Japan's air force chief sacked over WWII comments

He is just showing more of his ignorance now. Like North Korea???

Sacked air force chief likens Japan to NKorea


TOKYO (AFP) – Japan's sacked air force commander compared his country to North Korea for a row over his assertion that Tokyo was not a World War II aggressor, prompting the government Tuesday to promise an inquiry.
As the government sought to reassure other Asian countries that it did not agree with his comments, Toshio Tamogami went on the offensive insisting he was right and had thought it was time for such views to be accepted.
"If you are not allowed to say even a word that counters the government's statements, you cannot possibly call the country democratic," the ex-general told a press conference.
"It's just like North Korea."

Sacked air force chief likens Japan to NKorea - Yahoo! News

 

Looks like the repercussions are starting to spread.

Punishment in WWII affair

JAPAN | Top officials disciplined after essay blaming United States

November 5, 2008

BY MARI YAMAGUCHI

TOKYO -- Japan's Defense Ministry punished several top officials for failing to supervise the air force chief fired after claiming his country was not an aggressor in World War II, but rather was tricked into involvement by the United States.
Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada and three other senior officials were taking partial pay cuts and two bureaucrats had been reprimanded over the essay by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Toshio Tamogami, the ministry said Tuesday.
It said the measures were meant to address the officials' lack of supervision and responsibility for hurting the public trust in the military.
The scandal was just the latest blow to the military under fire over a spate of incidents, including the death of a sailor in an unofficial farewell ritual, a confidential missile data leak and a deadly collision between a destroyer and a tuna trawler.
Japan's wartime aggression remains a sensitive topic.
China-Japan relations nose-dived earlier in the decade over Japanese leaders' visits to a Tokyo war shrine honoring war dead, including convicted war criminals but ties have improved markedly over the last two years.
On Monday, China welcomed Tamogami's dismissal.
''It was truly regrettable that an official serving as air force chief of staff caused such a controversy,'' Hamada told a news conference.
He also promised to ensure proper education among servicemen to nurture ''objective understanding of facts without a distorted view of history.'' He said he is voluntarily returning about $1,690 from his November salary over the incident.
It was not immediately clear whether the essay, which won a writing competition Friday organized by a hotel and condominium developer, had been submitted to superiors for review or was entered into the contest without official authorization.
In the essay, Tamogami maintained: ''It is certainly a false accusation to say that our country was an aggressor nation'' during World War II.
He said life in countries under Japanese occupation was ''very moderate'' compared to other colonial rulers and liberated the Asian people from oppression.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/1261128,CST-NWS-japan05.article

 

