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Alas, Abe conspiracy
Ahn Seong-jin
2015. 11. 18. 16:56
Japan aims to reinstate WWII war criminals
Korea and China, Japan's World War II victims, have played the part of Cassandra, foretelling the upcoming ominous future only for their prophecy to be denied. The United States, the victor that knocked the aggressor with two atomic bombs, has played a complex role ― a combination of the Nazi-appeasing British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the concerned Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the American stepfather who helped the vanquished nation back onto its feet. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has buried the hatchet for the disgrace suffered by his nation in general and his grandfather, a member of the Tojo War Cabinet and charged as a Class A war criminal, is unfolding his conspiracy for the rebirth of an expansionist Japan.
According to the Asahi Shimbun, Thursday, Abe ordered the establishment of a panel to review the verdicts and legal proceedings against thousands of Japanese, who were involved in Japan's war efforts, by Allied forces after Tokyo's unconditional surrender at the end of the Second World War.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, or simply the Tokyo trials, sentenced seven, including Gen. Tojo, to death by hanging on Nov. 12, 1948, the day Abe's panel was announced this year. Abe's grandfather on his mother's side, Nobushuke Kishi, also a member of the Tojo cabinet, was charged but released to become the country's post-war prime minister.
Asahi said that the panel would be put under Abe's direct control at his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), adding that a moderate party stalwart was appointed to run the panel as a "study group" with no obligation of making conclusions as a way of effecting protests by Korea and China, the victim countries.
It must be remembered that, as with Abe's other moves to destroy history, it is not an isolated case. In March 2013, only three months after he began his second and current tour of duty, Abe insinuated that he denied the legitimacy of the Tokyo trials, calling them "victors' justice," by rephrasing Winston Churchill's aphorism, "History is written by the victors." Abe's remark violates the 1952 Treaty of San Francisco that took Japan's recognition of the Tokyo trials as a key prerequisite for the end of the war.
The Abe panel is another piece in the so-apparent jigsaw puzzle that is Abe's big dream.
The first is his refusal to repeat his predecessors' show of repentance about atrocities committed against Korea and China. In his speech marking the 70th anniversary of Japan's Aug. 15, 1945, unconditional surrender, he vowed to prevent current and future generations of his nation making apologies. The second is, under his "normal state" slogan, to enable its military to invade other countries by ramming his defense security bills through the Diet (its parliament), which Abe openly says is a step toward the abolition of the pacifist Constitution imposed by the U.S. to bottle Japan's aggressiveness. The third is the morality or, more precisely, the lack thereof, shown through Tokyo's handling of the issue of the "comfort women," or girls conscripted from Korea and China by the Japanese government and forced to sexually serve its soldiers.
Nails in the coffin of the Japanese imperial past have been unscrewed or loosened. History revisionists, including many in the U.S., argue that Japan cannot wage another war like the previous one. They are both right and wrong at the same time because the likelihood is that Japan may not attack the U.S. but is already raising tensions in the form of a duel with China and a dispute with Korea. Alas, the U.S.'s declining power may open up room for another tragedy.
Korea and China, Japan's World War II victims, have played the part of Cassandra, foretelling the upcoming ominous future only for their prophecy to be denied. The United States, the victor that knocked the aggressor with two atomic bombs, has played a complex role ― a combination of the Nazi-appeasing British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the concerned Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the American stepfather who helped the vanquished nation back onto its feet. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has buried the hatchet for the disgrace suffered by his nation in general and his grandfather, a member of the Tojo War Cabinet and charged as a Class A war criminal, is unfolding his conspiracy for the rebirth of an expansionist Japan.
According to the Asahi Shimbun, Thursday, Abe ordered the establishment of a panel to review the verdicts and legal proceedings against thousands of Japanese, who were involved in Japan's war efforts, by Allied forces after Tokyo's unconditional surrender at the end of the Second World War.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, or simply the Tokyo trials, sentenced seven, including Gen. Tojo, to death by hanging on Nov. 12, 1948, the day Abe's panel was announced this year. Abe's grandfather on his mother's side, Nobushuke Kishi, also a member of the Tojo cabinet, was charged but released to become the country's post-war prime minister.
Asahi said that the panel would be put under Abe's direct control at his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), adding that a moderate party stalwart was appointed to run the panel as a "study group" with no obligation of making conclusions as a way of effecting protests by Korea and China, the victim countries.
It must be remembered that, as with Abe's other moves to destroy history, it is not an isolated case. In March 2013, only three months after he began his second and current tour of duty, Abe insinuated that he denied the legitimacy of the Tokyo trials, calling them "victors' justice," by rephrasing Winston Churchill's aphorism, "History is written by the victors." Abe's remark violates the 1952 Treaty of San Francisco that took Japan's recognition of the Tokyo trials as a key prerequisite for the end of the war.
The Abe panel is another piece in the so-apparent jigsaw puzzle that is Abe's big dream.
The first is his refusal to repeat his predecessors' show of repentance about atrocities committed against Korea and China. In his speech marking the 70th anniversary of Japan's Aug. 15, 1945, unconditional surrender, he vowed to prevent current and future generations of his nation making apologies. The second is, under his "normal state" slogan, to enable its military to invade other countries by ramming his defense security bills through the Diet (its parliament), which Abe openly says is a step toward the abolition of the pacifist Constitution imposed by the U.S. to bottle Japan's aggressiveness. The third is the morality or, more precisely, the lack thereof, shown through Tokyo's handling of the issue of the "comfort women," or girls conscripted from Korea and China by the Japanese government and forced to sexually serve its soldiers.
Nails in the coffin of the Japanese imperial past have been unscrewed or loosened. History revisionists, including many in the U.S., argue that Japan cannot wage another war like the previous one. They are both right and wrong at the same time because the likelihood is that Japan may not attack the U.S. but is already raising tensions in the form of a duel with China and a dispute with Korea. Alas, the U.S.'s declining power may open up room for another tragedy.