What's new

Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the big historical lie

Excuse me, I am stating only the facts as those unraveled in the near past. In all wars there are victors and vanquished. Japan wanted a role in Asia similar to the roles played by the western pirate countries. Japan's war continued for more than 60 years during which all the then Allied Power countries were defeated one after another by a small Japan.

Japan was defeated in 1945, but the windfall was the independence of weak Asian countries from the yoke of the Whites. Japan was indirectly responsible for weakening all the allied countries.

What Japan could do in its heydays could not be done by any other Asian countries before or after Japan did it. During the war Japan had more than 20 aircraft carriers built locally. Compare it with the Chinese or Indian efforts today to build only one or two A/C.

Today, Japan remains at the top of Asia and much above an European average country in terms of standard of living.

People of other Asian countries take pride of Japan's past achievements and the present as fellow asians, but, usually Japanese just do not care about this feeling. They do not want to share their achievements with other non-achiever Asian countries. Very naturally, they have become arrogant.

Japan's ships used to defeat the Russians were built by the British, later the Germans helped them improve their aviation production techniques.

The Japanese never devised new technologies during the course of the war like Radar, (UK), Rockets, Jet engines, Cruise missiles (Germany), Atomic bomb, etc. They fell behind quickly in technology.

I also admire the Japanese nation, but there were not in the same league as the others.



I posted this before:


Some estimates I came across:


Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987), "warmaking potential" for 1937:

US - 41.7%
Germany - 14.4%
USSR - 14.0%
UK - 10.2%
France - 4.2%
Japan - 3.5%
Italy - 2.5%


Steel production thousands of metric tons, 1937-38:

USA – 51,400
Germany – 23,300
USSR – 17,800
UK – 13,200
France – 7,901
Japan – 5,630
Italy – 2,323

Sources: USA, Germany, USSR and UK, USSBS, Report on the German War Economy, appendix on steel data, page 246. France, NBER: Macrohistory, production of commodities, Japan and Italy, the Economics of WW2.


Raymond Goldsmith, The Power of Victory (1946), munitions production in 1944, in 1944 dollars:

US - 42 billion dollars
Germany - 17 billion dollars
USSR - 16 billion dollars
UK - 11 billion dollars
Japan - 6 billion dollars
Canada - 1.5 billion dollars


Bairoch, International Industrialization levels, (1982), "total industrial potential":

*Western Europe - 37.3%
US - 31.4%
Germany - 12.7%
UK - 10.7%
USSR - 9.0%
Japan - 5.2%
France - 4.4%
Italy - 2.8%
 
.
Before Pearl Harbor attack we didn't have a strong U.S. Navy. We had like 5 carriers only. Mostly we had battleships and old aircraft. Japan was already formidable and already conquered parts of Asia so they were experienced in warfare while we were busy with Great Depression and small military force.

Fleet
Langley (1922)
Lexington (1927)
Saratoga (1927)
Ranger (1934)
Yorktown (1937)
Enterprise (1938)
Wasp (April 1940)
Hornet (Oct 1941)

Escort
Long Island (June 1941)
 
.
Just before Japan's surrender, Japanese authority destroyed many secret files making it difficult to know what actually happened.

The assertion by you or whoever is the writer of the long article I find it very strange that you see Japan as a savior of the Asians, when Japan itself was fighting to carve out a large colony for its own.

Asian countries were decolonized because the European powers became too weak in the WWll, and it is a completely incorrect a statement that Japan wanted to free China and others, or this was the reason that it fought and killed millions of Chinese and other people.

Japan had its own ambitions. It wanted to act just like other European colonial powers.
 
. .
Just before Japan's surrender, Japanese authority destroyed many secret files making it difficult to know what actually happened.

In short I can tell you what actually happened.

During the Opium Wars, watching the Chinese misery in the hands of Western White colonizers, Japan had first realized that the East Asians would soon be like no more than Native Red Indians and other tribes in the Americas. The first Opium War was brutal and Japan had rarely any access to what was happening in China. The heard reports of indiscriminate massacre of mass Chinese populations in the hands of Western invaders. There was no internal national media, no Television, no internet to monitor how the invading army is behaving in China. But during the second Opium War (1856–1860), Japan received first hand witness to the inhuman slaughter of innocent Chinese people by the Western white men. If you read the contemporary Japanese writers, you will know how much favorably the Japanese viewed the Chinese.

