The large majority of humans adapt our language to the context and the audience every time we open our mouths or put our hands on the keyboard. I’d like the author to do a little more of that.
This forum needs a code of conduct. We need to be civil and productive. But I think a blog post should have more freedom. If the author made an ignorant choice of phrase, then a comment about it would be appropriate. But choice of dark/crass humor should not be reprimanded. I don't want to be posh and well mannered in my own home. No masks; let me be as disgusting and pathetic as I can be.
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf.
You have made up some arbitrary rules, and adjudicated humanity to extinction.
>The subjugation of "infidels" under expansionist oppressive religious groups with the intent to bring "peace" is an imperialism all of its own, but much worse. Peace... at the cost of freedom, autonomy, expression, equality.
Oct 7th is not when anything started. If this is just a response a terror attack, then should Israel be profiting from it? Will the Palestinians be allowed to go back and rebuild?
Without a sense of proportionate response, if Hitler did some false flag attacks, do you expect the whole world to be okay with the Holocaust?
More than 50 years of oppression and countless atrocities. If you are slowly killing a man by choking him and he stabs your eye in defense, is that provocation?
If Hitler bombed a some Germans and blamed it on the Jewish people, should rest of the world be okay with the Holocaust?
No one will shoot back now. But it is a signal to other countries that using nukes might not be that bad. Even other banned chemical and biological weapons. So either there is complete chaos or the whole world will have to make sure Israel can not profit from this action.
Israel is supposed to be a democratic state. If the average Israeli disagrees with this they can speak up. The only voices we are hearing now are those who support it's current activities. Those who oppose are fewer and quieter.
I'm also baffled by the suggestion that democracy truly represents a majority and the apparent belief that dissent is quickly processed and rectified by democracy. Which country do you think shows this is working well?
It might be true that I am in a bubble and I am only hearing voices supporting these atrocities.
Democracy need not represent the majority, but if it works against the majority without any repercussions then who is to blame? Will the leadership be held accountable?
This war was started because the government knew they can get away with it. Every citizen is complicit in every crime committed by their government. Don't the citizens enjoy the fruits of crime even after claiming to oppose the actions of their government?
Yes, I am complicit in the crimes of my government. I am helpless do much, but the crime must be acknowledged. We are a part of the system, no sense in burying our head in the sand.
Only when a crime is acknowledge, we can talk about punishments. Will Israeli people not profit from this war? Protests will have some teeth if steps be taken so this will not repeat itself. I don't see this happening.
Look at USA, war after war. Presidents are blamed but not punished and the population enjoys the economical hegemony that is the fruit of war.
That's not representative of the Japanese public opinion at all, so I fail to see how it supports the view that the entire country "hasn't learned anything at all."
What is the average level of knowledge around the history of imperial Japan. Is that period covered thoroughly in school?
I was under the impression that Japanese people don't so much deny war crimes, as they just don't talk/learn about the uglier parts of what happened during the first half of the 20th century. Is the Rape of Nanking a well known event in Japan? Are the significant battles and general tactics of the war(s) talked about? Do they talk about the Japanese Army's general treatment of foreign civilians?
I guess, what I'm wondering is if I asked the average person on the street these questions, would they know at all what I'm talking about? Would they have the knowledge to talk about it in more detail?
Is this like in the US where most people have no idea about American intervention in Cuba, and the rest of the meddling that the US was involved in in Latin America?
> I guess, what I'm wondering is if I asked the average person on the street these questions, would they know at all what I'm talking about?
They would, yes, but mostly because South Korea won’t shut up about it nearly a century and several ‘final’ sets of reparations later. It seems to be about as popular a political crutch in SK as it is to kill Palestinians in Israel.
I don’t know. It is about as relevant to current Japanese as the Dutch colonial past is to me. I’m sure we did plenty of bad stuff, but feeling remorse for it now is just bizarre. People several generations before me committed those crimes.
History isn't supposed to be about your personal feelings of ethnic pride or remorse. It's about learning from past successes and failures, and better understanding how people from different cultures may view each other. Other countries can and should learn from Japanese history too, because no country is immune to the mistakes that Japan made during WW2. Especially in this day and age, people around the world should have a hard look at how propaganda was used to commit atrocities.
Also if you care about national interest, it would be counterproductive to "shut up" or forget about past failures for an ego boost. That would make the country detached from reality, isolated from the rest of the world, and prone to the same failures.
Last but not least, it's very insensitive and inconsiderate of you to label South Korean trauma as a mere "political crutch" or the Dutch colonial past as no longer "relevant." Historical injustices can carry on to today's injustices much more than you think. You should try to see the perspective from the other side more before dismissing these things.
> People several generations before me committed those crimes.
It isn't that long ago.
There are still women alive who were used as sex slaves by the Japanese Army. I can see why their (SK) government is unwilling to let the issue be forgotten. Paying reparations does not mean that you can now forget the attrocity. Should the US not teach about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because it was our grandfathers who did it, and we feel like we have made it up by rebuilding Japan? Should we tell the Hibakusha that its time for them to shut-up, and there is no point in talking about what happened since the people who made those attacks are all dead?
The point of this knowledge, at least in the west, isn't to make you feel badly, or remorseful. The point is to remember that there are monsters lurking beneath the surface, even in the modern era. The Banality of Evil (the book) is about demonstrating that even a mediocre, non-fanatical, reluctant Nazi bureaucrat like Eichmann can be a pivotal figure in a genocide. We remember so that we don't repeat. Should we not learn from experiences?
