【謎の慰安婦本】著者・田中ユキの正体は親北研究員
2007/04/14 07:52
古森さんが慰安婦絡みの米国の動きを伝える素晴しい記事を連発してくれた。
4月12日に続いて13日の「吉田証言」記事も胸をすく思いだ。紙面では6面だったのが残念である。
米議会調査局の4・3報告書は、過去の誤りを正した修正版。「慰安婦の強制性」に関して大きな疑問符を付けたのは、我が国の名誉を守るうえで大変重要だ。
参照：産経web4月12日「組織的強制徴用なし」慰安婦問題 米議会調査局が報告書www.sankei.co.jp/kokusai/usa/070412/usa070412000.htm
ただ米議会調査局には納得できない部分もある。古森さんの記事を読むと、安倍首相らの「狭義の否定」に同報告書は異議を挟んでいるようだ。
“従軍慰安婦”と慰安所の混同する初歩的な認識の誤りが、報告書には未だあるように感じられる。
更に米議会調査局のスタッフは、吉田清治の捏造本『私の戦争犯罪』に代えて、ある1冊の本を参考にし「強制性の総否定」を拒んでいる。
12日付け記事によると、その本は田中ユキ著『日本の慰安婦』（英文）であるという。
何だ、それは？
【田中ユキなんて誰も知らない…】
軽く検索してみると、確かに該当する不埒な本が発行されている。
英国の出版社から出ている『Japan's Comfort Women』直訳すると「日本の慰安婦」で、ヒネリのないタイトルだが、長い副題も付いている。
『Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the Us Occupation』（第二次大戦と米占領下の売春婦と性奴隷）
また性奴隷か…米占領軍の情報も含まれているようだが、紹介文を散見した限りでは日本軍に対して好意的な内容ではない。
この本の中に米議会調査局のスタッフは「強制性の根拠」を“発見”しているという。
著者の「田中ユキ」とは一体誰なのか？
どう考えても日本女性の名前だが、知名度はゼロだろう。米国の公的シンクタンクも着目する“発掘者”が、我が国で全くの無名とは謎が深まるばかりだ…
本の値段はアマゾンで1万9,495円。米ドルの定価も160ドル。一般書籍ではなく、研究書に分類される価格帯だ。著者は研究者・学者だろうが、海外在住なのか、日本居住なのかも不明だ。
アマゾンや紀伊国屋書店のブックサーチでは、同書の説明書きにユキ・タナカと、もう一人の著者名が掲げられている。
参照：紀伊国屋書店『日本の慰安婦』紹介ページ
http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/htmy/0415194008.html
Source： ENG
Academic Descriptors： A31405200 A44096200
Publishers： Commercial
Place of Publication： Great Britain
Language of Publication： English
Edition： First
Physical Format： Hardbound
Subject Development： History
Academic Level： Undergraduate
Geographic Designator： United States
Review：
Choice Reviews 2002 October
Chronicle Of Higher Education - April 2002, Issue 3
Kinokuniya Annotation：
Tanaka asks why US occupation forces did little to help the women, and argues that military authorities organised prostitution in order to prevent the widespread incidence of GI rape of Japanese women.
Book Data Full Description：
This work tells the story of the "comfort women" who were forced to enter prostitution to serve the Japanese Imperial army, often living in appalling conditions of sexual slavery. Using a wide range of primary sources, the author links military controlled prositution with enforced prostitution. He uncovers controversial information about the role of US occupation forces in military controlled prostitution, as well as the subsequent "cover-up" of the existence of such a policy. Tanaka asks why US occupation forces did little to help the women, and argues that military authorities organized prostitution to prevent the widespread incidence of GI rape of Japanese women and to control the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Baker&Taylor Table of Contents：
List of figure and tables xi
List of plates xii
Foreword xv
Acknowledgments xvii
Author's note xx
Introduction 1 (7)
The origins of the comfort women system 8 (25)
The initial establishment of comfort 8 (4)
stations
A rapid increase in comfort stations after 12 (7)
the ``Rape of Nanjing''
The organizational structure of the comfort 19 (9)
women system
Why comfort women? 28 (5)
Procurement of comfort women and their lives 33 (28)
as sexual slaves
The colonization of Korea and the growth of 33 (4)
the prostitution industry
Procurement of Korean and Taiwanese women 37 (7)
Procurement of women in China and the 44 (6)
Philippines
Life as a comfort woman 50 (11)
Comfort women in the Dutch East Indies 61 (23)
Japan's invasion of the Dutch East Indies 61 (3)
and military violence against women
Exploitation of existing prostitutes by the 64 (3)
Japanese troops
Procurement of Dutch women 67 (5)
Enforced prostitution at comfort stations 72 (5)
in Semarang
The Dutch military authorities' 77 (7)
indifference towards Indonesian comfort
women
Why did the US forces ignore the comfort 84 (26)
women issue?
US military indifference towards comfort 84 (3)
women
US military policies on the prevention of 87 (5)
venereal disease in World War II
The Brumfield Report and 92 (7)
military-controlled prostitution
Military prostitution in the Caribbean, 99 (7)
Australia and elsewhere
Criticism, cover-up and a change in the War 106 (4)
Department's attitude
Sexual violence committed by the Allied 110 (23)
occupation forces against Japanese women:
1945-1946
Sexual violence prior to the Allied 110 (2)
occupation of Japan
Fear and confusion before the landing of 112 (4)
the Allied occupation forces
Official reports on sexual violence 116 (11)
committed by the occupation forces against
Japanese women
Testimonies of victims of sexual violence 127 (6)
committed by the occupation troops
Japanese comfort women for the Allied 133 (34)
occupation forces
The Japanese government creates a comfort 133 (8)
women system for the occupation forces
The Recreation and Amusement Association 141 (9)
Occupation policies and the spread of 150 (5)
prostitution
VD problems and the failure of GHQ's VD 155 (12)
prevention policies
Epilogue 167 (16)
From karayuki-san to comfort woman 167 (6)
Sexual slavery, social death, and military 173 (7)
violence
Imperialism, the patriarchal state, and the 180 (3)
control of sexuality
Notes 183 (23)
Index 206
トシユキ・タナカ。
同じタナカ姓だが、反日夫婦なのか？
【トシユキ・タナカの正体判明】
変わった名前なら好都合だが日本に「たなか・としゆき」は4桁単位で存在していそうだ。雲をつかむような追跡…ではなかった。検索で簡単に割り出せた。
国際基督教大社会学研究所のページに「Toshiyuki Tanaka」のローマ字表記込みでプロフィールが掲載されている。
参照：講演者のプロフィール
subsite.icu.ac.jp/ssri/2002Symposium/leafletback.html
漢字で田中利幸。スタンスの判り易い著書も出版している。
『知られざる戦争犯罪-日本軍はオーストラリア人に何をしたか』
しかも左翼出版社として有名な「大月書店」から発行されている。ちなみに吉見義明の『従軍慰安婦資料集』も同じ大月書店だ。トリックの仕掛けが徐々に見えてきた…
田中利幸の正体は、ハッキリしている。
悪名高い反日組織「広島平和研究所」の研究員だ。この研究所は、広島市立大の中に置かれ、所長は浅井基文（あさい・もとふみ）。
浅井基文
浅井基文は、外務省中国課出身の元媚中派官僚だ。浅井は、北朝鮮の核実験宣言後、朝鮮総連幹部と一緒に総連施設内で講演を行っていた…とんでもない輩である。
広島平和研究所は、反核運動の牙城でもあるのだが、北朝鮮の核には大賛成する不思議な組織だ。「赤い核は平和の核」と言い切る大矛盾、自殺行為だが、お笑いでは済まされない。
この研究所の実態は、複数の在日学者も抱えた親北シンクタンクである。そこで飼われているのが、田中利幸だ。
同研究所HPより
もちろん田中利幸も親北派と見なして良い。近・現代史で重要な「中立的な視点」など初めからないのだ。
【田中利幸は定番の反日研究者】
田中利幸の活動は『朝日新聞』でも取り上げられている。原爆投下の犯罪性を問う“国際民衆法廷”の設置を画策しているとのニュースだった。
参照：「国際民衆法廷」研究者ら実行委発足へwww.k3.dion.ne.jp/~a-bomb/news.htm
“民衆法廷”とはバウネットのお株ではないか…実際に田中利幸の講演内容を見ると、かなり香ばしい反日脳の持ち主であることが分かる。
参照：国際シンポ「ジェンダーと国民国家」 www.medical-tribune.co.jp/ss/2004-8/ss0408-1.htm
米議会調査局は、そんな男が書いた研究書を「強制性の論拠」として有り難く活用してるのだ。吉田清治本を証拠とした前の報告書と変わらないお粗末さだ。
田中利幸の手による『日本の慰安婦』は、研究書と言うよりも謀略書である。何よりも日本語版を出していないのが、怪しい…
恐らく我が国では通用しない内容であることを著者自身が良くわきまえているのだろう。スクープ的な証言・証拠資料が盛り込まれていれば、日本でも出版されて話題になるはずだ。
ちなみに田中利幸は、2003年には村山富市プレゼンツの「アジア女性基金」主催シンポジウムにも参加している。
参照：「慰安婦」問題とアジア女性基金の償い事業
www.awf.or.jp/fund/news/news_21/a_04.html
【田中ユキは日本女性ではなかった】
トシユキ・タナカの正体は判明した。しかし、ユキ・タナカが何者であるか、未だ謎である。
その中、ユキ・タナカが書いた論文をネット上で発見した。政治的な問題を取り扱う米国のニューズレターだ。
参照：Firebombing and Atom Bombing By YUKI TANAKA
www.counterpunch.org/tanaka05262005.html
「大空襲と原爆投下」と題された論文。田中利幸の守備範囲とも重なっている。その末尾にユキ・タナカのプロフィールがあった。
Yuki Tanaka is a research professor at the
Hiroshima Peace Institute and a coordinator of
Japan Focus
何と、ユキ・タナカも「広島平和研究所」の研究員だそうだ。同研究所のHPに「田中ユキ」の名前は現在ない…怪しい。
実は、田中ユキと田中利幸は同一人物なのではないか？
プロフィール欄をよく読むと著書の紹介として「His books〜」とある。田中ユキが女ならば「Her books」だ。つまり田中ユキは男なのだ。
殆ど確定と言って良いだろう。田中ユキは田中利幸の別名義だ。そうであれば大問題である。
【女性名で米国人をダマす幼稚な詐欺】
「ユキ」という日本女性の名前は一般的で、外国人でもそれが女性名と分かる者も多いだろう。著者がマーガレットやキャサリンであれば「女性だな」と考えるのと同じだ。
推測だが、田中利幸は敢えて著者として女性名を使った…
女性の人権問題を問い掛けるには、訴える者が女性である方が効果的だ。女性からの告発なら、より心理的な圧迫感を読者に与えられる。
外国人を欺くトリックだ。
更に、本当の執筆者が親北シンクタンクの研究員である事実を巧妙に隠す為の詐術でもある。
米議会調査局のスタッフも「ユキ」の正体が中年オヤジだと知ったら、読み方も違ってくるだろう。
参考書『日本の慰安婦』には、詐欺的な要素が最初から埋め込まれているのだ。
更に上記のプロフィールからは「田中ユキ＝田中利幸」が反日グループ「Japan Focus」のコーディネーターであることも明示されている。
Japan FocusのHPを見ると、ノリミツ・オオニシが寄稿していたり、バウネットと連携していることも簡単に分かる。
参照：Japan Focus www.japanfocus.org/
米議会調査局は、田中ユキ＝田中利幸の正体を把握すべきだ。論拠とした『日本の慰安婦』なる本は、事実を追及した研究書ではなく、最初から「反日ありき」のプロバガンダ本である。
最後の拠り所の『日本の慰安婦』もまた吉田清治の『私の戦争犯罪』と同じく、不安定な性能の“地雷”である。
それが炸裂した時、慰安婦の強制性をめぐる疑いはオールクリアーになる。
さあ、米議会調査局はもう１回、再調査せよ。
慰安婦策動の完全打破まであと一歩だ。
http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/05/26/firebombing-and-atom-bombing/
Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch
THE HUMILIATION OF JP MORGAN — $6 billion in losses; botched swap operations; fraudulent financial reports; rate-rigging; deceptive sales practices; manipulation of energy markets. Mike Whitney rakes through the multiple scandals at JP Morgan Chase; THE FAKE WAR ON COPS: Kevin Carson explodes the myth that violence against police officers is rising; in fact, it’s never been safer to be a cop; WOMEN AND REVOLUTION: Ron Jacobs explores why women have gotten so little credit for their central role in radical movements; THE DREYFUS CASE, REVISITED: Israel Shamir sifts through the Dreyfus case: was he really a victim of anti-semitism? GETTING AWAY WITH RAPE IN THE CONGO: Victoria Fontan documents the escalating sexual violence by UN peacekeeping troops in the Congo.