Below is the copy of the sacked general's essay.
For me, it's quite an interesting read and he did a good job of defending his viewpoint. What he basically did was air his opinion, which I don't entirely agree with. After reading his essay, a part of me thinks that the Japanese went too far by sacking him. Still Japan has a different cultural norm, so to their mind their action on the general would seem proper.
Just scroll down. I couldn't get rid of all the formatting. The entire essay has six pages.
1
Was Japan an Aggressor Nation?
Tamogami Toshio
Under the terms of the US-Japan Security Treaty, American troops are stationed within
Japan. Nobody calls this an American invasion of Japan. That is because it is based on a treaty
agreed upon between two nations.
Our country is said to have invaded the Chinese mainland and the Korean peninsula in the
prewar period, but surprisingly few people are aware that the Japanese army was also stationed
in these countries on the basis of treaties. The advance of the Japanese army onto the Korean
peninsula and Chinese mainland from the latter half of the 19th century on was not a unilateral
advance without the understanding of those nations. The current Chinese government obstinately
insists that there was a “Japanese invasion,” but Japan obtained its interests in the Chinese
mainland legally under international law through the Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese
War, and so on, and it placed its troops there based on treaties in order to protect those interests.
There are those who say that Japan applied pressure and forced the Chinese to sign the treaty,
thus invalidating it, but back then – and even now – there were no treaties signed without some
amount of pressure.
The Japanese army was subjected to frequent acts of terrorism by Chiang Kai-shek’s
Kuomintang (KMT). Large-scale attacks on and murders of Japanese citizens occurred many
times. This would be like the Japanese Self-Defense Forces attacking the US troops stationed at
the Yokota or Yokosuka military bases, committing acts of violence and murder against the
American soldiers and their families – it would be unforgivable. Despite that, the Japanese
government patiently tried to bring about peace, but at every turn they were betrayed by Chiang
Kai-shek.
In fact, Chiang Kai-shek was being manipulated by Comintern. As a result of the Second
United Front of 1936, large numbers of guerillas from the Communist Party of Comintern puppet
Mao Zedong infiltrated the KMT. The objective of Comintern was to pit the Japanese army and
the KMT against each other to exhaust them both and, in the end, to have Mao Zedong’s
Communist Party control mainland China. Finally, our country could no longer put up with the
repeated provocations of the KMT, and on August 15, 1937, the Konoe Fumimaro Cabinet
declared that “now we must take determined measures to punish the violent and unreasonable
actions of the Chinese army and encourage the Nanking Government to reconsider.” Our country
was a victim, drawn into the Sino-Japanese War by Chiang Kai-shek.
The bombing of Zhang Zuolin’s train in 1928 was for a long time said to have been the work
of the Kwantung Army, but in recent years, Soviet intelligence documents have been discovered
that at the very least cast doubt on the Kwantung Army’s role. According to such books as Mao:
The Mao Zedong Nobody Knew by Jung Chang (Kodansha) 「マオ（誰も知らなかった毛沢
東）（ユン・チアン、講談社）」, Ko Bunyu Looks Positively at the Greater East Asian War
by Ko Bunyu (WAC Co.) 「黄文雄の大東亜戦争肯定論（黄文雄、ワック出版）」, and
Refine Your Historical Power, Japan edited by Sakurai Yoshiko (Bungei Shunju) 「日本よ、
「歴史力」を磨け（櫻井よしこ編、文藝春秋）」, the theory that it was actually the work
of Comintern has gained a great deal of prominence recently.
Similarly, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on July 7, 1937, immediately prior to the start of
the Sino-Japanese War, had been considered as a kind of proof of Japan’s invasion of China.
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2
However, we now know that during the Tokyo War Trials, Liu Shaoqi of the Chinese
Communist Party told Western reporters at a press conference, “The instigator of the Marco Polo
Bridge Incident was the Chinese Communist Party, and the officer in charge was me.”
If you say that Japan was the aggressor nation, then I would like to ask what country among
the great powers of that time was not an aggressor. That is not to say that because other countries
were doing so it was all right for Japan to do so well, but rather that there is no reason to single
out Japan as an aggressor nation.
Japan tried to develop Manchuria, the Korean Peninsula, and Taiwan in the same way it was
developing the Japanese mainland. Among the major powers at that time, Japan was the only
nation that tried to incorporate its colonies within the nation itself. In comparison to other
countries, Japan’s colonial rule was very moderate. When Imperial Manchuria was established in
January 1932, the population was thirty million. That population increased each year by more
than 1 million people, reaching fifty million by the end of the war in 1945.
Why was there such a population explosion in Manchuria? It was because Manchuria was a
prosperous and safe region. People would not be flocking to a place that was being invaded. The
plains of Manchuria, where there was almost no industry other than agriculture, was reborn as a
vital industrial nation in just fifteen years thanks to the Japanese government. On the Korean
Peninsula as well, during the thirty-five years of Japanese rule the population roughly doubled
from thirteen million to twenty-five million people. That is proof that Korea under Japanese rule
was also prosperous and safe. In postwar Japan, people say that the Japanese army destroyed the
peaceful existence in Manchuria and on the Korean Peninsula. But in fact, through the efforts of
the Japanese government and Japanese army, the people in these areas were released from the
oppression they had been subjected to up until then, and their standard of living markedly
improved.
Our country built many schools in Manchuria, the Korean Peninsula, and Taiwan, and
emphasized education for the native people. We left behind significant improvements to the
infrastructure that affects everyday life – roads, power plants, water supply, etc. And we
established Keijo Imperial University in Korea in 1924 as well as the Taipei Imperial University
in 1928 in Taiwan.
Following the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government established nine imperial
universities. Keijo Imperial University was the sixth and Taipei Imperial University was the
seventh to be built. The subsequent order was that Osaka Imperial University was eighth (1931)
and Nagoya Imperial University was ninth (1939). The Japanese government actually built
imperial universities in Korea and Taiwan even before Osaka and Nagoya.
The Japanese government also permitted the enrollment of Chinese and Japanese citizens
into the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. At the Manila military tribunal following the war,
there was a lieutenant general in the Japanese army named Hong Sa-ik, a native Korean who was
