US Internment Camps “Human Rights Crime of Century”
- Categories: Japan, News
- Date: Sep 8, 2012 19:49 JST
- Tags: Gaikokujin, History, Image Gallery, Military, Photography, Politics, USA, WWII, Wyoming
Rare colour photographs of the captivity enjoyed by Japanese-Americans in WWII thanks to the tender hospitality of Uncle Sam have been causing much controversy amongst Japanese online, with many keen either to burnish their victimhood or praise the relatively humane nature of “the USA’s concentration camps.”
The newly published photos date back to WWII, when the land of the free was indiscriminately locking up those of its ethnic Japanese citizens it did not send off to die fighting on the European frontlines:
Some 110,000 Japanese-Americans, most of whom were American citizens, were forcibly imprisoned in a series of “internment” camps in desolate locations under military guard from 1942 onwards, on the basis that they were all possible spies. Canada also operated similar camps.
The US government issued a formal apology for their treatment in 1988, and has paid out over a billion dollars in reparations to its victims. Germans and Italians were not subject to similar imprisonment.
The photos, by Bill Manbo, are published in an anthology entitled “Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Internment in World War II.”
The topic arouses a certain amount of indignation amongst latter day Japanese, not that their own nation’s ghastly wartime treatment of non-Japanese in any way compares favourably:
“As expected of America!”
“The greatest human rights violation of the 20th century!”
“Actually some of them look quite happy.”
“Vivid kimono they had there, really nice to see colour photos like this.”
“Beautiful kimono! And good physiques on those wrestlers.”
“None of these people would have been able to afford kimono if they had stayed in Japan, most of them were just poor farmers there.”
“They are wearing them wrong anyway, more like yukata.”
“Why release them now? They are just trying to whitewash the camps as somehow being ‘humane.'”
“The real issue here is that they just let Germans go about their lives.”
“Looks more pleasant than contemporary Japan at any rate.”
“These aren’t Japanese, they are nikkei Japanese-Americans!”
“Even today Japanese-Americans are as anti-Japanese as Koreans.”
“Who cares about this stuff! Spread more pictures of them bombing us!”
“America is a military nation, not a Christian nation. You’re nothing th”
“This is just propaganda. Japanese should never forget they had all their property seized and after the war were subject to massive discrimination.”
“Go and learn about Unit 731 and lieutenant general Shiro Ishii.”
“And what’s wrong with trying to stop the spread of disease?”
“How Japan was treating its prisoners of war:”
“The 442nd was America’s greatest military unit ever and won more medals than any others!”
“Just looking at the wealth of the US at the time, you can really see why Japan was beaten.”
“Those who couldn’t stand having all their property taken and being locked up as enemy aliens could always go and fight on the front lines in Europe.”
“This kind of horrible treatment is a real issue. Japan was feeding and treating its captured enemy soldiers properly, they just thought the nori was black paper!”
“Japan’s US and European POWs were nothing but skin and bones when they were released…”
“You can’t compare POWs to civilians!”
“And most of these prisoners were American citizens!”
“Even Japanese, soldiers included, were starving at the time…”
“Of course, they just neglected to record the horrible conditions of these internees!”
“According to a book by one of the guys in the 442nd, the internees each were mandated to have a meat ration of at least 220g a day – Japan was fighting an ultra-wealthy nation which even gave its prisoners the equivalent of a steak at a family restaurant each day…”
“Seeing how differently they treated their Japanese citizens to the ones from Germany and Italy infuriates me, but compared to how the Nazis were treating their prisoners this is heaven.”
“Fancy those American brutes not setting up gas chambers for them!”
“Japan needs to set up these kinds of camps for its Korean citizens.”
“They treated Japanese internees humanely, whilst Japanese were making their foreign prisoners eat wood…”
“This is pure racism! Filthy Anglo-Saxon American brutes ought to grovel on the ground in apology to the Japanese!”
| 
Dead or Alive Ero-SFM Doubly Dirty
Flying Witch “Cute But Boring…”
Phantasy Star Online 2 Phantastic: “What About the West!?”
Shounen Maid “A Fujoshi Delight”
Terra Formars Live Action Web Drama Announced
Dragon Quest Heroes II Quite Monstrous
KumaMiko Lovingly Innocent
Aqua Onahole Parody Hopefully Moist
A-Size Classmate Profusely Petite
One Day With Maria Raunchy & Romantic
The Reject Demon: Toko Chapter 0 Raises Its Voice
Hai-Furi in Troubled Waters
Star Fox Zero “Pandering To Kids!”
Kiznaiver Shares Its Pain
Love Live’s Koi ni Naritai Aquarium PV “Will Sell Thousands!”
Skimpy Kataigou Figure
Ellen Baker’s Illustrator: “Keep It Clean!”
