Yomiuri on the Comfort Women
Get facts straight on ‘comfort women’
The Yomiuri Shimbun
The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee has adopted a resolution demanding an apology from Japan over the so-called comfort women. But the resolution was produced based on an erroneous perception of the facts.
The Japanese government should try to correct the United States’ misinterpretation of history in order to remove a source of future trouble, while at the same time working to block passage of the resolution by the House of Representatives plenary session.
The resolution calls for the government to accept historical responsibility and apologize for “its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery.” It describes “the comfort women system” as “one of the largest cases of human trafficking in the 20th century.”
The resolution was made without verifying the facts and smacks of cheap rhetoric. It makes us doubt the wisdom of U.S. lawmakers.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed “sympathy from the bottom of my heart” and said he “felt sorry” during his meetings with U.S. President George W. Bush and congressional leaders during his visit to Washington in April. The prime minister also said that the 20th century was a century of human rights violations and Japan was not totally blameless.
Abe’s remarks did not stop adoption of the resolution by the lower house committee.
The resolution is merely one of many adopted at the U.S. Congress. It is not legally binding. Some observers say Japan does not have to take it seriously.
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Govt must dispute false charges
However, this is the wrong conclusion to draw. If Japan does not counter these arguments, this erroneous historical view will become accepted as established fact.
Before World War II, many women were put to work as comfort women against their will by parents and brokers. But this does not mean the Japanese military coerced the women.
In past studies, no evidence has been found showing “coercive recruitment of comfort women by the military or authorities.” The government explicitly presented this observation in March in response to a question by an opposition lawmaker.
On what is the resolution based? Reportedly, the 1993 statement by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono played a significant part.
The statement said that Japanese military and authorities were “directly or indirectly involved in…the transfer of comfort women.” Such wording apparently led to the misapprehension that there was coercive recruitment.
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Kono apology politically driven
The 1993 statement was motivated by a political desire to deflect pressure from South Korea on the comfort women issue. But it has helped broaden the misunderstanding.
Apparently out of diplomatic consideration, Abe has said he stands by the Kono statement. But as long as the prime minister takes this position, the misunderstanding about coercive recruitment will remain. If the statement is found to be erroneous, it should be modified without hesitation.
In March, Foreign Minister Taro Aso referred to the lobbying in support of the resolution as an “operation to estrange Japan and the United States.” Anti-Japan forces in the United States linked with Chinese and South Koreans have exercised their influence behind the scenes on behalf of the resolution.
If the matter is left unaddressed, further demands for apologies will be repeated. The government must methodically elucidate the historical truths involved in the issue.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, June 28, 2007)
AMPONTAN 
memomachine said
Hmmmm.
Really? The Japanese military didn’t force young women into military prostitution?
Next you’ll be trying to sell the idea that Unit 731 never existed.
Frankly the Japanese have spent the past 50+ years trying to whitewash their conduct during WWII, and have largely succeeded only within their own population.
But just because you’ve been brainwashed into believing this nonsense, doesn’t mean that the rest of the world does too.
Aceface said
Memomachine:
“Next you’ll be trying to sell the idea that Unit 731 never existed.”
Take it easy.No one is selling that idea and we ain’t buying it.
“Frankly the Japanese have spent the past 50+ years trying to whitewash their conduct during WWII, and have largely succeeded only within their own population.”
That’s not true,Negative historical past has been and is being taught in historical class at school and covered frequently in every major media in the country.What you are saying is grossly exaggerated media coverage,which unfortunately ranging world wide.
“But just because you’ve been brainwashed into believing this nonsense, doesn’t mean that the rest of the world does too.”
The guy writing this blog is an American.Perhaps you might want check your fact again before dispatch adhominem rant on others.
ampontan said
The point is not what individual Japanese units did on the battlefield (for which atonement has been made). The point is that there is no specific proof it was the policy of the government at the time to force women into prostitution.
Hire them, yes, but prostitution was legal in this part of the world in those days.
If you want to upload some specific proof that it was the government’s policy to force women to become prostitutes, everybody here will be glad to read it.
bender said
How’s this?
Frankly the Koreans have spent the past 60+ years trying to whitewash Japanese influence during the colonial period, and have largely succeeded only within their own population. Like how they claim Taekwondo is purely Korean while there’s no denying it derives from Japanese Karate. Or the “theory” Japanese norimaki is a copy of Korean kimbap.
But just because you’ve been brainwashed into believing these nonsense, doesn’t mean that the rest of the world does too.
mac said
I think the big hole in the Korean argument is that I have never once read a populist book or article that said, “yes, prostitution was common in Korean; yes, Koreans made money out of selling and prostituting other Koreans (just as, say, blacks did to Blacks in Africa); and, yes, this proportion of Comfort Women WERE actually well paid, well treated and “voluntary”, … or at least sold off my their parents.
Let’s remember that this type of prostitution was not unique to Korea either. It was common all across Japan up until are after WWII and it is still common all across Asia even today. I do not mean specifically “comfort women”, I mean;
Bad rice harvest = daughters get sold … Go to Laos, Cambodia, China, India, North Korea today and it is still going on today.
All we get is a screaming hysterical “200,000” which are *ALL* the Japanese’s fault. Well, life is never that straightfoward. The bottomline is “if you are poor and female, you are going to get screwed and violated the world over”.
Putting aside that; a) “The Japanese” do not exist any more, b) that the average Japanese person, had no real democratic or representation rights, nor the responsibilities, for the events that went with such in the 30s and 40s, c) just over 50% of the population of the 1940s had nothing to do with the events (because they were female) d) at least another 45% had nothing to do with it because they were children, old folk, monks, workers etc, e) the apologies and the pay offs … what do “The Koreans” actually want.
My feeling is that, like Iris Chang, they “collectively” have just taken a leaf out of the Holocaust Industry book. Its a hot potato. But that it is not so much about money but having an acceptable political enemy, the political enemy without and the political profit within where, like China, they are not allowed to have one within.
Now, I can understand why individual, and genuine, victims are hurt. But I can also see how it is largely impossible to address which individuals are victims and which are not in the current environment and given the national tendencies … Its deeply tragic and distasteful, and the words ‘statute of limitation’ is not nice, but it is part of the real world.
What I can never understand is how all those folks, whether the *uninvolved* Koreans over Comfort Women, the Chinese over Nanjing, the Holocaust Industry appear to invest themselves in the perceived crimes of the past, and the profits it can bring (either financial, political or egotistic) but yet be utterly disinterested in the equivalent crimes of here and now.
I also do not understand “The Magic Cut Off Number” … why a crime of 50 years ago is exploitable but one of 300 years ago is not. Again, if we look back in history, the poor in general everywhere, and women in particular, were always getting screwed, raped, murdered, exploited and neglected by the rich and males one way or another.
Are we not looking for the crime and the criminal in the wrong place? That is, the same crime is still alive today and being performed by the same individuals; males in power, males with money. Therefore, as such, these were not “Japanese” crimes, they were actually male crimes; and crimes of capital as well.
Its a more sure conclusion that the one we are being given.
mac said
Oh … add Israel and Eastern Europe to the list of countries still trading sex slaves …http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7070929.stm.
Which is the most important?
To save those that are in slavery now, especially the young girls, or attempt to save those that have already (mostly) died?
You know, if only Korea and China said, “let us learn from the past and save the future … support us to fight sex slavery and child sex abuse now
Where are the voices condemning the sex slavery in Korea that is going on to this day, and the men that drive and profit from it?
http://www.vvawai.org/general/sex-slaves.html
mac said
Sex slavery in Korea today … where are the voices to condemn it?
http://www.vvawai.org/general/sex-slaves.html
If only Korea and China said, “let us learn from the past but protect the future … and stop sex slavery and child abuse today.” The whole world would support them.
There would still be a problem with corruption and bureaucracy but at least it would be one step forward.
I am afraid I have to add Israel and Eastern Europe to the list;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7070929.stm
Susie said
Well, as my professors (in the U.S) state (since the most objective when arguing between two would be a third party) , historically and geographically, the Korean people were nomadic tribes from parts of Northern China,Southern Siberia and Manchu.A fair portion of Japanese migrated from the southern tip of Korea besides the indiginous Ainu which dates pre-Japanese on the islands, their DNA links them to Tibetans.They’re socially looked down on in Japan, frankly.There’s also the Okinawans…they have distinctly Chinese cultural habits in their day to day.
As simple geography goes, it filters from China to Korea to Japan usually.And EVERYONE influences EVERYONE else.During periods, the Japanese would send individuals to ‘tour’ other parts of Asia to learn and compete for their style etc…Korea was introverted..at times known as the peaceful hermit kingdom, meaning not that much traveling to learn (aka copy) others styles except those filtered from China. Yes, the Japanese must have influenced some aspects during their occupation but remember that their presence was largely unwelcome (forced does that to a country) so the general sentiment was a rejection of their methods.Most Koreans would probably feel their national and cultural identity were stifled during that time.