sentenced to death. Hong graduated in the 26th class at the Army Academy, where he was a
classmate of Lt. General Kuribayashi Tadamichi, who gained fame at Iwo Jima.
Hong was a person who rose to lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army while
retaining his Korean name. One class behind him at the academy was Col. Kim Suk-won, who
served as a major in China at the time of the Sino-Japanese War. Leading a force of roughly
1,000 Japanese troops, he trampled the army from China, the former suzerain state that had been
bullying Korea for hundreds of years. He was decorated by the emperor for his meritorious war
service. Of course, he did not change his name. In China, Chiang Kai-shek also graduated from
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3
the Imperial Japanese Army Academy and received training while attached to a regiment in
Takada, in Niigata.
One year below Kim Suk-won at the academy was the man who would be Chiang’s staff
officer, He Yingqin. The last crown prince of the Yi dynasty, Crown Prince Yi Eun also attended
the Army Academy, graduating in the 29th class. Crown Prince Yi Eun was brought to Japan as
a sort of hostage at the age of ten. However, the Japanese government treated him respectfully as
a member of the royal family, and after receiving his education at Gakushuin, he graduated from
the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. In the army, he was promoted and served as a lieutenant
general. Crown Prince Yi Eun was married to Japan’s Princess Nashimotonomiya Masako. She
was a woman of nobility who previously had been considered as a potential bride for the Showa
Emperor. If the Japanese government had intended to smash the Yi dynasty, they surely would
not have permitted the marriage of a woman of this stature to Crown Prince Yi Eun.
Incidentally, in 1930, the Imperial Household Agency built a new residence for the couple.
It is now the Akasaka Prince Hotel Annex. Also, Prince Pujie, the younger brother of Puyi – the
last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, who was also the emperor of Manchuria – was married to
Lady Saga Hiro of the noble Saga house.
When you compare this with the countries that were considered to be major powers at the
time, you realize that Japan’s posture toward Manchuria, Korea, and Taiwan was completely
different from the colonial rule of the major powers. England occupied India, but it did not
provide education for the Indian people. Indians were not permitted to attend the British military
academy. Of course, they would never have considered a marriage between a member of the
British royal family and an Indian. This holds true for Holland, France, America, and other
countries as well.
By contrast, from before the start of World War II, Japan had been calling for harmony
between the five tribes, laying out a vision for the tribes – the Yamato (Japanese), Koreans,
Chinese, Manchurians, and Mongols – to intermix and live peacefully together. At a time when
racial discrimination was considered natural, this was a groundbreaking proposal. At the Paris
Peace Conference at the end of World War I, when Japan urged that the abolition of racial
discrimination be included in the treaty, England and America laughed it off. But if you look at
the world today, it has become the kind of world that Japan was urging at the time.
Going back in time to 1901, in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, the Qing Empire signed
the Boxer Protocol in 1901 with eleven countries including Japan. As a result, our country
gained the right to station troops in Qing China, and began by dispatching 2,600 troops there.
Also, in 1915, following four months of negotiations with the government of Yuan Shikai, and
incorporating China’s points as well, agreement was reached on Japan’s so-called 21 Demands
toward China. Some people say that this was the start of Japan’s invasion of China, but if you
compare these demands to the general international norms of colonial administration by the great
powers at the time, there was nothing terribly unusual about it. China too accepted the demands
at one point and ratified them.
However, four years later, in 1919, when China was allowed to attend the Paris Peace
Conference, it began complaining about the 21 Demands with America’s backing. Even then,
England and France supported Japan’s position. Moreover, Japan never advanced its army
without the agreement of Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT.
The Japanese army in Beijing, which was stationed there from 1901, still comprised just
5,600 troops at the time of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident thirty-six years later. At that time,
tens of thousands of KMT troops were spread out in the area surrounding Beijing, and even in
Page 4
4
terms of appearances it was a far cry from being an invasion. As symbolized by Foreign Minister
Shidehara Kijuro, our country’s basic policy at the time was one of reconciliation with China,
and that has not changed even today.
There are some who say that it was because Japan invaded the Chinese mainland and the
Korean Peninsula that it ended up entering the war with the United States, where it lost three
million people and met with defeat; it committed an irrevocable error. However, it has also been
confirmed now that Japan was ensnared in a trap that was very carefully laid by the United States
in order to draw Japan into a war.
In fact, America was also being manipulated by Comintern. There are official documents
called the Venona Files, which are available on the National Security Agency (NSA) website. It
is a massive set of documents, but in the May 2006 edition of “Monthly Just Arguments” 「月
刊正論」, (then) Assistant Professor Fukui of Aoyama Gakuin University offered a summary
introduction.
The Venona Files are a collection of transmissions between Comintern and agents in the
United States, which the United States was monitoring for eight years, from 1940 to 1948. At the
time, the Soviets were changing their codes after each message, so the United States could not
decipher them. From 1943, right in the middle of the war with Japan, the United States began its
decryption work. Surprisingly, it took thirty-seven years to finish the work; it was completed just
before the start of the Reagan administration in 1980. However, since it was the middle of the
Cold War, the Americans kept these documents classified.
In 1995, following the end of the Cold War, they were declassified and made open to the
public. According to those files, there were three hundred Comintern spies working in the
administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took office in 1933. Among them, one who rose to
the top was the number two official at the Treasury, Assistant Secretary Harry White. Harry
White is said to have been the perpetrator who wrote the Hull note, America’s final notice to
Japan before the war began. Through President Roosevelt’s good friend, Treasury Secretary
Morgenthau, he was able to manipulate President Roosevelt and draw our country into a war
with the United States.
At the time, Roosevelt was not aware of the terrible nature of communism. Through Harry