Order your subscription today and get
CounterPunch by email for only $35 per year.
MAY 26, 2005
SHARE ON FACEBOOK SHARE ON TWITTER SHARE ON GOOGLE MORE SHARING SERVICES
0
A Historical Perspective
Firebombing and Atom Bombing
by YUKI TANAKA
The firebombing of Tokyo, or for that matter the bombing of any city, whether it be Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, or London, cannot be fully comprehended unless it is examined in the context of the history of indiscriminate bombing throughout the twentieth century.
The Origins of Indiscriminate Bombing of Civilians
Indiscriminate bombing of civilians during major warfare was first conducted by both the German and the Allied forces during World War I. Initially both sides refrained from targeting civilians or residential areas, but due to the rudimentary nature of their aircraft and aerial bombing techniques, bombs inevitably went astray, killing civilians in their wake. For example, in August 1914, a German plane dropped five bombs in an attempt to destroy a railway station in Paris, taking the life of a woman in a street nearby. By the end of the war about 500 Parisians had been killed by German aerial bombing. In December 1914, the French army bombed the railway station of Freiburg, but the bombs missed their target and many civilians were killed.
From early 1915, "revenge bombing" by both sides gradually escalated. Between 1915 and 1918, the Germans dropped 300 tons of bombs on London and other English coastal towns, killing more than 1,400 people and injuring about 3,400, most of whom were civilians. In the final year of the war alone various cities in western Germany were bombed 657 times by the Allied forces, who dropped a total of 8,000 bombs, which killed approximately 1,200 people. From May 1917, the Germans started to use a number of new large twin-engine bombers, called Gotha GIVs, to attack England. These were capable of carrying up to 500kg of bombs. The RAF also started producing a similar type of bomber plane called a Handley-Page in order to reach inland German cities. If the war had continued, the number of civilian victims would have increased dramatically.
World War I: A Watershed
World War I was a watershed in both the increased quantity and technological improvement of warplanes. For example, by November 1918 the British forces possessed almost 23,000 planes, having entered the war with only 110 planes. A total of about 100,000 warplanes were produced in France and England during the war. Most importantly, it was at this time that the idea of "strategic bombing" was conceived and to a certain extent put into practice. Militarists on both sides argued that the "moral effect" of aerial bombing on civilians, i.e., popular fear, disillusion, and demoralization leading to lost working hours, lowered production, and perhaps political upheaval, would force the enemy nation to surrender quickly. In fact, this theory, which has remained robust in air power circles ever since, was simply a myth that has never been proven. The leading proponent of this theory was an Italian officer, strategist Giulio Douhet, author of Command of the Air published in 1921, who claimed that the quickest way to win a war was to terrorize enemy civilians with intensive aerial bombing, combining three different types of bombs, i.e. explosives, incendiaries, and poison gas.
In fact, some British generals had entertained similar ideas during the war, although those ideas were never been systematically analyzed. Toward the end of World War I, in April 1918, the British government established the Royal Air Force, historically the first independent air force in the world. Combining its Naval Air Service and Army Flying Corps, officers conducting the move sought to strengthen the British airborne and bombing capability at a time when London had come under repeated attacks by German airships and bombers. The main task of RAF strategic bombing was to strike military targets as well as densely populated industrial centers in Germany and occupied areas. The bombing of industrial centers aimed not only to destroy military arsenals, but also to break the morale of German workers. For example, Lord Tiverton, a staff officer of the RAF, advocated the use of any method to demoralize German workers, including dropping planeloads of Colorado beetles on farmland in order to devastate potato crops. General Hugh Trenchard, who led the Independent Force (the British bomber force), claimed that the "moral effect of bombing stands undoubtedly to the material effect in proportion of 20 to 1, and therefore it was necessary to create the greatest moral effect possible." After the war, General Trenchard and other leaders of the RAF claimed that British bombing had made a great contribution to ending the war by demoralizing German civilians. None of the post-war surveys conducted by the British, French, and the U.S. forces respectively, however, found evidence to support Trenchard’s claim.
Although Britain won World War I, the war consumed enormous funds and resources, leaving the management of the colonies in disarray. The British Empire faced a serious crisis immediately after the war, encountering popular revolts and violent political demonstrations throughout the colonies and mandated territories. British air power was immediately utilized to suppress such revolts and demonstrations in the territories. For example, in 1920, an air squadron was sent to Somaliland to suppress a revolt by the local militia. The bombing destroyed not only the fortress of the militiamen, but also private dwellings near by.
Britain, Bombing, and Iraq
Yet it was in Iraq that Britain employed its air force for the purpose of suppressing local revolts most widely and for the longest period. Full-scale bombing in Iraq by eight RAF squadrons began in October 1922 and continued until 1932, the year that the British mandatory rule of Iraq officially ceased. Various types of bombs–including delayed and incendiary bombs–were dropped in attacks on villages where militia were believed to be hiding, and in some cases petrol was sprayed over civilian houses in order to intensify the fires ignited by the bombing. Tents and other types of Bedouin dwellings and even their cattle became targets, resulting in the death and injury of many women and children. British Forces justified this indiscriminate bombing by claiming that their operations "proved outstandingly effective, extremely economical and undoubtedly humane in the long run" as they could swiftly put down revolts and riots. One of these RAF squadron leaders in Iraq was Arthur Harris, who later headed the RAF Bomber Command during World War II. Based on their experience in Iraq, the RAF leaders concluded that the best way to defeat the enemy was to conduct "strategic bombing" on civilian dwellings, in particular those of industrial workers.
World War II
As in the case of World War I, at the beginning of World War II, both Britain and Germany initially refrained from aerial attacks on civilians. However, in a repeat scenario, both sides deliberately increased their revenge bombing of civilian quarters in major cites following a series of inaccurately targeted bombings. The German forces conducted "Operation Blitz" for almost nine months from September 1940, attacking London, Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester, and many other English cities, killing 60,000 civilians and destroying more than 2 million houses. On September 11, 1940, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary that this aerial bombing operation would be decisive in forcing the British government to surrender.
In revenge, the RAF started night raids on industrial cites in the Ruhr region in October 1940. However, aerial attacks on German civilians really expanded in February 1942 when Arthur Harris assumed the position of commander of the RAF Bomber Command. Lubeck, a cultural city with no military importance, became the first target of Harris’ new strategy called "area bombing." Cologne was then attacked by more than 1,000 planes. Other cities, such as Essen, Kiel, Stuttgart, Manheim, Rostock, and Berlin were also targeted. In February 1943, Harris pronounced that the morale of the German population in the bombed areas had reached an all-time low, and that if the RAF continued bombing, surrender could be expected in the very near future. Night raids continued on many German cites–including Hamburg, where 7,000 tons of bombs were dropped and about 45,000 people were killed. Yet there was no sign of surrender by the Nazi regime.
In response, the RAF began to target Berlin, bombing the city sixteen times between November 1943 and March 1944, while continuing to bomb other German cities. Still Harris’ expectation of Nazi surrender was not fulfilled. On the contrary, the Germans started employing new weapons of indiscriminate killing–V-1 and V-2 rockets–against England. More than 9,500 V-1 rockets were launched, killing about 6,200 people. About 1,100 V-2 rockets reached various parts of England, killing 2,700 and injuring 6,500 people. Claiming again that the Germans were on the verge of a collapse in morale, Harris stepped up aerial attacks. In February 1945, the Bomber Command flew 17,500 sorties and dropped 45,750 tons on German cities. Between February 13 and 15, Dresden was heavily bombed for the first time by the RAF, this time together with the U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF). During the 14-hour-long raid, massive quantities of incendiaries burnt large areas of this city, that housed no military facility, and killed many civilians. The estimated victim toll varies between 70,000 and 135,000, the majority being women, children, and old people.
U.S. Bombing Campaigns in World War II
The USAAF, led by Ira Eaker, joined the bombing campaign in Europe from August 1942. Despite repeated RAF requests to join it in low-altitude night bombing, the USAAF adhered to its traditional strategy, i.e., the so-called "precision bombing" in daylight from a high altitude, using the Norden bombsight. However, in reality "precision bombing" was simply an official euphemism as the bombs regularly fell at least one quarter of a mile from the target. It is not surprising therefore that the USAAF killed not only German civilians, but also many Allied civilians of German occupied cities such as Paris, Nantes, Lille, Lorient, and Amsterdam as a result of "precision bombing." From November 1943, the U.S. bombers started conducting "blind bombing," by using newly invented radar called an H2X. However, given technical limitations, the bombing became more random and indiscriminate. Eaker shared the same optimism with Arthur Harris that the British and the U.S. cooperative bombing campaign was destroying German morale. Dissatisfied with the results of "precision bombing" by the 8th U.S. Bomber Command in Britain, however, General Henry Arnold, the commander of the USAAF, reorganized the USAAF in Europe and set up the "United States Strategic Air Forces" in December 1943. Eaker was demoted and Carl Spaatz became the head of USSF.
