Let me be clear up-front that I too feel awful for the Japanese, and I plan to contribute to the relief effort.
But as one earlier posted noted, the Japanese committed horrific atrocities on the Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, etc, during the Second World War. Someone once said that the difference between the Nazis and the hard-core Japanese imperialists was that there was no Asian version of Simon Wiesenthal to press for justice after the original military hearings were ended.
The lesson of the Second World War is that even a civilized nation can collectively go stark raving mad. I thought about that a lot in the Fall of 2008, when seeing even grown people react to Obama.
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