Final and Irreversible

"On December 28, 2015, Prime Minister Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye reached a formal agreement to settle the dispute. Japan agreed to pay ¥1 billion (₩9.7 billion; $8.3 million) to a fund supporting surviving victims while South Korea agreed to refrain from criticizing Japan regarding the issue and to work to remove a statue memorializing the victims from in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul. The announcement came after Japan’s foreign minister Fumio Kishida met his counterpart Yun Byung-se in Seoul, and later Prime Minister Shinzo Abe phoned President Park Geun-hye to repeat an apology already offered by Kishida. The Korean government will administer the fund for elderly comfort women and will consider the matter finally and irreversibly resolved." Not quite the amicable ending I'd have hoped for but at least they're burying the hatchet.

Well, 8.3 million of Japanese funds going to a wartime atrocity they did commit and got caught red handed - its taken a long time but at least they've acknowledged the fault of Imperial Japan. I don't see how this could have gotten much better for the victims. I love Japan and I'd like to live there one day, but I won't deny that Imperial Japan did some pretty fucked up shit during the Pacific war - bioterrorism, humane experimentation etc. Showa is by far the most disgusting emperor Japan ever had.

Tell me about it. On the one hand most of the direct victims don't have long left. Though no doubt their children would have faced a stigma. So the money would do well to help them. On the other hand I would hope that when the old farts are all gone and more progressive minds emerge, other nations will be willing to move on as well. We've all been in a position where we've tried to atone but others keep beating you up for an event you regret and can't be changed. Now if we can just fix those text books...

It has been a long time coming. What Japan did during the war was horrific and inhumane. The denial and refusal to apologize only compounded the pain. This is finally a step in the right direction and is the least that could be done to make up for it.

> Now if we can just fix those text books... I would say a better step would be for the US to acknowledge its use of nuclear weapons against Japan was short sighted, unnecessary, excessive and a war crime. Both the US and Japan committed war crimes. Also, the US admitted many former Nazis into its government - makes you wonder whether they have something to do with the US being fucked beyond repair.

Think so? The only way the US could be in so much trouble is if we allow it right? I'd always heard that our alternative to the bombs were an invasion of the mainland that would have been equally bad. Did you have information or evidence suggesting otherwise? I'd love to hear another angle.

Yeah, the Japanese government in power at the time had testimonies that they were going to surrender due to the incendiary and conventional carpet bombing. http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html I'd also argue from a moral standpoint that unleashing atomic bombs into a word is not good.

Yeah they are looking rather unnecessary. It seems the only good the bomb droppings did was to keep us from using them in the future.