Bullet Girls 2 Goes At It From All Angles
Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization A Real Grind
Koutetsujou no Kabaneri Immensely Gruesome
Goddess of 2ch “Another Bathing Beauty!”
Tantalizing Hestia Cosplay Busts Out
Kashiwazaki Sena Cosplay Pure & Innocent
Minami Kotori Casino Girl Cosplay Takes No Chances
Shimakaze Cosplay by Ema Sakura
Harley Quinn Cosplay by Miyuko Colorfully Crazy
Sonico Ero-Cosplay by Yuka Hoshikage Super Sexy
Kasugano Sora Bunny Girl Cosplay Absolutely Admirable
Goddess of 2ch: “Barely Legal Beauty!”
Highly Yuri Tenryuu & Tatsuta Cosplay by Garo & Usagi
This is pretty much a non issue, except for the ridiculous reactionary comments.
The pictures do make the internment camps look like club med.
While their confinement was unjust, they did fare much better than other groups did in other countries.
The mind set of America was different, which made them believe this kind of confinement was justified. And it's much harder to differentiate between different types of people of European decent, than whites vs Asians.
“You can’t compare POWs to civilians!”
Why not? Aren't they both human, and should be treated humanly?
Look at it this way. US was unscathed throughout WW2. The fighting was in someone else's house so to speak. It isn't surprising that they were doing well in supplies.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that the US treated the unjustly imprisoned better than they're peers.
Hawaii was the US so how is that unscathed? but after that, yeah no other attack happened on US soil.
Not really, the Japanese rigged up weather balloons with explosives to ride the pacific air stream. It was an indiscriminate a attack method, as the bombs made to distinction between civilian & military targets. When it finally struck something, kaboom! And a large number of them reached the western coast, but the damages were minimal.
So yes, the United States Mainland was attacked by Japanese. Just not in the traditional way you'd expect. [Honestly it sounds more like something Chinese would think up.]
Well there was also Midway, but that didn't turn out so well for Japan.
Mainland America has never known the destruction of war. That is why we allow the runaway military industrial complex to wage extremely expensive and unnecessary (though hugely profitable) wars in other countries.
All the other countries of the world shun war and work to avoid it, while the US goes to other countries to seek it out.
If your house was destroyed, your family and friends killed, your town flattened, just so some government could play with their deadly toys, you wouldn't think war was so glorious.
Uh, not to disagree, and you certainly are right that it hasn't known the destruction of war here recently but... the civil war was pretty darn bloody and was right here in our own back yards. So please don't say 'never' when you say such things. How about 'not in recent memory'? Although I'm old enough that I had a great grandparent who recalled the civil war as a child at the time. So not that far removed.
23:36
LOL
Civil war, the most destructive early modern warfare even before ww1? Two wars fought on US soil against british? Mexican/American war? How about revolutionary war itself?
You are delusional if you think US has no experience fighting on its own soil. This is a nation that was born out of nothing and was built PURELY BY fighting on its own land.
I love it when fuckers with no historical knowledge go around talking out of their ass.
The North has not known the destruction of war. The South experienced total warfare.
01:22
None of which were invasion wars (Mexicans barely touched Texas), not to mention Britain was preoccupied with stuff in Europe to actually take the US seriously in the 2years to the point it's barely mentioned in history books. America was purely built over infighting, and when all the domestic violence was done americans decided to take aggression elsewhere.
Overall 23:36 has a good point.
23:53
The civil war was pretty destructive, but it was waged by americans on american soil, and people learned to recuperate and be bros again quickly after the infighting ended. What the original comment was trying to say is that the average present-day american has no clue what it's like to have been invaded by a foreign force, or undergo the horrors of a forced occupation. Although america did encounter territorial conflicts with Britain and Mexico, they were tame and petty compared to what most european and asian nations experienced in recent times.
06:37
This is what naive modern idiots see when they think those people with flashy funny uniforms fought like 'gentlemen'. How naive can you get?
Case in point: Amongst people whose signatures are on the original Declaration of Independence, half were either imprisoned, tortured, or executed.
Just because modern day media depicts those wars like posh affairs does not mean they were. Many figures never fully accounted for civilian collateral damage, and record keeping was shoddy. If anything, the warfare back than were worse since large amount of pillaging and looting were still accepted as facet of war and any unfortunate 'events' are written off as fact of war.
The soft and seemingly gentle words describing events at those times were written by upper class 'gentlemen'. War were waged by 'lower class' workers and farmers. They had little scruples. You sound really stupid to think they were easy in any way. Typical modern day idiots who think their impression defines history.
America has known the destructiveness of war plenty of times. It just doesn't dwell over it and whack off to the thought of having special bitching privileges unlike certain other countries who thinks having been fucked over is a point of pride.