We observe the steady progress of U.S. strategy from "precision bombing" to "strategic bombing" (indiscriminate bombing throughout the years 1943 to 1945). In the four months between September 1 and December 31, 1944, the USSF dropped more than 140,000 tons of bombs on "major targets," 60% of them in "blind bombing." Only 674 tons were used for "precision bombing" in the strict sense. The percentage of "blind bombing" increased to 80% of the entire U.S. bombing campaign in Europe between October 1944 and the end of the war in Europe in May 1945. In February 1945, together with the RAF the U.S. forces conducted "Operation Clarion," whereby numerous German towns and villages were bombed from a low altitude in order to demoralize the enemy nation. It was an operation totally devoid of tactical value. In short, U.S. bombing activities in Europe became no different from "area bombing." The fact that the USAAF leaders abandoned "precision bombing" in reality but maintained it simply as an official principle is evident in the new counter plan against V-1 and V-2 rockets advocated by General Arnold. That was to fly 500 unmanned, radar-controlled, fully bomb-loaded B-17 bombers and crash them into enemy-held cities. Fortunately this plan was never put into practice.
Nevertheless, by the end of the war, 131 German towns and cities had been bombed and approximately 600,000 German civilians had been killed by "strategic bombing" conducted primarily by the British with support from U.S. forces.
Bombing in the Pacific War
It was against this background that the USAAF began the bombing campaign of Japan from late 1944. According to Arnold and Curtis LeMay, bombing civilians was essential in order to break Japanese morale and this was the quickest way to force them to surrender. At the same time it was the most efficient method to minimize casualties to their own men. In this sense, Arnold, LeMay, and other U.S. military leaders inherited the idea of "strategic bombing" that was originally advocated by the RAF leaders in World War I. According to this concept, the killing of enemy civilians is justifiable, no matter how cruel the method; indeed it is indispensable to hastening surrender. U.S. leaders, however, in their public pronouncements, would continue to insist that their bombs were directed toward strategic targets. Consider, for example, President Harry Truman’s announcement immediately after the bombing of Hiroshima: "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, in so far as possible, the killing of civilians." Truman made this statement immediately following the instant killing of 70,000 to 80,000 civilian residents of Hiroshima. By the end of 1945, 140,000 residents of that city would have died from the bomb. In the end, more than 100 Japanese cities were destroyed by firebombing, and two by atomic bombing, causing one million casualties, including more than half a million deaths, the majority being civilians, particularly women and children.
The United States was not, of course, alone in indiscriminate bombing in the Pacific War. The Japanese Imperial Navy engaged in the first indiscriminate bombing in the Asia-Pacific region with the January 1932 attack on civilians on Shanghai. Thereafter, Japanese bombers targeted civilians in Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing and other cities. Chongqing, in particular, was targeted with more than 200 air raids over three years from the end of 1938, bringing the total death toll up to 12,000. Here, too, the Japanese were not targeting a military facility, but sought to destroy the Guomindang’s center of power and demoralize the civilians who supported this regime.
(In)discriminate Bombing of Civilians and Contemporary Warfare
From this brief history of indiscriminate bombing, we can understand that the phrase "discriminate bombing (against civilians)" rather than "indiscriminate bombing" is in fact more appropriate as the majority of victims of "strategic bombing" are civilians, in particular women and children. In plain language, "strategic bombing" of civilians is an act of terrorism. The real question, then, is "Is there any moral justification in killing tens of thousands of non-combatants in the guise that it will force a swift surrender?"
In assessing specific cases of indiscriminate bombing, we must remember the history of the justification of mass killing of civilians and a praxis that we have dated from World War I. We have shown that in the course of World War II, at different times and for particular strategic reasons, the British, the Germans, the Japanese, and the Americans all engaged in strategic bombing with heavy tolls in civilian lives following a logic that it would demoralize the enemy and speed up surrender. We must be careful not to get bogged down in an argument such as whether or not the firebombing of Tokyo was strategically justifiable, and whether or not the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were strategically justifiable. The fundamental question is why this theory justifying mass killing has persisted for so long even after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is important to ask why the strategy was applied during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and why variants of it are still used to some extent to justify the "collateral damage" of "precision bombing" in wars such as those in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Iraq. At the same time ways should be explored to increase understanding of the fact that killing civilians is a crime against humanity regardless of the asserted military justification, a crime that should be punished on the basis of the Nuremberg and Geneva principles. Finally, it is important to remember that no war has ever been brought to an end simply by indiscriminate bombing and mass killing of civilians. Indeed, there is abundant evidence that such strategies typically strengthened resistance.
YUKI TANAKA is a research professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute and a coordinator of Japan Focus (www.japanfocus.org). His books include Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II.
For More Information and Sources:
Archival Documents:
British National Archives Documents: Air 20/ 1027, Air 5/1287. Air 5/344, Air 5/338
Secondary Sources:
George Williams, Biplanes and Bombsights: British Bombing in World War I (University Press of the Pacific, Hawaii, 2002).
Scott Robertson, The Development of RAF Strategic Bombing Doctrine, 1919 – 1939 (Praeger, 1995).
Lee Kennett, A History of Strategic Bombing: From the First Hot- Air Balloons to Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982).
Tami Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare ( Princeton University Press, 2002).
Ronald Schaffer, Wings of Judgment (Oxford university Press, 1985).
Denis Richards, RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War: The Hardest Victory (Penguin Books, 2001).
R. Cargill Hall ed., Case Studies in Strategic Bombardment (Air Force History and Museums Program, 1998).
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Miguel_d_Escoto-Brockmann/3203
The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus
In-depth critical analysis of the forces shaping the Asia-Pacific...and the world.
The Nuclear Age at 64: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Struggle to End Nuclear Proliferation
1. Hiroshima Mayor's Statement
PEACE DECLARATION
That weapon of human extinction, the atomic bomb, was dropped on the people of Hiroshima sixty-four years ago. Yet the hibakusha’s suffering, a hell no words can convey, continues. Radiation absorbed 64 years earlier continues to eat at their bodies, and memories of 64 years ago flash back as if they had happened yesterday.
Fortunately, the grave implications of the hibakusha experience are granted legal support. A good example of this support is the courageous court decision humbly accepting the fact that the effects of radiation on the human body have yet to be fully elucidated. The Japanese national government should make its assistance measures fully appropriate to the situations of the aging hibakusha, including those exposed in “black rain areas” and those living overseas. Then, tearing down the walls between its ministries and agencies, it should lead the world as standard-bearer for the movement to abolish nuclear weapons by 2020 to actualize the fervent desire of hibakusha that “No one else should ever suffer as we did.”
In April this year, US President Obama speaking in Prague said, “…as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act.” And “…take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons.” Nuclear weapons abolition is the will not only of the hibakusha but also of the vast majority of people and nations on this planet. The fact that President Obama is listening to those voices has solidified our conviction that “the only role for nuclear weapons is to be abolished.”
In response, we support President Obama and have a moral responsibility to act to abolish nuclear weapons. To emphasize this point, we refer to ourselves, the great global majority, as the “Obamajority,” and we call on the rest of the world to join forces with us to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020. The essence of this idea is embodied in the Japanese Constitution, which is ever more highly esteemed around the world.
Now, with more than 3,000 member cities worldwide, Mayors for Peace has given concrete substance to our “2020 Vision” through the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol, and we are doing everything in our power to promote its adoption at the NPT Review Conference next year. Once the Protocol is adopted, our scenario calls for an immediate halt to all efforts to acquire or deploy nuclear weapons by all countries, including the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which has so recently conducted defiant nuclear tests; visits by leaders of nuclear-weapon states and suspect states to the A-bombed cities; early convening of a UN Special Session devoted to Disarmament; an immediate start to negotiations with the goal of concluding a nuclear weapons convention by 2015; and finally, to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020. We will adopt a more detailed plan at the Mayors for Peace General Conference that begins tomorrow in Nagasaki.
The year 2020 is important because we wish to enter a world without nuclear weapons with as many hibakusha as possible. Furthermore, if our generation fails to eliminate nuclear weapons, we will have failed to fulfill our minimum responsibility to those that follow.
Global Zero, the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and others of influence throughout the world have initiated positive programs that seek the abolition of nuclear weapons. We sincerely hope that they will all join the circle of those pressing for 2020.
As seen in the anti-personnel landmine ban, liberation from poverty through the Grameen Bank, the prevention of global warming and other such movements, global democracy that respects the majority will of the world and solves problems through the power of the people has truly begun to grow. To nurture this growth and go on to solve other major problems, we must create a mechanism by which the voices of the people can be delivered directly into the UN. One idea would be to create a “Lower House” of the United Nations made up of 100 cities that have suffered major tragedies due to war and other disasters, plus another 100 cities with large populations, totaling 200 cities. The current UN General Assembly would then become the “Upper House.”
On the occasion of the Peace Memorial Ceremony commemorating the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing, we offer our solemn, heartfelt condolence to the souls of the A-bomb victims, and, together with the city of Nagasaki and the majority of Earth’s people and nations, we pledge to strive with all our strength for a world free from nuclear weapons.
We have the power. We have the responsibility. And we are the Obamajority. Together, we can abolish nuclear weapons. Yes, we can.
August 6, 2009
Akiba Tadatoshi
Mayor
The City of Hiroshima
2. Nagasaki Mayor's Statement
2009 Nagasaki Peace Declaration
We, as human beings, now have two paths before us.
While one can lead us to “a world without nuclear weapons,” the other will carry us toward annihilation, bringing us to suffer once again the destruction experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 64 years ago.
Doves fly in Nagasaki on August 9, 2009 at 11:02 a.m.
This April, in Prague, the Czech Republic, U.S. President Barack Obama clearly stated that the United States of America will seek a world without nuclear weapons. The President described concrete steps, such as the resumption of negotiations on a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with the Russians, pursuit of the U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which bans all nuclear explosions in the air, the sea, underground and in outer space, and seeking to conclude a treaty to ban the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, both essential components of nuclear weapons. The President demonstrated strong determination by saying that “as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act,” which profoundly moved people in Nagasaki, a city that has suffered the horror of atomic bombing.
President Obama’s speech was a watershed event, in that the U.S., a superpower possessing nuclear weapons, finally took a step towards the elimination of nuclear armaments.
Nevertheless, this May, North Korea conducted its second nuclear test, in violation of the United Nations Security Council resolution. As long as the world continues to rely on nuclear deterrence and nuclear weapons continue to exist, the possibility always exists that dangerous nations, like North Korea, and terrorists will emerge. International society must absolutely make North Korea destroy its nuclear arsenal, and the five nuclear-weapon states must also reduce their nuclear weapons. In addition to the U.S. and Russia, the U.K., France and China must sincerely fulfill their responsibility to reduce nuclear arms under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
In a bid for thorough elimination of nuclear armaments, we urge the strongest efforts towards the Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC), which the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last year called on governments to negotiate actively. It is necessary to insist that not only India, Pakistan and North Korea, but also Israel, a nation widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, and Iran, a nation suspected of nuclear development, should participate in the convention in order to ensure that those nations totally eliminate their nuclear weapons.
