U.S. House Of Representatives Passes Resolution 121: Demands Japan Apologize For Its Wartime Prostitution System

Here is my comment on the rejection of the resolution by “Liberal Japan” to which you say you wholly subscribe:

Thanks for the news.

No thanks, however, for the facile and erroneous analogizing by means of the foggy notion of “interventionism.” What the US neo-cons did in Iraq–an illegal and incredibly violent take-over of an entire nation, which followed on the heels of years of a devastating bombing and economic isolation campaign against the people of Iraq that was sanctioned by the Bush Sr. and Clinton regimes–cannot without absurdity and dishonesty be likened to Resolution 121. The former is a clear case of militarism gone mad. The latter, however, is not “pro-war,” as you said without justifying the point. It is clearly a condemnation of one aspect of a very pro-war fascist government from the 1930s and early 1940s.

Your inability to see any clear difference between these glaringly different cases leads you to see “fascism” and a “pro-war” sentiment in a Resolution that shows neither.

If there is so little incitement to war in the Resolution, it is because the two states in question, Japan and U.S., are so strategically interwoven that recourse to early 20th-century “anti-interventionist” argumentation to criticize the Resolution is at best an outmoded tactic. While the quasi-religious notion of sovereignty has not been entirely abandoned and, especially in the face of mounting corporate globalism, still may play an important role of limiting corporate take-over of government services and responsibilities, it is absurd to see the Resolution as an assault on Japanese “sovereignty.” It is even more absurd to then swiftly liken this “assault” to the unbridled cruelty and violence that has been carried out in Iraq over the past 17 years for purely self-serving motives by successive US regimes.

All that being said, I do not support the Resolution, either. My objection does not stem from the nostalgic adoration of “sovereignty” that seems to have inspired you; rather, it comes from my sense that the very idea of a forced apology is paradoxical. If one is obliged to apologize, can one really ever apologize? And that’s not even to bring into the equation the important question of who should apologize in this case. Is the Abe government capable of apologizing for the crimes in question? Is it its duty? Its right? None of those points are clear to me.

What is clear to me, however, is that demanding of other major economic and political allies that they not willfully distort history to cover over human rights abuses is not a case of “state interventionism.” Then again, Japan’s current government could just as easily pass a resolution today demanding of the U.S. gov’t that it condemn its brutal, illegal, and unnecessary recourse to unleashing atomic weapons on civilian populations in Japan. And it could just as easily resolve that the U.S. gov’t stop teaching its citizens that such illegal and inhumane violence was justified or that it “saved lives” (so the Orwellian, and indeed, historically unjustifiable doctrine goes).

In either case, though, I would argue that the crypto-Christic language of “apology” and “forgiveness” should be dropped from the discourse. It has no place in international relations, and certainly not when presented in the mode of obligation.

Fanni Terrette

I thought the same thing ponta, this is just dumb apoligising over something that happened a lifetime ago is stupid especially when it wasn’t just japan that did this kind of thing.

well, while the current US administration is certainly no stranger to human rights violations, i still think that japan needs to address this issue in an appropriate way. in germany when you ask someone about world war II they feel a sense of remorse. when americans are asked about the atomic bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki there is a sense of remorse. when you ask the average japanese person about the imperial armys atrocities during world war II they dont know what youre talking about. the whole problem is japan never dealt with this issue in the past.

Well, congress is now run by even more elitist who know better than anyone else in the world how things should be done. As such, they run off at the mouth (and not just about this, but other things too), often without really knowing what they are saying beyond hoping it will get them campaign contributions so they can get re-elected.