[andyt]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

andyt andyt:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Expecting an apology for those actions makes about as much sense as you or I apologizing for the treatment of First Nations people that happened before we were born, or actions carried out by someone else. Waiting for that apology doubly so.

Time to move on.

It would be admitting our history, and that we fucked them over, making us quit pretending that there is no history. It can be a way to get past the grievances.

No. Admitting our history, that we intended to fuck them over so we didn't fuck ourselves over harder isn't an admission that we were somehow 'wrong'. We don't apologize for Hiroshima, Coventry or Dresden. They were what they were. Once everyone remembers that "Total War" requires things like these, we can all move on. That's why the Geneva Conventions were enacted, so there would never have to be Total War again.

I was talking about our treatment of FNs. We were at total war with them?

[DrCaleb]

In order to be writing about a subject, you actually have to write using your out loud fingers, not just with your inside voice.

You didn't write anything about FNs.

[andyt]

No, you did, and were in fact the only group you mentioned.

[DrCaleb]

andyt andyt:

No, you did, and were in fact the only group you mentioned.

I mentioned them as an example of historical apologies that make no sense for me to offer. I guess you missed all the Japanese/Germans/English in the first paragraph too.

[raydan]

Conspiracy theories...

[Freakinoldguy]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

Besides, when they pay reparations to the people who's lives they destroyed then they can have a pass but until that happens they can go fuck themselves because they're hypocrites preaching peace while denying history.

Apologizing for Pearl Harbour or Hiroshima is to deny history. They happened. They were also thought to be the best strategic targets available at the time. Obama didn't do Hiroshima any more than Abe did Pearl Harbour. It was their predecessors who thought they were doing the right thing at the time.

Expecting an apology for those actions makes about as much sense as you or I apologizing for the treatment of First Nations people that happened before we were born, or actions carried out by someone else. Waiting for that apology doubly so.

Time to move on.

And yet the Government on our behalf which had nothing to do with any of the supposed injustices for all these groups has apologised numerous time and paid reparations.

So, I'm sorry to say but the optics are that it's only time to move on when the perpetrator isn't white.

[herbie]

Before you play the rce card, you should consider what you're discussing.
You apologize when you know YOU fucked up.
Like we did with FNs, Chinese head tax and internment of Japanese-Canadians.

If you're Japanese - my previous post wasn't all sarcasm. They fucked up missing the US carriers in Hawaii. They intended to start a war, so they didn't fuck up and don't think they have a reason to apologize.
Should the USA apologize for Iraq? For it's VietNam involvement?
Should Israel apologize for 1967?
Or better the Arabs for the Yom Kippur war that they lost?
Should Argentina apologize for the Falkland War?

[Freakinoldguy]

herbie herbie:

Before you play the rce card, you should consider what you're discussing.
You apologize when you know YOU fucked up.
Like we did with FNs, Chinese head tax and internment of Japanese-Canadians.

So you're saying that the atrocities committed in the name of the Emperor were okay because they didn't think they fucked up?

I'll call bullshit on that. You'd have to be a completely depraved human being or society to actually think that what they did to the non combatants was acceptable even by 1941 Japanese standards.

I realise nobody apologises for going to war which is fine but, what countries and regimes have to apologize for is the non war related atrocities they committed like the Holocaust, the Korean Comfort girls, the genocide in Rawanda, the maltreatment of POW's and all conquered peoples and the list goes on and on.

So, if you think I'm playing the race card because I'm white your wrong, the Japanese raped an murdered one hell of alot more Asian non combatants than whites and if you think that those atrocities don't need someone to step up and accept responsibility for then you're in as big a state of denial as the Japanese.

If the Germans were expected to apologize for the Holocaust why the hell should the Japanese be given a pass for their atrocities. So I'll say it again. The optics are that only the white races should be made to apologize for atrocities committed to non combatants.

Here's an interesting article which I think explains the issue alot more succinctly
that I can.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor ... 9d9a4368e9

[DrCaleb]

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

Besides, when they pay reparations to the people who's lives they destroyed then they can have a pass but until that happens they can go fuck themselves because they're hypocrites preaching peace while denying history.

