Hashimoto: no sex slaves please, we're Japanese

[Takechanpoo]

BBC reported wartime korean prostitutes for us military bases in korea, combining with so-called comfort women.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30212673
or
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -work.html
the difference between the two case is only whether there was systematic enforcemnt by the government or not.
and as for the comfort women, nobody have found the objective evidences of the systematic enforcement.

[matsuki]

Kidnapped or forced into prostitution is one thing...but I don't understand the "I chose to be a whore in a gov. sanctioned prostitution effort but now the gov. owes me money because now I'm old and broke" argument. if they got paid, WTF?

Take - If you take anything away from this thread, let it be that we're not finger wagging about whores/prostitution or the guys who used them during the war or whatever. It's about just looking at some fucked up shit the J-gov did during that time and acknowledging it was fucked up...so we can move on. Many govs sanctioned fucked up things happened back then, Japan is hardly alone, except for when it comes to acknowledging what happened and admitting it's fucked up.

Don't Japanese courts place all the emphasis on acknowledging the wrong doing and showing remorse? So why is this shit any different? Unit 731, sex slaves, etc. How any human look at that and not think it's fucked up is beyond me.

[IparryU]

Kidnapped or forced into prostitution is one thing...but I don't understand the "I chose to be a whore in a gov. sanctioned prostitution effort but now the gov. owes me money because now I'm old and broke" argument. if they got paid, WTF?

Take - If you take anything away from this thread, let it be that we're not finger wagging about whores/prostitution or the guys who used them during the war or whatever. It's about just looking at some fucked up shit the J-gov did during that time and acknowledging it was fucked up...so we can move on. Many govs sanctioned fucked up things happened back then, Japan is hardly alone, except for when it comes to acknowledging what happened and admitting it's fucked up.

Don't Japanese courts place all the emphasis on acknowledging the wrong doing and showing remorse? So why is this shit any different? Unit 731, sex slaves, etc. How any human look at that and not think it's fucked up is beyond me.

Just trying to make the Japanese look nice, saving face and what not.

But ya, just say, "Ya, we did it and we were wrong. Any politician or historian that says different, is not the voice of Japan and should not be speaking on behalf of our country. But for the sake of making amends, we deeply apologize for our actions during WWII and since then, we have become a peaceful nation."

Ends all the talk about it, no more excuses about it damaging ties... now move on and get Japan's role in the world back on track.

Will it happen? Nope, the old fucks up top and the whinny cunts on the bottom will cry an moan more than the young girls they kidnapped and raped.

[Salty]

We have already said it, albeit without full details - but unfortunately now we are trying to back off of it. Such is the metal of our politicians. Embarrassing, and damaging our reputation – all from our Japanese leaders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kono_Statement

[kurogane]

I really like IPU's take on what would work, but I think there is more to it than just face. Is it not Abe whose Grandfather was hanged or imprisoned? This isn't about image; it's about delusion, denial and that weird reductive logic they use to argue that equivalence absolves all sins. Since other nations have done similar things too, Japan should not have to apologise for anything they might have done in the past.

I am sure we have all met them, but there is no shortage of people that do not believe that Japan did anything wrong by invading a continent and starting a war and argue that all the fallout is hypocritical victor's justice. While I fully agree that Anglo-American Imperialist dogma was a far greater cause of the Pacific War than just Japanese intransigence and imperial aggression, I am always happy to point out that the Imperial invasion and the Pacific War are 2 rather separate issues and that once Japan went ballistic they behaved very, very badly on both fronts.

The problem here lies with that particular ability to refute an opposed position by making plainly irrelevant and illogical connections between 2 incommensurate issues and then bulldog the argument all the way to a dry orgasm, whence victory is claimed. It's a different example of that Dolphin Hunt = Banning Kimonos logic we had the other day. I always enjoy it for its Dr. McCoy level emospastic ridiculousness, but it doesn't make for easy solutions, and it is not easily dismissed as disingenuous: as the Kimono Ban argument showed, these people actually think like this. Anthropologically speaking it is absolutely fascinating.

Here’s a little excerpt from Abe's Wikipedia page:

In his book "Utsukushii Kuni e" ("Toward a Beautiful Country"), Abe wrote "Some people used to point to my grandfather as a 'Class-A war criminal suspect,' and I felt strong repulsion. Because of that experience, I may have become emotionally attached to 'conservatism,' on the contrary".

So, IOW, it was an emotional backlash against the truth............

