Well said Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma. A voice of reason in Japan, where too many still won’t face the truth of WWII.
I think the defense minister got it right. Not the victim guy.
But most Japanese I know (when they talk about it) would agree with the defense minister.
I’m kinda dreaming of an Iranian defense minister twenty years from now saying, “Yeah, George Bush nuked us back in 2007, but it couldn’t be helped, ‘cause we were such islamonazi a$$holes back then”...
Hey,American lives are the only lives of value in a situation like the Pacific war. he should be happy we didn’t target the Imperial Palace when we easily could have.
Scary is what it is. Tojo and his henchmen were evil on a par with Stalin and Hitler. Let no one forget.
The winning of war means PEACE not negotiations which never have ended in peace.
Nuff said.
shikata ga nai, ne
The Americans placed about as much value on Japanese lives as did Japan's military machine. If Miyake has a problem its with his own country's history.
Uh...it also saved several MILLION Japnese lives. Japnan was a victim...a victim of its own leaders and a victim of themselves for engaging in such a war of conquest.
Stalin was to invade the northern part of Japan. So these wonderful oriental gentlemen ought to be thankful there is not a DMZ seperating South Japan from North Japan, and NJ is home to millions of backwards, poor, hideously underfed short commies eating pine cones for fun.
It was the afternoon of August 5, 1945. To a group of six hundred army officers assigned to the Hiroshima garrison, Professor Yoshitaka Mimura of Hiroshima Bunri University, a theoretical physicist, was explaining the scientific possibilities of new weapons which might reverse the tide of war. Japan had little Navy or Air Force left. Within months a massive invasion of the home islands seemed likely. “Could you tell us, sir”, a young lieutenant colonel asked, “what an atomic bomb is? Is there any possibility that the bomb will be deployed by the end of this war?”
Mimura chalked a rough sketch on the blackboard to illustrate the [nuclear] reactions required. Scientists at Tokyo University, he explained, have “theoretically penetrated” the secrets of nuclear fission. If they could apply their theories practically, an atomic bomb “could be smaller than a piece of caramel candy, but, if exploded five hundred meters above a populated city, it could destroy 200,000 lives.”
“When can we have that bomb?” “Well, it is difficult to say”, Mimura answered, knowing nothing of any Japanese enterprise to apply fission theory to bomb-making. “But I can tell you this much: not before the end of this war.”
Japan also had an atomic bomb project. As did Germany.
given the way the japanese thought, without the bombs that war would have taken a considerably higher toll on the japanese before the war would have ended
Japan is the country that performed medical experiments on live prisoners of war. They used female prisoners as ‘’comfort women.’’ Japan got what it had coming. They were not innocent victims.
Nobuo Miyake, 78, director-general of a group of victims living in Tokyo. "It's outrageous for a Japanese politician to voice such thinking. Japan is a victim."
It's cr@p like that why .....
(never mind, I don't want to be banned.)
Japanese are an amazing island people. But no way did this hyperactive ant colony have enough people to subjugate Asia and take on the USA. By subjugate Asia I mean take over it’s oil and natural resources. Not to rule over all Asia
The lack of an organization name made me curious as to who exactly this "Nobu Miyake" is. It turns out that he appears to be a lawyer located in the heart of Japan's government environs in Nagatacho. (Read "K Street" for the American equivalent. Interestingly enough, it appears from his biographical information that he also worked in Washington, D.C. at Mudge, Rose.)
Not to be cynical, but I would point out that when such a lawyer starts labelling "victims", it isn't always just out of touching concern for humanity.
The atomic bombs also saved many Japanese lives. The devastation and loss of life from an American invasion of the home islands would have been apocalyptic for Japan. I’d wager that most Japanese alike today would not have been if the bombings had not forced them to surrender.
Japan was the perp.
It's like the mother that cries foul when her son, in the midst of an armed robbery in a crowded store - taking aim at a former military man - was shot dead by said military man: "He was a good boy. He had no right to shoot him."
When it whittles down to the bottom line - i,e, thousands more are going to die. Will it be the attackers or the attacked?
In the Defense Chief's words, I see a glimmer of hope - just maybe people and countries can look at things objectively, learn from them and, thereby, take a tiny step forward in the annals of mankind, instead of incessantly having to repeat the lessons because they went unlearned