Kamikaze Statue Sums Up Asia's Feelings
By HRVOJE HRANJSKI
Associated Press Writer

MABALACAT, Philippines — Even now, 60 years later, it's an arresting sight: a life-size statue of a Japanese kamikaze pilot next to a former U.S. Air Force base. Yet as the Philippines and the rest of east Asia remember the Japanese surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, the statue commemorating the first suicide pilots seems to sum up their ambivalence toward Japan's imperial era of aggression and brutal occupation.

Some have protested about the fiberglass statue since it went up 10 months ago, while others see in it an act of forgiveness. But it's also a recognition of the power of the yen: Japanese tourists flock to the airfield to see the World War II museum and honor the pilots who took off from here on their one-way missions against the advancing U.S. Navy.

Japan, the world's second biggest economy, has a gigantic economic footprint in the region. Trade with other east Asian countries totaled $1 trillion for the year ending in March. Last year China replaced the United States as its biggest trading partner.

Japan is the biggest buyer of Philippine exports, and the two states are negotiating a free-trade agreement.

In that context, what happened 60 or more years ago tends to lose relevance. "The Japanese were very brutal, very hostile to Filipinos," says Faustino Arceo, the toothless 68-year-old gardener who tends the shrubbery around the statue of the goggled, helmeted flier. "Before, I was angry. But now, I can't do anything. It's the past."

In China and South Korea, which bore the brunt of wartime aggression, anti-Japanese sentiment erupts periodically, stoked by perceptions that Tokyo has never fully atoned for its wartime conduct. This year the issue that sent protesting crowds into the streets was Japanese school textbooks which they said whitewash atrocities.

At the same time, many Asian countries look to Japan, home of the main U.S. force in east Asia, to serve as a counterweight to China's rising economic and military might.

Here in Mabalacat, next to former Clark Air Base in the northern Philippines, city tourism chief Edgar Hilbero says there was "a lot" of criticism of the statue, and concedes the decision to put it up was driven by tourism as much as by history.

Every October, hundreds of Japanese tourists, war veterans, students and Buddhist monks travel here to honor the kamikaze with flowers, incense and prayers.

Japan captured the Philippines in 1942, and it was from the airfield at Clark that the first kamikazes took off. From October 1944 to August 1945, 618 Allied ships were damaged or sunk by 2,526 suicide pilots, according to Japan's Kanoya Air Base History Museum. Some historians put the number of kamikaze at 5,000.

The Americans recaptured the Philippines in 1945 and gave it full independence a year later, but kept their bases here until 1991. Clark has since been transformed into a tourism zone, with a commercial airport, hotels and golf courses.

Hilbero said he is also working on putting up a memorial to U.S. Capt. Colin Kelly Jr., who died when his B-17 bomber crashed at Clark three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. For bombing a Japanese warship, Kelly became the first U.S. serviceman decorated in World War II.

"We are not taking sides," Hilbero said. "We are using war history to promote good will, friendship and closer relationship between nations ... not to glorify anybody, not even kamikaze. War is evil. It's not the people who fought the war. That is our message."

A similar message comes from 95-year-old Elizabeth Choy in Singapore, where Japanese troops killed as many as 100,000 ethnic Chinese.

A national heroine, she features prominently in school textbooks for her 200-day ordeal of imprisonment and torture by the Japanese secret police for helping to smuggle money, food, medicine and radio parts into the prison that held some 75,000 Allied POWs and civilians.

Choy says she has no hard feelings toward today's Japanese. "They've always been a very hardworking and ambitious people and they want the best for their nation."

She added: "What I detest is not the Japanese, but war itself."

Many of the territories Japan invaded were ruled by Western powers — Singapore and the Malayan peninsula by the British, Indochina by the French, the Philippines by the Americans, Indonesia by the Dutch — and Tokyo presented its invasions as acts of national liberation.

But Singapore, is also cashing in on war tourism, though its travel packages are tailored for veterans and former POWs from Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

In Australia, war veterans in the farming town of Cowra tend the graves of 231 Japanese POWs machine-gunned as they launched a suicidal stampede for their camp's barbed wire fences on Aug. 5, 1944. In 1979 a 12-acre memorial garden opened and has become a tourist attraction.

The Filipino behind the kamikaze initiative is a local historian, Daniel Dizon, who spent much of his life studying the suicide squadrons and built a museum in his house with rusty guns, bayonets, old photos and Japanese uniforms.

