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- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -18/+56Common knowledge here in korea.
They calculated that world domination using bullets would cost "too much."
So they experimented chemical weapons, and various gas type warfare on Korean, and Machurian Men.
I'm thinking the reason most "Americans" do not know of such cruelty is because it isn't on their tri-state news.
Now go buy another Honda Civic, and a PS3 to play on your Toshiba HDTV.
And did I mention that Japan has NEVER issued an apology for their war crimes from WWII? - TomP, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25I feel sick after reading that.
- Saiing, on 10/12/2007, -10/+31>Look, nobody's trying to focus blame on the current Japanese population.
Well who are cynical comments like "Now go buy another Honda Civic, and a PS3 to play on your Toshiba HDTV" aimed at then? The Dutch?
While I'm not denying the depravity of these war crimes, I am starting to wonder what is up with Digg at the moment. There seems to have been a disproportionate number of anti-Japanese stories lately. I haven't seen many articles recently about the barbarism of Europeans and North Americans during the slave trade, or the mass slaughter by the British while building an empire. Or how about Stalin, Mao, Amin or any number of other ruthless tyrants who have unleased mass-slaughter on their own people let alone others?
The fact is, whatever Japan has done in the past, it remains one of the few remaining developed countries in the world that has not been involved in armed conflict with anyone, at any time, since World War 2 ended. Yes, they did some truly horrible things. And yes their political leaders often seek to hush things up. But many Japanese are no happier about this, than the average American is about their administration seemingly condoning torture interrogation methods to question suspects from the middle-east.
Oh and one more thing. Let's not forget the name of the country which has killed more innocent civillians than any other in the last few years. What country would that be? Ahh yes... the United States.
Digg me down if you want. But unless we can face up to our own problems, we're in no position to keep pointing the finger at others. Particularly when it happened before most of us were born. - scrag10, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22@BakuninXXL
Well theres the Documenary and theres a building full of Brains. I also believe there trying to identify all the victims, and getting them buried. Buried like your comment.. - gamasutra, on 10/12/2007, -7/+24The Japanese Government should apologize and compensate the victims of the of these war crimes done during WWII, but instead the reality is that Japan is once again getting nationalistic, and the right-wingers have firm control of their government.
- thesauce, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18It was indeed a very graphic and horrible picture I got from reading that article. It shocks me that any human being without obvious extreme mental problems could do anything like that.
- Eryin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18We can't hold the japanese people responsible. We can hold the government and the military for pertending this never happened, and silencing anyone in the gov/military who does try to admit and apologize.
The problem is, japanese nationalists are gaining more and more power now, and they are the ones who want to deny and pertend it never happened.
Bad. - gamasutra, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19@ohgr
Look, nobody's trying to focus blame on the current Japanese population. These stories need to be told so they don't happen again. Regardless of what nationality you're from. - Demaskee, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18abid786 a simple question, would you rarther be burned with a flame thrower, cut open without painkillers, have horse urine injected into your kidneys or would you rather have your picture taken naked, threatened with a barking dog, and be served diet that conforms to your religious standards?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+23They made soap and Lamp shades out of Chinese people! They were eating the dead! 6 milion inocent Chinese were gased! They fighting for the devil! They were barbarians! Eating children alive was business as usual. How can these horrible people deny all the Ministry of Truth claims they have done?
"Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac."
-- George Orwell
^^ - scrag10, on 10/12/2007, -6/+19@abid786
Abu Ghraib is a joke compared to what happened in WWII. The NAZI's did experiments on 100's children, (mostly handicapped ones) and they still have gruesome evidence of it. The place where the did experiments is still around, and the have rooms full of childrens body parts in jars full of fermeldihide (spelled that totally wrong). I saw it in a documentary and I could barely watch it. They tried to get an interview with the lead experimenter, but he would not do it. Imagine the guilt these people must feel.
It's amazing to think that these evidents happened only 70 years ago, and that many of these people are still alive. - buckeye45, on 10/12/2007, -6/+18I have read a letter from a Nazi official stationed in China in 1937 during the Rape of Nanking, speaking of how brutal the Japanese were durring these times.
- fsnuffer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14@abid786 7 hours ago
Worse than we were in Abu Ghraib? Or Guantanamo
Yes you tool. - mattmoto, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13"My Lai, Napalm on kids, you name it, the US has done it. Are Americans taught their own history? Apparently not."
Actually, yes we are. It is very common for My Lai to be in a high school history class curriculum. If not there, it's covered in documentaries on TV. As are all of our other morally dark moments, from the removal of the Native Americans to the Bay of Tonkin.
But, hey, don't let facts get in the way of bashing Americans, right? - Price, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13blaze03, only a few of the victims were anaesthatised. It's just the guy featured at the start who has them anaesthatised. All the 'logs' at unit 731 were completely un-anaesthatised (?)
- KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13An even sadder fact is that horrors like this probably occur much more frequently than any of us can imagine. There so so many half crazy regimes in the world right now(not the ones FOX News spends all day talking about either) looking for power where they shouldn't. Western medicine performed similar experiments on prisoners only several hundred years ago regularly to advance their knowledge of medicine and anatomy. The fact is, this is far from a unique condition that can develop, so it is very important that every one of us be on the ready to prevent such things from ever happening within our reach.
- GawtMilk, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15Why's that? It's better that way.
Think: how many wars are going on right now because "something happened" before? World War II was a bad time for everyone...pretty much every nation commited war crimes (American firebombing? Heard of it?), humanity was made up of savages. Mr. Lin knowing Mr. Ichi killed his family...what's that going to do? Look at America's 9/11 motto. "Never forgive, never forget". It's done a hell of a lot of good, right?
The better solution would be, "Forgive, forget". Nothing wrong with PREVENTING crimes and tragedies, but that doesn't involve having a grudge against people. It leads to hate, racism, protests, further deaths... - rochak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Digging up .. for this should be known to all humanity.
- neo912, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14We can't hold the entire Japanese race responsible for what happend. I lived there for 2 years and found them to be an amazing culture and people but I think its a crime that we didn't find and prosecute those monsters that did this. I don't care if you were a soldier just following orders.......I hate to say this and maybe I can't say anything because I never have been in a war but there seems a line between killing and torture. I don't think I would be able to do the things they did.....it just seems way too sub human.....just reading this article made me sick, but I think its good to see that this kind of thing can exist if we are not careful. Let's learn from history!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -12/+22So what about the 21 million killed during the cultural revolution. Millions of stonings a beatings. I guess if the Chinese kill 10 times what the japanese did it is ok. At the end of the day they are all dead, so maybe the Chinese need to stop throwing stones untill they fess up to the cultural revolution.
Sorry to be so crude, but many more people died at the hands of the red guards , but people seem to forget them. - PaulOwen, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12You've missed the best bits, folks which they won't tell you in high school.
Immediately after the war, the results of these experiments were seized by the US occupation under General McArthy and made secret. In fact the US government laster bought the classified documents for their own research from the Japanese government.
As a more useful analogy, who is the more guilty, the people doing those acts or the people funding those acts?
Not nice, but then again neither is war. - kurotenshi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11It's shameful how we turned a blind eye to this in the aftermath of WWII...
"[Douglas MacArthur] secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731 in exchange for providing America with their research on biological warfare. The United States believed that the research data was valuable because the allies had never publicly conducted or condoned such experiments on humans due to moral and political revulsion. The U.S. also did not want other nations, particularly the Soviet Union, to acquire data on biological weapons, not to mention the military benefits of such research.
The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal has heard only one reference to Japanese experiments with "poisonous serums" on Chinese civilians. This took place in August 1946 and was actioned by David Sutton, assistant to the Chinese prosecutor."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 - hardthinker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Power corrupts...Absolute power absolutely corrupts. A cliche..worth repeating too. Human beings have the potential to inflict these gruesome horrors to each other. It does not matter which nationality you are from.
- BeefBaron, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9"humanity was made up of savages"
'Is' is the proper tense. We aren't any better now. - gaoshan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9It is common knowledge in China as well. The full extent of the horrors perpetrated by Japan throughout Asian will never be known but rest assured that it was barbaric on an unimaginable level. Next time you hear people angry at Japan for not owning up to their crimes, perhaps Westerners will have a little more understanding of the depth of feeling that exists.
- gbotmbot, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13@WikiEasy
Two wrongs don't make a right. - gbotmbot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Is the London Times good enough for you?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1438491.ece - frem001, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10To think that all the health benefits we have at the moment could have been derived by barbaric moments from the past (not just by the Japanese). What worries me more is the culture of denial within politics, think of how much has been swept under the rug.
- JrGhoull, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7i've heard a little bit about what the germans did to jews during WW2 from my dad (we got off easy and only lost virtually everyone of our family members to the nazis) and inhumane doesnt even begin to discribe it. stuff like removing eyeballs while they were still concious...all sorts of unnessecary surgeries, everything done while they were still cousious....just....who would do this stuff even to someone that they hated? let alone someone whom they didnt even know...
- calenti, on 10/12/2007, -13/+19
Read the story and see how matter-of-fact those stories are told. This capability exists in all of us. When you think of the enemy as non-human you get a whole new license for depravity.
And I don't remember that scene where the USA allows Japanese war criminals to be avoid the same punishment we were handing out to the Germans because we wanted the information in that "Proud To Be An American" music video. - Saiing, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8And as a final piece of irony, you might be interested to know that in the run-up to World War 2, the newspaper on whose website you can find the featured article came out in support of a certain German character called Mr. A. Hitler - I'm looking forward to their next article exposing their own dirty little past.
