What Abe is saying is truly bizarre.
If he wanted everyone off his back, all he had to do was roll out the usual answer about the issue already having been settled in full.
But he’s kind of blown that now, by denying there’s an issue.
What on earth is the official Japanese position on this now?

Being a politician, i think everything Abe did is all for his political career.
comfort women or someting like this issure always like endless.but every time some politiciam mentioned this issure,which must arouse the antipathy from other Asian country’s people to Janpenese.then Janpenese people would get hostile for other country.so for Abe,that is easy to make his politican strategy carry out,for exmaple:military,or some other ,i think

Found the following here:

自民党の「日本の前途と歴史教育を考える議員の会」（会長・中山成彬元文部科学相）は２１日の会合で、従軍慰安婦問題で旧日本軍の関与を認め謝罪した９３年の「河野洋平官房長官談話」の見直しを求める提言を来週まとめ、安倍晋三首相に提出する方針を確認した。
　「軍などの直接的な関与は歴史的に立証されていない」などとして「従軍慰安婦」から「従軍」の削除などを提案する見通し。同議連は、この問題で日本政府に謝罪を求める決議案が提出されている米下院の関係者に日本の立場を説明するため近く訪米する。

Oh, I never left… I just got distracted by a shiny object for a couple of days.:lol:

The fall-out will be fascinating to watch… . I’ll have to go check out the political blogs and newspapers this weekend. This is going to be waaaaay more interesting (I hope) that the Anna Nicole Smith crap.

This new statements by Abe revolve around whether the govt procured the women or private groups did. That’s what this new blowup is all about …

But does it matter? From a financial point of view, yes.

yes,how could any respectable pooch (Roy) hold his chin/chops up,when he knew that his two and a half legged master,had made such an unspeakable gaffe.

I just blame it all on that neapolitan ice-cream Abe must have been scarfing down lately.

or maybe,it’s just a case of housewife’s hands from scrubbing out Akie’s scanties’s every nite.

Jeez!! life is just One-Big-Mystery…..:cry:

Yours in Hope

remora.

p.s

there is a secret rumour that Abe is rather fond plangent tones of M.Oldfield whilst practicing his evening Tantric-Dog-Yoga..

p.p.s.

Joke: “Tantric Shopping” – thats where you wander around a mall for 5 hours looking – not buying – then go home.

[...] There is some debate over the translation of what Prime Minister Abe said, but clearly he is out of line on this issue simply because he is going against the official recognition and apology the Japanese government gave in 1993 to the women effected by World War II sexual slavery.  The Japanese government has clearly all ready accepted the fact that the Imperial Japanese Army committed sexual slavery of primarily Korean women, but why is Prime Minister Abe trying to change the Japanese government’s stance on this issue?  I know he is sagging in the opinion polls in Japan, but is this really going to give him a boost?  [...]

For someone who can read japanese,there is a very interesting comment in the Mutantfrog post which shows the background of the controversial Kono Statement.

http://www.mutantfrog.com/2007/02/27/mext-minister-bunmei-ibuki-should-know-hes-said-something-really-dumb-when/

Srall down to the comment by Aceface including an part of discussion from the national diet concerning this problem, march 12th,1997

Thanks for the link Tomojiro… Actually that was very interesting. I will do a translation for others later today if anyone is interesting.

The Comfort Women Issue, Again

This issue will never die, partly due to comments like this from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe:
“It is a fact that there was no evidence to support that there was coercion as it was defined at the time,’” Abe told reporters late yesterd…

Tomojiri wrote: By the way, thanks for your story Danny.very interesting. If you have occasions, I want to hear that more in details.

Answer: I will type up my notes and post here later. It is an interesting story, firsthand account, Mr Mondei, I believe his name was. He was around 83 when I met him in Tokyo, I guess he is passed to the next life now. He spoke fluent English and a was a kind soul. His story of the military brothels he visited is amazing. He had sympathy for the working girls, he wasn’t interested in sex so much as relieving his stress and anxiety as a soldier about to go into a battle mode and maybe not come back. But he really did show sadness over the way the women were kept there. But he needed something to relieve his loneliness and anxiety, he said, not that the sexual services worked, they just helped get rid of his boredom and sadness over the immanence of approaching battle and possible death, he said. He didn’t remember if the women were pretty or skilled, he just remembered going into the room, doing it, coming out and going to sleep. There was no glamor or excitement, but the dull boredom of sexual servitude on the women’s part and the boredom of male hormones on the other. It was not about sex. It was about power. He acknowldged to me that the girls were not there of their own accord, but they did want to earn money this way, he said.

The Japan Times: “Soldier confirms wartimes sex slavery”.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070304a1.html

OK. Everyone knows my stance on the issue. But what I am fascinated in this case is Yasuji Kaneko, himself, and his willingness to speak about his own personal experiences.

This is only a theory, but it appears that the sponsor of the congressional resolution in question is a Democratic Congressman named Mike Honda. According to Wikipedia, he has been a defender of American-Muslims in the post-9/11 era and most recently voted for a non-binding resolution as a way of expressing his disagreement with President Bush’s planned troop buildup in Iraq. At the same time, Japan is expected to make a decision on whether to extend its air force mission in Iraq when it expires in July. Could this be construed as an attempt to drive a wedge between these two allies during an ongoing global conflict?