"It was very agonizing because people hated Japanese so much. Anything that you bring about in public regarding the Japanese was met with intense hostility and anger, and nobody wanted to listen," he said.

Dizon was 15 when Angeles city, which now encompasses Mabalacat, was full of kamikaze pilots. He says he was fascinated by their determination and patriotism. In the early 1970s, Dizon tracked down what he says was the house in Mabalacat where Japanese Vice Adm. Takijiro Ohnishi and his staff had the meeting on Oct. 20, 1944 that led to the birth of the first 23-man kamikaze squad.

For years, he struggled to persuade the owners to allow him to put up a small marker on the fence around the nondescript, single-story house. They relented only after Dizon enlisted the help of a local businessman, who saw a chance to make money in a landlocked province with few other attractions.

When it saw Japanese tourists starting to pour in, he said, the city prodded him to find and mark other kamikaze spots.

Now 75, Dizon believes the suicide pilots should not be equated with Japanese aggression and atrocities, "because the kamikaze acted in self-defense."

Other Filipinos are less conciliatory.

Rechilda Extremadura is a spokeswoman for more than 100 women among the thousands enslaved in Japanese military brothels in several Asian countries. She said the women protested to the provincial governor about the kamikaze statue.

"Why should we have a monument to glorify that war? We were victimized," she said. "It's OK for me for Japan to glorify their troops, but not for a country like us, who were pillaged and destroyed by the Japanese. It's not proper."

In Manila, writer Francisco Sionil Jose applauds the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"I haven't changed my feelings, and I am 80 years old," he said. "If you were here during the Japanese occupation, you would understand how I feel. And this is precisely the problem — that many Filipinos don't have a living experience of that occupation, so they can afford to be very blase, very forgiving.

"But not those of us who lived through it."

Fiberglass burns really nicely.

Pic?

ETA
The Chinese have not forgotten. No friggin way.

This calls for some misdropped ordnance.

This would be like Holland & Denmark putting up statues of German V-1's.

Quoted: Fiberglass burns really nicely.

+1.  Screw those assholes.

All I know is that any Pilipino I know or knew that was there during the war had an abiding hatred for the Japanese after the war, and for many many years, Japanese who wandered off the beaten path never came back to it.  

Then again we have Americans that blame the US for the Atom bomb.

Quoted: Fiberglass burns really nicely.

    Bet your ass it does...!!!!

I'd hook it up to a sewer pipe and make him look like he's pissing in his pants and down his trouser or flight suit legs.

It's the Philippines for Popeye's sake. Let 'em have a damn statue of Hitler for all I care.

How soon we forget.

For right or wrong, they honor those who have fallen in battle.
I may not agree with the politics and actions of the time, but then again I cant find much fault in honoring those fallen in battle.

And you gotta admit, it takes a brass pair to climb into a plane knowing your on a one way trip.....

Quoted: For right or wrong, they honor those who have fallen in battle. I may not agree with the politics and actions of the time, but then again I cant find much fault in honoring those fallen in battle. And you gotta admit, it takes a brass pair to climb into a plane knowing your on a one way trip.....

right... just like it does to climb into a car full of high explosives.  

Quoted: Quoted: For right or wrong, they honor those who have fallen in battle. I may not agree with the politics and actions of the time, but then again I cant find much fault in honoring those fallen in battle. And you gotta admit, it takes a brass pair to climb into a plane knowing your on a one way trip..... right... just like it does to climb into a car full of high explosives.

Hmmm. Bit of a difference there. But whatever floats your boat.

Japan is the biggest buyer of Philippine exports, and the two states are negotiating a free-trade agreement.

Money and Trade. That's what it's all about!  

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: For right or wrong, they honor those who have fallen in battle. I may not agree with the politics and actions of the time, but then again I cant find much fault in honoring those fallen in battle. And you gotta admit, it takes a brass pair to climb into a plane knowing your on a one way trip..... right... just like it does to climb into a car full of high explosives.   Hmmm. Bit of a difference there. But whatever floats your boat.

