25 U.S. lawmakers urge Abe to reaffirm war apologies

[yuiyoshida]

Source: JapanToday


WASHINGTON —

Twenty-five U.S. lawmakers are urging Japan’s prime minister “to formally reaffirm and validate” apologies made by his predecessors for Japanese wartime aggression.

The appeal comes ahead of a U.S. visit next week by Shinzo Abe, who will be the first Japanese leader to address a joint meeting of Congress.

The House members, Democrats and Republicans, made the appeal in a letter Thursday to Japan’s ambassador to Washington, Kenichiro Sasae.

The lawmakers express hope that Abe will use the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II to enhance Japan’s relationships with its neighbors, “through a vision of long overdue healing and reconciliation.”

Read more: http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/25-u-s-lawmakers-urge-abe-to-reaffirm-war-apologies

[busterbrown]

1. Oh, Fuck that!

Japan’s war w/ the U.S..... Was about oil grabs...I think that we should apologize first to Iraq for what we did to them..I am not trying to minimize the horrors of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or how our brave soldiers were able to protect our Country from an Invasion...It was a very frightening time in our history...But Iraq, they did absolutely nothing to our country..

[Martin Eden]

3. Beat me to it.

Telling Japan to apologize for war crimes from more than 70 years ago while we've committed war crimes in the 21st century for which American politicians have not apologized or been held accountable for in the least is the height of hypocrisy.

[davidpdx]

5. You are missing the point, it's not an apology to the US

It is to South Korea, North Korea, China, and the Philippines who Japan invaded turned the people into slaves and forced women into prostitution.

If you ever want to come over here to Korea and see one of the prisons where Koreans were held by the Japanese, I'll be happy to take you. I saw it on my second day in Korea and it gave me an appreciation for what the Korean people went through.

[JI7]

11. not everything is about the us

Other nations do have history and relations which arent about the us

[yeoman6987]

26. I don't agree with that at all

In 60 years we can apologize for Iraq. Tomorrow Japan needs to apologize to us. It has been a long time coming. So glad the Democratic Congress agrees with me.

[NuclearDem]

31. Japan attacked far more than just the US during WWII.

In fact, they did some really horrible things to China and Korea that Japanese nationalists either minimize or outright deny ever happened.

[jaysunb]

2. Words fail me. n/t

[davidpdx]

6. They do because you have no idea what you are talking about

See post #5.

[angrychair]

4. HUBRIS

The arrogance we have to muster to say such shit is stunning. LET.IT.GO. It has been 70 years! They've apologized. A lot. They are one of our closest allies and trusted friends. What a bunch of assholes.

[davidpdx]

7. It has nothing to do with the US

It has to do with South Korea, North Korea, China, and the Philippines. See Post#5.

[angrychair]

9. HUBRIS

Read the story:
"to forto formally reaffirm and validate” apologies made by his predecessors for Japanese wartime aggression. mally reaffirm and validate” apologies made by his predecessors for Japanese wartime aggression. "
We've moved on. Germany is our friend. Japan is our friend. They even have decent relationships with other Asian nations.

[davidpdx]

10. STUPIDITY

See I can put nice capitalized words in the reply as well.

The conservative government has continued to minimize their country's action toward countries like South Korea including publishing textbooks that revise history leaving out events like the forced prostitution of Korean women. I bet you'd like to come over and tell a woman that is 80 or 90 years old that having Japan reaffirm their apology is hubris. Maybe you could tell her it never really happened.

No, they don't have a decent relationship with their neighbors. It is a tenuous one at best because the conservatives in Japan keep up the denial of what happened during the war.

[angrychair]

13. Duh

What?
Nice name calling. So by that logic, I should go down to my local German bakery and call the family that owns it killers and nazis.
The Japanese people are just like the kind gentleman that owns that bakery, he wasn't even alive when it happened. Most Japanese were not alive when it happened. Yet they are, as a nation, to apologize yet again? Its not about diminishing what happened. What happened was horrible. Its about moving on.

[Bonobo]

15. Apparently for Koreans, apologies have a short shelf life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan

[davidpdx]

18. Yes, especially when conservatives run their mouths about it never happening and

change textbooks to take out any references to comfort women. If the US did that you'd scream loud, yet you think that's ok for Japan to do? Hmm...

It is also noted in the article you yourself referenced that the type of apology was not a deep apology, but more of an I'm sorry I ran over your cat apology.

[davidpdx]

17. So maybe we should simply forget that millions of Jews were killed during WWII

and let Germany rewrite history (since you are the one who used that reference). I'm sure Jewish people wouldn't mind if Germany decided to just rewrite the textbooks to simply skip over the whole thing (sarcasm, unless anyone missed).

It is the Japanese conservatives that continue to bring up the issue and make claims that it didn't happen. They are as bad as the Holocaust deniers.

Now go put on your hood and go play outside.

[davidpdx]

8. Frankly I'm amazed how ignorant some are on DU

(and the responses prove my point)

The apologies have to do with what was done to Korea, China, and the Philippines.

I challenge any DUer to fly over to Seoul and I'd be happy to give them a tour of the prison where Koreans were held during the war and arrange a meeting with the comfort women who were forced in to prostitution.

[Telcontar]

16. I second

I recall a tree up in the Multi-Purpose Range Complex that we were forbidden from coming within 50 meters of. It was considered a national treasure because it survived the Japanese colonization. Had a nice plaque and everything (you could walk up to it, but show respect, no vehicles).

