Essay talk:Japanese war crimes

So why are they allowed to get away with it, exactly?

I suspect anime tits have something to do with it.UncleHo (talk) 05:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I know I'm feeding the troll, but the bizarreness of your little rant has intrigued me.

By your logic, why do we love the British, after all, they once had a huge Empire that was imposed, enforced and governed by violence. Why for that matter do we like Americans; they kept slaves after all. Why not rail against Serbs - look what they did to start WW1.

Also, I'm amazed that you think a bunch of people who sit around watching cartoons have some sort of Machiavellian influence over foreign policy and people's points of view. --Ψ GremlinZungumza! 09:04, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

If you think I have any love for the British Empire, you are totally wrong. Their war crimes are also seriously overlooked by history. The thing is, at least the British have the "it happened a long time ago" excuse. What do the Japanese have, except willful denialism?UncleHo (talk) 22:52, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The poor medical ethics of Green Cross is not unique to former facists and war criminals. There are plenty of examples of tainted blood scandels all over the world.

And this might seem a little PC, but 'Mongoloid'? Seriously?AMassiveGay (talk) 12:36, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

It's a term for people from Asia. It's a little archaic, I guess? The negative connotations the word would hold in Britain don't exist in America.UncleHo (talk) 22:52, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

If you asked me what a mongoloid was, I'd guess someone from Mongolia. For some reason I reckon this quote comes from an American, "I had seen the movie two weeks ago, and really its about the fact that Precious was molested by her daddy. And had a Mongoliod, I dont wanna give it all of it away. It was a powerful movie and the lead characters should get some merit."[1] I think that is what they called the baby with Down's syndrome, in the movie Precious. I believe the American term you are looking for there is "Asian". Unicow (talk) 19:41, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Do be serious

When or how should people be punished? Certain punishments have the disadvantage that they motivate or require the punishee to be a parasite rather than a symbiotic organism. When the good people depend on the bad ones for some essential service, be it security, medicine, etc, we may be obligated to overlook some misdeeds in order to start/keep them working for our mutual benefit. Fines usually don't have this problem, so long as the fined entity can pay off the dept and they believe they have an interest in doing so. Same is true for any "punishment" or attempted reconciliation, that doesn't keep someone from "working". Unicow (talk) 20:48, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, it would be pretty hard to punish men who are dead, I am just wondering why this issue is never discussed, not taught to children in history classes and still totally denied by the Japanese government. Revisionist literature claiming glorious mother Nippon was a victim of western imperialiam and simply attempted to hold China in it's embrace is a consistent top seller in Japan, and they have censored their war crimes from the history books.

Why do they get a free pass? The only reason I can think of is that the west is in love with Japanese culture and lets them skate by on giant robots and questionable pedophilia while living people still remember the Rape of Nanjing.UncleHo (talk) 21:41, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I thought you were joking about the anime connection, but just in case you are actually serious, there are two much easier and more obvious explanations for this:

• Ignorance. Westerners in general aren't very concerned with and informed about East Asian history. They might remember atrocities that were committed against their own, like POW mistreatment. But if you'd ask a thousand Americans or Europeans what the rape of Nanjing was, I'd be massively surprised if more than a quarter were able to give the correct answer. Likewise, they'll always remember Pearl Harbour, but the Manchurian and Marco Polo bridge "incidents"? Probably not so much.
• International Politics. The Japanese were "on our team" during the Cold War, while the Chinese were on the wrong side until the mid-seventies. Why pressure an ally to confront its uncomfortable past and revisit atrocities committed against a country that's now an enemy? Especially when, as pointed out above, your own people are uninformed and accordingly unlikely to voice moral outrage and call for diplomatic pressure. Consider Turkey: did anybody ever bother about what happened to the Armenians, a genocide that happened almost a century ago, while it was still an important Cold War ally?

There might be some people who are so enamored with anything Japanese that they don't want to hear about the dark side of its history, but that's a tiny minority. The problem is within Japan itself - there's never been a progressive, post-nationalist government or strong social movement that could've effectively tackled these issues. Nationalism is still a legitimate force in Japanese politics, and pandering to revisionists is nowhere near as risky as in, say, Western Europe. Its integration within the region and the frequency of cross-border exchanges are also mch, much less pronounced as in the case of Germany - Japan is an insular nation not just in the obvious geographical sense. This kind of isolation makes it much easier for conservative and reactionary elites to promote nationalist propaganda and keep the history books free from all the unpleasant stains. Röstigraben (talk) 22:08, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

The Japanese government, from what I can make out, has always been that it accepts moral responsibility for its actions during the war (though many think this does not amount to an apology) but denies any legal responsibility. I would assume that since Macarthur gave those in Unit 731 immunity from prosecution (for their bio weapon expertise, as I believe you touched on) Japan obviously aren't going to admit a crime took place (the one instance at the Tokyo War Crimes tribunal was dimissed). The soviets held their own tribunals, and a great many of Unit 731 were convicted.

Rosti sums it up well why we do not hear so much of these things to day, plus new values though it does get mentioned quiet often in the news (certainly it does on the Beeb anyway).

