Osaka mayor calls comfort women "necessary evil"

[Anonymous]

TOKYO — An outspoken nationalist mayor said the Japanese military's forced prostitution of Asian women before and during World War II was necessary to "maintain discipline" in the ranks and provide rest for soldiers who risked their lives in battle.



The comments made Monday are already raising ire in neighboring countries that bore the brunt of Japan's wartime aggression and have long complained that Japan has failed to fully atone for wartime atrocities.



Toru Hashimoto, the young, brash mayor of Osaka who is co-leader of an emerging conservative political party, also said that U.S. troops currently based in southern Japan should patronize the local sex industry more to help reduce rapes and other assaults.



Hashimoto told reporters on Monday that there wasn't clear evidence that the Japanese military had coerced women to become what are euphemistically called "comfort women" before and during World War II.



 "To maintain discipline in the military, it must have been necessary at that time," Hashimoto said. "For soldiers who risked their lives in circumstances where bullets are flying around like rain and wind, if you want them to get some rest, a comfort women system was necessary. That's clear to anyone."



Historians say up to 200,000 women, mainly from the Korean Peninsula and China, were forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers in military brothels.



China's Foreign Ministry criticized the mayor's comments and saw them as further evidence of a rightward drift in Japanese politics under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.



 "We are appalled and indignant about the Japanese politician's comments boldly challenging humanity and historical justice," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily media briefing. "The way they treat the past will determine the way Japan walks toward the future. On what choice Japan will make, the Asian neighbors and the international community will wait and see."



Asked about a photo of Abe posing in a fighter jet with the number 731 — the number of a notorious, secret Japanese unit that performed chemical and biological experiments on Chinese in World War II — Hong again urged Japan not to whitewash history so as to improve relations with countries that suffered under Japanese occupation.



 "There is a mountain of definitive iron-hard evidence for the crimes they committed in the Second World War. We hope Japan will face and contemplate their history of aggression and treat it correctly," Hong said.



Abe posed, thumbs up, in the aircraft during a weekend visit to northeastern Japan.



South Korea's Foreign Ministry expressed disappointment over what it called a senior Japanese official's serious lack of historical understanding and respect for women's rights. It asked Japan's leaders to reflect on their country's imperial past, including grave human rights violations, and correct anachronistic historical views.



Hashimoto said he recently visited Okinawa in southern Japan and told the U.S. commander there "to make better use of the sex industry."

[Romero]

What a horrible, horrible person. Let's see him prove it. Let's see him become a sex slave for Japanese troops for a few years.



Does this man have no mother, or female relatives or loved ones?



You know what else maintains discipline and provides comfort, Toru Toru Toru? Not invading other countries.

[Gary Oak]

How is it that Chinese complain about Japanese comfort women but yet don't say anything about the triads kidnapping girls for forced prostitution ? The triads have forced more than a hundred girls into prostition than the Japanese forced into being comfort women ? There is a double standard here. Triads also kidnap girls for forced marriages and even kidnap girls so that parents who don't want their son to die single pay the triads for a girl and then kill her and bury her next to their son as his wife. Why is there no outcry against the triads ? Deng Xiao Ping even called them patriots ?  They of course can't do this in Canada as they are under orders to leave law abiding Canadians alone so that we won't know what we arew letting into the country and keep the welcome mat open for them. After all they need a larger Chinese population here to take over Canada and they know it and they know that this is part of their plan

[Romero]

Notice how Gary complains about Chinese yet won't say anything Japanese comfort women?



Gary, it's because this is about Japanese comfort women.

[Anonymous]

I hate what Imperial Japan did, but I do not hate the Japanese..



What the mayor of Japan said though was inexcusable.