Anonymous wrote:Read the "Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang. Several missionaries living in Nanking reported the atrocities against the Chinese yet nothing was done. Iris Chang received death threats for her book.

It's an important work. I know it was initially forbidden in Japan.

Is it still so?

There is no serious debate I'm aware of that the Japanese military carried out war crimes on a massive scale in Nanking, as well as other parts of China, Korea, and elsewhere.

Today's Japanese population should be educated on their past. Not as punishment, but as education in the hope that they never repeat such atrocities.

Read the "Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang. Several missionaries living in Nanking reported the atrocities against the Chinese yet nothing was done. Iris Chang received death threats for her book.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only surprise here is that there has been any acknowledgement of war crimes by the Japanese.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3028694/U-S-POWs-shot-Japan-70-years-ago-dissected-ALIVE-macabre-experiments-controversial-new-exhibition-shows.html

Up to now, the Japanese' only regret about the war seems to be that they lost.

Contrast that with Germany, where war criminals are sought out and put on official trial; there is no attempt to hide from the terrible past (which they teach their kids about as a lesson to never repeat).

We should probably have nuked Tokyo first and executed the emperor as a war criminal. Japanese treatment of POWs was attrocious - even worse than the Nazis treatment of allied POWs. They still mostly deny the Nanking massacre and that they systematicaly gang raped Korean women.

OP, dropping bombs in wartime shouldn't be an act of revenge but as a means to end the war. The emperor surrendered 3 days after Nagasaki. (http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki)

- he was forced to surrender TWO WEEKS and three days after Hiroshima.

And I agree it should not be about revenge. But it often is. Dresden was revenge.

Yes, the second bomb convinced him. Dresden and Coventry were both revenge.

OP seems to forget that the US sat back and let Europe waged a war while people were being carted off to concentration camps. We only got into it after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. If we had intervened earlier it might have gone differently/ended sooner. No way of knowing. Unfortunately the decision makers aren't really the ones who pay:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/BattleOfShanghaiBaby.gif

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/17/1a/d3/171ad336d7a07a2193eaca51c53a2f38.jpg

But truly US treatment of prisoners post 9/11 has been shameful. We know torture doesn't work and breeds contempt and creates more terrorists.

Yes, truly no way of knowing. Our Post WWI military was not in good shape and the political winds against intervention were pretty strong.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only surprise here is that there has been any acknowledgement of war crimes by the Japanese.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3028694/U-S-POWs-shot-Japan-70-years-ago-dissected-ALIVE-macabre-experiments-controversial-new-exhibition-shows.html

Up to now, the Japanese' only regret about the war seems to be that they lost.

Contrast that with Germany, where war criminals are sought out and put on official trial; there is no attempt to hide from the terrible past (which they teach their kids about as a lesson to never repeat).

We should probably have nuked Tokyo first and executed the emperor as a war criminal. Japanese treatment of POWs was attrocious - even worse than the Nazis treatment of allied POWs. They still mostly deny the Nanking massacre and that they systematicaly gang raped Korean women.

OP, dropping bombs in wartime shouldn't be an act of revenge but as a means to end the war. The emperor surrendered 3 days after Nagasaki. (http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki)

- he was forced to surrender TWO WEEKS and three days after Hiroshima.

And I agree it should not be about revenge. But it often is. Dresden was revenge.

Yes, the second bomb convinced him. Dresden and Coventry were both revenge.

OP seems to forget that the US sat back and let Europe waged a war while people were being carted off to concentration camps. We only got into it after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. If we had intervened earlier it might have gone differently/ended sooner. No way of knowing. Unfortunately the decision makers aren't really the ones who pay:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/BattleOfShanghaiBaby.gif

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/17/1a/d3/171ad336d7a07a2193eaca51c53a2f38.jpg

But truly US treatment of prisoners post 9/11 has been shameful. We know torture doesn't work and breeds contempt and creates more terrorists.

Anonymous wrote:And I agree it should not be about revenge. But it often is. Dresden was revenge.

Dresden wasn't revenge.

The Soviets asked the British and Americans to attack cities in eastern Germany to hinder German troop movements, and the British and Americans said OK, we will do that.

Certainly took them long enough. I was disgusted after reading "Unbroken." What animals!

I recommend The Forgotten Highlander. The British tried to silence these men after the war. Horrible.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only surprise here is that there has been any acknowledgement of war crimes by the Japanese.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3028694/U-S-POWs-shot-Japan-70-years-ago-dissected-ALIVE-macabre-experiments-controversial-new-exhibition-shows.html

Up to now, the Japanese' only regret about the war seems to be that they lost.

