[Eric in the Ozarks]

In answer to a pen pal in Yokohama yesterday, I said, the grandsons and granddaughters of the Japanese of that era have apologized many times. The Japanese paid a heavy price for their aggression and the instigators are all dead. In the last 68 years, Japan has been peaceful and no threat to its neighbors. In fact, it has helped to raise living standards in the same nations targeted in the Pacific War by building industry in those countries..

Tradition is big in Japan. If a Japanese politician wants to spend an hour, once a year at a shrine, it's no other country's business.

[gaijin]

In 10 years in the Asia Pacific we (and the JMSDF) will be groping & lunging for every young, wild-eyed Japanese kook they can get their recruiters’ mitts on (and there really aren’t many).

Mark my words.