As far as the ‘comfort women’ go, whether or not some went and were paid, the issue is that in the face of so many,now elderly women retelling their horrific story of their forced coercion(some at 12 ); the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe remains dug-in in his insistence that there was no forced recruitment of Asian sex slaves by the Japanese military during World War II.On a greater scale some believe it to be similar to some Germans denying the Holocaust.In spite of all the victims pain, to be denying the act is like having it happen all over again, similar to the psyche of rape victims.
As Kamasugi states, “Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe remains dug-in in his insistence that there was no forced recruitment of Asian sex slaves by the Japanese military during World War II.”
http://keithpr.com/2007/03/yul-kwon-supports-resolution-calling-on.html
For more info on human rights and womens rights visit support121.org to learn more.
And anyone thats taken martial arts knows that Tae Kwon Do is an edited version of Kung Fu and Karate is an edited version of Tae Kwon Do. I happen to know a 9th degree Master (one of less than 20 true , i mean old school, in the U.S, his students won the Nationals for more than 6 years consecutively in the 70’s and 80’s)learned Kung Fu and his family Tae Kwon Do from his grandfather and is Chinese influenced like how origami came from Chinese Buddhist monks and Zen Buddhism is an edited version of Indian/Chinese Mahayana Buddhism came from Chan in China, and Seon in Korea..etc.etc..
The Japanese government should formally acknowledge the 200,000 voices of victims speaking today. Later.
Bender said
And anyone thats taken martial arts knows that Tae Kwon Do is an edited version of Kung Fu and Karate is an edited version of Tae Kwon Do.
So, in the end, you want to mention that Japan is some degraded copy of Korea? I want to give a BIG thumbs down for this kind of nationalism that’s so rampant in Korea…
The Japanese government should formally acknowledge the 200,000 voices of victims speaking today.
The usual again…the Japanese government did acknowledge, has apologized, and offered compensation. Acknowledgment of the comfort woman issue is the official stance of the Japanese government, and this has never changed. PM Abe withdrew his comments and stood by this official stance, if you ever cared to follow the news through…BTW, PM Abe was very unpopular in Japan and is gone now.
Ken said
80-year-old Korean professor talked the truth with saying, “I thought I must speak up during my remaining life.”
History should be studied based on evidence.
They may keep shouting invented history to the end.
Korean gov disclosed she is about to become debtor country for the 1st time since the last crisis in 1998 as follows.
http://www.chosunonline.com/article/20080521000010
She was deserted by the US at that time so that Won was falling into the bottomless pit.
Korean gov went down on her knees to Japan for help and Japan lended huge money in exchange for secret agreement of no more invented history.
But she began it again when the president changed.
I sympathise Lee Myong-bak who has to pay for Roh Mu-Hyong’s blunder.
Who would help her this time?
Susie said
no Bender, not a degraded copy..those are your words…but it IS GREATLY influenced..read up on it.AND JUST BECAUSE YOURE INFLUENCED, DOESNT MEAN YOU DIDNT TAKE THAT INFLUENCE AND MAKE IT YOUR OWN, BUT IT SHOULD BE ACKNOWLEDGED PROPERLY. And I doubt the U.C. professors lectures are incorrect. You think Korea has ‘rampant Nationalism’? Check out Kenkanryu..its a best seller in Japan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_Kenkanryu
How about a ‘BIG THUMBS DOWN’ on that. They went throught the trouble of actually printing for mass publication lies and propaganda. NOW THAATS A LOT OF EFFORT OF SPREADING HURTFUL NATIONALISM, FASCISM AND PROPAGANDA. WHY would such a hateful message be a bestseller? Because the general population supports it.They like it. Do you really think that a Nation that once supported the NAZIS would change that easily? THEY wouldnt of even stopped the war if they were’nt NUKED and wanted to keep going even after Germany stopped. So, here’s a country that sees another country (Germany) killing millions in horrific ways, and they CONCUR! THEY believe it to be ok to irradicate an entire race simply because they believe it to be inferior? They wanted to conquer the Asian countries as Germany wanted to conquer most of Europe, it was in their war plan. See how the Japanese look upon their own indiginous race even, the Ainu and Okinawan.Im speaking of scholarly opinions , not mainstream sorry if its diff. from what your used to.and as ive stated before , rather than listening to either Korean professors or Japanese professors, in such a debate …your more liable to hear an unbiased truth from a third party like looking at how other countries observe the historical facts, documents etc…Im sure the Japanese professor speaks more favorably for japanese and most Korean professors, for Koreans.My statements are based on the U.S and U.K’s view of their history.
Susie said
a little remorse with sincerity would be nice…
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/the-politics-of-apology-for-japans-comfort-women/
Susie said
maybe the Korean women would have an easier time getting acknowledged if they were more Western?Because if youre a young Dutch girl sent to be a ‘comfort woman’ they give you a peace prize. Bear in mind, Japan didnt sign the Geneva Convention until AFTER WWII, meaning only when forced. And when youre forced, its hard to believe its sincere.
http://www.eucharistic-convention.com/K_2004/o'herne/oherne.htm
Susie said
here’s another.
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2007/s1886480.htm
ampontan said
I do. For example:
If a UC professor told you that without any qualifying information, then that professor is both incorrect and has an agenda.
The 200,000 number was an estimate by a JAPANESE historian, though newspapers like to say “historians”.
But that historian’s actual estimate was from 50,000 to 200,000. Obviously with that sort of range, he has no idea how many there were.
Of course the media and your factually correct professors chose to stick with the high number.
Another Japanese historian estimated 40,000 (close to the lower end of the other professor’s estimate), and noted that a large percentage were Japanese.
And the Japanese government has formally acknowledged the existence of comfort women.
By the way, did your professors tell you that prostitution was legal here in those days?
If you want to get up to speed on this issue, try this previous post. Be sure to follow all the links.
Overthinker said
Your professors may be accurate, but your retelling of their words seems rather mixed up. And where you get “Japanese govt denies forced recruitment by the Japanese military” (which you must realise merely means that it was other routes that forcibly recruited the ones that were forcibly recruited) is the same as Holocaust denial I have no idea.
“Do you really think that a Nation that once supported the NAZIS would change that easily?”
Yes. And I have a bit more to back that up than empty rhetoric.
You also clearly know very little about the discourses on Japanese history, Japanese colonial history especially, prevalent in Japan. Japanese historians are VERY open about past atrocities. In fact it is because they are so open that right-wing books get published as a counter: in addition to the Kenkanryuu you mention, there is Sensoron, another ‘manga’ style book (with sequels) plus any number of books on the theme of “Japanese history as taught is masochistic”.
I also fail to see what point you intend to make by mentioning X number of things Japan took from other countries. Are you suggesting that Japanese, for example, deny that Zen is originally Chinese?
And Korea’s nationalism is far more rampant than Japan’s. Seriously, a few books published by right-wing authors is not as nationalistic as a lot of Korean actions. Such as:
http://uqmgp.hp.infoseek.co.jp/
Not to mention the frothing at the mouth over the whole “Sea of Japan” issue.
Susie said
actually, it’s U.C. professors’, plural..meaning more than one. Why dont you try quoting someone other than a Japanese historian..its a bit biased.
I can’t even believe theres this much argument resisting war crimes…Germany is forgiven because they are contrite..imagine if Germany kept denying the Holocaust (which some do) over and over? Its enough to make me sick.
and by the way, as far as apologies go..if youre sincere, its the victim that gets to say when its ok and forgiven…not the attacker.
and are there any comments on the Geneva Convention not being signed by the Japanese? why? cant agree to Humane treatment , huh? hmmmm…very suspicious. and lets see, would Japan have stopped if they werent nuked? Nah…and two of my Professors ARE Japanese…sorry.
Overthinker said
“Why dont you try quoting someone other than a Japanese historian..its a bit biased.”
That in itself is a fantastically biased statement.
However you are correct: Japanese historians are biased – especially if you are a right-wing nationalist. They hate the left-wing liberal view of the vast bulk of Japanese historiography. However I seriously doubt you know anything about the current discourse on war memory in Japanese academia.
Your linking the comfort women issue to the Holocaust is ridiculous. The scale and severity of the latter is just so much more extreme.
Leaving aside for the time being the question of whether China and Korea have “accepted” Japanese apologies (yes), the problem is that both countries use anti-Japanese ideas as a way to boost nationalism. To claim the right-wing books published by a relatively free press are comparable to some of the rabid hatred in those two countries is disingenuous. They seek out ways to stir things up – look at the Korean fuss over the Sea of Japan. And you will never see this in Japan:
http://uqmgp.hp.infoseek.co.jp/
Would Japan have stopped if they weren’t nuked? In a word, YES. Probably at about the stage the USSR invaded Hokkaido.
Wait…you say Japanese historians are biased…and then say that two of your profs are Japanese. So are they biased or not?
Why didn’t the US join the League of Nations? Hmmmm…very suspicious.
Bender said
actually, it’s U.C. professors’, plural..meaning more than one. Why dont you try quoting someone other than a Japanese historian..its a bit biased.
Why don’t you? Where’s the link to those “UC professor” opinions you talk about? You could at least say UC where.
