Few alive today have any personal, adult memory of the Pacific war. Few living Korean suffered the atrocities the writer cites, and few, if any, living Japanese has any true moral guilt for those same atrocities.
The decision and the act of exploding atomic bombs and essentially destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the fire-bombing of Tokyo (which killed more than both atomic explosions combined) were just and right in the context of total war. But I can take no credit nor experience anything other than imagined guilt for those decisions or acts. These events happened more than a decade before I was born, and I can guess the imperialist period of Japan's history happened an even longer period before the birth, let alone the adulthood, of the writer.
It's like African slavery, or the massacre of Washita Creek. Should I feel remorse for that institution?
Ridiculous. And I had ancestors who owned human slaves.
I suppose, because I also have ancestors who were among the Creek tribes in Oklahoma, I should also hate myself...
There is a place for the study of these things, even for a study of the emotional reactions of those who will eternally carry guilt of innocence before God for their actions or thoughts. There is great learning and knowledge to benefit we who survive. But not for the purpose of political correctness or misdirected and improper guilt.
We live and die before God for our own actions, no those of the Dead (may they rest in peace).
I tried to make the same point at post #42.
An enemy must be defeated, that is to say enough of them must be killed or personally effected for them to say enough, lay down their arms, and make the conscious decision to study war no more.
How many is enough for them to say ‘enough!’ is a number only they can determine.
For the Japanese, no number of souls lost to bullets of fire was enough until two entire cities vanished in a flash of nuclear fire, and they understood that ceasing resistance was their only viable option, Bushido code or no Bushido code.
Civilization’s current opponents need to reach a similar point in their thought processes, or we, as a civilization will simply cease to exist.
With our current attitude we can only hope for slavery or slaughter.
Perhaps Japan can prevail, perhaps not.