Both were done for god.   One Allah, the other the Emperor.   I see no difference.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: For right or wrong, they honor those who have fallen in battle. I may not agree with the politics and actions of the time, but then again I cant find much fault in honoring those fallen in battle. And you gotta admit, it takes a brass pair to climb into a plane knowing your on a one way trip..... right... just like it does to climb into a car full of high explosives.   Hmmm. Bit of a difference there. But whatever floats your boat. Both were done for god.   One Allah, the other the Emperor.   I see no difference.

The difference is using it as a military tool versus using it as a tool of terrorism.

Quoted: The difference is using it as a military tool versus using it as a tool of terrorism.

Terrorism is just warfare against the civilian populace.  US hands aren't clean in this regard either.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: For right or wrong, they honor those who have fallen in battle. I may not agree with the politics and actions of the time, but then again I cant find much fault in honoring those fallen in battle. And you gotta admit, it takes a brass pair to climb into a plane knowing your on a one way trip..... right... just like it does to climb into a car full of high explosives.   Hmmm. Bit of a difference there. But whatever floats your boat. Both were done for god.   One Allah, the other the Emperor.   I see no difference. The difference is using it as a military tool versus using it as a tool of terrorism.

Agreed - used purely as a military tactic, against military assets, I see nothing wrong with it.  Lot of people cheered in "Independence Day" when that president with the good hair flew his jet into the alien spaceship - that was clearly a kamikaze attack.

Would a cruise missile somehow be a weapon of "terror" if there was a midget piloting it?

ive been to Japan about 8 times.

From my experiance over 95% of the people over 30 years of age hold a serious grudge against Americans. Lots of hate still exists. They will bump you with their shoulder on the train hard....in Japanese culture that is a serious offense. It would be about the same as someone slashing your tires in our culture. There are also several "No Americans Allowed" or "Japanese Only" clubs/bars/restraunts. They account for about 40% of the food/bar trade.

The upside is that the younger generation ages 14-28 years old REALLY embrace American culture. They are in a social rebellion kindof of like our '70's period. They are alomost MORE American looking/behaving than Americans. Weird.

Quoted: Quoted: Fiberglass burns really nicely. +1.  Screw those assholes.

+2 need a match??

Quoted: ive been to Japan about 8 times. From my experiance over 95% of the people over 30 years of age hold a serious grudge against Americans. Lots of hate still exists. They will bump you with their shoulder on the train hard....in Japanese culture that is a serious offense. It would be about the same as someone slashing your tires in our culture. There are also several "No Americans Allowed" or "Japanese Only" clubs/bars/restraunts. They account for about 40% of the food/bar trade. The upside is that the younger generation ages 14-28 years old REALLY embrace American culture. They are in a social rebellion kindof of like our '70's period. They are alomost MORE American looking/behaving than Americans. Weird.

but but....they're our friends!  They're out allies!!  Fuck em.

Quoted: Quoted: The difference is using it as a military tool versus using it as a tool of terrorism. Terrorism is just warfare against the civilian populace.  US hands aren't clean in this regard either.

If it's against the civilian populace, it's not "warfare", at least not anymore.

The tolerance of collateral damage and casualties is very small today (at least for the U.S.) compared to WW2.  But that's another story.

In any case, "kamikaze" or car bomb attacks are by their nature VERY targeted. So it depends on who they're targeting.

Quoted: Agreed - used purely as a military tactic, against military assets, I see nothing wrong with it.  Lot of people cheered in "Independence Day" when that president with the good hair flew his jet into the alien spaceship - that was clearly a kamikaze attack. Would a cruise missile somehow be a weapon of "terror" if there was a midget piloting it?

I thought that was the crazy drunken crop-duster pilot.

Quoted: I thought that was the crazy drunken crop-duster pilot.

Yup. "Hello boys, I'm Baaaack!"

People who drive Toyotas opposed to a monument for fallen soldiers 60 years after a battle.









And here I thought the left had all the loonies.

Quoted: Quoted: Agreed - used purely as a military tactic, against military assets, I see nothing wrong with it.  Lot of people cheered in "Independence Day" when that president with the good hair flew his jet into the alien spaceship - that was clearly a kamikaze attack. Would a cruise missile somehow be a weapon of "terror" if there was a midget piloting it? I thought that was the crazy drunken crop-duster pilot.

Dang - I need to spend more time in the Movie Forum !!  

i too respect thier will to take on the world, but they are still an arogant group

hell, they dont even appologize for the attrocities they commited in china, PI, and on the US

but yea, in today's world, time and money+human forgetfullness changes stuff

Here is one Philippino that gets it.
From May 13th
http://www.malaya.com.ph/may13/edkarga.htm
 
‘As a memorial, the kamikaze statue tends to glorify servility and militarism.’  

