"
"People are the same everywhere""

Ah right, the usual moral equivalence stuff. Got it.

"Let me clarify the issue here: We defend militarily and support economically Japan against their victims in WWII - China and Korea (namely North Korea). There is a special moral responsibility to address the lack of any real atonement on the part of Japan, especially since we essentially let all the old Japanese militarists keep their positions of power in the name of Cold War expediency. This special responsibility doesn't exist in your attempts to analogize the situation.

If the victims were Europeans we wouldn't be so glib about this. But since we hate the Chinese and North Koreans anyway, oh well."

Again, I wasn't trying to make an analogy. I was just trying to say that they don't see our issues the same way we do.

I'm not very well read in Japanese matters, so I may be wrong here, but I don't get the impression that the US supports Japan economically at this point. Furthermore, it seems to me that US military bases in Japan are more often a source of tension with Japanese citizens than they are support. In a historical sense I'm inclined to agree with you; we let individuals who are clearly war criminals escape punishment and flourish in a post-war world. I don't know how much that had to do with the Cold War.

In any case, the US sees Japan as a strategic ally and a counterbalance to Chinese power in East Asia, so yes, we are going to support them despite past wrongdoings. As long as Japan doesn't threaten any future wrongdoings, I don't see anything horribly wrong with that. Uncomfortable, maybe, but not horrific.

"Ah right, the usual moral equivalence stuff. Got it."

Do you have anything more to say to that or are you just going to dismiss it?

What towns were "literally wiped off the map"?

"But we'll be dead by the time this could hypothetically happen, so no big concern."

I know you were being sarcastic, but I don't give a fuck about the future after I'm dead. I have no kids and my niece and nephew from my wife's side are old enough to see to the future if they choose. So, yeah, I'll be dead when it happens and really don't care at that point.

"Do you have anything more to say to that or are you just going to dismiss it?"

I've said plenty on the topic. You ignored it all. The scale of Japanese atrocities warrants some recognition of these crimes and atonement for them. Even if your excuse is "well everybody is evil", the point is that with many other crimes there is usually some acknowledgment/atonement for said crimes.

"but I don't give a fuck about the future after I'm dead."

There's that Christian ethos we all know and love.

"As long as Japan doesn't threaten any future wrongdoings, I don't see anything horribly wrong with that. Uncomfortable, maybe, but not horrific."

The feelings of the victims be damned. How are we to be sure they commit future acts of aggression if they don't even recognize what they did in the past was wrong? How moral leg do we have to stand on when we lecture the Chinese and Korean victims of Japanese aggression about human rights?

"But yet you've been propagating this crap here for a while about the South was nicer to the blacks than the Union"

In many ways this was absolutely true. Until you can explain why northern states were the first to implement "Black Codes" and how a freed slave could become one of the richest men in antebellum South Carolina (among other things), I imagine I'll continue to 'propagate this crap'.

"that the whole cause of the Confederacy wasn't predicated on white supremacy and slavery"

The 'whole cause' was predicated on a number of factors, only one of which was slavery. Even Karl Marx acknowledged that this was the popular opinion of the day:

"In essence the extenuating arguments [of the London Press] read: The war between the North and South is a tariff war. The war is, further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery and in fact turns on Northern lust for sovereignty."

What do you suggest we do instead, then? While North Korea and China are committing what we consider human rights abuses, Japan is not. I would like to see Japan acknowledge its past; more importantly, I would like to see Japan amend its curriculum to accurately reflect the realities of WWII so that Japanese students have an opportunity to learn from that past, but I don't think it's worth scuttling one of our strongest alliances over events lying 70 years in the past.

I don't really see what our relationship with Japan has to do with lecturing the Chinese and North Koreans on human rights. I think you could argue that our own history of imperialist excursions might impede our ability and right to do so, but our relationship with Japan, not so much. Not that I think we should be lecturing them about human rights, I just don't buy your argument there.

