Bush must say "I'm sorry" immediately, if not sooner!

[Greji]

The editorial page of the Japan Times, in keeping with the unfortunate victim status of Japan during WWII
has concurred with Ichiro Ozawa that the US must apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki!

"[SIZE="4"]U.S. owes A-bomb apology"[/SIZE]

By KIROKU HANAI
Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma recently got himself into trouble by saying the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Japan toward the end of World War II "couldn't be helped." He made the gaffe ahead of the Aug. 6 anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Kyuma was forced to resign, despite Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to defend him.

This episode was in sharp contrast to an earlier furor over the education ministry's orders to Japanese high school textbook publishers that they delete passages stating that the Japanese military had coerced civilians into committing suicides en masse during the Battle of Okinawa. All local assemblies in Okinawa, including the prefectural assembly, have adopted resolutions demanding that the ministry retract the orders. For his part, the education minister has evaded responsibility by passing the buck to the textbook examiners' board.

The government apparently has concluded that the suicides are a local issue but that the nuclear attacks remain a national issue that could affect the outcome of the July 29 Upper House election.

[eddie]

well...some people i guess think the u-s owes japan an apology...who cares. goofy to publish such a dum-dum idea, but i guess they're just looking to stir some feathers.

[blackcat]

I think they should apologize too.

something like

"The US is very sorry for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we should have sat back and let Russia take Japan apart piece by piece."

"anyway they weren`t bombs of aggression"!!

[Takechanpoo]

No need to apologize.
By nuking in Hiroshima, Japan could had avoid to be divided into like Germany and Kimchi.
"Happiness" among unhappinesses.
But if Judea-AngloSaxon empire is broken down, Japan severely demand U.S to apologize about it.

[Midwinter]

He's right, they should apologize - for not carpet bombing this country back into the stone age. Damn it, how long is Japan going to play the victim here...

[Iraira]

He's right, they should apologize - for not carpet bombing this country back into the stone age. Damn it, how long is Japan going to play the victim here...

The beauty of feeling entitlement to use your victim card is that it is eternal. Eventually, the very last person alive at time that bombs were dropped will pass into history, and it will still be milked. Probably at that time, the history books will be so revised, no one will know what happened.
By Japanese standards, the Koreans and Chinese are just as justfied bitching at the Japanese until the four horsemen of the apocalypse ride over the earth......dinner time.

[Takechanpoo]

He's right, they should apologize - for not carpet bombing this country back into the stone age. Damn it, how long is Japan going to play the victim here...

Hey english teacher,
dont attribute your loserness to Japan.

[amdg]

"anyway they weren`t bombs of aggression"!!

That's right, they were bombs of pure sunshine and light.

[baka tono]

I think they should apologize too.

something like

"The US is very sorry for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we should have sat back and let Russia take Japan apart piece by piece."

Agreed! I would love to see the news reports if the U.S actually made a statement saying that. Then the U.S should continue on saying how Japan should really be the one thanking the U.S for all they did for Japan. For keeping Russia out, and for hiding the holocaust of unit 731 and keeping Shiro Ishii from being as notorious a name in the history books as Josef Mengele. Where is Japan's apology and monument to the victims of unit 731?

[Midwinter]

Hey english teacher,
dont attribute your loserness to Japan.

Hey baldy, don't take your lonliness out on the internet.

[xenomorph42]

well...some people i guess think the u-s owes japan an apology...who cares. goofy to publish such a dum-dum idea, but i guess they're just looking to stir some feathers.

I agree. Who in hell cares....no, really?! How many times do we have to hear the same old drama of Japan being the victim and how their country was so devastated and ravaged by war.
I don`t hear Germany griping about this all the time, at least the germans have taken accountability for the mayhem they wrought upon the world, can`t say the same about Japan.
Yes, war is bloody and ugly etc., but honestly, Japan has recently gone waaaay to far with a lot of this crap and also other issues. Could it be because of a prosperous S. Korea or an ever so gargantuan China as well as other asian nations are moving forward and becoming what Japan used to be in the 80's?
Or is Japan a little upset, because more and more, they are looking more like jerks and have lost their luster and influence all around asia. Perhaps that is the reason why they are OVER REACTING about EVERYTHING. Hopefully one day, they will grow up....I doubt it though.