As for people's ignorance, going by the UK's teaching of history (atrocious at best) that's not surprising. I would say just as many in the UK know as little of the harrowing of the north as of the rape of Nanking. I suspect alot of folks history comes from hollywood movies which clearly have US centred focus. As far as I am aware it would be hard to have patriotic US flick about Japanese being beastly to the chinese (as a film fan, I am often dismayed at the lack of mainstream films portraying anything but the Allied experience of WWII).

The Japanese Government refusal to outright apologise for their actions not withstanding, I think it is a little disingenuous to imply that they learned nothing from the experience. Their Pacifist liberal constitution, adopted in 1947 appears to have largely resisted most attempts by conservative and nationalists at amendment.

As for Green Cross and the tainted blood scandal, similar occurences during the same period in Canada, France, and US, to name but a few, would suggest that the safety of blood products was an issue on a more global scale (and still is). To say this is direct result of employing people had involvement in Unit 731 (Masaji Kitano was over 90 years of age when this scandal occured), is to much of a leap to make.

I apologise if this is too rambling, or just bollocks, I not very good at this sort of thing. And I have a cold. AMassiveGay (talk) 04:08, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

If you want to see a good film about the Nanjing massacre, watch City of Life and Death. Needless to say, it is very harrowing. Wéáśéĺóíď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 10:18, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I think people are missing another connection here. The fact of the matter is, most of Hitler's victims were white skinned Europeans (He killed lots of others, who are also forgotten, but that's another can of worms) and therefore the west cared. Kids learn all about the Holocaust. Every year, the holocaust is banged into their heads, how evil it was, how evil the Nazis were. When it came to Japan, it was just some filthy orientals killing each other and the west didn't care. The west is actually pretty consistent in ignoring awful things until they happen to white people.UncleHo (talk) 23:33, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

You have a point but its a two-edged sword. If the West did care more, they would be perceived by Asians as meddling colonialists re-interfering in the internal affairs of two Asian countries. You do realise that despite the butchery and carnage in China and elsewhere, anti-British and anti-French independence groups in Asia viewed the Japanese as liberators. An analogy could be drawn here with the Ukraine during World War II. The Ukrainians welcomed the advancing German army as liberators from the Russian Bolsheviks, unfortunately for them they found out later the Germans weren't there to "liberate". The West inst alone - the Soviet Union, Japan's neighbour could have easily declared war and invaded Japan if they wanted to - they waited until the final few days of the war before doing so. FreeThought (talk) 00:50, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The racial dimension is not that big a factor; after all, "the West" ignored the Irish potato famine and the Holodomor (at least until it became politically expedient to notice it), but did not ignore the Casement Report. ListenerX^TalkerX 03:45, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, the Irish weren't really "white" at the time of the famine. Have you read Noel Ignatiev? P-Foster (talk) 04:11, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Is that the nut who said that John Brown was a white-supremacist? From what I can tell, he was using "white" largely as a synonym for "capitalist oppressor," rather than in its usual sense, according to which the Irish were always considered "white" (some people go so far as to say that this distinction was the source of most American racial strife, it having been used to prevent the Irish and the blacks making common cause in the early colonial U.S.). ListenerX^TalkerX 04:36, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Stay beautiful, baby. P-Foster (talk) 04:39, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I was going to type out a good, well supported response to LX, but P-Foster said it so well I have but this to add: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc0mxOXbWIU&ob=av3elUncleHo (talk) 08:30, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Nice song. I find the debates more interesting than the essays. Is it because they are "light skinned Europeans" or because they were Jews? German germans (sic) are light skinned Europeans as were many others who were said to have been exterminated by the Nazis. According to Ben Stein, Jews have about 60% of the higher possitions in the media. I forget where I heard that a large number of politicians are Jewish and one of the most well funded lobbies is a Zionist one. (One never knows how they will count half-jews. Obama is "black" even though he is pretty light skinned and half white.) Is the evidence that 6 million Jews were intentionally killed (in gas chambers), well founded. and is this unique among genocides, as has been claimed? The Ukranian and Irish examples, are not so "clearly" murder, like gassing people would be. Phoney (talk) 17:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

There is quite a bit of debate as to whether or not the famines in Ukraine and in Ireland are genocide. Certainly the effects were the same as genocide. A better scholar than me would need to answer that one. AMassiveGay (talk) 17:47, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

And sadly, the Holocaust was not unique in any meaningful way. AMassiveGay (talk) 17:58, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

