history question: did the japanese ever apologize to...

[Kaieye]

I remember back in 1987 when I was at the peace park atomic museum in Hiroshima. I was about finished with the exhibition when at the end they had a guest book to sign. I remember standing for about three minutes hanging around that book if I should have put down any comments after my name, address and nationality. I decided not to add any fuel to the fire by writing - remember Pearl Harbor but I sure was tempted...

 

[DaWhim]

Originally posted by: nick1985

Originally posted by: DaWhim

Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis
Yeah we just didn't hear them over the screams of terror when we dropped the bombs.

the only difference between dropping 2000 bombs or 2 atomic bombs is more civilian deads., which was good. damn Truman!

you do understand that MORE civilians would have died if we HADNT dropped the bombs right? thats what you liberals dont understand....same thing with iraq...more civilians would have died if we HADNT invaded, but you just dont see those...

you do not understand? MORE japs civilian DESERVED to die, which was a GOOD thing.

from the casualties link, japn suffers 360,000? WTF:| if we didn't drop the bomb, jap's casualties will be 10x+
they truly deserved that. Every Jap in japan participated in the war. EVERYONE OF THEM.

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: Kaieye
I remember back in 1987 when I was at the peace park atomic museum in Hiroshima. I was about finished with the exhibition when at the end they had a guest book to sign. I remember standing for about three minutes hanging around that book if I should have put down any comments after my name, address and nationality. I decided not to add any fuel to the fire by writing - remember Pearl Harbor but I sure was tempted...

I would have written "In memory of Jack Parker - he sends his regards"

Jack Parker is my uncle who died in a Jap POW camp.

 

[adelphi]

the japs can start the apology w/ removing the mosaics off their pron

 

[Brutuskend]

IIRC the Japanese did give repartition's to the Korean "Comfort" women awhile back, or at the very least they apologized.

A very small thing compared to what was done. But bad things are done by EVERY side in wars.

And History is written by the winners.

 

[DaWhim]

Originally posted by: Lizardman

Originally posted by: DaWhim

Originally posted by: diegoalcatraz
As far as I can tell, the only reason the world hasn't crucified Japan over world war II like they've done to Nazi Germany was because we (the US) wanted Japan as a buffer against communism, and allowed (read:encouraged) the incidents to be forgotten.

It's kind of odd how our public schools taught us to feel guilt over the Bombs, to demonize the nazis (and rightfully so), while completing ommitting the Japanese WWII attrocities. It wasn't until I took a college course on Japanese History until I learned these things.

</rant>

Having said that, history is history, and it happened six decades ago. Every nation makes mistakes and has skeletons in their closet, and we're sure as hell not entirely faultless. But we can't hold the current generation accountable for what their parents did.

history is history, the Japs is trying to change the history by making we chinese invited them to invade us. keep in mind that they still DENY the Rape of Nanji was even happened in which they killed 300,000 citizens in 1 day. there is something need to be justified.
btw, 6 decades is only 1 generation.

300K in one day is not accurate. The rape of Nanji took place over the course of serveral months.


Nanking

I was wrong on that part. it was actually 6 weeks, but how can I be more wrong than the author of Alleged "Nanking Massacre"
a japanese scholar that trying to deny the rape of nanking never happened. how pathetic?
oh...he actually wrote 2 books What Really Happened in Nanking
two wrongs don't make it right.

 

[Brutuskend]

Here's an interesting news bit...

"'Comfort Women' Held in U.S. WWII Prisoner-of-War Camps," KYODO in English [Tokyo], 4 August 1993, 1421 GMT, IN: _Foreign Broadcast Information Service - Daily Report/East Asia_ [FBIS-EAS-93-149 (5 August 1993)], page 5, column 2.
by Vincent K Pollard
22 November 1994 04:11 UTC

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you were not listening to Radio Kyodo in English some 15 1/2 months ago, you might have missed this item.

Among some 10,000 Korean names of people held prisoner by the Allied forces were an estimated 300 to 600 Korean "comfort women," according to a team of Japanese activists and members of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryun) who checked documents at the United States National Archives, Washington, D.C.

According to the research team, the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare had received copies of the same documents but refused to release them. The team then did its research in Washington, D.C.

The Kyodo news report whose transcript I have read, was broadcast a very few days after Japan's government issued a public apology for the sexual servitude of the Korean and other "comfort women."


Vincent Kelly Pollard
Department of Political Science
University of Hawai'i at Manoa

And more here...

Japan Rejects Lawsuit by WWII Sex Slaves
Japan on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed in the United States by 15 World War II "comfort women" who survived Japanese sex slave camps.

"We are aware of the lawsuit," said a foreign ministry official.

"But the Japanese government stance is that all issues related to compensation were already settled by post-war treaties," he said, declining to be named.

The women from South Korea, China, the Philippines and Taiwan filed the case Monday with the Washington DC District Court, seeking compensation and an official apology from the Japanese government.

They are among some 200,000 women who were forced into sex slavery by the Japanese Imperial armed forces between 1932 and 1945, according to the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues.

It was the first time that former sex slaves, commonly known as "comfort women," have sought justice in US courts, and the first time Japan has been named as a defendant, according to the WCCWI.