After WWII, Japan established official brothels for American soldiers because GHQ [=General Headquarters of the Allied Forces] wanted so. Coercion! There were about 70 thousand comfort women [=prostitutes] working in those brothels. Further, there were 60 thousand comfort women working outside the official brothels. There were many rapes (by American soldiers) reported.

Men need women. Comfort women work for money. I do not understand why only Japanese soldiers are rebuked for having had prostitutes around.

diamondback:
I hear that 34,000 rape incidents are recorded. Miserable girls! A girl was abducted by using a jeep. She jumped out of the jeep and died. She was registered just as an unknown “prostitute.” (She was not a prostitute, just a passer-by.) Media was ordered not to report such incidents. Japanese judiciary had no right to administer justice to the criminals.

diamondback:
Another source of information tells 29768 rapes and 2536 murders by American soldiers. (The earlier number, 34000, includes murders.)

Upon request of Department of the Interior, GHQ ordered Tokyo (not Japan) to establish brothels to reduce rapes. After Korean war broke out, Japan had to establish brothels in three cities other than tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka (or Nara) and Kokura. The brothels were administered by American army.

This situation is very similar to that of Japanese army during WWII!

Ordinary Japanese (and Americans) do not know the fact partly because there was no freedom of press under the occupation of Allied Forces and partly because Japan had no right of justice against American crimes.

It is well known that American army had brothels in Vietnam, authorized by Pentagon, as reported by an american? reporter.

diamondback
It is not easy for me to find English articles. I find at least an article written by an Australian whom I do not know. Look at
http://redsites.alphalink.com.au/ww2occupation.htm
“Australia in World War 2: The awful truth, Barbarians occupy Japan”
where you will find a chapter “Women under siege.”

You will find sentences like “Ruxton was trying to dismiss rape claims, but in fact rapists flourished in the ‘one big brothel’” or “A doctor and two nurses were working to revive her. An hour before she had been raped by twenty soldiers … The hospital was in Hiroshima. The girl was Japanese. The soldiers were Australians.”

With all due respect, I wouldn’t trust a journal with a name like “International Socialist Review” for the straight facts.

Having said that, there were also plenty of court martials in the European theater after VE day for all sorts of crimes committed by Allied soldiers. It’s the price of using a draft to fill the ranks. As such, it would hardly be surprising if violent crimes were committed by American and other Allied soldiers against civilians in Japan during the Occupation. On the other hand, from what I understand, MacArthur essentially rejected battle-hardened soldiers from serving in Japan as Occupation soldiers out of a very reasonable fear that there would be too many retributive acts carried out.

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=9947
American Chronicle
War and Sex

Since the end of WWII, American soldiers have been among the largest consumers of exploited women and girls. Korean Comfort Women, sexually imprisoned by the Japanese, were not the only victims of the Second World War. In Tokyo, as soon as our men landed in August l945, destitute, homeless, and unprotected girls were rounded up and forced into “Comfort Stations” by both the Japanese and American authorities. Most of these “Occupation Comfort Women” were teenage girls, and most were virgins. They were forced to service anywhere from 15 to 60 American soldiers a day. One dispassionate official’s report describes a girl that 50 soldiers lined up to use as “busy,” as if she were baking a cake or doing her homework.

When the girls tired to escape, they were pushed back into the brothels by our Military Police. Even when they cried and showed how terrified they were, the American boys still used them. Some were raped into unconsciousness. The conditions were so unbearable that some girls committed suicide. (Sources for Occupation Comfort Girl material: Historians John Dower, George Hicks, and Yuki Tanaka.)

These past few comments have been enlightening. At the very least, they underscore the unpalatable hypocrisy of Congressional House Resolution 121.

“And yet, it is important to reconcile the past and try to push forward legislation that will protect the innocent in the future.”

I absolutely agree with this comment. And pressure and encouragement toward this end should be brought to bear on the Japanese, preferably by domestic forces. However, Congress is hardly in a position at this point in time to criticize the Japanese at least on this narrowly defined issue.

“Playing devil’s advocate . . . exactly who is in a good position? Who has the political clout, influence over Japan and “clean” history to make such a demand?”

Very few state actors are in a good position, I admit. But if the eradication of war is the goal, then by its actions (if not its words), Japan is a model of a former militarized country that has embraced the pursuit of peace. Of course, the study and acknowledgment of historical wrongs committed is important. Rather than condemnations, I think it would be more productive for neutral scholars to expose as much evidence of the effects of war for the historical record as possible. As adults, we should be willing to look at photos of victims of war with their bodies horribly mangled beyond recognition. Beyond a certain point, dry numbers are insufficient to cultivate a proper hatred of war. We need to be constantly reminded in a visceral way just why we should want to avoid warfare. (That’s not to say all wars are the worst choice to make in all cases. Defeating Hitler is the classic example of a righteous war.) In the case of Japan, efforts should be made to teach history as well as collect and preserve it – from perpetrators and victims – for posterity. I reiterate though that such efforts should be led by domestic forces if possible. And therein lies the catch I suppose.

According to Wikipedia, the total estimated human loss of life caused by World War II is 72 million people, including 46 million civilians. I have always wondered how many Mozarts, Einsteins, and other gifts to the human race were eliminated before their voices could be heard.