White, he was on the receiving end of Comintern’s maneuvering, and he was covertly offering
strong support to Chiang Kai-shek, who was battling Japan at the time, sending the Flying Tigers
squadron comprised of one hundred fighter planes. Starting one and a half months prior to the
attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States began covert air attacks against Japan on the Chinese
mainland.
Roosevelt had become president on his public pledge not to go to war, so in order to start a
war between the United States and Japan it had to appear that Japan took the first shot. Japan was
caught in Roosevelt’s trap and carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Could the war have been avoided? If Japan had accepted the conditions lain out by the
United States in the Hull note, perhaps the war could have been temporarily avoided. But even if
the war had been avoided temporarily, when you consider the survival of the fittest mentality that
dominated international relations at the time, you can easily imagine that the United States would
have issued a second and a third set of demands. As a result, those of us living today could very
well have been living in a Japan that was a white nation’s colony.
If you leave people alone, someday someone will create the conveniences of civilization,
such as cars, washing machines, and computers. But in the history of mankind, the relationship
between the rulers and the ruled is only determined by war. It is impossible for those who are
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powerful to grant concessions on their own. Those who do not fight must resign themselves to
being ruled by others.
After the Greater East Asia War, many countries in Asia and Africa were released from the
control of white nations. A world of racial equality arrived and problems between nations were
to be decided through discussion. That was a result of Japan’s strength in fighting the Russo-
Japanese War and Greater East Asia War. If Japan had not fought the Greater East War at that
time, it may have taken another one hundred or two hundred years before we could have
experienced the world of racial equality that we have today. In that sense, we must be grateful to
our ancestors who fought for Japan and to the spirits of those who gave their precious lives for
their country. It is thanks to them that we are able to enjoy the peaceful and plentiful lifestyle we
have today.
On the other hand, there are those who call the Greater East Asia War “that stupid war.”
They probably believe that even without fighting a war we could have achieved today’s peaceful
and plentiful society. It is as if they think that all of our country’s leaders at that time were stupid.
We undertook a needless war and many Japanese citizens lost their lives. They seem to be saying
that all those who perished actually died in vain.
However, when you look back at the history of mankind, you understand that nothing is as
simple as that. Even today, once a decision is made about an international relationship it is
extremely difficult to overturn that. Based on the US-Japan Security Treaty, America possesses
bases even in Japan’s capital region of Tokyo. Even if Japan said they wanted those bases back,
they would not be easily returned. In terms of our relationship with Russia as well, the Northern
Islands remain illegally occupied even after more than sixty years. And Takeshima remains
under the effective control of South Korea.
The Tokyo Trials tried to push all the responsibility for the war onto Japan. And that mind
control is still misleading the Japanese people sixty-three years after the war. The belief is that if
the Japanese army becomes stronger, it will certainly go on a rampage and invade other countries,
so we need to make it as difficult as possible for the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to act. The SDF
cannot even defend its own territory, it cannot practice collective self-defense, there are many
limitations on its use of weapons, and the possession of offensive weaponry is forbidden.
Compared to the militaries of other countries, the SDF is bound hand and foot and immobilized.
Unless our country is released from this mind control, it will never have a system for
protecting itself through its own power. We have no choice but to be protected by America. If we
are protected by America, then the Americanization of Japan will be accelerated. Japan’s
economy, its finances, its business practices, its employment system, its judicial system will all
converge with the American system. Our country’s traditional culture will be destroyed by the
parade of reforms. Japan is undergoing a cultural revolution, is it not? But are the citizens of
Japan living in greater ease now or twenty years ago? Is Japan becoming a better country?
I am not repudiating the US-Japan alliance. Good relations between Japan and the United
States are essential to the stability of the Asian region. However, what is most desirable in the
US-Japan relationship is something like a good relationship between parent and child, where
they come to each other’s aid when needed, as opposed to the kind of relationship where the
child remains permanently dependant on the parent.
Creating a structure where we can protect our country ourselves allows us to preemptively
prevent an attack on Japan, and at the same time serves to bolster our position in diplomatic
negotiations. This is understood in many countries to be perfectly normal, but that concept has
not gotten through to our citizens.
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Even now, there are many people who think that our country’s aggression caused unbearable
suffering to the countries of Asia during the Greater East Asia War. But we need to realize that
many Asian countries take a positive view of the Greater East Asia War. In Thailand, Burma,
India, Singapore, and Indonesia, the Japan that fought the Greater East Asia War is held in high
esteem. We also have to realize that while many of the people who had direct contact with the
Japanese army viewed them positively, it is often those who never directly saw the Japanese
military who are spreading rumors about the army’s acts of brutality. Many foreigners have
testified to the strict military discipline of the Japanese troops as compared to those of other
countries. It is certainly a false accusation to say that our country was an aggressor nation.
Japan is a wonderful country that has a long history and exceptional traditions. We, as
Japanese people, must take pride in our country’s history. Unless they are influenced by some
particular ideology, people will naturally love the hometown and the country where they were
born. But in Japan’s case, if you look assiduously at the historical facts, you will understand that
what this country has done is wonderful. There is absolutely no need for lies and fabrications. If
you look at individual events, there were probably some that would be called misdeeds. That is
the same as saying that there is violence and murder occurring today even in advanced nations.
We must take back the glorious history of Japan. A nation that denies its own history is
destined to pursue a path of decline

