Japan's Atomic bomb controversy

It's kind of strange that's not a big news in the world, but it's the one in Japan. The defence minister even resigned, for just a few words. If you don't understand Japan or Japanese mindset, this is a good chance.

It may be lucky for Japanese that American will never loose the leash, so Chinese will not get the chance to do their part - that they have for long time wanted to do. There is a Chnese popular saying about US: The best thing American ever done is that two bombs, the worst is only two.

The poll showed that 81.7 percent said it was 'natural' for Fumio Kyuma to resign as defence minister over his remarks appearing to condone the US atomic bombing of Japan in 1945.

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Kyuma's remarks, which came across as legitimizing the 1945 U.S. nuclear attacks

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U.S. official stirs up A-bomb debate

Prime minister says bombings can't be forgiven

Reuters
Published: Thursday, July 05, 2007

TOKYO -- The Japanese government reacted yesterday to remarks by a senior American official that the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Japan saved millions of lives by helping bring the Second World War to an end.

The comment was made by Robert Joseph, special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation, hours after Japanese Defence Minister Fumio Kyuma stepped down on Tuesday for saying the blasts "could not be helped" as they helped end the war.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that he could not forgive the bombings which killed 210,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"The atomic bombings took many innocent lives. And many hibakushas [irradiated survivors] have long suffered from the after-effects," Abe told reporters.

"There is no change in my feeling that atomic bombings cannot be forgiven."

According to Kyodo News, Joseph said: "I think most historians would agree that the use of an atomic bomb brought to a close a war that would have cost millions more lives, not just hundreds of thousands of Allied lives but literally millions of Japanese lives."

Joseph was speaking at a news briefing in Washington on U.S. and Russian nuclear disarmament efforts.

He was reportedly asked if the United States, which has used atomic bombs, can be morally justified to appeal for nuclear non-proliferation.

- The Japanese government yesterday conceded that some Okinawan civilians died by order of the Japanese army during the Second World War.

In a response to a question in parliament over the removal of references to orders for mass suicides from textbooks, the cabinet said there were some cases that "can be regarded as victims under the military orders."

"We understand that there are various views and debates over the mass suicides in Okinawa," the cabinet said.

The education ministry on March 30 ordered the army's role in the Okinawa deaths be stricken from textbooks, igniting anger on the island where almost 150,000 people, or a quarter of the population, died in the fighting.

The Okinawa prefectural government is protesting the order.

fishhead said:

The defence minister even resigned, for just a few words. If you don't understand Japan or Japanese mindset, this is a good chance.

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So you're telling me that if China had been nuked by the Japanese or someone else and then 60 years later the Chinese defence minister had said the same thing, no one would have complained and demanded his resignation? If you say "yes" then you're living in fairy-land.

I doubt very much this is limited to the Japanese. Even myself, as a European, thought he'd been very stupid in the way he'd phrased his comments. It may have been a few words, but in politics that's all it can take. Also there's an election coming up and the government's popularity ratings are low - keeping him on was even more impossible.

It may be lucky for Japanese that American will never loose the leash

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You're stuck in the past - there isn't a leash anymore.

so Chinese will not get the chance to do their part - that they have for long time wanted to do.

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If China nuked Japan, whether or not it was on any "leash", the US would retaliate. I hope China remembers that.