Clint Eastwood's RED SUN, BLACK SAND

[Lincsong]

Oh please, let's remember that Japan was the agressor in the war. How the regular Japanese soldier thought or behaved is of little matter. The Japanese were psychotic during the war. This moral relativism that they were just regular Kenji's like the American Joe's is utter nonsense. The Japanese did not commit mere autrocities; they were cold blooded, remorseless, killers bent on world domination. They were motivated by a sense of racial superiority and that all should bow to them. Sure, it would be good to have a movie based on what they saw and their perspective; but, don't do it as though they were some 19 year old from Steamboat Springs, CO. Make a movie on the facts, not fantasy.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Of course we can say that Japan was barbaric during the period 1931-1945. We can even go further back to 1910 and their actions in Korea.

Lincsong is right. The Japanese imperial dictatorship and its army was barbaric to its own soldiers, to those it fought and conquered, and to any "race" that "offended" its sense of superiority. Even after Japan's defeat, it continued to mistreat (or simply ignore) its victims. Chiune Sugihara -- perhaps the bravest, most ethical Japanese diplomat during WWII -- was shunned by the government he served. The very fact that this man, a member of the Samurai class, existed proves that the Japanese Empire's policy of brutality was a choice, not a destiny. Sugihara chose the hero's way. God bless him. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugihara


.

 

[Clyde R.]

Marc raised a very good point about the path chosen by Japan. Could have gone a different way.

To all of you who maintain that "all war is barabaric" and all nations are guilty of some crime sometime, I guess to some extent I agree. However, I wish to point out that I think the SCALE of Japanese cruelty and yes, barbarism is unknown to our modern generation.

Story posted some good examples of brutality and war crimes. Keep in mind that in occupied China, MILLIONS of Chinese were murdered, tortured, and starved to death by the Japanese who regarded them as sub-human. Sound familar...yep, just like the Nazis. It is estimated that after the American Doolittle raid on Tokyo in 1942 the Japanese killed an estimated 200,000 Chinese in reprisal. Of course Unit 731 performed hideous "medical" experiments on Chinese and allied POWS and civillians including vivisection where the patients were operated on and mutilated while they were alive. This was not a rogue doctor, but a fully supported official program.

I guess we're not going to change anybodys mind on this, I just wish people were more cognizant of the horrors that were perpetrated in the name of Emperor Hirohito. Nobody- well almost nobody- disputes the evil of Adolf Hitler and his minions. As soon as someone mentions the Japanese in WWII and their crimes, the discussion shifts to one of "culture differences" and the code of bushido, etc.
Just my .02 guys.

 

[Feraud]

Your whole point of "Political Correctness" stems from the article talking about Eastwood trying to not to offend sensitive area's to the Japanese People in order for him to film on Imo Jima. I believe the Red Sun was actually filmed where Flags was... Not on Imo Jima and Not on Japanese soil.

If this is your point, then wouldn't the whole reason he's making Red Sun is to be politically correct? But the article doesn't say that does it. He's not making a mulit million dollar film to be PC. He's making it to show, there are two sides to every story.

While it is not my whole point, I do believe Eastwood is making this film in part due to P.C. Why else would he feel the need to assure the Japanese government he will not offend anyone's sensibilities? This is not how a filmmaker should behave, especially if he is not filming in that country! This action makes me question his motives.

Another important point that bugs me about this film is the fact that he is making it in counterpoint to Flags of our Fathers. I find this as belittling the effort James Bradley put into writing the book and the effort the American soliders put into fighting on that god forsaken rock.

If the Japanese side needs to be told then wouldn't it be better told by a Japanese citizen?? Who is this American that thinks he is going to get into the Japanese military mindset of the 1940's? Those of us who argue the Japanese military & society were vastly different from our own should be the first ones to point this out! I support a Japanese version of WWII. I think a Japanese filmmaker should make this film. I do not want it running as a "double feature" of Flags. It insults the Marine effort on Iwo Jima.

Can this be an entertaining movie? Yes! Will it accurately show what Eastwood intends to? It could. Only time will tell.

 

[Clyde R.]

Feraud continues to make my point better tnan I could do. Kudos, Feraud.

I will gladly admit that I am always interested in the "other side of the story." Were Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima "young men whose lives were interrupted?"
Yes! Were they doing their duty, too? Yes again. I've read enough diaries and letters from Japanese soldiers stationed on Iwo Jima to appreciate how doomed they were, and how aware of that fact they really were.

BUT, I think it is important that we remember why their lives were interrupted, and why the young Marines sent to take that island from the Japanese had THEIR lives interrupted. It matters. Really.