Hawaii, Philippines (then a US territory, and the Bataan Death March was quite the atrocity), Wake Island, the Marshalls, Alaska's Aleutian islands. Nothing on the mainland like the Pacific territories, those were hammered.
Ignoring attacks on Hawaii and the Alaskan islands(where the Japanese actually made landfall and stayed for months), as well as Pacific territories (including the Phillipines at the time), they admittedly had a poor showing in attacking the mainland itself. Not that they didn't try.
February 3rd, 1942: A Japanese Submarine lobs a few explosive shells at the Ellwood oil production facilities near Santa Barbara, California in hopes of causing mass destruction. A pump house and a catwalk are damaged. Whoever was in charge of aiming the weapons on the sub was probably demoted.
June 20th, 1942: Another Japanese Submarine surfaces just off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia and Chief Gunner Hashiro Hayashi begins to fire 5.5” (that is, really big) shells at the Estevan Point Lighthouse. He misses his target entirely and fails to achieve any noteable damage to infrastructure.
June 21st- 22nd, 1942: A third sub surfaces near the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington and, in an unprecedented move, becomes the only sub to open fire at an American military installation during the war when it engages Fort Stevens. Unfortunately, the sub's aim is off a little (in keeping with the developing pattern) and manages only to damage the backstop of a nearby baseball field.
September 9th, 1942: A new strategy is implemented wherein a Yukosuka E14Y Seaplane is launched from atop a Japanese submarine, where it proceeds to fly over the forests of Oregon, dropping bombs and, hopefully, starting massive and uncontrollable forest fires. The first part of the task is a complete success. The plane is launched, the bomb is dropped, and a fire is started. A few Americans witness the event and respond quickly to the scene of the explosion, and with some help from some local firemen, the fire is put out by the following morning. While two bombs were apparently dropped on Oregon, there has never been any trace of a second bomb.
November 1944 – April 1945: The bright idea is hatched somewhere in the military that it might be a good idea to launch some “fire balloons” at the United States. These balloons would be carried by high into the air, where they would be picked up by trade winds to the United States. Eventually, they would fall from the air and explode on impact, hopefully causing some forest fires (much like the previous fire-bombing attempt).
Unfortunately, it is in this attempt that the Japanese achieved their only measure of success. The only deaths caused on the American mainland by the Japanese occurred when six people were killed, five of whom were children, when one of these balloons was found in a tree near Bly, Oregon, and exploded when it was being pulled down.
Got too much time on your hands, I see.
Always the same tired excuse of 'they had more THIINNGNGNGS'
War has shown that men, not things, win wars. America supplied the huge army of KMT with weapons and supplies, yet KMT lost to communists because they were simply not good enough men. In comparison, america has a history of winning battles beginning from the war of independence from an underdog position.
The myth that american industry was helping US from the moment war was declared is a convenient excuse of the defeated losers. It takes at least a year or two for US industries to be even ready to produce things, never mind those supplies need to actually reach their destination through swarms of U boats and half way round the world. America was fighting and winning on fair terms in pacific (read: guadanacal from reputable sources i.e. not wikipedia) before the full might of its industries began to produce results towards the beginning of 1943, and more than 60% of THAT went to europe due to europe first policy.
>>america has a history of winning battles beginning from the war of independence from an underdog position.
For example?
>>War has shown that men, not things, win wars.
Tell that to, I dunno, Vietnam veterans. That they weren't good enough.
Though I'll admit that was as much as a training/internal fail as a aviation-can't-bomb-real-targets thing.
>>America was fighting and winning on fair terms in pacific (read: guadanacal from reputable sources i.e. not wikipedia)
Uhm... In Guadalcanal the USA had quite the personnel advantage (in the end almost 2 to 1 ratio), and for most of the time the sea was more in american hands.
03:07
LOL someone can't read. NOT WIKIPEDIA. Compare combatants instead of non-coms. Also, japanese love to understate their numbers while over inflating the enemies, always waging war while dragging their dead away as if to hide their embarrassing bed sheet after pissing it over night. Thus, they try to claim every victory as 'overwhelming bravery in face of greatest odds EVER' and every defeat as 'COWARDLY ENEMY HAD MORE PEOPLE/THINGS THAN US'. Why did they drag off their survivors from midway into 'special hospitals' so they can't tell other people how badly they were beaten from a superior training/equipment position?
It's called war and propaganda tactics. Japanese units were some of the best they had, veterans of chinese conflicts. Ours was fresh trained, green troops for whom many has never set a foot outside US.
