Terumi Tanaka, secretary general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization, referring to the Japanese government's plan to officially invite to Japan next year former U.S. prisoners of war who survived the Bataan Death March, and their descendants. Invitees will be asked to participate in memorial ceremonies and exchange events with Japanese young people. (Yomiuri Shimbun)
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If the government invites U.S. POWs, then it should ask the U.S. government to apologize to the victims of the atomic bombings and the air raids.
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CoolCali
Right, apologize for what? Ending the war? My uncle Albert survived Bataan. Japanese couldn't kill him, but alcohol did. Tell ya what, as soon as Yasakuni is burned to the ground, the government stops accepting right wingers faux history books, and Japan starts making reparations to Nanking and Unit 731 survivors (if any could be found), oh, and build monuments in honor of those who were subjected to Japanese atrocities (as the Germans have done), then perhaps the A-bomb 'victims' will get an apology.
neverknow2
Agreed
sfjp330
Japan continues to look at the at the a-bomb as the victim. Who is the real victim? The real victim is civilians of Manchuria, Nanking, Manila, Southeast Asia. They were not at war with Japan and their children and innocent adults were attacked and raped savagely by the Imperial Military of Japan. Why don't Japan sincerely apologize and compensate for the victim of 1931-1945 war. You have ex PM's Koizumi and Abe visting Yasukuni, and they show their approval of the atricities of war crime, at the same time they get healty govenment pension for life, which is paid by citizens of Japan in which majority oppose the Yasukuni. Japan will never change.
drink_more_milk
While I do not agree with right wingers, yasukuni shrine etc... , forcibly silencing them merely takes us all one step closer to a dictatorial form of government. Democracy is a difficult thing...
Phillyprnc
Agreed, agreed, agreed, agreed.
Statistician
Um .. maybe I'm missing something but isn't this whole event next year just one form of saying 'sorry, please can we move on from all that'.
Also more than one American friend of mine staying with my in-laws in Hiroshima (my father-in-law is hibakusha) has felt the impulse to say "I feel really sorry about what happened here".
If you don't regret what happened here's an idea. Get the 'shink' down to Hiroshima, head over to the Peace Park yourself and explain to some visiting classes of elementary school kids why you think it was all a good idea and so necessary. You'll be helping them out with their class project and communicating your point of view.
JpMoonkey
CoolCali, I fully agree with your comment. Former U.S. prisoners of war?! How about the others who suffered 'under the Japanese sword??' My Japanese father-in-law who gives conflicting accounts about his military past, loves to criticize, insult the US and US military. Before he was like a 'barking' lion (ex company president), now in his 80s, he is getting closer to a cat! (Acting like a cat, not lion.) WW2 criminals will suffer in h_ll.
stirfry
pretty sure the other 'real victims' are the soldiers who were murdered by japan's sneak attack on pearl harbor...too bad the japanese seem to have forgotten that part
nisegaijin
Nobody needs to apologize for anything. Do you see Germany apologizing for WW2? Do you see UK apologizing for colonizing half of the world? you don't see Mongolia apologizing for Gin Gis Khan, do you? Why should America apologize to something that started as Japanese aggression in the first place! Nonsense!
jewel
This is tacky and completely senseless. You don`t invite someone to your home who you have tortured, starved, and brutalized, and then tell them to apologize. It is just tacky and inconceivable.
timorborder
This will happen when hell freezes over buddy. All this propaganda about Japan being a victim is a lot of crxp. You cannot look at events such as the dropping of the bombs in a vacuum. They are part of a much bigger picture. A picture that included a number of horrific actions on the part of Japan. Let's put the Bataan Death March aside for a minute, even before the US entered the war Japanese forces were carrying out rape and murder of Chinese civilians on a massive scale. They were also enslaving the Korean Peninsular. During the war, the list of Japanese atrocities was not limited to Bataan only. What about the Burma-Siam Railway which saw over 160,000 POWs and Chinese laborers die. You also have the Ambon Massacre of allied POWs. The rape of Manila when Japanese troops murdered hundreds of civilians. These are just some incidents of a much larger trend. And you want the US to apologize for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki? You also have to realize that the good old Japanese empire was quite happy with the mass genocide of people until such time as the allies (not just the US) started beating Japan. The old emperor (Showa) was really into the war, riding around on his white charger. It was only when the allies started hitting back hard that attitudes change.