One of the best examples of telling the "other side of the story" is perhaps Truman Capote's classic non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood and the movie adaptation- the original from 1967. I recently saw the movie Capote and that caused me to revisit the original film. In this film and the great book it is based on, the killers as well as the victims are treated as human beings. We get to know them both. Without getting into a debate on the relative merits of capital punishment- how's that for a hot potato- I'll just say that it is possible to examine both sides of an issue and not lose the essential truth. In the case of In Cold Blood, two losers with big time issues snuff out the life of four innocent, decent people. Is the story of the loser killers compelling? Yes, it is. Does it make their crime any less heinous or stupidly brutal? No.

I hope both of Clint's movies are good. Like Feraud, it just bothers me a bit to think the Flags story HAD to be counter-pointed by the same director. I think Flags could have stood on its own, just as Band of Brothers did. To put this in a different context, how would we have felt if Speilberg and company had said while making B Of Brothers....whoa, we really have two series/movies here! What about the German experience? Wouldn't that have been a little odd?

 

[Lincsong]

I'm still scratching my head as to what has gotten into Eastwood since Unforgiven? All of his movies have been real wishy washy and such.[huh] Of course he's out there to make money. But, what's the real ulterior motive here? I don't want to get into conspiracy theories, but does he really believe half the stuff he's put on film?

 

[Zemke Fan]

This thread has about run its course...

... glad ya'll have kept things civil in your discussion, but I don't think there's much more that can be added until the movies are released. -- ZF

 

[Harley Quinn]

Of course Unit 731 performed hideous "medical" experiments on Chinese and allied POWS and civillians including vivisection where the patients were operated on and mutilated while they were alive. This was not a rogue doctor, but a fully supported official program.

To amplify this comment... most of our knowledge of the breaking strain of living limbs comes from Unit 731... it could actually be argued that, without the data from that project, the Japanese would have faced something akin to Nuremberg... which they didn't... they brokered a better deal with the Allies than the Nazis did, despite the Nazis having the rocket science AND the network of spies in Stalinist Russia... the key to the lack of 'justice' with Japan was something from Unit 731... lots of medical and epidemiological data... Ever wondered why so few Japanese hung? Weponised Germs, Nerve Gas, medical data that a sane man wouldn't WANT to know but we use every day we get into a car with a safety cage or fly a plane... The Nazi medical data was mostly crap... some 'good' (in a scientific sense) work on Hypothermia and explosive decompression, but mostly it was monsters at play. Unit 731 wasn't a game. It was sound science carried out by monsters...

Welcome to part of the collection I call 'Stuff I wish I could "Un-Know"'...

 

[Twitch]

OK one last time. The Imperial Japanese Army in Asia was involved in the most heinous acts of perversion and brutality to even eclipse the Nazi genocide. The Japanese simply pursued the same genocide against the Chinese with biological and chemical compounds. There were facilities all over the country. It wasn't just Unit 731.

Of course in 1937 the dastardly preverse crimes against humaity were perpetrated in Nanking repeatedly over a period of several weeks. This was up close and personal, hands-on perversion rather clinical gassing of masses.

Whatever pyseudo-scientific knowledge was gains about "broken limbs" certainly doesn't excuse the countless live vivisections on prisoners infected with biological or chenical agents. A live vivisection is disection of the people while they were still alive.

Please once and for all know that German scientists were not alone in their import to the US for their knowledge. The US granted immunity to the principals involved in the perverted science. Sanctioned by the likes of MacArthur the knowledge amassed was given to the US for study since bio-chem was the next big thing that interested them.

While executions were carried out upon war criminals the vast majority of the worst Class A criminals got sentences in a place that was akin to a country club rather than a prison. These criminals became the yakuza and every other sordid bunch and industrial group of crooks and cons. Pretty amazing that 2 actually later rose to Prime Minister!

If you want to read my 3 part article go to each site for each part.

www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=729
www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=730
www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=732

 

[Miss Crisplock]

The problem with reality is that is not politically correct.

Being politically correct (formerly known as lying) is amusing for a few, but I beg you to keep it to yourselves.

Japan behaved, and in some ways still behaves in barbaric ways. Let's put it this way - there is no Japanese with Disabilities Act.

 

[Harley Quinn]

OK one last time. The Imperial Japanese Army in Asia was involved in the most heinous acts of perversion and brutality to even eclipse the Nazi genocide. The Japanese simply pursued the same genocide against the Chinese with biological and chemical compounds. There were facilities all over the country. It wasn't just Unit 731.

Of course in 1937 the dastardly preverse crimes against humaity were perpetrated in Nanking repeatedly over a period of several weeks. This was up close and personal, hands-on perversion rather clinical gassing of masses.

Whatever pyseudo-scientific knowledge was gains about "broken limbs" certainly doesn't excuse the countless live vivisections on prisoners infected with biological or chenical agents. A live vivisection is disection of the people while they were still alive.