'War of Independence', look it up. War of 1812 was a stalemate, but there is no denying in each of those occasions we fought the strongest empire then and prevailed on our own soil. Vietnam veterans were hamstrung by incompetent politicians who sent soldiers into a conflict they did not have the political know-how to back it up. Our men killed far more enemies than they like to admit: if this was not the case, why did ho chi minh say 'you may kill ten of mine for one of yours...'?
4:43
Quote
"NOT WIKIPEDIA"
Yah so guess we'll just take your whims as a more credible source.
"'War of Independence', look it up. War of 1812 was a stalemate, but there is no denying in each of those occasions we fought the strongest empire then and prevailed on our own soil."
Go tell any Brit that among all those other "America fucking owns" stories, we'll laugh in your face.
You fought on your soil, when we had to ship in reinforcement from across the ocean, at a time when all our colonies were in turmoil and our best troops were divided to contend with conflict elsewhere. Not saying people didn't fight well, just that yanks aren't badass spartans you're imagining and getting nationalist and arrogant about.
07:31
Having greater resources and industrial base to wage war, with world's biggest navy and merchant fleet, and yet still you were surrounded and officially surrendered against a bunch of farmer-turned militia whose lands were smaller, had little to no money or industrial base in comparison, on a land supposedly part of its empire.
Even with divided armies, british were overall outnumbering colonialists for the majority of the war. It does nothing to explain how they could have lost each time and gained nothing in return for all their dead while US emerged stronger each time around.
16:34
Deft rounding up every minuscule detail huh? "lands were smaller" - like any of that matters in war. How about comparing wanker sizes?
"overall outnumbering colonialists for the majority of the war" - ignorance at its finest. Do they teach you that stuff in history?
"official surrender" - we were pressured by every other nation in europe. Remember all your excuses you like using for Vietnam? We had it worse, and not just from domestic sources.
Dumbass american nationalists outta go learn some real history.
09:00
Trying hard to convince yourself I see.
I don't recall NVA rolling into and conquering South Vietnam when US army was present in force, only after we officially left. Unlike you brits who caved like a bitch and signed a document of surrender.
Read some real history about the War of Independence and you might learn some real facts.
It's easy in hindsight. But the concept of the Fifth Column was fresh from the Spanish Civil War. Hindsight is always 20/20 but then we don't know if more sabotage could not have happened if more Japanese spies were not able to disrupt USA.
I'm not American BTW.
lol, "Human Rights Crime of Century”
seriously?
I think it was the worst treatment any group has been given in the last 100 years by America, blacks have nothing on these people having all of their land and property taken away.
Now before 100 years ago? Yea, then blacks have a case from the 19th century, but not in the last 100 years. And those from the internment camps don't still complain about the inequality. Lots of blacks don't complain anymore either, but there are too many that do.
I doubt the majority of them even owned land. In the early 20th century Japanese could not own land in most, if not all states. And the ones that could had to be born on US soil. There were lots of discrimination against Japanese immigrants because they worked for nearly nothing. As most were poor farmers escaping Japan's harsh caste system. The term "strawberry pickers" was ofttimes associated with early Japanese immigrants, as that was all many could do. And did, as they worked for far less than anyone else was willing to do. Basically, they were the illegal immigrants of the early 20th century.
Certain West Coast states (*cough* California *cough*) prohibited or made land-ownership rather cumbersome for Japanese-Americans. That's why many moved East even before WWII. Chicago attracted the largest number, IIRC.
They were never lynched on the streets like blacks were... That existed until less than 100 years ago, btw.
These "concentration camps" were barely worthy of notice at all, much less 100 bil reparations.
That's a hard case to make when you consider the first twenty years of the 20th century (1900-1920). Consider treatment of Mexican-Americans in the southwest, Irish-Americans prior to WWI, and Native Americans pretty much anywhere they were.
Also remember that for most of the 20th century blacks particularly in the south were still second-class citizens--civil rights wasn't until the 60's, and in the early part of the century especially they were marginalized in half the country.
In retrospect, I think we just started the most ridiculously stupid pissing contest in all the world... >_>;
Please look up "The Tuskegee Experiment". I know it's a little difficult to compare forced confinement against secretly being infected with syphilis, but I know which I'd consider worse. >_>;
While I admit that was pretty bad... those guys should be judged by the standards of American military personnel. Suffice it to say, there are a lot of low cards in that hand.
There may not have been as much "concentrated" infringement as the Japanese-Americans experienced during WW2, but blacks haven't had a cakewalk in the last 100 years, either. The Tuskeegee experiment was already mentioned, but there was also:
* Jim Crow laws and widespread segregation of public institutions and facilities
* Oldschool voter suppression (poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses to spare undereducated whites from the same suppression)
* Violent suppression of mostly-peaceful demonstrations
* Skewed cocaine/crack sentencing laws leading to disproportionate black incarceration rates during the "War on Drugs" from the 1980s to the present
* "Schools to Prison" pipelines in inner-city or otherwise disadvantaged schools, increasing the incarceration rates to the point where more black males are in prison today than were enslaved in 1850. (Granted, higher population, but still)
* Newschool voter suppression in the last ~15 years or so, including ID requirements and overly-broad/erroneous voter-roll purges, which likely cost Al Gore the state of Florida and thus the election in 2000.
from what i know Goerge Takei grew up on one of those concentration camps
*typo* George
Are you serious? I really had no idea he grew up in one...