 

General Tamogami Toshio's comments and their origin are easy to understand.

Firstly: the Japanese are a divine culture (most outstanding in the world) and they needed and had the obligation to defend their culture and ensure their survival against other countries.

Secondly: Why should the Europeans have a sole right to exploit and misstreat the local Asian population and their homelands?

Many Indonesians hold more grudge even today against Holland then towards the Japanese. Same goes for the Malays, Burmese or Vietnamese in regards to their former Masters. (This would be something that I could even confirm)

The Chinese were a lost culture - victims to the previous Manchu rule and slaves or at the mercy of the Europeans - as such the Japanese needed to liberate the Chinese and resurect their common cultural roots, - most suitable by adopting the unbroken and pure Japanese culture which still harboured and embraced the original Chinese culture of the Han and Ming.

Thirdly: What business is Asia to the Gaijin Americans? besides their imperialistic occupation of the Phillipines (by treaties) and former German colonies?

The above is a mirror of the basic mindset of even todays Japanese, (Not mine) so what is wrong about the Generals essay in the eye's of most Japanese?

Regards
Kruska

 

IIRC the first combat sortie of the AVG was on 20 Dec 1941. Has anyone seen or heard of any "Covert" missions flown by the AVG in Oct or Nov of 1941?

 

Plenty. General Tamogami's essay is a distortion of history in that he selectively presents facts, misstates others, and simply ignores many. His statement, for instance, that Japan treated it's colonies and occupied territories better than the Europeans did is an opinion not supported by any objective standards. The comment that the "Greater East Asian" war had to be fought to "liberate" Asian colonies from European and American imperialism is just flat out false; the Philippines already had autonomy and were scheduled for full independence in 1946. India already had a strong nationalist movement which would have gained full independence in a few years, anyway.

In fact, Japan fought the Greater East Asian war, not to oust the European imperialists, but to replace them. The General's implication that had Japan not fought the war, it would have ended up a colony of the "white man" is absurd; The United States had no interest in Asian colonies and was in the process of divesting itself of the one it did hold. The fact that the US forced Japan into unconditional surrender and then occupied, but did not colonize, Japan proves that.

The essay is a typical distortion of the facts, seriously at odds with what really happened. If the General really believes this drival, he is an ignorant man. I would hope that he does not represent the mindset of the general Japanese population, but if he does, Japan is in denial of the facts.

 

The next Anzac Day march in Sydney, i would invite the Japanese General to give the Anzac Veterans a public speech on why he considers that Japan were'nt the agressors and then stand back while they tear him to shreds.

v.R

 

I agree exactly. There is some serious distortions. And it looks like many do believe them unfortunately. Wholeheartedly.

 

Yes off course, but the Japanese government has never seriously undertaken anything to change this 1930 mindset.

Devilsadvocate argument in regards to Japanese behavior in the former European colonies would be countered by the Japanese by forwarding that they never did anything else but what the Europeans did before - so if the Europeans felt okay with it, then why should the Japanese be pointed at?

The Japanese mindset on these issues simply has never moved onwards. They simply ignore the fact that the former European Colonist powers have even appologized for their past and therefore created a basis for a new understanding with the population of their former colonies. The Japs, haven't but they can see their products being bought every day by those once oppressed.

Regards
Kruska

 

Kruska, DA, I certainly agree with your viewpoints. In the Philippines, however, a Japanese ambassador had apologized for the massacre of at least 100,000 Filipinos during the Battle of Manila. So there is at least once case where the Japanese had indeed apologized for an atrocity.
What I suspect is that this particular Japanese apology for what happened in Manila might not have been given air time or print space in Japan. And that might partly explain why many Japanese today are not aware of what their country had done in World War II.
Still, we are all fortunate that there are elements in Japan that have acted on the general's essay.