From Sherman:

"I found so many Jews and speculators here trading in cotton, and secessionists had become so open in refusing anything but gold, that I have felt myself bound to stop it. The gold can have but one use-the purchase of arms and ammunition... Of course, I have respected all permits by yourself or the Secretary of the Treasury, but in these new cases (swarms of Jews), I have stopped it."

"There is a class of people, men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order."

"Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of it's roads, houses, and PEOPLE will cripple their military resources-.I can make the march, and make Georgia howl."

"The more Indians we can kill this year the fewer we will need to kill the next, because the more I see of the Indians the more convinced I become that they must either all be killed or be maintained as a species of pauper. Their attempts at civilization is ridiculous."

"The 'whole cause' was predicated on a number of factors, only one of which was slavery. Even Karl Marx acknowledged that this was the popular opinion of the day:"

Nice maneuver here. So because Marx rebutted the London press's rationalizations of their support for the pro-slavery South, that itself is proof that these arguments were valid! Makes perfect sense, if you don't think about it and you don't bother to look at what the tariff policy had been for decades prior to the war, what tariff policy had been in 1857 in the middle of the economic panic in the North, and you refuse to acknowledgment the statements by Confederates themselves as to what their cause really was.

Oh goody, all the neo-confederates are coming out to play. Random quotes without citation from Mr. Fulham. Lovely, lovely.

Sherman wasn't guilty of any war crimes. He won, after all. If he had lost, then you could talk about his war crimes, but as a victor, that category justy doesn't apply to him.

@Putin: Sherman et al. are not precluded from being dickbags just because the Confederates were dickbags...

"What do you suggest we do instead, then? While North Korea and China are committing what we consider human rights abuses, Japan is not."

Ask the Zainichi about that, or frankly any resident who isn't ethnically Japanese. What I suggest we do is put a modicum of pressure on Japan to acknowledge their wrongdoings towards the Chinese and Koreans. We also don't particularly care about the human rights record of our South Korean ally. All is forgiven so long as you're anti-communist. Kwangju? Nobody's heard of it. Tiananmen Square? 20+ years of sanctions and constant reminders about it. Obviously fair and balanced.

"Not that I think we should be lecturing them about human rights, I just don't buy your argument there."

So the fact that we look the other way when it comes to Japan whitewashing its own crimes has no impact on our ability to lecture China and Korea about their own history and present? Well I guess we'll just agree to disagree then.

" but I don't think it's worth scuttling one of our strongest alliances over events lying 70 years in the past. "

But you said before that they don't seem to want us there. So why are we there? They don't care about their past crimes and they don't particularly want us permanently encamped on their territory.

"He won, after all. If he had lost, then you could talk about his war crimes, but as a victor, that category justy doesn't apply to him."

Wrong. Despite the Union victory it's become hip and edgy to write screeds defending the "Lost Cause" and bashing Lincoln. He wasn't *really* anti-slavery, blah blah blah.

"war crimes, but as a victor, that category justy doesn't apply to him"

The category hasnt applied to confederates either, confederates who killed prisoners by official decree and whos veterans formulated a reign of terror to keep African Americans in slave like conditions for another century. People dont seem to understand how easy the south got off. Reconstruction was a joke, thanks mostly to those upstanding southern citizens in the KKK, Redshirts and White League who were committed to continuing racial subjugation.

@Putin:

That's not what I said. I don't think we should be lecturing China and Korea on their pasts. I think it's fair to put pressure on them to change some present policies (more for N. Korea than for China), but I don't think that should be the focus of our relationship, either. Similarly, we should not compromise our relationship with Japan for the wrongs of three generations past. We should not treat it as a taboo, but it's not worth emphasizing if it means risking a healthy relationship.

(As an aside, I know next to nothing about Japanese treatment of minorities - I'd be interested to learn more about that.)

"So because Marx rebutted the London press's rationalizations of their support for the pro-slavery South, that itself is proof that these arguments were valid!"

It is certainly proof that these arguments were being made at the time, which was more than you were willing to acknowledge an hour ago. Progress! I had a feeling I would get somewhere if I quoted Marx.