He did, and he is currently doing a show detailing his experiences in said camps. The show is called Allegiance if I recall correctly.
As did Pat Morita.
Most of the comments is a joke. Do not take it seriously (--;
lol, I know, but unfortunately, most dumb people won't take it as a joke.
Some comments are sadly NOT a joke...
and some are just poorly translated.
Knowing japs, and how alike they really are to koreans, it is sad to say most of these are not jokes. They are just that pathetic and are practically asking for it now.
01:23 I love sancom users who think they know japanese by reading news from site like this one.
I love idiots who think I don't know japanese from first hand experience. What experience do you have?
Ive been in Japan and know lots of people that been there you are just typical sancom lying trah that like this shitty cnn like news.
@4:36
lol I know you're an ultranationalist trash who loves deluding himself and using idiotic words like "firsthand experience" to claim he knows a nation from the sheer impudence and stupidity in your comments.
03:15 He uses "firsthand experience" because he's never known a single japanese person, thinking his inbred breed is better, yet still has to pathetically stand up for his argument.
03:59
Keep telling yourself that so you can sleep at night. You have no idea how wrong you are ^^
Yep. Far worse than Batan. Uh-huh.
wow japs are way more beyond hypocrites...
nanking massacre in china, japan invasion and under rule of korea (lots of documented rape & massacre in that history), ww2 massacre in philippines, the rest can be found here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes
oh i luv history
regardless of the victim. it happened in the past. if it is ongoing to this day, then yes it is a problem.
and why the hell are the "victim" japanese in these pictures celebrating or is that just me?
they look awfully happy tbh
america basically pulled the japanese-american community together... then they threw a party.
what's not to be happy about?
You make the best of your situation, even if it's pretty shitty.
There are degrees of shitniess. You don't see live Chinese experimental subjects of Japanese bioweapons smiling.
There's the little issue of physical discomfort. You see evidence of that written all over the faces of these Japanese victims of "Human rights crime of this century."
That's why all the Gulag, Batan and Auschwitz prisoners are all laughing in photos too.... right.
im here at euro, have a chinese co-worker, met his grandfather, grandpa told me story how his father and 2 sisters got raped and killed and how he and his mom got out of nanking, oldman still hold a grudge abd this was like 3 or 4 years ago!
Not surprised he'd hold a grudge. That's pretty damn traumatizing. Forgiveness has to go both ways and the Japanese still haven't even admitted, let alone apologize and compensate for it.
They say time heals all wounds, but there are some wounds that are just too severe to heal by time alone. Especially within a lifetime.
Don't blame him, I would too.
Of course it was a traumatic and horrible thing that was done, and not easy to forget, holding a grudge against people who had no control of those other peoples action, or were not even born yet is not beneficial to anyone, though it may be self destructive.
Most of the people who ordered or participated in that massacre are probably dead already.
Japan has admitted and apologized no less than 55 times [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan], including from the emperor(s), but without explicitly detailing every crime committed, Korea and China simply don't accept that the apology happened.
I honestly wouldn't blame the countries and their people who were wronged by Japan for not accepting the apology. The atrocities of war run deep and through many generations. It's hard to forget.
Regardless, I don't think these photos highlight what the Japanese would like them to highlight. These photos don't make the camps out to be the worst places in the world that text books and other historians would like people to believe. Maybe that's because you wouldn't expect prisoners to be smiling?
Personally I like the family in the American fashion. They're really cute.
These vague Japanese apologies are actually non-apologies. They're apologizing for the war-dead in general, at the same time denying specific atrocities like Rape of Nanking ever happened.
It's as if the US apologies for Japanese killed, yet deny dropping the atomic bombs.
These aren't apologies, they're rubbing it into victim's wounds.
Why should your friend's grandfather accept their non-apology when his family died at Nanking, and they deny it ever happened?
Time heals those wounds; the people who remember will eventually die.
This is well understood by every government in the world. It's what Japan is using here, it's what the US is using for its Asian interference, it's what both Koreas are using with respects to its unified history, and it's what China is using with respect to Tibet.
But perhaps it is best for humanity. We're terrible at making effort happen and these issues take years worth of research to arrive at any passably neutral, informed conclusion. Maybe it's just best that we bury everything under secrets...