Apologizing for Pearl Harbour or Hiroshima is to deny history. They happened. They were also thought to be the best strategic targets available at the time. Obama didn't do Hiroshima any more than Abe did Pearl Harbour. It was their predecessors who thought they were doing the right thing at the time.

Expecting an apology for those actions makes about as much sense as you or I apologizing for the treatment of First Nations people that happened before we were born, or actions carried out by someone else. Waiting for that apology doubly so.

Time to move on.

And yet the Government on our behalf which had nothing to do with any of the supposed injustices for all these groups has apologised numerous time and paid reparations.

So, I'm sorry to say but the optics are that it's only time to move on when the perpetrator isn't white.

Like Herbie said, it's one thing to take civilians and put them in Residential Schools and intentionally try to end them and their culture or lock them in internment camps, it's another to burn cities during a state of total war. Something the Geneva Conventions now prohibit.

And you'll notice the Government of Canada has not apologized nor offered reparations for Residential Schools in Newfound and Labrador that were run by the Catholic Church, not the Government of Canada. Nor should they.

[bootlegga]

Thanos Thanos:

Can we finally let this shit go after 70 years please? We've already got the Germans committing national suicide via mass immigration of Muslims thanks to the last three generations of them being filled up with guilt and self-loathing thanks to what great-grandpa did in WW2. Do we really need the Japanese to be doing the same? These countries are civilized and we might actually need them to contribute against the darkness of Islam. We won the damn war and they lost. Why isn't that enough?

That is exactly the reason why the Americans didn't make them pay reparations or apologize for all the atrocities they committed in World War 2 - they needed a bulwark against the Commies, especially after mainland China fell to Mao in 1949.

Unlike the Germans who de-Nazified and apologized over and over, the Japanese essentially got off scot-free in that department because they were provided a strong force against Communism in the Far East (not to mention dozens of bases).

Further, the right wing nationalists over there have altered numerous textbooks to make it sound like Japan was a victim, not the aggressor, in World War 2, and only fought the US to protect people being brutalized by American & European imperialists. Many Japanese actually believe that the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was for real, not just a renamed Japanese Empire.

Japan has refused to apologize to anyone: vets, comfort women, victims of Unit 731/Nanjing, China or other nations, etc for its conduct - and in Asia, memories run long and many nations still have an underlying current of anti-Japanese sentiment for that very reason. China lost between twenty and thirty million people during World War 2 directly due to Japan's actions and the lack of a sincere apology is one reason why every few years anti-Japanese riots break out in Chinese cities.

I agree that we don't need to hold their heels to to fire over Pearl Harbor, which IMHO was a legitimate military target, but I refuse to whitewash history and pretend - like most Japanese do - that tens of millions of people didn't die because of their actions or that they didn't perpetrate atrocities.

[Lemmy]

s

[BartSimpson]

When I was over to Japan in 1983 to visit my brother in Hachioji there were a couple guys my age who seriously thought that the US was the aggressor in the war and that the bombing attacks across Japan and the nukes were because the US was jealous of Japan's ascendancy.

They seriously knew nothing of Pearl Harbor or Japan's military adventures in China and the Pacific region. And these were guys who were 18-20 at the time.

Not much has changed because their Japanese language history sites all focus on the nukes and say almost nothing about why those nukes were used in the first place.

[2Cdo]

Remember that old saying, "Those that don't know, or forget, their history are doomed to repeat it."

[DrCaleb]

2Cdo 2Cdo:

Remember that old saying, "Those that don't know, or forget, their history are doomed to repeat it."

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme" - Mark Twain

[Thanos]

It's somewhat difficult to take China's outrage seriously. Yes, the Japanese killed millions of Chinese. But when Mao took over the Communists then killed up to 60 million of their own people, mostly through starvation as the multiple agrarian reform plans failed but also lots through political revenge. When they do things like that, with basically an "oh well, omelettes require broken eggs" attitude it's easy to say that their own concern for human life is basically a crock. I'd be among those who tell the Japanese to go stuff themselves with their whining over Hiroshima and Nagasaki but let's not pretend that the Japanese attitude towards their victims was any worse or more remarkable than the general attitude in east Asia that's existed for centuries. There's no good guys over there than there is anywhere else on the rest of the damn planet.