Supporting the speech delivered in Prague, the Government of Japan, a nation that has experienced nuclear devastation, must play a leading role in international society. Moreover, the government must globally disseminate the ideals of peace and renunciation of war prescribed in the Japanese Constitution. The government must also embark on measures to establish a firm position on the Three Non-Nuclear Principles by enacting them into law, and to create a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, incorporating North Korea.
We strongly urge U.S. President Obama, Russia’s President Medvedev, U.K. Prime Minister Brown, France’s President Sarkozy and China’s President Hu Jintao, as well as India’s Prime Minister Singh, Pakistan’s President Zardari, North Korea’s General Secretary Kim Jong-il, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, and all the other world’s leaders, as follows.
Visit Nagasaki, a city that suffered nuclear destruction.
Visit the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and stand at the site of nuclear devastation, where the bones of numerous victims are still interred. On August 9, 1945 at 11:02 a.m., Nagasaki was devastated by intense radiation, heat rays of several thousand degrees Centigrade and horrific blast winds. Fierce fires destroyed Nagasaki, turning the city into a silent ruin. While 74,000 dead victims screamed silently, 75,000 injured people moaned. Everybody who visits is sure to be overwhelmed with the anguish of those who died in this atomic bombing.
You will see those who managed to survive the atomic bombing. You will hear the voices of elderly victims, who try to tell the story of their experiences even as they continue to suffer from the after-effects. You will be stimulated by the passion of young people, who carry out their activities in the belief that although they did not share the experience of the atomic bombing, they can share the awareness that strives for the elimination of nuclear armaments.
Now, in Nagasaki, the General Conference of Mayors for Peace is being held. In February next year, the Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons will be held, attended by NGOs from both within Japan and overseas. For the next year’s NPT Review Conference, citizens, NGOs and cities strive to strengthen their unity.
People in Nagasaki are circulating petitions calling for President Obama to visit Nagasaki, a city that experienced atomic bombing. Each of us plays a vital role in creating history. We must never leave this responsibility only to leaders or governments.
We ask the people of the world, now, in each place, in each of your lives, to initiate efforts to declare support for the Prague speech and take steps together towards “a world without nuclear weapons.”
Some 64 years have passed since the atomic bombing. The remaining survivors are growing old. We call once again for the Japanese government, from the perspective of the provision of relief for atomic bomb survivors, to hasten to offer them support that corresponds with their reality.
We pray from our hearts for the repose of the souls of those who died in the atomic bombing, and pledge our commitment to the elimination of nuclear armaments.
Taue Tomihisa
Mayor of Nagasaki
August 9, 2009
3. UN Secretary General Brockmann's Statement
Dear brothers and sisters,
1. I am honoured, and deeply moved, to be with you on this most solemn occasion, in which we remember one of the greatest atrocities the world has ever witnessed.
3. As a Roman Catholic priest, and a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, I want also, from the depth of my heart, to seek forgiveness from all my brothers and sisters in Japan for the fact that the captain of the fateful B-29 Enola Gay, Paul Tibbets, now deceased, was a member of my Church. I am consoled, to a certain degree, that Father George Zablecka, the catholic chaplain of the mission, recognized, after the event, that this was one of the worst imaginable betrayals of the teachings of Jesus. In the name of my church, I ask your forgiveness.
4. Sixty-four years later, the gruesome reality of atomic destruction has lost none of its power to inspire grief and terror -- and righteous anger.
5. We cannot, have not, and will not succeed in eliminating the danger of nuclear weapons being used again, unless and until we have eliminated nuclear weapons from the face of the earth and until we have placed the capacity for making those weapons under reliable and lasting international control.
7. Taking into account that Japan is the only country in the world that has experienced the atrocity of nuclear bombardment, and that furthermore, Japan has given the world a magnificent example of forgiveness and reconciliation, I believe that Japan is the country with the most moral authority to convene the nuclear powers to this emblematic City of Peace, holy Hiroshima, and begin in earnest the process to lead our world back to sanity by starting the way to Zero Tolerance of nuclear weapons in the world.
Thank you.
Rev. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, born in Los Angeles, is a Nicaraguan diplomat, politician and Catholic priest.
4. Under a Cloud: Lessons and legacies of the atomic bombings
Jeff Kingston
Jeff Kingston revisits the epochal events of August 1945 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and draws on interviews in Japan, India and Pakistan to assess their ongoing political and social fallout.
Ground Zero, Hiroshima, August 6, 1945.
Global fashion icon Issey Miyake recently made headlines by divulging in a New York Times article he penned on July 13 that he is a hibakusha, a survivor of the atomic bombings of Japan.
Grassy knoll: The Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound in Hiroshima holds the ashes of 70,000 unidentified victims of the bomb.
Only 7 when he witnessed the incineration of his hometown of Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 6, 1945, he recalled: "I still see things no one should ever experience: a bright red light, the black cloud soon after, people running in every direction trying desperately to escape — I remember it all. Within three years, my mother died from radiation exposure."
Miyake had remained quiet all these years, not wanting to be defined by his past or to become known as the "hibakusha designer." But he was inspired to speak out after an April 5 speech by U.S. President Barack Obama in Prague, in which he announced his intention to work toward abolishing nuclear weapons, declaring, " . . . as a nuclear power, as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act."
Miyake explained that he wants to support this process by reminding people of the nightmare he hopes nobody else ever endures. Like other hibakusha, he also hopes that during Obama's first official visit to Japan, tentatively scheduled for November, the president will go to Hiroshima to jump-start his avowed quest for nuclear disarmament by viscerally reminding everyone of what is at stake.
On last Thursday's 64th anniversary of the first atomic-bombing, Hiroshima Mayor Akiba Tadatoshi lent his support, saying that most people in the world want the elimination of nuclear weapons. He declared: "We are the Obamajority. Together we can eliminate nuclear weapons. Yes we can."
To this day, though, expert opinion remains divided between those who think the atomic bombs saved lives and caused the quick Japanese surrender that followed on Aug. 15, 1945, and those who challenge those claims and provide alternative explanations of why U.S. President Harry S. Truman used the bombs.
Nonetheless, since 1945 both the Japanese and U.S. governments have pushed the controversy off to the side in their shared focus on harmonious bilateral relations. For the Japanese government, too — relying as they do on the U.S. nuclear umbrella — the atomic bombings are an especially delicate issue.
Former Defense Minister Kyuma Fumio had to resign in 2007 after igniting a public outcry by suggesting that the U.S. decision "could not be helped."
And just this week, Tamogami Toshio, the former Air Self-Defense Force chief ousted over his apologist views concerning Japan's militarist past, sparked a furor and reopened wounds in his speech, "Casting Doubt on the Peace of Hiroshima," delivered there on Aug. 6. He said, "As the only country to have experienced nuclear bombs, we should go nuclear to make sure we don't suffer a third time."
Across the once-war-torn Pacific, however, raising awareness in the United States about the devastation has been a dilemma because highlighting the suffering endured by the Japanese is sometimes perceived as a way of deflecting attention away from the torment Japan inflicted throughout the region.
Indeed, in 1995 the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. fueled controversy by planning an exhibition to present, and challenge, the case for Truman's decision to drop two atomic bombs on two Japanese cities. However, intense political pressures forced the axing from the exhibition of the revisionist critique of Truman's decision.
In the wider world, meanwhile, ongoing nuclear weapons proliferation suggests that the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not as appreciated as they should be.
It is against this background that The Japan Times invited a writer from Pakistan and one from India to discuss the implications of proliferation, along with two Japanese academics asked to share their thoughts about the legacy of the atomic bombs.
Jeff Kingston is Director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan Campus in Tokyo and an Asia-Pacific Journal associate.
This five-part series of articles appeared in The Japan Times on August 9, 2009.
5. A-bombings 'were war crimes'. 'Mass killing of civilians by indiscriminate bombing' condemned by International Peoples' Tribunal
An interview with Yuki Tanaka
Guilty.
Sixty-two years after the first atomic weapon was tested in New Mexico, international jurors issued a verdict on the atomic bombings, finding U.S. leaders guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Judgment Of The International Peoples' Tribunal on the Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (July 16, 2007)
" . . . the Tribunal finds that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki violated the principles prohibiting the mass murder of civilians, wanton destruction of cities and villages resulting in excessive death not justified by military necessity. Therefore, these acts constitute War Crimes . . . " The following is the text of an interview with Yuki Tanaka , research professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute, editor of "Bombing Civilians" (2009) and an organizer of the tribunal.
Why did you decide to organize the tribunal?
I wanted to place Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the wider history of bombing civilians. They are the worst cases, but we want to establish the principle that mass killing of civilians by indiscriminate bombing is criminal, anywhere.
Yuki Tanaka, an organizer of the International Peoples' Tribunal. Hasegawa Jun
Also, the atomic bombings were not dealt with at the Tokyo Tribunal (the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 1946-48). The Allies did not want to be accused of war crimes involving the bombing of civilians because they had engaged in so much of it in Europe as well as Japan.
I worked to establish a tribunal in order to raise the issue of the criminality of the atomic bombings to counter the U.S. argument that they were necessary to end the war.
It is important to focus on the criminality of the acts regardless of the strategic or tactical reasons.
What impact do you hope to have?
When I talk to groups in the United States, they say the atomic bombings were necessary to end the war.
I reply that if I have a sick child requiring expensive medicine I can't afford, and then I rob and kill a neighbor to get the money and buy the drug and save my child's life, the murder is still a crime even if it was to save my child. So a good reason for committing a crime does not justify a criminal act.
The U.S. needs to admit its wrongdoing and apologize for the same reason Japan needs to apologize to the Chinese. It is important to educate people in the U.S. that killing large numbers of civilians is a crime not to be repeated, but it has been continuously repeated in Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East. This is not a problem of the past, it is still a problem in the present. This is educational for Japanese too, because if you want Americans to admit and atone for their crimes, Japan also must do so.
What is your goal?
Our main goal is reconciliation with the U.S. In order to reconcile, the U.S. must first recognize that it committed crimes and apologize. Otherwise there can be no reconciliation. The hibakusha (atomic- bomb survivors) want an apology, and for them this is a necessary condition for reconciliation. If the U.S. did so it would improve the relationship tremendously.
In Prague, U.S. President Barack Obama (in a speech on April 5) became the first president to accept some responsibility for the atomic bombings, saying that the U.S. must accept moral responsibility by abolishing nuclear weapons. This took many Japanese by surprise, but there is still the matter of legal responsibility. Once the criminality of atomic weapons is established it will be easier to abolish them.
