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Emperor, empress, Abe attend ceremony to mark 75th anniversary of WWII surrender

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I vividly remember an experience I had in Puli, Taichung, Taiwan on August 15, 1945. That day when I came home from play, I saw a crowd of people gathered in front of a newspaper building near our residence, some weeping openly. I asked someone in the crowd why and he said the war had ended with Japan defeated.

I had a sigh of relief to hear that, for that meant there would be no more alarm of fearsome air raids from tomorrow on. Puli, where we lived, unlike the City of Taichung, had been spared from actual air raids but people were rumoring it could be the next target anytime soon. If the war had ended, I could openly walk on the streets without a fear of the sudden alarm of air raids which compelled pedestrians to seek shelters, I thought. 

Of course, I didn't know at the time that that was the beginning of our post-war ordeal and travail.

11 ( +14 / -3 )

Utter nonsense.

Shinzo said,""We will never forget that the peace and prosperity we are enjoying today are built on the ultimate sacrifices of the war dead."

Totally wrong.

The prosperity was built upon the largesse of the USA.

Japan has so much to be thankful for.......if the boot was on the other foot I could never imagine Imperial Japan giving the US a "get out of jail free pass."

The Japanese weren't fighting a gregarious war they were fighting a total full-on war.

The Japanese really got out of jail for free.

11 ( +23 / -12 )

"the peace and prosperity we are enjoying today are built on the ultimate sacrifices of the war dead."

If he actually believes that, he is insane. Japan's war dead in the Pacific War died defending an emperor-worshiping imperialistic military dictatorship that quickly and deliberated destroyed the peace and prosperity of the countries it invaded and occupied, and further their actions eventually led to turning the Japanese population into starving victims of relentless bombing attacks.

How's that for "peace and prosperity"

16 ( +21 / -5 )

Abe, "We will never forget that the peace and prosperity we are enjoying today are built on the ultimate sacrifices of the war dead."

So, Tojo and his pals were building towards today's peace and prosperity with allying with Hitler, Unit 736, throwing Filipino babies in the air and catching them on bayonettes, starving over 1 million Vietnamese and Cambodians with Japan's invasion and puppet gov't, 300,000 civilians slaughtered in Manchuria? Yeah genocide is always the way to get peace and prosperity. Yeah, Abe, sure it is.

Abe is such a clueless dolt.

13 ( +21 / -8 )

I was walking around my neighborhood of Shinjuku today, and it was a normal day, with lots of people shopping, eating at restaurants, etc. But all this week, I couldn't help but try to imagine what it was like this week, and now this day, 75 years ago. But it is unimaginable.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

It is at times like this that the lack of factually based historical perspective taught in Japanese schools stands out.

Will this ever change? I can’ see much likelihood alas.

7 ( +11 / -4 )

can’t see much likelihood. Oh for an edit button.

8 ( +10 / -2 )

> > Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed not to repeat the tragedy of the war, saying, "We will never forget that the peace and prosperity we are enjoying today are built on the ultimate sacrifices of the war dead."

Are these not the words of a wannabe revisionist?

Abe has his facts totally wrong...

6 ( +11 / -5 )

@spitfire

the most accurate comment I've read for a long time.

Abe should be thanking the Alliies the USA in particular for delivering the Japanese people from a N. Koreanesque fascist dictatorial cultish regime.

4 ( +9 / -5 )

Every one know the history of WWII japan were japanese killed chinese for fun. Now japan is different country Japanese are polite and carrying. They significantly change themselves from a war country to an example of a peaceful nation. I thinks it's time that China change it's attitude toward china. Love from Pakistan "Pakistan is in my mind but japan is in my Heart."

-4 ( +7 / -11 )

Do the Japanese actually think they were fighting for peace? If this is news to you, no, the Japanese army was not fighting for peace.

Maybe it means a lot of lives were sacrificed. Today we have peace and we renounce war.

A moment of silence was observed at noon for the approximately 2.3 million military personnel and 800,000 civilians who perished in the war, including those killed in the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Not to mention the 20-30 millions lives who perished at the hands of the Japanese.