@imyou:
except the japanese then go and commemorate the generals/soldiers who died to cause these things.
since you like to use wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni_Shrine#Enshrinement_of_war_criminals
@01:24 Definitely true, and Korean and Chinese politicians have brought up the Japanese atrocities purely to rally citizens behind them, as a rather tasteless hatemongering political move to make themselves more relevant.
But while prime ministers have been decent about addressing the atrocities, it's still rather problematic that the Japanese government and people continue to deny this stuff ever happened e.g. textbook revisionism, censoring of works that detail Nanking, insisting that Korean comfort women were willing prostitutes, etc. It'd sort of be like if much of the American public, despite the government's apologies for internment, generally agreed that internment didn't really happen or wasn't a big deal, and schools never taught children that yes, America too screwed up big time in terms of human rights.
Of course the people who were injured by these atrocities are angry.
But they're only going to be as happy as they want to be and being angry at the japanese seems to do it for them. There is no point for the Japanese to continue apologizing.
The politicians on all sides are simply using the tragedy of these people for their own advantage.
How should they compensate? They paid South Korea money, and suggested they pay money to all individual victims. South Korean goverment wanted to use the money to build up the country and that's where they went. Think it was only some years ago this was revealed to the South Korean public.
Furthermore, China and Taiwan refused monitary compensation.
As far as the Yasukuni shrine goes, people seem to forget that there are normal soldiers and other people there too. Just as in my cemetary back home, there's a rapist buried, now that shouldn't stop me from visiting.
I'm not saying Japan is in the clear, we all know what they did and it was freakishly horrible.
Nanking was an atrocity from Japan and I wont deny that, but Japan weren't the only dicks. The communists and republicans agreed to fight together but the communist party wanted the republican party to be destroyed so they didn't show up to help defend the biggest city in China.
The republicans, when they heard of this, burned every single scrap of useful land and demolished as much buildings as possible before fleeing, leaving the civilians to fend for themselves.
Then when the Japanese arrived and seen that the city was worthless, let their soldiers completely loose on it. All dicks. Japan did the worse damage, but all dicks.
The Chinese government and Taiwanese government still owe the people of Nanking an apology. Japan gave one, even if some right-wingers deny it, the sane ones did apologise.
Sancom haters see only black they need thir fucked up hatered.
People need to educate themselves before repeating myths as fact. The revisionist textbooks [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Society_for_History_Textbook_Reform] do exist... and they're soundly rejected by almost every school in Japan. Saying that Japan still denies their war crimes in schools is like saying that American schools all teach creationism instead of evolution.
They gotta.
A relatively short amount of time without freedom is infinitely better than actually going out there risking their lives for the war, no?
Yes or no.
The war actually lasted a while and it's not that soldiers on both sides immediately surrendered because they thought they would be better off in POW camps. Crude comparisons are crude.
Definitely agree, but you can't help but notice that the American treatment of this-- a formal apology, tons of reparations, and teaching schoolchildren how horrible the internment camps were-- is a huge difference from Japanese treatment of their atrocities-- denial that it happened, removal of all references from textbooks, and blaming the victims for "agreeing" to be comfort women.
It makes one a lot easier to forgive than another...
Yeah I'm not defending what the US did but “The greatest human rights violation of the 20th century!” is a bit of a stretch.
I think the Nazis have a big edge in that. What with turning people into soap and lampshades.
War-time propaganda to dehumanize the Germans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_made_from_human_corpses
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_lampshades
Typhus was a big problem at the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhus
I don't think that post referred to the use of human remains but what happened to the people that were seen as enemies of the Nazi state (or just disposable). After all, which part of the process is the more inhumane?
The Nazis actually draw the line at large scale live human testing of biological weapons. So Japan's still a contender.
It wasn't propaganda.
They produced soap from human bodies in Gdansk (Poland). IPN research concluded that they (Nazis) didn't used bodies of killed prisoners in their "experiments".
And I assure you: Germans had enough war crimes even without this particular example. Joseph Mengele - ring any bells?
Um, correction - they DID use corpses of tried prisoners.
Yeah I think what's happening in Gaza and Israel is a lot worse, it's literally a Holocaust all over again :/ But you don't hear it on the media anymore...
^ clueless dupe of propaganda
If any dumbass actually thinks gaza is a holocaust, they need to check themselves. You are welcome to your own opinions, not facts. For your opinions to have any weight, it must be based on facts.
Wow I had to comment. WTF.
LOL is srs
Pretty much, hypocritical bull shit when the Japanese employed auschwitz like conditions for their prisoners.
We basically segregated them, building normal communities..
But it is the noise I would expect from an Ishihara supporter.
From the looks of those Photographs, the Japanese in those Camps were living better than our US soldiers at the time.
