Yasukuni is simply the most recent target in a long-standing racial standoff between Japan and what is effectively the rest of the Asian continent. To keep things simple, no one in Asia likes Japan, and when the Japanese PM makes it easy for the rest of the continent to despise him by going to the shrine every year, Yasukuni will just be one more step.
Funny how I read your entry, and all I can think of are the other ways in which the Asian continent so bitterly competes with itself. The Koreans consider robotics to be an issue of national pride against the Japanese, the Chinese flip out whenever a Japanese bank does pretty much anything, and I won't go into what Taiwan does to the mix. To keep it simple again, it's real nasty out there, and it's not gonna get any easier. Yasukuni is just the current bone of contention.
As for Pearl Harbor, provoked or not isn't even the issue. It's a military installation in the central Pacific, and to the Japanese, the Americans were the only major threat to their hegemony in Asia. So it goes, take out the American threat and secure your position. Personally, I'm glad the Japs chose to attack a military target. One of their original battleplans involved invading the US and Canada through Alaska as early as mid 1941, and I think doing that would have been simply devastating.
The Japs, to their credit, were honorable and attacked a military target...simply, the most powerful naval installation we had. And they did so pretty much head on. The only part of that attack that saddened me was the part where we knew they were coming (i.e.: common sense would dictate that it's pretty hard to miss the absurd armada befalling you) and we dismissed it as late as a few hours before the first divebombers attacked. The Japanese ambassador to Washington even had the collective cojones to declare war on us as it was just about to begin. Talk about ballsy.
Reading your entry makes me want to watch Midway again...one of my favorite movies of all time. You oughta take a looksie. -- Gerardo
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-09-05 04:12 am (UTC)Funny how I read your entry, and all I can think of are the other ways in which the Asian continent so bitterly competes with itself. The Koreans consider robotics to be an issue of national pride against the Japanese, the Chinese flip out whenever a Japanese bank does pretty much anything, and I won't go into what Taiwan does to the mix. To keep it simple again, it's real nasty out there, and it's not gonna get any easier. Yasukuni is just the current bone of contention.
As for Pearl Harbor, provoked or not isn't even the issue. It's a military installation in the central Pacific, and to the Japanese, the Americans were the only major threat to their hegemony in Asia. So it goes, take out the American threat and secure your position. Personally, I'm glad the Japs chose to attack a military target. One of their original battleplans involved invading the US and Canada through Alaska as early as mid 1941, and I think doing that would have been simply devastating.
The Japs, to their credit, were honorable and attacked a military target...simply, the most powerful naval installation we had. And they did so pretty much head on. The only part of that attack that saddened me was the part where we knew they were coming (i.e.: common sense would dictate that it's pretty hard to miss the absurd armada befalling you) and we dismissed it as late as a few hours before the first divebombers attacked. The Japanese ambassador to Washington even had the collective cojones to declare war on us as it was just about to begin. Talk about ballsy.
Reading your entry makes me want to watch Midway again...one of my favorite movies of all time. You oughta take a looksie.
-- Gerardo