Man, we either got a weeaboo or a japanese revisionist here in StupidMoniker No wonder this has been dragging on without an end Dropping the nukes was wrong and the people responsible were criminals.... So you're a supporter of the alternative method then: launching a land invasion that would have killed god knows how many people and erased a culture (mostly plagiarized but still a culture...) from the face of the earth. /clap
Nah, I'm not really that into Japanese culture. I hate most anime. I can't stand manga. I had to look up weeaboo to know what you were calling me. I am just not ignorant. Kami are what get enshrined in shinto shrines. It takes all of looking on wikipedia to know that. I never said dropping the nukes was wrong. I think they probably could have dropped the first one off the coast and the second one not at all, but that is with hindsight and we don't know if that would have worked or not. The people that dropped the nukes are without a doubt war criminals under either the definitions we applied at the time or the definitions we apply now. They intentionally targeted civilians with weapons of mass destruction. If someone in the Japanese Navy has nuked San Diego just before the end of the war (and survived), don't you think they would have been included in the list of war criminals to be tried? America won, so we got to say who were criminals and who were heroes. Such is the benefit of winning. Japan lost and didn't get to pick who got prosecuted, such is the price of failure. Try reading about the dissenting opinion of Justice Pal from the IMTFE.
While this debate has grown heated in regards to attempting to show either the differences or similarities between Arlington National Cemetery and Yasukuni Jinja. I just wanted to share this article which very thoroughly distinguishes the characteristics of the two. It is quite long so I'm only posting a link instead of the entire article: Arlington National Cemetery and Yasukuni Jinja: History, Memory, and the Sacred By Andrew M. McGreevy
He call it relativism. I call it hardly new. If you read or watched Kazuo Ishiguro's "the remains of the day", his view reminds of Lord Darlington, the Nazi sympathizer, which in general form justified the appeasement diplomacy in the 30s.
Germany marks WWII surrender by taking over Europe. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=207985
Sigh ... War is ugly. But there is still difference between the aggressors and the ones that bringing the aggressors to submission. This is basic human law supported by our moral conscience. While no one should glorify firebombings of Dresden, Tokyo and the two nukes, these were judged, at the time, as necessary military means to achieve the objective to bring the Nazis to submission and end the greater mayhem of mankind. One cannot view it retrospectively and declares that there was less intrusive ways to achieve that objective and hence those who made that decision should have been tried and convicted the same way as the Nazis who ran death camps or issued orders to kill civilians massively to establish order. This should be fairly obvious. There is nothing relative about that.
I'm sure Japan wouldn't have dropped an atomic bomb on us if they had the tech and the chance to quickly end the war without a full scale invasion.
And they did not intend to attack Pearl Harbor either. The Japanese pilots were just coming over to Hawaii for a X'mas party. But one idiot pressed a wrong button to drop a torpedo by mistake and then all hell broke out.
No idiot, they were flying a parade formation and accidentally used real bombs instead USA#1 fireworks.
I agree we should talk about all countries that honor war heroes but we are talking specifically about Japan here. Your view is essentially the view that since everyone does it then we shouldn't criticize anyone. Really is that how you think? Further as has been pointed out there are distinct differences between those in Yasakuni and those in Arlington which you gloss over. Basically to you the bombing of Hiroshima to try to end the war is the same as forcing captured women to be be sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army. Are you saying that the Jewish Holocaust shouldn't be such an issue because the Nazi's killing of Homosexuals, handicapped and Roma is less publicized? Also you are aware of why the pink triangle is the symbol of the Gay movement. So while yes their suffering is less publicized it is still an acknowledged part of history and an issue. As far why Germany's attitude is different than Japan you may have a point that the US might not have compelled the Japanese to live up to their history as much as the Germans but that hardly strikes me as a defense of Japan. Whoops. Here you go. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied_Japan Even the way you are spinning it though shows it isn't an apology. It is a statement of self-reflection and not clearly an apology.