But Japan had already settled war compensation in post-war treaties including the 1951 San Francisco peace settlement with the Allies, the foreign ministry official argued.

It also reached bilateral agreements with Asian countries including China in which they renounced demands for reparations.

"It is up to the plaintiffs to file suit, but as I said compensation issues were already settled," the official said.

Japan's government denies that it has abandoned its responsibilities towards the comfort women.

In 1995 it set up the Asian Women's Fund, which has so far paid out two million yen (US$18,000) in "atonement money" to each of 170 former sex slaves and delivered a letter of apology from the prime minister.

Elderly South Korean and Taiwanese comfort women have received an additional three million yen each for medical and welfare purposes, while Filipinos received 1.2 million yen.

But Kohken Tsuchiya, a human-rights lawyer who is advising victims of Japanese germ warfare experiments on human guinea-pigs in China, said the fund was a cover for Japan's unwillingness to apologize properly.

"Through the fund, the government is evading its responsibility to officially apologize for its war-time conduct," Tsuchiya told AFP.

"The lawsuit in Washington is yet another result of Japan's reluctance to apologize and it should create international pressure on Japan to make an apology."

Six of the plaintiffs are from South Korea, four from China, four from the Philippines and one is from Taiwan.

Seoul resident Hwang Geum-Joo, 78, said she was circulated among various "comfort stations" in China for five years from 1941, when she was 19 years old, and raped by 30 to 40 Japanese soldiers a day.

"Many of the women became so sick that they had yellow pus from their pubic hair to their belly buttons, and their faces turned yellow as well," the suit said.

"Women who got sick three times were taken away by the soldiers and never returned."

Four Chinese Americans and five Chinese nationals last month sued Japanese conglomerates Mitsubishi and Mitsui in Los Angeles, claiming the companies enslaved thousands of Chinese citizens during World War II.

Former Allied prisoners of war are also fighting for compensation after being tortured, starved and worked nearly to death by the Japanese army.

But no Japanese court has supported their reparation claims, citing the 1951 peace settlement.

From here

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: DrNoobie
Why should they apologize? I'm sure they're not sorry. At the time, they thought what they were doing was the right course of action for their country. War is war, apologies afterward are moronic.

Your statement is ridiculous. The Japanese taking of "comfort women," or the Bataan Death March, or the German holocaust, Serb attrocities under Slobodan Milosevic in the Balkins or other similar attrocities, whether in war or at any other time, are inexcusable as acts. Americans are not free of historical guilt for serious attrocious acts, even against its own citizens, including the slavery that central to our own Civil War, the infamous Tuskegee Experiment, and massacres such as at Mi Lai, in Viet Nam.

No one can undo history, but sincere apologies are a statement of realization about the wrong that was done, and they are part of the healing process. Hopefully, they also serve as a reminder to help prevent them in the future and as a warning to those who would commit them that there are consequences for doing so.

 

[0roo0roo]

bah, did china apologize for tienamen square? the massacres of the cultural revolution? or supporting the north koreans and their attrocities? continued oppression to this day? north korea apologize for anything? the europeans appologize for harsh colonialism in the entire area? the areas too dirty for apologies.

 

[DuffmanOhYeah]

Originally posted by: DrNoobie
Why should they apologize? I'm sure they're not sorry. At the time, they thought what they were doing was the right course of action for their country. War is war, apologies afterward are moronic.

Wholeheartedly agree.

 

[bleeb]

some (small population) koreans still have a hatred for Japanese... i heard a story about how a japanese guy was beat up while waiting for a connecting flight in korea.

 

[Playmaker]

Bombing the Emperor's palace was an option, but they didn't dare to try that as they were not sure what would happen.

Is this true? I always wondered why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed as opposed to multiple bombs on Tokyo.

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis

Originally posted by: Mill

Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis
Yeah we just didn't hear them over the screams of terror when we dropped the bombs.

They don't teach reality of the A-Bomb at UT? Shocking... guess you'd rather have Russia invading and killing millions as well as the soldiers and citizens that would have died in Japan. More loss of life would have been better then? Moron.

So dropping the bombs on cities was better than demonstrating the power first as was suggested?

That's a hypothetical that no one can know the answer to. The only reality we can judge is that we used those two bombs and the war ended.

Within that context I would say it proved a successful strategy. In the context of human history, which has not reached a conclusion, I don't know that we can say yet whether it was worth the price or not.

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: Playmaker

Bombing the Emperor's palace was an option, but they didn't dare to try that as they were not sure what would happen.

Is this true? I always wondered why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed as opposed to multiple bombs on Tokyo.

Yes, basically. The U.S. was not sure what would happen if you take out their leadership. Worst case is that authority transfers to local military commanders and they carry out their orders to defend to the last person.

Dropping the bomb on a military/industrial target other than Tokyo gave them a chance to stop things before the country is wiped out.

 

[Uppsala9496]

Keep in mind that the Japanese saw the emperor as a god. The fear was that with the killing of their god, that the struggle would become more intense.
That's the reason he was never tried at the end of the war.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: Uppsala9496
Keep in mind that the Japanese saw the emperor as a god. The fear was that with the killing of their god, that the struggle would become more intense.
That's the reason he was never tried at the end of the war.

And why he could get away with bluntly denying stuff and refusing to apologize.