AND JUST BECAUSE YOURE INFLUENCED, DOESNT MEAN YOU DIDNT TAKE THAT INFLUENCE AND MAKE IT YOUR OWN, BUT IT SHOULD BE ACKNOWLEDGED PROPERLY.
Do you recognize how post-Meiji Japan influenced Korea, even after Korea became independent after WWII? I guess not.
BTW, I think this comment of yours is racist:
Do you really think that a Nation that once supported the NAZIS would change that easily?
I see more similarity with Nazi Germany in an education that leads to children drawing hate-pictures like the ones in the link Overthinker gave us.
Susie said
nazi germany and the italian socialist party stopped promoting their fascist ideas and blatant race promotions after the war. japan’s fascist attitutes are continually manifested in their everyday commerce, their ‘Japaness’.propoganda includes self National promotion…like hey, look at our Nation..its the best..we’re the best,,.we did this and without us this OTHER race wouldnt have been able to do this…is RUDE and FASCIST.
This is from wiki..looks like Japan wouldnt even have even known how to make RICE without Chinese and Koreans.
“The Yayoi period, starting around the third century BC, introduced new practices, such as wet-rice farming, iron and bronze-making and a new style of pottery, brought by China and Korea. With the development of Yayoi culture, a predominantly agricultural society emerged in Japan.[11][12][13][14]”
and I can’t link all the Professors comments because there are no complete podcasts online of them like most Grad school seminars..duh.and sure, i can state during the forced occupation of japan, there were influences left ( and things that were detrimental to the cultural development of Korea as what happens during occupation)…can you state that Korea influenced Japan as well?Hmm?How about thanking the Chinese and Koreans for the RICE YOU EAT.COULDNT EVEN FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE RICE ON YOUR OWN??There is no other land connection, you know…its sort of inevitable TO RECIEVE INFLUENCE FROM CHINA VIA KOREA.THE OTHER SIDE IS ALL WATER.
‘Your linking the comfort women issue to the Holocaust is ridiculous. The scale and severity of the latter is just so much more extreme.’
Duh, parallels..look into learning about COGNITIVE PROCESSES..IT’LL HELP YOU DEDUCE BETTER.I cant school you guys in everything..jeez.
RAPING ONE AND RAPING A MILLION IS DIFFERENT? GUESS WHAT, youre still a rapist. I wonder how youd feel if you were raped and your rapist kept knit-picking their crimes, gee..well…we left it better off and it wasnt that bad anyway, whatever, we already said sorry..oh yeah..after we say sorry, lets commemorate the war rapists back in our land and honor them..oh yeah, but we’re sorry,really.
ENOUGH OF YOUR FASCIST IDEAS AND ENERGY,JAPAN.HAVENT YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR NUKING TO STOP?I GUESS NOT.
Im bored now.
Thank God the majority of educated persons here see your page full of holes and lack of knowledge.yeah, thats a roomful of Grad students here and like 2 of you but now I have a new little project.Make more web pages just like yours promoting Korea and Chinese history from an actual objective viewpoint in ALL aspects.
That saying, I love Japanese culture but hate fascism in mutated forms.after all, I am a NIPPON.L8Z.
Aki said
And anyone thats taken martial arts knows that Tae Kwon Do is an edited version of Kung Fu and Karate is an edited version of Tae Kwon Do.
Tae Kwon Do has only 50 years or so of history. You can read the history in this page.
Bender said
Duh, parallels..look into learning about COGNITIVE PROCESSES..IT’LL HELP YOU DEDUCE BETTER.I cant school you guys in everything..jeez.
With your kindergarten language, I’m surprised they even let you in UC.
japan’s fascist attitutes are continually manifested in their everyday commerce, their ‘Japaness’.propoganda includes self National promotion…like hey, look at our Nation..its the best..we’re the best,,.we did this and without us this OTHER race wouldnt have been able to do this…is RUDE and FASCIST.
You must be kidding. This is what your country of Korea does all the time, not Japan. Maybe you should look at some K-blogs run by expats there. I’m sure you won’t be bored.
Ken said
“Im bored now.”
Hold out! Stick to it! The more you shout, the more true character of your mother land is revealed. I like it.
“Thank God the majority of educated persons here see your page full of holes and lack of knowledge.”
These words are exactly for you.
Why don’t you study true science, which is based on documents not hearsays, as far as you are in the US?
For example, http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=567
If you say Comfort Women system is such a evil one, why did Korean gov order applicable women to register as ‘Comfort Women’ even 20 years after the WW2?
That site is operated by your worshiping white and more suitable to dispute this sort of Korean invented (hi)story.
Susie said
really, where did you graduate? lets rank your college here..and like I said. I AM OF JAPANESE ethnicity. that ‘motherland’ you see is AMERICAN.
kindergarden?its called mixing vernacular and scholarly..look into it.
and Imperial Japan and current japan is VERY SELF PROMOTING.EVERYONE OTHER THAN YOU GUYS KNOWS THAT.SORRY.
HEIL JAPAN!YOU CAN NEVER TAKE AWAY THE FACT THAT JAPAN SIDED WITH THE NAZIS.NEVERRRRRRRRRR—THAT WILL NEVER BE OK IN HISTORY AND STOP EDITING TEXTBOOKS.ITS UNCOUTH.100,000PROTESTING TODAY.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070930a2.html
AND THATS FROM JAPANTIMES..HAHAHA…
Susie said
TaeKwonDo AND Karate both came from China.Like most asian influence.
Bender said
really, where did you graduate?
Judging from how guys like Ampontan, Mac, Overthinker, and other regulars here write, I’m pretty sure most of them are more educated & sophisticated than you.
HEIL JAPAN!YOU CAN NEVER TAKE AWAY THE FACT THAT JAPAN SIDED WITH THE NAZIS.NEVERRRRRRRRRR—
If you’re ethnically Japanese, why are you immune from your own demonizing of the Japanese nation/race? Seriously, do you understand how bigoted and racist you sound?
Ken said
Here it is! Typical Korean way of thinking!
Important thing is ‘What you studied.’ not ‘In which rank colloge you studied.’
“I AM OF JAPANESE ethnicity. that ‘motherland’ you see is AMERICAN.”
Then prove it. Koreans are very good at pretending other nationality.
“HEIL JAPAN!YOU CAN NEVER TAKE AWAY THE FACT THAT JAPAN SIDED WITH THE NAZIS.NEVERRRRRRRRRR—”
Have you have gone 화병 already?
Overthinker said
Wow, Susie is slightly losing it. Japan owes China a debt due to RICE? That’s like saying England owes a debt to Rome for its alphabet….
Aside from the minor fact that the Holocaust was killing, not rape, why yes, killing one person and killing a million is different. About a million times different, actually. To assert that two crimes are equally bad despite a massive difference in scale is a very black-and-white view of morality. But then it seems to be the same view that thinks that because Japan once was allied with the Nazis that it is irredeemably bad. But before it was allied with the Nazis it was allied with the British. What effect do you think that had?
Personally I am disinclined to take anything Susie says as “scholarly” until she starts writing that way. While I know that blog threads are not PhD theses, the appalling punctuation and disjointed ideas make her statements less, rather than more, persuasive.
Editing textbooks is uncouth? I must admit, I’ve never heard it termed that before.
Susie said
BORED.
I can’t educate you guys from A-Z. The only thing I can say is that you should read all angles…not only the Japanese.
Again, it’s rude to accuse someone of lying. I am a Japanese American, my mom was born in an internment camp,mmkay? so STFU. Are you a Nippon?
The manner that the Japanese has treated other asian countries is appalling and shameful.There was a reason we are the only nuked country and there has not been as much contrition about it than excuses and continued fascism, brainwashing and editing of the past.100,000 Okinawans are protesting so.
as far as the wet rice farming? ITS IN THE ENCYCLOPEDIA AND WIKIPEDIA. YES, JAPAN OWES WET RICE FARMING TO KOREA AND CHINA.SORRY- ADMIT IT JUST LIKE YOU EXPECT OTHER ASIAN COUNTRIES TO ADMIT JAPANESE INFLUENCE. IF YOU EXPECT OTHER ASIAN COUNTRIES TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEY WERE INFLUENCED BY JAPAN, SO SHOULD JAPAN. AND IF YOU ARE COUNTRIES THAT ARE NEXT TO EACH OTHER – ITS INEVITABLE.DUH.THE FACT THAT YOU DENY OTHER EXTERNAL SOURCES OF INFO OTHER THAN JAPANESE FASCIST THOUGHT THEN YOU ARE TRULY BLIND.
why does Japan talk about other countries fabricating their past, as they do it themselves?YEAH, WE KNOW YOU HAVE AN ENTIRE COMMITTEE TO DO THAT EVERY DAY.
Why are there so many hateful youtube videos by Japanese talking about korean rapists as they house a CANNIBAL (Issei Sagawa) that kills a woman, screws her dead body, eats it, and becomes a CELEBRITY IN JAPAN? i GUESS THATS LIKE HONORING THE YASUKUNI HMM? HONORING WAR CRIMINALS THAT BEHAVED IN INHUMANE WAYS. GOOD JOB JAPAN.THE WORLD SEES YOU.