"tariff policy"

Oy vey. I'm not going through tariff policy and the Civil War for the umpteenth time. Most historians acknowledge that "low" tariffs were not the cause of the panic.

"you refuse to acknowledgment the statements by Confederates themselves as to what their cause really was."

Are you really this dense? Or do you just enjoy constructing straw men in my image so you can feel better about yourself? I've said three times now in this thread alone that slavery was *a* factor in the Civil War.

Sorry - I didn't see the second post at first.

I don't think our alliance with Japan is based on the US troops in Japan. I suspect it's a good deal larger than that.

@Putin:

The "Lost Cause" school of thought is transparently bullshit, as are efforts to argue that the Civil War was primarily about something other than slavery, or that there were a multiplicity of causes to the Civil War, each of roughly equivalent emotional weight and ability to drive the south to secession. But that's not what I'm getting at with my statement that Sherman could not be considered a war criminal, because he won. The point that I'm driving at is that it is not meaningful to speak of law without speaking of enforcement. A law that cannot be enforced is merely a desire, of equal weight to a four year old girl's wish to get a pony for her birthday. And, to the best of my knowledge, no victorous tribe, state, or empire has ever commenced a war crimes investigation against those who waged war on its behalf. War criminals are definitionally those who fought for the losers in a manner that angered the winners, and could be used for propaganda after the end of the war.

Fair enough, Bob. I don't disagree.

Some sources for Sherman

The American way of war: a history of United States military strategy and policy
By Russell Frank Weigley

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=77wNLMJn8CEC&pg=PA160&lpg=PA160&dq

Michael Fellman, "Citizen Sherman - A Life of WilliamTecumseh Sherman" as reported by nizkor.org
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/ftp.py?people//s/sherman.william.tecumseh/sherman-and-racism

"It is certainly proof that these arguments were being made at the time, which was more than you were willing to acknowledge an hour ago. Progress! I had a feeling I would get somewhere if I quoted Marx."

Where did I argue they weren't being made? They weren't made by the Confederates themselves. What's this about straw men again?

"Most historians acknowledge that "low" tariffs were not the cause of the panic."

It sure didn't help when northern industry was being flooded with cheap foreign products. But its speaks more to the fact that the north wasn't imposing some anti-southern tariff policy, quite the contrary. The south was bleeding the north dry.

" I've said three times now in this thread alone that slavery was *a* factor in the Civil War."

It was the principle cause. You keep claiming it was a primarily a tariff war.

On tarrifs we have discussed the Morrel tarrif before and agreed, albeit somewhat reluctantly, that it was passed after the succession of the deep south but prior to that of the upper south.

This website has a well-reasoned piece on the subject http://www.kosmosonline.org/group-post/did-tariffs-really-cause-civil-war-morrill-act-150

''A measured and factually grounded take of the tariff issue reveals its dramatic resurgence between 1858-61 as the national political climate collapsed and pre-war sectional divisions reached a fever pitch. The issue directly contributed to those divisions, particularly as it arrived in the Senate during the "Secession Winter" to add its own havoc to a rapidly growing perfect storm. Though it is not a complete or full explanation of the Civil War itself, it should be viewed as an indicator of the war's complexity. Simplistic, single-issue explanations of large political and military upheavals seldom work under scrutiny, and the tariff is one such sign of how the economic dimensions of secession overlapped and intertwined with the Civil War's moral questions about slavery and political questions about sectionalism.''

Somebody needs to explain why southern Democrats were primed to secede in 1856, if Fremont got elected - well before any Morell tariff or anything else of the kind. Furthermore, one must explain why the Morell tariff would matter when the deep south's very secession undermined its ability to be blocked by the Senate. The idea that a tariff passed after secession fever had already begun was in any way a significant cause of secession is ridiculous. If you're going to diminish the importance of slavery to rationalize your own sympathy for the Confederacy, at least make some sense about it.

I think you all may have ended up on a tangent here...