Koreans have a visceral hate of the Japanese.

[Bonobo]

21. Hatred is not hard to come by.

Ask the average Taiwanese what they think of the Koreans. Not big fans.

Hatred is an inexhaustible commodity that the Chinese and Koreans like to renew with plenty of government assistance. Creating an external enemy is a great way to draw attention away from other stuff.

[bananas]

27. I'm no longer amazed or surprised. nt

[Little Tich]

12. Bow your head and apologize, Shinzo Abe.

[madville]

14. I don't understand people who live in the past

I find living in the past depressing, we have no control over it. I focus on the present and what I can do to make the future better, that I know I can influence and change.

[davidpdx]

19. I didn't understand this until I came to live here.

The short end of the story was that I accepted a position teaching here and arrived Jan 2nd 2004. I was interested in getting out and starting to learn the subway system in Seoul so I'd be able to get around on my own. One of the other teachers at my school was going out and someone asked if I could go along. The guy said no problem. The place we went was Seodaemun Prison in Seoul. Certainly it wasn't the place I had PLANNED to go on my first day there. It was eye opening in terms of the history of Korea and made me more curious. I have since been reading up on both South and North Korea including the time period of the Japanese annexation.

[Beauregard]

20. So every Japanese Prime Minister is supposed to apologize for WWII?

It's probably time to stop making them do that.

[davidpdx]

28. No, but when some of them (and their party) try to rewrite the past

through textbooks and statements they do need to be held accountable.

[EX500rider]

23. "Japan The Victim"

In a rare break with royal protocol and 70 years of Japanese tradition Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito recently suggested that Japan should take a closer look at its World War II experience. What Naruhito was doing was criticizing the decades old attitude that Japan was a victim, not the aggressor, during World War II. Officially Japan admits it was in the wrong during World War II. But in more subtle ways Japanese society not only denies responsibility but sees itself as a victim. This is reflected in decades of Japanese opinion surveys, even though the official line was often enforced. Thus in 2008 the commander of the Japanese Air Force, general Toshio Tamogami, was forced to resign after the media noted an article he had written claiming that Japan was not an aggressor during World War II.

Tamogami was merely saying in public what was and is a common attitude in Japan. Unlike the Germans, who take to guilt quite readily, the Japanese always saw themselves as victims. For example, when all the encrypted Japanese message traffic from World War II was decoded (in the years after the war), one series of diplomatic messages, sent to embassies in the weeks after the atomic bombs were dropped, and Japan surrendered and before American troops took control of the Foreign Ministry, advised diplomats to push the idea that Japan was a victim of Western savagery. The atomic bomb attacks were to be used to prove this. Apparently the Japanese diplomats gained some traction with this in the West, but among their neighbors, the concept of the Japanese as victims was laughable, and still is.

Before Japan entered World War II it justified its aggression in China (which it began invading in the early 1930s) as an altruistic effort to bring the benefits of modern political thinking and technology to the backward Chinese. There is still a lot of anger in China over this. Japan justified its attack on the United States, and European colonies in the western Pacific in 1941 as an attempt to liberate Asians from European colonial rule. But the Japanese just replaced one set of foreign rulers with another and the Japanese were much more brutal. That was because the Japanese saw themselves as a master race (and still do), and treated lesser races with contempt and brutality. They have toned down the brutality since 1945 if only because of the inferior races have better weapons and the ability to destroy Japan.

Since the 1990s, the Japanese government has tried to persuade the world, and particularly their neighbors, that Japan really is sorry for their bad behavior before 1945. But many Japanese still prefer general Tamogami's pre-1945 version of events. There are enough of these old school Japanese around to keep Japans worst World War II behavior out of Japanese school books, and those who publish anything to the contrary in Japan, get a lot of abuse from old school believers in what Japan really was, and is. So while the Crown Princes’ comments may be popular with foreigners, it only irritates most Japanese. Turning around these Japanese attitudes will take a long, long time.

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/Japan-The-Victim-4-20-2015.asp

[Bonobo]

29. These drawing by S. Korean middle school children may be instructive.

I assure you there is no school-promoted hatred of Koreans going on in Japan.

So if you want to know where the hate is being produced, this may help you understand.

http://www.geocities.jp/bxninjin2004/data_room/05/cache/02/index.php.htm

[Bonobo]

30. And this, a first hand account of anti-Japanese education at the youngest ages.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120822221542AA2Zyu4

Best Answer: I don't know about you guys saying that people aren't educated to be anti-Japan here, but my experience is quite different to say the least.

I work at a Kindergarten and my kids range between 5 and 7 years old (in Korean age, which makes them anywhere from 3 to 8 in Western age reckoning).

The littlest kids, who are just learning how to write in Korean, can usually write four things without asking for help: their name, 엄마 (mommy), 아빠 (daddy) and 독도는 우리 땅 (Dokdo is our (Korean) land). This stuff is literally thrown at them from the time they are old enough to speak. The kids draw pro-Dokdo posters depicting things like the Japanese islands on fire, etc.

Many of my kids, instead of using the word 일본사람 (ilbon saram), meaning "Japanese person" instead use the word 일본놈 (ilbon-nom) which means "Japanese b*stard". This is something I particularly try and stamp out in my classroom, but to not much effect.