The comfort women atrocity hasn’t had the press of the Holocaust, but it’s nearly as horrific. Women and girls were systematically and repetitively raped by Japanese soldiers. But there’s no evidence of coercion. :rolleyes:
A certain segment of Japan’s population, the PM included, has got to get their heads out their asses and face the reality of their nation’s war crimes. The fact that there’s tofu-headed nationalists drooling this nonsense is bad enough, but having the leadership spew it too is unforgivable. Korea and China can be hyper-sensitive at time about Japanese war crimes–this shows why they need to be.
It’s not in my nature to say that Shinzo Abe should “comfort” a trio of diseased billy goats (I’m sure it won’t need to be “coercive”), so I won’t. Sorry for the lameness. Feel free to add your own invectives.
This is news how? Japan has been in denial about it’s role in China and WWII since 1945. Not universally but by and large the Japanese were vicious, bloodthirsty thugs during the war, and unlike the Germans who have acknowledged their sins and publicly apologized for them, the Japanese have adopted a don’t ask, don’t tell, it never happened policy. If the American public at the time had known how the Japanese treated POWs, captives and civilians in area that they controlled, they wouldn’t have let Trueman stop with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they would have demanded that the islands be razed to the ground.
Except the government apologized to the “comfort women” in 1993. Japan still has a long way to go in fessing up to its past, but this is an about-face that goes well beyond a refusal to talk about it. It’s a lie and a deliberate insult.
It’s a really weird statement to make (what’s the point, that the comfort women all did it willingly?? or is it like a “well, you can’t objectively prove God DOESN’T exist” kind of deal?) and pretty dumb, but it’s his statement, not the blanket view of the entire Japanese population, or even the entire military presence (I realize the OP didn’t say it was, but some of the replies seem to be leaning in that direction). God, I’d hate to be blamed for what Bush and his compatriots think.
That said, what I’ve read of the accounts of the ordeal (and other Japanese wartime atrocities) is almost too horrible to be real. Just reads like pure evil. I guess that could be said for a lot of atrocities, though.
I don’t blame ordinary Japanese for this. It’s the nationalist right-wing in Japan that’s the problem (sound familiar?). And apparently Abe is a part of that problem.
The previous PM, Junichiro Koizumi, did jerkish things like visit memorials for the war dead, including war criminals. At least he had a fig leaf by saying that he was honoring all the dead. Still very insulting.
But Abe’s comment is basically saying “we stole your women and they liked it”. Not pretense about it. The emperor should rebuke him (like that’ll happen :rolleyes: ), and other nations should shun him like a Holocaust-denier.
He knows fully well what went on. Don’t make a mistake thinking that he doesn’t.
The statements he makes are carefully choreographed for domestic political consumption, and Japan hasn’t been at all candid with its own people about war crimes.
I don’t like broad brushes and I don’t blame people for the actions of their government (unless they are actively involved). I’m probably too forgiving, too.
In this case, I think Japanese are mostly ignorant and/or apathetic about their nation’s war crimes. I’ll hold them to account for that, but not the specific vile of Abe. I will hold the Emperor responsible for not rebuking the PM. He needs to grow bigger balls and stand up to the right wing. They can’t gainsay him without cutting their own bellies.
Don’t paint the Japanese people with a broad brush anymore than you would Americans. Do you think that all Americans support the Bush Administration’s policies in Guantanamo and the formerly “secret prisons” where Geneva Conventions were set aside? Do you think that all Americans support the idea of sending prisoners to countries that are known to torture? Why has a European country charged Rumsfeld with war crimes? Are all Americans in denial too?
Yes, how many of them remember the Sand Creek massacre or the Moro Crater massacre.
Can we truly expect others to remember the ugly side of their national history when we do not?
I looked up some cites in Japanese Wikipedia on this issue, and, yeah, this guy’s a right wing, war-crime-denying piece of shit.
It’s not true that Japan has never apologized for its war crimes, however. It has, in bits and pieces. The current emperor also has called the war “regrettable,” intending in that context to indicate, at least to some extent, that Japan did wrong.
Here’s the issue. There’s just a whole lot of old, right-wing fuckers in Japan that have a lot of influence. They are slowly dying off, but it’s going to take time.
The Japanese Prime Minister is similar to the Galactic President (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.) His job isn’t to do anything except to distract away from the puppeteers.
The Emperor is Emperor in name only. He has no power and is not permitted to be involved in the political machinery running the country. The Emperor cannot rebuke the PM.