The end of 19th century opened Japan's eyes and made them realize that China would slowly become a history if they would not come to their rescue.

By the start of the 20th century, Japan decided to take first step, it engaged Russia in 1904-05 to stop it from eating up entire Manchurian region. The Russo Japanese war began and for the first time an Asian nation defeated a Western white nation. Japan was admired by all Asian nations for its victory and engaging a Western white nation for a just cause. In those days, racism was at the peak. White men obstinately felt themselves to be superior to the East Asians who they sometimes didn't regard as human beings!

In 1919, Japan submitted its Racial Equality Proposal in the League of Nations but was refused by the Americans who didn't consider East Asians as human beings at all and so no question of racial equality. Japan being pissed off, decided to end Western white colony at least in the neighboring regions.

"Ask a typical American how the United States got into World War II, and he will almost certainly tell you that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the Americans fought back. Ask him why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and he will probably need some time to gather his thoughts. He might say that the Japanese were aggressive militarists who wanted to take over the world, or at least the Asia-Pacific part of it. Ask him what the United States did to provoke the Japanese, and he will probably say that the Americans did nothing: we were just minding our own business when the crazy Japanese, completely without justification, mounted a sneak attack on us, catching us totally by surprise in Hawaii on December 7, 1941.

You can’t blame him much. For more than 60 years such beliefs have constituted the generally accepted view among Americans, the one taught in schools and depicted in movies—what “every schoolboy knows.” Unfortunately, this orthodox view is a tissue of misconceptions. Don’t bother to ask the typical American what U.S. economic warfare had to do with provoking the Japanese to mount their attack, because he won’t know. Indeed, he will have no idea what you are talking about."


In the 1940, at the sight of Japan trying to liberate China and southeast Asia from white Western colonizers, US imposed blockade and embargo to soften the target as US had already decided to invade Japan and remove the obstacle in its way to colonize the rest of East Asia.

The Hull Note served as the ultimatum to Japan by USA in 1941. It was a declaration of war against Japan before the Pearl Harbor attack. After declaring war against Japan, USA waited for Japan to react so that USA get the excuse for a full fledged invasion of the East Asian savior.

On November 25 Henry L. Stimson, United States Secretary of War noted in his diary that he had discussed with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt the severe likelihood that Japan was about to launch a surprise attack, and that the question had been "how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.'" Hull note - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Japan made mistake by believing the Germans as invincible. In May 1945, after the fall of Berlin, Japan's last hope was shattered. Germans were the only ally Japan had been left with. USA bombed Tokyo and other cities to the stone age killing millions of innocent Japanese civilians. Japan knew they would have to sacrifice themselves for the rest of East Asians.

After three months since the fall of Berlin, Japan's Hiroshima was nuked on 6th August 1945, by USA.

USA had already learnt of the Russians making similar plans to invade and occupy Japan as they did in case of Germany. So USA made every effort to force Japan into submission so that entire Japan becomes a US colony, not giving a chance to the Russians to occupy Japanese lands. So USA started dropping nuclear bombs on Japanese mainland to scare off the Russians and force the Japanese to surrender as well.

Suddenly in early August Russians declared war against Japan and proceeded to invade Japan on 8th August, 1945. Japan had seen what the Russians did during the invasion of Berlin a few months ago. Meanwhile another nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki by USA. Japan decided to surrender to the US with the hope that US soldiers would not rape Japanese women after landing on Japan. They heard that American forces behaved in a better way than the Russians.

However, they soon realized what they thought was wrong. US troops behaved better in Germany but worst in Japan raping all the women of Japan. Douglas MacArthur put censorship on news media so that American GIs could rape all the Japanese women in the first systematic ethnic cleansing the mankind has ever seen. Japanese were gone.

Japan sacrificed its yesterday for your today. Today, some East Asian nations are free because of Japan. Without Japan's self sacrifice, white colonizers would have still been banging your women in front of you inside your bed rooms. Never forget that.