No. We should not single out one for doing something that others (including our own country) do. Look back over the thread. My first response was not saying not to talk about Japan, it was asking about China. There is no reason to single out Japan on this issue. What are the distinct differences that make one okay and the other not? That the bad people in one were convicted in a military tribunal set up by their enemy? That one is religious and the other is mostly martial/national? That one has headstones and the other doesn't? There are myriad differences, but they do not have any bearing on making one better to visit than the other. At their core, each is a place set aside to commemorate the fallen soldiers of the respective countries and visitation by the head of state is for that purpose. It is not, actually. I do think that both would be considered war crimes under international law. Nope, you are really not getting many of these guesses right. You might want to stick to what I am actually posting to try to improve your accuracy. I am saying that because so much was made of the Jewish Holocaust (and rightly so) the Germans were more likely to address it. That would help to explain the difference in their response to the killing of millions of Jews to their response to killing millions of gays, handicapped, Roma, and Catholics. It would also help to explain the difference between that response and the response of the Japanese to their acts in WWII. All of them are worthy of being issues on the level of the Jewish Holocaust. So are the bombings of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. So is the death of tens of millions of Soviets and Chinese and Cambodians under their own governments. So is the death of millions in Africa. Singling out one and complaining when someone brings up another is what I have a problem with. I was not even aware that the pink triangle WAS the symbol of the Gay movement. I see the rainbow flag a lot more (though I am from Northern California). It was meant to be an explanation (or at least a theory of one) not a defense. I am not spinning it at all, I am quoting it and stating that yes the term "My bad" (which you posted, not me and not the Japanese government) is used as a form of apology. An expression of remorse directed to the wronged party is a pretty classic form of apology. There is no ambiguity. If I cut you off in traffic and see you later and say, "It was wrong of me to cut you off in traffic. I reproach myself." That is an apology to you for cutting you off in traffic. It is not an act of self-reflection. It is certainly not ambiguous.
It is really sad that as an American (I assume you are one), you keep trying to compare war crime atrocities like Nanking Massacre to Hiroshima. Are you aware that Japan was the aggressor in WWII? Are you aware that the Japanese marched to mainland Asia in the 1940's with the single intention to burn, rape, kill and colonize. On the contrary, Americans sacrificed their lives to fight off these Japanese war criminals and liberate the occupied Asian countries. What else can we do to help you if you still cannot see the difference there? What happened in Hiroshima is sad. But it was done to avoid a full scale land invasion which would have caused thousands more of casualties. Do you have grandparents or grandparents who served the country in WWII? They must be rolling in their graves right now if they know what you are talking about here.
StupidMoniker, did you see the latest Rambo? Let's say the sadistic Major Tint in the movie killed 100 innocent people and also put many other in captive for his own devilish greed. And then Rambo came to save the captives and he also killed 100 of Major Tint's sadistic army during the mission. So, according to your wacko theory, both Major Tint and Rambo are sadistic criminals at the same level because they both killed 100 people. Is it right? The more I read your posts, the more I am convinced that you are just trolling here.
Not being the aggressor does not excuse indiscriminate killing of civilians. Wouldn't it still be a war crime if Americans lined up surrendering Japanese troops and executed them? Being the aggressor was a crime against peace (that is the class A war criminals, though those were ex post facto laws, there was no such crime as aggressive war before WWII). Targeting civilians is a war crime. It can't be put into simpler terms than that. I think so, I saw the one where he is in Burma, pretty good movie. Not as good as First Blood, but better than the others. Wrong. Now, instead consider if Major Tint went and lived in a city in Burma, and he had friends that lived in a totally separate village of 100 people. If Rambo went and killed everyone in that village in an attempt to force Tint to stop killing and capturing innocent people, Rambo would be a sadistic criminal and like Tint could be brought to justice. If each was later buried, visiting one of their graves would not be significantly worse than visiting the other. That's funny, the more I read your posts, the more I suspect you have trouble reading mine.