11:31
HAHA great point. Concentration camp my japanese whore's ass.
Japan! The biggest hypocrite of the World since 1945!
Sarcasm and hyperbole doesn't translate well.
Sadly, most of that stuff on 2chan isn't sarcasm.
Are you an idiot. 2chan is FULL of sarcasm.
Trust me, retard, these particular Japs are deadly seriously about the crap spewing out of their mouths regarding right wing nuts, tatoos, barbarians, otakus, and the like.
Funny how 2CH don't even take their comments seriously yet SanCom just boils over every time a few lines get crappily translated. Makes me wonder how hypocritical people can get.
Oh and before some douche who can't speak a word of japanese comes in and claims he knows the truth behind the real jap mentality, I've been a gaijin in japan for the past 6yrs, fielded in politics and economics and I absolutely respect the people. So rage on, it's plain amusing to see : )
04:18
You japanese? I like how you think 6 years as an outsider anywhere makes you wiser about japanese than a 5 year old japanese kid. That statement just broadcasted your childish ignorance about your REAL status in the eyes of japanese.
You really don't know anything about japan. I can just imagine how japanese people look at someone like you.
16:46
Mmm, those delicious asspained tears...
"I've been a gaijin in japan for the past 6yrs..."
BWAHAHAHHA pathetic outsider thinks he knows japan after spending measly 6 years in it. Typical gaijin mentality thinking they know how a place works. This is like monkey claiming to know people after living in a town for 6 years.
02:58
Good to see the monkey show up
Yeah, some of the poster on 2Ch are kind of retarded in case you haven't noticed.
They are incredibly like koreans, sometimes worse. Whenever they bitch about koreans I find it incredibly amusing to hear their impotent cries.
Meanwhile so many korean men are fucking japanese girls. I can attest to this from experience.
You are a Japanese girl?
Virgin Anonymous, claiming he had sex with Japanese girl on internet.
I think the US's greatest human rights violation in the 20th century was the IRS...
Every country did its fair share of human rights violations. Some are just better at hiding them... >.>
Japs don't hide them, they cover their own eyes and pretend it never happened, while everyone else saw everything.
That's what happens when you let rightwing nationalist parties whitewash your textbooks.
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” - George Santayana
also refer to unit 731..... live experimentation
the US made a background deal with them aswell..... both sides have done wrong
background deal that would put such knowledge into right hands who could develop countermeasures.
knowledge is knowledge. US did nothing wrong in using these scientists for their own ends, basically turning their dirty knowledge into a weapon against such atrocities and using medical knowledge gained from them to ensure CDC and G2 knew exactly how to act in order to spare pain and develop medicine and vaccine instead of poison.
Idiots who naively think and take in only face-value facts need to understand deeper implications behind actions of a nation state.
You fucking bigot. I suppose you think German Americans are responsible for the atrocities the Nazi party committed during WWII? Or Muslim Americans for the attacks on 9/11?
These were American citizens that had their land, their property, and their rights taken from them without any due process. And that's really all there is to it, end of story. The atrocities that the Japanese military committed has NOTHING to do with this, and it sure as hell doesn't make Japanese American's hypocrites.
This is one of the most embarrassing infringements on the values we supposedly treasure as a nation, and it's just sickening that there are still people trying to defend it.
First, the people that were interned did not lose their land or property. When they were released, they were allowed to return to their former homes.
Second, they were afforded due process under the laws of the time.
Third, while interred, the internees were treated quite well and very well provided for.
That being said, I don't agree with the internment process of the day, but that was a much different time. And since then, the US government has lived up to their mistake and, as was pointed out in the article, have paid over a billion dollars in reparations.
Now, as you say, comparing the Japanese internment to the atrocities performed at that time by other nations does not excuse the action.
But in comparison the internment, although an embarrassing piece of american history, is nowhere near as bad as other things that had and were happening across the world at the time.
"These were American citizens that had their land, their property, and their rights taken from them without any due process"
Actually, no.
Their land and property was not taken from them. And they were interned with "due process", only the process at the time was, admittedly, messed up.
Internees also had a lot more freedom than people think. College students were allowed to continue going to their classes and people could get permission to leave the camp. They just had to make sure that they didn't wander too far out of their way on the way to and from where they were going, had to have a legitimate reason for leaving the camp and had to be back in the camps by a certain time.
I don't condone the actions taken at the time, but as has been said, times were different back then. A less enlightened time when it came to bigotry and a time when paranoia was running rampant because of the war.
And, based on what other nations were doing at the time, the internment was one of the least offensive "atrocities" to happen during the war.
Although it could be considered a travesty of justice, people were certainly not being killed or maltreated. They were just being contained.
