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Post by dmether on May 14, 2013 13:47:51 GMT 8
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Post by okla on May 14, 2013 21:49:18 GMT 8
Hey dmether....This continual denying, evading, etc the awful truth of WW 2 atrocities is akin to somebody with egg all over their face attempting to convince onlookers that it is actually shaving lotion. These folks will never, officially, come clean about any of those transgressions. Too bad, in my humble, but atonement ain't gonna happen.
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Post by fortman on May 14, 2013 23:19:59 GMT 8
I think "atonement" means losing face, a no-no to the Japs.
fortman
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Post by okla on May 15, 2013 21:27:19 GMT 8
Hey Fortman....I have never, being from the Western Hemisphere, quite gotten a handle on the convoluted "losing face" thing. To my way of thinking the Japanese lost enough "face" during the Nanking rampage of 1937 to last generations and they never modified their behavior afterward. I have said previously, on this Forum, that even Adolph Hitler didn't believe the initial reports coming from the Nazi German Envoy posted in Nanking. "Face" was lost in the eyes of most of the World, at least the Western portion, from the mid 1930s onward and all this present day dodging and denying ain't gonna regain it, in my humble.
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Post by The Phantom on May 16, 2013 6:36:08 GMT 8
Well said okla.
Are we witnessing the ramifications of the previous generations in Japan lack of guilt / coverup's now coming to fruition with this current generations backsliding into the old beliefs / lies?
It's bad enough to try and avoid and not report, or record, the shared guilt of an entire generation, but quite another to now deny the atrocities committed over the years in the early 20th century, affecting so many people in Asia, ever happened at all.
Revisionist history at work in the worst way.
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Post by xray on May 20, 2013 12:59:04 GMT 8
There is more to it than that. Start accepting guilt/responsibility for this could very well start a landslide for more, with of course the requisite compensation demanded by survivors and/or their kin. I for one don't think that Japan should be saddled with guilt for all eternity for deeds done by a generation mostly deceased. They have proved a long term and reliable ally, they accepted defeat and humiliating occupation with a grace that few other countries could muster - And they are a very important hedge against militant Chinese expansion, something a Filipino in particular should appreciate. I'm all for accepting responsibility for ones actions, but one must consider ramifications first, especially when it comes to power politics. And the Axis powers are not the only ones who did some dirty deeds - Are our bomber pilots going to accept guilt for blowing to bits 100,000's of German & Japanese woman and children ? Is our Navy going to apologize for practicing brutal, unrestricted, illegal submarine warfare [that was responsible, by the way, for killing more Americans in the Philippines than the Japs themselves] ?
I'm playing devils advocate to a degree here, but I'm really getting sick of people yelping about things that happened half a century ago, and more. We don't have to forget, we can learn from that past ,,, But we don't need to do it in such a fashion that stigmatizes and penalizes an entire generation of guiltless people.
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Post by fireball on May 23, 2013 22:16:23 GMT 8
If we deny the past then what is there to learn?
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Post by xray on May 26, 2013 13:44:19 GMT 8
I did not and don't advocate denial of historic guilt. What I am saying is people at some point have to get over what happened generations ago, it gets to the point of being very counter productive. Lets face it, people don't want to hear Japs say "We are very sorry for what happened" just to get a sense of admitted responsibility, for closure for surviving victims and kin - This is pretty much about $reparations$, and once they start sliding down that hill, it would be very hard to stop. Again, the Germans - I never hear them whining about 100'000's of their mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers getting burned and blown to smithereens by Allied bombers. If they did, people would just say "Oh, you were Nazis, you deserved it !". I'm a bit more subjective than that, and am against civilians being directly targeted as a matter of policy by anyone. When it comes down to it, we were just as ruthless as them, and at times, more so ,,, So I don't fancy us as standing on some kind of historical higher ground, sitting in judgement of events long ago that happened well before most of us were even born. Japs were bad, they paid terribly for their transgressions, using Korean woman as whores was probably the least of their bad deeds, let it rest. If they are still around to complain about it at least they survived, which is a lot more than many others could say.
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Post by okla on May 26, 2013 23:13:44 GMT 8
Hey All....Pertaining to the bombings that led to hundreds of thousands of German civilians being killed, I believe that RAF Air Marshall "Bomber" Harris" summed it up rather well when he said, "sow the wind and reap the whirlwind", or course referring to the senseless Nazi bombing of civilians in Warsaw and Rotterdam in 1939-40. Most present day Germans have enough "moxie" to realize that these early WW 2 actions led to the horrific saturation bombings of Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, and many other cities later in the Air War. Maybe two wrongs don't make a right, but that's how it played out and the Germans know it, for the most part, thus the absence of "whining" or denying. Just my humble. I, myself, will belabor the point no further. Cheers.
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Post by darthdract on Jun 3, 2013 18:31:05 GMT 8
I know this is beating a dead horse, It is just appalling that even "some" Japanese citizens today are either ignorant or still in denial of the atrocities done by their soldiers and would sometimes even go far insulting the Filipinos and Americans who died during the death march like this one Japanese who told me that their soldiers also walk with the prisoners all the way during the death march saying that the Americans and Filipono soldiers are weak and undisciplined.
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