Please once and for all know that German scientists were not alone in their import to the US for their knowledge. The US granted immunity to the principals involved in the perverted science. Sanctioned by the likes of MacArthur the knowledge amassed was given to the US for study since bio-chem was the next big thing that interested them.

While executions were carried out upon war criminals the vast majority of the worst Class A criminals got sentences in a place that was akin to a country club rather than a prison. These criminals became the yakuza and every other sordid bunch and industrial group of crooks and cons. Pretty amazing that 2 actually later rose to Prime Minister!

If you want to read my 3 part article go to each site for each part.

www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=729
www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=730
www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=732

Who was defending the Japanese here? I didn't see anyone cheering... more pointing out that some dirty deals were brokered by the 'Good' guys for some pretty dirty information... lot of very bad people walked on thanks to 'heroes' who coveted the vile fruit rather than doing what was right. But then, the Truth may be the first casualty of war, but Justice tends to be beaten to a bloody pulp come the peace as people queue to do business with the old enemy...

 

[Twitch]

I wanted to point out again that there was a lot more to it than minor prisoner abuse. We've gone over much of this before and it usually gets thwarted.

The truly sad part is that while Germany and the Germman people came to terms with thier responsibilities of history, after all this time the Japanese just can't say "we're sorry."

 

[AKM]

The truly sad part is that while Germany and the Germman people came to terms with thier responsibilities of history, after all this time the Japanese just can't say "we're sorry."

Twitch, no offense, but where did you get that from? It's simply not true. The Japanese government has apologized dozens of times. Also, Germany (and Austria) have not come to terms. Whoever claims that is a bloody liar of the 68er movement generation, those who are bringing our countries down. Instead we're celebrating a “Culture of Collective Guilt”. Thanks to the politicians in charge history is falsified. There is no neutral approach to history, there is only damnation of the Nazis. Why do you think John Rabe, the Hero of Nanking, is virtually unknown in Germany? Because he was a Nazi, and, according to the view of those in charge in Germany, there is no good Nazi. Simply because “what can't be, mustn't be”. That is all the fault of the 68er movement.

In 2005, the German president said that all Germans bear responsibility for what happened in WW2. Nobody attacked him for it. Now let me tell you one thing: I'm not responsible for nor do I feel responsible for the Holocaust. I was born many decades after it. It's not my fault. It's not my parents' fault and it certainly isn't my grandparents' fault. My grandfather from my mother's side was a corporal in the Luftwaffe. My great-grandfather from my mother's side was imprisoned in Dachau and Buchenwald because he was a Communist. One of my granduncle's volunteered for the SS. The rest were common grunts and usually ended up in Russia. They were grunts, not decision makers. They were drafted and figured it was better to take the risk and go, rather than facing a firing squad. I'm not blaming them, not even the SS guy (it was his decision, not mine, I'm not responsible for the decisions of my granduncle; holding me responsible for what my ancestors have or haven't done is a Nazi concept).

For me, German atrocities in WW2 are simply one thing: historic facts. I'm not emotionally attached to that stuff. It's the past. Yes, the Nazis committed warcrimes, but I'm not responsible for what happened 70 years ago. Or are you Americans or British of today responsible for firebombing Dresden and killing tens of thousands of refugees (the official numbers are a joke, they can't be accurate, since the city was crowded with refugees from the east)? I think not. It would be stupid to lay the blame on you.

We haven't come to terms with our history. We're just crawling because of it and begging for forgiveness, even though none of those born after the war bears any actual responsibility.

There is no historic discussion based on facts. There is only politically correct idiots moaning about it. The professionals are never asked. Instead we get beaten around with “documentaries” that are supposed to show how evil the Nazis were. All of them. No exceptions.

You should watch German TV. Several times per year we get smacked around with footage from the concentration camps. Now, I can only speak for myself, but those images? They don't do anything for me anymore. Yes, I was shocked and sad when I was younger and visited the KZ Mauthausen the first time, but years after years of indoctrination by politically correct programs on TV lead me to the following statement: so what? I didn't do it. So why is it my concern or even my responsibility? I have more important things to take care of.

Same applies for atrocities committed by Japanese troops. Those are historic facts, nothing else. At least, they will turn into those once the last survivors are dead, and then, finally... the professionals can deal with this in a completely neutral way, or so I hope. With professionals I mean historians. Forget politicians who talk about history. These guys know NAFT. No surprise there.

And I tell you one thing. I, as Austrian, am not sorry for the Holocaust. How can I be sorry for something I'm not responsible for or haven't been involved in? That's like saying I'm sorry for my neighbor's dog that farts all the time. I have no problems accepting the Holocaust as an historic fact. It was a bad thing. But... I'm not sorry for what Hitler and the rest of the gang did. I'm not going to crawl and beg for forgiveness for something I haven't done.