LIKE I SAID, this is boring now.and most of my crew think you guys are funny- that saying I’m done here- my band has some gigs to play on the east coast (woohoo!) so any more replies will have to be when I get back,kiddies.L8R,fascists.
Marubatsu said
Susie, you’re comparing discussions with your professors – educated, published people with PhDs, to an anonymous crowd of hyenas on a blog. Do you see a single article published in a peer-reviewed journal amongst this crowd? Stop wasting your time. When they get serious, get published and get some credibility, then you can take them seriously.
ampontan said
Marubatsu: Suzie we can leave to her own devices, as she leads such a busy life at a UC grad school while touring the East Coast in her band on summer break that she is unable to write a single coherent sentence, complete a single coherent thought, or make a single coherent argument, unaware that scholars don’t quote Wikipedia, not realizing that Japanese have always been aware of the source of wet rice cultivation, actually believing that Tae Kwan Do silliness, mindlessly parroting nonsense without being clever enough to see how transparent it is, and all the rest of it…
Meanwhile, during lunch period she skips back to tell her Korean-American girl friends at their corner in the high school cafeteria about how she pwn’d all these dorky guys on a Japanese website, not realizing that she long ago exposed herself with every sentence she managed to string together. Life has a way of turning people into adults whether they like it or not, and perhaps after she passes through adolescence she’ll get there one of these days. Or perhaps not.
But what is your excuse for falling for it? (With a Waseda e-mail address no less!)
Unless you would care to try to defend any one of Susie’s positions without making any of us collapse into helpless laughter?
Susie herself can’t do it, I’m afraid. The poor child’s bored and has to get ready for her big East Coast tour anyway.
Overthinker said
Wow, Susie, way to totally misinterpret what I said. And supported by no less an authority than Wikipedia. I am truly impressed.
Susie said
dont forget the encyclopedia fascists…and its just local gigs around towns like most musicians you know?DUH- oh, BTW most of my friends are Jewish you pricks.And I do have some korean friends since I AM NOT A FASCIST JAPANESE BUT A JAPANESE-AMERICAN.THX.since I am the only girl on here, Id like to mention you guys are incredibly rude and ungentlemanly.dont be mad about having pencil dicks..lmao. why dont you guys comment on Issei Sagawa? or the Okinawans protesting..or the war criminals Japan defends? Or answer which of you are really Japanese.yeah, thats what I thought.*yawn~
I’ll bet the next paragraph whomever writes wont address any of these things either…haha… BOOORRRRRINNNNG-You guys have noo clue about the world.Dont worry, write on here ALL you want.I’ll be influencing other people in higher places.L8R losers.
Susie said
A former Japanese Army officer who served in China, Uno Shintaro, stated:
The major means of getting intelligence was to extract information by interrogating prisoners. Torture was an unavoidable necessity. Murdering and burying them follows naturally. You do it so you won’t be found out. I believed and acted this way because I was convinced of what I was doing. We carried out our duty as instructed by our masters. We did it for the sake of our country. From our filial obligation to our ancestors. On the battlefield, we never really considered the Chinese humans. When you’re winning, the losers look really miserable. We concluded that the Yamato [i.e. Japanese] race was superior.[28]
Susie said
YOU MUST BE SOO PROUD.
It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians [i.e. Soviet citizens]; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers — and, in the case of the Japanese, as [forced] prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war from Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia) you faced a 4% chance of not surviving the war; [by comparison] the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30%.[10]
Susie said
thats from a Berkeley Professor. Hes Prez of the Japan Policy Research Institute. who do you quote?
and next time anyone replies, try answering EVERYTHING mentioned instead of avoiding some points and attempting to pick at others.
Susie said
Huge Japan protest over textbook
More than 100,000 people in Japan have rallied against changes to school books detailing Japanese military involvement in mass suicides during World War II.
The protest, in Okinawa, was against moves to modify and tone down passages that say the army ordered Okinawans to kill themselves rather than surrender.
Okinawa’s governor told crowds they could not ignore army involvement.
Some conservatives in Japan have in recent years questioned accounts of the country’s brutal wartime past.
Saturday’s rally was the biggest staged on the southern island since it was returned to Japan by the United States in 1972, according to the Kyodo News agency.
Grenades
When US soldiers invaded Okinawa at the end of World War II, more than 200,000 people died.
Hundreds of them were Japanese civilians who killed themselves.
The textbooks, intended for use in high schools next year, currently say that as the Americans prepared to invade, the Japanese army handed out grenades to Okinawa residents and ordered them to kill themselves.
Many survivors insist the military told people to commit suicide, partly due to fears over what they might tell the invaders and because being taken prisoner was considered shameful.
The governor of Okinawa, Hirokazu Nakaima, told crowds the episode should not be forgotten.
“We cannot bury the fact that the Japanese military was involved in the mass suicide, taking into account of the general background and testimonies that hand grenades were delivered,” he said.
JAPAN= THE COUNTRY THAGT HIDES ITS PAST INSTEAD OF LEARNING CONTRITION. GOOD JOB !
ampontan said
Tour bus break down?
Susie said
Issei Sagawa served time in a French jail for the murder of the Dutch student Renée Hartevelt, a classmate at the Sorbonne Academy in Paris. In June 11, 1981, Sagawa was studying avant garde literature. He invited her to dinner under the pretense of literary conversation. Upon her arrival, he shot her in the neck with a rifle while she sat with her back to him at a desk, then began to carry out his plan of eating her. She was selected because of her health and beauty, those characteristics Sagawa believed he lacked. In interviews, Sagawa describes himself as a “weak, ugly and small man” and claims that he wanted to “absorb her energy.”
He said he fainted after the shock of shooting her, but awoke with the realization that he had to carry out his desire to eat her. He did so, after having sex with the corpse, beginning with her hips. In interviews, he noted his surprise at the “corn-colored” nature of human fat. For two days, Sagawa ate various parts of her body. He described the meat as “soft” and “odorless”, like tuna. After two days, he dumped the mutilated body in a park, but was seen in the act. Five days later, he was arrested by the French police. However, the French psychologists found him legally insane and unfit to stand trial. Instead, he was deported back to Japan, where he was put in a mental institution. However, the deportation order did not specify how long Sagawa must remain in the institution, and Japanese authorities were refused the necessary paperwork from French justice officials.[2] Fifteen months later, Sagawa checked himself out, and has been a free man ever since.
[edit] Free in Japan
Sagawa now lives in Tokyo and is a minor celebrity in Japan. He is often invited as a guest speaker and commentator. He also writes restaurant reviews and in 1992 he appeared in Hisayasu Sato’s film Sisenjiyou no Aria (The Bedroom) as a sadosexual voyeur.
JAPAN LOVES THEIR CANNIBALS! FISH FLESH AAAND HUMAN FLESH! WOOHOO!
ampontan said
We know. The other females are all adult women.
The vice-principal?
Bender said
I’d be surprised if she was a grad student…how on earth could she write personal statements herself?
Susie said
gee, i was right. personal attacks you resort to because you cant refute the facts. typical.HOW DID I KNOW NONE OF THE POINTS WOULD BE ANSWERED.BECAUSE YOU LOOOOOSSSE.LOL.
Susie said
Issei Sagawa served time in a French jail for the murder of the Dutch student Renée Hartevelt, a classmate at the Sorbonne Academy in Paris. In June 11, 1981, Sagawa was studying avant garde literature. He invited her to dinner under the pretense of literary conversation. Upon her arrival, he shot her in the neck with a rifle while she sat with her back to him at a desk, then began to carry out his plan of eating her. She was selected because of her health and beauty, those characteristics Sagawa believed he lacked. In interviews, Sagawa describes himself as a “weak, ugly and small man” and claims that he wanted to “absorb her energy.”
He said he fainted after the shock of shooting her, but awoke with the realization that he had to carry out his desire to eat her. He did so, after having sex with the corpse, beginning with her hips. In interviews, he noted his surprise at the “corn-colored” nature of human fat. For two days, Sagawa ate various parts of her body. He described the meat as “soft” and “odorless”, like tuna. After two days, he dumped the mutilated body in a park, but was seen in the act. Five days later, he was arrested by the French police. However, the French psychologists found him legally insane and unfit to stand trial. Instead, he was deported back to Japan, where he was put in a mental institution. However, the deportation order did not specify how long Sagawa must remain in the institution, and Japanese authorities were refused the necessary paperwork from French justice officials.[2] Fifteen months later, Sagawa checked himself out, and has been a free man ever since.
[edit] Free in Japan
Sagawa now lives in Tokyo and is a minor celebrity in Japan. He is often invited as a guest speaker and commentator. He also writes restaurant reviews and in 1992 he appeared in Hisayasu Sato’s film Sisenjiyou no Aria (The Bedroom) as a sadosexual voyeur.
JAPAN LOVES THEIR CANNIBALS! FISH FLESH AAAND HUMAN FLESH! WOOHOO!
YOU WANT TO ATTACK PERSONALLY? GO EAT SOME MORE FLESH.LMAO.