 

[SIZE=-1]Japan and its history

[SIZE=+1]The ghost of wartimes past
Nov 6th 2008 | TOKYO
From The Economist print edition[/SIZE][/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]MANY Japanese were surprised that a hotel chain, under a cloud for shoddy earthquake-proofing standards, should sponsor a competition for the best essay to deny Japan’s wartime role as an aggressor and sponsor of atrocities. But then the chain’s boss, Toshio Motoya, is a vigorous historical revisionist (and big supporter of Shinzo Abe, prime minister in 2006-07). More astounding, then: the competition winner, Toshio Tamogami, was none other than the head of Japan’s air force.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Mr Tamogami’s offering is a warmed-through hash of thrice-cooked revisionism. Japan, he writes, fought a war of self-defence, protecting its legal territories of Manchukuo (North-East China) and Korea against communists. Pearl Harbour was an American-laid trap. Japanese occupations were both benevolent and a liberation of Asia from the yoke of Western imperialism—indeed, neighbours (20m of whose deaths were caused by the Japanese) now look fondly on wartime Japan. Japan must “reclaim its glorious history”, Mr Tamogami ended with a barrel-rolling flourish and a want of irony, “for a country that denies its own history is destined to fall.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]The prime minister of six weeks, Taro Aso, from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), moved swiftly. Within hours of the essay’s publication on October 31st, Mr Tamogami, a general, was out of a job. China and South Korea expressed shock at his views, but accepted that they did not reflect the government’s. Mr Tamogami did not help his case by complaining that Japan’s freedom of expression was on a par with North Korea’s. As well as the ¥3m ($30,000) essay prize, he gets a ¥60m retirement bonus from the defence ministry.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1][/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]End of story? Not quite. For a start, Mr Tamogami, it transpires, took Mr Motoya for a joy-ride in a fighter jet. And since his sacking, it turns out that of the 230-odd aspiring writers of historical fiction, 78 were officers in Japan’s air force, most of them close to their general. Of course, it is understandable that some professional warriors might chafe at Japan’s American-dictated pacifist constitution; and at a victor’s interpretation of history that discredited Japan’s proud armed forces. But for so many to write revisionist claptrap in a hotel-sponsored competition is rum indeed. The unfortunate impression is of those radicalised officers’ messes of the 1930s, out of which the Japanese army mugged civilian rule: the rest was, well, history.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]So the prime minister has some explaining to do, and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan will make all the hay it can. It wants Mr Tamogami to testify before the Diet. It may press the prime minister about his own views. His government, like its predecessors, endorses apologies, first formulated in the mid-1990s, expressing guilt and remorse for wartime suffering. In office (and as foreign minister before that) Mr Aso has also eschewed visiting Yasukuni, where war criminals as well as Japan’s 2.5m war dead are enshrined. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Yet in the past Mr Aso, in a shoot-from-the-hip way, has echoed many of Mr Tamogami’s right-wing views. He has, for instance, praised Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910-45, even though his family fortune derives from a mining company that used Korean slave labour during the second world war. As prime minister Mr Aso has been on good behaviour. Yet the day after Mr Tamogami’s sacking, he casually picked up a volume of views similar to the general’s from a Tokyo bookstore.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Mr Aso is certainly doing his bit to improve tricky relations with neighbours, China and South Korea in particular. Unlike many revisionists, he embraces the post-war order, wants an internationalist role for Japan, and does not see bogeymen behind every tree. Yet now he has the challenge of reassuring Japan’s neighbours over the Tamogami affair without undermining his own conservative base. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]The public reaction to the affair reinforces how beleaguered these days are Japan’s history-deniers, says Jeffrey Kingston, a historian of Asia at Temple University in Tokyo. Even Yasukuni has toned down the exhibits in its notorious museum, where until recently militarism was celebrated and all atrocities denied. The most notable denial was of the Nanjing massacre of tens (or possibly hundreds) of thousands of Chinese in December 1937. Now the museum admits that killings took place, but suggests they were of enemy soldiers disguised as civilians. This is the problem with the historical fantasists. Even as they moderate their public message, they leave you waiting for the “but”.[/SIZE]

 

Actually, the Japanese style of colonialism was more repressive than all but the harshest of European rule in Asia. By the 1930's, European and American colonial rule ranged from the repressive and exploitative style of the French and Dutch colonies, to benign neglect in most British possessions and the paternalistic American rule of the Tydings-McDuffy period in the Philippines. To the best of my knowledge, no European colonial regime essayed experiments with biological warfare agents on their colonial subjects such as occurred in Japanese occupied China. No European colonial rule, at least in the twentieth century, confiscated the subsistence crops of rice as occurred in Japanese-occupied Korea. To be sure, few native Asians enjoyed colonial rule, whether by Europeans, Americans, or Japanese, but given a choice, most almost certainly would have chosen that of the Europeans and Americans over that of the Japanese.

