"America's war criminals pass the buck to underlings"

[McKenzie]

Japan Times article dated 09 October. It says what many of us believe...it goes all the way to the top.

<snip>

The Eichmanns, Calleys and Englands of this world must surely take responsibility for their individual actions. "Only following orders" is not an excuse that is acceptable in the courtroom.

But when an entire government, such as the present one in Washington, is permeated by a culture of avoidance of truth and the shifting of blame -- be it for abuses in a prison or for crude finger-pointing in the aftermath of natural disasters -- and when leaders of a country blatantly flaunt international treaties, universally honored conventions and fair legal practice, we are obliged to ask, "What has happened to justice?"

An administration that can so unashamedly avoid responsibility will try its hand at anything. In a courtroom where the criminals act as judge, even the defense of "I was only giving orders" is bound to prevail.

</snip>

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fl20051009rp.htm

[Wallygagger]

1. I don't think the Japanese should be

making accusations of War Crimes or be giving advice about taking responsibility.

I guess they've forgotten Nanking and the Phillipines

[Art_from_Ark]

3. Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes at the Tokyo Tribunal

Many of them, including Hideki Tojo, were executed by the same country that is now committing war crimes itself. The Japanese have every right to point this out.

[Wallygagger]

4. they weren't tried by the Japanese Government

during the war, is my point.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Wallygagger]

6. Who's attacking the messenger

However valid their argument may be, I don't think the Japanese have a right to talk about war criminals given how their country dealt with War Crimes committed in WWII.

I'm just pointing out the Irony

[Art_from_Ark]

8. Once again-- Japanese wartime leaders were tried, convicted, and executed

by the United States for engaging in war crimes. Now a Japanese newspaper-- which is published mainly for the foreign residents and visitors of Japan-- is pointing out the irony of today's situation. The Japanese have not engaged in war crimes for 60 years and have, in fact, changed their act 180 degrees since the war days. They have the right to point out hypocrisy when they see it.

On edit, I see that the article was written by a non-Japanese.

[Wallygagger]

10. not by the japanese government during the war

If Tom Delay decided to lecture on ethics, don't you think it would be a tad Ironic.

That's all I'm saying here.

The Article has other flaws I'm just commenting on a Japanese Newspaper criticizing other nations, given Japan's history with regard to war crimes.

To my knowledge, they never apologized to China for their actions

[Toots]

12. But you don't mind criticizing Japan when America is even guiltier

Think smallpox infested blankets given to the Indians and government bounties for Indian scalps. You don't think Delay has been lecturing on judicial ethics? Japan has as much right as any other country on the face of the earth but it wasn't Japan doing the attacking it was a newspaper article written by someone not even Japanese. I suppose you can not determine the difference.

[Wallygagger]

13. I'm not going to discuss tactics in practice

when the Europeans were running things.
Let's not forget, Smallpox infected blankets and clothing were inventions of the Spanish, French and English BEFORE there was a united states.
I'm merely commenting that a country who didn't deal with their own war criminals during the last war they started, shouldn't be lecturing other countries about responsibility.

If you feel comfortable finding fault with this country, that's your business. I don't agree and I'm sorry I brought it up.

and Delay can lecture on ethics all he wants....I'll laugh when he does.

[gratuitous]

15. So, only the perfect may criticize the U.S. for its war crimes?

Who would you then regard as credible? Only a prosecutor who'd never had a traffic ticket? Only the one who is without sin may cast a stone?

Certainly the Japanese have many things to come to grips with from their behavior in the 20th Century. Well, so does the United States, which has never been held accountable in any way for a century of misdeeds against its own citizens, from the Haymarket Riots to the Palmer Raids to the busting of the unions in the coal mines and auto factories, to the blighting of our countryside by extractive industries, to the police riots in the 1960s, to the illegal wars waged against Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. I suppose I could go on, but that's a brief précis of some of our country's misdeeds.