Finally, what were the options open to the allies. As late as the Summer of 1945, you had the national mouthpiece of Japan, commonly known as NHK, spilling out propaganda that the Japanese people (all 100 million of them) would commit mass suicide in the face of the allied onslaught. Moreover, down in Okinawa there were numerous cases of the military helping Japanese civilians to commit suicide (murder). If you consider these historical facts, then the people who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be thanking the US rather than condemning it.
Alphaape
If the US just dropped an A-bomb for the heck of it, then I would say an apology is due.
But this was war. Like it or not "war is h*ll." Just because it was war, it does not call for the mistreatment of POWs by the Japanese and as the loosers of the war, they should show remorse. But because the US used weapons in conflict, then I see no point to apologize. Yes we bomb civilians, but unlike POWs, who have been removed from the "war" by virture of their surrender, I hate to say but civilians are still able to produce goods for the war effort, and to some extent, provide for their defense. But to kill them after the hostilities have ended due to the surrender of military forces (as in the case of Japan) is wrong.
thedeath
Terumi Tanaka, this shameless guy better call of an apologize from the japanese government for bringing the nation into the war devastated japan and the neighboring nations.
Japanese were the aggressor and japanese citizen at the time done little to nothing to stop their own evil government and leaders. so stop try to be a victim of the war when you are not.
Jan210
...don't you all know that Japan was about to surrender when they droped the first bomb? The war was already over (even if it wasn't, why dropping a second one??). Moreover, Pearl harbor was a militarian base, while atomic bombs mostly killed CIVILIANS. I don't know if anybody should apologize at anytime. But anyway the Hydrogen bomb droppings was more a way for the US to show their power to the rest of the world, especially USSR. Even if they did not really know (and care) what would be the long term consequences. More than 100000 died immediatly because of bombs, but:
"The A-bomb radiation kills humans in two ways: 1) high-level radiation released by explosion pierces the human body from the outside and destroys many organs simultaneously, causing death to victims, and 2) radiation from radioactive substances taken into the human body turns oxygen molecules in bodily fluid into activated oxygen, which in turn damages chromosomes in cells, resulting in diseases and subsequent death. (...) Within a few days of the bombing, many people died after exhibiting such violent symptoms as high fever, diarrhea, vomiting, bleeding from mucous membranes, vomiting blood, bloody stool, and gangrene of palatal membranes. This continued for months." (I suggest you to read these memories of a Japanese Army medical officer stationed in the Hiroshima Military Hospital http://www.wcpeace.org/Hida bio.htm and http://www.wcpeace.org/Hida memoir.htm)
And there still is consequences today with malformations and genetic diseases. I don't say japanese militarians did not do awfull things as well. But nothing could have justified that.
neverknow2
Right after you ask all the Korean people who are have families living in Japan for 3 generations yet still are forced to carry an alien card, as to why their families are in Japan in the first place? I'll give you the answer now: Slavery
sfjp330
Jan210;
Who did it first? Japan asked for the war. Ask the surviors of Manchuria, Nanking, Manila, etc. of Japanese Military as to how nice they were to their children between 1931-1945.
tmarie
I'd be happy with an apology IF the Japanese would apologise to all the folks they've wronged in the past. We could start with Pearl Harbour, move onto the Koreans, the Chinese, the Indonesians... But I highly douby that will happen. They can play the "bomb" victim card all they want but until they recognize what their country did they just sound like spoiled children throwing hissy fits.
thedeath
there is, but it is too hard to do for the people too coward to accept their wrongdoing in past.
if japanese just say sorry, say it many time, every year, doing something to show that japanese are really sorry. stop pretend to be a victim of the war, and stop asking anyone fore apology but only offer apology to the world for what wrong you have done.
it will take time but i am sure, at the end people will be more than happy to accept your sorry and forgive then recognize your side of war and move on. just like what Germany has done and what people did forgive them. but i know it hard for a coward to admit their own mistaken.