Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada met with six surviving former POWs on Monday. Thousands of Americans died on the infamous Baatan Death March. Many who survived were put to work as slave labour in plants owned by what are today some of Japan's major manufacturers, outfits like Mitsui, Mitsubishi and Kawasaki.
Some of the former POWs remain bitter that these Japanese industries have never offered them so much as an apology. They're angry that these manufacturers denied them proper food or medical care and allowed employees to beat them for no reason. Yeah, well, that's Japan and, besides, you did get to nuke them.
From what I understand, it's been pretty much the same party, or at the same idealogy, in control of the Japanese government for the past sixty or so years in Japan until only recently with the election of a slightly more liberal party.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how long it'll be before the Korean, Chinese, and other peoples in the region receive an apology? A century or two?
Then there are the Canadians, Indonesians, Australians, British, many others and most sad of all, the comfort women from Korea. The Japanese still believe they are the superior race. If anyone thinks that is being racist try living there for a year or two for it will raise its ugly head often. The Japnese apologize for nothing and if they do, they do not mean it. Korea was occupied by the Japanese from 1910 until 1945. What they did to the Koreans was just awful. Now there are only four comfort women left and they are still waiting for compensation.
ReplyDeleteJapan started the war. Our soldiers, were treated very, horribly. Tortured and starved, by the Japs. The other Asian countries people, were treated, as badly as the Jewish People. Only a different killing method was used. Japan was told to stop the war, or there would be total destruction, by the nuclear bomb. They refused, the bomb was dropped. They still refused to surrender. The second bomb, finally stopped them. Believe you me, they would have never, have stopped the war, without the bomb being dropped. Every country they occupied, the citizens were slaughtered. I had 3 brothers, 2 brother-in-laws and a sister, in the armed forces, during WW11. There were atrocities, that, were unforgivable, even in a war. The Japanese, that were in the internment camps, were not slaughtered and starved. The brutality of the Japanese, was unforgivable. That was not necessary, what-so-ever.
ReplyDeleteThe bomb was dropped to keep the USSR out of Japan.
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