Jean-michel Levy comments

Japan is certainly not the only country where medics are ostracised and threatened because of the virus.

Many French people applaud doctors and nurses every night at 8 in the streets of Paris, but others have the

same hateful irrational behaviour that is described in this paper. The offenders should be treated with utmost

severity.

Sorry, but "the first known security breach at the White House since Trump took office nearly two months ago" was when Trump took office nearly two months ago..

One of the great things about Japan is that she does not cut on her scientific research programs even when the economical prospects are not brilliant. It is, unfortunately, a widely spread, quasi-pavlovian reflex even in supposedly advanced countries like Britain or France to use scientific budgets as adjustment variables. And it is stupid because it does comprise seriously the future while sparing very little money in view of the tiny fraction of the overall state expenses that science represents.

@sfjp330 Who said the contrary ? What is messed up is the perception that the Japanese people have of this part of the history. And that is mainly due to the whitewashing of the guy who was supposed to incarnate Japan. In the spirit of these times, if he wasn't guilty, then none of those who blindly obeyed him and were ready to give their life for him, could be guilty. 70 years of peace and prosperity do not solve this problem..just look here above !

@Strangerland. Totally agree with what you say. But given the tone used by too many here, I have some doubts and insist.

I suggest that all the Americans who keep demanding apologies from Japanese people suggest (strongly!) that the US government apologizes for spreading Agent Orange on the Vietnamese jungle back in the sixties. There is an interesting article on that subject in the Japan Times these days. People are still fighting the consequences, with many living lives not very different from plants lives because of all the incapacity which was caused by their parents being exposed to this beautiful American invention. If they obtain that from president Obama or his successor, then maybe they might consider again their argument with the government of Japan. In the mean time, they might also consider the effects of another brilliant invention, namely, the whitewashing of the big criminal Hirohito which explains why their present demands for apologies from people who weren't even born at the time seem (and are !) completely incongruous. Unfortunately, reading many of their comments and "explanations" to the Japanese here, I am lead to think that Americans haven't made much progress in psychology since General Mac Arthur started messing it all up.

These guys who ordered their soldiers to die to the last rather than surrender in any situation, these guys who locked up kids in planes packed with explosives and ordered them to crash on allied ships, these guys who used women and children as weapons against the invading force, these guys were not ready to surrender. That's an ENORMOUS LIE and nothing else. It is much more than likely that, for all the horror they caused, the A-bombs saved many more lives than they took. The only perspective of these mad men was either victory or an enormous suicide at the scale of a nation, at least as long as the One who was supposed to 'be' the nation all by himself was alive. That's why after the A bombings the only question ignoble Hirohito asked his generals was whether one could build Him a shelter, capable of withstanding A bombings. It is sad to say so, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki were probably not an error. The big American error which bears poisoned fruits up until now and might continue to do so in the future was to spare criminal number one, to depict him as a victim, to offer him a lifetime golden job and to cheat the Japanese people. That was an American-size pedagogical error. If only one was to be hanged, the Japanese Hitler was the one.

Is it possible to stop distorting facts just for the sake of vindicating your hatred of Abe Shinzo and , for that matter, of many Japanese people whom you just do not understand? Sugihara was not "punished by imperial Japan" as written above, he was dismissed, for economic reasons, by postwar Japan. For all its horrendous crimes against Asian people and allied POW's , imperial Japan has never shown the slightest inclination towards antisemitism, contrary to Hitler's other big ally, fascist Italy. Tojo, then chief of staff of the Kwantung army, took sides with his subordinate who was guilty of having smuggled 20000 Jewish refugees into Mandchukuo. General Higuchi would have been given a - mostly formal- rebuke for his action in about any country on this planet, even though what he did was highly commendable. It is time that you, Americans, understand that you (that is, Gal McArthur), by having whitewashed the main criminal, the principal responsible of the innumerable crimes of his army, are yourself (that is, Gal MacArthur) the main responsible for the confusion which has prevailed ever since in the minds of many Japanese people. For if the semi god who was blindly obeyed by everyone from the prime minister to the last private was not guilty then, who was ?? At the beginning of his trial, Tojo was asked to retract from a statement he had made to the effect that nobody would have dared disobey the emperor. He did so and that only won him the gallows, though he probably wilfully accepted the opportunity he was given to save his master. However, this sparing of Hiro Hito was one of the most stupid moves of the postwar American policy in Japan. By using a blend of tradition and religion, the propaganda had fooled people into thinking that the emperor 'was' Japan. So three things were to be done. Explaining that this miserable guy 'was' not the Japanese people which on the contrary, had been cheated by him, displaying, in a honest and thorough trial, all the crimes which were committed in his name and in the end, hanging him or shutting him away until he died. Instead of that, he was offered a lifetime golden job. Hence Japanese of those times could not consider themselves as responsible . But then, asking the people of today to 'apologize' does not make any sense. Abe was born almost ten years after the end of the war. It is normal for him to want an 'utsukushii nihon' . If he keeps the words of Murayama and Kondo, that's good enough. He doesn't have to issue "his own apologies", only to see that things are taught as they happened to future generations.

