Japanese are cold to freed hostages

[Must_B_Free]

A few days after their release, they landed here on Sunday, in the eye of a peculiarly Japanese storm. "You got what you deserve!" one Japanese had written on a sign at the airport where they landed.
.
"You are Japan's shame," another wrote on the Web site of one of the hostages. They had "caused trouble" for everybody.

more
http://www.iht.com/articles/516600.html

[democracyindanger]

1. To be fair

the headline writer should have written "Some Japanese..."

Koizumi is just trying to deflect attention from public introspection about the SDF deployment in Iraq. Remember--Japan has wingnuts, just like we do.

[LeftCoast]

2. That's pretty f*cked up!

I'm not in favor of the war, but to treat former hostages like that...sheesh!

[BadGimp]

7. but that's so like some of the JApanese people to react

remember

when our GI's came back - some in this country spit on them

Now THAT'S FUCT UP

[Must_B_Free]

8. According to Peter Werbe, it never actually happened

and he researched extensively to find any record of any troops being spit on.

He did a whole segment on it. I think it was implied that this image was made up to symbolize how bad the troops were treated.

I think it didn't even come into the zeitgeist until many years later.

[MinnFats]

10. Exactly! I know a lot of guys who served...

...they came back at different times and different places, but none ever had anything like that happen.
...Not saying it NEVER happened, but the right-wing, starting with Nixon, pushed that story over and over again.
...Incidentally, I looked up to a lot of those guys -- they started school on the G.I. bill at the same time I started ... having WON the draft lottery....and the guy THEY looked up to was...
....
John Kerry!

[TahitiNut]

19. It happened. Deal with it. It happened to me.

The 'myth' seems to be that it didn't. I get pissed every time some DUer brings this up again. :grr:

[keithyboy]

21. Just more Bush regime supporters' propaganda

We know who the 'evil' empire really is.

[LeftCoast]

9. I hope and trust that nobody will spit on our returning troops this time!

They're doing their duty. It's their civilian leader I'd like to spit on.

[not systems]

11. Not true.

This story is right up with satanic cult abuse as false memory.

See:

"The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam"

http://www.rlg.org/annmtg/lembcke99.html

...

These stories have to be taken very seriously, but as historical evidence they are problematic. In the first place, stories of this type didn't surface until about ten years after the end of the war. If the incidents occurred when the story tellers say they did, in the closing years of the war, why is there no evidence for that? Moreover, many of the stories have elements of such exaggeration that one has to question the veracity of the entire account. One that Greene published read,

My flight came in at San Francisco airport and I was spat upon three times: by hippies, by a man in a leisure suit, and by a sweet little old lady who informed me I was an "Army Asshole."

Besides the fact that no returning soldiers landed at San Francisco Airport, I find it hard to believe that the same veteran was spat on three times in one pass through the airport.

...

The alibi also helps rewrite history in ways that displace from memory the uncomfortable image of war-veterans-turned-war-protesters. The image of the spat-upon veteran is the image of a victim-veteran, an image that is wholly incompatible with the image of angry veterans empowered and politicized by their wartime experience. Today, it is the image of the victim-veteran, spat on and deranged by his war and coming-home experience, that persists in the American memory. The historical fact that thousands of Vietnam veterans joined with other opponents of the war to help end the carnage in Southeast Asia is lost in the mythology of wartime betrayal. The mythology of betrayal, in turn, is deeply rooted in the social psychology of Western masculinity, a point to which I shall return.

...

[TahitiNut]

20. It happened to me. Deal with it.

:grr: November 1969. Arrived at Travis. Processed through OAB. Flew 'home' from SFO.

[truthspeaker]

23. I'm sorry to hear that. It's outrageous that someone would do that.

[Alpharetta]

13. Anne Coulter spat on a veteran

Said Cleland was lucky to have dropped a grenade and lost 3 limbs in Vietnam as opposed to in the U.S.

first: Cleland did not drop the grenade. Another soldier came forward a few years ago and set the record straight. She spits on a veteran by lying about his Vietnam experience.

second: "lucky" was a poor choice of words. disrespectful.

[saigon68]

17. Anne Coulter is a flea Bag

Scum, she is a creation of the right wing to show a woman can swear just as good as a man. I wonder what the Fundies think about her. They with their Stepford wives. She doesn't fit that description that's for sure.

[boobooday]

22. Ann

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[xchrom]

16. you read too much sci-fi

[VolcanoJen]

14. I'm totally with LeftCoast. That is just plain F'd up.

Sorry.

[Piperay]

3. They have already suffered

to treat them badly is so wrong. :-(

[psychopomp]

4. Their families also received threats

Phone calls in the middle of the night, etc.

Two of the three families (or, perhaps all three) are from Hokkaido, IIRC. Hokkaido has a disproportionately large number of people in the Self Defense Forces so locals did not look to kindly on the families' requests for the government to quit Iraq.

[Philestine]

5. How peculiar

What a weird national reaction. OK if they farted at your mother's tea party, I can understand, but they almost had their throats slit by militant insurgents. Fancy letting the side down like that! Imagine if they had actually died. Does that still classify as pesky attention seeking?

[jdunn]

6. Conjecture, but...

if it is Japanese conservatives doing this, it makes perfect sense. Their shameful displays of terror when they thought they were about to die was an embarrassment to the image of the kind of stoic warrior Japan that cons would like to see rise again.
I stress that this is conjecture. Any Japanese DUers care to explain?

[Saeba]

12. Maybe I could�E size=

First the hostages were NGO workers or journalists, and had nothing to do with the military.
Mainichi Shinbun

The second point is that USA hasn’t the monopoly of right wing nuts, we have also here, and sadly they are also at the head of the state. At least ours are less dangerous, until now. By the way, the US government would be well advised to wondering what is the agenda of our government, but it’s another matter.

Anyway, as it was said, it’s only some Japanese who react like this, not the Japan as a country. Others are chocked by this reaction.
Asahi Shinbun

A last point, this kind of reaction is not reserved to Japanese:
Link to a weird story

[Art_from_Ark]

15. This does sound like something the "uyoku" would do,

"u-yoku" being the generic term for the very vociferous minority of Japanese freepers who often drive around town in black trucks playing war songs. Most people think they're crazy.

As psychopomp pointed out, two of the freed hostages are from Hokkaido, which, incidentally, is where most of the Japanese contigent in Iraq came from. However, I don't think the threats came from the families of military personnel in Iraq-- seems to me, given the way the Japanese dote on their children, that they would welcome attempts to get their people out of that hellhole.

[Andrushka]

18. A minority

But unfortunately they shout the loudest and have the ear of the LDP. ('u-yoku' means, by the way folks, 'right wing', but think of them more as ultra-nationalists. They are usually into the northern territories (the islands to the north of Japan that Russia rightly or wrongly holds) and trying to 'motivate' national pride by driving in huge trucks with f-off speakers on top blasting out old wartime marching-type songs. Lovely people (/sarcasm), and very common here)

As for the "homecoming" for these three ex-hostages, it is to be expected. Bullying is a national pastime in Japan (right Art?). The government has fed this "they are irresponsible and should atone for their wrongs" to the media who has in turn hounded the families and now the three involved, and of course the brain-dead populace (and there are more than a few) who watch shows that call themselves "news" but are really tabloid entertainment segments (sounds a little like FAUX? Nah, not that bad) lap it all up and nod in unison; "Yes, naughty three, bad bad!".

The government is now sending them the bill for their return and other related sundries, the ultimate kick in the guts in this week of bullying. It's a disgrace.

[Moderator]

24. Reported earlier, please update this story here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=504430