Sieg Heil to human bombs?
LIKE some heavy-duty monsters from a horror flick, the issue of the kamikaze monument refuses to die.

Our friend Obet wrote: "I just have one question about this kamikaze issue, Bernard. Among the Japanese armed forces, the kamikaze probably caused harm mostly to American soldiers, and not much among Filipino soldiers or civilians. The Japanese foot soldier, on the other hand, probably caused more direct suffering, particularly among Filipino civilians.

"One more thing. I just want to clear my own mind about this matter; you might be able to give me the arguments to convince myself. Especially where civilians are not involved, one can’t help but have grudging respect for those who willingly sacrifice themselves in battle to protect their comrades, whichever side one is on. The kamikaze in this respect seems to be a different league from the 9/11 bombers who specifically targeted civilians. Just some niggling thoughts..."

Our reply:

1. Before October 1944 all Japanese war pilots were regular airmen who regularly bombed and regularly strafed Allied vessels and troops as well as Filipino grunt and guerrilla concentrations.

2. Before and after October 1944 all Japanese war personnel served as instruments of the zaibatsu, the zaikai, the gunbatsu, the kokutai, and the tenno.

3. After October 1944 all Japanese war pilots joined their comrades on the ground and at sea as throwaway troopers.

4. It is wrong to assume that Japanese war pilots did not attack civilians. They did: in China, Pearl Harbor, and the Philippines.

5. Like the 9/11 terrorists, the wartime Japanese acted for a politico-religious cause; extremist Islam for the Al-Qaida and Shinto for the "gunjin."

6. The kamikazes were not protecting their comrades in battle. They were sent as individual pilots to specifically target Allied sea vessels, both civilian and military.

7. So what if the kamikazes targeted only Yankee troopers? The Japanese pilots indulged in warfighting for the evil cause of fascism. And the Americans were our allies.

Here’s one citation for you, buddy.

"The various shrines for Japanese soldiers in the Philippines are likewise meant to glorify their service to (their) country and to convey to the Japanese people the impression that Filipinos remember these soldiers simply as honorable adversaries. When our leaders, now eagerly pursuing Japanese investments, allow the building of such shrines and welcome former Japanese military men to revisit old battle sites, they are in fact helping advocates of rearmament in Japan to convince the Japanese people that their militarists had not been guilty of aggression and atrocities in occupied territories." [Letizia R. Constantino. "Implications of a Remilitarized Japan." SM38. Issues Without Tears. Vol. III. QC: Karrel, Inc., 1984]

And here we have the FNS Bulletin Board for March-April 2005.

The Kamikaze Peace Memorial Shrine in Mabalacat, Pampanga should be removed from public display.

The main structure is a statue of a kamikaze, the name for a "Japanese pilot trained in World War II to make a suicidal crash attack, especially upon a ship." [The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2004] This sculpture contradicts Philippine policies on cultural promotion and historical conservation which authorize only monuments that honor Filipino heroes and historical events and places involving historical acts and patriotic endeavors of Filipinos to evoke pride among our countrymen for national heritage and identity. [1975-76 Annual Report of the National Historical Institute]

If it is a shrine, then it must be "a site hallowed by a venerated object or its associations." [The Heritage Illustrated Dictionary of the English Language] What is there to venerate in the kamikazes and what associations with their memory can be worth emulating by Filipinos?

Is it their bravery and patriotism? The kamikazes were the product of military training, which inculcated unquestioning obedience to authority, to the extent that they committed suicide for their emperor whom they worshipped as a god of war. They accepted their role as the tools of a government engaged in a war of conquest to wrest control of territories colonized by Western powers like the United States. Certainly we want Filipinos to be patriotic but not mindlessly so. We want Filipinos devoted to the precepts of democracy and freedom for ourselves and everyone else, not tools of authoritarian leaders hungry for power.

As a memorial, the kamikaze statue tends to glorify servility and militarism. These are not the values a peace-loving, democratic people should imbibe.

What is more troubling is the fact that a Philippine local government office accepted the alien symbol. The Mabalacat Tourism Office is not bothered by foreign sponsorship of a militarist figure. Is this town in Pampanga a willing collaborator to the Japanese dictatorial version of history and heroism?