As for the Japanese military, you're all taking the easy way out. All of you.

First of, let's take Japanese history up to the point of the Second Sino-Japanese war. But let's ignore the feudal times for now. Let's start with the Meiji Emperor and the Imperial Restoration, the overly hyped event that didn't change much for the normal people. The one significant change was, that people were now ordered to use family names, even those of “low” birth. But for the state itself... The only thing that changed there was that the Tokugawa and their supporters were replaced by the Emperor and his supporters. The average Japanese citizen was still screwed. The, more or less, professional armies of the samurai were replaced by a “peasant army” of conscripts, first modelled after the French army, then after the German.

Let's jump over the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War and hop right into the Great War from 1914 to 1918. What do we see there? Generals in charge who had still grown up with actual bushido (the bushido that's more than just total obedience to the emperor, even though that was never part of bushido anyway). And look what happened. Japan treated its German POWs in a very human manner.

There we have the Taisho emperor and with him a shortlived hope for democracy. Sadly, he dies relatively soon.

With the Showa emperor things change. The Japanese constitution of the Meiji Era was already... well... let's just say it was easy to abuse it for the emperor. Human and civil rights were only granted within the limits of the law. And laws are easy to change. Then, in the Showa years, the military starts pushing for certain changes. One of those was that certain ministers had to come from the military (navy & army). Now the military had an easy yet brilliant way to sabotage democracy. If a party, which wasn't liked by the military, would win the elections, the military could just say “we're sorry, but we don't have a suitable officer”. With that, there was no cabinet, and thus no government. Soon politicians simply gave in.

Then we add radical ideas which become very popular among young officers.

Then we add certain police units (kempeitai, tokko, etc) and the emperor's fear of Communists and other unwanted groups (for example, Hirohito's biggest fear, when facing the massive air raids later in the war, was a Communist uprise, which wasn't possible, since the special police units had long since taken care of those).

Then add a completely torn apart and raped concept of bushido that has NOTHING to do with the bushido written up by Taira Shigesuke in the 1640s. A quote from Yamamoto's Hagakure is taken out of context and turned into the (in)famous “Let's all die happily for the emperor” crap.

Now, just for fun, let's bring those radical ideas into the school system. How's about that? So, little Watanabe Hiroshi learns at school about the evil Americans and their allies. He learns about the ABCD Encirclement, how the emperor is divine, how the Japanese are the “Aryans” of Asia. The Chinese and Koreans are dirty and stink. That's what he hears, throughout all the years he spends in school. That's how he grows up. His parents say nothing. They're too afraid of being called dissidents and they don't want the tokko or the kempeitai pay them a visit, thus they remain silent.

So he leaves school, eventually gets the Red Paper, the draft notice.

Welcome to hell.

Read Sakai Saburo's “Samurai! The rise and fall of the Japanese naval air force” for details on how brutal the training of recruits was. For the smallest mistake the NCOs would beat our Watanabe Hiroshi black and blue (literally). He's are on the receiving end every day. And then our Watanabe Hiroshi is sent to China.

What do you think he will do there? After all that indoctrination, what will he do when Prince Asaka orders to “purge” Nanking? He will take part in it. Of course. He knows nothing else, of course he will obey.

Given the same circumstances I know I would obey as well. When thinking through some years ago I came to the conclusion, would I have grown up in Nazi Germany, with all the indoctrination... it's very likely that I would have volunteered for the SS (I would qualify easily, I'm "Aryan" enough for it, no matter how stupid the concept is). I'm not kidding. But of course, what else would I have done? I would have grown up with Adolf being the messiah, chosen by some divine fate. That's what the kids learned. In Japan it was much, much worse than that. The emperor being divine was no subject for discussion. It was a fact. Amaterasu Omikami was Hirohito's ancestor. Period. Disagreement lead to punishment. So what do you do? It's easy to point fingers with today's freedom backing you up.

My ex-girlfriend's granduncle was a young officer at Nanking. The family doesn't talk about him. For me it would be interesting to know more, but then again... that's me, I'm a sponge for historic facts, I would love to know more. They also have a tokkotai in the family, who was part of the Floating Chrysanthemums over Okinawa.

Yes, I'm standing up for the Japanese grunt, who was on the receiving end of the stick. He learned that the farther away from the emperor someone may be, the less worth this person is. He, as a grunt, is far away from the emperor. But those Chinese civilians... they're even farther away, they're worth even less. It's years and years of indoctrination. You can observe the results of similar indoctrination in today's Russia and China. China's been faking history it's not even funny. Just take the Tibet issue, or how Mao is still revered today even though some historians say he was responsible for the deaths of some 70 million Chinese. Or just take the fact that Russian Communists were screaming about the latest Indy movie and how the Soviets were portrayed in it. Welcome to the fact that a dictatorship bends the truth until it reaches a point that the dictators like.