So at the government level there already is reconciliation, but not among the victims. The hibakusha are not reconciled, and are still waiting for an apology. Even after they die, the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the descendants of hibakusha will still demand justice and keep the issue alive, just as in Nanjing the Chinese have sustained their campaign for justice. It won't fade away. The past continues to haunt the present.
A woman prays in Nagasaki’s Urakami Cathedral on Aug 9, 2009.
The U.S. has sought refuge in the concept of collateral damage to justify civilian casualties. It makes it seem that such deaths are an inevitable and unavoidable cost, an inadvertent consequence — whereas they are the main target. Bombings of civilians has been accepted to some extent as normal in war. It is a crime.
People here hope that Obama will visit Hiroshima later this year and make a clear apology and accept legal responsibility, not only moral responsibility, but that is unlikely.
The entire verdict of The International Peoples' Tribunal can be accessed here.
6. 'It is time to discuss this more frankly'
Kazuhiko Togo, Professor of International Politics at Kyoto Sangyo University, is a former Ambassador to the Netherlands and the author of 2005's "Japan's Foreign Policy 1945-2003" and 2008's "Rekishi to Gaiko" ("History and Diplomacy"). He is also a grandson of Shigenori Togo (1882-1950), who, after serving as Ambassador to Germany and then to the Soviet Union, was appointed Foreign Minister from 1941-42 and again from April to August 1945. After the war, he was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment for war crimes, and died in prison.
What do you think are the critical issues concerning the atomic bombs in contemporary Japan?
Ambassador Togo's written response is as follows: Surprisingly, there has been little serious debate in Japan about the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombs (of Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945) in the context of Japan-U.S. relations. Conservative opinion leaders tended to look at the issue in the context of the U.S. nuclear umbrella, while liberal opinion leaders tended to look at this issue as an object of universal evil that requires global abandonment. But Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma's statement in June 2007 that "the dropping of atomic bombs could not be helped" provoked anger among Japanese people, and his ensuing resignation shows that something is changing.
The government has no intention to politicize this issue with the U.S. government, and I concur that clearly this is a wise policy. But at the level of academics and opinion leaders, the time has come to discuss the issue more frankly. Here are four points that in my view come to the mind of many Japanese:
First, are the Americans truly aware about the nature of atrocities committed? People who were subjected to the bomb are still suffering from physical pain, and they are literally dying because of the radioactive aftereffects. The apocalyptic description of the massacre is shocking enough, but how many Americans are aware that the bombs continue to have such a lingering fatal impact? Japanese victims of the bombs in general have accepted the postwar settlement and are suing only the Japanese government requesting more adequate compensation. But does this postwar settlement justify U.S. disinterest in this unprecedented human suffering caused by the U.S. during World War II?
Second, in accordance with the existing norms of international law and the simple logic of fairness and human rights today, how can one justify the killing of Japanese women, children and elderly people for the sheer sake of protecting the life of American soldiers, whose destiny was to fight and die for their country? It is axiomatic to say that indiscriminate bombing of noncombatants and cities was a common practice during World War II, including by Japan. But does this "relativization" justify the catastrophic level of atrocities inflicted on Japanese civilians by the atomic bombs?
Third, were the atomic bombs really necessary to end the war? Efforts made by American scholars to question this point are commendable.
Two key questions remain. First, from April 1945 the Japanese government was engaged in serious efforts to end the war. Their efforts culminated in the dispatch of a formal instruction to the Japanese Ambassador in Moscow on July 13 that the Emperor wanted to terminate the war, and asking (Soviet premier Joseph) Stalin to receive his special envoy (former Prime Minister Fumimaro) Konoe to negotiate the terms of surrender. Stalin and (U.S. President Harry S.) Truman agreed on July 18 at Potsdam (in Germany) to remain evasive in responding to the Japanese request. Stalin was determined to attack Japan before it capitulated. But why did Truman stay evasive?
The second key question concerns the final order to drop two bombs in early August that was issued on July 25 by (U.S. Secretary of War Henry L.) Stimson and (U.S. Secretary of State George) Marshall, with, no doubt, Truman's approval although a written record was not found, and the Potsdam Declaration was issued on July 26. The key clause that might have facilitated a Japanese surrender, i.e., preservation of the Imperial household, was not included in the Potsdam Declaration despite experts' recommendation. It gives an impression that Truman reserved sufficient time for the two bombs to be dropped before Japan's capitulation. Is this perception correct, and if so, why did he do so?
Distant echoes: The Korean Cenotaph in the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, which commemorates some 70,000 Koreans killed or irradiated by the atomic bombings.
Fourth, are the Americans aware that it is not the conservatives who are now most vocal in condemning the dropping of the two bombs as violating international law, but rather that it is the best of Japanese liberals who have condemned the U.S. actions as crimes against humanity? Saburo Ienaga (a prominent historian), who sued the Japanese government for 30 years for not allowing more detailed descriptions in school textbooks of atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers, made it clear that "the three major atrocities committed during World War II are Auschwitz, Unit 731 (the Imperial Japanese Army's germ-warfare unit) and Hiroshima." Another example is (Hiroshima Peace Institute professor) Yuki Tanaka, known as a strong advocate of comfort women's rights, who helped organize an international people's tribunal in 2006 that found U.S. leaders guilty of war crimes for dropping the atomic bombs.
It is difficult for me to propose some definite solution on this controversial, political and emotional issue. In general, I support the proposal by veteran journalist Fumio Matsuo for a reciprocal wreath presentation by the U.S. president at Hiroshima and the Japanese prime minister at the (USS) Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor as an initial gesture of reconciliation. But more important may be the expansion of exchanges among citizens' groups for the sheer purpose of improving mutual understanding during this initial stage of reconsidering this historical memory.
8. Many in India hail its nukes
Pankaj Mishra is an Indian writer and frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books. His most recent books are "An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World" (2004) and "Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan and Beyond" (2006).
In remembrance: The Memorial Cenotaph in the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. Built in 1952, the arch shape — through which the A-bomb Dome is visible — was chosen to represent a shelter for the souls of the atomic bomb's estimated toll of 140,000 victims, including those who died from radiation illnesses. Beneath the arch, a cenotaph bears the names of those who perished.
In India, have lessons been learned from the atomic bombings of Japan in 1945?
I wish I could say yes, but that is not the case.
Let's go back to the 1945 war-crimes tribunal in Tokyo (the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 1946-48). There, (Indian) Justice Radhabinod Pal, who was once well known in India but is now all but forgotten, argued that the Allied powers were also guilty of war crimes, citing the atomic bombings. This alienated his fellow judges at the tribunal, but as a result he became famous and respected in Japan.
In the late 1940s, Indian opinion severely judged the atomic bombings, but since then public opinion has shifted dramatically — especially since India's first nuclear-weapon test in 1974. At that time there was not much domestic public reaction, but in 1998 when India tested nuclear warheads there were massive celebrations across the country and the Indian middle class was ecstatic. The capacity to blow up the world was seen as a great advance and marked India's arrival, at least in the minds of the people, as a great superpower.
It is depressing that the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have not been learned. The atomic bomb is just seen as a bigger, more powerful and more destructive bomb, and there is no appreciation for the devastating consequences and radioactive fallout. This is why officials and pundits can speak blithely about nuclear exchanges.
Pal's views about atomic bombings as war crimes are completely forgotten.
Writer Pankaj Mishra, who questions India's "nation rising" euphoria and the superpower status many there feel its nuclear weapons bestow. Nina Subin
The media has not been helpful, and rather is part of the problem because it has been jingoistic and nationalistic regarding nuclear weapons. India is in the grip of a "nation rising" euphoria and sees nuclear weapons contributing to the glory and international prominence of India, putting it on an imaginary par with the United States, Russia and China as a great superpower. Nuclear weapons are emblematic of national pride and widely supported by the public out of their ignorance about what they can do and what would happen if India launched one.
Were the atomic bombings war crimes?
In the early post-World War II era, yes, they were overwhelmingly seen as war crimes. Today, among those who know about the atomic bombings, virtually everyone would condemn them as war crimes. But most Indians are simply not aware of this history.
Is there support in India for nuclear disarmament?
There is a consensus that using nuclear weapons is a bad idea because the neighbor can retaliate. However, there is also a consensus that having nuclear weapons is a good idea. Back in 1998, the ruling Congress party opposed the tests, but it has since changed its stance, and all parties now support having nuclear weapons.
Antinuclear activists were discouraged under the Bush administration (U.S. President George W. Bush (2001-09) and by the deal made with India on nuclear programs. This deal reflected the influence of the India-American lobby that has a similar clout on India-related issues as the Jewish lobby has on Israeli matters. The Bush administration deal symbolized India's rise as the central ally of the U.S. in Asia as a counterweight to China. This fantasy of India as a great superpower appeals to them because a deal with the U.S. means "Big Daddy" endorses India.
(U.S. President Barack) Obama has abandoned this Cold War thinking, and that is raising anxieties in the Indian government. But antinuclear activists are heartened by Obama's comments about disarmament and the revival of the antinuclear movement in the U.S.
9. 'No public discourse' in Pakistan about its nukes
Kamila Shamsie is a Pakistan-born novelist who was educated in the United States and now lives in London, from where she recently gave the interview below. In her 2009 novel "Burnt Shadows," Shamsie explores the indelible mark that the larger sweep of history leaves on people caught up in its maelstroms. It is an ambitious epic delving into personal sufferings against the backdrop of tragic histories spanning six decades, three generations and five countries.
Novelist Kamila Shamsie, whose latest book addresses how unimaginable horrors easily become possible in war. Mark Pringle
The book opens in Nagasaki in 1945, where the protagonist, a young Japanese woman named Hiroko Tanaka, falls in love only to lose her German fiance, Konrad Weiss, in the atomic bombing. Trying on her mother's summer kimono she steps out to the veranda just as the flash and blast incinerates the city, burning the garment's beautiful swan design onto her back.
Nagasaki, August 9, 1945 in the aftermath of the bomb
This hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) later travels to New Delhi to visit the family that might have become her in-laws, ends up marrying a Muslim man working for them, and is then caught up in the 1947 Partition of British India (between present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) — eventually settling in Pakistan.
Following miscarriages brought on by exposure to radiation, which afflicted many hibakusha, she gives birth to a son. However, the lives of Hiroko's and Konrad's families continue intersecting with devastating consequences — an allegory for what happens in a world run by whites in their self-interest, despite any fitful good intentions they might have.
This is a novel that accuses, but also tries to convey the personal consequences of war, racism and geopolitics. Shamsie connects the dots, showing how powerfully the past shapes the present — and shadows the future. Hiroko comes to a rueful awakening, lamenting, "I understand for the first time how nations can applaud when their governments drop a second nuclear bomb."
Her book makes us think about how unimaginable horrors easily become possible in war.
What inspired this novel?