The kamikazes killed thousands of allied airmen and sailors just as the Kempeitai (Japanese military police) which tortured and murdered millions all over Asia including the Philippines. Why honor them?

Finally, from Solomon W. Spike, MD: "Regarding one of your readers’ comments about giving the Kamikaze a break, those Kamikaze who crashed themselves on US ships shared the same fanaticism and personal values as those who butchered pregnant Filipino women in Manila in February 1945, the only difference being in social stature. As for having grudging respect for soldiers who use suicide as a tactic, the mind is the best weapon, and I have no respect for anyone who would use suicide as a tactic just because they can’t think of anything better to do. Finally, it all boils down to this: the Nipponese were dumb enough to start that war in the first place. And no, the kamikaze, or any unit of the Japanese military, do not deserve to have a monument on Philippine soil."

I think the point is not that it's a kamikaze statue, but a kamikaze statue in a country occupied (and ravaged) by the Japanese. It would be like a Custer statue on an Indian reservation.

Above all else....they're honoring their fallen.

To disavow anyone giving up their lives, for their country.....I think that's dishonorable for any nation to do.

Remember how the NAACP protested anytime, ANYONE would honor Confederate Soldiers who died in battle.

They're just honoring their dead.......though others may disagree, but there is still a bit of honor in this world.

The politics of the war is another matter, but soldiers follow orders....doesn't matter who's war it is, who started it, or the reasons behind it.  From the dawn of time, soldiers obey orders.....and often pay with their lives, because of their own personal honor to their countrymen, and the orders they must follow.

IMHO

They should make a statue in honor of the guys whol flew the Enola gay and the other nuke bomber over Hirshima and Nagasaki.....

And place it right next to theres...

Next to the Chineese, the Japs are the MOST RACIST people on the planet.

While I can detach and admire the individual pilots for their loyalty and sense of honor, given how they were actually used and Japans general treatment of other nations during the war, I think a statue commemorating them in any way is a really bad idea.

I would think Japan should be too ashamed of their Imperal past to do this. I also can't believe the Filipino's would allow such a thing. An act of forgiveness would be to forgive, not glorify the event.

Quoted: Quoted: The difference is using it as a military tool versus using it as a tool of terrorism. Terrorism is just warfare against the civilian populace.  US hands aren't clean in this regard either.

Bullshit. The US is NOT specifically targetting INNOCENT civilians. We are fighting an insurgency (ie. NOT INNOCENT CIVILIANS).

When US forces BEGIN to deliberately target INNOCENT civilians (and THAT is what terrorism is) then get back to me.

Quoted: Next to the Chineese, the Japs are the MOST RACIST people on the planet.

HA!  HA HA!  I've enjoyed going to China town in Chicago, good food and the people are friendly.

Quoted: Next to the Chineese, the Japs are the MOST RACIST people on the planet.

There is some serious irony in this post.

Not that I disagree with you really, but....

Quoted: Above all else....they're honoring their fallen. To disavow anyone giving up their lives, for their country.....I think that's dishonorable for any nation to do. Remember how the NAACP protested anytime, ANYONE would honor Confederate Soldiers who died in battle. They're just honoring their dead.......though others may disagree, but there is still a bit of honor in this world.

The Japanese can honor their dead in Japan or in cemeteries across Asia as we do. That is, if the host countries agree (some will not).

But for Filipinos to do this, it's disgraceful.

Walang hiya.

Quoted: I think the point is not that it's a kamikaze statue, but a kamikaze statue in a country occupied (and ravaged) by the Japanese. It would be like a Custer statue on an Indian reservation.

OK, think back before Spain came over to AMERICA we killed all the Native Americans now we have SHIT all over there land.

Quoted: Agreed - used purely as a military tactic, against military assets, I see nothing wrong with it.  Lot of people cheered in "Independence Day" when that president with the good hair flew his jet into the alien spaceship - that was clearly a kamikaze attack. Would a cruise missile somehow be a weapon of "terror" if there was a midget piloting it?

didn't the Japanese use something like these too?  I mean, not piltoed by midgets.. but didn't they try something along those lines?  Weren't they called Cherry Tree Flowers or some stupid bullshit?  It was basically a bomb piloted by a guy dumb enough to pilot it.   I'm not trying ot pick a fight here, just thought it was funny you mentioned that.  They actually did that...  I don't think it worked out though... one of those last-minute efforts if I recall.