Colonial days never tasted sweet to the colonized.

The track record of Japanese in east asia and southeast asia in regards to western colonizers:

There were both Chinese and Japanese communities living in the Philippines. However, only one of them caused trouble and fought against the Spanish colonizers- the Chinese. Many Chinese rebelled against the Spanish alone, or fought alongside Moro Muslims in the south against the Spanish. The Japanese were loyal to their Spanish overlords.

In 1593, after the Spanish Governor Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas decided to force several Chinese to become galley slaves on his ship, the Chinese ganged up on him while he was at his cabin and despatched him from his earthly life.

In 1603, the ex Spanish Governor of the Philippines Luis Pérez Dasmariñas (son of the Gomez who was killed on the ship by his Chinese rowers), decided to round up all the Chinese in Manila and slaughter them. He boasted that a few Spaniards could conquer China and that all Chinese were cowards. When he and his Spanish soldiers actually tried to round up the Chinese, the Chinese again despatched Luis and his soldiers of their earthly lives, and stuck the Spanish heads on pikes around Manila. The Chinese outnumbered the Spanish and would have defeated them, had not a massive army of Japanese and Christian native Filipinos loyal to their Spanish masters came to the rescue of the rest of the Spanish who didn't loose their heads.

In Indonesia, Japanese mercenaries helped their Dutch masters massacre the native men on the Banda islands

BBC News - The world's oldest clove tree

While the Japanese served their Dutch masters, in 1741 after a large Dutch massacre of Chinese in Java, the Chinese in Java rose up in revolt against the Durch and retaliated by killing all the Dutch they could find. The Chinese and Javanese fought against the Dutch and Madurese in that war.

China also defeated the Dutch in the Pescadores in the 1620s and defeated them in 1662 at Fort Zeelandia and drove them out of Taiwan.

Now to the modern era:

During the Sino-French war, when China crushed the French on Taiwan and inflicted a humiliating defeat on the French at Bang bo, starting the disastrous French retreat from Lang Son in the Sino French war, the French Jules Ferry government collapsed due to the military disaster. Japan's response was to threaten to invade China in support of France if China didn't give in to France's demand that Vietnam become a French colony. China had forced France to give up its demand for an indemnity, and forced France to drop their demands for the Pescadores and made them withdraw from the Pescadores and Taiwan. However, because Japan threatened war with China over the status of Korea, China was forced to allow France to annex Vietnam as a colony.

Japan did not give a flying damn if another asian country became a western colony as long as their own interests were met.

In the First Sino Japanese war, Japan attacked China because it wanted to subjugate Korea and turn it into its own colony. The Muslim General Zuo Baogui was martyred in Pyongyang by Japanese artillery fire as he rallied his men to crush the Japanese invaders.

In the Boxer Rebellion, Japan sided with the western Eight Nation Alliance imperialists. Even though China's military defeated and humiliated them in the Seymour Expedition, inflicted heavy casualties at Taku Forts and put up fierce resistance and inflicted heavy casualties on the Alliance at the Battle of Tientsin, Yangcun and Beicang, the Japanese continue to aid the western imperialists in their war against China. The Japanesse Chancellor Sugiyama Akira was brutally dismembered by Chinese Muslim troops in retaliation for their support of the imperialists raping and mass murder. The two Muslim brothers Ma Fuxiang and Ma Fulu were known for the humiliating defeat they inflicted on the Eight Nation Alliance at Langfang. Ma Fulu was martyred at Beijing at the hands of alliance soldiers.

Ma Fulu's son Ma Hongbin and his grandson Ma Dunjing both served in world war 2 against the Japanese. They defeated the Japanese at Suiyuan and prevented them from advancing into Muslim areas in northwest China.

Another Muslim General Ma Biao led an army Hui Muslims, Salar Turkic Muslims, Dongxiang Mongol Muslims, Bonan Mongol Muslims, Buddhist Tibetans from Qinghai, and Han soldiers against the Japanese in Henan and inflicted horrendous losses upon the Japanese. Ma Biao was a veteran of the Chinese army and he fought against the western imperialists before.
 
