Japanese mayor sparks outrage with sex-slave remarks

[armchairPrivate]

The same Nipponese mayor made this statement

US soldiers should use more prostitutes to cut sex crimes, says Japanese mayor - The Irish Times - Wed, May 15, 2013

US soldiers should use more prostitutes to cut sex crimes, says Japanese mayor

One of Japan’s leading politicians has poisoned already toxic relations with China and South Korea by saying that wartime sex slaves were a necessary evil.
Toru Hashimoto, who is mayor of Osaka and co-leader of the right-wing Japan Restoration Party, also said “American soldiers should use more prostitutes. Soldiers are put in extreme situations in which they can lose their lives”, he told the US military commander in Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost prefecture and home to 75 per cent of American bases in the country. “They are overflowing with energy. We have to think about the way they can let it out somewhere.”
Mr Hashimoto said that when he made the suggestion earlier this month, the commander “appeared frozen, smiled wryly and said it is banned”. A Pentagon spokesperson later called the suggestion “ridiculous”.
The son of a small-time gangster, Mr Hashimoto is tipped as a future prime minister, despite a string of controversial bon mots. In 2011 he said that Japan needed a dictatorship and should revise its “pacifist” constitution. “Not being able to have a war on its own is the most pitiful thing about Japan,” he has said.

 

[longyi]

Japan distances self from comfort women remark



TOKYO--The Japanese government on Tuesday distanced itself from comments by a prominent politician that the so-called comfort women of World War Two served a “necessary” role by keeping troops in check.

Outspoken Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto said soldiers living with the daily threat of death needed some way to let off steam which was provided by the comfort women system.

Up to 200,000 women from Korea, China, the Philippines and elsewhere were forcibly drafted into brothels catering to the Japanese military in territories occupied by Japan during WWII, according to many mainstream historians.

“When soldiers risk their lives under a hail of bullets, and you want to give them a rest somewhere, it is clear that you need a comfort women system,” Hashimoto said.

South Korea voiced “deep disappointment” over the comments, which risk inflaming Japan's relationship with neighbors that were victims of brutal expansionism and who claim Tokyo has never faced up to its warmongering past.

“There is worldwide recognition ... that the issue of comfort women amounts to a wartime rape committed by Japan during its past imperial period in a serious breach of human rights,” a Seoul foreign ministry spokesman told AFP.

“Our government again urges Japan's prominent officials to show regret for atrocities committed during Japan's imperial period and to correct their anachronistic way of thinking and comments.”

Hashimoto, who is co-leader of the national Japan Restoration Party, acknowledged that some women providing sexual services to Japan's soldiers did so “against their will,” something he attributed to “the tragedy of war.”

But he said there was no evidence this had been officially sanctioned by the state and that the use of prostitutes by servicemen was not unique to Japan.

“There are many examples” of unacceptable and brutal behavior by soldiers in wartime and “to contain such things, it is a cold fact that a certain system like comfort women was necessary,” he said.

Japan's top government spokesman and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga on Tuesday refused to comment directly on Hashimoto's remarks.

However, he said: “The government's position on the comfort women issue is that, as I repeatedly said here, we feel pains towards people who experienced hardships that are beyond description and (this) administration shares the view held by past governments.”

In a landmark 1993 statement, the Japanese government offered “sincere apologies” for the “immeasurable pain and suffering” inflicted on comfort women.

Two years later, Japan issued a broader apology expressing “deep remorse” for war suffering.

The 1993 statement remains passionately opposed by some Japanese conservatives who contend that the country did not directly coerce women.

Despite a hawkish stance on history, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe indicated last week he does not intend to backtrack on these apologies.

Japan's shared history with its Asian neighbors looms over present-day relations, which are also strained by separate territorial disputes with Seoul and Beijing.

Both capitals say Tokyo has not shown sufficient contrition for its World War Two behavior. But many in Japan feel nationalists abroad use the issue as a stick to beat for their own domestic ends.

Hashimoto, who was once mentioned as a possible future prime minister, said Monday that Japan bears responsibility for the war and urged compassion for victims.

“(Comfort women were) a result of the tragedy of war so we have to take care with thoughtfulness of those people who became comfort women against their will,” he said.

Shintaro Ishihara, a former Tokyo governor and the other co-leader of the Japan Restoration Party, came to Hashimoto's defense on Tuesday, arguing prostitutes and militaries have co-existed throughout history.

“Although Mr. Hashimoto's comments are unpleasant to hear, he is not saying anything wrong,” he said.

