Former LDP chief Kono urges Abe to erase doubts over war history

Some Japanese are still unable to adopt a correct attitude toward the war but Japan must face up to history.

“Why would he need to change the words? That is why people have doubts,” said the 78-year-old Kono. “He must erase those doubts and the simplest way to do so is to uphold the Murayama Statement unchanged.”

So now we have Kono-san himself, two former PM's, and the Crown Prince telling Abe to back-off. Unfortuantely, I think they are all spitting in the wind, as I think Abe is bound and determined to issue his own "statement", and try to do what he can to remove the stain from his grandfather. As the old saying goes "blood is thicker than water" and Abe has convinced himself his family has a big stake in this.

"Fighting for peace is like folking (misspelling) for virginity."

It's an old one, but true. War doesn't produce peace. Abe and his right wing kooks are proof of that. Losing the war in 1945 put it on the back burner, but Abe and crew would love to start it over again.

You want peace, do peace creating things and you'll get it. If the same money the US threw away in Vietnam, Iraq etc. had been spent on boosting infrastructure in those areas, activities that fostered understanding would have created links instead of breaking them.

We have one planet. There is no other place to go. With the population increasing year by year, don't you think we need to work out ways we can live together and have a reasonably good time while doing it?

Or is it better to become more and more suspicious of each other and wage covert wars, i.e. wars that say they are for one thing, but that are in reality to grab someone else's oil or stall another country's economic expansion.

LDP, listen to your elders. And shut up. Every time you tries to revise history or hide Japan;s atrocity, people who did not know Japanese war time records dig around and learn more of bad Japan. If they don't try, world will not know. They behave like they want to advertise war time Japanese atrocity.

Well said, Mr Kono sir!

One of the few serious politicians in Japan. His son Taro similarly is one of the few serious people in the current LDP. I really hope Abe doesn't mess everything up again unnecessarily but I have a horrible feeling he won't be able to stop himself. Oh dear.