Shadows of Our Sins: HSU Hiroshima Awareness workshop hopes to ...

On a summer night in 2002, the Rev. Eric Freed, a priest at St. Bernard's Church in Eureka and a lecturer at Humboldt State University, sat down with Hiroko Takanashi, then 72, for some casual conversation about their individual lives in Japan.

[Anonymous]

when will the japanese apologize for pearl harbor? rape and butcher in china?

apologize to agressors,what has this world come too.

American lives were saved by dropping the Atomic bombs.

if conditions were same.. drop them again.

no cmpassion for murderers

[Anonymous II]

Do you have any history and facts to base your thoughts on, or just the usual we are your teachers and you have to listen to me concept? I am not your student, and I think you are all ignorant.

[Not surprised]

I should not be surpised to hear of something like this coming from HSU, but it does bother me. I can think of no "Sins" the US has to apologize for when it comes to WWII. The Japanese attacked us and slaughtered 3000 people on December 7, 1941 without warning and provocation. After several years of brutal war where the Japanese and Germans committed untold numbers of war crimes the United States was able to win the war by using the Atom bomb.

War is a horrible thing but a nation has the right to defend itself and its people. If an apology is in order perhaps it should be from surviving Germans, Japanese and Italians that allowed their governments to turn their countries in war mongering nations.

[Sam]

What a terrific way to honor those who have served our country! The day before Veteran's Day, let's have a workshop, and detail how they are in fact a bunch of white, genocidal mass murderers! I guess working the fact that they are all male didn't quite fit into the context of the article.

I know of some WWII veterans, my Dad included, who would not be interested in apologizing and forgiveness regards any of the events of WWII; forgiveness for Pearl Harbor, apologies for Hiroshima, none of it.

It sounds like an interesting workshop, but I have to wonder if there will be any representation of supporting, basically, any military action for any reason. Where would the line be drawn?

Once a nation decides to defend itself, it's a slippery slope to know what's proportional and justified versus what's going to be deemed genocide and mass murder sixty years later.

[Gdog]

Not surprised wrote:

War is a horrible thing but a nation has the right to defend itself and its people. If an apology is in order perhaps it should be from surviving Germans, Japanese and Italians that allowed their governments to turn their countries in war mongering nations.

What was it that the German, Japanese and Italian people did that they should apologize for? Voting for Mussolini? Living in Germany while Hitler was in power?

What was it that the countries did that qualified them as "war mongering?" Invade countries that hadn't attacked them? Hmmm, Go see your doctor, you might be irony deficient.

[rollo]

Let's not forget the Native American's ahve a bit of apologizing to do as well.

[Anonymous]

diversity is the real sham. the real racists.

close this multi culturism krap now.

better yet, close HSU this is pathetic

[Middle-o-the-str ea m]

Franklin D Roosevelt allowed the Japanese to attack PH. So we would have a reason to go to war. He needed a war to give job. Sound familier? Give me a job Mr. President. Now his legacy lives on.

[Middle-o-the-str ea m]

HSU should be honering the Veterans. Not tossing guilt at them for a war started by the Roosevelt Regime.

[Domino 21]

So it would have been better to invade the Home Islands and create casualties in the millions? Have those of you that think dropping the bombs done any research on the Japan of the the thirties and forties? Has any of heard of Shuri Castle, or generally about suicide cliffs? Read about the invasion of Okinawa, then imagine that on the Home Island.

The Japanese started the fight. They are the ones that raped Nanking. They are the ones that attacked Pearl Harbor, Wake and the PI. They are the ones that mistreated prisoners to the point that in some cases they cannibalized them. And they very nearly had a coup the night before the official surrender to keep the war on.

They got nuked, big whoop. They had to be stopped. Sorry no guilt from me. I have been there. While I am fully appreciative of the power of an apology, we do not owe Japan an Apology.

Happy Birthday Marines

[RENO]

Where was the apology for this?
The Bataan Death March
The march, involving the forcible transfer of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war[1] captured by the Japanese in the Philippines from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps, was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse and murder, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon the prisoners and civilians along the route by the armed forces of the Empire of Japan. Beheadings, cut throats and casual shootings were the more common actions — compared to bayonet stabbings, rapes, disembowelments, numerous rifle butt beatings and a deliberate refusal to allow the prisoners food or water while keeping them continually marching for nearly a week in tropical heat .The exact death count has been impossible to determine, but some historians have placed the minimum death toll between six and eleven thousand men; whereas other postwar Allied reports have tabulated that only 54,000 of the 72,000 prisoners reached their destination

[reader]

gawd people. you make me gag. get over yourselves. why don't you get your brains into the present injustices that exist here on a local basis daily? is that tooooo deeeep for you to comprehend?