Japan distances self from comfort women remark - The China Post

 

[iajj]

for a connected economy and a big trading nation, nipponzi have the most isolated culture of all: they are completely self-enclosed, uninterested in and ignorant of the norms, ethics, expectations of others. this self isolation accounts for all the bizarre speeches by their politicians old and new, left and right, mainstream and fringe. in fact, we can say that in nippon politics, mainstream is fringe because the mainstream can shock the moral compass of other nations as easily and readily as their own fringe might shock their mainstream. it is a nation and culture so completely bordered by national boundaries that they automatically become a danger to themselves and to others. it is as a gesture of fundamental goodwill towards the whole of mankind that i shall call for a military curb of the nipponzi and all other radically autonomous and thus autocratic races (jews, anglosaxons, turkics).

 

[ExtraOdinary]

Disgusting comment

 

[cnleio]

Typical Japanese, BTW their AV(sexy action movies) "made in Japan" were very popular in all over the world.

 

[shuttler]

after a rotary change of their 1-year term japanese pms, their hawkish right wings are in power. They also have a high approval rating

who is to be blamed for the string of outrageous japanese acts after Abe took office?

 

[visom]

Why do you people keep posting these things about Japan? Soon enough the same people will start shedding crocodile tears for the Japanese over the A-bombs back in WW II.

Because many Chinese posters are hate Japanese and will bash on them with any chance they get.

 

[Slav Defence]

This is very shocking for an outsider like me to find out Japan's strategy about maintaining discipline...no offence

 

[huskie]

so you defend Japan's war crimes because of that? what if the Chinese members start hating and bashing Nazis, will you defend the Nazis as well? Do you even have a brain to make your own judgement?

Because many Chinese posters are hate Japanese and will bash on them with any chance they get.

 

[Okemos]

so you defend Japan's war crimes because of that? what if the Chinese members start hating and bashing Nazis, will you defend the Nazis as well? Do you even have a brain to make your own judgement?

Apparently Jewish life is more valuable to that viet guy than all Asians that were killed by Japanese in WWII, which is kind of true in world stage and media since nobody is ever defending Nazi or questioning holocaust, but we even have some Asians here that would side with Japan's remarks on its crimes. If Asian victims don't care about themselves, we are doomed to the same fate someday.

Plus, to that Indian guy, WWII happened in 20th century, and bringing up crimes against humanity in human history does not excuse war crimes in modern days.

 

[atatwolf]

The Japanese are nice people. I don't know why they get so angry. I think Japanese tech is amazing and I hope we can have very close relations. Even more than we have now.

 

[scobydoo]

He is mentally ill

How can someone like him become a mayor?

 

[applesauce]

Because many Chinese posters are hate Japanese and will bash on them with any chance they get.

and i dont see why the chinese shouldnt hate them, or specifically their politicians, with with japan being democratic and all, it means their voices are really the "voices" of the Japanese peoples. and these "voices" deny the crimes of ww2, whitewash history, worship top war criminals in modern history. tell me why we shouldnt hate them? why shouldn't we prepared for a renewed war when they learned nothing from the first one? they murdered our countrymen by the millions then deny any wrong doing, and to add salt to the wound they say their crimes against humanity are "necessary"? i guess you think its okay if all of your family is raped and murdered if its to keep your enemies moral up? how delusional are you?

 

[iajj]

He is mentally ill

How can someone like him become a mayor?

if you read the recent remarks by tokyo mayor about all muslims of the world, you will find that osaka mayor isn't the only nipponzi mayor - or nipponzi politician, or nipponzi in general - who is ill. i just believe it is because they have an informational and journalistic and educational system that is entirely closed to the outside world that they are just not that updated about 21st or 20th century international diplomacy or human ethics. with nipponzi, you really need to make a huge allowance for their sickness and weirdness because this is really the way they are and expected out of them by their own constituency.

 

[atatwolf]

because rootless races ought to make friends with each other because they are otherwise so friendless and isolated (turkics being surrounded by christians, armenians, arabs, persians; nipponzi being surrounded by russians, chinese, bonzi, and yeah, water).

I won't react to insults but you call Japanese and Turks rootless? They have millenniums of history and have great country today, while you can only be useful as cheap labor in sweatshops and if you are lucky you can make an iphone for me. You call us surrounded but the same way you are surrounded too. That is India, Thailand, Russia, Turkics, Indonesia, Tibet and Japan. I think you should tone it down a little.