More On the Issue of Japan's WWII Comfort Stations

[sechan19]

Earlier this week, I touched on the news item that Japan's prime minister, Abe Shinzo, had been edging around the tense issue of the Japanese military's involvement in the comfort stations of World War II.

There's an excellent editorial in this morning's Los Angeles Times, written by a professor of law at George Washington University, discussing the Japanese prime minister's attempt to deny that the Japanese military took part in the comfort stations that were established to service soldiers during World War II. She gives a very good overview of some of the historical facts surrounding the case, as well as the Japanese government's history of trying to sidestep these facts.

Highly recommended reading.

Japan Can't Dodge This Shame (LA Times)

Comments

Re: Hello

[reteva.livejournal.com]

Always glad to hear from you, muroku!

I quite agree with you on Japan's position of justification. There's another article I'll be posting later today that follows up on this issue. While each nation in the world has its own demons to wrestle with, and its own mistakes to atone for, such mistakes do not represent a carte blanche of justification for any other nation. Yes, China has done terrible things to its own people and to the people of Tibet and quite possibly to the people of Taiwan in the near future. But - as you quite rightly point out - that does not change what Japan did. The slaughter of 40,000 innocent civilians in Nanjing cannot be whitewashed by anything. It was wrong, and Japan ought to make amends for it. End of story.

I've had my eye on the country ever since Abe became prime minister, and what I've seen since his ascension worries me greatly. I guess we'll see what we see.