simonsaysjapan's past comments

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  simonsaysjapanJan. 05, 2013 - 08:45PM JST

  @Joseph Garret Baxter- Japan declared war on Britain and the Commonwealth, including Australia, on the same day it attacked Pearl Harbor. A Japanese force of 57,000 troops attacked a garrison of 14,000 British, Canadian, Indian and Cantonese troops by invading Hong Kong (8th Dec. 1941 Asia time, 7th Dec. in Hawaii). Although an argument has been put forward by Japanese wartime apologists, like Abe, and included in the comments above, that Japan was 'liberating' it's Asian brethren from Western colonialism, this fails to consider the murder of these Indian and Cantonese soldiers, the bombing of Australians in Darwin, their own country, and Japan's atrocities against these same Asians in places as diverse as China (invaded), Korea (invaded and annexed for the Emperor), Papua New Guinea etc. etc.

  Posted in: Abe wants to replace landmark 1995 war apology

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  simonsaysjapanJan. 05, 2013 - 06:13PM JST

  Thanks a million to smithinjapan for typing such well written and accurate argument. One of the most distressing things about the comments here is the utter veil of illusion that the Japanese commentators are writing under. There is no feeling that they have built their opinions from well-sourced reading and broadmindedness, but more that they have filtered what they chose to accept based on their extreme nationalism. Then, along come the occassional Western sycophants with their 'little bit of knowledge is dangerous' opinions backing up the vicious murder of 20 million Asians by Japanese imperial forces. I got an M.A. In this and wrote dissertation papers on the problem. In the end, I left Japan after 15 years there as I was so disheartened by the country's direction and the increasing narrow-mindedness of a generally racist and increasingly intolerant populace. With China and South Korea gaining all the world's attention in Asia, it amazes me that Japan has not put these issues to bed and grasped a massive opportunity to develop internationally and economically by making friends with their neighbours. The slide continues and, considering how brainwashed by their complicit media they are anyway, giving the Japanese public a chance to vote for a fascist is nothing but a recipe for disaster.

  Posted in: Abe wants to replace landmark 1995 war apology