.
The Moro Muslims in Mindanao resisted the Japanese fiercely. They nearly defeated and drove them out of Mindanao. One of the Moro resistance leaders, Datu Gumbay Piang had a Chinese grandfather. These same Moros fought the Spanish and the Americans, so they didn't fall for the Japanese BS of rescuing fellow asians from white imperialists.

Some of the Moros who fought the Japanese also later fought the Philippines government in the later insurgency. One Moro man featured in this American military report about the Moro rebels against the Philippines government had the same rifle used to kill Japanese soldiers during World War 2.

http://www.fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/sword.htm

On the eve of the Japanese invasion, the Moros in Mindanao were doing constant juramentado attacks on the Americans and Filipino forces every other day.

TERRITORIES: Terror in Jolo - TIME

The Moros are the only southeast asians to have humiliated the Japanese in battle, after they did that to the Spanish for 300 years. They have a record of fighting all uninvited attacks on their land. They beat the Spanish for over 300 years and their juramentado tactics terrified the Spanish, Americans and Japanese. Besides their guns they would use Kris daggers to kill many enemy soldiers while in juramentado mode, in a suicidal charge against the enemy. It took over ten years for the Americans to defeat the rebellion and the Moros continued their attacks. When the Japanese came they switched over to attacking Japan and scaring the crap out of the Japanese army. They stamped the Japanese out before the American army came back to the Philippines. Many Spanish, American, Japanese and Filipino soldiers were killed by the Moros.

They fought both the western imperialists and japanese imperialists, no one can accuse them of serving the other.

Midnight on Mindanao

America and Guerrilla Warfare - Anthony James Joes - Google knygos

A Muslim archipelago

MAR | Data | Assessment for Moros in the Philippines

RECLAIMING BANGSAMORO HUMANITY FROM FOREIGN COLONIZERS-MNLF Official Website

EDITORIAL
BANGSAMORO YOUTH CORNER
29 JuLY 2012

RECLAIMING BANGSAMORO HUMANITY FROM FOREIGN COLONIZERS

By RRayhanR



Speech of Pres. Quezon Declaring the Colonization of the Bangsamoro Homeland Mindanao
Bud Dajo Massacre Enlarged Image
Why Did Quezon Commonwealth Regime Design Eclipsing Bangsamoro Sultanate?



A CASE OF SPANISH, AMERICAN, JAPANESE AND FILIPINO CONSPIRACY

The Philippine-Bangsamoro war in Mindanao, causing massive humanitarian disaster every time the Moro freedom fighters and the colonial Philippine military occupation soldiers engaged in ground widescale mortal combat, has not permanently ended to date. This is despite the efforts of the stakeholders to achieve peace.

Why? Is this due basically to the insensitivity and indifference of foreign conspirators, like Spain, America and Japan with the Philippines, to bring to closure the Mindanao war for the benefit of the colonized and oppressed Bangsamoro people under now Filipino colonialism?

As recalled, Spain, the mother of all piratical colonizers that invaded in the 16th century the Bangsamoro homeland of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan (MINSUPALA), has still to rectify her colonial blatant injustice against the Muslims and Highlander natives of Mindanao. The sinister scheme of Christianizing the native inhabitants of Mindanao and immorally land-grabbing MINSUPALA, worse, selling the Bangsamoro (Moro Nation) together with Cuba for a measly sum of Twenty Million Dollars ($20,000,000) to the American invaders in the ridiculous so-called Treaty of Paris is a worst inhumane act of gluttonous greed and deception in history. Simply despicable, it only displayed the ugliness of human greed for economic and political power generating clear horrible destruction and robbing innocent and peaceful people of their own humanity.

Arrogantly insensitive to the crimes committed against the Bangsamoro of Mindanao, the shameless Spanish leadership of yesterday and today have had not extended any elementary courtesy of apology to the oppressed humanity they have terribly wronged with their majestic jungle rule upholding "might is right."

What about the case of the United States of America (USA) whose loud propaganda for "dream, hope and human rights" ascendancy is always proclaimed to sound like another Roman Empire on the road to glorious conquest?


