I agree with the three of you that the United States has been wrong to remain silent (I'm assuming "we," meaning our government, have been silent... anyone correct me if Clinton, for example, said anything against the shrine visits) about the Japanese PM visiting this shrine containing the war criminals. We should speak out. I'll give you a "for instance." Here in the US, Arlington National Cemetary, in Washington, is the most important cemetary for veterans in the country. President Kennedy is buried there. To the best of my knowledge, anyone who was considered a war criminal would never, repeat never, be allowed to be buried there. Someone can correct me there, as well, if I have that wrong. Some of us don't disagree with you. We may disagree with some of the arguments, and perhaps how some of them were made, to be more accurate, but do not disagree that the visits are offensive, and that Japan has not admitted it's responsibility for WWII war crimes satisfactorily, has not given sufficient apologies to the countries involved, and has not had accurate history books in their schools about it. Keep D&D Civil.
Freedom of speech is dangerous if there is no limit to it, if teaching of killing is allowed, if fanfaring hatred is tolerated. Without oxygen we cannot live, but breathing pure oxygen will cause permanent brain damage. There is a limit to everything. If you are afraid that law can be abused, as I am, then we should make sure the court of public opinion hold such irreponsible speakers accountable. Isn't that the point? Chinese and Koreans are voicing their opinions, aren't that even allowed? Since when protesting equals invasion of freedom of speech? Where is the American voice on this issue?
I almost forget to reply to this little piece of exchange. First of all, congratulations, you just managed to call the majority of Chinese people Hitler supporters. Maybe GWB will be real proud of you (I'm not sure). So how is Chinese people who visit Mao's mausoleum being more Hitler supporters than American people who visit G Washington memorial being slavery supporters or who visit T Jefferson memorial being American Indian killing supporter?
Yes the court of public opinion does and how it does is through exercising the freedom of counter speech. I agree there are limits and my limit is the yelling "fire" in a crowded theater limit. Other than that IMO even hateful speech should be allowed as long as its not accompanied by violence. Where the danger comes is in who decides what speech should be banned? The speech that one person considers to be perfectly true and justified could come off as hateful to someone else. Of course they are. Who is denying the right to Chinese and Koreans to voice their opinions?
Great post... When people condone hitler and his evil deeds, thats when freedom of speech should end. it's a disgrace...
Might, possible, etc...it's not the foundation for a debate you know...do you except the possibility though that there is a psychological type of violence to neo-nazis marching through black neighborhoods? Why black neighborhoods?
Double standard is nothing new to U.S. foreign policy, so I can't fault only Bush for keeping silence on the Japanese shrine visit issue. What I find most disturbing and inexcusable is the dirty deal struck by the U.S. government and Supreme Commander MacArthur with Lt. Gen. Ishii Shiro, former commander of Japanese biological warfare Unit 731, that he and all members of Unit 731 were to be exonerated from war crimes in exchange for data they had acquired through human experimentation on many thousands of Chinese, Koreans, and others. Mind you, the number of victims in the hands of Unit 731 FAR exceeded the number of Jews, Gypsies, Polish, and Russians killed in the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele's human experiments. To me, this is about as far as humans can go in the cruelties on their fellow human beings. Yes many more Jews were killed by gassing with Zyklon-B. But let's be honest here, the viciousness and sufferings are simply not comparable in these two situations. If you are thinking about calling me out, I'd like to remind you the good ol' USA is still using gas chamber to execute prisoners. The chemistry and mechanism involved in the both gas chamber and Zyklon-B are exactly the same, death by inhaling poisonous hydrogen cyanide gas. Think of this as "mercy" killing, as opposed to getting killed by, among other "fanciful" ways, live dissection on laboratory bench without anesthesia, or the slower but no less excruciating torture in prison cell when your body was engulfed by the deadly germs.
This isn't actually a bad suggestion. If the PM simply didn't publicize his visits and no one knows about them, then no one could know to care. I imagine that it wouldn't be that hard to visit secretly. In any case, whatever his true reasons for visiting are, no one can know but him. But the fact that the shrine contains revisionist literature, enshrines many people responsible for some of the most heinous atrocities committed during WWII, and is used as a rallying point by right-wing, revisionist, nationalist Japanese, a public visit can only suggest to people that the PM of Japan sympathesizes with these people and wants their support. Otherwise why the need for these highly publicized visits? At any rate, about half of the Japanese do not support the visits. The emperor himself does not visit and many moderate politicians do not support the visits so that should be kept in mind.