The Murayama statement was and must be regarded as a suitable apology and since Abe upholds it, there shouldn't be any problem if C and SK do not try to embark in another round of blackmailing. There isn't any reason to produce another apology provided, of course, the governement of Japan does not try to deny or to soften the crimes of the imperial army in these times. But there obviously is a strong need for much pedagogical improvement in the way history is told to new generations in this country. As has been remarked by Tamarama a big part of the problem comes from Mac Arthur waving HiroHito of any responsability after the war The emperor was identified with Japan and therefore, if he was innocent, so was the country and it's people. The truth is that he was the main culprit, together with a few members of the imperial family. But the japanese people at large was, no doubts, the main victim even if there were many others in many Asian countries. Today, the emperor has no more than an honorific role, but it is still important in the minds of a lot of people. And although Akihito is obviously an intelligent man, open minded and quite opposed to the idiots who would like to see him back on the semi-god throne, he is the son of the guy responsible for what happened in the first half of the past cent ury. Quite a difficult problem...who has an idea ?

Whether or not one approves of the Abe position on the point of revising the constitution of Japan, the comparison is so ridiculous and so outrageous that it is not easy to figure out why it is made to start with. Japanese Abe opponents with non-vanishing IQ should know that they will never convince anybody or gain any vote with this clownish kind of bashing. On the contrary, since they would appear to side with the NK regime which fully deserves the comparison with Nazi Germany, and for that reason, uses it against Abe (as it would with any Japanese leader), they would be bound to lose many supporters. So, clever Abe opponents being excluded, these people can only be of the vanishing IQ species and/or come from some other horizon. The point is that, as remarked by someone else, 10000 people demands organization and funding, which excludes the possibility of a vanishing IQ only demonstration. But these kind of people can very well be (and are routinely) used by clever, well organized and well funded organizers in many parts of the world. Who these people might be in the present case transpires from a remark made above. This, of course, has strictly nothing to do with racism and does not claim to be 'the' answer.

To jerseyboy

-- really. If you knew history, you would know that Hitler was also "democratically" elected, just like Abe. And, just like Abe, it was based on a "modern version and outlook" which was intended to take Germany out of its "difficulties". And, once he had his overwhelming majority in the German Reichstag he had the "freedom to implement" his policies.

If you knew history, you would know that in the very few months following his nomination as chancellor by Hindenburg, Hitler confiscated the power for himself, making his nazi party the only legal one, started prosecuting Jews and communists among others and preparing the re-militarization of Germany. All that with a non-majority in the Reichstag as remarked in your quotation , contrary to Abe who has a large majority from the beginning and whatever the wikipedian 'plurality status' of the nazi party means. Japan should already be at war if your comparison made any sense.

Not all French people like Charlie Hebdo. But there is a point they all understand, in as much as they cherish liberty: it is their duty to fight for the right of Charlie Hebdo to say things or draw cartoons they do not like. Because if today I succeed in forbiding something I don't like from being printed, tomorrow someone else will succeed in forbiding something I like from being printed. And soon there will be nothing to be seen or read or..only the silence. And seing unpleasant things in CH is the price I have to pay in order to garantee my liberty. That's basic democracy. And it is obviously beyond Miyazaki's understanding and completely foreign to Islamists. Silence fits them well. Back to the Middle Ages.

That's half a billion yen spent by Japan against Japan. The most idiotic move one has ever heard of.

Unless they have some very special plan in head, the stupidity of these people is amazing. And they must be totally ignorant about american ways if they believe they have any chance to persuade McGraw Hill to change what everyone knows to be true in their books. What do they expect ? That the people of the world will start luing to please Japan, or that the ideas they are trying to impose against all evidence will become "historical facts" the Soviet way ? Apart from a few surviving criminals among the so-called doctors who vivisected prisonners, the people of today's Japan are not responsible for the crimes of the Hirohito gang more than seventy years ago. Neither is the Abe governement responsible for them. So why this ridiculous insistance ? In Europe, people are well aware of German atrocities in WW.II And they won't forget ! But they do not hold present day Germans responsible for them and they never use them as anti-German "weapons". German governements have once and for all recognised the facts and atoned for them. Apart from a few extreme right-wing of the neo-nazi type, nobody in Germany thinks of denying them and that allows for good relations between Germany and other European countries. No shadows of the past. The same could be true in Asia if only stupid Japanese revisionists didn't try to force people into some sort of Orwellian newspeak type of game. That was fiction guys, humans are not yet the fools you dream of. Forget it. ****