This is twice as many as the Nazis killed.

8 ( +15 / -7 )

Maybe I spelled cultish wrong.

:)

3 ( +5 / -2 )

I'm sorry, but I did not hear the Japanese Government apologise for the great suffering of the Japanese people that their misguided leadership caused!!!

6 ( +11 / -5 )

If only the polititians would be as sincere as he royals.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

Shinzo said,""We will never forget that the peace and prosperity we are enjoying today are built on the ultimate sacrifices of the war dead."

What planet is he living on? The peace and prosperity they're enjoying is because they lost the war and their lives were spared, and those who should have been charged as war criminals were let off and went on to work for the government and other top jobs.

2 ( +8 / -6 )

@Jandworld

If only the polititians would be as sincere as he royals.

I can see why you would say that, but were the comments of "the royals" so much better? The emperor is quoted as saying:

"Looking back on the long period of postwar peace, reflecting on our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse, I earnestly hope that the ravages of war will never again be repeated"

If you analyse the sentence, what does it actually say? "The feelings of deep remorse"? Whose feelings? About what? He doesn't actually say, does he. It's classic oblique Japanese discourse. Appearing to potentially say something that people hope he might say, without actually saying it, and not going so far as to offend nationalists by explicitly saying what should be said. In other words, same old story. And they wonder why Koreans and Chinese remain unconvinced about so-called Japanese "remorse".

4 ( +5 / -1 )

For people and leaders to attend a ceremony marking an anniversary to the end of a war seventy five years ago is remarkable and I am thankful and grateful for it.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

When I say the "post-war ordeal and travail" in the above post, it means we had to go through sheer destitution and live at a subsistence level.  Not enough food to eat nor clothes to wear. Nor dwellings to live in.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

@voiceofokinawa

I'm very sorry that you suffered as a result of war, as so many countless millions of people have throughout history. I'm grateful that I haven't had to suffer in the same way (so far). Many people in Syria, for example, know only too well about what you've experienced.

I don't quite see, however, how your personal story is relevant to the question of whether or not Japan has fully and openly admitted to its guilt for wartime aggression.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

This year, I did the silent prayer while crying for the first time in my life.

There are three Twitter accounts which tweet real diaries of Hiroshima people. I could know what happened in 75 years ago at the same time, different year. Of course I learned about WW2 in my high school, but it was really new for me to have a feeling of closeness to them.

There must never be war again. Never. I hope.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

"We will never forget that the peace and prosperity we are enjoying today are built on the ultimate sacrifices of the war dead."

That doesn't strike me as understanding what happened at all

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Wartime Japan's government could not distinguish actuality and wish of themselves, underrate enemy or risk, disrespects human lives, their optimistic operations caused innumerable casualities, repeated fake announcement to continue the war, Incompetent govt who was in difficult situation demanded self-sacrifice to general public.

and postwar, innumerable official documents were burned, many shameless responsible person tried to evade war responsibility.

Present Abe government who prioritizes economy than human-lives and conceals inconvenient fact has many similarities to prewar or wartime Japan.

Present Abe government has no respect to official documents including present Corona virus issue at all.

Grandson of war criminal, present Japanese prime minister Abe already denies own responsibility at press conference, despite many missteps.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

I shall NEVER forgive the Japanese for the cruelty. Never.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

PhantomAgentAug. 15  07:33 pm JST

I'm sorry, but I did not hear the Japanese Government apologise for the great suffering of the Japanese people that their misguided leadership caused!!!

Here's a list of so many apologies, you can spend the day reading through them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Lamilly. Consider the utter cruelty the Japanese evil soldiers did to the prisoners of war. Utter evil.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Consider the utter cruelty the Japanese evil soldiers did to the prisoners of war. Utter evil.

Yes, they were cruel.

American soldiers were also cruel. They killed Japanese soldiers who surrendered because they didn't want to be bothered. The US resorted to offering ice cream in early 1945 to US soldiers who turned in captured Japanese soldiers because that was the only way to interrogate them.