Bender said
I’d suggest you re-read your foul ad hominem arguments before you start to make more.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/11/opinion/edbowring.php
It is true that Japan has not been as contrite as one would wish and the visits by Japan’s prime minister to Yasukuni Shrine, where some war criminals are buried, are poor diplomacy. But plenty of British textbooks, for example, show scant regard for Chinese views of the Opium Wars or the destruction of the Summer Palace. Likewise many American ones gloss over the massacres that accompanied the “civilizing” U.S. occupation of the Philippines. Queen Elizabeth II has not apologized to Indians for the Amritsar massacre and statues commemorating the bloody exploits of British imperialists are two a penny in London. Beijing also likes to forget that for much of Asia beyond China and Korea, Japan’s imperialism was welcomed as hastening the end of Western imperialism.
As for the South Koreans, in their demands for more Japanese groveling they like to forget the fact that President Park Chung Hee, widely praised for masterminding their economic miracle, was himself an officer in the Japanese army of occupation in Manchuria.
If none of this historical mud-slinging got beyond the more sensational news media it could be dismissed as no more relevant than the childish anti-German antics of Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid press in Britain. But official encouragement of xenophobic attitudes is worrying in a region where cooperation will be vital when the United States is no longer both buyer and peacekeeper of last resort. It casts a shadow on much-advertised hopes of bilateral and regional free trade agreements, and currency cooperation, particularly for Southeast Asia, which needs Chinese-Japanese accord.
ampontan said
Because you didn’t bother to read any of the answers. Living is easy with eyes closed. Sorry, but that’s not how the world works after high school.
You now have a choice.
1. Go to the link at the end of note #15, read the entire post, and read every one of the links contained in that post.
2. Then look up Jeffrey Dahlmer on Google or Yahoo, whichever you prefer. He’s before your time, but we remember him.
If you choose to write another note on this website, you will have to include a point-by-point rebuttal of all the facts in the post linked in #15. It will include NO citations from anywhere else. We’ve read all the newspapers and the Korean websites. You will have to explain in your own words why the points in the post are incorrect.
The note will also include an explanation of why a Japanese cannibal is important while Jeffrey Dahlmer is not, again in your own words.
We will know immediately from your note whether you have done that or not.
You also said:
Your note will include the names (plural) of the professors who told you these things, with the titles of at least one of their published books and papers on this specific subject for each, along with the name of the university where they teach, the university you attend, and the name of the class or seminar in which they said these things.
Here’s a suggestion: See if you can write a note without using “duh”. No one here is impressed, and it’s only one of several things that gives your real age away.
If you write another note that fails to include ANY of that information:
1. It will be deleted.
2. Your notes will be marked as spam. It takes me 10 seconds, so that’s no big deal.
If you write another note with more ad hominem comments (look that up on Google too) in addition to 1 and 2, I will copy the entire exchange from start to finish and send it in an e-mail to your Internet service provider, asking them why they permit their customers to behave like that on the web.
That will take less than five minutes.
How you will explain to your parents that your Internet service–which is perhaps theirs too–has been cancelled is something you’ll have to figure out yourself.
The choice is yours.
We hope that you choose to act like an adult.
Overthinker said
The Issei Sagawa stuff is so far off the topic it’s laughable.
Seriously, the minor real issues Susie notes (such as the 30% death rate in POW camps) are swamped with the scattershot approach that drags up everything this person can think of. So Sagawa is a freak who got off on bureaucratic bumbling? Note that according to YOUR very own plagiarism – I mean “post” – it was NOT Japan’s fault. “Japanese authorities were refused the necessary paperwork from French justice officials.” Should they have locked him up anyway for a crime committed in France? And are you seriously suggesting that a morbid interest in a wacko means Japan is an evil Nazi nation?
The stuff under YOU MUST BE SOOO PROUD is plagiarised from the “B-29s Over Korea” site, a very anti-Japanese site (it uses the 350,000 Chinese figure for Nanking, etc). The quote, unsourced in the website, is attributed to Chalmers Johnson, of UC San Diego, not Berkeley. The original source for that statement, I have now found out, was a review of “Gold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold” by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave,
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n22/john04_.html
(Regarding the Seagraves, they say some interesting things, but their complete inability to read original Japanese documents makes them very suspicious as researchers into Japanese history: their book on The Yamato Dynasty is also singularly bereft of Japanese sources.)
Against Johnson, John Dower, possibly the pre-eminent scholar of the Pacific War in the West, cites a figure of “several million to 15 million” (Dower, War Without Mercy, p. 295 [note to Susie: this is the difference between academic discussion and vitriolic plagiarising – I am citing my sources properly]). Even China’s own figures were in the 10-15 million range: Dower concludes on the following page by saying “it is reasonable to think in general terms of approximately 10 million Chinese war dead” – less than half the figure Johnson states as a minimum.
The argument is not about whether Japan behaved badly during WW2. It did. And Japanese research backs this up. Japanese textbooks back this up. Japanese public opinion, to the extent that the average person cares any more, backs this up. Sensoron, Kokumin no Rekishi, and the other Tsukururai books are the reaction to this discourse, not the cause. They are famous precisely as they are so controversial. In fact they’re probably made controversial on purpose: nothing sells like notoriety.
Isn’t this odd – “More than 100,000 people in Japan have rallied against changes to school books detailing Japanese military involvement in mass suicides during World War II.” Wait a moment? Japanese people should all be agreeing, shouldn’t they? They should be in favour of as much whitewashing as possible, surely? Of course the issue here is, as with so much else, the difficulty of actually coming up with written army orders that instruct the people to blow themselves up. Without those, it’s based on hearsay and memory. In other words, it almost certainly did happen, but without documentary proof, it is not suitable for school textbooks – the government stance right there.
Incidentally, I found a book by Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi on Google Books that lists a few Japanese terrorist or extremist attacks of the early seventies, such as Mishima’s suicide, the Mr Asama student riots, the Red Army in Tel Aviv, and the soldiers hidden on Guam etc. These are used as evidence that “emperor-state militarism was alive and well” The Red Army?? Student radicals? Three psychotic soldiers?
Funny how she automatically assumes everyone here but her is a male (“with pencil dicks” no less – well, at least pencils are hard…). Despite the fact that most people are using sexless names.
Ken said
“gee, i was right. personal attacks you resort to because you cant refute the facts.”
Facts? Your words are only ‘My professor said’, ‘My textbook taught’, ‘A novelist mentioned’ alone.
If you would like to overthrow an established theory, investigate the evidences by yourself, not collect minor opinions comfortable to you.
How could you graduate high rank American college by your passive style of studying?
If you have not graduated yet, ” Stop wasting your time.”
This is an advice from a person who have lived longer than you.
“Are you a Nippon?”
?? I do not understand what you mean.
By the way, normal Japanese never say these words, “lets rank your college here.” though I have not heard them among normal Americans too.
If you want to call yourself JAPANESE ethnicity, you had better learn Japanese mind.
ampontan said
This is so good I wish I had written it myself. Thank you.
IIRC, Bob Wakabayashi wrote a paper examining the story about the two Japanese soldiers in China having a contest to chop off 100 heads. (It originally ran in a Japanese newspaper during the war.) Wakabayashi, if this is the same person, concludes the story is a myth.
Susie said
yes yes , Japanese mind. I know…you sound like my grandfather.
Amnesty International states Japan has yet to apologize? Are you saying they are wrong?
Breakthrough in battle for justice for ‘comfort women’
Gil Ok Won, former ‘comfort woman’ and activist
© AI
21 December 2007
The European Parliament has adopted a resolution on survivors of Japan’s military sexual slavery system (the so-called ‘comfort women’ system), which urges the Government of Japan to acknowledge, apologize and compensate the victims.
Thousands of women, known as ‘comfort women’, were officially commissioned by the Government of Japan from the 1930s through the duration of the Second World War for sexual servitude for the armed forces. The full extent of the sexual slavery system has never been fully disclosed by the Government of Japan though it is thought that as many as 200,000 women were enslaved. To this day, the Government of Japan has refused to acknowledge its responsibility for the crimes committed against former ‘comfort women’.
The ‘comfort women’ system of forced military prostitution allowed for a range of abuses, such as sexual violence including gang rape and forced abortions, in one of the largest cases of human trafficking in the 20th century. Many of the women are now in their 80s and hoping that justice can still be achieved in their lifetime and have been courageously speaking out and sharing their experiences.
Gil Won Ok, 79, was born in what is now North Korea. When she was 13 she was promised factory work, but eventually found herself in a comfort station in northeast China where she worked as a ‘comfort woman’. Gil caught syphilis and developed tumors during her work as a ‘comfort woman’ and eventually, a Japanese military doctor removed her uterus leaving her unable to bear children.
Gil, who broke her silence in 1998, 53 years after her traumatic experience, recently gave testimony at the European Parliament. Gil said of the need to continue campaigning , “the Japanese Government thinks if all ‘comfort women’ die, it will be buried and forgotten…as long as our next generation knows about it, it will not be forgotten”.
