The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.

Monday, February 11, 2013

No World War II Apologies At Japan Shrine-- Part 1

From the Dec. 14, 2012, Chicago Tribune by Chico Harlan.

A Shinto shrine in Tokyo, lined with cherry trees "asserts a jarring and unrepentant storyline about Japan's wartime past, brushing aside well-documented atrocities and describing its rampage through Asia as tragic but justified."

The museum has videos and wall displays and says that Japan "advanced through Asia between 1931 and 1945 to protect neighboring countries from Western colonization.  No mention is made about forcing women into brothels to service Japanese soldiers, or ransacking cities or using civilians for bayonet practice.

The Yasukuni Shrine is a religious site, not a national one.  The writer says the shrine and "adjacent museum remain the symbolic heart of World War II militarism."  It also symbolizing the hardening, did-no wrong approach to Japan during that time.

More to Come.  --GreGen

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