What does it matter if Japan is pointing it out or the man in the moon? A crime is a crime, isn't it?

[Wallygagger]

16. But the Japanese haven't come to terms

they've issued no apologies, they play the victim in WWII.
Having been to the Hiroshima Holocaust Museum, they don't believe they started the war, they don't believe their actions in China or their treatement of POWs was wrong.

I just find it ironic, that a nation that did not investigate war crimes, slaughtered hundreds of thousands through torture, medical experiments and beaheadings and beatings...non of which was prosecuted by the japanese government, has the right to point fingers and talk about responsibility.

read the Rape of Nanking or Bataan before you equate Lindee England with a War Criminal in the Japanese Army, many of whom have archived interview footage on the History Channel

that's all I'm saying

[gratuitous]

17. Japan's Prime Minister, April 22, 2005

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1581091,00.html

Mr Koizumi’s statement was similar to previous utterances by Japanese leaders and virtually identical to the words chosen by Tomiichi Murayama in August 1995. But the choice of setting — a gathering of 80 Asian and African leaders in Jakarta — represented an attempt to defuse the extreme tension of the past three weeks.

“In the past, Japan, through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations,” Mr Koizumi said. “Japan squarely faces these facts of history in a spirit of humility. And with feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology always engraved in mind, Japan has resolutely maintained, consistently since the end of World War II, that it will never turn into a military power.”

_______________

By the way, I haven't seen too many official apologies by the United States government for dropping two atomic bombs on a civilian population that couldn't fight back, couldn't get away, and couldn't even comprehend the magnitude of the weapon used on them. I'm less interested in whether the accuser comes to the table with clean hands than I am with the ongoing crimes of my own country, committed during my lifetime, with my tax dollars, and the public statements by my government not to similarly abjure another use of nuclear weapons against a civilian population.

[Wallygagger]

21. I stand corrected

why would or should the US apologize to a nation that started a war and refused to surrender? I'm sure you with the group that believes an invasion of Japan would have been the better alternative. And recent evidence of the Japanese Nuclear program refutes your claim that they were unaware of the magnitude of the weapon. At the very least the first bomb should have clued them in.

unlike the japanese government, yours has proescuted and convicted people who did nothing like the japanese did in nanking. Hell, they didn't even come close to Saddam in their brutality.

And if you feel your country is so bad or evil, why do you stay here. I can't imagine living in a place I hated.

[Art_from_Ark]

24. You really should learn about the events leading up to World War II

Starting with the forced opening of Japan in 1854, then moving on to a newly modernizing Japan playing "catch up" with the Western colonial powers in the 1870s through 1890s, then with Japan finally joining the imperialist game in the 1890s with its victory over a China that had been softened up by the Western powers, then to American newspapers' sensationalist stories about the "yellow peril", to Japan's race with the US to see who could be the first to wrest the Philippines away from Spain, then to Japan's stunning victory over a "white, Christian" Armada from Russia in 1905, an event which stirred even more anti-Japanese sentiment in the West (compelling the city of San Francisco, for example, to forcibly segregate Japanese students from white students in 1906), then to the "Gentleman's Agreement" of 1907 that effectively ended Japanese immigration to the US ("Don't give us your tired and your poor, just give us your educated and wealthy"), then moving on to the increasing militarism of the Japanese government in the 1910s in response to intensifying competition for colonial possessions, to the Immigration Act of 1924 which officially ended all Japanese immigration to the US, among other events.

[Wallygagger]

26. and the Japanese action in Nanking

which caused the US to withhold oil.

What I notice is you only seem to place blame in one direction.

[Art_from_Ark]

27. There is plenty of blame to go around

I'm just trying to show you the other side of the story.

Why don't you read up on those events?