Mind, that does explain most conservatives' emotional attachement to conservatism, that most contrary of beliefs.

[matsuki]

Most of the older nutty J-people that spew that shit, if you have the patience to ask them about their personal connection with it all, usually end up having a bunch of relatives that died or whatever during the war, from the nukes or radiation afterwards, etc. and have developed that kind of knee jerk emotional reaction to it all. I mean, shit, my grandmother was like that about some things too...but it's really fucked when you have politicians making those nutty, emotionally driven "I don't believe [ ]" statements and trying to get what's in the history books rewritten and changed.

[kurogane]

So we're clear, I fully agree it's nutty assed BS. But these aren't older people, most of whom don't talk about the war, or at least not to me. This is a rising tide, and it is floating all ages of boats. I do wonder if this isn't a distraction or deflection issue. I am going to put on my officially issued pith helmet and claim that "The Japanese" can get comparatively pissy and resentful when their personal situation is shitty, and I think we can all agree that 20 years of an ass dragging BS recession level economy and wages could wear down even the brightest Buddha a bit. In combination with the interwebz, blogs, the unbelievably shit economy and the general intellectual slovenliness of a lot of younger Japanese the rise in revisionism might be fairly seen as a reflection of anger and even despair (along with a healthy dose of pissy & stupid). They are already well fed up with how shit shit is, and so they refuse to take any extra shit, especially shit that's now 69 years old and keeps getting dredged up by pissy little half-civilised whinetards that took plenty of aid money but won't STFU.

OTOH, if we see some serious, meaningful socio-economic growth and rising incomes, prosperity and just plain ole fuckin' hope I think there could be significant reversal, and maybe people would see the beauty of that nice formula IPU listed above.

[Takechanpoo]

blah blah blah..... you guys got satisfied enough? eh?

you have a right to deny what you did not do and recognize only what you actually did, no matter what you are an atrocious thug.
why the fuck dont you understand that easy thing?
we japanese just do what we should do, whatever you gaijin dudes are bitching.
thank you

[matsuki]

you have a right to deny what you did not do and recognize only what you actually did, no matter what

So....do you deny what happened with unit 731?

[Takechanpoo]

im just talking about only comfort whores here.

btw your senpai fucked gaijin, Kent Gilbert, joined this argument.

Michael Yon, a highly respected and skillful U.S. author, gave me permission to translate into Japanese and share with you an article which he put out yesterday.

https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanP ... 65/?type=1
＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿

Japan-Korea: Were Korean Men Cowards during World War II?
日韓問題：第二次世界大戦中、韓国男性が臆病者だったとでも言うつもりか？

A vexing question
なかなか晴れない疑問

There are growing, unsubstantiated questions about whether the Japanese Imperial Army kidnapped 200,000 sex-slaves (Comfort Women) in World War II. Mostly from Korea.
　第二次世界大戦中、大日本帝国陸軍が20万人もの韓国人女性を強制連行して、性奴隷（慰安婦）にしたという疑惑について、裏付けの取れない主張が現在も拡大し続けている。それらは主に韓国からの主張である。

A $30 million US Government Study specifically searched for evidence on Comfort Women allegations.
　慰安婦たちの主張を裏付ける証拠を求めて、米政府は3000万ドル（30億円超）の費用を掛けて調査を行った。

After nearly seven years with many dozens of staff pouring through US archives -- and 30 million dollars down the drain -- we found a grand total of nothing.

https://www.facebook.com/kent.gilbert.5 ... 9441218252

[IparryU]

http://www.japantoday.com/category/poli ... 7-massacre

Chinese NGO wants Japan apology for 1937 massacre

A Chinese nongovernmental organization has sent a letter to Japan’s prime minister calling on his government to apologize to the victims of a wartime massacre almost 80 years ago and pay compensation, the group’s president said Monday.

The China Federation of Demanding Compensation From Japan said the letter coincided with a new commemoration day on Saturday to mark the 1937 massacre of civilians by Japanese forces in Nanjing. The commemoration day was created as part of Beijing’s campaign to remind the world of past Japanese aggression because of what it calls renewed militarism by the country.

“We used to demand an apology in general terms. But this is the first time a Chinese NGO has specifically demanded the Japanese government apologize for the 300,000 victims of the Nanjing massacre,” the Beijing-based group’s president, Tong Zeng, told The Associated Press. “A month ago, it suddenly dawned on me that we should do this.”