One word of advice people, don't start the numbers game. It's pointless. The crimes of the Nazis and the nationalist Japanese in WW2 pale when compared to what Stalin and Mao have done to their own people. Those number games are silly. Just like the discussion about how many people have been killed at Nanking. It doesn't matter, it really doesn't. Fact is that elements of the Japanese military followed an order (Prince Asaka was never put on trial of it, thank your great general MacArthur for that) which called for massmurder and many innocent civilians were murdered. We will never know how many. Speculation is not science, it's BS.

Also keep in mind that none of the western countries cared about Nanking. They didn't care, they didn't do anything of substance or importance. They just sat back and relaxed and then, after the war was over, they pointed fingers. Self-righteous fools. Just like China. After the war the Communists quickly kissed Japan's butt to be recognized as the legal government of China and today they point fingers and stage riots against Japan over this issue while they falsify history and lie. But today's Japan is at fault. Yeah, right. And then people in the west wonder when morons like Ishihara or Aso become popular in Japan. Of course there is a reaction in the country, what do people expect? Action -> Reaction.

Millions of Chinese? Now that is questionable, especially when considering that Japan controlled just a small part of China. How many millions? And the data comes from where? Chinese sources? They list 35 million casualties. They're not trustworthy, simply because they completely ignore the bloodshed caused by Mao after the war (70 million dead Chinese). Of course they ignore it, they can only publish what the Communist dictatorship allows them to publish. Civilians caught in crossfire can't be pushed solely on the Japanese tab. And what “most Western historians” say... most of them speak neither Japanese nor Chinese, thus they can't do research in authentic documents. Wiki, for example, uses six books are resources on “Japanese war crimes” (not really much for a topic like that, which proves that wiki is not actual scientific work but actually a joke), three are Chinese works (thus biased), one was written in the wake of the war (thus biased). One resource is the Taipei Times. A newspaper, give me a break. Newspapers are biased to the bone. One of the books has the “Jiangsu People's Publishing House“ as publisher, now if that's not a sign for Chinese Communist Propaganda... Plus a couple of links to websites, which are never neutral. You know what my professor would say to this? “Epic fail, please come again with a properly researched paper.”

As for Unit 731, no, there were no facilities “all over the country”. Japan controlled just a minor part of China. Pretty much only the cities.

As for the COs of unit 731... Well, they bought their freedom from the allies with their data, which was later used for the development of new chemical and biological weapons by the US and the USSR. Just like Luftwaffe doctors escaped punishment by giving their research about cold water exposure (they used Russian POWs for those “experiments”) to the allies. Given the tensions that were already in the air by May 1945 this isn't a surprise. Or why do you think von Braun was never charged (his facilities and rockets were all built/maintained by prisoners of concentration camps, and there's no way he couldn't have known) and quickly got a job in the US? As for the tensions... did you know that Yugoslav and British units were close to shooting at each other when occupying southern Austria? Churchill wanted them out of Austria and ordered to have them removed, if necessary by force.

John Rabe, on the other hand, went through denazification. The allies completely ignored his work in Nanking, they also completely ignored that the GESTAPO put him under massive pressure to make him shut up about Nanking. The only ones who really appreciate what he did are the Chinese. As I said above, the man is virtually unknown in Germany. So much for “coming to terms”.

Though, if we start talking about crimes... Let's bring in those ~1,400 rape cases during the opening days of the occupation of Japan in the Tokyo-Kanagawa area alone? Let's round that up on 47 prefectures. Or the behaviour of American and Australian soldiers in Japan? The hundreds, thousands of reported rape cases? Cases confirmed by Australian MPs and historians (but strangely not by their American counterparts, odd, don't you think? But then again, the US has done it's fair share of whitewashing certain events in WW2; winners write history, no?) Don't try to dismiss those. Yes I know that the official (!) list of rape cases by the US military has some 240-odd cases, which includes Japan and Europe. The rape cases were reported to Japanese police, which -in exchange- had no jurisdiction over US soldiers, so reporting them was pointless as the police couldn't do anything. And if you expect a Japanese woman, who had just been raped by 2 drunken GIs to report the crime at an MP station, please, think again. This is actually confirmed by Japanese historian Tanaka Yuki (yep, the very same you used for your three page article Twitch, very nice, lot's of facts, but no insight into the why it happened; he wrote a very interesting book about this issue “Japan's Comfort Women – Sexual slavery and prostitution during World War 2 and the US occupation”).

Turning the argumentation in this thread around, I could say: the Americans raped thousands of Japanese women. Just as valid, and there's massive evidence to support it.

Or shall we go into what Soviet troops did with Japanese women in Manchuria (after the cowardly Kwantung Army abandoned them)? Or German women? How many German girls were raped during the Battle of Berlin? Hundreds, if not thousands.

