Abe’s remark was not directed at the foreign media, and what he said was nothing new.
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=1259
It was foreign media that has misinterpreted his statement and made a big fuss.

Japan has admitted the injustice about the comfort station and apologized.
And few are arguing that since the other countries did it Japan was not wrong. Japan was wrong.

The point is how you see this issue: do you want to see it the problem of Japan avoiding facing the past? or do you want to see the issue that will shed light to the issue of women and that is
still inherent in the present society among Asian nation?
If the former, Japan admitted she was wrong, and
Abe confirmed and affirmed Kono’s statement.
It is just that Japan does not have to accept, without ground, what she has not done. It seems to me the irrational demand to accept what she has not done is just the political game of getting hegemony by demonizing Japan or something
like that.
(Note, in passing, the link about Japan which Robert put up on this comment section.)
If the latter, there are still issues that should be discussed, it can and should be discussed among all the nations concerned. Then we can work together to improve the situation, learning from what Japan did to comfort women under Japanese rule, though it seems some people do not want to discuss the issue, citing evidences.

“But the Chinese and Koreans are aiming not only the older generations but also the young generations who weren’t even born yet at the time.”

Yeah,true. But that’s their problem. To be honest, I don’t think that the Koreans and Chinese will stop grudging against Japan whatever the Japanese do. Not until the Korean peninsula will be united and plus some decades maybe. The chinese will not stop until they success to become a democratic nation plus some decades maybe.

Yes the Korean government is playing the history card, so do the Chinese. That’s because they have problems in facing their own troubled history. But hey, isn’t that the same with the Japanese government and some Japanese people?

I mean if you want to criticize the Koreans and the Chinese because of their nationalism, then you must be able to have the guts to overcome your own nationalism and have the guts to face your own ugly parts of history. Defending what happened in the past is no good. Especially, I can’t even imagine a right winger today who thinks that colonizing Korea or invading other parts of Asia was good. I can’t imagine even a single right winger in Japan who thinks because it was “good” we will do it again.

What they do is a “defensive” arguments, an apologetic one, “We were not that bad” “We had some good intentions” etc. That will not earn respect in the international society, rather it would give some suspects “Hey, maybe these nationalisitic Koreans and Chinese are right, the Japanese don’t feel any guilt at all about what they did” and frankly speaking, nobody in the world supports colonialism and invasion today. In the latter half of 19th century and until 1918, it was justified because of social Darwinism which was combined with imperialism.

And I think to pick up other nations with their imperialistic past comparing with them and defensively, in an apologetic way accusing them that “we are not alone who committed crimes in the name of imperialism” is also not a good strategic.

Only if you have the blunt guts to face your own past you will have the moral grounds to criticize others. In other words, what the politician have done in this comfort women case has really damaged the image of Japan. Yes, the US congress bill is a very hypocratic one. But you should just laid back and don’t react to hypocracy. That the Japanese was defensive and apologetic this time (including me) was a big mistake.

lobotomy948:

I do not like you, but admittedly you’ve got a point here.

I see your point. I fully admit that you are really very knowledgeable regarding the matter, more than most other commenters from both sides of “the big divide” here - and definitely much more knowledgeable than me.

So there was no official apology and compensation.
How about the GI who raped 9 month old baby in 1948?
http://www.coara.or.jp/~yufuki.....higai.html

The generation is almost dying.
They don’t even remember their children’s name.

But the Chinese and Koreans are aiming not only the older generations but also the young generations who weren’t even born yet at the time.

For example, a Japanese kid in Shanghai was made to take some kind of toxic thing by force at the local school several years ago.
Because they said the kid was “Riben Quizi”(Japanese devil).

For your reference,
http://search.japantimes.co.jp.....320i1.html
here is two experts’ view on comfort station under Japanese rule. (Yoshimi is a representative historian and supporter of comfort women) Though they disagree on several points, note that they agree there is no evidence that Japanese troop systematically kidnapped women.
Note also the living conditions of comfort women is not different from what i said.
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/.....ment-74556
Abe’s statement that there is no backed up evidence that Japanese troop systematically kidnapped women is nothing new and grounded. (The historians must judged to be neo-nationalist and holocaust denier and they must be saying comfort women are whores if they participated in this forum on this blog and deny Japanese troop systematically kidnapped women )

Though Japanese troops didn’t systematically abducted women to make them prostitutes, though Japanese military/police regulated illegal pimps, and brothels, in many cases it is not hard to imagine that the living condition was horrible as i said before. In some cases there might have been the cases where women found it hard to reject the sexual intercourse. Facing this fact, Japan apologized and set up funds.
I am not saying that comfort station system was right. I am saying it was wrong.
And I am saying it was wrong whoever did it and
it should be approached from the viewpoint of man’s exploitation of women.
i am also saying German had the similar system as two historians claims and Korea had the comfort station during Korean war exactly like the one Japanese rule as a Korean professor Kim claims.

Both countries has not faced the fact.

And I am asking what people are doing when they keep bashing Abe while they are turning blind an eye on those countries. What is their point? do they just want to bash Abe, or do they just want to help victims , ex-comfort women under Korea, under German?
Ex-comfort women during korean war are aging.

I am saying this kind of thing, human trafficking
and unwilling prostitution has been happening in East Asia, in particular in Korea.
Korea is No 1 in the number of illegal prostitutes.
http://www.donga.com/fbin/outp.....0609250118
I am saying there are still cases where prostitutes find it hard to explicitly reject the customer and they are under threat from the pimps.
I am saying Korean women’s situation has not changed; they are still economically and socially forced to be prostitutes, exploited by Korean pimps.
Korean prostitutes are demanding they should be given the status of “official prostitutes” because otherwise they are being exploited by pimps.
http://www.segye.com/Service5/.....1641002232

I am asking what pro-Korean people doing, nitpicking what Abe said ten years ago while Abe confirmed and affirmed Kono statement a week ago.
http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/w.....e9308.html

I am asking why some people want Japanese to say what they are not saying.
No body said comort women just wanted sex, nobody
said ex-comfort women were snile old whores.

Tomojiro
Have you checked the record?
There were illegal pimps who deceived and attempted to kidnap or actually kidnapped women to make them prostitutes and Japanese police regulated them, arrested them. That means it was wrong even then and so was it recognized. When it was found out women was forced, the record shows the brothel was closed.
That means it was wrong even then
But it is imaginable in some cases the condintion
was horrible under a coercive atmosphere, and in view of that Japan apologized.

And the Iraq war (whatever you think of it) does not come into play here…

The GIs who raped the 12-year old girl in Okinawa were put on trial, convicted, and served their time.