As for Nanking, yes, the Japanese did lots of bad things there. But so did Mao Tse-tung, who at the time was fighting both against the Japanese and against the Chinese Nationalists and Chiang Kai-shek. According to my Chinese officemate, Mao and Chiang ostentatiously had a truce so that they could join forces to fight the Japanese. However, Mao decided to kill two birds with one stone by killing Chinese in nationalist areas, and blaming it on the Japanese. He could thus rally the locals to his side while simultaneously eliminating potential adversaries once the Japanese were pushed out.

[Wallygagger]

29. How are the relevant to the rape and murder

of 100,000 men women and children in China? I'm not talking about bombs or collateral damage. I'm talking about the river running red with blood from the beheadings. I'm talking about the rape of 10yr olds. And then let's not forget the treatment of the civillian population in the phillipines.

the Japanese government didn't prosecute their soldiers for war crimes, they didn't punish them for their brutality against civillians and I don't really care about peripheral arguments that look to excuse the japanese or lindee england.
The fact remains, US troops, if they were given an order to torture anyone, have a responsibility under the UCMJ to defy that order, at their own peril of course....they didn't. they were subsequently punished.
I don't think a country that didn't prosecute anyone for war crimes has the right to point fingers at actions that pale in comparison.

How do keep women as sex slaves then cry for a man who had underwear put on his head.

Americans are holding their government accountable, or trying to. If the Japanese had the answers to the worlds problems they wouldn't be relying on us for their defense today

[Art_from_Ark]

30. You have so much to learn about this page of history

The Americans prosecuted Japanese war criminals. How hard is it for you to understand that? My boss' father was held at an American base in the Philippines until 1947 because he was suspected of being a war criminal. They let him go only when they were satisfied he wasn't. There were untold others like him, that no one will ever hear about. Lots of the Japanese in China never made it back to Japan alive, as they were captured by Mao's forces and executed. Japanese soldiers in the Kurile Islands and Sakhalin (who probably weren't even war criminals) were carted off to Siberia after the Soviets invaded. Many of the top brass were tried, convicted and executed by the American occupation under MacArthur.

The Americans occupied Japan until 1952. That gave them plenty of time to round up war criminals. The Americans said war crimes were bad, and they punished Japanese leaders for them. Japan has not committed any war crime since then. But the country that prosecuted Japanese war criminals is now engaged in some very dubious war-related behavior of its own now. The Japanese have every right to point that out.

[Wallygagger]

31. right, AMERICANS. Who prosecuted the people

from Abu Ghraib.
That's the point I'm trying to make.

The Japanese shouldn't be talking about holding war criminals responsible given their own failure to do so that's all I'm saying.

I don't care about excuses or reasons for brutality against your fellow man, I care about how those people are dealt with in their own society.
The US has stood up and prosecuted people responsible to the extent that the investigation has led them. The Japanese just turned people loose in their society and pretended as if they'd done nothing wrong.

[July]

7. Article is IN Japan Times, but not BY a Japanese citizen.

Author Roger Pulver is American-born and is now an Australian citizen who lives in Kyoto.

Editing to add that even if the article were by a Japanese citizen, it would not be undermined by that fact. Why couldn't a citizen of Japan have serious and interesting thoughts on war crimes, something that Japan has had to face? Same could be said for a German today, and I think Germany has shown that it HAS learned a great deal from its past.

[Wallygagger]

9. Let's look at it like this

If Tom Delay decided to chide the nation on ethics, do you think he would have much credibility?

I'm merely pointing out that a japanese newspaper, publishing articles on war crimes is Ironic

[Bridget Burke]

11. YOU look at it like this:

The war criminals got Japan involved in a war that ended in nuclear destruction of two cities. The effects of incendiary bombing were even worse, though not as dramatic. Perhaps the Japanese publishers of this article (not written by a Japanese) see a pattern developing. They know what happened to their grandparents' generation.

Since you are fond of historical precedents, please recall the the Nuremberg Trials. Those who gave the orders were indicted for planning & carrying out aggressive war. And war crimes.

www.courttv.com/archive/casefiles/nuremberg/

Shall we wait for the Red Army to take Berlin (or whatever our future may hold)? Or shall we take care of our criminals NOW?