The story idea came from the 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, and then when they were at the brink of war in 2002. I wanted to write a story set in Asia with the shadow of nuclear weapons in the background. It was to be about a Pakistani man and a Japanese woman, and that led me to Nagasaki — with the India-Pakistan confrontation a murmur looming behind.
I wasn't able to visit Nagasaki due to difficulties securing a visa, all the documents they wanted and the need for a sponsor. And I knew that even if I went I could not see prewar Nagasaki. The city itself is not the focus of my book as much as what people can decide to do to others in the context of war.
When I was researching about the atomic bombs I was reading (U.S. Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist) John Hersey (1914-93) about Hiroshima, and he mentioned the presence of Germans there. So then I had my character for Konrad, the fiance.
Nagasaki is the most cosmopolitan and Christian city in Japan, with a long history of exchanges and contacts with the outside world. Thus it is ironic that of all cities it was one to suffer this fate.
My grandmother was half-German and living in Delhi during World War II. It was difficult for her as a German to live in British India at that time. So she became the inspiration for Konrad's sister, even though her life was very different. And once Hiroko left Nagasaki after the bomb and visited Konrad's relatives in India it was natural that she was caught up in the Partition, which brought her together with a Pakistani man and took her to Pakistan — my center of gravity.
The arc of the story continues to touch on the encounter between different parts of the world, one that was transformed, especially for Pakistan, by 9/11. And so her son is also caught up in these tragedies of history that become tragic personal histories.
I once attended a lecture and the speaker drew our attention to Nagasaki, asking how it was possible to make that decision to drop the second bomb even after the consequences of the first were known.
Before Hiroshima, it may have been possible to imagine the horror, but it was not known. But (U.S. President Harry S.) Truman knew about Hiroshima, knew what it had done to the people — and yet did not stop the second bomb. This to me is truly horrific. To make that decision to repeat the atomic bombing speaks to the pathologies of war. There is nothing you won't do or justify in the context of war. That single moment, that single weapon, killing tens of thousands of people in an instant.
Do the atomic bombings shape public discourse in Pakistan?
The lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have had too little impact on public discourse in India and Pakistan. In the few days between the 1998 nuclear tests by India and those subsequently conducted by Pakistan, hibakusha visited Pakistan and begged the government not to proceed. A Pakistani filmmaker made a documentary with riveting and horrible images of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and tried to get viewers to imagine what Pakistan's cities would look like if nuclear weapons were used.
I, too, am trying to bring forward into the present the echoes of this past.
But in Pakistan it is all about India. "They have them so we need them" is the mentality. So there really is no public discourse about the implications of nuclear weapons. In the school curriculum nothing is taught about the consequences of nuclear weapons, and there is no raising of awareness about the effects of radiation.
At the time of the tests in 1998, the state controlled the media so there was no questioning or examining the government's decision. In the English- language media there has been some critical opinion voiced, but there is a consensus supporting the decision to test because India has nuclear weapons. They are viewed as a deterrent and a guarantee that the rest of the world will step in to prevent a war because so much is at stake.
In Pakistan, nuclear weapons are looked on as just a bigger bomb, and in an abstract way people accept the need for it without thinking through the logic of fallout affecting people in both countries. (Abdul Qadeer) Khan is despised by Pakistan's liberal intellgentsia, but seen as a hero by the general public because without his efforts (to develop atomic weapons) they believe Pakistan would be at India's mercy.
Did international sanctions after Pakistan's nuclear tests have much impact?
Sanctions by Japan were not as important as those imposed by the United States. Pakistan is really dependent on the U.S., and the impact was huge, sending the economy into a nosedive. Pakistan was on the verge of bankruptcy. Then 9/11 rescued Pakistan's economy because suddenly it was needed for its geostrategic usefulness.
But the sanctions did not cause people to wonder about whether the nuclear tests were a good idea. Instead they made them feel unfairly persecuted, and made people aware how dependent and vulnerable Pakistan's economy is.
What message are you trying to convey through your writing of five novels to date?
As a novelist, I try to avoid saying there is a single message in my books, because it is about what readers bring to the reading and see in the novel. In "Burnt Shadows," I write about the threat of what nations can do to each other in the name of self-interest and defense.
Do you think the atomic bombings were war crimes?
It is hard to figure out what part of war is not a crime. It's all criminal. War is the absence of morality, what we can get away with. Everyone in war commits war crimes.
I wish the myth of Truman as a great president was challenged. How could he be great when he made the decision to use atomic weapons?
But I don't believe that other nations are any different from the U.S. The difference is that the U.S. was in a position to use them and it did. It is the imperial power of this era, and thus it is more involved in war and the inevitable crimes that entails. But it is too easy to blame the U.S. — nations and people need to look at themselves and their actions and choices.
Can you imagine a nuclear war might happen?
Yes. India and Pakistan were so close to war in 2002. Once you engage in war — and you have this weapon — there is the possibility of using it. The gap between conventional and nuclear war is not as great as people believe. If you are desperate and losing a war, there is no certainty it would not be used with horrific consequences for everyone.
Recommended citation: Akiba Tadatoshi, Taue Tomihisa, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, Jeff Kingston, "The Nuclear Age at 64: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Struggle to End Nuclear Proliferation," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 33-1-09, August 17, 2009.
http://amzn.com/0415194016Japan's Comfort Women (Asia's Transformations) Paperback – December 31, 2001
by Yuki Tanaka (Author)
6 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0415194013 ISBN-10: 0415194016
Buy New
Price: $49.17
Japan's Comfort Women tells the harrowing story of the "comfort women" who were forced to enter prostitution to serve the Japanese Imperial army, often living in appalling conditions of sexual slavery. Using a wide range of primary sources, the author for the first time links military controlled prostitution with enforced prostitution. He uncovers new and controversial information about the role of the US' occupation forces in military controlled prostitution, as well as the subsequent "cover-up" of the existence of such a policy. This groundbreaking book asks why US occupation forces did little to help the women, and argues that military authorities organised prostitution to prevent the widespread incidence of GI rape of Japanese women, and to control the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Review
'One of the achievements of this volume is that it successfully personalises some of the 'comfort' women. It exhaustively details the inhumane process by which they were 'recruited' or forced into what amounted to sexual slavery and the degrading day-to-day treatment meted out to them by recruiters, managers and soldiers if the women refused to 'comfort' soldiers, became pregnant or were ill. Even more significantly, this volume attempts to establish the figures that helped to implement the 'comfort' women system, including senior Japanese military officers, Ministry of War bureaucrats, brothel owners and their recruiters and medical staff.'
- Intersections, Issue 9.
About the Author
Yuki Tanaka is at Keiwa College in Japan and is the co-author of Hidden Horrors:Japanese War Crimes in World War II (1995).
http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue9/morris_review.html
Yuki Tanaka
Japan's Comfort Women:
Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the US Occupation
London and New York: Routledge, 2002
foreword by Susan Brownmiller, figures, tables, plates;
ISBN: 0-415-19401-6 (paper), xx + 212 pages.
reviewed by Narrelle Morris
There are many images that linger in the mind after reading this new volume from scholar Toshiyuki Tanaka on the euphemistically titled 'comfort' women, the estimated eighty thousand to one hundred thousand (p. 31) Japanese, Korean, Chinese and other Asian and European women who fell victim to organised sexual violence by the Japanese military during World War II.[1] Like other works in this area, Tanaka employs a discursive framework that seeks to emphasise that the crimes committed against the 'comfort' women constituted not only the deliberate objectification and victimisation of women but were a crime against humanity. Tanaka begins his volume with an extract from the autobiography of Maria Rosa Henson, a Filipina former 'comfort' woman, who helped bring the 'comfort' women issue to light in the early 1990s:
Twelve soldiers raped me in quick succession, after which I was given half an hour rest. Then twelve more soldiers followed. ... I bled so much and was in such pain, I could not even stand up. ... I felt much pain, and my vagina was swollen. ... Every day, from two in the afternoon to ten in the evening, the soldiers lined up outside my room and the rooms of the six other women there. I did not even have time to wash after each assault. At the end of the day, I just closed my eyes and cried (p. 1).
One of the achievements of this volume is that it successfully personalises some of the 'comfort' women. It exhaustively details the inhumane process by which they were 'recruited' or forced into what amounted to sexual slavery and the degrading day-to-day treatment meted out to them by recruiters, managers and soldiers if the women refused to 'comfort' soldiers, became pregnant or were ill. Even more significantly, this volume attempts to establish the figures that helped to implement the 'comfort' women system, including senior Japanese military officers, Ministry of War bureaucrats, brothel owners and their recruiters and medical staff.
In the early chapters of this volume Tanaka carefully documents the historical process that resulted in the establishment of ianjo [comfort stations] as military general policy during World War II, including extensive collaboration between the arms of the Japanese military, government ministries and the prostitution industry in Japan and Japanese-controlled Korea. As Tanaka shows, while at first the women recruited for ianjo were professional Japanese prostitutes and impoverished Japanese and Korean women, soon local women in China and elsewhere were 'recruited', often forcibly. The methods employed by civilian recruiters included 'deception, intimidation, violence, and, in extreme cases, even kidnapping' (p. 23). In Shanghai, even as early as 1932, the existence of ianjo were given various rationales, including the need to maintain military discipline by reducing the likelihood of the rape of civilians. Lieutenant-General Okabe Naozaburô, a senior officer in Shanghai, for example, wrote in his diary that the 'establishment of appropriate facilities must be accepted as a good cause and should be promoted ... [i]n consideration of our soldiers' sexual problems' (p. 10). Others reported on the urgent need to control the spread of venereal disease amongst soldiers, which was rife. Instances of infection had reached a rate of 30 per cent in one brigade of the Kwantung Army in north-east China by 1933 (p. 11). Tanaka argues convincingly that the existence of ianjo and the methods used to 'recruit' women for them were sanctioned and promoted by the Japanese Ministry of War. A document published by the Ministry of War for distribution to all army units in 1940, for example, reads:
In particular, the psychological effects that the soldiers receive at comfort stations are most immediate and profound, and therefore it is believed that the enhancement of troop morale, maintenance of discipline, and prevention of crimes and VD are dependent on successful supervision of these [comfort stations] (p. 24).
While the ianjo may have been successful at providing soldiers with psychologically-beneficial leisure, Tanaka concludes that, as a means of preventing rape and the spread of venereal disease, the 'comfort' women system was ineffective. This fact, Tanaka notes, was realised at the time. General Okumura Yasuji, for example, had been the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Shanghai Expeditionary Army and had ordered the establishment of the first ianjo in Shanghai in 1932, of which Lieutenant-General Okabe Naozaburô had approved. Reflecting on the Japanese invasion of Wuhan in 1938, however, Okumura admitted that instances of 'random sexual violence' had occurred despite the fact that soldiers had 'comfort' women available to them (p. 28). Furthermore, while the 'comfort' women were regularly examined for venereal disease, it was quite difficult for both military authorities and the women alike to persuade soldiers to use the prophylactics and disinfectants that they were provided with to avoid infection. Indeed, soldiers were effectively discouraged from reporting venereal infections to medical officers by the existence of a punitive sanction for the condition, namely demotion by two ranks. That ianjo continued to proliferate throughout World War II is a sad indictment of the andocentric ideology of the Japanese leadership of the time; a leadership which encouraged and facilitated the forced sexual abuse of thousands of predominantly non-Japanese women on the one hand and instructed Japanese women to be chaste and modest on the other.
