So assassinating ex-Nazi torturers is kosher but not ex-Imperial Japan Army torturers, coercing Korean women as sex slaves for the Japanese army, massacring an entire Chinese city, conducting live human experiments with germs and chemicals?
If you read into the "comfort women" thing a lot of it turns out to be dodgy. The imperial army bought into and regulated existing prostitution rackets. (The US Army effectively did this, too.) After the war a lot of hookers suddenly became sex slaves to the evil Japanese.
You have to keep in mind that even before the war in parts of Asia this was an era where a poor farmer might sell a daughter to pimps. This is stuff that was happening whether the imperial army was involved or not.
Never mind the testimonials from the victims themselves. Never mind the fact that Japanese politicians go out of their way to deny what went down.
doesn't make it any less illegitimate and immoral. Oh, and it wasn't just Asian women, they enslaved European women too which made some part of the "Comfort Brigade". Surely, Dutch women weren't being pimped out by their own mothers? So this, "but everyone was doing it" from the mouths of the perpetrating nation themselves is claim which is dodgy in itself and and a lame excuse to cover up a war crime and crime against humanity and women. Your argument would be like saying it's somehow joie de vivre of the times, no, no other army conscripted armies of sex slaves to keep the morale of their troops in a losing battle against Allied forces.
Do you want to deny the holocaust too because "people just didn't know better back then", "scapegoating and suppressing and massacring minority population cuz thats what dictators do" so the fact that it happened is now questionable? Never mind the victims of holocaust themselves voicing their horrible experiences?
I can't believe I'm hearing garbage like this, out of all places, on hacker news.
I absolutely do discount victim testimonials. Especially when there's money at stake. I mean, after the holocaust, and to this very day, some jews claimed people were processed into soap and leather products. This and many other claims by victims throughout history have been nonsense.
There are existing Japanese military documents on the subject... Writings of Japanese officers admitting to it and publicly asking for forgiveness. Yeah. Money at stake huh?
so on the basis that there exists victim testimonials that seem implausible, you are going to deny that the holocaust occurred and ignore any other evidence to the contrary?
I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but there is overwhelming evidence for the Japanese use of sex slaves in their army. Its not all based on victim testimony.