[Kanchou]

Far more people died in the firebombing of Tokyo than in both Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined, if I remember correctly.

And you don't see them demanding an apology for that...

Japan (and Germany) itself had an atomic bomb in the works, but instead of concentrating on it, they tried to work on some other "super weapon" that never panned out, at least not by the end of the war.

[Jack]

Agreed! I would love to see the news reports if the U.S actually made a statement saying that. Then the U.S should continue on saying how Japan should really be the one thanking the U.S for all they did for Japan. For keeping Russia out, and for hiding the holocaust of unit 731 and keeping Shiro Ishii from being as notorious a name in the history books as Josef Mengele. Where is Japan's apology and monument to the victims of unit 731?

Can't believe the fucking tripe coming our of some of you guys. The firebombings of Tokyo and all Japanese cities and the mass murder of innocent schoolkids in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is somehow justified? Fucking cocksuking bastards that you guys are. The U.S. will meet its Waterloo one day soon. Don't worry. Like they say be nice to people on your way up because you are going to meet them again on your way down.

Read the Biography of Curtis LeMay, the man who authorized the killings of millions of Japanese by firebombs, he said had the U.S. lost the war "we would all be tried for war crimes". He knew that carper bombing of cities was against international protocol and he knew that bombing of civilians was a war crime.

[Jack]

I agree. Who in hell cares....no, reallyOr is Japan a little upset, because more and more, they are looking more like jerks and have:

No, I think you are looking more like an ignorant jerk.

[Iraira]

Can't believe the fucking tripe coming our of some of you guys. The firebombings of Tokyo and all Japanese cities and the mass murder of innocent schoolkids in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is somehow justified? Fucking cocksuking bastards that you guys are. The U.S. will meet its Waterloo one day soon. Don't worry. Like they say be nice to people on your way up because you are going to meet them again on your way down.

Read the Biography of Curtis LeMay, the man who authorized the killings of millions of Japanese by firebombs, he said had the U.S. lost the war "we would all be tried for war crimes". He knew that carper bombing of cities was against international protocol and he knew that bombing of civilians was a war crime.

Here is the problem. We all look at the past with hindsight and a different set of values than those that predominated at that time. The practice of not slaughtering civilians in war is something that has only become acceptable (I use that word intentionally) after the Vietnam war, when cameras brought the war into everyone's living rooms during dinner. Now, militaries try their best to avoid civilian deaths, especially when the cameras are around, as it makes for bad press.
The mindset of Westerns was different then, viewing Asians as more subhuman and "how dare they attack us, kill them all." Hell, Dresden got flattened and cooked pretty bad, and there were'nt too many Japanese living there, just a lot of white folks. Seems like the US was out to rubblize anything that smelled like an enemy. It was total war, something only those over 70 can really understand from that era's mindset. To argue about whether it was right or wrong from today's mindset is a waste of time. Move on....

[Jack]

Here is the problem. We all look at the past with hindsight and a different set of values than those that predominated at that time. To argue about whether it was right or wrong from today's mindset is a waste of time. Move on....

The Americans knew what they were doing was criminal but they went ahead anyway knowing that they were winning the war. Who was going to prosecute them? The Vanquished? Get real. This is not speaking with the benefit of hindsight. It was criminal even in the pre-"politically correct" days. Bombing of civilians is a war crime. The firebombs on Tokyo we designed to kill as many civilians as possible. Curtis Lemay in his memoirs brags "we killed, cooked, roasted, smoked more people in one day..." referring to the 150,000 people that were thought to have been murdered in the first day of raids on Tokyo. In the next few days over 500,000 civilians were roasted. Only after Tokyo they started dropping leaflets warning people to abandone the cities and head for the mountains.

[DrP]

My favorite T-Shirt seen in Japan worn by Japanese - "Uranium 238 Renewal Project" I think that about says it all.

[Iraira]

Curtis Lemay in his memoirs brags "we killed, cooked, roasted, smoked more people in one day..." referring to the 150,000 people that were thought to have been murdered in the first day of raids on Tokyo. In the next few days over 500,000 civilians were roasted. Only after Tokyo they started dropping leaflets warning people to abandone the cities and head for the mountains.