[fisher]

Most of the goals of this workshop sound worthwhile, but having the word "sins" in the title throws me off entirely. Perhaps it is because my grandfather was at Pearl Harbor on that fateful day, and i heard first hand the horror that followed the sneak attack, i am unable to see the American response as wrong. More likely, it is because the use of the word sin takes the discussion completely out of the secular realm and into one that is religious in nature. While history and ethics are topics I enjoy discussing, religion and sin are not.

[Why it keeps happening]

The H-homb was developed in a race with Nazi Germany- luckily for Germany, they surrendered just before a useful bomb was produced. Might very well been used on German had it been available. Race had little to so with anything.
On the other hand, as soon as the European war was over, US troops were loaded onto boats and were going toward the invasion of Japan. Due to Japan's last-man fighting throughout the Pacific islands, along with a number of instances of Japanes civilian women and children commintting suicide, the expected death toll from this invasion was at least 50% for US soldiers and more for Japanese civilians. The Japanese Emperor refused to allow surrend until his troops had a victory so that he could negotiate from strength with the US. His government prepared all the cicilians to do the duty to the emperor to the last. The h-bombs would presumably allow this to be avoided.
The US had every basis for thinking this is what would happen- so with warning, the first bomb was dropped. The Japanese held on, based on their failed plans, til the second was dropped.
As for the foolish relating of the Wiyot massacre of innocent women and children and the bomb- the Japanese had slaughtered millions of civilians in Korea, China, the Philippines and other plans because of their own racism and butality. They have refused any apology. They prefer to pretend that it never happened. Sort of a holocaust denial in Asia.
How can supposed scholars at HSU be so eager to prove that they are morally superior that they ignore any amount of history? Well- I can't be so ignorant as my father was on that boat heading to Japan. My family might not even exist if the invasion had proceeded. Life is not so simple as these men mentioned in the article would have it. And they do not hold any moral high ground.

[Mike MORGAN]

WE WOULD ALL BE SPEAKING JAPANESE NOW.!!
OR YOU WOULD BE A LAMP SHADE NOW.
GOD BLESS THERE SOULS.

[MC VET]

Sounds typical of the Rag and HSU to put out this kind of crap esp just before Veterans's Day. One of my uncle's was killed on Corregidor (4th Marines) and another died on Okinawa (US Army). Had it not been for the bomb my brother would have been in the assault of the mainland. Don't tell my family we have any shadow of guilt. The dirty power hungry Japanese attacked us and now they bitch because we made crispy critters out of some of them. If we had had more bombs we would have used them. We should have used the bomb in Korea and in the Nam. Maybe we will get lucky and be able to use it in Iran.

[Gdog]

Mike MORGAN wrote:

WE WOULD ALL BE SPEAKING JAPANESE NOW.!!
OR YOU WOULD BE A LAMP SHADE NOW.
GOD BLESS THERE SOULS.

Why aren't all the Japanese speaking English? Or the Germans for that matter?

Your 13th century, enlightened view of modern warfare is impressive.

[Mary Anne]

Who was it that said "War is He--". Yes, it is.
My dad was in the Pacific during WWII. The tales of Japanese brutality were horrifying. Do I hate Japanese people? No. They were at war. War. Perhaps the esteemed professors at HSU should look up the word and everything it means. Also, am I wrong that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were warned many times in advance of the bombs, but were told by their govt. to stay put? I wonder if these professors have ever even talked to anyone who was "there", who saw what was going on, average soldiers doing their duty for the U.S., putting their lives on the line for us. You know, there is an old saying -- the only people who ever offered to die for you are Jesus Christ and an American soldier. The fact that HSU now considers American soldiers "sinners" says it all. I can't believe our tax money is spent on this.

[Gdog]

Mary Anne wrote:

Also, am I wrong that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were warned many times in advance of the bombs, but were told by their govt. to stay put? I wonder if these professors have ever even talked to anyone who was "there", who saw what was going on, average soldiers doing their duty for the U.S., putting their lives on the line for us. You know, there is an old saying -- the only people who ever offered to die for you are Jesus Christ and an American soldier. The fact that HSU now considers American soldiers "sinners" says it all. I can't believe our tax money is spent on this.

I'm not familiar with the details of the workshop, but reading the article made me think that the "Our" in the title referred to the collective 'we' like everyone. There was no reference to any "soldiers" conducting the workshop. You said, "The fact that HSU now considers American soldiers "sinners" says it all" - I don't really think that's a fact, and if the soldiers were sinners, they they would be HOLDING the workshop titled "Shadows of OUR Sins."

[Anonymous]

Gdog wrote:

<quoted text>Why aren't all the Japanese speaking English? Or the Germans for that matter?
Your 13th century, enlightened view of modern warfare is impressive.

Gdog, your stand against America on this issue has thrown my former respect for you into the trash.