Just a quick note. I think half the people classified as Class-A criminals in Yasukuni were not actually involved in atrocities, but were generals and civil servants condemned based on charges of: 1) planning and waging aggressive war against peaceful neighbors, 2) indiscriminating killing (or failure to stop killing) civilians. Based on the earlier standard, I think all the American soldiers who served in the Indian campaigns, Mexican campaigns, etc. would have been condemned. And arguably all the American leaders involved in the last Iraqi war... Based on the latter standard, I think plenty of American generals, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Curtis LeMay, as well as Roosevelt and Truman would have been condemned just as Tojo and several members of his cabinet were. America killed plenty of civilians thru strategic firebombing. "Indeed, Robert McNamara, who participated in the bombing of Japan during World War II, admitted in the film Fog of War that he and General Curtis LeMay would have been tried for war crimes if the US had lost the war. He said, "LeMay said if we lost the war that we would have all been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he's right. He ... and I'd say I ... were behaving as war criminals."" Just because the Nuremburg and Tokyo tribunals were offering a victor's justice and overlooking all Allies violations, certainly doesn't mean that America is not without its share of war crimes. And I do believe plenty of these soldiers are in Arlington today. Not saying we don't have a right to pay our respects to them. I'm saying that every nation has a right to look at history their own way, and to pay their respects to their own forefathers. Countries would certainly get along far better if people just learn to accept differences rather than use these differences to generate hatred.
I don't understand. Are you saying that people were tried unfairly and they were just handing out Class-A war criminal statuses? If anything, they didn't try enough people. Make no mistake, these people were war criminals, the evidence exists, and testimonies were given. If you gonna make such a bold claim, please given some proof, rather than starting off with "I think." Especially if you want to cross the line and actually attempt to somewhat defend the people IN CHARGE of the atrocities. I really really hope you're just trying to play devil's advocate to maybe ruffle some feathers, but this is definitely not a good subject to choose. And yes, America does have our share of people who are ruthless, yet have the luxury of winning and don't get labelled a war criminal. But at the very least, most Americans have a basic understanding of this country's ugly past of Native American genocide, slavery, etc to become what we are today. At the Japanese shrine, there's a deliberate attempted to revise history. I don't know personally what the average Japanese person thinks about their WWII history, but it would pain me to hear them actually believe the some of the stuff they're being taught in their history book, and consequently think the rest of Asia is just b****ing and jealous and should get over it. Also, because every country has it own sins doesn't mean we start excusing them. Japan has an ugly history that needs to be addressed especially in light of how the PM reminds his neighbors almost yearly by visiting the controversial shrine. That's a topic we have in this thread. People starting bringing up China's ugly history, but that shouldn't affect Japan's actions. And since you brought up America's ugly past, I don't see how that should affect it as well. And even though I believe in the unpopular view that dropping the A-bombs was a war crime, Truman should no way be ever "condemned just as Tojo." We're not talking about war crimes in terms of "strategic firebombings." That's barely even a war crime. That crap happens all the time and it's terrible. But the issue is that the people who orchestrated Japan's war and colonization went far beyond that to rape, pillage, enslave, experiment, slaughter their victims. It's not like a few soldier decided to rape some civilians. We're talking about things like an organized systemic effort to capture and kidnap non-Japanese women for the soldiers to rape as comfort women. Even if the top generals didn't actually rape anyone, he organized it and ordered it. That in my mind is a war crime. I'm gonna bring up something that hasn't really been mentioned before: The Japanese PM. He's not dumb, and he knows his own country's historical crimes with its neighbors. This constant shrine visiting is move a political move than a defiant international one. He's trying to jockey the right wingers in parliment, and since he's having strained relationship with his neighbors as a result, he's been really chumming up to the US and Bush. Bush really has isolated America in the world, yet the Japanese PM remain the strongest ally in Asia. I'm not even gonna say Japan because most Japanese probably don't agree with Bush, yet the PM doesn't reflect that. So he's definitely shrewd, but not Bill Clinton shrewd. The political posturing and trying to appeal to a particular nationalist sentiment while the country is going through some economical bumps just comes off as a big F U to the rest of Asia. So he can't really back down from his stance even if it looks really really bad.