Backdrop by the injustice most foul perpetrated against the Bangsamoro people, exemplified by the heinous Bud Dajo and Mount Bagsak massacres in Jolo island, including killings of women and children, and other atrocities in Mindanao, American moral ascendancy is surely weighed hollow and thin because until now the American leadership has remained insensitive and callous to the suffering and misery of the colonized Bangsamoro people under both the past American colonial regime and US government-installed Philippine colonialism today.

History can never erase the fact how America contrived with power-hungry megalomaniac Filipino colonizers, like Manuel L. Quezon, Sergio Osmena, Sr., Claro M. Recto, Elpedio Quirino and notorious others, in colonizing the ancestral homeland of the Muslim and Highlander natives of Mindanao, including the Mountain Province (Cordillera region) of the native Igorots.

Just like Spain, the United States of America have still to undo and correct the gross injustice done against the Bangsamoro people. While the US government has apologized to the aboriginal Indian natives in its own backyard for the naked massacring and land-grabbing events in the past, the American leadership has still to apologize to the Bangsamoro people. If only to prove true the oft-repeated American fairness and justice credo, how can America now under the first African American President Barack Obama help the colonized Bangsamoro people regain their freedom and national self-determination from the American-fabricated Philippine colonialism?

THE TRAGEDY OF ASIAN BASTARDIZING A FELLOW ASIAN

The blitzkrieg invasion by Japanese imperial forces in the 1940s over the Bangsamoro homeland MINSUPALA simultaneous with Luzon and Visayan islands was the worst inhumane act contemplated and committed by an Asian to another Asian. The short-lived occupation of Mindanao by the Japanese invaders exhibited tyranny, cruelty and inhumanity at its lowest level.

Thus, it was not surprising that in Mindanao the Japanese marauders had to suffer their worst defeat and highest death mortality at the hands of the Bangsamoro freedom fighters, who never surrendered to the Japanese tyrants unlike the Filipinos in Luzon.

Thus, how would Japan now rectify the outlandish historical blunder committed against the Bangsamoro people of Mindanao under Philippine colonialism?

As observed, the Japanese government, which has extended its deep apology to the people of Korea for the blind invasion and brutality committed against its neighbor, has still to apologize to the Muslim and other Indigenous Peoples of Mindanao for the tyrannical colonization of their ancestral domain. But is the present democratic Japanese government capable now to humble itself before the brutalized people of Mindanao?


HOW INSENSITIVE AND INHUMANE IS PHILIPPINE COLONIALISM?

On top of all criminal activities committed by foreign aggressors against the peaceful and freedom-loving Bangsamoro people of Mindanao, Philippine colonialism -the proud inheritor of the Spanish, American and Japanese colonizers- has still remained the most insensitive and most inhumane colonizer to this very day.

In its bold capacity to deceive mankind, including the United Nations (UN), European Union (EU), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), the Philippine government continues in imposing its "cursed" Filipino identity upon the colonised Muslim and Highlander natives of Mindanao. ("Filipino" is from the immoral "king of inequities" Philip, who died of dreadful vinereal disease with worms all over his obnoxious body. Originally, "Filipinos" are the Christian Catholic children of the Spanish invaders and later in 1872 identified the Christianized Indios, who were used by the Spanish colonizers in their war with the Moros (Muslims) of Mindanao.)

The Filipino colonizers since July 4, 1946 have used the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to continue occupying Mindanao and terrorizing the Muslim and Lumad natives by launching a genocidal war against them since the 1950s, resulting now to the more than 4-decades Filipino-Moro war.

In hoodwinking further the global community of nations, the Philippine government -from Dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, Presidents Corazon C. Aquino, Fidel V. Ramos, Joseph E. Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo- had deceptively engaged the Bangsamoro freedom fighters in peace talks, including signing with peace agreements with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

However, though there was an international peace agreement forged with the MNLF under Chairman Prof Nur Misuari, the Philippine government never has the political will to fully implement the peace agreement because of its ulterior motive in perpetuating colonial hegemony in MINSUPALA, courtesy of the 1935 National Assembly Legislative Act no. 4197 otherwise known as the Quirino-Recto Colonization Act.