[Takechanpoo]

another brave noble american guy

[Wage Slave]

Yep. Nothing wrong with that at all. You do realise that he said the Japanese Imperial Army was guilty. He said that Japan had already acknowledged that, apologised and paid compensation which due to Korean Government action had not found its way to the people who should have benefited. He also said that it was a long time ago and it is time to move on. Couldn't agree more - as far as it goes.

However, he didn't mention that some very powerful people in Japan are attempting to deny that the IJA/Tojo regime was guilty of these crimes and more generally to airbrush history to portray the IJA/Tojo regime in a positive light. That is also a huge obstacle to a better relationship - in fact it makes it near impossible.

PS
I thought the Emperor's New Year message was very wise - I hope people were listening.

[matsuki]

However, he didn't mention that some very powerful people in Japan are attempting to deny that the IJA/Tojo regime was guilty of these crimes and more generally to airbrush history to portray the IJA/Tojo regime in a positive light. That is also a huge obstacle to a better relationship - in fact it makes it near impossible.

Anyone catch that "unbaribaburu" show last night? (Was stuck at a friends who had the TV on) They showcased this lawyer who stood up to the local police/prosecutor/court corruption regarding a murder by police back during the war. Victim was beaten to death by the police for refusing to confess to the crime they were accusing him of and they were covering it up with witness intimidation/collusion and all kinds of shit. (Having seen first hand how the "justice" system here works, it doesn't seem like the SOP has changed much since then) Amazing to see someone back then actually stand up against that type of bullshit...and several years later eventually get some justice because they were lucky and made enough noise that a retrial was held in Tokyo. Anyhow, the connection with the above quote comes from the typical idiot panel they had on the show to comment on what had just been shown. The last dude to comment basically said that he thought most Japanese today are totally unaware this type of stuff happened back then....but in this "peaceful generation" it's better to not study about this kind of stuff in the past so that the focus can be a peaceful future.

[IparryU]

I thought the Emperor's New Year message was very wise - I hope people were listening.

the ol' goblin can speak? never knew that he actually did shit besides leach off the cuntry.

half serious statement... i know he can speak

[J.A.F.O]

Anyone catch that "unbaribaburu" show last night? (Was stuck at a friends who had the TV on) They showcased this lawyer who stood up to the local police/prosecutor/court corruption regarding a murder by police back during the war. Victim was beaten to death by the police for refusing to confess to the crime they were accusing him of and they were covering it up with witness intimidation/collusion and all kinds of shit. (Having seen first hand how the "justice" system here works, it doesn't seem like the SOP has changed much since then) Amazing to see someone back then actually stand up against that type of bullshit...and several years later eventually get some justice because they were lucky and made enough noise that a retrial was held in Tokyo. Anyhow, the connection with the above quote comes from the typical idiot panel they had on the show to comment on what had just been shown. The last dude to comment basically said that he thought most Japanese today are totally unaware this type of stuff happened back then....but in this "peaceful generation" it's better to not study about this kind of stuff in the past so that the focus can be a peaceful future.

He can't hear with his head buried in the sand like that...

[Takechanpoo]

found good site (japanese and english)

TRUTH ABOUT “COMFORT WOMEN” – U.S. ARMY REPORT in 1944 “A (Korean) Comfort Girl is nothing more than a prostitue attached to the Japanese Army…”
http://japa.la/?page_id=23782

if you see the objective facts about "comfort whores", you cannot help gettting on the side of japan, regardless of whether you are rightwinger or not.

[IparryU]

found good site (japanese and english)

TRUTH ABOUT “COMFORT WOMEN” – U.S. ARMY REPORT in 1944 “A (Korean) Comfort Girl is nothing more than a prostitue attached to the Japanese Army…”
http://japa.la/?page_id=23782

if you see the objective facts about "comfort whores", you cannot help gettting on the side of japan, regardless of whether you are rightwinger or not.

nice find. but why fight it when there are bad apples in the bunch that will just set you back even more? you cannot deny that there were 0 forced prostitutes as there are about 7 left alive and monuments in the US. just an uphill battle that Japan will not win.

Japan paid out money apparently, so why not take the high road, say that Japan had "blah blah blah" and end the issue... if SK goes on a tangent after that than Japan has the upper hand as Japan made amends, but SK decided to not uphold their side of the deal to let it go. Much better position than Japan is in now and Japan will have the backing of the other major countries... You dont want Hillary Clinton to come over an bitch slap you again about the terminology do you?
http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/clinton-says-comfort-women-should-be-referred-to-as-enforced-sex-slaves

Face it, Japan has to comply with the other big boys in the park or it wont be fun for Japan. But nope.. lets play this finger pointing game like kindergartners and kill ties with our neighbors, just cause Japan don't want to say sorry.