Is it any different for Croatians or Serbs who treated each other cruelly?

0 ( +2 / -2 )

The Irony, the hypocrisy.

If Japan did not talk about this date, the critics would say Japan is ignoring history. Ignoring the past.

If we did not talk about Hiroshima or Nagasaki the critics would say your ignoring history, ignoring the past.

If we do commemorate, if we talk about it, it's Japan trying to change history.

No right way when you bias from the beginning.

Also let's ignore the fact that Japan and China was closed countries. Closed doors, not sailing the oceans for new land and more slaves.

Western countries, white people conquered the world all the way to East Asia. Let's ignore those facts, let's talk about Japan after they had to respond to the Devil at their door.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Some here seem to think that America was responsible for Nihon's dynamic recovery after the defeat of their psychopathic military extablishment in 1945. A whole generation of Japanese workers sacrificed themselves like Kamikaze pilots working very long hours, forsaking families, free time, vacations, to lift their country from the hell which their rulers had created for them by being essentially the same as American rulers and attempting to dominate all around them. For Americans, EVERYBODY is a monster except them. May I point out that, while Eastern Euro POWs in German camps were allowed to receive packages and aid, THE ALLIES cut off all aid (food, heating fuel, medicine, mail) to their own POWs AND to the internment camps citing it as 'AID TO THE ENEMY' who they expected to be further burdened by supplying these people at a time when conditions in the camps and in Berlin itself were approaching identicality. But the camps had lice, and the lice carried Typhus, and cold, hunger, sickness, and epidemic were the result. There is individual cruelty and war crimes and then there is mass, state-sponsored cruelty, shrouded in obfuscation, without any redress at all.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Yeah, I agree that what Abe said was completely factually inaccurate. And he’s only doing this, to be essentially a cheerleader for the Japanese people. That means minimizing the atrocities your country committed on your end, and playing up your own role in how the war ended. That’s all it is, nothing more nothing less.

Now I’m not defending it don’t get me wrong, but that was the motivation behind Abe saying what he said.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Zoran Milovanovic: Lamilly. Consider the utter cruelty the Japanese evil soldiers did to the prisoners of war. Utter evil.

Mr. Milanovic: Please remember that the 'history' of any war is written by the 'winner'. And the 'winner' is ALWAYS the gallant hero of the saga and the 'enemy' the most loathsome of subhuman beasts. Read history from both sides and you will see that there are no heroes amongst Humanity, just more or less altruistic Humans of whom the 'less' are fully dominant most, if not all, of the time. Read history and, although you will still be butt deep in bullscheisse, real history is a tool which will let you cut through the bullscheisse much more quickly and more easily. But, you may not like what you find, of which, that ALL of us Humans are pretty much the same, is the most obvious but most difficult to incorporate into one's own identity. Good luck...

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Good read on the BBC website today: 'VJ Day: A WW2 hero and a reckoning with Japan's past'.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-53763059

0 ( +0 / -0 )

And as long as this loquacious mood is still upon me, may I also point out that in June of 1941, Roosevelt unilaterally cut off, interdicted, all of Japan's oil imports because of intense political pressure from the rich to get a highly reluctant U.S. into the European War. This interdiction was clearly an act of war and simply mirrored what the British did in 1812 to suck the nascent U.S. into a war so as to re-establish their parasitic central bank which Madison had dechartered. The First Bank of the United States, a private central bank owned by the BoE, ended in 1812. The Second Bank of the United States opened 1816 after our defeat and burned capitol. Jackson killed that parasite in 1833 and we weren't so directly parasitized again until the 100% corrupt Wilson and The Federal Reserve lie in 1912. You might also note that trump is attempting the same thing with our current piracy of Iranian shipping on the high seas. Just another re-election gambit, a major war! Understanding the past is the ONLY DOORWAY to ANY reality-based understanding of the PRESENT. The U.S. sucked Japan into a war for a hidden agenda. and 'the surprise attack'? Look up the USS Lewis and then try to put the pieces together in a way that spells 'surprise'. You can't. And the "Infamy" was all ours...

