan Murphy, “Sadr the Agitator: Like Father, Like Son,” Christian Science Monitor (April 27, 2004).

5. “U.S. Tanks Deploy in Baghdad as Shiite Radicals Take to Streets,” Mideast-AFP, Baghdad (April 3, 2004).

6. Michael Schwartz, “What Triggered the Shia Insurrection?” Available at http:www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/indexprint.mhtml?pid=1371

7. Sewall Chan and Rajiv Chandrasekaram, “U.S. Calls for Cease-Fire in Fallujah,” Washington Post (April 11, 2004); Hamza Hendawi, “12 Marines, 66 Iraqis killed in Battles,” Washington Post (April 6, 2004).

8. Hamza Hendawi, “12 Marines, 66 Iraqis Killed in Battles, Washington Post (April 6, 2004).

9. Michael Schwartz, ibid.

10. Tony Perry, “Marine Corps Snipers Aim to Strike Fear; With their “One Bullet, One Kill’ Motto, the Sharpshooters Try to Clear the Streets and Undermine the Insurgents in Fallouja,” Los Angeles Times (April 17, 2004), p. A 8.

11. Dahr Jamail, “Fallujah Residents Report U.S. Forces Engaged in Collective Punishment,” The New Standard, posted April 23, 2004.

12. Tony Perry, “For Marine Snipers, War Is Close Up and Personal,” Los Angeles Times (April 19. 2004).

13. Dahr Jamail, “Interview with a Mujahedeen, Observations from a Political Scientist,” Iraq Dispatches, posted from Baghdad April 27, 2004. Available at http://blog.newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches/archives/000270.html

14. Information on the rebellion comes from the following sources: “How GI Bullies Are Making Enemies of their Iraqi Friends,” available at http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/11/1081621841048.html “Losing Falluja”, The Guardian (April 15, 2004); Hamza Hendawi, “U.S. Drive to Deal with Insurgents, Shiite uprising taking political toll on U.S. Iraq Policies,” AP (April 11, 2004); Karl Vick and Anthony Shadid, “Fallujah Gains Mythic Air: Siege Redefines Conflict for Iraqis in Capital,” Washington Post Foreign Service, April 13, 2004, p. AO1; Rahul Mahajan, “Report from Fallujah – Destroying a Town in Order to Save It,” Empire Notes – a Blog (April 25, 2004); the superb writing of Professor Juan Cole, [http://juancole.com], the weblog blog of Dahar Jamail of The New Standard, and ISN Security Watch, April 19, available at http://www.isn.ethz.ch.

15. Tony Perry, “Marines Warn of Battle in Fallouja; U.S. Officials Say Time Is Running Out on the Tenuous Cease Fire,” Los Angeles Times (April 23, 2004).

16. David Sanger and Thom Shanker, “Bush's Decision on Possible Attack on Falluja Seems Near,” New York Times (April 25, 2004).

17. James Carroll, “A War Across the World,” Boston Globe (Feb. 17, 2004); Jeff Halper, “America Is Complicit in Illegal War,” Boston Globe (Feb. 21, 2004); Noam Chomsky, “A Wall as a Weapon,” New York Times (Feb. 23, 2004).

18. Stephen Zunes, “Defense of Israeli Assassination Policy by the Bush Administration and Democratic Leaders an Affront to International Law and Israeli Security,” Foreign Policy in Focus (April 2, 2004), available at www.fpif.org

19. Richard Falk, “A Dual Reality/: Terrorism Against the State and Terrorism By the State,” Charles W. Kegley, Jr., ed., The New Global Terrorism: Characteristics, Causes, Controls (Prentice Hall, 2003), p. 58.

20. Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (Metropolitan Books, 2003), pp. 232, 236.

21. See Herbert P. Bix, “The Faith That Supports America's Violence,” forthcoming in Z-Magazine.

22. A comparative approach to the sexual consciousness of soldiers who participate in crimes of rape can also shed light on individual causation.

23. Maeda Akira, “Afuganistan ni okeru Amerika no senso hanzai,” Kikan senso sekinin kenkyu, No. 42 (Winter 2003), p. 20.

24. Brian Whitaker, “American troops are killing and abusing Afghans, rights body says,” The Guardian (March 8, 2004).

25. The material in this and the next paragraph is based on Edward Herman, “Dasht-E Leili,” ZNET Commentary, April 7, 2004; Jennifer Lane, “The Mass Graves at Dasht-e Leili: Assessing U.S. Liability for Human Rights Violations During the War in Afghanistan,” California Western International Law Journal, Vol. 34/145 (Fall 2003); and John Quigley, “The Afghanistan War and Self-Defense,” Valparaiso University Law Review 37/541 (Spring 2003), n. 102.

26. Edward Herman, “Dasht-E Leili,” ZNET Commentary, April 7, 2004.

27. Jeffrey Gettleman, “As U.S. Detains Iraqis, Families Plead for News,” New York Times (March 7, 2004). Citing a U.S. military data base he notes that ““More than 10,000 men and boys are in custody.” Today that figure is probably far higher. Also see Daniel McGrory, “Concentration Camps in Baghdad: Families Live in Fear of Midnight Call by US Patrols,” The Times Online, July 9, 2003, available at http://globalsearch.ca/articles/MCG307A.html

28. P. W. Singer, “War Profits, and the Vacuum of Law: Privatized Military Firms and International Law,” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 42/521 (2004).

29. Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker (May 5, 2004 issue, available at http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/050204B.shtml Also see, Julian Borger, “U.S. Military in Torture Scandal: Use of Private Contractors in Iraqi Jail Interrogations Highlighted by Inquiry into Abuse of Prisoners,” The Guardian (April 30, 2004).

30. From the comment of Arab League spokesman Hossam Zaki, reported by Reuters and picked up by Juan Cole, May 2, 2004. See http://juancole.com

31. Pal cited in John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire (Bantam Books Edition, 1971), p. 898.