The European Parliament is one of a string of Parliaments taking a stand against past atrocities calling for the Government of Japan to provide justice to the survivors of Japan’s military sexual slavery system. Other countries are considering tabling similar resolutions.
The Government of Japan must act immediately to provide redress to those who suffered under the ‘comfort women’ system. Many survivors have subsequently suffered from mental and physical abuse, ill-health, isolation, shame and often extreme poverty. The Government of Japan must act now to
• Acknowledge full responsibility for the ‘comfort women’ system and publicly apologize to the survivors
• Provide adequate and effective compensation to survivors and their immediate families
• Publicly denounce sexual violence against women whenever and wherever it occurs
YOU KNOW THROUGH TALKING WITH YOU GUYS, IVE LEARNED THAT JAPAN KILLED MORE THAN THE NAZIS.WOW.
AND BTW, JEFFREY DAUMER DIDNT GET RELEASED AND INVITED ON AMERICAN TALK SHOWS LIKE ISSEI SAGAWA BECOMING A CELEBRITY.JAPAN IS A CULTURE THAT EMBRACED A CANNIBAL.CANT CHANGE THAT, IT STILL IS AS OF TODAY!
ANND CHALMERS JOHNSON IS AT BERKELEY THIS YEAR.BUT GEE, YOU WOULDNT KNOW THAT.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ALSO STATES THAT JAPAN’S EFFORTS ARE MINIMAL AND NOT UP TO INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS ON REPARATION.
Japan: Still Waiting After 60 years: Justice for Survivors of Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery System
Japan: Still Waiting After 60 years: Justice for Survivors of Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery System
Amnesty International is calling on the government of Japan to accept full responsibility for the crimes committed against “comfort women” and provide full reparations to survivors of the military sexual slavery system and their immediate families in accordance with international standards and in a way acceptable to the survivors themselves. This report examines the limited steps the Japanese government has taken to “atone” including apologies made by prominent officials and the establishment of the Asian Women’s Fund to distribute “atonement money”. However it concludes that these measures still fail to meet international standards on reparation.
GUESS WHAT? THE WORLD SAYS ITS NOT ENOUGH.GET WITH IT JAPAN.AND STOP BEING THE ONLY COUNTRY WITH A FULLY OPERATIONAL DEATH PENALTY SYSTEM.TSK TSK.
Japan: executions must stop, says Amnesty International
10 April 2008
Amnesty International deeply regrets the hanging of four men — Akinaga Kaoru, 61, Nakamoto Masayoshi, 64, Nakamura Masahuru, 61 and Sakamoto Masahito, 41 — in Japan today, Thursday 10 April.
These executions bring to seven the number of executions announced in Japan in 2008.
“We are extremely concerned about the increased number of executions. We call on the Japanese government to adopt an immediate moratorium on executions in accordance with last year’s UN resolution,” said Amnesty International.
The executions have taken place despite the UN General Assembly’s adoption in December 2007 of resolution calling upon all member states to uphold a moratorium on executions as a first step towards abolishing the death penalty. The resolution (62/149) was passed by a large majority: 104 votes to 54.
Executions in Japan are typically held in secret. Until December 2007 the Ministry of Justice did not disclose the names of those executed or details of their offence. Prisoners are still only informed hours before their executions and these are carried out without prior notice to their families.
Under the Minister of Justice Hatoyama Kunio, there have been ten executions in less than six months. He announced publicly in September 2007 that he was considering scrapping the rule under the Criminal Procedure Code requiring the signature of the Minister of Justice for executions. This will allow for death row inmates to be automatically executed within six months of the end of their appeals process.
In 2006 only 25 countries carried out executions. Among G8 members Japan is now the only country with a fully operational death penalty system: the US Supreme Court has suspended all executions until it rules on the use of lethal injections.
YOU CAN MARK ME AS SPAM IF YOU’D LIKE AMPONTAN. IM MERELY POINTING TO DIFFERENT SOURCES. ITS OK IF LOSING MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE.
Ok! thats more than enough, i will read the links you guys posted…and Im merely pointing to what many other reputable sources are saying (namely the majority of the world).I really love Japan and its culture but as an American my views of it are a bit mixed.whats wrong is wrong and I really wish Japan would take more measures to move forward like Germany has…ENOUGH TO APPEASE ALL OTHER COUNTRIES TO AGREE THAT JAPAN HAS CHANGED. NO MORE OKINAWAN PROTESTS, NO MORE DEATH PENALTY IN SECRET…NO MORE BASHING OTHER ASIAN COUNTRIES,NO MORE!!k, i have to finish packing so l8r guys.its been REAL.
Overthinker said
“ANND CHALMERS JOHNSON IS AT BERKELEY THIS YEAR.BUT GEE, YOU WOULDNT KNOW THAT.”
I guess Berkeley doesn’t know it either: he’s not listed on their faculty at all.
As regards Japan being the “only G8 country with a fully operational death penalty” and the US suspending them, that is (a) irrelevant, since it is only a suspension, and (b) no longer true: Wikipedia has the latest:
——–
On April 16, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Baze that the current method of execution by lethal injection, by use of a three-drug ‘cocktail’, is constitutionally permissible even though an alternative method such as a massive overdose of some other drug could be used and might be less painful or less uncomfortable for the condemned. As a result of the court’s decision, some states that had instituted stays or moratoria have announced a resumption of the practice.
————
Cast out the beam in your own eye….
That “fully operational” bit is a laugh really. In 2006 Japan killed 9 people, the US 53. Considering the population difference is only about double, the US is far more “fully” operational.
And is this your modus operandi? First announce that Japan is evil as it does XXX, then when that is shot down, pick up different things you don’t like, no matter how disparate, and put them up in turn as each gets shot down? And writing like a whiny child to boot.
The actions of the European Parliament, like the recent thing in the US with Mike Honda, are just political hot air. This “in a way acceptable to the survivors themselves” is the kicker really. Each person no doubt had different ideas on what is acceptable, which is why every time Japan does apologise someone comes out and says “not enough.” You seem very naive, accepting blindly anything critical of Japan without doing any research as to its veracity or legitimacy, and focusing on how other countries see Japan rather than its own internal flaws and problems.
Germany? They’ve apologised for the Holocaust, and that’s about it. Trouble is, the Holocaust overwhelms everything else Germany did. And when has Japan been “bashing other Asian countries”?
“I really love Japan and its culture but as an American my views of it are a bit mixed.”
Doesn’t show, but the interesting thing is “as an American”. What wonderful advantage does that give you as opposed to non-Americans? A superior morality? You imply so.
ampontan said
[[yes yes , Japanese mind. I know…you sound like my grandfather.]]
I said no more ad hominem. Your first sentence? Ad hominem.
[[Amnesty International states Japan has yet to apologize? Are you saying they are wrong?]]
Yes, we are saying they are wrong, because they are. What makes you think they have to be taken seriously? Besides getting their name in the newspaper a lot?
[[Ok! thats more than enough, i will read the links you guys posted…]]
Sorry, you got the order wrong. You should have read the links first. Had you done so, you would have realized that Japan has apologized. You would have realized that of the three comfort women who testified in the US last year, one snuck out of the house without telling her mother to join up voluntarily (and has made up other stories to tell different people), the second was sold by her Korean stepfather, and the officer responsible for the third was disciplined by the Japanese army (and compensation paid to the Dutch and offered to the Indonesians).
[[Provide adequate and effective compensation to survivors and their immediate families]]
Had you read the links first, you would have realized that Japan and South Korea signed a treaty back in 1965 in which Japan paid an enormous amount of reparations to the country. As part of the treaty, South Korea agreed that its citizens would not ask for individual reparations. Had you read the links, you would have known why.
You would have known that when China and Japan agreed to resume diplomatic relations in 1972, China stated it would let bygones be bygones and not demand reparations at all.
You would have known that Japan has paid reparations to all the other countries it invaded during the war. (Except North Korea, obviously)
[[Publicly denounce sexual violence against women whenever and wherever it occurs]]
Irrelevant to the issue and to the Japanese people alive now and not then, and sexist to boot. What about sexual violence against men whenever and wherever it occurs?
You know, the comfort woman system was in existence for only a few years, but slavery in the U.S. lasted for a couple of centuries.
Since you’re an American, you should be more interested in dealing with American problems first, rather than those of a foreign country. Not to do so would be hypocritical.
So, how much of your personal income will you be donating for the rest of your life for slavery reparations? What percentage of your “east coast tour” proceeds will be given to, say, victims of racial violence in the U.S.
How much of your money will you be putting where your mouth is?
But that’s enough. You know, you didn’t follow the conditions, and people do mean what they say.
Ken said
This time Amnesty? Are you happy to keep finding unfavorable points around others?
At first, the top country of death penalty is your China at more than 470, the US is the 5th at 42 and Japan is 11th at 9 in 2007 according to your authority Amnesty.
http://www.iza.ne.jp/news/newsarticle/natnews/148535/
The US re-started death penalty on May, 6. Don’t you know it though you say you are living there?
At second, you are prepared not to demand death penalty even if the criminal killed your precious person in cruel manner such as your enjoying cannibalism, aren’t you?