You also have to give the US credit for owning up to their mistake. They've made a direct, formal apology (although it took a bit too long to do IMO) and, as the article states, have paid over a billion dollars in reparations.
They did not have their property or lands taken from them. They were allowed to return to their homes after they were released.
They were also well treated, well cared for and had quite a few liberties while interned. College students were allowed to continue going to campus and, if the need was legit, others could get permission to leave the camp. they just couldn't stray too far from their designated destination and they had to be back by a certain time.
Was it a travesty of justice? Most definitely. Was it an "atrocity"? Absolutely not.
As has been said, it was a different time and the outlook was very different from what it is now. People and governments were being super paranoid because of the war and, sadly, bigotry was a lot more prevalent at the time. This doesn't excuse what happened, but it does explain some of it.
Sorry, but you are wrong about property not being taken. They were rounded up and told to take only those items they could carry. People living in apartments lost all their furniture and anything they could not carry aboard the buses and transports used. People living in houses could not pay their mortgages, and thus lost the houses as the banks repossessed them, meaning they also lost everything IN the houses. Many of the people had viable businesses and ended up losing EVERYTHING as the building owner's sold their equipment and merchandise because the Japanese businessman was in a camp hundreds of miles from the business and unable to operate it or pay bills.
They were treat shabbily. Yes, it wasn't as bad as some countries in the world, but by the standards the US prided itself on they were treated terribly. Notice, that while the Japanese were rounded up (and not a single case of espionage was ever proven), the German citizens were not, and there were many cases of espionage proven against Germans in America. It was simply that the Japanese were easy to see and discriminate against.
...ummm, ookkkkkk, i don't believe you
You bigot. I suppose you think German Americans are responsible for the atrocities the Nazi party committed during WWII? Or Muslim Americans for the attacks on 9/11?
so apparently this site takes down comments for no real reason, that's legit yo..
Sometimes they re-appear later, though.
you bigot. So I suppose you think German Americans were responsible for the atrocities committed by the Nazi party during WWII? Or Muslim Americans for 9/11?
So I suppose you think German Americans are responsible for the atrocities the Nazi party committed during WWII? Or Muslim Americans for the attacks on 9/11?
This is the sole reason why Japan is trying to whitewash the Nanking history portion in WW2. Since the Chinese and koreans won't accept the apology, Japan has to either ignore it or just state one line of history about it. Ask any japanese exchange students about this and you'll see a giant "?" above their head just like in metal gear.
Sort of like asking any current mainland Chinese about things their government has banned. While the Tian An Men Square is politically lensed by the west what one Chinese citizen expressed her thought about it was scary. You don't get that sort of vitriol in a free information society.
Yes you do, it's called nationalism and it's happened in every developed country to date.
At least with China you can see them after the current regime is gone acknowledging their past.
Sadly it's not called that.
It's paraded around as PATRIOTISM in most countries.
I suppose when you got neighbors like japan has, even the most sincere apologies are meaningless. However, japan shares equal blame in that they are not particularly mature or adult like in their attitudes either.
You're an idiot if you trust Wikipedia on controversial topics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t52LB2fYhoY
It's more like you are the idiot one.
well... at least they got what they deserved
Sankaku Complex seems to rely A LOT on opinions generated by an online collective such as 2ch to produce articles such as these. Please note that 2ch is an online web board frequented by MILLIONs of people on a weekly basis. What do they do? Post their opinions about anything and everything. Trolls and pro-Japan nationalists are scattered all over the place, in pretty much the same fashion you'll find 4chan defensive of anything American.
The fact that online opinions suddenly constitute journalism is beyond me. You might as well ask other Internet collectives such as 4chan Redit, and Youtube their "take" on this "issue." Don't be surprised what they are going to say for the "Japs" in pretty much the same way they said for those damn "Yankees" "Barbarians" or "evil Koreans."
Simply put, topics such as these on the Internet tend to bring the worst out of anybody, and don't have a place in a news site/blog that is supposed to talk about the latest trend/topic/show from Asia. This is old news and its best not brought into debate.
Also, I wish Sankaku were to re-frame from quoting opinions generated by anonymous 2ch-ers. Opinions generated by anonymous users tend to be nasty and are not worth reading.
Sometimes minority comments are not reflective of people as a whole.
Sometimes, said people are such that minority comments are but a tip of the ice berg that expresses a piece of their real intentions.
Japan belongs in the latter category. If you are actually a real asian, you would know this/
w/e Japan started the fight and America made them regret it.
bandwagon argument is nonsense . What japs did to chinese has nothing to do with what americans did with japs . Of course to be fair it would be better to be in US concentration camp as japanse than being in Japanese concentration cap as american during that time .
History is cool, but only when reality is part of it. Sound like Japan is teaching BS in their schools if their own population does not know what happen in WW2.