- 574lk3r, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8" In the autumn of 1945, General MacArthur granted immunity to members of the Unit in exchange for research data on biological warfare."
trust the u.s to capatalise on something such as this,
in my mind this makes the u.s gov just as bad if not worse,
but then, why am i not surprised.
i must admit i am shocked at what the japs did, they hid that well.... - mattofasia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5A truly horrifying story. I went to a former Japanese run concentration camp in Seoul (in the Namsan district I think?) back when Imperial Japan stomped down the independence movement there and was trying to crush the natives languages through forced re-education (which was also done in Taiwan at the time) and seen the displays and tried out one of their sensory deprivation chambers (I was able to get out- it wasn't locked for me the tourist. They used to stick needles in and not let them out for weeks without even bathroom breaks...) but it is truly sad what war and the process of training a man to overcome his natural innate aversion to killing others and how we break down people so they can handle running towards death makes men de-evolve into. It is too bad that so many sick people exist even today that we need soldiers to protect us from so that we STILL have to do this to formerly normal people. Anyone can become a monster- its a matter of scale of your monster-ness and weather your leaders have the intelligence to draw lines and stick to what they say and not allow, and weather the population itself is too apathetic to request responsibility from leaders who think Hollywood James Bond propaganda BS is a reality to aspire to.
You forget the Japanese Bushido code is what what allowed such programming to occur to such a sick level. Hopefully such class-based BS is erased from the society... but it still lurks in the backs of peoples minds. The modern day equivalent is the choice to drown ourselves in trivialities (TV/Net/drink etc.) and not teaching your children with good examples of behavior yourself, and ignoring problems, your own personal flaws, and hoping it wont come to you, personally... until its too late.
The Japanese are an admirable example of a place that has chosen to move on and -not- teach its children to repeat their past mistakes. I hope they still choose to dwell on future prospects and will be aware of the past mistakes but really people should move on and leave the old men to die and go to the hell they richly deserve and not follow any examples they set by their past mistakes, or else hopefully they atoned for ***** they were ordered to do by doing something good later in their lives and have a ghost of a chance at a peaceful rest.
That being said, I also hope that other countries can all become aware of the stupid things their grandfathers ALL did and not misplace their respect or emulate from a need for 'tradition' just because its 'traditional' does not make it healthy or good for your society. Everyone across the world has horrifying stories from WW2 and i hope we wont have more stories in 2007 of large scale stupidity... other than GWB and his 'push'. Nature and our own pollution altering our bodies and environment should be the main challenge, we don't need to create false enemies based on color, religion or place of birth. Get over dwelling on past, forgive and forget, or at least be civil and avoid those who were/are truly offensive. People should work together on problems they CAN change- treating their family well, having a cleaner lifestyle, and not dwell on things that they cannot do anything about ie trade center bombings. you cant bring back the dead, you can remember and respect their memories, but revenge is a horrible way to waste your lives and your money upon. The satisfaction will never occur. Life is NOT fair and never will be. Wake up America. get over it. you got used by the oil industry and still are getting used. because you choose to be tools doesn't mean you can not choose to stop being tools. - ictoan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5One of the reason why crimes such as these weren't announced to the world when the war ended, unlike the Germans, was because U.S. felt that it's best to keep Japan as an ally/puppet in Asia to oppose communism developing fully in Asia. Also, I read somewhere that U.S. also used the results of all those horrible experiments for its own medical researches. I just want to say that I'm Chinese but I don't really hate Japanese people. It is the government who deny these crimes that is spiteful. For people to make up excuse, any excuses, to admen such crimes need to get their facts checked before posting anything valid. Comparing such things to the Cultural Revolution etc... It's like saying why the German should apologize for its crimes since the North never apologized to the South for the American Civil war.
- biou, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8The Japonese Emperor was Criminal against humanity. But US kept him safe because he should help US control over japaon after war.
- WikiEasy, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13@wenzi
No kidding. As bad as the Japs were in WWI, the Chinese government has been worse to their own people. If you thought the Cultural Revolution was bad enough, just take a look back at 1989. Mothers of slain students, coming to get their kids from Tianamen Square, were shot in their backs running away as the soldiers started spraying bullets at them.
You think there's an apology coming for them?