I "think" you should consider reading some of my former posts in this thread where I "think" I listed each of the 14 war criminals and their WW2 involvement. If you need data on the specific crimes they were condemned for, feel free to look online. Please don't discredit me unless you're ready with data of your own? http://cnd.org/mirror/nanjing/NMTT.html SUMMARY OF THE VERDICT AND SENTENCE COUNTS ACCUSED 1 27 29 31 32 33 35 36 54 55 SENTENCE NOTE ARAKI G G X X X X X X X X Life Imp. Paroled 1955 DOIHARA G G G G G X G G G U Death HASHIMOTO G G X X X O O O X X Life Imp. Paroled 1945 HATA G G G G G O X X X G Life Imp. Paroled 1955 HIRANUMA G G G G G X X G X X Life Imp. Paroled 1955 HIROTA G G X X X X X O X G Death HOSHINO G G G G G X X O X X Life Imp. Paroled 1955 ITAGAKI G G G G G X G G G U Death KAYA G G G G G O O O X X Life Imp. Paroled 1955 KIDO G G G G G X X X X X Life Imp. Paroled 1955 KIMURA G G G G G O O O G G Death KOISO G G G G G O O X X G Life Imp. Died 1950 MATSUI X X X X X O X X X G Death MINAMI G G X X X O O O X X Life Imp. Paroled 1954 MUTO G G G G G X O X G G Death OKA G G G G G O O O X X Life Imp. Paroled 1954 OSHIMA G X X X X O O O X X Life Imp. Paroled 1955 SATO G G G G G O O O X X Life Imp. Paroled 1956 SHIGEMITSU X G G G G G X O X G 7 years Paroled 1950 Appointed Foreign Minister 1954 SHIMADA G G G G G O O O X X Life Imp. Paroled 1955 SHIRATORI G X X X X O O O O O Life Imp. Died 1949 SUZUKI G G G G G O X X X X Life Imp. Paroled 1955 TOGO G G G G G O O X X X 20 years Died 1948 TOJO G G G G G G O X G U Death Enshrined as "martyr" at the Yasukuni Shrine in 1978 UMEZU G G G G G O O X X X Life Imp. Died 1949 G: Guilty; X: Not Guilty; O: Blank; U: Other. COUNTS OF INDICTMENT: Count 1: as "leaders, organizers, instigators, or accomplices in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy .. to wage wars of aggression, and war or wars in violation of international law." Count 27: waging unprovoked war against China. Count 29: waging aggressive war against the United States. Count 31: waging aggressive war against the British Commonwealth. Count 32: waging aggressive war against the Netherlands. Count 33: waging aggressive war against France (Indochina). Count 35 & 36: waging aggressive war against the USSR. Count 54: "ordered, authorized, and permitted" inhumane treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) and others. Count 55: "deliberately and recklessly disregarded their duty" to take adequate steps to prevent atrocities.
Before we compare anything else, let's not forget Japan was the agressor that started the war way before European war broke out. No matter how you view the use of A-bomb, that's the biggest difference right there.