As far as the Europeans objecting to Japanese colonial rule, of course, Europeans and Americans had good reason to object to Japanese colonies in Asia; especially when the colonies in question had been forcibly taken from the Europeans. The Japanese seem to think that everyone should immediately see the justice in what they were doing, even those who had manifest reason to feel the injustice of it. That perhaps, is the most arrogant and disturbing aspect of the Japanese position; the inability to see anyone else's point of view.

 

Actually, the Japanese government, not just an ambassador, has also apologized for the Great East Asian war and acknowledged that it caused severe suffering and huge death tolls throughout Asia and the Pacific area. What is causing the continuing debate and controversy are incidents like the current one, calling into question the sincerity of such apologies. The Japanese government itself has a checkered history of acts, such as refusing to consider compensation to the Asian "comfort women", and ex-Prime Minister Aso visiting the Yasukuni war-dead shrine, that suggest it is, at best, ambivalent about the war. What bothers me, are the continuing attempts, both official and private, to paint the Japanese as simply victims of larger forces.

I won't feel the Japanese are owning up to their responsibility until the objective truths of history, such as the Nanking massacre, are taught in Japanese schools and depicted in Japanese museums. The Germans have shown great courage in accepting their responibilities, I doubt the Japanese ever will. I agree that we are fortunate that the number of Japanese who share the General's views seems to be limited. However, I find the fact that some seventy or more of the General's officers also submitted essays on the topic, to be very disquieting.

 

Ooops! You are quite right, DA. What I meant was an apology that I actually witnessed. Thanks. Your swift eye is the reminder I need to think and write outside of the Philippine or local context when I'm in this forum.

 

Ousted Japanese General Defends Comments About WWII


Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 11, 2008; Page
TOKYO, Nov. 11 -- Japan's former air force chief, removed last week for writing an essay that says Japan was not an aggressor in World War II, is refusing to quietly fade away.
Pugnaciously defending his version of Japan's role in a war that killed millions across Asia, Toshio Tamogami, 60, told parliament Tuesday that he does not see "anything wrong with what I wrote."
The ousted general's revisionism, together with revelations that 94 air force staff members might have written similar essays this year, has triggered demands in parliament for a full-scale investigation of the training given to military officers to determine whether it is consistent with official government policy, which states that Japan deeply regrets and apologizes for its wartime aggression.


Questions have been raised about officer training at the Joint Staff College, where Tamogami served as a commandant, where he personally revised the curriculum and where some of this country's elite military leaders have been trained.
Members of parliament said Tuesday that Tamogami might have used the school to teach officers to deny Japan's aggression in the war.
"I think there is a need for reeducation and for a complete examination inside the military," Tokushin Yamauchi, an opposition member of parliament, said during his questioning of Tamogami.
Tamogami was dismissed for writing, among other things, that Japan was not an aggressor in World War II and that it bombed Pearl Harbor because of a "trap" set by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He also wrote that "many Asian countries take a positive view" of Japan's wartime role.
China and South Korea, principal victims of Japan's brutality during the war, have voiced shock and anger with the general's claims.
In parliament Tuesday, Tamogami said he had no regrets.
"I was fired after saying Japan is a good country," he said. "It seems a bit strange."
The affair of the noisily unapologetic general, whose views echo the refusal of many prominent nationalists in Japan to come to grips with the past, is turning into a substantial political liability for Prime Minister Taro Aso, who must call a general election in less than a year.
Before he became prime minister in September, Aso, 68, an elder in the ruling party, had made a series of statements that suggested his nationalist leanings. He upset the governments of North and South Korea by praising his country's 35-year colonial occupation of their peninsula, saying Japan did many good things.



As foreign minister in 2006, Aso annoyed China by suggesting that Japan's emperor should visit Yasukuni, the war shrine in Tokyo where convicted war criminals are honored along with 2.5 million war dead.
Documents have surfaced in recent years showing that during the war, the cement business owned by Aso's family used thousands of Korean, Chinese, Australian, British and Dutch prisoners as slave laborers. Asked about the matter in September, Aso said that he was 5 years old when the war ended and that in his work at Aso Cement, "I have never been involved in this issue."
Aso moved quickly to rid his government of Tamogami. Within hours after the general's essay appeared on a Web site Oct. 31, he was demoted.
But the Defense Ministry said that it could not fire Tamogami outright -- and deny him a $600,000 retirement bonus -- without waiting several weeks for paperwork to be processed.


