8 Responses to Some Debates Will Never End: Comfort Women

1. Peter Pan
   April 29th, 2007 at 3:45 am

   Denial of coercion will ensure this debate will never end.

   Then, from the wiki linked from the word coercion:

   Many women were tricked or defrauded into joining the military brothels.[citation needed]

   There’s just too much of ‘this is the way it happened, we just can’t prove it’ going around. I think Abe’s statements have been correct in to say that the practice of comfort women did go on, but their was no government policy to go kidnap people, because there was no government policy to do so, just like the US has no government policy to strip prisoners down naked and take photos of them.

2. Richardson
   April 29th, 2007 at 9:52 am

   But the article continues;

   In urban areas, conventional advertising through middlemen was used alongside kidnapping. However, along the front lines, especially in the countryside where middlemen were rare, the military often directly demanded that local leaders procure women for the brothels. This situation became worse as the war progressed. Under the strain of the war effort, the military became unable to provide enough supplies to Japanese units; in response, the units made up the difference by demanding or looting supplies from the locals. Moreover, when the locals, especially Chinese, were considered hostile, Japanese soldiers carried out the “Three Alls Policy”, which included indiscriminately kidnapping and raping local civilians.[16][17][18]

   And since Japan destroyed so many documents before the U.S. took over, it’s likey much evidence of a variety of things will be lost forever.

   I’m not sure how much testimony it takes to prove something, and as I said, this debate will never end.

3. Matt@occidentalism
   April 29th, 2007 at 8:06 pm

   Richardson, I want you to think about the words “Three Alls Policy”. Are these words in your opinion characteristic or Japanese rhetoric (or even Korean), or are the words more familiar Chinese slogans? There was no “Three Alls Policy”, as no such words or rhetorical device exist in the Japanese language. As far as I know, “Three Alls Policy” was propaganda used by the nationalists and communists against eachother. The Japanese army never had a policy condoning rape any more than the US army had one in Vietnam.

4. Richardson
   April 29th, 2007 at 8:41 pm

   Matt, I know where you stand. We’ll have to agree to disagree.

5. Matt@occidentalism
   April 29th, 2007 at 9:20 pm

   There is an article about it on Japanese wikipedia. According to wikipedia, “the three alls policy” is Chinese language, not Japanese. It is written 三光作戦, which means “three light strategy” (light is a reference to fire). In Japanese it was called 燼滅作戦, or 燼滅掃討作戦, which means “complete burning strategy”, or “complete burning mop up operation”. It was strategy against Chinese guerrillas.

   The “three light strategy” as told by the Chinese was actually the various ways that one could die or have their property destroyed. Japanese wikipedia does not mention rape as part of the strategy.

6. Matt@occidentalism
   April 29th, 2007 at 9:24 pm

   Sorry, this “The “three light strategy” as told by the Chinese was actually the various ways that one could die or have their property destroyed. Japanese wikipedia does not mention rape as part of the strategy”, should read “The “three light strategy” as told by the Chinese was actually the various ways that one could die or have their property destroyed by fire. Japanese wikipedia does not mention rape as part of the strategy”.

7. Sonagi
   April 30th, 2007 at 8:26 am

   As a speaker of Chinese and Korean, I have to agree that the “Three Alls Policy” sounds very, very Chinese and does not sound Japanese. Even if the term was originally coined in Chinese, that does not mean that pillaging, looting, and kidnapping of women did not occur.

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