I know this is an off-topic tangeant, but it has everything to do with wrongs and apologies. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8@BakuninXXL that post deserves way more than +5 diggs
Maybe instead of just pointing fingers at the Japanese (lets remember that this happened over 50 years ago and Japan is now one of the most peaceful nations around) perhaps instead we could ask the question "why" did the Japanese do this, what drove them, and most importantly, what can people learn from this to make sure it doesn't happen again? - superyounan1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5why not show our disdain for Japanese atrocities in the past BY STOPPING N. KOREAN ATROCITIES TODAY?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1587181941924362432&q=bbc+korea
They're treating prisoners worse than animals, people they suspect to be enemies of the state are tortured, along with their entire family, extended family, and even neighbors on the basis of collective responsibility. They're running biological and chemical experimentation on parents and children at the same time - gbotmbot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4How about the BBC, the guardian? Still too conservative? How about you open your eyes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6185442.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,,1958158,00.html - pseudononymist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Why is it that whenever the cruelties of a nation are brought to light they can never be discussed and analyzed on their own terms? Why must we always compare them to the cruelties of another? Is there any point to that? Sorry, but Japan's history of organized and deliberate abuse, torture, whoremongering, etc. of its Asian neighbors cannot be compared to what happened in China during the Cultural Revolution just as it can't be compared to Nazi Germany's Holocaust or under the Stalin's reign in Russia, or any of the atrocities committed by the United States. They are all horrible events for their own reasons which need to be discussed on their own terms. Comparing is pointless because it leads to the numbers game (who suffered greater casualties), which can never be rationalized and should therefore be avoided when discussing history
So my point is that while yes China does need to come to terms with the atrocities its government brought upon its own people, that has no relation to its equally important and justified demand for a government sanctioned apology from the Japanese government.
And to he who says history should be treated objectively--show me an objectively written historical document and I'll show you monkey with two asses. - monkeyrun, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"Maybe instead of just pointing fingers at the Japanese (lets remember that this happened over 50 years ago and Japan is now one of the most peaceful nations around) perhaps instead we could ask the question "why" did the Japanese do this, what drove them, and most importantly, what can people learn from this to make sure it doesn't happen again?"
How about by first admitting they actually did it ?
After so many years I get the impression that the Japanese government's just "sorry" for the Chinese and Korean for feeling that way. They are not sorry for anything they did, or any intention to admit to anything they did. - Radan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It's just saddening to see how much resources that has been put in slaughtering of other people. The world war got to the most pathetic time of our civilization...
- blaze03, on 10/12/2007, -11/+15Indeed, the frustrating thing is not the acts committed in this article. Tthe victims were at least anaesthetised, which is arguably no worse than some things done to some Jews in WW2 Germany or a lifetime of slavery in the South.
The frustrating thing is that Japan will not only not apologize for these war crimes, they will not even ACKNOWLEDGE them. They have gone even as far as to revise textbooks to "distort the past and gloss over atrocities committed by Japanese troops before and during World War II".
This is entirely contrary to similar modern societies. The USA is constantly apologizing to its black citizens, has given reparations to the Japanese held in internment camps during WW2, and has given land back to Native Americans. The youth of Germany have a non-existant sense of national pride...and it is in fact ILLEGAL to deny the holocaust there. It's just fascinating just how proud Japan as a country is that it won't even acknowledge nor apologize for its war crimes, which is something China and Korea have repeatedly demanded. - kd1s, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The more I learn about some of the horrific things the Japanese did in Manchuria, the more I think the U.S. was justified in dropping atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But then I see that the U.S. benefited most from the information gathered by Unit 731.
So my own country is complicit. How nice. - plannters, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Sad that the first post in this thread is a lame attempt to excuse the crimes. There's always some guy who thinks he's being cool and insightful by flying against the obvious answer and coming up with some BS; it's a tolerable nuisance in most threads, but in ones like these it's just shameful.
- calenti, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5
I don't think the current generation of Japanese is to blame for what's happened. They are denying it as a culture but there's plenty of that to go around (Custer's Last Stand, anyone? Anybody care to detail what mission Custer was on when that happened?) Culturally and politically the Japanese have renounced military aggression. As a culture they have turned their back on the bloodlust and racism that gripped their military in the 1920s and 1930s. So have the Germans. That doesn't mean we should forget and ignore the victims but there has to be a time limit on national guilt or there would never be any progress.
Maybe it was because they lost. They don't have fond memories of the war, while on the other hand the Allies are still high-fiving over their victory 60 years later and issues like Dresden and Tokyo in March of '45 are, shall we say, sidelights to our collective recollection.
Maybe only the losers learn anything from a war.
(and I hope plannters wasn't referring to me - I wasn't excusing anything. I meant that this isn't an abberation and all it takes is the right combination of propaganda and peer pressure to get any human being to cheerfully pick up the whip.) - biou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4No, It would be too horrible to go public.
- ictoan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Books are censured as well. So even if people read, a lot of facts are not covered simply to disguise the gruesomeness of those acts.
Just awhile back, about two years ago, there were protests from Korea and China to Japanese textbooks because it failed to mention what they did during WWII. I haven't followed the news since then, so not sure if the Japanese government changed their textbooks yet to correctness. - Llaunje, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It was said before, and still bears repeating:
"man is a Wolf to Man". ~Sartre - PaulOwen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3THAT's the real point. The US military bought the experiment results later!
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