UncleHo was not referring to genocides, but to "awful things." I must maintain my skepticism that this "good, well-supported response" of UncleHo's ever existed, given that he joined P-Foster in failing actually to respond to the last of my posts. ListenerX^TalkerX 18:41, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Stay beautiful, baby. P-Foster (talk) 18:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I assume this continued lack of response is because you cannot plausibly deny that Prof. Ignatiev used "white" in the sense of the social construct, rather than the sense that was used historically as a fig-leaf for said social construct? ListenerX^TalkerX 18:57, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I gave up arguing on the internet after the last heart attack. No good for my blood pressure. You said something that reminded me of a book I read a few years back, I threw it out as a "hey you might find this interesting." I'm not really invested beyond that point. Really. Stay beautiful. It works for you. P-Foster (talk) 19:23, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you know of another genocide where 6 million were rounded up and executed (assuming that number is accurate)? Of particular interest would be one that was actively supported by the US or Britain, where most RW seem to be from. Unicow (talk) 20:06, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I prefer to avoid the comparative atrocity numbers game, but 10% of Rwanda was hacked to death with machetes in 1994, while the US and GB sat on their thumbs. Some genocide scholars point to Indonesia in 1965 as one example of US collusion with genocide; East Timor might be another good case. The US supported the Khmer Rouge claim to the UN seat for Cambodia over the provisional gummint that the Vietnamese installed even they knew what the KR had done. P-Foster (talk) 20:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

In the Rwandan case, if I recall correctly, the U.S. and U.K. were overcompensating to avoid being called by such names as "imperialistic meddlers," which had been attached to them after the U.S. bungled an intervention in Somalia. They unfortunately had not learned that that is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" sort of thing.

There were about 15 million deaths in the Congo Free State before the situation there was exposed in the Casement Report, and a large number of those were believed to be deliberate killings. The tenures of Mao and Stalin also saw deliberate killings in the seven figures.

The British, of course, were also responsible for some amount of nastiness during the 1857 Indian Mutiny; there seems to be a lack of official figures on the matter, but reports of the goings-on eventually led to the British crown taking the reins from the East India Company. ListenerX^TalkerX 20:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Re to P-Foster 20:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

"The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 850,000 people".[2] The occupation of East Timor is said to have been supported by the US, by sending them military equipment (not sure if they knew what they were going to do with it). "The occupation claimed between 102,800 and 183,000 East Timorese lives, out of a population of less than 700,000."[3] Perhaps the Holocaust is more noteworthy because the murder of 6 million would be worse than whatever happened with the Japanese? Or maybe it is because there are/were more Nazis/"racists" in America/UK as compared with Japanese imperialists, so there is not as much need for "education" regarding the Japanese? Unicow (talk) 20:40, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Is the question "why does the Holocaust loom larger in our collective awareness than do the Japanese atrocities?" I think numbers has nothing to do with it--as ListenerX, myself and others have pointed out, there's a pretty long list of horrors, and if you think in terms of proportions as opposed to absolute numbers, some really horrifying stuff happened. I think there's a lot at play besides numbers--racist societies like our own expected the Japanese to be barbarians more than we did the country of Kant and Bach, for sure, and while the Jews may have been the eternal scapegoat, they were also Europeans and had spokespeople and representatives in the West in a way that Koreans, Pacific Islanders, etc. etc. did not. I think it's pretty hard for Americans to really get worked up about the historical fate of people who live in countries we can't find on a map. Most of us know where Poland is, and even know some Poles, Dutch, whatever--Jewish or otherwise. I think you have to consider as well, and this might be the most important thing, the difference in intent. there's a big difference between killing a bunch of people for whatever reason and the calculated and explicit attempt to eliminate a group for no other reason that the group exists. yes, the Japanese committed massacres, worked folks to death, etc. etc. But I don't know that they subscribed to the kind of eliminationist racialism that drove the attempt to exterminate the Jews as such. P-Foster (talk) 20:55, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

They had no Mein Kampf, but the Japanese equivalent concept was known as "leading race" (shidō minzoku). The central concept was one of nobility and purity, and thus by extension anything not Japanese was considered impure and barbaric. The militant nationalism of the country was a result of implementing hakkō ichiu, or "Eight Corners of the World Under One Roof," - the subjugation of all other Asians and the replacement of Anglo-American hegemony with a new divine Japanese world order. There is a chapter called "Race, Language, and War in Two Cultures" by John Dower in The World War Two Reader (2004) which discusses why Japan invaded China. FreeThought (talk) 21:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Supporting the best nation, city, community, or family

We might be able to get some people to hold some people accountable, but that is the frustrating endevor of trying to get other people to do something (they don't want to do). We have more control over who we trade with and we are always trading large sums of money in order to survive, etc. We could do business with those who are the most benevolent, instead of who we are probably doing business with now. For example, if we move to the most benevolent country, we would pay property/income tax to those governments instead. Where would that be?

Business & trade don't really work like that. Neither does tax. Please try to sign your comments. Wěǎšěǐǒǐď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 11:45, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean. We decide who to pay tax to or trade with. It doesn't require a group effort. We could begin building benevolent communities today. It is more difficult to force the Japanese or anyone else to believe something they are unwilling to believe. Phoney (talk) 16:11, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't decide to who I pay tax to. The government just takes it. AMassiveGay (talk) 17:22, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

If you work for them. Often they have fairly large "monopolies", but you can reduce consumption and thus reduce the amount of tax this way also. Here all you have to do is stay below the poverty income level, and you have no federal income tax. I don't image most places have strict laws requiring citizens to pay tax on barters, gift economies, or cash exchanges between non-business entities. They are extortionists, but who has a better plan? Who has a plan that has worked? No amount of complaining will fix anything unless someone has a better idea. Unicow (talk) 20:18, 23 January 2011 (UTC)