Dec.7 Pearl Harbor Day

[Undaunted]

[Gaybutton]

[Trongpai]

"One thing about Japan that puzzles outsiders is that while most of the people lean toward pacifism, owing to the devastation wrought to their country by the Second World War, there appears to be widespread amnesia about the country’s record during that conflict."

http://opinion.inquirer.net/79802/why-j ... h-its-past

I've read that Pearl Harbor and other WW2 sites like the 'Death Rail Road' in Kanchanaburi are popular for Japanese tourists. I've been to Pearl Harbor twice and Kanchanaburi several times and each time I have observed groups of male Japanese tourists in groups. Just recently I was in Kanchinaburi and noticed a group of middle aged Japanese men taking photos of each other and pretending to be shooting down attaching aircraft with the others laughing and nodding in approval. All in good fun?

When I first noticed this years ago I though it to just be an isolated incident but then again and again at Kanchanaburi, Pearl Harbor and Changi prison I've noticed Japanese tourists acting inappropriately for what essentially is the site of a crime (forced labor, murder), a crime against humanity and a grave yard. They just don't have a clue.

[Undaunted]

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/05/asia/ ... index.html

[readerc54]

There are many Japanese (mostly middle age and beyond) who will never be able to overcome the humiliation of having been occupied by an enemy. The fact that it led (like in Germany) an economic revival of epic proportion not withstanding.

[Gaybutton]

The visit, in itself, is a historic landmark considering it has been 75 years since the attack. However, the visit will not include an apology for the attack. To the best of my knowledge, Japan has never apologized for the attack and has also never apologized for the atrocities committed in China or any other countries.
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Shinzo Abe to Become First Japanese Leader to Visit Pearl Harbor

By Jonathan Soble and David E. Sangerdec

Dec. 5, 2016

TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday that he would visit Pearl Harbor, becoming the first sitting Japanese leader to go to the site of Japan’s attack 75 years ago that pulled a stunned United States into World War II.

Mr. Abe said in a televised news conference that he would travel to the American naval base with President Obama during a trip to Hawaii on Dec. 26 and 27.

By visiting Pearl Harbor, Mr. Abe will in effect be reciprocating a historic trip Mr. Obama made in May to Hiroshima, where the United States dropped a nuclear bomb at the end of the war with Japan in 1945. No sitting American president had previously visited the city.

Mr. Abe’s visit will be one of a series of efforts by Japan to come to terms with its wartime history, without engaging in direct apologies. He is in a unique position to carry off the trip, as a nationalist who has been outspoken about Japan’s need to move beyond its history and play a greater role in its own defense.

“We must never repeat the horror of war,” Mr. Abe said on Monday. “I want to express that determination as we look to the future, and at the same time send a message about the value of U.S.-Japanese reconciliation.”

Mr. Abe’s visit will come just a few weeks after the 75th anniversary of the attack, which occurred on Dec. 7, 1941. Carried out by Japanese bombers and fighter planes launched from aircraft carriers that had quietly slipped within striking distance of Hawaii, the attack killed more than 2,000 Americans and sank a number of United States warships, including the battleship Arizona, whose wreck has become a memorial to the battle.

Just as the decision to drop the bomb on Japan to end the war has long been the subject of a fraught moral and political debate in the United States, the decision to attack Pearl Harbor has been enormously delicate in Japan.

Politicians there still pay homage to the “heroes” of Pearl Harbor — meaning the Japanese aviators and others who died in the attack. There is a museum exhibit in their honor at Etajima, an island off Hiroshima, that once served as the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy, a Japanese equivalent of the United States Navy’s training academy at Annapolis.

For decades, politicians have been reluctant to make any statement resembling an apology for the attack, which many in Japan argue was the natural outgrowth of an American-led oil embargo that would have starved the Japanese empire. There are still arguments over the role of Emperor Hirohito in the decision, and that of military officials who had argued at length about the wisdom or dangers of directly drawing the United States into the war.

In 1990, a year after Hirohito’s death, notes were published based on interviews conducted with him shortly after Japan’s surrender.

In the oral history, recorded by one of his aides, Hirohito asserted that if he had tried to stop the attack on Pearl Harbor, “it would have led to a coup d’état” in which he likely would have been assassinated.

“That would have been fine,” said Hirohito, who died of cancer in January 1989 at age 87. But even if he had been killed, he said, “eventually a very violent war would have developed” in which “Japan could have perished.”

The account was based on a series of conversations between Hirohito, known today in Japan as Emperor Showa, and a small group of close aides in 1946, just before the Tokyo war-crimes trials.

In the ensuing years, those interviews added to the continuing historical debate about whether Hirohito had the knowledge or the power to prevent the outbreak of war.

“Indeed, the oil embargo cornered Japan,” Hirohito said, referring to the American-led blockade. “Once the situation had come to this point, it was natural that advocacy for going to war became predominant,” he said. “If, at that time, I suppressed opinions in favor of war, public opinion would have certainly surged, with people asking questions about why Japan should surrender so easily when it had a highly efficient army and navy, well trained over the years.”

In August, Mr. Abe’s wife, Akie, paid a quiet visit to Pearl Harbor and the Arizona memorial, fueling speculation that her husband would follow, although Japanese officials had maintained that there was no plan for him to do so.

Mr. Abe did not elaborate on Monday on his plans for the Pearl Harbor visit, which will be carefully choreographed with American officials. He said he hoped to “comfort the souls of the victims.”

Yet his words will be much-debated and carefully measured. During the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, in 1991, Japanese officials said they were “reflecting deeply” on their nation’s deeds but did not think an apology to the United States was appropriate.

Several American veterans groups said they welcomed Mr. Abe’s visit, regardless of whether he apologizes or not.

“The war is long over and Japan and the United States are now the strongest of allies,” said Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States.

“Is it imperative that Prime Minister Abe say, ‘We are sorry’? I don’t think so,” said Tony Cordero, founder of Sons and Daughters in Touch, an organization of families of service members who died in combat. “But it is vital that his words and actions demonstrate that regret.”

Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that Mr. Obama and Mr. Abe would visit the Arizona memorial together to honor those killed at Pearl Harbor.

“The two leaders’ visit will showcase the power of reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of allies, united by common interests and shared values,” Mr. Earnest said.

The visit will take place in the thick of an American presidential transition that has threatened to inject new instability into international relations in Asia, raised questions over the United States-Japan relationship, and unsettled policy makers in Tokyo.

President-elect Donald J. Trump often took aim at Japan during the campaign, on issues including trade and defense. Mr. Abe’s visit to Mr. Trump’s New York penthouse last month — the Japanese prime minister was the first foreign leader to meet with the president-elect after the Nov. 8 vote — looked to many like a preemptive effort to soothe the bilateral relationship.

Story and video: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/world ... japan.html