Contrast that with Germany, where war criminals are sought out and put on official trial; there is no attempt to hide from the terrible past (which they teach their kids about as a lesson to never repeat).

We should probably have nuked Tokyo first and executed the emperor as a war criminal. Japanese treatment of POWs was attrocious - even worse than the Nazis treatment of allied POWs. They still mostly deny the Nanking massacre and that they systematicaly gang raped Korean women.

OP, dropping bombs in wartime shouldn't be an act of revenge but as a means to end the war. The emperor surrendered 3 days after Nagasaki. (http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki)

- he was forced to surrender TWO WEEKS and three days after Hiroshima.

And I agree it should not be about revenge. But it often is. Dresden was revenge.

Anonymous wrote:OP, dropping bombs in wartime shouldn't be an act of revenge but as a means to end the war. The emperor surrendered 3 days after Nagasaki. (http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki)

Nah, revenge is good too.

If you attack us by surprise and mistreat our prisoners, we should pay you back with interest.

Like National Lampoon said... "no hard feelings"

Anonymous wrote:The only surprise here is that there has been any acknowledgement of war crimes by the Japanese.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3028694/U-S-POWs-shot-Japan-70-years-ago-dissected-ALIVE-macabre-experiments-controversial-new-exhibition-shows.html

Up to now, the Japanese' only regret about the war seems to be that they lost.

Contrast that with Germany, where war criminals are sought out and put on official trial; there is no attempt to hide from the terrible past (which they teach their kids about as a lesson to never repeat).

We should probably have nuked Tokyo first and executed the emperor as a war criminal. Japanese treatment of POWs was attrocious - even worse than the Nazis treatment of allied POWs. They still mostly deny the Nanking massacre and that they systematicaly gang raped Korean women.

OP, dropping bombs in wartime shouldn't be an act of revenge but as a means to end the war. The emperor surrendered 3 days after Nagasaki. (http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki)

Anonymous wrote:This has been known for decades. Despicable acts.

True for most in the US.

But that isn't the case in Japan where they have failed to openly acknowledge the full extent of their crimes or engage in a continuing honest dialog about their past.

Worst of all, they don't adequately teach their children what happened and why it happened - suggesting they are at risk of repeating the same mistakes that led them into disaster.

One of their great societal faults is racism; they have a long way to go in confronting their attitudes.

This has been known for decades. Despicable acts.

Truth is somewhere between the first two posts. There have been apologies, but there has also been an increase in rhetoric of some of the political leaders in Japan that suggest a reluctance to accept the past.

Case in point, as recently as January the prime minister expressed outrage at a U.S. history textbook that describes the Japanese practice of forcing Korean women to be "comfort women".

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/world/asia/japans-premier-disputes-us-textbooks-portrayal-of-comfort-women.html?_r=0

Certainly took them long enough. I was disgusted after reading "Unbroken." What animals!

Anonymous wrote:The only surprise here is that there has been any acknowledgement of war crimes by the Japanese.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3028694/U-S-POWs-shot-Japan-70-years-ago-dissected-ALIVE-macabre-experiments-controversial-new-exhibition-shows.html

Up to now, the Japanese' only regret about the war seems to be that they lost.

Contrast that with Germany, where war criminals are sought out and put on official trial; there is no attempt to hide from the terrible past (which they teach their kids about as a lesson to never repeat).

We should probably have nuked Tokyo first and executed the emperor as a war criminal. Japanese treatment of POWs was attrocious - even worse than the Nazis treatment of allied POWs. They still mostly deny the Nanking massacre and that they systematicaly gang raped Korean women.

This is patently untrue. Wikipedia has an entire list of apologies, categorized by decade: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan

The only surprise here is that there has been any acknowledgement of war crimes by the Japanese.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3028694/U-S-POWs-shot-Japan-70-years-ago-dissected-ALIVE-macabre-experiments-controversial-new-exhibition-shows.html

Up to now, the Japanese' only regret about the war seems to be that they lost.

Contrast that with Germany, where war criminals are sought out and put on official trial; there is no attempt to hide from the terrible past (which they teach their kids about as a lesson to never repeat).

We should probably have nuked Tokyo first and executed the emperor as a war criminal. Japanese treatment of POWs was attrocious - even worse than the Nazis treatment of allied POWs. They still mostly deny the Nanking massacre and that they systematicaly gang raped Korean women.