I was just questioning the intelligence of a society that would tell its' citizens to load themselves down with a bomb and simply run at the bad guy...  (1940's Japan - modern-day middle east)

I don't think that most people back then were scared by the fact that the Japs would drive their plane into the ship... most Americans would do the same if it came down to it and they felt it was needed.  The part that really bends my head in half is that these guys set out to do that shit.  they bought their own story man, and were completely prepared to kill themselves for it.  Just like these wackos over here.

By the way, even the japanese targeted civilian vessels... and hospital ships.  All in the name of furthering their cause, because even the bad guys think that they're right and are gonna win.

Quoted: didn't the Japanese use something like these too?  I mean, not piltoed by midgets.. but didn't they try something along those lines?  Weren't they called Cherry Tree Flowers or some stupid bullshit?  It was basically a bomb piloted by a guy dumb enough to pilot it.   I'm not trying ot pick a fight here, just thought it was funny you mentioned that.  They actually did that...  I don't think it worked out though... one of those last-minute efforts if I recall.

Japanese "Ohka" flying bomb. Meaning "cherry blossom" they were a piloted flying bomb, our guys called them "Baka" meaning "idiot."

To those who say the japanese soldiers were not terorists cause they attacked military targets. Lets not forget the civilians of Nanking China or Singapore and many other places were NOT a military targets.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: The difference is using it as a military tool versus using it as a tool of terrorism. Terrorism is just warfare against the civilian populace.  US hands aren't clean in this regard either. Bullshit. The US is NOT specifically targetting INNOCENT civilians. We are fighting an insurgency (ie. NOT INNOCENT CIVILIANS). When US forces BEGIN to deliberately target INNOCENT civilians (and THAT is what terrorism is) then get back to me.

We don't specifically target civilians but from my experiences in the first Gulf War and from hearing from friends in the current conflict, we are more willing to see 100 civilian dead than 1 American soldier killed.

Our use of guided munitions reduces the collateral damage a lot, but it still happens.  

To say we don't make war on civilians is foolish.  We have killed more civilians in Iraq than actual combatants.  

It sucks, but I happen to agree with our policy and would rather see 100 dead Iraqi civilians if it saves American lives.  We can't handle mass casualties as a country, so I think its the only way to go.

Quoted: Quoted: I think the point is not that it's a kamikaze statue, but a kamikaze statue in a country occupied (and ravaged) by the Japanese. It would be like a Custer statue on an Indian reservation. OK, think back before Spain came over to AMERICA we killed all the Native Americans now we have SHIT all over there land.

Yea, but we won

Quoted: Quoted: Above all else....they're honoring their fallen. To disavow anyone giving up their lives, for their country.....I think that's dishonorable for any nation to do. Remember how the NAACP protested anytime, ANYONE would honor Confederate Soldiers who died in battle. They're just honoring their dead.......though others may disagree, but there is still a bit of honor in this world. The Japanese can honor their dead in Japan or in cemeteries across Asia as we do. That is, if the host countries agree (some will not). But for Filipinos to do this, it's disgraceful. Walang hiya.

There's a plaque on the USS Missouri where she was hit by a kamikaze pilot (she was hit twice, the other hit causing more damage).  The pilot (what was recovered of him anyways) was given a military burial at sea with honor guard.  More info

Quoted: We don't specifically target civilians but from my experiences in the first Gulf War and from hearing from friends in the current conflict, we are more willing to see 100 civilian dead than 1 American soldier killed. Our use of guided munitions reduces the collateral damage a lot, but it still happens.   To say we don't make war on civilians is foolish.  We have killed more civilians in Iraq than actual combatants.   It sucks, but I happen to agree with our policy and would rather see 100 dead Iraqi civilians if it saves American lives.  We can't handle mass casualties as a country, so I think its the only way to go.

Uhhhh no. During Fallujah the ROE dictacted soldiers draw fire to identify enemy combatants. This means some poor bastard had to basically walk in the open and get shot at to identify the good guys from the bad guys.

If your suggestion that we'd rather lose 100 civies than 2 civilian was true we wouldn't have done it that way and we'd have just levelled Falllujah. Obviously that is not what happened and that is NOT what is happening now.

