US Disappointed in Japanese Prime Minister's Visit to War Shrine

New faces, old controversy

Reason

Shinzo Abe was the first Japanese prime minister to visit the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo in seven years, yielding the same kind of criticisms Junichiro Koizumi got from China and South Korea on his annual trips to Yasukuni, where 2.5 million veterans are enshrined, including several war criminals convicted in the post-WW2 tribunal in Tokyo. Hirohito, who was Emperor of Japan during World War II and until his death in 1989, refused to visit the shrine after top war criminals were enshrined there in the 70s. Add to the list of outraged countries the United States.

From USA Today:

The United States has joined China and South Korea in criticizing Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for visiting a war shrine in Tokyo.

"Japan is a valued ally and friend," said a statement from the American Embassy in Tokyo. "Nevertheless, the United States is disappointed that Japan's leadership has taken an action that will exacerbate tensions with Japan's neighbors."

Read the rest of the statement here.

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Comments

[Jordan]

Meanwhile, the U.S. embassy in China will remain silent on China's commemoration of history's greatest mass murderer.

[UnCivilServant]

"But it was a great leap forward. Forward, as in progress. These people killed in the name of war, he made progress."

--Random Twit.

[Mike M.]

All the phony outrage that continues to get directed at Japan by people who mostly weren't even alive when World War II ended gets just a little more absurd with each passing year.

[kint]

It's not phony outrage - imagine the response if a German leader visited a shrine that honors Nazi war dead. In fact, that did happen, and there was outrage about it.

[Hugh Akston]

Has Obama put that Armenian rug back out on display yet?

[Steve G]

You could find "several" dirtbags in a collection of 2.5 million of anybody, doesn't mean he's there to respect them

[Corning]

Crap, now I want a War Shrine in my back yard.

[SIV]

Why doesn't the Obama administration condemn Confederate Memorial Day?

Must be a bunch of racists.

[R C Dean]

Well, they are purging/memory-holing Confederate generals, so there's that.

[R C Dean]

Clicked too soon.

The progs are very consistent in their demands on capitalist democracies.

And pretty consistent in their silence on those same issues toward certain authoritarian regimes. Generally those with lefty pedigrees or certain religious leanings.

So, you can't say they aren't consistent. Just that they aren't principled.

[The Late P Brooks]

a statement from the American Embassy in Tokyo.

Put your name on it, you chickenshit cocksucker.

[VG Zaytsev]

US Disappointed in Japanese Prime Minister's Visit to War Shrine

I hate it when people anthropomorphize countries.

Besides it's not true. I, and a majority of Americans, don't give a fuck about him visiting that shrine

[UnCivilServant]

I'm personally disappointed in the so called diplomats making a big deal out of one of the unofficial duties of the Japanese Prime Minister's office.

[Jordan]

Indeed. This is probably one of the least restarted things that the proponent of "Abenomics" - otherwise known as derpenomics - will do.

[Jordan]

restarted = retarded*

Sigh.

[SIV]

Lay off the paint chips.

[kint]

The statement wasn't aimed at you.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Actually I can understand the resentment from Korea and China. I mean fuck, the shit the Japs did in those country for the duration of their occupation very much rises to the same level as what the Nazis and Soviets did to Eastern Europe.

[Episiarch]

Sure, but collective guilting is stupid. Most people currently alive in Japan had nothing to do with those atrocities, just like most people in Germany alive today had nothing to do with the Nazis.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Yes, but Japan is unique in that even today they have a serious problem acknowledging the crimes of the Empire. Their children read textbooks that whitewash or omit the Rape of Naking and avoid going into detail about the 'comfort women' and the horrendous exploitation of the Korean people from 1910 to 1945.

China and Korea have thousands of people that were alive when all that went down and remember growing up either during the war or feeling its immediate aftermath. It's the sort of thing their governments should be sensitive too with regard to their relations with Japan.

[wareagle]

which Chinese are acknowledging Mao's crimes? Yes, bad stuff happened but feigning outrage at the bad parts of someone else's past while ignoring the arguably worse parts of your own can only flow from the proggie well.

[kint]

China is hypocritical when it comes to Mao's crimes, but why should that excuse Japan? China is a Communist dictatorship - Japan is supposedly a modern democracy. Why doesn't Japan act like one?

[Episiarch]

Again, sure, but is the whitewashing the fault of the schoolchildren who get taught the whitewashed history? No. Collective guilting is always stupid, yet it's really popular. If people really want to go down that road, I doubt there is any collective (country) that has clean hands, so they really should think about where that leads.

[IDPNDNT]

With fear of butchering what I mean I don't think the Prime Minister means to condone the actions of these men by visiting the memorial, but to remember them for the sacrifices they made during this time period.

It's way to easy to look back at the bad guy and say they fucked up, but we need to have context of the situation at hand.

I mean plenty of people could say that some of the US endeavors in the middle east deserve condemnation, but we're not going to and shouldn't damn the service members who lost their lives in the conflicts.

TL;DR

I think the visit is being misunderstood as condoning the behavior it isn't.

[Jordan]

I see your point, and I think you're right that he doesn't intend to celebrate the horrible actions that they perpetrated. But I don't think that's an excuse.

Some of these men did absolutely evil, horrible shit. Even if they had the best of intentions, they are still scum and should be remembered as such.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Shinzo Abe is a revisionist who has publicly denied that the Japanese sexual enslaved women during the war. He's the Prime Minister, and for him to say that is no different than Angela Merkel telling the Poles that stories of Nazi Einsatzgruppen were exaggerations of the crimes of a few rogue units rather than something systematic and deliberate.

[kint]

I don't think you understand the situation. Everyone in Asia knows what Yakusuni means, and Shinzo Abe is a right wing nationalist who has recently called for Japanese textbooks to be revised to whitewash Japanese actions in WW2. Any Japanese leader in his right mind wouldn't visit Yakusuni.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Shinzo Abe let the US down one more time.

[Fist of Etiquette]

America would rather he spend his tourist yen here in the good old United States. All he has to do is get through the visa process and past the TSA and Customs and etc.

[Plisade]

Meh. However, state war memorials suck in general in that one wants to visit them and honor the dead, but being state memorials they're generally advocating and aggrandizing individuals' self-sacrifice for the glory of the state. Can't say I support that anymore, and I'm a combat vet.

[Grumpy Old Timer]

More Bread and Circuses to distract the weak minded from real issues.
By the way, the US dropped the A bomb twice on Japan and killed/injured how many civilians?
Let he who is without sin etc.
What a bunch of hypocrites on all sides of this non-issue.

[Sevo]

"By the way, the US dropped the A bomb twice on Japan and killed/injured how many civilians?"

False equivalence.
If you don't know why, I'll be happy to explain.

[Bra Ket]

yes please explain why it's cool to vaporize a bunch of civilians.

[Bra Ket]

Abe probably conspired with Obama to visit the shrine so Obama could take China's side on something again, after that whole air-defense-zone business.