1 ( +2 / -1 )

The Japanese really got out of jail for free.

Joke of the day. Some police we have in this world.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It wasn't just Japan that had to go through an economic recovery after the war. Only a few countries were never subjected to occupation and/or intense bombing.

IMO, it is the threat of nuclear war that has so far prevented any more world wars. Most people realize that if there is another nuclear war, there will be only losers. The recognized danger that a confrontation between nuclear powers, even if it starts out as a conventional war, could escalate into something unrecognizable, is enough to prevent conflicts between the nuclear powers.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

A moment of silence was observed at noon for the approximately 2.3 million military personnel and 800,000 civilians who perished in the war, including those killed in the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki had their memorials earlier this week. This is the end of the war and it's tiresome to keep seeing the same propaganda in articles, over and over again.

The world hasn't forgotten. If this were a "paper" I am quite sure this would no be printed here as "space" is at a premium.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Dr. Maybe (Aug. 15 10:17 pm JST),

The "post-war ordeal and travail" weren't my personal experience alone, but the nation's as a whole. I think the Japanese took them for granted because Japan lost the war. Anti-war sentiments were very strong in society and the people were determined never to repeat the mistake. This was struck home in the post-war peace constitution.

Some people say Article 9 of the Constitution was forced upon Japan by MacArthur's GHQ, but, No, it was accepted enthusiastically and wholly by the entire nation. But what have successive U.S. governments done to Japan? Haven't they encouraged Japan to rearm, build up arms by profusely buying U.S.-made weapons and rewrite the war-renouncing constitution? 

It's only natural that right wingers, always nostalgic for pre-war Imperial Japan, find a great friend and master in the U.S.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It seems many of you have not read or understood your own history. You accuse the Americans of being blood-thirsty demons while forgetting about the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, your own racist demagoguery of the Americans that lead to the suicides of tens of thousands of your own civilians in Okinawa rather than be captured by the Americans and the specter of millions of more Japanese civilians committing sepukku or other suicidal acts if the US has gone forward with Operation Olympic. Should the US have waited until Japan produced a viable nuclear bomb from its own nuclear weapons program? The fact is that if Japan had any type of weapon, it used it on its enemies. From toxic gases to balloons with fire bombs attached to rape and the murder of civilians to the lives of its young men in suicide charges and kamikaze attacks; the Japanese showed little compunction from using any and every thing it had available in its arsenal. Look beyond what they have taught you in your schools, because the truth is at your fingertips....as it appears is your ignorance.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

It's said that Jukiro Shidehara, Prime Minister during an early post-war period, added Article 9 to the Constitution in the course of exchanging drafts between his government and MacArthur's GHQ. So one cannot say the peace constitution was forced upon Japan unilaterally by the U.S.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Edwin Nelson,

I've been posting my opinions here and on other threads with full knowledge of the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the 730 medical corps commanded by Gen. Ishii, etc.

Note that all perpetrators of war crimes were captured, tried and executed but for Gen. Shiro Ishii and his subordinates. War leaders spearheaded by Gen. Hideki Tojo were also tried at the so-called Tokyo Trials (or International Military Tribunal for the Far East) and executed by hanging. 

I wrote on one post that "Pearl Harbor may pale before this heinous act on the part of the U.S." with full knowledge of those facts in mind that you mentioned.  

You can compare the numbers of deaths and destroyed infrastructures and the extents of cruelty for each case, but such a comparison is very lowly at the best.

That war was a collision of greed or imperialism of one bunch of countries against another and deep hatred toward each other dictated every action they took. Hatred only bred hatred on the mind of the other.

Let us put imperialism behind us and let it be a sure thing of the past.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Thomas GoodtimeAug. 15  04:17 pm JST

Boooooooo. Peace and prosperity is not due to you though, Shinzo!

Please explain. WWII ended 9 years before Shinzo was born. And at no time since he became PM has Japan engaged in any action that would support your claim.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I wrote on one post that "Pearl Harbor may pale before this heinous act on the part of the U.S. (atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) ." with full knowledge of those facts in mind that you mentioned.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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