Tony Abbott needs to get his tongue out of the dirt.

The War is over. The past must not be allowed to control the present.
For many centuries, nations have gone to war and then, many years later, have been able to live together harmoniously.
Why is this author harping on a period of violence that took place 70 years ago? Is it our of some sense of revenge?
If so, then what good can that do to the millions of citizens of nations who once were warriors?
How long do you want to harbour hatred?
Let go and live together with those against whom we once fought. Don't keep opening old wounds and hatreds; accept that the world is now different to what it was in World War 2, and don't ry to micro-analyse the national psyches of either combatant side.
The past is past!

Ponder, the article is criticising Shinzo Abe's downplaying of Japanese war crimes in World War Two. Japan should face up to its past.

Well, who is to apologize, the few demented men left, who actually where responsible, or millions yet unborn who were not, or the non combatant women left behind!?
The pages of history, once accurately recorded, can never ever be erased!
That said, no amount of apologizes or recriminations, can ever change the past or take back the hurt, the harmed or return the dead!
How many times should war widows bow deeply to us, to, in their own way, express the most extreme regret, for the dark deeds of husbands, sons or fathers!?
Even so, some of the enemy remained, in their eyes, honorable, and simply squandered their often very young lives, in a heroic Kamikaze self sacrificing effort, to force their enemy, us, to a negotiating table and the conditional offers on it!
And before we dropped those A bombs, the very worst atrocities of a war; where both sides, were simply not blameless!
I mean, just how many Japanese prisoners of war, survived the trip from the front line, to the rear and or, our prison camps!? Well?
Which is the worst crime, brutally beat a man half to death, or simply shoot a disarmed and surrendering prisoner of war, in the back, and kill him?
Time to let go and move on! Bury the past with the dead!
Those who live in the past, have no future!
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty:"Those who live in the past, have no future!"

Never a truer word spoken.

Rhosty & Antiseptic regardless of what happened in the past, unfortunately the Japanese have a "superior attitude" to other people, do not tell me I do not know as a member of our family is Japanese, I am a far lesser being, the Australian way of life is not theirs.
When visiting Hiroshima a few years back we were told the Japanese stopped the war and not defeated as should have been said, I do agree with the writer, they admit nothing of horrors past.
I am sure if both of you had been decapitaded in WW2 brutally and had the chance to return for a day now, you would sat "thanks very much" I understand, that is why I laid down my life, I think you would be thinking "what did I die for"
Yesterday's horrors like the Baden Clay case, we all must move on and not live in the past, after all it was a few weeks back, but is still in the past, so lets forget it and move on