2012-08-23, 15:09 | Link #23061 | ||
Not Enough Sleep
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: R'lyeh
Age: 48
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2012-08-23, 16:46 | Link #23064 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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War criminals should never be memorialised under any circumstances, and if they are, the country's leader should not endorse it by paying their respects. And Koizumi visited twice, you could imagine the first time being an honest mistake, but the second time... |
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2012-08-23, 16:56 | Link #23067 | |
books-eater youkai
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Betweem wisdom and insanity
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Special Report: Philippines' black market is China's golden connection
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...87M02120120823 Quote:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...87M0A820120823
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2012-08-23, 17:49 | Link #23068 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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Sure, but then why didn't Koizumi go to a memorial that didn't include class A war criminals? By visiting he endorsed the revisionist views of the priests there.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because one side did something wrong, doesn't make it okay that the other did too. |
2012-08-23, 18:00 | Link #23070 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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Perhaps there are people he knows included there. There are quite a lot of people.
I can't imagine someone not going to honor family or friends in a memorial even if there is a monster also interned there as well. I can imagine this sort of thing would come up in American history if we didn't normally bury everyone seperately and the mass graves tend to be unknowns. I've gone to several Civil War battlefields and some cemeteries. My great-great grandfather was a "guest" of the Confederacy in Andersonville. I harbor no ill will towards them even if that was considered the worst prison camp in all the South.
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2012-08-23, 18:47 | Link #23072 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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If he felt so passionate up about it, he could have just commissioned another memorial for the purpose.
And I can't believe Yasukuni is the only memorial in Japan for War dead. In Britain (and Ireland) there's hundreds of memorials dotted around the place. Hell, according to wikipedia, Japan has 4 tombs of the Unknown soldier, including this one, this one, This one and this one. There are any number of less controversial memorials he could have visited. Instead, he visited the memorial that includes war criminals, and even contains exhibits "which gives the Japanese nationalist perspective that Japan was not at fault in the Nanking massacre in 1937 and that Japanese leaders were wrongly convicted at the Tokyo war crimes trials. The museum has an exhibit that portrays Japan as the key to the liberation of other Asian countries from the U.S. and European powers (Yasukuni Jinja 2003, 84)." Other Choice quotes include things like ""Japan's dream of building a Great East Asia was necessitated by history and it was sought after by the countries of Asia" EDIT: @Seitsuki I don't see the need for the Japanese to grovel, or make amends. But they should acknowledge the atrocities they committed in WW2, and not try to whitewash it. Likewise, the Americans shouldn't try to whitewash the fire-bombings etc. But what the Americans did or did not do has nothing to do with Japan and Yasukuni. Enshrining War criminals is wrong, end of story, and it is wrong to give legitimacy to such a place by visiting it. The Emperor does not do so, and the prime minister should not do so either. Either the war criminals should be de-enshrined, or a secular memorial should be built. If the US president decided to honour the grave of Curtis LeMay, as a war hero, I might similarly object. |
2012-08-23, 19:04 | Link #23075 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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Also, a decent review of the revionism going on in their museum. They even have a paragraph describing Wang Jingwei as someone who "wanted peace with Japan". |
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2012-08-23, 19:09 | Link #23076 | |||
Meh
Join Date: Feb 2008
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I find it hilarious that you are defending Japan because communist China wasn't much better, I guess Stalin is golden in your book because Hitler was worse? The plain fact is, Japan has tried evading taking responsibility whenever it can, with apologies that are about as sincere as the one you hear from customer service reps over the phone while they're flipping you off at their desk. It's just part of their culture, publicly admitting fault is hardly something that's the norm for them, where saving face is much more important. Hell, they can't even stop themselves from going after something small as this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ld-War-II.html Germany owned up to their mistakes and moved on, Japan on the other hand has not. |
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2012-08-23, 19:14 | Link #23077 | |
Onee!
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Auckland, NZ
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I find this equally hilarious. "They have freedom of speech so they should apologise, meanwhile our restrictions makes us inculpable!"
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2012-08-23, 19:18 | Link #23078 | |
Meh
Join Date: Feb 2008
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That said, please point out the Allie's concentration camps and genocide campaigns. What's your point? I'm mere pointing out the obvious here. I'm certainly not pro-China, but that has nothing to do with the topic anyway, which is Japan's attitude. |
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2012-08-23, 19:21 | Link #23079 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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I think they just want to let it go and not be reminded about it every year by everyone around them. Most of those directly involved are died. There are fewer and fewer veterans every year. Will their every be a time when people stop trying to get them to apologies yet again for something done by a governement that hasn't existed since 1945?
We don't make the Germans apologies for the Nazi over and over again. They've pretty much banned everything about that governement in Germany. Hardly anyone talks about Mussolini anymore. Stalin was more of less purged after his death by the Soviet government. But no one expects the Russians to apologies to Eastern Europe for what they did during and after the war. Or if they do they aren't vocal about it in Western media. The Japanese have their shames and their pride, just like everyone else. I'm sure their are probably several people in Arlington National Cemetery that would be called war criminals if they had been on the losing side of a war. Be it Indian Wars, or Vietnam. I'm fairly sure there are countries that want some of our people on the War Crimes lists.
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2012-08-23, 19:38 | Link #23080 | ||
Meh
Join Date: Feb 2008
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Basically, Japan has had a horrible PR campaign post-ww2, they're the Progessive Insurance at owning up and offering apologies. Quote:
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current affairs, discussion, international |
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