An important part of the ‘comfort’ women discourse, Tanaka argues, is the effort that has been made over decades by successive Japanese governments to suppress the stories of the ‘comfort’ women, an effort which has been supported in the post-war period by the silence of the Allied nations. Few would dispute that this has been the case. Relevant documentation is difficult to obtain, Tanaka explains, due to the enduring classification of official Japanese military and ministerial documents from the period, as well as the fact that Japan has no freedom of information legislation to enable researchers to gain access. Other researchers have also pointed to right-wing efforts in Japan to ‘silence’ the ‘comfort’ women issue in Japanese historiography.[2] The noted Australian historian Gavan McCormack characterises the emergence of the ‘comfort’ women issue as a gender shift in the focus of war reflections, where ‘men politicians, soldiers, scholars have defined and debated the issues, from the early 1990s, and after fifty years of silence, women began to intervene’.[3] It is interesting to note McCormack’s description of these activities as ‘interventions’ to the discourse on war reflections. This apparently innocuous choice of term serves to underscore how many, both inside and outside of Japan have been disconcerted by the ‘comfort’ women issue. In the case of this volume, Tanaka attempts to distinguish himself from those who deny the existence of an institutionalised system of ‘comfort’ women outright or the culpability of the Japanese leadership of that period in creating and sustaining the system. Nevertheless, the reader is left with a few disconcerting impressions regarding Tanaka’s analysis of this complex issue.
The second half of the volume is devoted to explaining why the Allied Occupation failed to prosecute individuals for crimes against the 'comfort' women at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal), despite ample evidence of such crimes being available. Yet in a volume ostensibly based in law, there is a curious omission of nearly all legal discussion. Despite declaring the 'comfort' women system a 'crime against humanity on an unprecedented scale' (p. 84), Tanaka does not delve into the specifics of customary international law that, by implication, are raised in this declaration. There is no notice taken of how far the international regime of human rights has developed since World War II, rendering the use of terminology such as 'crimes against humanity' slightly anachronistic. He also does not explore some of the other legal options offered by other authors in this field as to the means by which the Allied nations could have prosecuted individuals for crimes against the 'comfort' women.[4] The Japanese lawyer Etsuro Totsuka has suggested, for example, that the treatment of the 'comfort' women amounted to a violation of the International Labor Organization Convention (No. 29) Concerning Forced Labor, specifically article 2 which prohibited the forced labour of women. The lack of legal discussion therefore makes this volume more a social exploration of why 'awareness of the comfort women issue as a serious war crime [was] clearing lacking in the minds of the leaders of the Allied forces' (p. 87).
Why did the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal hear mass evidence regarding the ill-treatment, rape and murder of Allied soldiers and civilians and fail to consider evidence of systemic crimes against 'comfort' women? One explanation, Tanaka suggests, is that as most of the 'comfort' women were 'Asian', rather than Western—the largest exception being Dutch women in the Dutch East Indies—the invisibility of the 'comfort' women provides further evidence supporting the 'absence of Asia' remarks often made about the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, where both the aggrieved and those giving justice tended to be Western (p. 87). Yet Tanaka does not reconcile this argument with earlier discussion regarding the 'various testimonies presented at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal regarding the Rape of Nanjing' (p. 29). He admits that details regarding the rape of Dutch civilian women in March 1942, for example, were raised at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal but argues this was only to provide evidence that crimes had been committed against Allied civilians (pp. 61-3). A more concrete example of the fixation with Western victims, Tanaka suggests, can be seen in the proceedings of the Batavia War Crimes Tribunal, which was conducted by Dutch authorities in February 1948. In one case this tribunal tried twelve Japanese in relation to the forced prostitution of Dutch women held in internment camps in Semarang, Java in 1943 (p. 76). Although Tanaka does not make it clear, the basis of the Dutch prosecution seemed to be the Geneva Convention of 1929. While not a signatory to the convention, Japan had given a qualified promise to follow the Geneva rules in 1942, one of which prohibited forced prostitution of prisoners-of-war. Disappointingly, Tanaka does not pursue a line of inquiry as to whether Indo-Dutch, Indonesian, Filipino, or perhaps even Korean, 'comfort' women could have had a similar status to the Dutch as prisoners-of-war during this period. He merely notes that the Dutch authorities questioned Indonesian, Indo-Dutch and Chinese 'comfort' women about their experiences in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies but that only two cases involving non-Dutch women were ever raised at the Batavia War Crimes Tribunal (pp. 78-9). While it might be expected that a separate Dutch war crimes inquiry would focus on Dutch women in this manner, Tanaka seems to imbue the Batavia War Crimes Tribunal with responsibility for a regional jurisdiction, to which it failed to respond adequately. It appears to Tanaka, therefore, that the victimisation of predominantly Asian 'comfort' women inevitably took second-place to other war crimes investigated and prosecuted by the Allies.
However, Tanaka's primary argument is that the Allied nations' own 'sexual ideology'—their treatment of non-Western women prior to the war, their practice and attempt to cover-up military-controlled prostitution during the war and their complicity in the establishment of a similar 'comfort' system for Allied personnel during the Occupation in Japan—is a telling factor in the lack of Allied prosecution (p. 87). Regarding the Dutch East Indies, for example, Tanaka argues that as the Dutch sexually exploited large numbers of Indonesian women while a colonial power in the region, it followed that the sexual abuse of Indonesian and Indo-Dutch women by the Japanese would probably not have been viewed by the Dutch as a serious crime (p. 82). During the war itself, Tanaka clarifies that the Allied 'sexual ideology' made it 'quite natural that [the Allies] were completely unable to discern the criminal nature of the comfort women system' (p. 109). As the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of Japan, John Dower, notes in a short review printed on the back of the volume, this is a 'stunning and controversial' new direction of analysis.
Tanaka reserves the bulk of his investigation for the activities of the military forces of the United States, Britain and Australia. He presents new evidence obtained from the United States National Archives to show that the United States deliberated on many of the same issues as Japan's military regarding the control of venereal disease. To curb the spread of the disease, for example, one Inspector General of the United States War Department recommended the establishment of 'supervised houses ... as other countries have done' (p. 89). In the end, the War Department neither promoted nor encouraged this type of military brothel and, indeed, held the official policy of not permitting soldiers to visit prostitutes. However, in central Africa, the Middle East, India and the Caribbean some local commanders went against this policy and designated some houses of prostitution as 'safe' by testing the female inhabitants for venereal disease. In Liberia, for example, soldiers were told not to have relations with any woman in the 'women's villages' that did not bear an official tag verifying her non-infection (p. 92). In testament to this reality, Tanaka alleges that the War Department 'institutionally supported' organised prostitution by supplying prophylactic protection to soldiers—an officer of the United States Medical Corps, for example, estimated prophylactic requirements at four units per month per soldier, a budgetary expense of about US$34 million per year (pp. 88-9). Australia, on the other hand, openly arranged military-controlled brothels in the Middle East, including selecting madams and conducting medical examinations on proposed women (p. 94). Drawing on an official Australian Army report on a newly-established Tripoli brothel, Tanaka comments that the description is 'strikingly similar to the situation of ianjo' (p. 97). While the women were professional prostitutes, he contends that it was still a breach of international law, although which which aspect of customary international law he does not make clear, that in at least one case a sixteen-year-old girl was approved and used as a prostitute by the Australian Army. Tanaka's overall argument in this section is that the engagement of the Allied forces in prostitution was similar to the 'comfort' women system perpetrated by the Japanese and this weakened the Allied nations' ability to perceive any criminality in the 'comfort' women system.
To further make the connection between the Allied nations' 'sexual ideology' and the failure to consider the 'comfort' women system as a war crime, Tanaka raises the issue of sexual violence committed by soldiers of the Allied Occupation against Japanese women. He admits that there is no documentary evidence of 'mass rape by the Allied soldiers' but points to credible oral accounts by Japanese women of rape and assault during this period (p. 110). In one case, for example, Tanaka uses Japanese police intelligence reports from Kanagawa Prefecture to show that nearly every day from the beginning of the Occupation on 30 August 1945 to mid-September that year, cases of rape by Allied soldiers were reported (p. 117). Indeed, General R. L. Eichelberger, commander of the United States' 8th Army, noted in his diary that his very first meeting with General Douglas MacArthur in Japan was not about Japan's surrender but rather about 'rape by marines' (p. 123). Such atrocities were widely feared in Japan, not only by the populace which had been indoctrinated by wartime propaganda to believe that mass rape was a usual characteristic of the immoral 'barbarians', but also by political and bureaucratic leaders. Even before the Occupation began, a vastly similar 'comfort' women system was established in Japan for use by Allied soldiers, staffed by professional Japanese prostitutes and recruited 'volunteers' (p. 138). Tanaka attempts to show that the fact that the Allied nations' expected—if not required—that such a 'comfort' system would be provided for them made it politically expedient for the Allied nations not to prosecute the Japanese for the 'comfort' women system (p. 151).
In juxtaposing the 'sexual ideologies' of Japan and the Allied nations in this manner, Tanaka underscores that he is not attempting to 'mitigate or rationalize the crimes that Japanese men committed during the war by referring to similar or related crimes committed by the Allied soldiers immediately after the war' (p. 6). However, the reader of this volume cannot help but be left with the impression that Tanaka believes that the Allied nations' 'sexual ideology'—revealed through what he sees as a complicit endorsement of the 'comfort' women system because of the failure to prosecute—was as serious a 'crime against humanity' as the establishment of the 'comfort' women system in the first place. Some contradictions arise in this volume; one in particular suggests that the Allied nations, not Japan, bear the greater responsibility for sexual violence against women during this period. On the one hand, for example, Japanese soldiers had a 'personal choice' in relation to the exploitation of 'comfort' women and, Tanaka writes, 'in that sense, those Japanese men who chose to avail themselves of this facility undoubtedly bear personal responsibility for the crimes they directly committed' (p. 4). Yet in an interesting comparison of respective responsibilities, Tanaka notes that the:
Allied forces who participated in the Occupation, from the ordinary soldiers up to the staff of the PHW [Public Health and Welfare] Section of the GHQ and the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers himself, were all responsible for the tribulation that many Japanese women experienced (emphasis added, p. 165).