[Russell]

Germany asks US to close Holocaust museum

Japan has asked a major U.S. publisher to “correct” a school textbook that references World War II sex slaves, the foreign ministry said Thursday, as Tokyo’s bid to polish its history moves abroad.

Diplomats petitioned McGraw-Hill to change passages of a book used in American schools that refer to “comfort women”, a euphemism for those forced to work in military brothels.

“The Japanese government, through an overseas diplomatic office, in mid-December asked McGraw-Hill executives to make a correction in the content of their textbook titled ‘Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past’,” a foreign ministry statement published by the Wall Street Journal said.

They did this “upon finding grave errors and descriptions that conflict with our nation’s stance on the issue of ‘comfort women.’”

The Japanese government under nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has embarked on a global campaign to right what it sees as the wrongs of global perceptions of its WWII violence.

Mainstream historians agree that around 200,000 women, mainly from Korea, but also from China, Taiwan and the Philippines, were forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers in a formalised system of slavery.

Right-wingers in Japan dispute this, and insist the women were common prostitutes. They say neither the state nor the military was involved in any coercion.

McGraw-Hill Education confirmed they had been approached by “representatives from the Japanese government… asking the company to change the description of ‘comfort women’ in one of our publications,” according to the Journal.

“Scholars are aligned behind the historical fact of ‘comfort women’ and we unequivocally stand behind the writing, research and presentation of our authors,” they said.

The approach to a foreign publisher is unusual, but nationalists at home have pressed hard for a reinterpretation of history.

Late last year, Japan’s liberal Asahi Shimbun retracted a series of articles dating from the 1990s centering on the testimony of a former Japanese soldier who said he had been involved in rounding up Korean women to work in brothels.

His testimony had long-since been discredited, but the paper had for years resisted pressure to withdraw the articles.

Its about-face was greeted with glee by right-wingers, including the prime minister, who demanded the paper apologise for its part in the globally-accepted view of Japan’s wartime record.

Tokyo has been angered in recent years over statues honoring “comfort women” erected by Korean communities in the US and elsewhere.

And in December the government lodged a complaint with Beijing over a reference to “300,000” people who were killed when imperial troops swept through the Chinese city of Nanjing, in a weeks-long orgy of rape and violence.

Chinese President Xi Jinping made the comment in a speech on December 13, calling on Tokyo to acknowledge the gravity of its past crimes.

Diplomats protested that the figure is “different from Japan’s position” and that it is “difficult to determine the concrete number of victims,” sources told Kyodo News.

Since his election in 2012, Abe has pushed what supporters call a less “masochistic” view of Japan’s history.

While the approach is popular among core right-wing supporters in Japan, it does not have broad appeal among a Japanese public that largely feels disconnected from events more than seven decades ago.

More

So, the publisher effectively told Japan to stuff it.

[Yokohammer]

Germany asks US to close Holocaust museum

...

So, the publisher effectively told Japan to stuff it.

Russel,

I'm sure the text you supplied for the link above is some sort of clever irony thing, but it went right over my head and confused the crap out of me for a minute.

[Coligny]

Diplomats petitioned McGraw-Hill ...

Yea, good luck with that one...

Would have loved to see their outraged faces when told to suck it...

[Russell]

Russel,

I'm sure the text you supplied for the link above is some sort of clever irony thing, but it went right over my head and confused the crap out of me for a minute.

The fake headline is certainly in bad taste, and meant to be controversial, but all these attempts by Japan's rightwingers to revise history are getting annoying.

And basically it is comparable to Germany denying its history, though I admit that the comparison can be perceived as to trivialize the Holocaust. That is not my intention.

[Yokohammer]

Russel,

I'm sure the text you supplied for the link above is some sort of clever irony thing, but it went right over my head and confused the crap out of me for a minute.

The fake headline is certainly in bad taste, and meant to be controversial, but all these attempts by Japan's rightwingers to revise history are getting annoying.

And basically it is comparable to Germany denying its history, though I admit that the comparison can be perceived as to trivialize the Holocaust. That is not my intention.

I get it (now). I'm not complaining about your taste in headlines, I am pointing out that it took me way too long to figure out what the heck you were talking about. At first I thought you might have copied and pasted the wrong headline, or something (but maybe I'm just getting stoopider ... ).