[Wallygagger]

14. Can you tell us where the massive hunt was

to find the guards and soldiers who operated in Nanking and the phillipines?

Can you tell us the date of the apology made to the people of Nanking?

The fact remains, the Japanese didn't investigate war crimes during the war, they didn't try war criminals during the war.

They were defeated...that's the only reason there were war crime trials.

[Bridget Burke]

18. So war crimes are OK as long as we don't lose?

The writer of the article now lives in Australia. I'm sure he's heard about Japanese war crimes there.

[The Magistrate]

20. Unfortunately, Ma'am

That is pretty much how it is in practice, at least where major powers are concerned: the side which loses is punished for its criminality, the side which wins is not.

When discussion of war crimes is undertaken in the context of World War Two, the matter often becomes very muddied, sometimes deliberately so. Certain salient points are often obscured. These are that that war originated as a criminal enterprise by the Axis powers, under existing international law of the time, namely the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and the conduct of the leading Axis powers, Germany and Japan, during that war, was deliberately and blatantly criminal, both in method of war fighting, and in conduct in occupied territories. Those acts by the Allied powers that some allege as counter-balancing criminality would not have taken place without the intitiating ctiminal acts of the Axis powers, and are things that, given the state of the military art at the time, could hardly have been avoided if the war pressed upon them by the Axis powers was to be fought actively and successfully.

[Wallygagger]

22. if that were the case

there wouldn't have been trials.

And I dont care where the person lived...the JAPAN TIMES is a JAPANESE NEWSPAPER.

[July]

19. Bad analogy.

Tom DeLay is in trouble over ethics, so his thoughts on ethics are not credible.

Since the guy writing this article isn't part of the nation that committed war crimes, his thoughts shouldn't be considered suspect automatically (for that matter, there are probably Japanese people who care about this issue as well, whether or not the government has taken steps you think it should have taken). The fact that this writer's thoughts appear in a Japanese paper doesn't make his thoughts less interesting or credible. And the fact that a Japanese paper would even publish on this topic indicates that its audience may have open minds or want the topic addressed (or both).

[Wallygagger]

23. It's been published in the JAPAN TIMES

you do believe they might have some japanese ownership, maybe and editor or two. Possibly even some japanese readers

[July]

25. Telling you they are addressing the issue. nt

[Art_from_Ark]

28. The Japan Times is oriented toward foreigners in Japan

It is an English-language daily with a Japanese editor. A few Japanese read it, but the vast majority of readers are non-Japanese.

[mainer]

32. WWII was over 50 years ago -- you're blaming the grandchildren?

So a nation can NEVER get over its mistakes and crimes? The people now in charge of Japan (and the Japan Times) were probably not even born when the crimes in Nanking were perpetrated.

[halobeam]

2. Sad thing is, some people do not care what the world thinks of us.

These are the people who think we should just "nuke Iraq, Iran" RIGHT OFF THE MAP. They don't think the UN should exist. They think we don't need anyone telling us what to do, but do they think past this? No way. They think that we can live on this earth, isolated. What fools. If anything can jolt that flawed concept, Katrina can. It did wake up more people. We needed help. Ah... what a concept. We needed others. The super storms/ natural disasters are adding up. Tsunami, hurricanes, and earthquakes. These are global issues. Now another: Pandemic Flu. Life provides the tests and lessons we need to learn. I'm afraid, since Katrina didn't cause us to ACT on it's lessons... (one of the smaller lessons being, the National Guard should be HERE, and the money we are spending in an offensive war is needed HERE), then we need another lesson. The Flu perhaps? How many are going to have to die, to learn that we all need each other, and can help each other. A team is stronger than one standing alone.

When we see the truth about ourselves in the papers in other countries, we ought to care what they think. What will it take for us to do so? I shutter to think.