Sacked Japan air force head defends WWII actions

Tuesday 02nd December, 02:15 AM JST

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Youdontknow at 12:46 PM JST - 2nd December

Strange he says Japan was gentler than other aggressors, but I don't recall seeing pictures of other aggressors ripping hearts out of victims while they were still alive; raping and sodomizing Chinese and Korean women, in-turn, one after another; killing babies in what can only be attributed to ethnic cleansing; killing women and children for pleasure (just watched an NHK documentary recently where one old boy said he regrets throwing a woman and her child down a well and then throwing in a hand-grenade to 'silence their screams'). Ummm..nope, can't think of any other aggressor who can top that lot.
chardk1 at 01:20 PM JST - 2nd December

Not to get all technical, but they did consciously change the name of the country at this time to Dai-Nihon TEIKOKU, the Great Japanese Empire. There is a reason why the Japanese insisted the King of Japan be called an Emperor. As Tamogami freely admits, Japan engaged in imperialism to keep up with the West. I don't care how good your intentions are, how do you build an empire in the span of a generation without any military aggression, through coincidence and luck?

People like Tamogami don't seem to understand, even if it is possible to ponder the question of "ultimately did Japan do more harm than good?" that is not really something for Japanese conservatives to take aggressively assert and take credit for. It's like the son of a slaveholder saying "hey, Blacks in America are better off on the average than Blacks in Africa, so they should be THANKING us for slavery. We can't have good race relations until blacks show the proper gratitude toward people like me." You can't take "credit" for something you never intended to happen just because things turned out a certain way.
aedfed at 01:32 PM JST - 2nd December

One could also argue that Africa "benefited" from European colonization, e.g., they built railways and roads, but that would ignore the fact that most of the "benefits" were for the colonists, not the native inhabitants.

Besides, it's not for the colonizers to extol the benefits they bestowed, but rather for the colonized to decide whether the "benefits" were worth the cost. I don't know of any nation today who's asking to be colonized by anyone.
yosun at 01:48 PM JST - 2nd December

Japan is so lucky that China transported all Japanese soldiers back very quick after he surrendered and MacArthur take control the whole JP and help JP develop peacefully. Suppose it's Russia control Japan... O...O then this Mr.Tamogami might be not so free... On the other hand, the foundation of peace after WWII based on JP surrender document therefore if JP never surrendered and still survive today then I agree that Mr.Tamogami can say anything he wanted. But he just can't get the peace after killing others and surrendered and still said he was hero!
sf2k at 02:11 PM JST - 2nd December

All that allows evil like this to exist is that good people do nothing. This man needs an example of what hate brought to this earth. Send him to Poland now, and take the tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau. There is a price to the world of forever being viligant against the likes of Gen Tamogami. This is a world lesson not just German. Nor is Japan ever absolved by ignorance. Nor is anyone.

Sadly no one can question him because they don't teach history in Japan as far as I can tell. Ignore it, it will just go away is not how evil is beaten. It's through example, through dialog, and through real remorse. Germany has worked tirelessly on remorse. You can't get rid of idiots, we all have them, but at least they have a hate law, that it is a crime to deny the Holocaust or promote hate. Japan should pass a similar law and make this tool do community service.
Arbeit macht frei
gogogo at 02:32 PM JST - 2nd December

This guy obviously has a selective memory.
dennis0bauer at 03:41 PM JST - 2nd December

Tamogami if japanese actions were not so despicable during WW2. Why is it that the Asian countries do not lament the Japanese loss in '45?
Simon_Foston at 04:40 PM JST - 2nd December

But Tamogami said Japan must stand up to such criticism and should be proud of its history.

Very true, Japan should be proud of its history and should stand up to those criticisms that are based on lies.

Care to elaborate on which criticisms you think they are?
tclh at 05:42 PM JST - 2nd December

This guy now can even say that after WW2 Japan has been skillfully employing American soldiers to protect its territory without America even realising it! He is out of the job now ,it doesn't matter really. He should know the fact no Asian country thinks that Japan was "gentler " than France or Britain...more brutal for sure.
Triumvere at 07:02 PM JST - 2nd December

As for Gen. Tamogami, perhaps he can serve as a sort of one-man good will ambassador; send him abroad by himself and let re-educate Japan's neighbors as to the true nature of WWII. He can start in Harbin.
chikuwa at 08:50 PM JST - 2nd December

“I have to say that Japan was not alone in being an aggressor,” he told a news conference.

I fully agree with Mr. Tamogami in this regard.
Simon_Foston at 10:40 PM JST - 3rd December

“I have to say that Japan was not alone in being an aggressor,” he told a news conference.

I fully agree with Mr. Tamogami in this regard.

Right, there was Nazi Germany and fascist Italy as well. Real quality allies to have in a war, don't you think?
namuo at 11:28 PM JST - 3rd December

I don't feel anything what Western says about it. Most of RICH countries now won WWII. Also, most of RICH countries is founded economics based on WWII favor or colonization before. However, they says war is bad. Yes, of course they learn from the past. But, I don't see any countries paid money a lot and help to give technology to countries(which Japan did bad) to help them grow again. Yes, RICH countries gives ODA to those countries though, but it is not for they feel bad. I think because of market. They seems to think and act like yeah war was happened and what we did was politics. There is no point to give back money...sure you guys won WWII. Thank you for AMERICA gives Japan atomic bombs to stop Russian. Is there a hate low? or apologize? No. Sure, if you win the war, there is nothing to be blame about it. They take ground benefit of WWII anyways. Also, German passing the laws to regret what they do and they apologize about Holocaust, but they didn't apologize about WAR, even they started. Political history was abused and used anyway. One more things, in Japanese education, we taught how Japanese is bad bad bad bad bad doing bad bad bad bad to other country during war. What is true history then? The problem here is the History was sometimes politically abused. They mention what other country did bad and do such and such and they don't mention what your country also did bad and such and such. and what people thinks are they compare to other country and think we are better proud country now. However, you guys also an aggressor. Japan...in case, we found information about rape and other side, S.Korea send women for business　to have money. About Massacre of Nankin, I think Japan killed many people, but number wise it is unclear. Maybe in total,winner countries of WWII killed more? So, think about WWII, if Japan is blamed so much then there are many countries should be blamed like Japan.
chikuwa at 10:04 PM JST - 4th December

To Simon_Foston

Right, there was Nazi Germany and fascist Italy as well. Real quality allies to have in a war, don't you think?

And all the others once had COLONIES. Some of them even had slaves, eh? Does aggression suddenly signify different meaning when it relate to wartime worldpowers other than Japan? Nonsense. That's what we say double standard.

namuro

Great post.
chikuwa at 10:07 PM JST - 4th December

Sorry for typo.

I mean 'namuo'.