Certainly, the Allied nations bear a significant burden of unfulfilled responsibility regarding the issue of the 'comfort' women. At the end of the war, the United States in particular was in an unprecedented position to investigate and prosecute these serious offences against women; a position which it chose not to exploit. Yet even in the convoluted lexicon of contemporary international law, failure to prosecute is not quite on the scale of a crime against humanity reached by the organised sexual slavery of the 'comfort' women system. The Allied nations' endeavours to combat the spread of venereal disease, their support of the enticement of impoverished women into prostitution and the supervision of brothels for military use during the war and the Occupation, while morally reprehensible, cannot be accorded the same level of criminality as the 'comfort' women system. Tanaka's almost unequivocal equation of the two does a disservice to the complex question of why the Allied nations failed to prosecute the 'comfort' women system.
The equation of the Allied nations and Japan's sexual ideologies predisposes this volume to the impression that it is partially an apologia for the 'comfort' women system. To his credit, Tanaka makes it clear that while this volume began as a chapter on 'rape and war' in an earlier work,[5] he was approached to do further research on the subject of the 'comfort' women by Ômori Junrô, a director of the TV documentary section of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Commission) who was proposing a documentary film. The subject: why the 'US military authorities were not interested in prosecuting the Japanese who had been responsible for the sexual exploitation of vast numbers of so-called "comfort women," despite their clear knowledge of this matter' (p. xvii). However, one unfortunate remark about this commission, made in Tanaka's acknowledgements, colours the entirety of this volume. Tanaka describes how he undertook his first research trip to the United States in 1995 on this topic but 'could not find a single document that referred to comfort women'. He therefore came back to Australia, where he was based at the time, 'without any "Christmas present" for Mr Ômori' (p. xvii). The characterisation of documents explaining the legal disinterest of the Occupational authorities as a 'Christmas present' is not only insensitive given the subject matter of the volume but it raises questions about the agenda, if any, of Ômori Junrô and NHK in commissioning such research in the first place.
This is an interesting volume on this most delicate of subject matters. Yet, it should be read with some caution. Many of the photographs, for example, are not particularly well chosen or meaningful in terms of the volume's analysis. In a section on the recruitment of young Japanese girls into prostitution during the Occupation, for example, Tanaka includes a photograph of women working in a factory with the caption:
During the war many high-school students were mobilised as members of the Women's Volunteer Corps and worked in munitions factories. After the war, some of those students ended up as comfort women serving the Allied soldiers (p. 129).
However, a closer examination of this photograph reveals that the women are apparently working in a clothing factory, not with munitions. This photograph is one of a number of examples in the volume where the illustration appears almost incidental to the discussion. Two Japanese women 'walking in the street where Japanese soldiers are strolling' are identified as 'comfort' women 'somewhere in north China' (p. 9). It is not explained, however, why Tanaka or his Mainichi Shimbun source identify these women as 'comfort' women. Another photograph of a group of Taiwanese nurses leaving Taipei explains 'Some of them were exploited as comfort women' (p. 43). Yet in the text, a comment is made that of fifty identified Taiwanese 'comfort' women, only 'three were former nurses' (p. 44). These attempts at illustration add little to the discussion. Yet even if these minor failings are discounted, this volume remains a distinctly unmeasured analysis of the why the Allied nations failed to prosecute the 'comfort' women system. It does, however, pose some interesting questions to further researchers in this field.
Endnotes
[1] This figure is at the lower end of estimates usually given of the number of 'comfort' women. Keith Howard, for example, cites that the number of 'comfort' women was probably near two hundred thousand: Keith Howard, 'Introduction', in Keith Howard (ed), True Stories of the Comfort Women, London: Cassell, 1995, p. v.
[2] See discussion of these groups in Gavan McCormack, 'The Japanese Movement to "Correct" History', in Vera Mackie et al. (eds), Japanese Studies: Communities, Cultures, Critiques, Vol. 1: Re-mapping Japan, Clayton, Vic: Monash Asia Institute, 2000, pp. 103-18.
[3] McCormack, 'The Japanese Movement to "Correct" History', p. 103.
[4] Japan ratified this convention in 1932: Etsuko Totsuka, 'Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and Issues in Law', in Keith Howard (ed), True Stories of the Korean Comfort Women, London: Cassell, 1995, p. 196.
[5] Yuki Tanaka, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II, Boulder: Westview Press, 1996.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Balanced and fair, May 12, 2007
By Steve Liston "Steve in Japan"
This review is from: Japan's Comfort Women (Asia's Transformations) (Paperback)
Yuki Tanaka's work on the topic of comfort women was a good eye opener.
His writing, based on fairly extensive research, and not on his or someone else's opinion will add to the depth of understanding for any student of Japan.
This book does not fall into the category of "Japan Bashing", instead helps the reader to understand that first, the use of comfort women was incredibly more prevelant than one might have otherwise thought, second, the effects of this practice are still very relevant today as Prime Minister Abe continues to deny the practice ever occurred, while many other parts of Asia still feel the pain caused by the practice.
Modern Japan still seems comfortable portraying women in a manner that would not be acceptable in the west. Any student of Japan, should be interested in understanding the "why" of such phenomenon, and this book may help toward that end.
Highly recommend this book for people who have a strong interest in Japan, Asia, psychology, war or peace for that matter.
It is not a light read, it is a thought provoking one.
Initial post: Jul 17, 2014 1:03:20 PM PDT
Last edited by the author on Jul 17, 2014 1:04:06 PM PDT
Asdf Asdf Asdf says:
The book certainly isn't Japan bashing; but this review probably is. The review is rather speculative and conveniently ignores what actually happened and what this research so clearly demonstrates.
In the end the Allies abused Comfort Women during both Japanese Occupation and the Korean War. While you think it's interesting to consider why (you believe) Japan is behind the West in terms of Womens' Rights... I find it an interesting study in how the West continues to white wash history while Japanese face issues head on in an honest fashion. I find it an interesting study on how and why the West pretends its reached equality when most of that mythical accomplishment is artificial at best.
It's interesting to see how the West claims to be champions for women, all while continuing to abuse them and sweeping their own inconvenient transgressions under the rug as if they never happened.
HOLY CRAP - rape is rape - what is WRONG with the Japanese that they fall on the side of racism even in the case of rape, August 16, 2014
By Dwight
This review is from: Japan's Comfort Women (Asia's Transformations) (Paperback)
NICE insular society you've got over there - there is no common sense or logic or native comprehension of right and wrong
It must be government policy and it must be that IRIS Chang was CORRECT when she said Hirohito and his extended family designed sexual violence policy. That is the most likely reason for the weird way Japan falls against their OWN rape victims.
It WAS policy.
Where are the JAPANESE women who were raped for the pleasure of Japanse soldiers - how come they're not memorialized at Yasukuni?
For everyone still serving the hunchback, that could be YOUR mother, YOUR sister, YOUR daughter or in the case of Comfort Gay, that could be YOU.
It's NOT vendetta unless it happens to them - the hunchback et al. They sit at the top and they make the orders to destroy lives - it should happen to them.
ByDwighton 2014/08/16
Format: Paperback
NICE insular society you've got over there - there is no common sense or logic or native comprehension of right and wrong
It must be government policy and it must be that IRIS Chang was CORRECT when she said Hirohito and his extended family designed sexual violence policy. That is the most likely reason for the weird way Japan falls against their OWN rape victims.
It WAS policy.
Where are the JAPANESE women who were raped for the pleasure of Japanse soldiers - how come they're not memorialized at Yasukuni?
For everyone still serving the hunchback, that could be YOUR mother, YOUR sister, YOUR daughter or in the case of Comfort Gay, that could be YOU.
It's NOT vendetta unless it happens to them - the hunchback et al. They sit at the top and they make the orders to destroy lives - it should happen to them.
CommentWas this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
Report Abuse
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4Not too Shabby
ByStephen J. Smithon 2010/03/10
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
I needed to do a book review a few years back. I used this for my cultural feminism course. Interesting read and it keeps your attention.
CommentWas this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
Report Abuse
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5Interesting Book about a Dark History
ByMarvina Stephens "Jill Monroe"on 2008/07/14
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Interesting book. The term "The Evils that Men Do" more than fits this.
It give you insight on what War is and how it goes way beyond the battlefields.
CommentWas this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
Report Abuse
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5Balanced and fair
BySteve Liston "Steve in Japan"on 2007/05/12
Format: Paperback
Yuki Tanaka's work on the topic of comfort women was a good eye opener.
His writing, based on fairly extensive research, and not on his or someone else's opinion will add to the depth of understanding for any student of Japan.
This book does not fall into the category of "Japan Bashing", instead helps the reader to understand that first, the use of comfort women was incredibly more prevelant than one might have otherwise thought, second, the effects of this practice are still very relevant today as Prime Minister Abe continues to deny the practice ever occurred, while many other parts of Asia still feel the pain caused by the practice.
Modern Japan still seems comfortable portraying women in a manner that would not be acceptable in the west. Any student of Japan, should be interested in understanding the "why" of such phenomenon, and this book may help toward that end.
Highly recommend this book for people who have a strong interest in Japan, Asia, psychology, war or peace for that matter.
It is not a light read, it is a thought provoking one.
1 commentsWas this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
Report Abuse
6 of 13 people found the following review helpful
3The Aftermath of the Comfort Women
ByReader Jackon 2005/04/04
Format: Paperback
This is one of the few books that deal with what happened to the "comfort women" after Japan's defeat in WWII. Namely that they switched to serving American GIs - for reduced pay.
It sort of hits you in the gut after being indignant about the comfort women issue for a while and then discover that your grandfather probablly had a good time with them too.
This book, however, does not go into the extent to which the women were abused in American hands when the Japanese army was no longer there to protect them. It was an "out of the fryingpan and into the fire" story. It is a tragic end to a tragic story that we all should know about.
CommentWas this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
Report Abuse
7 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5Already Published
By A Customeron 2002/02/01
Format: Hardcover
This book was already published in December last year, under the new title "Comfort Women: Sexual slavery and prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation."
The book is available both in hardcover and paperback.
http://www.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp/modules/peace_e/content0033.html
Researchers at HPI
Name: TANAKA, Toshi Yuki
Title: Professor
Major Research Interests: War crimes, war history
Academic Qualifications: B.Ec., M.Ec., and Ph.D
Place of Birth: Fukui Prefecture, Japan
Books
* Single-authored Books
Sora no Senso-Shi [A History of Aerial Warfare]. (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2008), 253pp.
Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation (with Foreword by Susan Brownmiller) (London: Routledge, 2002), 212pp. (Both the hard cover and paperback editions were published at the same time. The 2007 U.S. Congress Report on "Comfort Women" referred to this book as one of the most reliable source of information.)
Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II (with Foreword by John Dower) published by Westview Press (Boulder, USA) in June 1996, 267pp. The paperback edition was released in November 1997. (The hard cover edition was a main selection of the Military Book Club in 1996. This volume provided extensive background material for a BBC TV documentary series entitled "Horror in the East" produced in 2000.)
No comments:
Post a Comment