Yes, the Japanese forces were agressive and committed appalling attrocities during the Manchurian and Second World Wars. Yes, the allies wreaked appalling violence on the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Both sides indiscriminately killed and maimed civilians during the war, and not only the armed forces they faced.

I think it's actually pretty simple: the torture and annihilation of anyone is injust, and above all civilians. Pilger is simply pointing out who is threatening to and capable of doing that these days. Clearly it's not simply "them" but also some of "us".

It's so easy for commentators siding with an aggressive policy or government to cite the violence of the other side as an excuse for their own. Two wrongs don't make a right. Disproportionate violence cannot be legitimised by a "they started it" or "but we're the good guys" argument. "Peace" is often used as an end to justify violence. In the case of WWII, however, it appears that the use of nuclear weapons was not the only means to ending the conflict with Japan and was indeed for a different end altogether! Is that nevertheless more justifiable just because it was "us" and not "them"?

We all know that governments work with much more complicated goals and agendas than simply protecting civilians and/or their particular "civilisation". We all know that governments will use a range of moral arguments and discourses of victimisation and threat to justify actions in their interest, including war and violence. Clearly it's not ONLY the governments of "them" who engage in this kind of posturing.

Apparently some people don't like journalists such as Pilger reminding them that we should carefully examine our own motives and actions, along with those of our political allies; that if we are going to point out the splinter the eye of others, we'd better be sure we don't have a plank in our own.

Atman

You say:

"You forget Japan and Germany initiated a major world war with the purpose of annihilating liberal democracies. Consequently, they brought about their own defeat and the deaths of many of their own people. Suddenly,in the 21st Century, Pilger reinterprets this having become innocent victims of Western imperialism! Its sheer lunacy and I'm surprised at how many can be so easily convinced."

The second world war was a continuation of the first - the battle between European powers for dominance over their rivals, (ie to defend their imperialism or to become a new imperialist power) dragging in the US and Japan in the batttle over the re-division of the world.

Pilger is just pointing out western imperialism is as evil as japanese imperialism.

The defeat of Russian imperialism in Afghanistan for example was a step forward for humanity just as the defeat of Western imperialism in Vietnam was. This is not to have illusions in the oppressed who are fighting back (eg the Vietnamese were not socialists but nationalists) but rather to see imperialism for what it is - the brutal but logical (within the limits of the capitalist system) military expression of economic competition. The defeats imperialism suffers can influence and help lead to lead to major political change (e.g. the downfall of the USSR) or keep the imperialist beast in its lair for a decade (the defeat of the US in Vietnam).

We should support no version of imperialism, not US or European or Rusian or Chinese or Australian imperialism.

However the main enemy is at home so it is perfectly acepptable for political journalists like Pilger to point out the horrific human consequences of Western imperialism. His is one voice in the mainstream media swimming against the tide of pro-Western imperialism. One voice against the many.

All power to his writing arm.