Or, the worst example, in my opinion: the women on Okinawa. If they weren't raped by Japanese soldiers, then chances that they were raped by American soldiers weren't really low. Some reports from Okinawa suggest that black soldiers were rather notorious in that area. Luckily, there are reports that show that not all Americans were bastards. Like that one squad of Marines, who took a Japanese soldier prisoner. Around the corner they found a dead woman with her children. She had been raped and killed by the soldier, who actually admitted it. The Marines didn't bother handing him over to the MP. They took care of it themselves. And rightfully so. The event is described in George Feiffer's “Tennozan”.

If Japan has to apologize (which it has done numerous times), then America has to do so as well. Or, at least... speak the truth and stop lying and whitewashing history (the rape cases, the real reasons for the two nukes (no, they didn't end the war, don't bring in the surrender speech, that was only one of several speeches, the military got different ones; also Hiroshima and Nagasaki were city 67 and 68 to be destroyed, it's unlikely that, after the destruction of 66 cities, Hirohito would just give in because of two nukes; what ended the war was the Soviet appearance), etc).

And I demand an apology by the French, for Napoleon, and the Italians for the Roman occupation of my home country.

See how stupid it is? And how far back do we have to apologize? 60 years? 600? Who decides that? The UN? Politicians? Oh please...

No politician or citizen of today, who was born after the war, should apologize for things that happened before he/she was even born. It's stupid. And it's a Nazi concept. It's called “Sippenhaftung” (clan/kindred liability).

And... In case you're wondering about this “culture of collective guilt” in Germany and Austria... There's currently the European Soccer Championship in Austria and Switzerland. Some German politicians are screaming murder over the fact that some Germans, in Germany... dare to show German colors. Black, red and gold, the German flag (which was mocked and frowned upon by the Nazis, after all, it was NOT the Nazi flag, but the flag used by workers and students during the rebellion of 1848). Those politicians consider this to be: EVIL. It reminds them of... yes, you're right... the Nazis.

That's how Germany “has come to terms” with WW2.

Or, take this example. If I would get a banner that says “Hitler is great” and would parade with it on any random German or Austrian street... I would be jumped by ten cops, would be arrested, put on trial and would end up in prison. If I would do the very same with a banner that says “Stalin is great”... Nothing would happen. That's not justice, that's fascism.

Or, take another one: denying the Holocaust can get you in prison in Europe. I always say: if someone wants to be stupid, let him be stupid. Though, if I deny Stalin's gulags, or Mao's massmurder schemes... I'd get cheered on by the Green Party and the Communists in Germany.


No people, you're pointing fingers at the hand that strikes, not at the brain that gave the order. Is it apologetic? Well, maybe, but the stance of the allies after the war “I only obeyed orders is not an excuse” is also rather silly and self-righteous. Rather easy for an American to say that. America was a democracy back then. Nazi Germany wasn't. Imperial Japan wasn't. Freedom of speech, or any basic civil or human rights did not exist. There was an order printed on a piece of paper with the emperor's seal on it. Those orders came from the emperor and the orders by any superior officer were as good as the emperor's. What choice would a common grunt have? Hmm? “No sir, I won't do that!”? If he wants to get shot on the spot, then that's the way to do it. No one has that courage. And if you're now saying “I would do it”, then you're lying.

You people know some of the facts, but you lack the insight into the reasons why it happened.

Also, Saying that the Japanese are sometimes “barbaric” even today is... well... define “barbaric” first, and then tell me your experience with Japanese daily life. I wouldn't be surprised if what you know comes only from some badly done anime or crappy Hollywood movies.

Yes, there was more than just “mere” prisoner abuse. But, tell me one thing: why do the Japanese people, where the majority of them has been born after the war, have to say “we're sorry”? The woman I'm courting (and who I'll be marrying, hopefully) has to apologize? She was born in the 80s, how can she be responsible? If she has to, then I demand an apology from you Americans, who were born after the war, for bombing my hometown. It's only fair.

Complaining that some Japanese politicians want to whitewash history is somewhat ridiculous and redundant. First of, that's a Japanese issue (which meets massive resistance, for example by the Okinawans), if you're not Japanese I would advise to be silent. And secondly... your countries haven't whitewashed history? Do you really believe that? Are you really that naive?

I advise to read: “Japan at war – an oral history” by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook. Should give some insight to how the normal people saw the war.

And as a final word: the common Japanese grunt on Iwo Jima wasn't really much different than the US grunt on the other side. Face it. These men were drafted, many didn't want to go, but they had to go. Because the consequences for them and, especially, their families would have been horrible.

