WARS MAKE BEASTS OF MEN

Someone somewhere in one blog mentioned

the Yasukuni shrine visits of now Japanese PM Koizumi.

THAT, I believe is an INTERNAL AFFAIR of Japan, and as such,

no other country except its own MUST interfere.

Nakialam na ba ang Japan sa salloobin ng mga Presidenteng bumisita sa Libingan ng mga Bayani? O sa Luneta, Mt. Samat, Corregidor?

Sige nga….humor me, and satisfy my hunger

for explanations and justifications for those sweeping statement.

OK, Japan has committed atrocities in the past becoz of the war.

The Japanese nation has made numerous apologies for these,

and reparations have been committted, allotted and paid for their past mistakes.

Allow me to remind you that “WARS MAKE BEASTS OF MEN.”

This was the remark made by a Honda executive I once met in Hamamatsu.

He was eventually transfered to head their Manila office a few years back.

"WARS MAKE BEASTS OF MEN."

Indeed!

This is true in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Lebanon, and elsewhere.

The once great splendor of old Persia was wiped out by continuous bombings

and has now became a jungle of ruins.

There were many killed by the germans in hitler’s camps, and the gulags in Russia.

These were recounteed in numerous books and

was even made into a movie.

The americans massacred Filipinos as well in some parts of our history.

These americans dropped bombs

without any knowledge of its effects on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I invite you to please research, better still go to Hiroshima,

even Nagasaki, or both

to FEEL the effect of radiation EVEN NOW on its populace

BEFORE YOU MOUTH anything untoward

and make sweeping statements over this issue.

The once peaceful community of innocent civilians were

killed at an instant by a fat bomb dropped at the 2 Japanese cities.

Carpet-bombings of Tokyo flattened the entire metropolis

in a few days.

The ship that carried civilians off Okinawa were sunk.

Need I add more?

While there were news and accounts of atrocities in the Philippines during the war,

we can only surmise as to WHO really did those.

Please be reminded that there were thousands of Korean and Taiwanese conscripts

during the war. While it is a command responsibility of Japan

to answer for the atrocities committed by its people/men., we cannot outrightly say

that they were limited to the Japanese military ONLY.

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ONE does not know anything until he/she has lived and

“feel” the pulse of the people.

I now LIVE IN JAPAN becoz I am a second-generation Japanese.

My father served as a Naval Captain of the Japanese Imperial Navy in the last war

and he was a very gentle soul.

Pinoy neighbors loved him for his natural kindness

and concern for the community where he spent his last days:

in the province where my Nanay was born.

He could have stayed here in his country

but he chose to die and be buried there with my Nanay.

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Living in Japan doesn’t make me a lesser Pinoy than you

or anybody else here or in any other blog.

I am PINOY, sa puso at diwa.

And I have vowed to go back to the country that nurtured me

when I was young.

Continuing to condemn an entire nation because of

what happened in the past is an outright folly.

Afetr all, 61 years have passed.

That,

maybe the reason why PEACE has remained elusive

even to this date.

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