[Coligny]

Germany asks US to close Holocaust museum

...

So, the publisher effectively told Japan to stuff it.

Russel,

I'm sure the text you supplied for the link above is some sort of clever irony thing, but it went right over my head and confused the crap out of me for a minute.

He he he... Grand'pa needz moar coffee ...

[matsuki]

Diplomats petitioned McGraw-Hill ...

Yea, good luck with that one...

Would have loved to see their outraged faces when told to suck it...

They probably did plenty of sucking....teeth sucking

I imagine this global campaign is going to backfire as more and more instances become public.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I admit that the comparison can be perceived as to trivialize the Holocaust

Watch out. That could get you arrested in France.

[Wage Slave]

I imagine this global campaign is going to backfire as more and more instances become public.

And the halfwits don't even realise they are dragging out more evidence against their own denials. Tacky's idiotic website linked a few posts earlier being another prime example of hoisting oneself on one's own petard - or whatever Japanese use for hoisting.

Tacky,

I have no idea what the Japanese translation says and I shudder to think, but the piece of evidence is in English and that I can read. Trust me.

When the interrogation officer said: “A (Korean) Comfort Girl is nothing more than a prostitute attached to the Japanese Army…” he did NOT mean that she was simply a prostitute who had decided to work for the Japanese Army. He was railing against the Japanese use of the euphemism "Comfort Girl" in order to try and distract from their true and enforced status. He was presaging Clinton's comments about sex slaves being more accurate than comfort girls/women.

They were recruited, like latter day sex slaves, from poor rural families with promises of reasonably well paid low status but respectable work. Their family was advanced money and they became bonded workers. They were transported thousand of kilometres to a war zone and forced to work as prostitutes for the benefit of Japanese soldiers. They had to work from 10 in the morning to 12 at night 7 days a week servicing a soldier as often as every 30 to 40 minutes. The time limit was apparently strict because congestion was a severe problem.

And, because the Japanese Army was under attack and losing they couldn't even provide physical safety to the women and nor were the soldiers always sober, rational and calm.

Is bonded labour enabled through deception and backed by force a kind of slavery? Most people would agree it is, by modern standards anyway. We have no hesitation in referring to women bonded and trafficked by organised crime as sex slaves. What the Japanese Army did, at a minimum, was no better.

The fact that they were relatively well paid for all this is perhaps a mitigating factor but is not a defence. Guilty as charged.

[Coligny]

I admit that the comparison can be perceived as to trivialize the Holocaust

Watch out. That could get you arrested in France.

FUCK YOUZE...

(Mostly because you are 200% right...)

[matsuki]

I imagine this global campaign is going to backfire as more and more instances become public.

And the halfwits don't even realise they are dragging out more evidence against their own denials. Tacky's idiotic website linked a few posts earlier being another prime example of hoisting oneself on one's own petard - or whatever Japanese use for hoisting.

Tacky.....

That pesky language barrier again...

[Yokohammer]

Here's a view from a journalist on how journalists around the world generally view the Yomiuri back-pedalling:

The Yomiuri Shinbun Takes Pride in Its Shame: Expurgating Japan’s “Sex Slaves”

The Yomiuri Shinbun’s apology was greeted with near shock by foreign correspondents in Japan. Articles about the apology were published in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, and just about every other major news organization with its own reporters in Japan.

Not only was the Yomiuri Shinbun pledging not to use political expressions that were annoying to the incumbent Abe government, but they even felt the need to condemn their own past news articles going back more than two decades. They explained that they would “add a note stating that [the expressions used] were inappropriate to all the articles in question in our database.”

To the ears of many educated foreigners, this latter pledge sounds all too much like Winston Smith, the character in the novel 1984, whose job at the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth is to rewrite historical documents to match the constantly changing ideology and policies of the all-powerful government.

...

Normally, a Japanese newspaper offering a retraction of mistakes in its previous articles would be of little or no interest to foreign audiences. This particular apology, however, bounced around the global headlines because it demonstrated just how far removed the Yomiuri Shinbun has become from the common sense of the news media world.

In democratic countries, the major news media is expected to maintain independence and even to play the role of a watchdog on the government, testing official explanations and investigating official actions.

Of course, it has been clear to outside observers for many years that the Yomiuri Shinbun does not really fulfill its supposed role as the guardian of the public trust, but instead functions most of the time as a mouthpiece for the Liberal Democratic Party.

Worth a read.