“It’s just fantastic news, I could hardly believe it,” Ruff O’Herne said.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles.....67439.html

from the above article dated June 22

Ms Ruff-O’Herne, who lives in Adelaide and travelled to Washington in February to address a House of Representatives hearing on protecting the human rights of comfort women, said the advertisement had left her trembling with anger.

“It’s absolutely appalling. I am so angry that after all these years and so much proof they could do that … Japan is not owning up to their historical responsibilities.

“I was put on a truck and driven away, torn away from my family and put in a brothel to be raped day and night.”

As for the assault on Koehler, via ad hominem references to his personal preferences in clothing and/or avocations, that’s flat asinine, infantile and downright amusing.

http://support121.org/

- What is the background of the “comfort women system” of the Korean Army? (Quotation mark added)
“… In 1950, women irregularly accompanied troops, washed their clothes, and ‘comforted’ soldiers. In the summer of 1951, as battles were deadlocked, the Army felt it necessary to run the ‘comfort women system’ effectively.”

- Is there a link between the “comfort women system” during the Korean War and the experience of the persons of the Korean Army when serving at the Japanese Army?
“There is a close link between their experience at the Japanese Army and the “comfort women system,” according the testimonies of former generals. The officers who had served at the Japanese Army and the Kwantung Army took the lead to set it up.”

- Was it disclosed that who had decided to introduce the “comfort women system”?
“Official documents of the Korean Army do not show it. Based on ircumstantial evidences and testimonies, however, we can say without difficulty that it was former Japanese/Kwantung Army personnel who introduced it. Because the Korean Army was under the control of the U.S Army, the commander of the U.S. Army seemed to have expressly or impliedly approved it.”

Are you showing the typical example in which Korean blame everything on Japan and the U.S.? Or are you showing how what she is saying offensive like the ad?

Does that absolve Koreans who abused the women?
Didn’t I post the article by Chung-Hee

..the South Korean army also operated its own “military comfort system” during and until immediately after the Korean War, from 1951 to 1954. …the South Korean army’s military comfort women system may be indeed the “unfortunate offspring” of the Japanese

However, I would suggest that its historical roots are much deeper than the colonial period….We should not ignore the historical depth of the Korean masculinity sexual culture that instituted the kisaen system more than one thousand years ago. Moreover, the specific way the Korean military operated the comfort system, utilizing the tickets for accessing comfort women as special rewards for bravery exhibited in battlefield, is noteworthy for its instrumentalist approach to the comfort system, not simply as commercial sex service but as as in means of conferring semi-official tribute as well as promoting future bravery..

How about the camp town?

U.S. military-oriented prostitution in Korea is not simply a matter of women walking the streets and picking up U.S. soldiers for a few bucks. It is a system that is sponsored and regulated by two governments, Korean and American (through the U.S. military)….At worst, a woman encounters a GI who beats her and murders her, as Yun Kumi did in October 1992. Private Kenneth Markle was convicted of killing her;…..The”debt bondage system” is the most prominent manifestation of exploitation….. women cannot leave prostitution at will……Poverty, together with low class status, has remained the primary reason for women’s entry into camptown prostitution from the 1950s to the mid-1980s…..Still others were physically forced into prostitution by flesh-traffickers or pimps who waited at train and bus stations, greeted young girls arriving from the countryside with promises of employment or room and board, then”initiated” them–through rape–into sex work or sold them to brothels.

(Sex among allies)
So are Korean people still influenced by Kwanton army?–Wow.

Excerpt from an interview (Ohmynews.com, March 4, 2002) with Kim Gui-Ok, Ph.D., who first bought up the issue of the “comfort women system” that existed during the Korean War (1950~1953):

- What is the background of the “comfort women system” of the Korean Army? (Quotation mark added)
“… In 1950, women irregularly accompanied troops, washed their clothes, and ‘comforted’ soldiers. In the summer of 1951, as battles were deadlocked, the Army felt it necessary to run the ‘comfort women system’ effectively.”

- Is there a link between the “comfort women system” during the Korean War and the experience of the persons of the Korean Army when serving at the Japanese Army?
“There is a close link between their experience at the Japanese Army and the “comfort women system,” according the testimonies of former generals. The officers who had served at the Japanese Army and the Kwantung Army took the lead to set it up.”

- Was it disclosed that who had decided to introduce the “comfort women system”?
“Official documents of the Korean Army do not show it. Based on ircumstantial evidences and testimonies, however, we can say without difficulty that it was former Japanese/Kwantung Army personnel who introduced it. Because the Korean Army was under the control of the U.S Army, the commander of the U.S. Army seemed to have expressly or impliedly approved it.”

Don’t pass the buck, you need to face the rest of the story in which Korean brokers abused comfort women under Japanese and Koran brokers and Korean troops abused Korean women after the “liberation” in the same way the women were abused under Japanese rule.

Who’s passing the buck here? Korean collaborators were complicit in the Japanese comfort women system. US occupation forces used comfort stations in Japan after WWII. Korea had camptown brothels for US and ROK bases. None of these absolve Japan of her responsibility for the comfort women abuses that occurred at her hands.

Yes, all of the above parties have to come to terms with their roles in abuses and accept responsibility for them. But Japan apologists, by continually pointing to the role of Korean collaborators while denying or minimizing the abuses that did occur at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army, are doing exactly what you demand others stop doing: passing the buck.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Mom taught me that a long time ago. I look forward to the day when the apologists on this issue learn that simple truth, quit finger pointing, make a simple and sincere apology, and then just shut the hell up.

* Both involved the abuse and degradation of persons under a control of an occupying power;
* Both were officially blamed on abuses by low-ranking soldiers and general breakdowns in discipline;
* Neither could have gone on without the knowledge and approval—at least implicit—of high command; and
* In neither case can such knowledge and approval be proven, thanks to document destruction, selective memory, and other measures that produce plausible deniability.

The main deficiency of this analogy is the scale. The number of prisoners at Abu Ghraib pales in comparison to the number of women victimized by the system of “comfort stations.”