Exactly my point, he brags about it, ie., the mindset at the time was very different. Imagine, if a US general went beyond the "We got him", and boasted about levelling a whole town in Iraq. Uproar, baby, there would be hell to pay.
Now I haven't read Lemay's memoirs, and later on in his life how he might have felt about about obliterating many people. If he later decided it was wrong, this is par for the psychological cycling that happens when one must eventually come to terms with what their actions have brought unto humanity, especially when old enemies become friends.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Jack, you're wrong about the US and the Allies being war criminals. Only losers can be war criminals.

Iraira, actually, it was WWII that made it OK to go all out on civilian targets agains. Have you see "The Fog of War"? Robert McNamara talks about how at the start of the war everyone was horrified that Germany was doing things like bombing London, but by the end of the war we were all hiting civilians. He also says that they'd have been tried as war criminals if they'd lost. He was one of the guys who helped come up with the idea of fire bombing Tokyo to kill and hurt as many civilians as possible because strategic bombing of industrial sites just wasn't working.

This is why I personally don't believe in trying people for war crimes. It's really just victors' justice. The possible exception is genocide. And the bar for what is and is not genocide should be set pretty high.

[xenomorph42]

No, I think you are looking more like an ignorant jerk.

No, my friend YOU ARE!

[Tsuru]

Just to set the record straight: the night bombing runs on Germany in WWII, also the one on Dresden with 50% incendiary ordinance, were conducted by the British RAF, not by the USAAF. They only bombed in daylight.

[Kuang_Grade]

Just to set the record straight: the night bombing runs on Germany in WWII, also the one on Dresden with 50% incendiary ordinance, were conducted by the British RAF, not by the USAAF. They only bombed in daylight.

Well, that's not to say the USAAF didn't knowingly fit in the RAF's overall plans....the USAAF would bomb during the daylight because of PR and strategic issues (it helps if you can see your target), even though it put the US flyers at great risk...However, the fires started by these attacks were then used by the RAF to locate the area to bomb around during their night bombing runs. So if the USAAF didn't go in first, the RAF would have had a much harder time finding the finding the target area...of course this wasn't all that accurate in a strategic bombing sense, but the RAF generally felt good if bombs fell somewhere in Germany...preferably somewhere in German cities.

Japan was a bit different than Europe in the fact that many small industrial companies were intermixed in residential areas in Japan while industrial areas in Europe tended to be more concentrated..so in Japan, while the big factories were obvious targets, if you wanted destroy the small subcontractor feeding parts to the factory, burning down neighborhoods filled with wood framed housing was an easy way of doing it.

[Greji]

Can't believe the fucking tripe coming our of some of you guys. The firebombings of Tokyo and all Japanese cities and the mass murder of innocent schoolkids in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is somehow justified? Fucking cocksuking bastards that you guys are. The U.S. will meet its Waterloo one day soon.

Jack, I realize that Canada once burnt Washington DC, but you can't measure the tactics of war in history by current values. The priorities of the military were to destroy the enemy's will to fight and if that meant taking what they now call colleral damage, so be it.

However, having said that, the original targets of those bombing raids were set at targets of military value i.e. factories, munitions plants, warehouses, anything that supported the war effort. Ovivously, no bombing run even with today's precision weapons is going to be perfect, thus more colleteral damage. Also, the resulting fires obviously accounted for your "war crimes". It's a rather unfortunate fact, but if you care to start a war, you better win it, you are going to suffer the consequencies.

I'm sure Japanese bombing of the cities of Asia were aimed at not injuring civilians, just like the V1 and buzz bombs of the Germans.

The figures on the costs for the invasion of Kyushu, Shikoku and Honshu were cited elsewhere around on other threads. If these were saved by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all arguments go out the window. It's a sorry thing about civilians getting killed, but it was a war foght under the tactics of the day.

I realize that you need to cast your vote with the anti-US crowd, but just leave at that and don't try to take up issues you don't know anything about.
If you need to make your statement, just get a placard and go march with the Gensuikyo, if that's what twangs your twinky.