Unbelievable Osaka mayor

This guy just won't stop. Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto continues to issue statements about women and war, specifically the comfort women who suffered horrible treatment from Japanese soldiers in World War II. In his idiotic statement, he said that the comfort women system was necessary to keep the Japanese soldiers in check, so they wouldn't lose their minds. And just how many women lost their minds and their lives when they were forcibly subjected to be sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army and God knows who else? His statements really reflect the denying attitude that a number of Japanese have with regards to the events of World War II.

How can this man even say something like this, if he isn't even old enough to understand the horrors of war? As woman, I am mortified by such a statement! This is the reprehensible attitude that some Japanese have regarding the war, probably to cover up the atrocities they committed in trying to conquer the whole of Asia. Indeed, even to this day, there are those that believe that they were the oppressed and not the oppressor, that they were the victims and not the criminals, that they were just trying to make the whole of Asia become Japanese.

Much like there are those today that still believe that the Holocaust where six million Jews were systematically exterminated did not happen. Never mind the survivors, never mind the physical evidence like the camps and their gas chambers and ovens, never mind the war criminals who tried to hide. To “these people”, it just did not happen.

Surveys taken by two daily newspapers in Japan showed that while roughly 80 percent did not agree with the statements of Hashimoto, even criticized them, 20 percent did. This means that probably one out of five Japanese believe they were the victims, they were the oppressed, and that the comfort women system was necessary. My goodness. How is this man even in office, in a country where honor is of primary importance?

Reaction from all countries who suffered under Japanese occupation, along with the US have been lashed out at the mayor, triggering a hailstorm of criticism. It's like the wounds of the war just won't heal, because there are people like Hashimoto who just love to open them up again. Just like there are Neo-Nazis in Germany today. Now, he has shifted strategies. While agreeing that Japan was 'bad', other countries involved in the war were just as abusive to women, including the US, Britain, France Germany and even South Korea, asking them to “face up to history”. He should be the one to say that.

I may agree that all countries abused women when they could, but that was more the exception than the rule. Hashimoto himself has confirmed that an established system utilizing women from all the nations they occupied were herded like cattle and made to slake the lusts of their soldiers, to “keep them in check”. In other words, to make them more reliable killing machines. If for only this, Japan should be ashamed. If for only these statements made by Hashimoto in a span of weeks, he should resign.

At least.