Originally posted by Errata
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I want you to think about this parallel situation: to this day the Japanese do not fully admit war crimes. Every country in Asia that they dominated until the Allies freed them, and every prisoner of war camp (or situation: i.e. the "Bataan Death March") showed a true callousness towards anybody whom they chose as their enemy. This does not excuse any war crimes committed against the Japanese by Allied forces (like the fire bombing of Tokyo in 1945), but it explains the deep hatred that ran rampant in those years from the anti-Japanese forces. As mentioned before, they deny incidents like the "rape of Nanking" in 1937, an event that was photographed and filmed and reported, and so horrific that some Nazi diplomats were moved to try to assist the Chinese! It's instructive to compare German and Japanese responses to the war. The war of 1941-1945 by Japan against the Allied coalition was supposedly to free Asia of European domination and set up the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere". Aside from some puppets, like the state of "Manchuko" in the former Manchuria - under Pu-Yi) most of the "freed states" were treated as slave states. Certainly the Chinese were. The Germans (although there are some right wing German groups who denounce the current government) for the most part accept their responsibility for the atrocities of World War II (which are equally well documented). Of course there are "Holacaust" Deniers, but there are also "Flat Earth" believers too.
The closest thing to the Japanese refusal to accept responsibility for their crimes is that of Turkey refusing to acknowledge the "Armenian Genocide" of 1915-1922. Most of the world does acknowledge it, but not Turkey.
Jeff
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