I myself is against death penalty but I am not sure to say so if I go to the court in such case.
At third, a society has been formed on balance among various interests (trade-off between merit and demerit) through hundreds of generations.
Those who have merely superficial knowledge like you are not qualified to judge it.
Apart from it, are you campaigning to prohibit holding guns if you are so humane? If not, you must be said hypocritic.
A girl grew up to dyed-in-the-wool Japan-hater by brain-washing.
She entered American college and was shocked by the gap between what she learned and established reputation about Japan in the US.
She investigated evidences by herself and recognised what she learned was wrong.
So she began to campaign to correct the wrong point to the parties concerned of her mother-country.
Then she was getting oppressed by her brethren so that she requested nationalization to Japan and it was admitted specially like refugees.
Her name is O Seonhwa, the professor of a Japanese university.
She wrote many books including the details of being released from above brain-washing.
I recommend you to read her book. Otherwise you may waste your whole life.
Bender said
It’s hatred that fueled the Nazi regime, and it’s hatred what is behind racial discrimination, terrorism, etc. And I see the same hatred from Susie. This is what disgusts me when I see these Japan-bashers…they claim to be righteous, but they’re in fact “agents of intolerance”.
ampontan said
Ken (or anybody): Have you read 売国奴? (O was a co-author). If so, what did you think?
Ken said
Bill,
I have read only a few with standing (approproate translation not found) and maybe not that one.
Following site is the list of hers but there is not such title.
http://www.geocities.jp/uwasano/o-seonhwa-tyo.html
By the way, stand-reading is said to be contributing to education level in Japan.
ampontan said
Ken: She is one of three writers of that book; the other two are Chinese, and one other one has become a naturalized Japanese like her (石) The title refers to what the people in Korea and China think of them.
They don’t let you stand and read in stores in the US. They come over and say, this ain’t a library, buy it or put it down.
Overthinker said
Ampontan – I’ve heard that places like Borders often have chairs to encourage reading.
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2007/07/26/no-more-chairs-for-you-says-bookstores/
Okay, so Borders is scaling backs comfy chairs (though Barnes and Noble isn’t). But even benches beats standing. And yes, there are bookshops in Japan where you can sit and read as well, now.
Bender said
How are those books selling after 2005 (the big Japan-bashing year)? I read some pieces written by her and Mr. Huang, but they tend to be repetitive. Also they over-praise Japan a bit. Not that recommended.
Ken said
“She is one of three writers of that book; the other two are Chinese, and one other one has become a naturalized Japanese like her ”
I did sympathized her experience but not synthesized her tone totally because she seems Korean in mind in the end.
Some of them are said to be becoming nationalized in Japan to go around the world easily or immigarant to the US, etc.
I am making it a rule to go to Japanese store at first and if there is not the book I want, go to American store such as Rizzoli of ‘Fall in Love’.
By the way, she(he?) was very rare person as either of American and Japanese judging from the temper and abusiveness, wasn’t she(he)?
ampontan said
In Japan, maybe yes, but in the US, no. It’s not rare, unfortunately.
Aceface said
“I guess Berkeley doesn’t know it either: he’s not listed on their faculty at all. ”
Chalmers Johnson was a professor at UC San Diego,but now retired.
He did spend some time in Berkley for “Interview with History” program over there.
The Quote Susie showed was originally apperared for London Review of Books and someone posted it for Japanese Warcrime post on wikipedia.
Chalmers Johnson was reviewing the book by Sterling Seagrave’s “Gold Warriors,America’s secret recovery of Yamashita’s Gold”.The book was so awful and lacking credibility from A to Z,even a Japan busher like Johnson took second step praising it,So Johnson instead chose to line up lots and lots of wrong doing by the Japanese,based on second or third hand materials and compared it with Nazis.
I found that was pretty odd way to review a book and frankly it’s an academical suicide.but then again,Johnson’s JPRI is a kind of a organization that has Michael Crichton’s “Rising Sun” in the books-to-read list their website.He was a solid academic thirty years ago,but today,he is sort of a conspiracy theory driven alarmist type of figure.
There was a discussion on Issei Sagawa and Japanese mind on this blog of which I participated about a year ago.
http://jasongray.blogspot.com/2007/04/sagawa-issei-too-much-blood.html
(How many Cambodians could Japanese possibly kill,when only a handful of garrison were stationing in PhonPenh to guard the airfield? I hate to be an easy target for Susie and being fingerpointed as a denier,but I’m curious to ask this to Johnson if I have a chance.)
Joji said
You forgot to mention the book written by Kim Wan Sop, shinnichiha no benmei. The book is freely sold in Japan, but in Korea, it is declared as an offensive material, as if it was XXX rated movie. By the way, I read the whole book.
Mr. Kim was harrassed by the Korean Authorities and even got thrown in jail for writing that book.
If the Koreans are so correct, why do they need to put the guy in jail? They would have all the proof in the world to refute his allegations that comfort women were volunteers and not forced. If it was forced, it was due to poverty and either the parents selling the daughters off (which also took place in Taiwan and Japan as well) or the womens volunteered.
These delusioned protesters do not mention anything about that the majority of the comfort women were Japanese. If these human rights activists really were sincere in being against comfort women, wouldn’t they fight for the Japanese comfort womens’ rights as well? As you can see, they are heavily biased and racist trying to wash their hands for the atrocities committed by the other countries.
Fortunately, there is a movement in Japan such as http://www.zaitokukai.com, foreign academics and even Korean academics commenting on you tube about the necessity of stating the ‘truth’.
Those days, prostitution was legal in Japan until 1959 in the akasen chiki (in the red line zone) even though it still exists in different forms barely legal, Korea did not have ban prostitution officially until 2004.
If ‘comfort women’ or prostitutes as it is called today is so wrong then why are there lots of Korean prostitutes in Japan alone (in the USA, the police busted a Korean prostitution ring and was mentioned in the Bill Handel show in LA, I also heard there was a prostitution ring in UK and Australia as well). You can do a search on the web or even go to a local ‘konbini’ and buy a ‘fuzoku’ related magazines, which you will be able to see advertisement for Korean deriheru,sopurando, etc.
They are still continuing to come to Japan as we speak, especially due to the global economic meltdown & no visa entry allowed by Koreans to Japan and if the Japanese do not stand up now, these Korean prostitutes will scream I was forced, so apologize and compensate down the road. The Japanese government should have not let this continue and should have put the fire out while it was small. In that aspect, Japan messed up.
The bottom line is that the definition of human rights then and now are different and when you are poor those things happen and do not necessarily mean they are forced upon. If the activists want to accuse, then they better do a lot better than just blowing smoke and to provide bonafidous proof.
ampontan said
I didn’t forget…I didn’t know about it! Thanks for bringing it up.
mac said
Mention of Kim Wan Sop in an interesting context, here;
http://yellowpeep.blogspot.com/2006/01/what-japan-did-in-wwii-korea.html
ampontan said
Interesting link, Mac. I’ve read some things in Japan by people who taught school in Korea in those days, and they seemed to honestly have good relationships with their students.
There is nothing inherently insulting about “chinilpa” as a word, BTW. It just means “faction friendly to Japan”. The insulting part is the connotation people put on it.
mac said
Yes, I’ve read other article that talk of the frustration of young Korean activists when they speak to elderly Koreans who can report none of the assumed atrocity and suppression of the times of occupation. For more folks, life just went on as usual. For many it got better, especially with all the schools the Japanese built.
And, of course, the Japanese finally disassembled the Korean slave system. Actually, the slave caste of Korea did rather well out of both Hideyoshi’s and the later occupation (In the first, they absconded en masse; in the latter slavery was ended).
Given Korean society’s embarrassment and trauma over the nobi slave caste even to this day (everyone wanted to imagine they are descended from yangban, no one wanted to admit their families were nobi – 30 to 40% of the population) I often wonder if the whingeing comes not from the Korean people, who did OK, but descendants of ruling elites, who lost their undemocratic and unearned privileges? Perhaps one day the pride in being “Korean”, which really means “Yangban” or other ruling class elite, will be replaced by the embarrassment of being “slave owners”.
Korean women were, of course, the greater majority of nobi by the time of the final Japanese emancipation. The sexual activity of concubines proscribed by the Grand Ming Code.
mac said
I should have said of the Korean commoners or slaves, “did OK … or at least suffered no more or otherwise from what was normal”. there is a sense of what was OK for Koreans to do to Koreans was not OK for Japanese to do to Korean (… even if their genes were only a few generations separate).
Trapped in Brazil said
Wow, only found this now…. You guys forgot to demand Susie to apologize and give compensation to the native americans and Mexico too. She should give her house to one of them.
Georgie Pye said
Or she should simply read a book or two. Damn, I forgot that students these days don’t know what a library looks like.
Aceface said
Or maybe Ampontan should be the match maker between Susie and Nat….
M-Bone said
But, like, the Japanese are so, so like, like evil!
But seriously, I think that was one hell of a troll. I’ve taught hundreds and hundreds of college kids and none of them right like that!