The problem is, in any army there are criminals. The situation gets worse when the criminals are in charge. Most of the Japanese leaders in those days were criminals and cowards. Tojo survived the war. The man who sent thousands of young students into certain death with the special attacks (kamikaze is the wrong term, it was never called like that in Japan) dared to survive the war. Yes, he was executed, but he, who rambled about bushido and “never surrender” survived the war. That man was a coward, just like most of the leaders. They hid in their bunkers while the women and children burned to death in the fire storms. That's what really pisses me off when I think of Japan at war. They didn't even have the guts to fight. Just like Hitler (I was listening to former SS members sometime ago and they talked about how they felt when they heard of Hitler's suicide; they said that they were shocked... and that all of their support for Hitler faded right on the spot, after all, Hitler had not died defending the bunker with his life, he had just cowardly put a round into his own skull). Going by actual bushido, Tojo was what Taira Shigesuke would have called: a coward.

And before you wonder. I spend 6+ weeks per year in Japan (that's all of my yearly vacation, plus overtime I accumulate). I've hugged the Zero in Yasukuni (if you ever visit the museum, don't read the texts, they're horrid, a distortion of history -Yasukuni is privately owned-, just watch the exhibits, they're amazing). I'm visiting Hiroshima (my ex-gf's grandaunt was there when the bomb was dropped), Okinawa, Chiran and Kaseda City every year. I'm almost fluent in the language. I actually plan to live there and finally make my PhD at the Hosei university. And yes, I live by bushido, the one defined first by Taira Shigesuke in his “Bushido shoshinshu” and later by Nitobe. I don't care much for the Hagakure since it was written by a samurai who had never seen battle and who, basically, used it to whine about the youth of his days and how great the “good old times” used to be -even though he never experienced them himself.


Oh and Marc, Sugihara was not a member of the samurai class. The simple reason for this is: there were no samurai anymore in 1900. His mother was also not a member (again wiki gets the simple facts wrong, not a surprise, wiki is not a trustworthy source), because the samurai were abolished in 1876, by imperial decree. Ever since then samurai do not exist anymore, fact.

And... ah I just can't resist. Americans complaining about another country "whitewashing" history is actually somewhat funny. Sad, but funny. You know, there's a saying in Austria which roughly translates into "clean your own yard first".

 

[YETI]

Let's not forget what happened in the Philippines. My Grandfather was a survivor of the Bataan death march. My relatives said he looked so emaciated they couldn't recognize him. He had a deep seeded hatred for the Japanese soldiers but not the people in general. After all, during the occupation he had an Okinawan mistress. Back to the point, the imperial Japanese were no better than the Nazis. The Filipinos were treated worse than animals under Japan rule. From the use of women as sex slaves, beheading, and the mass murder of innocents during the battle of Luzon. If my Grandpa was alive today and saw Mr. Eastwood's film, he'd probably be pissed; because if the same defenders of Iwo were in charge at Bataan they'd be just as brutal.

 

[KY Gentleman]

I think it is an overstatement to say that Japanese soldiers were "barbaric."

Read "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang. You will see.

 

[Twitch]

The Japanese have had several regimes say words that are close to admitting responsibility for their actions but never just exactly. Later politicians have retracted what earlier ones said so unless you have a score card....

The Germans of the WW II generation acknowledged their feelings of what went on in WW II and got on with it. No one is expecting subsequent generations to wring their hands about it and bear responsibility. No one ever suggested such a thing.

There is a faction that believed everyone in Germany was a Nazi- about 22% belonged to the party- and that every soldier right down to private was somehow responsible for perpetrating the continuation of the war so that more Jews would die. They are therfore responsible along with Eichmann and Himmler. THIS is warped logic.

In Japan only some fiends were responsible for atrocities, most weren't, though the image of Japan was blackened.

There is a sinister danger of projecting guilt! It seems to be alive and well in Germany and most definitely is active in the US. Here it is disguised as the PC-politically correct movement. Yeah it's way past "Don't call me Miss, call me Ms.!" It is primarily directed at non-minorities. I say this because nearly every PC thing is minority related. By minority I mean any race, sex, culture, sub-culture, economic class, social class, nationality, physically handicapped, mentally handicapped, special interest group, religion or just about anything you can think of.

The rest of us who don't identify with these minorities are pressured into feeling guilt for real or alleged transgressions of the past and many have given over to the feeling and believe we should atome in some monetary sense to all these groups.

If you want to talk WW II guilt, while they forget the marking of D-Day or Hiroshima in the papers, at least once a years they trot out the story about Locking up Japanese in camps after Pearl Harbor. Even though the survivors have been paid off we still need to feel guilty I assume.

The Nazis have that mystical aura which seems to draw attention and gather more weight with age. The Japanese atrocities went under the radar for years, decades. The Nazis efficiently attempted to kill as many Jews as possible as quickly as possible as economically as possible. While there were, of course, one on one atrocities, the above sentence states the facts pretty accurately.