If it’s before my lifetime it’s not something I’m going to feel responsible for.
I completely agree we should ‘learn’ from history. Even teach what happened in school, but we shouldn’t harp on it forever, or manufacture grudges based on it.
At least, not in the way that’s currently happening in Japan anyway. The crux of the issue seems to be they don’t think people that were never involved aren’t sorry enough.
It's covered in much detail as the other eras of Japanese history. At least it's widely understood that there were massacres, rapes, targeting of civilians, displacement and forced labor, etc etc.
It's true that the far right, disproportionately loud in online circles, tries to downplay all of this like in the sibling comment. It's concerning how social media amplifies these voices, but it's still not mainstream opinion.
So some Japanese people are skeptical that history as kept by the victors is 100% accurate, especially when that history is still being used to limit the Japanese people in ways that other nations are not limited. There is nothing wrong with this.
How much control does an average citizen have over these criminal enterprises? Does an average US citizen know/care/take-action when mercenaries from their country topple governments of other countries? As long as the crime is not visible, they just enjoy fruits of their crimes.
> How much control does an average citizen have over these criminal enterprises?
My point was about the government. This phenomenon is large enough that I'm shocked it hasn't openly caused a diplomatic rift between the US and India, and New Delhi should have a vested interested in combating it.
> when mercenaries from their country topple governments of other countries
Why would any country be proactive in combating this? Do you think US will be fair in return? US protects it's people even from International war crimes.
> This phenomenon is large enough that I'm shocked it hasn't openly caused a diplomatic rift between the US and India, and New Delhi should have a vested interested in combating it.
It is only large enough to you probably. India has been sanctioned by US in the 90s for doing reciprocal nuclear tests (after China detonated its bomb) and suffered billions of dollars in trade. US gained nothing from the sanctions except to push India into more poverty. It ended up being counter-productive. Even now Trump is threatening India with billions of dollars in trade sanctions that far outweighs anything caused by scams (if you take absolute numbers).
> What "mercenaries" are you referring to?
The CIA is currently fuelling and instigating Manipur riots in India by supplying arms and ammunitions to Kuki narco-terrorists. Prior to this we had USAID that was influencing electoral politics within India. Apart from that, we just witnessed regime change operations in Bangladesh where Pro-India Shiekh Hasina was toppled for a Pro-US Jihadi Muhammad Yunus. All of these run the US taxpayers in hundreds of billions of dollars. Far more than any scam conducted by Indian call centers.
For an average US citizen, sure it feels like a lot, since you guys are at the receiving end. But since you mentioned why US Government is not bringing this up, it is because it pales in comparison to what US Government has done to India over the past 7 decades. India can bring up a lot of counterpoints that will only cause US diplomats to shut up. We haven't even touched on killing of our nuclear scientists. Too many skeletons in their closet.
> Gregory Douglas, a journalist, conspiracy theorist,[128] forger,[129] and holocaust denier[130] who claimed to have conducted telephone conversations with former CIA operative Robert Crowley in 1993, published a book titled Conversations with the Crow in 2013. According to Douglas, Crowley claimed that the CIA was responsible for assassinating Homi Bhabha and Prime Minister Shastri in 1966, thirteen days apart, to thwart India's nuclear programme.[131]
Clearly, the GP is completely rational and quite well-informed.
> Clearly, the GP is completely rational and quite well-informed.
Yep you believe everything under the Sun when it comes to your Governments and institutions, when it has been proven time and time again that they have been involved in regime change ops and covert ops.
It is quite evident you don't have any ability to introspect and question your own Government.
Also, it is not just Homi J Bhabha we are talking about. There is a list of at least 11 nuclear scientists that died unnatural deaths. These are just nuclear scientists. Total 684 scientists have died unnaturally in just the past 15 years.
You can keep dismissing all this as "conspiracy theory" but we all know how the 3-letter agencies operates.
> For one year. 14 other countries sanctioned India too.
And what about it? When US sanctions any country, rest of the World follows. It is nothing new.
> I couldn't find anything on this besides articles on Indian/Bangladeshi InfoWars-tier websites.
Just google "Daniel Stephen Courney" [1]. Ex-US military. Supplying weapons and drones to Kuki narco-terrorists. It is a CIA op. We have seized US weapons in Manipur. US weapons don't magically reach far-flung Eastern region of India if not for external assistance.
Also, how does US made M16 rifle find its way into Manipur, India? [2]
I don't have patience to give you the list of things US has done that is viewed negatively against India. The topmost being trying to nuke India in 1971, when US allied itself with Islamic dictatorship in Pakistan.
Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western countries have successfully transformed ideology to be quite similar to religion by constructing a "democratic" narrative. Religion holds that if you convert to God or Allah, you are right and blessed. The West now believes that what is democratic is right and just. So countries like India can claim to be democratic and thus gain a moral superiority. However, in reality, democracy has little to do with justice, development, and civilization.
it's illegal since the Nakba, because starting wars are illegal without UN authorization
and paramilitary forces attacking civilians were illegal in British Palestine
taking private property also
and poisoning wells is also technically not super bueno under a little know statute, the laundry list of deeds for which Hammurabbi will fuck you up personally, but I'm not a legal scholars so maybe it was so legal a mockingbird granted them statehood.