I know you are referring to this and I knew you would mention that I should provide my own evidence in proving how the 14 war criminals were actually *gasp* war criminals. I guess I'm naive and to think things like this and the Holocaust are actually real. And I know this is a cop out, but at this moment, it would be incredibly inapropriate for me to attempt any research the the crazy idea that 14 war criminals were actually responsible in some way for Japan's war instead of being political pawns for the Allies. The reason being I cannot risk unknowingly having a picture of dead civilians popping up on my moniter with people randomly walking by. I'm already skeptical for your "proof" because it doesn't tell the whole story and is probably an example of whitewashing history. For example: — Gen Yoshijiro Umezu Umezu served as the commander of the Kwantung Army and was chief of the Army General Staff when WWII ended. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and died while serving time. How the hell can you be labelled a war criminal, much less a class A war criminal for just being a commander and chief of army general staff? There's obviously more to it and even if there was a snowball's chance in hell he got screwed over by the Allies or his people selling him out, that would be known quite easily or at the very least, declassified by now. As far as your comment on how you don't give a rat's ass about Chinese or Japanese senstivities, that's fine, but come on, that's still a dick thing to say. I'm not Jewish, and only know a few Jewish folks, but I still give a rat's ass about the Holocaust. And even if I didn't, I would keep it to myself. I don't want to stray too off topic here, but I thought the idea of the PM PUBLICALLY visiting a national shrine with war criminals, even if there was just one war criminal, is universally condemned. At the very least, it is insensitive. So why you jumping to defend it in the name of supposed emotional objectivity? Is there a point in the larger sense to split hairs over 7 of the 14 were not as bad? Also I didn't see anyone mention themselves as Chinese in this thread, but you called out that there were some of them already on this board dismissing it as hypocritical and ethno-centric. Nice stereotyping. I don't see how that has to do with anything. I believe you can be Chinese or Asian or Japanese and argue objectively on this topic. I just don't get why you would trivialize the unresolved suffering of people.
We have some obvious epistemic differences here, but I honestly appreciate the general tone of your post, despite the fact that you also lapse occasionally into offhanded comments and dismissals of facts I post. I agree with you that Koizumi's visiting Yasukuni is obviously insensitive to the feelings of most Asian nations who suffered at the hands of Imperial Japan. Koizumi is making a clear political choice here. He can either acquiesce to the calls of his Asian neighbors, or he can go with popular opinion in his own country. Aside from his philosophical preferences (pro-visit), and his political interests (pro-visit), there is obviously room for debate here in a moral sense. He can easily point to analogous cases in China and USA, etc. where political leaders with dubious pasts are subject to posthumous state visits. He has a right to honor dead soldiers and patriots. Period. If 6 people in 2.5 million enshrined were bad, do we stop honoring soldiers and patriots? Koizumi says no. The decision is debatable. If we find spots of misjudgment in these soldiers past, do we disown them? Or do we still acknowledge that they were soldiers and patriots? Koizumi says we acknowledge to their contributions. The decision is debatable. So long as the moral case is debatable (and not clear-cut), and so long as philosophical inclination and political interest is clearly pro-visit, the outcome will always be the same. Go back to my previous example with Hu Jingtao visiting Mao's shrine or Bush visiting Arlington. Nothing any foreign nations may protest will stop these visits. This is a sort of natural behavior that is part and parcel of nationhood. So, while we may decry insensitivity, getting angry and letting it lead to deterioration of foreign relations is just NOT good policy. Nations are different. We always will be. Learning to deal with it peacefully is the first lesson in diplomacy.
Sure he has a right to but as the political leader of Japan he might want to consider what sort of message that is sending out to his neighbors in Asia. Not all Japanese agree with the war shrine visits and many think they are a problematic reminder of Japan's militaristic past. Koizumi's visits seem to be appealing mainly to a minority of vocal extremists in Japanese politics when the majority of Japanese probably wouldn't care that much if he stopped publically visiting them. Again I will defend the right of Japanese to hold abhorrent beliefs as long as they do so peacefully but that doesn't make those beliefs right and doesn't help Japan's longterm relations with its neighbors. You analogy regarding Arlington and Mao's mausoleum is strained because of the fact that there are very very very few people who are offended by US Presidents visiting Arlington or Chinese visiting Mao's mausoleaum. Further so why should those invalidate criticism of the Japanese politicians visiting Yasukuni. Yes I agree Mao was directly and indirectly responsible for a lot of suffering that still doesn't mean that Japanese war criminals should be honored. Anyway is Michecon pointed out the Japanese did start the wars of aggression. Not excusing the fire bombings of Tokyo and the A-bombings but Japan bears the primary responsibility for the Asian conflict in WWII. Think about it this way in the latest conflict between Israel and Lebanon Israel has created hugely disproportionate damage to Lebanon. Does that mean that Hezbollah bears no responsibilit for the conflict? Of course not since they started it by kidnapping the Israeli soldiers on Israeli territory. One wrong doesn't make another right. So yes one thing is bad but so is the other and one doesn't excuse the other.
