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The Forum > Article Comments > Japan must admit its guilt > Comments

Japan must admit its guilt : Comments

By Noel Wauchope, published 18/7/2014

Though it is a long time ago, the facts remain about Japanese atrocities in World War 2, and of Japan's inadequate or non-existent apologies for these, as well as lack of reparations.

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what do South Africa, Burma, and Nineveh have in common which Russia, China and Japan still haven't got and don't get?
Posted by SHRODE, Saturday, 19 July 2014 12:35:11 PM
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Gee! Rhosty I would be waiting a very long time for all the niceties you mention from my daughter in law who is Japanese, we all can be very nice in certain situations, can' t we?
Posted by Ojnab, Saturday, 19 July 2014 1:35:36 PM
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The West has always practised a double standard in regard to German and Japanese war guilt.

The German war guilt has been well and truly overplayed and overworked, while Japanese war guilt has been more or less expunged from Western discourse. (And as for Italy, well, Italian war guilt was never even an issue.) Much of the double standard lies in the fact that Germany and England were long-time rivals for European hegemony. Germany, being for centuries a loose confederation, didn't get its military act together until it was too late to get itself an empire. So it tried to get itself an empire much closer to home - which seriously threatened England and France's domination as the main superpowers of the day.

As a result, we in the West are never allowed to forget Germany's war crimes, especially as they were committed against Europeans.

Japan, on the other hand, mostly committed its war crimes against other Asian countries, especially the Chinese, and those countries had been getting brutalised for centuries under European imperial domination anyway. It doesn't suit Western interests to labour that point too much.

Also, pushing the envelope on Japanese guilt leads inevitably to the West's grand-daddy of all war crimes - Hiroshima and Nagasaki - the true story of which remains buried under a mountain of self-gratifying 'well, it ended the war' lies and propaganda.
Posted by Killarney, Saturday, 19 July 2014 7:28:38 PM
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Killarney being around when those two bombs were dropped, the war stopped immediatelyi, Japan surrended, that is an actual fact, were you born at that time, if you were you must have been on another planet at the announcement that war with Japan had ended, and thank goodness it had,
Hirohito (God) to the Japanese people should have been strung up by the balls, but the good old USA decided otherwise.
I do agree it would be a war crime, but like all war crimes it all depends on which side of the fence you sit on as we all know. Hirohito was a war crime criminal, likewise the bombing of the two Japanese cities, all being a crime against humanity.
Absolutely nothing has changed since that time, the cluster bombs dropped on Laos by the USA is a fine example of a crime against humanity, they are not even there cleaning up the mess they left behind.
Posted by Ojnab, Saturday, 19 July 2014 8:58:42 PM
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ojnab

I can't see how my being alive at the time would have made a brass razoo's difference about the A bomb and the Japanese surrender, any more than my being alive now would make any difference to Israel bombing the crap out of Gaza ... again.

Anyone who reads the Potsdam Declaration issued to Tokyo in July can see that their terms for complete unconditional surrender were extremely aggressive, revenge-based, devoid of any respect or room for diplomacy and left the Japanese completely confused about whether the emperor would be hung for war crimes.

Enter the Soviet declaration that ended the Japan-Soviet neutrality pact and that they would be officially at war with Japan as of 9 August (does that date ring a bell?). This added to the US paranoia that Japan had to completely surrender before any chance of their future cold war enemy getting a slice of it.

Thirdly, the Japanese had been negotiating through the Soviets for a peace deal with the allies, so it was not a case of Japan not surrendering but on what terms.

But don't listen to me. I'll leave the last word to General Eisenhower: 'It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing.'
Posted by Killarney, Saturday, 19 July 2014 10:29:38 PM
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The simple historical facts are that Hirohito was an irrelevance, a figurehead, he had and could have no influence on the waging or ending of the war at all, and leaving him in place prevented a lot of problems for the victors. It was realpolitik, and sensible.
There were a few Japs attempting to sue for peace but they didn't represent anyone but themselves and a few rich business types, they were never going to be able to halt the military, and in fact would have been summarily executed if they'd tried.
The bombs were an atrocity, but a needed one, without them the war would have ended far more bloodily, the military didn't, couldn't, believe in or accept surrender, and they would have gloriously taken the civilians to hell with them, along with hundreds of thousands of Allied service-men.
What real difference does it now make if the Japs have a few wrong ideas about the war? It's not as if they are going to start it all again, is it?
Time and the real world will cure them, eventually, and there's nothing sensible anyone else can do that will make any difference, so, let sleeping dogs lie and allow the hurts of 70 years ago fade into history, where they belong.
Posted by G'dayBruce, Sunday, 20 July 2014 1:45:32 AM
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