That's fine and I agree we should have a discussion about those issues but this is a thread about Japan. If you want to start a thread about those others than go ahead. Do you not think there is a qualitative difference between those who ordered and carried out the rape of civilians and experimentation on prisoners to be qualitatively different than say the pilots of the Enola Gay (I don't know if they are buried in Arlington but lets say they are for the sake of argument)? Actually I see the answer to the above question is "no." I don't know what to say but if you actually consider both acts to be equally heinous, an admittedly brutal act meant to try to hasten the end of a devastating war compared to forcing captured women to be sex slaves for the comfort of soldiers, then you really have given up on principle. What guesses? ARe you or are you not trying to diminish, even criticize the uniqueness of the Holocaust and attrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army by bringing up other things? If you are not I am not sure what you are arguing about. So yes you are diminishing the Jewish Holocaust and Japanese Army Attrocities by bringing up other issues. I agree all those issues should be discussed and the perpetrators criticized. As I said you are free to start another thread about any of those issues and I will be happy to participate. Criticizing Japan doesn't mean though that any of those other issues can't be discussed. What you seem to be asking for is some sort of criticism of every heinous wartime act committed by every country ever whenever Japan's atrocities are discussed. That is a rhetorical straw that would mean that nothing can be criticized unless everything is at the sametime. It would be like me in a thread where you criticize the US government for a heavy handed policy and I counter with "why are you singling out the US when governments X, Y, Z and etc have heavy handed policies? I have a problem with you singling out the US instead of talking about governments X, Y, Z and etc are equally as bad." "I reproach myself", is completely about self reflection. The definition you posted that would apply to you saying it shows that: "2. to feel ashamed because you know you have done something wrong" Yes you are ashamed. That's self-reflection. Anyway if I wronged you in some way don't you think in plain English, saying "I reproach myself" is a rather odd way of apologizing? How many people have you heard say that?
Unless told otherwise by a mod, I'm pretty sure I can post it in whichever thread I want. I am drawing a direct comparison from the post topic to a similar event. I would imagine being able to look a civilian woman in the face and cut off her breasts as she is pleading for mercy and then cut her head off requires a greater absence of conscience that flipping a toggle on a bomber that drops a bomb. I think doing something to end the war assuages the guilt more than doing stuff for no fathomable reason. The end result is still a war crime in either case. Parsing the badness of each individual seems a pointless exercise 70 years later, when talking about each being a small part of a vast memorial and a head of state visiting that memorial. The class A war criminals that people like to bring up, BTW, were not the ones out there doing those actions. They were charged with waging aggressive war, that is prosecuting a war that was unprovoked. Even if every soldier in the IJA followed every rule to the letter, there would be no difference in the crimes of the class A war criminals. Gee, I sure typed a lot to mean "no". I never give up on principle. In a discussion of the relative merits of complaints about visiting places dedicated to war criminals, I think a proper understanding of war criminals is helpful. You keep posing questions and then guessing at my answers to them. Your guesses seem to invariably be wrong. I was poking fun at your rhetorical style. Does a parent diminish the love they have for one of their children by loving their other children? Perhaps more apropos, are you trying to diminish the Holocaust by bringing up the atrocities committed by the Japanese? Why would talking about atrocity B diminish atrocity A? Perhaps this is where your incorrect assumptions are coming from. I am arguing that b****ing about the Japanese Prime Minister visiting a shrine dedicated to the fallen soldiers of his country because a tiny percentage are war criminals is stupid, doubly so if the country of the person doing the b****ing has a memorial that likewise is composed of some percentage of monstrous people. It would be about as stupid as African nations complaining about President's Day, because some of the early Presidents were slave owners, but at least in that case they make up more than 1%. I seem to be doing a fine job discussing it in this thread. I'm not really asking for anything. I brought up China. It appears that you and a few others have a problem with that. If you don't want to discuss China, don't. Feel free to criticize Japan to the exclusion of others. I will feel free to discuss other related thing which I see as equally bad. Perhaps if the Prime Minister was writing in his journal this would make sense. When speaking to the wronged party, it is pretty clearly a form of apology. Only someone who is trying to find a way to say it is not an apology would think it is not. I imagine most diplomatic messages written in Japanese would sound rather odd as a means of expressing the underlying idea when translated into English. Hell, most diplomatic messages written in English sound rather odd as a means of expressing the underlying idea, because they are diplomatic messages. They are not conversational in tone, so there is no reason to expect them to seem so. Your distinction is bizarre. If they used the words "I am so sorry about what we did in Nanjing and the rest of the war in Asia," but they wrote that in their memoirs, it would be a statement of self reflection, even though it contains the word sorry. It is the context that makes it an apology, not the presence or absence of some magic apology word.
Back to the corner but still trying to hang on? Rambo was there to rescue and save lives. Major Tint was there to capture and kill. Now I know it makes no difference to you in your eyes. Keep on trolling. I know it's fun.
Did Rambo bring a AK47 and just shoot at every civilian in sight and chop off their heads like what the Japanese did in Nanking? Or did Rambo have to shoot at civilians because it was necessary to complete the rescue mission and save more lives? I know you don't have the ability to tell the difference between the two.