Nat Nopma said
Is she hot?
Aceface said
So I had imagined from the numerous posts she left.
Jason said
Wow…I’m surprised you would actually leave this string of comments on here. Considering it’s full of sexist, right-wing nationalistic pro-Japanese (I know this is a pro-Japan site)comments and personal attacks on people trying to present a different view. I guess that’s one way to deny something is to keep stomping down on it until you’ve beat it to death….the Japanese way. And wow…this comment by you Bill: “The point is that there is no specific proof it was the policy of the government at the time to force women into prostitution. Hire them, yes, but prostitution was legal in this part of the world in those days. If you want to upload some specific proof that it was the government’s policy to force women to become prostitutes, everybody here will be glad to read it.” Even if it wasn’t “official government policy” does that somehow let the government off the hook, even in your extreme example if it was only a few rogue units (which it was not). I didn’t know governments didn’t have to take responsibility for their military if their actions weren’t official policy. From what I’ve read, it was pretty institutionalized, actually….to accommodate their soldiers during the war away from home. Anyways…just amazed at the ignorance in the statements above.Wow.
ampontan said
Here’s what you need to read. All of it, including the links.
Aceface said
“I’m surprised you would actually leave this string of comments on here. Considering it’s full of sexist, right-wing nationalistic pro-Japanese (I know this is a pro-Japan site)comments and personal attacks on people trying to present a different view. ”
Yeah, I agree some of the comments are “sexist”,some are “right-wing”,some are “nationalistic” and some are “Pro-Japanese”.
But you also have to admit that most of the comments and personal attacks came from people who don’t like Ampontan trying to present a view different from theirs.
“I guess that’s one way to deny something is to keep stomping down on it until you’ve beat it to death….the Japanese way.”
WoW.That’s pretty much an oversimplified statement coming from a knowlegeble chap,No?
Especially from you are the guy complaining Ampontan like
“yet verbal attacks and name-calling on a whole culture or nation is OK and not subject to censoring. Or maybe just attacks on the Korean culture are ok. People can draw their own conclusions when one attacks a whole culture,but we cannot when the attack is towards one biased individual”?
That’s your own words.
Thank you.
Jason said
Bill,
Interesting article, and this is a topic that always sparks emotional debate. I will go out on a limb and say this: it HAS crossed my mind that there could be many older “victims” who weren’t victims at all but just wanted to “cash in” on the ordeal. There are always phonies out there…no doubt about that. However, I would hate to draw conclusions and interpret the reality of what happened based on testimonies of those imposters as it discredits the testimonies of those victims who really were kidnapped and forced into systematic raping by the Japanese military. This is just too well known to be denied. Has anybody on this site seen the BBC special/dvd “Horror in the East”? Some may say it is completely British/Allied Forces-biased, but I think it’s worth a look.
As for additional reparations? NO, I personally think it’s too late for that (also probably impossible to compensate who for what after so many years and after so many of those women have already died). And I don’t believe that all of these aging victims really care about monetary compensation. Yet, I do think that what these real victims want is a sincere admission of wrong-doing. You may say that the Japanese government has already done so many times in the past, right? And they have (I even remember PM Hosokawa admitting something to that effect from the early ’90s). However, recent regimes have fallen back on that admission (particularly under Koizumi’s right wing neo-nationalist people) and have made efforts to re-write the history. I won’t try to discredit the many Japanese academics and educators that have tried to be truthful in their retelling of what happened during WWII. I have a friend in Japan who is in her late 40s, and she used to tell me that her school teacher went in depth on the horrific things the Japanese military did and she said many people would cry in her class. This slightly surprised me as I didn’t think Japanese liked to discuss these types of topics, particlarly in school. However, it almost seems like many of these facts have been overlooked or even denied in recent years when being taught to the younger generations. Case and point: Look at all of your buddies on this site who are denying what happened and now saying that most women “volunarily” signed up for military prostitution. EVEN if some of the women did, with the promnise of relatively high pay (as many Asian nations were poor during that time), I’m sure they were tricked into far worse things than you and I can imagine during that time of war, and that’s a big “IF” they did really volunteer their bodies. I went to one of the frequent rallies in Seoul that are held by these former comfort women (they demonstrate in front of the Japanese embassy a few times a month) and I didn’t hear them talking about reparations once, but rather the fact that any apologies by the Japanese government have been anulled with recent denials and false claims, such as the one of whether they “volunteered” or not. These women are not driven by money, but by a deep hatred for what was done to them during their youth. They spent a significant time of their speeches to the ordeal of some past Japanese PMs visiting Yasukuni Shrine (I know…this is a whole other issue), but that just goes to show you that they are more concerned with sincerity and truth than denial (as visiting the Shrine represents honoring the deeds of those pasts and reflects an insincerity of guilt admission).
ampontan said
Thanks for taking the time to read it.
This isn’t yuttnori, in which a country of 127 million has to go back to Start because of what some of its people said or claimed.
By that logic, the clearly false claims of some Korean women would annul everyone else’s claim.
And while they may not be talking about reparations, other Koreans are.
Mac said
I know I am going to upset some people with the apparent frivolous nature of comment but I think it valid within this context.
Sadly, partly for the understandable historical reasons of life in a rigidly hierarchic, hyper-masculinist and very genuinely fear-based society, Korea became a nation of fraud. A tendency that runs through its political and academic systems. I am not saying this to criticize or condemn. Actually I am empathizing with the ordinary to lower-middle class Korean, and Korea women, who have suffered the brunt of the violence. The aggression and corruption has handicapped them greatly. There are, of course, also some very good people within the upper-middle class to elite but they know even better about what I am talking about.
For me, one of the more pathetic public frauds of this year was the widely reported failure of ‘Naked News Korea’. “Naked News” is a franchise television/internet programme where young women are paid to expose their breasts and genitals whilst pretending to be newscasters so that males can watch them and, presumably, masturbate.
Koreans love porn. They spend more on it per capita than any other country. Whereas the average Japanese spends approximately $156 per year on porn (compared to the average horny German’s $7.70), the average Korean spends an orgasmic $526. I wonder if that figure is adjust to remove non-existent Korean female consumers which would actually double it. That prurient interest obviously extends to an exaggerate use of prostitution, e.g. recent report issued by the Institute of Criminology indicated that 20% of men in their 20s pay for sex at least four times a month.
After a month of operations, Naked News Korea wound up. Workers were unpaid, owner John Chau disappeared with all the money, other senior executives left the country leaving a group of female anchors sobbing for compensation and their government to do something for them.
“We received lots of criticisms about us being presenters for Naked News Korea. But we still went ahead to do it because it was the first time that this was being attempted in Korea and we would be the pioneering batch.
We felt proud to be part of the company. But in the end, it was just a move to cheat us females of our dignity and money.”
Another presenter said, “I feel like I’m the victim of a fraud. I staked everything on this job and look how I ended up. I heard that senior executives have already left the country. The other anchors and I will make sure that justice is served. We also hope that the criticisms levelled towards our parents will stop“, before bursting into tears.
Poor abused women … but let’s dig one layer deeper
These four women were the only ones left of an original nine presenters who left the company. The others left earlier having been aggressive coerced to make their performance more hardcore.
Originally contracted only to strip to their underwear, their Korean
pimp masters… err, employers … attempted to force the young women to strip entirely nude, exposing their breast and genitals, They has planned two programmes, one for adults and one for teenage boys, although given the circumstance one would have to presume that meant, “financial exploit both adults and teenage boys”. More than 30,000 paid subscribers were ripped off.“We will fight to the end against Naked News, which cheated us and the people … We got paid nothing … and they arbitrarily changed contract terms to make it difficult for us to quit the job.”
Sounds familiar?
OK, society is evolving and the abuse not quite so extreme but the principles seem to remain the same.
Aceface said
Check this.
http://www.chosunonline.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/01/30/2012013001455.html
Chihiro Takeuchi said
Watch “Sex, lies, and comfort women” .
fllib19554 said
Bender, mac, Ken, Overthinker, Aki, Joji, Georgie Pye, M-Bone, Chihiro Takeuchi,
Die painfully okay? Prefearbly by getting crushed to death in a
garbage compactor, by getting your face cut to ribbons with a
pocketknife, your head cracked open with a baseball bat, your stomach
sliced open and your entrails spilled out, and your eyeballs ripped
out of their sockets. fvcking btch
I would love to kick you hard in the face, breaking it. Then I’d cut
your stomach open with a chainsaw, exposing your intestines. Then I’d
cut your windpipe in two with a boxcutter.
Hopefully you’ll get what’s coming to you. fvcking btch
I really hope that you get curb-stomped. It’d be hilarious to see you
begging for help, and then someone stomps on the back of your head,
leaving you to die in horrible, agonizing pain. fggot
STFU, before you get your face bashed in and cut
to ribbons, and your throat slit.
fllib19554 said
fuckwits
21st Century Schizoid Man said
Fllib19554: You first.
AFB said
Comfort Women the truth
GEISHA, TONY BLAIR & COMFORT WOMEN
Sex, Lies, and Comfort Women