PHILIPPINE CONSTITUTION AS POLITICAL WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Since the founding in 1946 of the so-called Philippine Republic with the arbitrary incorporation of MINSUPALA and the Cordillera Region, the Filipino colonizers have used the "Philippine Constitution" as a weapon of mass destruction and deception to oppress and to colonize further the Muslim and Highlander natives of Mindanao.



Presuming to solve the Philippines-Bangsamoro war in Mindanao, registering to the death of more than Two Hundred Thousands precious lives, dislocation of more than One Million refugees in the islands of Visayas, Luzon and neighboring Sabah and countless material losses, including the burning of civilian houses and public mosques, Philippine colonialism has stage-managed in establishing a farcical Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). But the ARMM, which is just a mere fabrication of the pork-barrel conscious Philippine Congress/Senate legislators, has turned out a syndicated "milking cow" (termed by MILF Chair Hj. Murad Ebrahim) of politicians-turned "political marketers" of Manila and Mindanao. The fake autonomous set-up has only become the "cheating capital of Philippine elections" benefiting only the political animals in Malacanang Palace and their local stooges in Mindanao. Worst, the ARMM has been used by the unscrupulous and corrupt officials of the different national department agencies to steal by hundred millions using it a downloading centre for "ghost projects" because the gargantuan loot is easily liquidated by ARMM officials receiving the right percentage "commission". This Philippine pervasive corrupt practice was revealed by the former governor of North Cotabato.

Thus, the ARMM has only brought shame and ridicule to the Muslim populace being loudly condemned and protested by the Bangsamoro ulama (scholars) and religious leaders.

MORALITY OF ABANDONING PHILIPPINE COLONIALISM

Now hounded or haunted by all colonial, criminal and political circumstances enveloping the forced and illegal occupation of the Bangsamoro homeland MINSUPALA, how can the erstwhile foreign colonizers, such as Spain, America and Japan, help Philippine colonialism under President Benigno S. Aquino III to solve comprehensively and peacefully the Filipino-Moro war in Mindanao.
Is the conspiracy strategy still uppermost in their national interests to continue the inhumane treatment of the Muslim and Lumad natives of Mindanao as colonial slaves of the Filipino colonizers?

How can the foreign conspirators involved in the brutalization and destruction of the Bangsamoro people of Mindanao become humane and fair enough to help the Philippine government under President Benigno S. Aquino III end the Filipino-Moro conflict in Mindanao with "just and lasting" peace formula?

How can today Spain, America, Japan and the Philippines develop a high fortitude to embrace the anti-colonialism dictums, "no to exploitation of man by another man", "no to the law of the jungle that might is right," "yes to peace, no to war", and "Moros, not Filipinos"?

Simply said, the past and present colonizers as well as all stakeholders to the elusive Mindanao peace should clearly understand that the only moral and genuine solution to the Philippines-Bangsamoro war in Mindanao is to address the root cause of the problem. That is Philippine colonialism! The rest of the lip-service formula, including military solution, financial and material dole-outs and color-coated others, is only superficial, artificial and cosmetic because all are merely by-products of colonialism.

On this note, how then can the peaceful and conscious humanity, including the peacemakers and peace advocates in the UN, EU, ASEAN, OIC, NGOs and others, play a historic and objective role to help the Muslim and Highlander natives of war-ravaged Mindanao reclaim their own humanity and freedom from Philippine colonialism?

Simply put, can the Spaniards, Americans, Japanese and Filipinos now at the helm of their respective progressive government be truly human beings to hear the silent cry, genuine sentiments and moral aspirations of their fellow human beings under oppression, historic-religious and culture disintegration and colonial bondage?

In the final analysis, can the past foreign colonizers help the present Christian Catholic Philippine Chief Executive to emulate the historic role of Muslim leaders, like former Indonesian President Habibie and Sudanese President Ahmad Bashir, who boldly abandoned altogether colonialism to end the bloody war in their respective countries, giving peace and freedom to the Catholics of East Timor and Christians/Animists of South Sudan?-rrr/bfs

The Filipinos built a memorial to Japanse Kamikaze pilots, the same Japanese who raped, slaughtered and killed thousands of their people during the war, while the Moros of the MNLF ask for an apology. Which one sounds in their right mind?

Kamikaze Pilot Statue (Mabalacat)
 
.

Country Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom