Posted on 05/07/2015 1:46:43 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
A group of 187 scholars of Japanese and East Asian studies have called on Japan to accurately address its history of colonial rule and wartime actions, particularly the so-called “comfort women” who were forced to work in Japanese wartime military brothels.
In a letter sent Monday to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the group, including Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Dower and Ezra Vogel, professor emeritus of history at Harvard University and author of the 1979 best-seller “Japan As No. 1: Lessons for America,” said the ability to celebrate 70 years of peace between Japan and its neighbors was being undermined by the comfort women issue.
“This issue has become so distorted by nationalist invective in Japan as well as in Korea and China that many scholars, along with journalists and politicians, have lost sight of the fundamental goal of historical inquiry, which should be to understand the human condition and aspire to improve it,” the group, mostly from the U.S. and Europe, said.
(Excerpt) Read more at japantimes.co.jp ...
I don’t understand Japan’s position on Germany apologized for there role in the crimes they committed Japan should do the same.
it certainly does Japan and the Japanese people no honor whatsoever to continue denying known facts and/or to continue to refuse to just, at least, say ‘sorry’
this is not honorable ... this is in fact very, very Shameful... and frankly Disgusting.
just saying.
A bit off topic here but I am reminded of something a group of our own "Constitutional Historians", 400 of them, did in back in 1998. The difference in motives and goals is quite stark.
Of course I am referring to the NYT full page ad that over 400 noted constitutional historians placed in 1998 to attest that they did not believe that [and I distill and paraphrase here] a "BJ" is not an impeachable offense.
[Historians spring an 'October Surprise', Walter Burns, WSJ, Nov 3, 1998]
well, i never got too excited about Clinton’s BJ (possibly because it was his and not mine?)
my Dad watched the BoobToob about it...for 13 months ‘full coverage’ ... day in and day out...he got angrier and angrier that almost all they kept taking about was Clinton’s BJ . when Dad wanted to hear about a number of other things
Finally Dad exploded (you could see this coming for a year)... he said but one thing, .... that “I don’t give a damn about Clinton and Monica. But maybe its a good thing... beacuse the more he’s screwing her, the less time he has to screw the rest of us!”
As for an impeachable offense, maybe not really, and if he were President of France they’d give him a state medal for it.
Of course the BJ wasn’t high crimes and misdemeanor of impeachment grade. It was the administration, its ghouls and the media’s defense of impeachable offenses like lying under oath by pulling diversions like that ad by the 400 to deflect the argument to “it isn’t sex”.
They kept your dad busy with talk about the BJ and “it isn’t sex” when they should have been indicting Clinton for perjury. An extremely crafty and devious defense tactic that unfortunately worked.
In the final agreement Tokyo provided an $800 million aid and low-interest loan package over 10 years. In 1994, the Japanese government set up the Asian Women's Fund (AWF) to distribute additional compensation to South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Indonesia. Sixty one Korean, 13 Taiwanese, 211 Filipino, and 79 Dutch former comfort women were provided with a signed apology from the then prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, stating "As Prime Minister of Japan, I thus extend anew my most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women." However, many former Korean comfort women rejected the compensations because of pressure from a non-government organization known as the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, or "Chongdaehyop", and because of media pressure.
Eventually, 61 former Korean comfort women accepted 5 million yen (approx. $42,000) per person from the AWF along with the signed apology, while 142 others received funds from the government of Korea. The fund was dissolved on March 31, 2007.
The thing is Korea and other Asian nations want repeated,perpetual, and ever more "sincere" apologies.
Would every President of the United States need to go to every African American household in America to apologize "sincerely" for slavery in perpetuity? How about Native American households? Just saying
Yes, particularly on the human experiments and vivisections performed by Japanese wartime doctors, most of were later welcomed in Japanese business/social circles after the war.
Shinzo Abe should be forced to watch the movies that exist of Japanese doctors torturing and vivisecting Korean prisoners. He should watch them on his knees.
The lack of moral courage, the lack of integrity are the impeachable offenses, savvy? Would have been bad for a grocery store manager, much less our Chief Executive.
I had civilian cousins who were imprisoned and nearly starved to death in Manila during the war. They were lucky because they survived when many others didn't.
Japan and its culture during the war needs to be remembered and repented by the Japanese people so it never happens again.
i agree with everything you say.
he’s a liar (though far, far far less accomplished at it than Obama, the Pinnochio Prize)
Clinton also has poor morals.
all those things are true.
I still agree with my Dad, though, that 13 months of national debate about it was, well, at least very tiring.
My Dad was more tired of it than anything else.
Best regards,
fhc
I did n0t realize he used the word ‘apologize’. that helps a lot, obviously.
for a long time it seemed Japan was avoiding even that term.
(if I were running Japan, I would still try to move far more affirmatively on this, even if it cost something more too...and there are lots of excesses in big wars, Japan not only used the Korean ‘confort women” but also had some torture and very bad ‘medical experiments’ in its POW camps, etc. Japan could change its entire image to something far more honorable...by addressing all of its share of the WW2 exesses.....not only the ‘confort women’ )
but again, history is history and....I certainly don’t have any patent or monopoly on morals or ideal solutions for difficult problems.
THANK YOU for the info, very helpful!
ps: My Father also refused to purchase any German or Japanese goods after the war. But despite the Japanese invasion of China, the “Rape of Nanking’ and all the rest of the sufferings inflicted on China, every Communist Chinese ‘immigrant’ to America appears to drive a brand new Toyota Lexus ........ha.......and they all seem to have gone to same driving school, too.........12 MPH on the major boulevard while occupying or blocking all three lanes at once.........................then an instantaneous rocket accelation to 112 MPH just as soon as they enter the Costco parking lot and espy the one vacant space they covet.
Maybe they figure they’re driving Japanese cars so they need to drive them like Japanese Kamakazi pilots?
ps: but given we agree Clinton was impeachable...
what do you think would be the appropriate punishment or treatment for an illegal immigrant alien agent of enemy powers occupying our White House?
just a curious hypothetical question, of course
i can’t imagine how it could possibly have come to mind, but
have at it !
Go back and read what I wrote in my posts. What part of perjury inst lying ? I was there, followed it all closely throughout and I didn’t miss anything.
I re-read your posts. Despite your dad’s lack of patience, the whole shebang lasted as long as it did because the Clinton gang lied, hid records, spun the press and dragged the whole thing out, costing us millions and millions of dollars.
If Clinton had the smallest particle of honor, he would have assisted the investigators with the Whitewater inquiries and nobody would have known about Monica Lewinsky. Instead, he and his wife doubled down and the investigation dragged on.
For sure. It was a massive coordinated misinformation and diversion campaign by liberals and media. They are traitors to this country.
Actually, I believe Japan has done so multiple times. This is just a bunch of people who like to pick at scabs. I think they just need to let go. Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that Japan is a genuine ally? Is there anyone doubt in anyone’s mind that Japan contributes to the world in general in a positive way?
These people are morons who should be told to get a life.
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