Also there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between "collateral damage" which does suck and US soldiers put themselves in harms way to reduce those numbers and "terrorism" which is the DELIBERATE targetting of INNOCENT CIVILIAN. So when US soldiers grab random Iraqis off the street and decapitate them on video then broadcast it to "terrorize" the population THEN you will be correct.

But that simply isn't happening.

Also your "civilians" are "insurgents." We haven't killed "enemy combatants" since the war officially ended.

Personally I'd prefer far less discretion. I think cities with insurgencies should simply be levelled.

Quoted: ive been to Japan about 8 times. From my experiance over 95% of the people over 30 years of age hold a serious grudge against Americans. Lots of hate still exists. They will bump you with their shoulder on the train hard....in Japanese culture that is a serious offense. It would be about the same as someone slashing your tires in our culture. There are also several "No Americans Allowed" or "Japanese Only" clubs/bars/restraunts. They account for about 40% of the food/bar trade.

I lived there for 2 years from 1983 to 1985. That would put these folks in my age group. I never experienced any hostility such as you describe on any measurable scale. And I was a brash, rude and arrogant 19-21 year old Marine. I traveled over a pretty large area of the country and was always warmly welcomed where ever I went. I dated a girl for about 18 months. So I often mixed with regular Japanese people. Most of whom had never met an American before they met me. The war or it's aftermath was never discussed. My girl friend lived in Hiroshima. If anyone had a right to be hostile, it was these people. I never saw even a hint of war related hostility that I can recall. I can say that some people (very few) didn't seem to like seeing a Japanese girl with an American man but that reflected the insecurities of Japanese men and the racisim of their culture rather than bitter feelings about the war.

Our experiences were quite different for some reason.

Back on topic;

I think it's absurd for the Filipinos to memorialize the Japanese military in any way and I don't believe it. They may have a display about the Kamikaze at the museum, but I strongly doubt that it is a memorial of any type.

Quoted: Terrorism is just warfare against the civilian populace.  US hands aren't clean in this regard either.

I would disagree that terrorism is warfare against the civilian populace.  Terrorist seek to engage civilian targets primarily and avoid military targets.  Non-combatants have always died in war and always will.  I wonder if the efforts to spare "civilian" deaths actually drags a war out and in the end, kills more.   Declare a combat area and kill everyone in it.  Repeat as needed.  If the tangos go into Iran, Syria or wherever, wage war as needed.  There can be NO sanctuary.  

Quoted: Above all else....they're honoring their fallen. To disavow anyone giving up their lives, for their country.....I think that's dishonorable for any nation to do. Remember how the NAACP protested anytime, ANYONE would honor Confederate Soldiers who died in battle. They're just honoring their dead.......though others may disagree, but there is still a bit of honor in this world. The politics of the war is another matter, but soldiers follow orders....doesn't matter who's war it is, who started it, or the reasons behind it.  From the dawn of time, soldiers obey orders.....and often pay with their lives, because of their own personal honor to their countrymen, and the orders they must follow. IMHO

So you would have no problem with statues of Satam M. Al Suqami, Abdulaziz Alomari, Waleed M. Alshehri, Wail M. Alshehri, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi, Ahmed Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri, Hamza Alghamdi, Fayez Rashid Ahmed Hassan Al Qadi Banihammad, Khalid Almihdhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaf Alhazmi, Salem Alhazmi, Hani Hanjour, Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmad Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi, Ahmed Alnami, and Ziad Samir Jarrah being erected in NY, DC & PA? After all, they were just "soldiers following orders" and  "They're (al-Qaeda) just honoring their dead......."

as for honor & courage:

To ensure that pilots could not balk from suicide missions, some were bolted into their cockpits. Many were never taught how to land. Purpose-built kamikaze planes, as opposed to converted fighters and dive-bombers, had no landing gear at all. A specially-designed propellor plane, the Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi, was a simple, easy-to-build plane, intended to use up existing stocks of engines, in a wooden airframe. The undercarriage was non-retractable, was jettisoned shortly after take-off for a suicide mission, and then re-used on other planes.

"Never taught how to land"... sounds like 19 guys from Saudi Arabia...

http://www.answers.com/topic/kamikaze


(the civilian vs. military target argument applies only if the cultures agree on what is "fair" in war (as if anything is), radical Islamicists have declared war against all of western society, not just it's military - doubtless the (surviving) citizens of Nanking would see parallels...