[dhs12345]

Sheesh. I thought that this was old news. The war ended decades ago and Japan is an ally.

What is the purpose of making such a statement at this point in time?

Maybe we should apologize to the British for all of the tea that we dumped into the harbor.

[cloudmountain]

Sheesh. I thought that this was old news. The war ended decades ago and Japan is an ally.
What is the purpose of making such a statement at this point in time?
I smell MONEY in the air, whether it's a new trade agreement, even LESS to our advantage, of course, or a reduction of their debt to us, also to our disadvantage.
It COULDN'T be about ANYthing else.

Maybe we should apologize to the British for all of the tea that we dumped into the harbor.
Heck no, we were British too at the time.
Besides, I BET the tea was insured.

[twister881]

The Japanese have never formally apologized for their manifold atrocities in the 30s & 40s, and to this day, their schoolchildren are not taught the horrors their militaristic regime inflicted on the world.

[Blackyce]

“What is the purpose of making such a statement at this point in time?”

They’ve never actually directly admitted to being wrong and they teach their children that they were simply the victims of circumstance in the early 20th century. The best they can bring themselves to do is state that they regret the poor relations they had with certain countries in the past and the related suffering. By most accounts there’s actually more self pity in Japan over Hiroshima/Nagasaki than regret over the tens of millions dead in Asia. They’ve still not even apologized for Pearl Harbor despite our six decade long alliance. I think Americans tend to downplay how evil the Japanese regime actually was because of more visible horrors of the Holocaust. Nobody would fault Jewish people for holding a grudge against Nazi sympathizers, why do people fault Koreans, Filipinos, Burmese, Chinese, etc for holding a grudge against a Japanese government that has had a laughably hard time admitting that they did anything wrong when they were invading, murdering, raping and enslaving their way across Asia. Just getting them to apologize for so called “comfort” women was a half century long exercise in tooth pulling.

We’re allies with Germany and Japan, we’ve moved on as a country, but I’m not going to begrudge Jewish/Polish or Korean/Japanese folks from holding onto their grudges for another generation or two.

[Zakeet]

In answer to your questions ...

Shinzo Abe didn’t do anything. This is akin to Bill Clinton apologizing for slavery. Not needed. ... Who cares, really? He didn’t make the decision to go to war. ... Abe had nothing to do with WWII, and probably wasn’t born yet. He has no need to apologize for something the government under his command did not do.

We are not asking Abe to apologize personally, but to do so on behalf of the Japanese people. He should do this because he is their elected leader and has been placed by them in charge of their government.

It was our imperialism that drove them to attack us.

How did you come up with that? Did the Korean, Chinese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Micronesian, Burmese, Thai, Indian and Papua New Guinean imperialism also force the Japanese to attack them? Didn't Japanese imperialism play a part ... perhaps a small one? If so, shouldn't the Japanese confront it eventually?

How many Japanese leaders from 1941 are alive today? ... Only their apologies would have any meaning.

My German-American mother (her family immigrated to the U.S. in 1815; three brothers served with distinction in the European Theater during WW II) traveled extensively throughout Europe and Israel. She apologized frequently to holocaust survivors and their descendents for the actions of her (unknown to her - she never met them and didn't even know their names) relatives. Her actions were always accepted with gratitude and acknowledgement that it helped the healing process. They needed to know that not all Germans were like the ones who brutally butchered their friends and loved ones.

What difference does it make?

Accepting responsibility for your actions by admitting them is the first step in repentance. It's the prime reasons why the Allies insisted that the Germans apologize for the holocaust. We remember so that we will never make the same mistake again.

Recall that the atrocities captured in these photographs, as well as millions of others, are ignored and forgotten by millions of Japanese, expunged from their historical records, and never taught to their children. This is very, very dangerous.

What is the purpose of making such a statement at this point in time?

Because it's better to be late than to never do something that you should do ... something that decency demands that you do.