The whole Japanese outlook was more predjudicial in that they felt superior to EVERY other race. Thais and Chinese, Koreans and Laotians were all considered as lessor races.

The fact that many, many people only equate torture or genocide with the Nazis is a sad state of history knowledge. My articles, and the other authors in bibliography obviously felt obliged to tell about the other side of Japan where we have been pounded with, ah, guilt again, for nuking them.

Like it of not it is a part of history that should be told and if anyone feels persecuted by it, then so be it. The authors are not responsible for persecution complexes.

There can be no justification in any language of any culture on this planet to rationalize Nanking into a genocide akin to gassing Jews. The Japanese perversion went on for weeks. And it was personal, one on one violence, torture, rape and death of girls and babies and even more unspeakable acts of depravity. Rationalizing Imperial Army personnel behavior because of past history or training convinces no one that the perpetrators in China had no choice. That's always the last gasp at defense.

You are attempting to justify the actions of all of Japan because they are all backwardsly ignorant of modern western political socio-economics. Rationalizing that all Japanese military personnel are savages because of their ingrained history is rubbish. Touting the Bushido BS is not even an excuse much less a reason.

Bringing in the deeds of another monster like Mao in an attempt to obscure the horror of the WW II era is a poor attempt to bolster a point of view favorable to the Japanese. When you insinuate that the number of people killed in China is false you sound like a Nazi revisionist who claims the Holocaust never happened. It cheapens the value of the victims' lives by denouncing thier existence.

The constant attempt to draw attention away from the atrocities by interjecting probably offenses committed by other nations personnel in no way lessens the actual filth that was perpetrated for weeks on end on both the living and the dead corpses by the Japanese in Nanking, to start. The Japanese covered China where most of the population was in the eastern half. Strange if the Japanese were only occupying the cities as you say that most all the facilities and camps were carved out of the deep woods where dangerous bio-chem minutions are still found every year.

And please don't draw ragged connections to the men who fought with valor on Iwo on BOTH sides with the scum that inhabited Nanking.

And as for the bio-chemical units there were many more than just 731. They were spread across the landscape. The bio-degeneracies they performed surpassed the Nazi "experiments" in number even if they only equalled the level of evil.

Whatever post-war rapes were done by any soldier in any locale should have been dealt with by military justice after the war. Of course I canonly speak for the Americans who should have suffered the consequences. I suppose those backwards Russians weren't to blame, right?

But the fact that you even attempt to parallel the universal savagery at Nanking with individual post-war sex crimes is dastardly at best. The perversions done to baby's sex organs with bayonets and the games the Japanese Army personnel invented for their corpses to exploited are beyond most human sensitivity to even hear about.

You should be truly be ashamed to try to make it sound like a rape is similar to rape by object of a 1 year old, genital mutilation, infanticide, necrophelia and further corpal mutication!

The fact that the Americans ran Sugamo prison as a phoneyed up display to pretend that the Class A war criminals were being dealt with when they were for the most part on a sabattacal, is no reason to exclude US guilt.

I made no bone about it in those articles and whoever Tanaka Yuki is I have no idea. You are insinuating that I plagurized this guy. So sorry, not true. My bibliography lists my sources.

There is no denying the Sugamo war criminals were let lose upon Japan to control it financially, politially and economically in the post war times. Even though the Americans either allowed or assisted in this the Japanese people obviously elected ex-war criminals.

The relatively little applicable bio-chemical data gained by the US for giving amnesty to all the personnel involved was a slap in the face of every Asian who died during the war.

And the fact has always been, we don't want Japan's apology for a damned thing. We expected it for the death and perversion they perpetrated against Asia. And to say there's no one of the WW 2 generation in Japan in government who should make ammends is just astoundly illisionary. When there WERE many, many such people only half-assed attempts were made in later years not early on when it would have fallen on more survivors' ears.

If you spend so much time in Japan I'm sure you realize that the school history books completely elude any vague connection to a hint of responsibility concerning any aspect of the war. I have close Japanese friends too. One shot down Pappy Boyington and another is a post war kid. They both, however have the same lament, that their country avoids the situation in all sense.

Completely rationalizing the perversion of the Imperial Asian Army- a minority though they were- is just SOOO Nazi in its scope that by attempting to portray them as victims one might actually feel sorry for the genocidal maniacs. Nice attempt but no cigar!

 

[Ben]

To amplify this comment... most of our knowledge of the breaking strain of living limbs comes from Unit 731...

I can't offer much to this thread, but this part can't be true.

I know guys who worked in lab at the University of Pittsburgh where limbs are tested for this sort of thing. It is one of the things that happens to bodies donated to science.

 

[ranchnman]

doesnt get much better than Clint!