So, the ministry allowed Tamogami to retire with the bonus. There

are increasing demands, even from inside Aso's ruling party, that the government not pay the money.
Tamogami will have none of it. He told parliament Tuesday that he has no intention of voluntarily turning back his retirement, which has yet to be paid to him.
Since the general was forced out, an investigation by the Defense Ministry has found that his office encouraged air force officers across Japan to participate in the $30,000 essay contest that Tamogami ended up winning. The contest theme was "the true perspective of modern history" and it was sponsored by a long-time friend of the general.
Sixty-three entrants in the contest were air force staff from Komatsu Air Base, where Tamogami was formerly a commander.
It has not yet been determined whether those essays contained revisionist wartime arguments similar to the one written by the general.
In the past week, Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada has apologized to parliament for educational material used in navy training. Since the end of World War II, the training information said, "our nation has been gripped in the belief that we are an inferior race."
Under former prime minister Shinzo Abe, who served one year before abruptly quitting last year, Japan backed away from its previous apologies to the "comfort women," the term used for the estimated 50,000 to 200,000 Asian women forced by the Japanese government into brothels before and during World War II.
Abe, who had strong support in the nationalist wing of the ruling party, said there was no documentation proving that the Japanese military coerced Asian women into becoming prostitutes. His statements pushed the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a resolution calling on Japan to apologize for its treatment of the sex slaves.
Studies by the Japanese government itself have uncovered more than 100 documents showing Japanese military involvement in the building of brothels and the recruitment of women, according to a 2006 report by the Congressional Research Service.
Also under Abe, the government tried to whitewash the history of the war as taught in Japanese public schools. In 2006, the Education Ministry deleted references in textbooks to orders from the Japanese military in 1944 that civilians in Okinawa must commit mass suicide rather than surrender to invading U.S. forces.
Courts here have since recognized the military's role in ordering mass suicides on the island and textbooks have been rewritten again to acknowledge that fact.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/11/AR2008111100952.html

 

Many back my WW II views: sacked general

TOKYO: The former head of Japan’s air force, fired in October for publishing an essay arguing Japan was not an aggressor in World War Two, said yesterday he believed many in politics, the military and the public shared his views. ]

Air force chief of staff Toshio Tamogami revived a long-running row over Japan’s wartime actions, which has often chilled ties with its Asian neighbours, when he won a prize for an essay on the theme of “True Modern History”.
In the essay, he said Japan was ensnared into World War Two and that Japan’s military actions in China were based on treaties, an opinion which contradict past apologies issued by the Japanese government.
His views drew condemnation from Beijing as well as opposition lawmakers in Japan, who questioned why someone with such a stance had been appointed to the key post.
“Politicians and bureaucrats do not support me on the surface,” Tamogami told a news conference.
“But in actual fact I think many of them agree with me. They just can’t say it in public.”
Tamogami said he believed that many in the military, whose activities abroad are constrained by the country’s postwar pacifist constitution, also agreed with his views, which were posted on a website, but that their opinions were suppressed.
Prime Minister Taro Aso has in the past offended South Koreans with remarks seeming to defend Japan’s past colonisation of the Korean peninsula.
But Aso has said he stands by a 1995 apology for Japan’s wartime aggression, issued by then prime minister Tomiichi Murayama. Aso has also called Tamogami’s actions inappropriate.
Tamogami criticised what he said had been a long-term drift to the left in Japanese politics since World War Two, which he said threatened the existence of conservative politics.
Echoing the view of ultra-conservative Japanese scholars, he added that schools were teaching a mistaken view of history.
“Japanese education focuses too much on the dark side of its history,” he said. “This undermines the point of teaching history. I believe the reason we teach history is to develop patriotism.”
Dozens of air force officers contributed essays on similar lines to the essay competition, the defence ministry has said, and media reports said right-wing historians hand-picked by Tamogami have been regular lecturers at a defence academy. – Reuters

Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper - Philippines/East Asia

 

At least this statement of his appears to be true: many share his views.

 

No, we teach History to learn about events of the past. Patriotism comes from moral beliefs, religion, culture etc.

 

As mentioned earlier, the Japanese educational system is the root of the problem in Japan when it comes to historical reality.

I believe General MacArthur must also bear some of the blame as head of the US occupational forces. His leadership in the occupation was a very benign mantle upon Japanese society.

MacArthur's failure to force the Emperor to abdicate the throne and accept responsibility for the war has fostered a general sense of lack of responsibility in Japanese society.

 

Those Who Forget History Are Doomed to Repeat It"