Japan Osaka mayor says the WW2 "confort women" were necessary

[Deleted]

I understand his viewpoint, but I do not necessary agree with it.

[Laize]

An estimated ~300 000 of the comfort women were literally raped to death, the remainder were mostly left sterile (along with other severe injuries) due to the serious trauma their bodies were subject to. They then had to live with that for the rest of their lives, while everyone in their society denied did their best to escape any sort of responsibility. You really consider that easy?

Having trouble corroborating the "300,000 women raped to death" thing.

And yeah, no one is denying it was a shitty thing for the Japanese to do.

People do shitty things during war time. You can get mad at the Japanese for the comfort women thing or you can get mad at the US for the Japanese internment camps or any number of gross human rights violations during wartime. You can also get mad at the tides. One is as inevitable as the other.

During war, people are going to do shitty things. It's going to happen.

[Hyve]

I don't think they're necessary, but they were certainly helpful.

I'm not saying what happened was acceptable, it wasn't, but it was needed at that point in time to allow some of the men to relax, before they snapped and shot their own men. War is an ugly place, Men, Women & Children are all raped, killed, tortured, abused and much more. None are spared.

[Laize]

Another major (Nagoya) and a few other officials actually said it was fabricated. Not even 40 years ago but last year.
Japan is still a pretty messed up country. And they wonder why China wants to wipe them off the planet.

Dude... Japan is the least reliable source for their wartime history. Holocaust denialism (or their version of it) is basically required to be considered a Japanese nationalist. Not only do they consistently understate the exact numbers involved in their transgressions, but in many cases they deny things like the Nanking Massacre ever happened to begin with.

[Catta]

Which I could have told them was a terrible idea...
"Hey, I wonder what'll happen a few generations from now when the nazis are really powerful, and we're the only brown people left on Earth?"

Time for Bratwurst of course. But not before cleaning yourself. Here, step into the shower.

[Alixie]

A little off topic, but I regret reading the Rape of Nanking on Wikipedia. Seeing what Japanese soldiers did to Chinese women, shoving glass and sticks in their vaginas, just makes me wonder how anyone especially a large group of people can be so openly monstrous.

---------- Post added 2013-05-14 at 06:49 AM ----------

I don't think they're necessary, but they were certainly helpful.

I'm not saying what happened was acceptable, it wasn't, but it was needed at that point in time to allow some of the men to relax, before they snapped and shot their own men. War is an ugly place, Men, Women & Children are all raped, killed, tortured, abused and much more. None are spared.

See my post on the Rape of Nanking. Forced prostitution wasnt a necessary evil, because the soldiers still went out and skewered children for fun, and raped and mutilated women outside of the ones they imprisoned.

[Dezerte]

Well, at least he's not trying to hide that ugly fact of war (which most assuredly isn't exclusive to the Japanese), but he could of chosen his words a bit better.

[Mithfin]

What was necessary was nuking Japan if a swift end such stupidity was to be assured.

"Location: USA, more fascist every day"

IRONY OVERWHELM>.....dfgdfgdfggd_______________

[Deleted]

I see nothing wrong in war anything goes.

Well when the next WW rolls around we will see how it could feel if it was your mother/sister/cousin/grandma/wife/gilfriend.........

[Stir]

Next up: "Japanese soldiers eating their prisoners in front of other prisoners was necessary in order to keep moral up."
Honestly, people. I don't get why everyone's so upset about this. If you're waging a war, you really nééd to act like the demonic invaders from some fantasy story. And that includes institutionalized rape and cannibalism.

Edit for clarity: No, I'm not nation-bashing. Japan during WWII committed the worst attrocities I can think of. I do not blame today's Japanese. I do not hate Japan. It's history; it's what happened in the past.
I just don't think people nowadays should make excuses for this past. It happened, and any sane person would look back and go 'Ehm... No; there's simply no way to excuse this.'

[Simulacrum]

See my post on the Rape of Nanking. Forced prostitution wasnt a necessary evil, because the soldiers still went out and skewered children for fun, and raped and mutilated women outside of the ones they imprisoned.

Obviously they wouldn't be necessary if you were dealing with disciplined soldiers, but if what you're saying is true then keeping that quality of soldier complacent sure sounds like it necessitates extremes like this to me.

[Laize]

Next up: "Japanese soldiers eating their prisoners in front of other prisoners was necessary in order to keep moral up."
Honestly, people. I don't get why everyone's so upset about this. If you're waging a war, you really nééd to act like the demonic invaders from some fantasy story. And that includes institutionalized rape and cannibalism.

Edit for clarity: No, I'm not nation-bashing. Japan during WWII committed the worst attrocities I can think of. I do not blame today's Japanese. I do not hate Japan. It's history; it's what happened in the past.
I just don't think people nowadays should make excuses for this past. It happened, and any sane person would look back and go 'Ehm... No; there's simply no way to excuse this.'

While no one is denying that these acts were pretty damn bad... what we're saying is that war does crazy things to people. If we can forgive women who kill their husbands because they've been abused, why do we find it so hard to forgive soldiers for bad things they do when other people are trying to kill them on a daily basis (Often is grimly creative ways such as the baby-grenades used in Vietnam)?

[marthsk]

Typical geek-like opinion.

If it's the UAE, it's horrible, and you go as far as saying that the only reason they don't eat pork is because "it would be cannibalism".

But if it's Japan, the "superior" country as your meme says, aka the supreme kingdom of geekdom, then it's all fine and dandy. No wonder they have comic books depicting this sort of act, and those sell like crazy!

Neither is justifiable. Don't even try!

[Stir]

While no one is denying that these acts were pretty damn bad... what we're saying is that war does crazy things to people. If we can forgive women who kill their husbands because they've been abused, why do we find it so hard to forgive soldiers for bad things they do when other people are trying to kill them on a daily basis (Often is grimly creative ways such as the baby-grenades used in Vietnam)?

We don't forgive women who kill their husbands because they're abused. Or at least: I don't. There are other, better options than murder. But 'we' certainly don't forgive men who kill their WIVES because they're abused, do we? Huh. So there's a double standard, thank you.

No, we cannot forgive those actions. Never. There is no excuse. If you're under attack and need to kill someone, then you bloody well kill your attacker. Not some innocent sod in the street. And you certainly don't force civilian captives into being mass-raped as entertainment, or get a local chef to butcher and prepare one of his friends (whom you just shot to death in front of the chef), and then EAT that friend in front of other captives. You. Just. Don't. Do. That. Kind. Of. Thing.

[Simulacrum]

Neither is justifiable. Don't even try!

You condemn others for what you assert is their childish and naive world-views, then turn right around and promote an equally childish and naive one?

It's easy to lecture others on what ought to be from a position of luxury and privilege, it's another thing entirely if you're not the distant observer retrospectively condemning people in conditions so far-removed from your own that you can't even brings yourself to attempt to comprehend them.

[marthsk]

You condemn others for what you assert is their childish and naive world-views, then turn right around and promote an equally childish and naive one?

It's easy to lecture others on what ought to be from a position of luxury and privilege, it's another thing entirely if you're not the distant observer retrospectively condemning people in conditions so far-removed from your own that you can't even brings yourself to attempt to comprehend them.

Oh, right, because condemning rape for either country is equally childish and naive.

And what about you? Criticizing me for lecturing them, and then lecturing me yourself without a shred of an idea on what my background could be.

Don't even try. And don't throw stones from a house made out of glass.

[Deleted]

So what? That should be no excuse for it. There is never an excuse for it.

He didn't give an excuse. He tried to explain the reality of war.

And the reality is that war is hell, and it makes soldiers into devils.

That is also why going to war for "humanitarian reasons" is by definition a bad idea.

[marthsk]

He didn't give an excuse. He tried to explain the reality of war.

And the reality is that war is hell, and it makes soldiers into devils.

That is also why going to war for "humanitarian reasons" is by definition a bad idea.

There is a difference between telling about a reality, and trying to justify actions based on said reality.

Hey, the reality in arab countries is that it's common place to commit horrible heinous acts on women. If you saw anyone trying to justify their acts by saying "This is our reality", they'd get told to go to hell in a hurry. And with good reason!

Japan should just assume that this was a very, very awful decision on their part back then.

[Laize]

We don't forgive women who kill their husbands because they're abused. Or at least: I don't. There are other, better options than murder. But 'we' certainly don't forgive men who kill their WIVES because they're abused, do we? Huh. So there's a double standard, thank you.

A double standard I, of course, disagree with. It was just the most convenient example.

No, we cannot forgive those actions. Never. There is no excuse. If you're under attack and need to kill someone, then you bloody well kill your attacker. Not some innocent sod in the street. And you certainly don't force civilian captives into being mass-raped as entertainment, or get a local chef to butcher and prepare one of his friends (whom you just shot to death in front of the chef), and then EAT that friend in front of other captives. You. Just. Don't. Do. That. Kind. Of. Thing.

It's easy to forget how negative experiences impact the human psyche. Given that and the frightening implications of how being ordered to do something heinous by an authority figure and how your squadmates are capable of altering your own experiences in your mind all of which were exacerbated by the insane amount of propaganda on all sides in the war, it's not difficult to see how these things began, continued and were accepted by the soldiers on the ground.

[Simulacrum]

Oh, right, because condemning rape for either country is equally childish and naive.

And what about you? Criticizing me for lecturing them, and then lecturing me yourself without a shred of an idea on what my background could be.

Don't even try. And don't throw stones from a house made out of glass.

Somebody's awfully self-righteous.

Anyway, you assert that it's never justifiable, when clearly that isn't the case, as this was accepted practice. When you're killing people at such rates that were happening during WW2, it's not especially bad relative everything else that's happening at the time. It's not particularily worse than firebombing them, which western nations were happy to do en masse, and are totally capable of justifying, nor is it worse than many other things that people have done to each other throughout history, acts for which many people are celebrated as heroes to this day, as we print them on money, mint coins in their likeness, and celebrate their lives in books and plays.