Does Japan Have Nuclear Weapons?

[Unkotare]

After all, their thousand year-old Bushido culture isn't exactly pacifist. They've just been pretend pacifists since 1945. ..

This is sort of like someone who really knows nothing about American culture and history predicting what America will do in current times based on some bad movies they saw about the Confederacy - only this is even more ridiculous.

You probably don't even know who Yukio Mishima was, or what his significance was....

Oh gosh, no. Nobody ever heard of him but you. Where did you come across such arcane knowledge? What a clown.

 

[HenryBHough]

Japan has been relying on America to defend them. America had been willing to do that to prevent a rise in Japanese militarism.

Foolish Japanese.

The American willingness to do other than whine, grovel, beg and apologize is history.

 

[Unkotare]

We should bomb them all over again just on general principal [sic]....

Turns out you are even more of a morally bankrupt idiot than you first let on.

 

[Tom Sweetnam]

never admitting the fact, especially to several generations of children born since the war. ...

Wrong, you ignorant turd.

Oh Christ, another Old Rocks. Eloquent riposte. I'm just not into a name-calling match tonight with some illiterate drunk. You're on ignore.

 

[Unkotare]

never admitting the fact, especially to several generations of children born since the war. ...

Wrong, you ignorant turd.

Oh Christ, another Old Rocks. Eloquent riposte. I'm just not into a name-calling match tonight with some illiterate drunk. You're on ignore.

Well, that's easier than admitting you were wrong and/or bothering to educate yourself, isn't it?

 

[Henrik]

I think every country should consider to wind up Nuclear Weapons together becouse they are dangerous and don't led to any progress or peace.

 

[Politico]

Well, for crying out loud, of course Japan has Nukes. Godzilla might attack at any moment.

RMFAOL!!!!

 

[Unkotare]

List of war apology statements issued by Japan - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[whitehall]

Japan has enough problems with nuclear power plants. Last I saw Japan was a solid ally of the US unlike Pakistan which has nuclear capability and (thanks to Bill Clinton) apparently North Korea has nuclear capability as well as missiles. So what's the problem? Is racism rearing it's ugly head again?

 

[Unkotare]

never admitting the fact, especially to several generations of children born since the war. ...

List of war apology statements issued by Japan - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Should have posted these two together.

 

[Tom Sweetnam]

Japan has enough problems with nuclear power plants. Last I saw Japan was a solid ally of the US unlike Pakistan which has nuclear capability (thanks to Bill Clinton)

I thought it was Canada that gave Pakistan its first fast breeder reactor. I could be wrong. I know Pakistan has three going now, and lots of ICBM's, which they've threatened to use against Israel...and India of course.

 

[Tom Sweetnam]

never admitting the fact, especially to several generations of children born since the war. ...

List of war apology statements issued by Japan - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Should have posted these two together.

I should have posted Iris Chang's 'The Rape of Nanking'. It was a NY Times #1 nonfiction best seller. She committed suicide, you know. She was writing another book about American POW's in Japanese POW camps. She'd been driving around the US interviewing former POW's who were held in those camps. Her friends and husband said she'd begun to fall into a deep depression over this work. They found her car along a farm road 40 miles west of San Francisco. She'd shot herself in the head.

 

[Unkotare]

never admitting the fact, especially to several generations of children born since the war. ...

List of war apology statements issued by Japan - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Should have posted these two together.

I should have posted Iris Chang's 'The Rape of Nanking'. ...

Why?

 

[Tom Sweetnam]

never admitting the fact, especially to several generations of children born since the war. ...

List of war apology statements issued by Japan - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Should have posted these two together.

I should have posted Iris Chang's 'The Rape of Nanking'. ...

Why?

It's such a warm and glowing testament to Japanese culture.

 

[ThirdTerm]

THE HAGUE — Japan announced on Monday that it would turn over to Washington a large cache of weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium, a decades-old research stockpile that is large enough to build dozens of nuclear weapons, according to American and Japanese officials.

In a joint statement by the United States and Japan, the two countries said that Japan had agreed to “remove and dispose” of hundreds of kilograms of nuclear material from the Fast Critical Assembly at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.

The statement said the elimination of the uranium and plutonium would “help prevent unauthorized actors, criminals, or terrorists from acquiring such materials. This material, once securely transported to the United States, will be sent to a secure facility and fully converted into less sensitive forms.”

The statement did not specify the amount of the material to be eliminated. American and Japanese officials said it would include 700 pounds, or 320 kilograms, of weapons-grade plutonium. The amount of highly enriched uranium has not been announced but is estimated at 450 pounds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/w...tes-assume-control-of-nuclear-cache.html?_r=0

I should have posted Iris Chang's 'The Rape of Nanking'. It was a NY Times #1 nonfiction best seller. She committed suicide, you know. She was writing another book about American POW's in Japanese POW camps. She'd been driving around the US interviewing former POW's who were held in those camps. Her friends and husband said she'd begun to fall into a deep depression over this work. They found her car along a farm road 40 miles west of San Francisco. She'd shot herself in the head.

Iris Chang's book was not historically accurate and it was a collection of wartime horror stories still told in the Chinese community. The book became an instant bestseller in the US but academic historians pointed out serious flaws of the book, which was not based on proper historical research as expected from first-class authors. Her suicide may have something to do with harsh criticisms she received after the publication of 'The Rape of Nanking'. We know now that the 300,000 figure she cited from Chinese sources is too high and a number of Europeans set up the Nanking Safety Zone, by which up to 250,000 Chinese people were saved, while 50,000 to 60,000 civilians were killed, according to John Rabe who also appeared in Chiang's book.


Plot: A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.

Joshua A. Fogel, at York University,[38] argued that the book is "seriously flawed" and "full of misinformation and harebrained explanations."[3] He suggested that the book "starts to fall apart" when Chang tries to explain why the massacre took place, as she repeatedly comments on "the Japanese psyche", which she sees as "the historical product of centuries of conditioning that all boil down to mass murder" even though in the introduction, she wrote that she would offer no "commentary on the Japanese character or the genetic makeup of a people who could commit such acts". Fogel asserted that part of the problem was Chang's "lack of training as a historian" and another part was "the book's dual aim as passionate polemic and dispassionate history".[3] David M. Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize-winning professor of history at Stanford University, also pointed out that while Chang noted that "this book is not intended as a commentary on the Japanese character," she then wrote about the "'Japanese identity'—a bloody business, in her estimation, replete with martial competitions, samurai ethics, and the fearsome warriors' code of bushido", making the inference that "'the path to Nanking' runs through the very marrow of Japanese culture." Kennedy also suggested that "accusation and outrage, rather than analysis and understanding, are this book's dominant motifs, and although outrage is a morally necessary response to Nanjing, it is an intellectually insufficient one."[39] Roger B. Jeans, professor of history at Washington and Lee University, referred to Chang's book as "half-baked history", and criticized her lack of experience with the subject matter:

In writing about this horrific event, Chang strives to portray it as an unexamined Asian holocaust. Unfortunately, she undermines her argument—she is not a trained historian—by neglecting the wealth of sources in English and Japanese on this event. This leads her into errors such as greatly inflating the population of Nanjing (Nanking) at that time and uncritically accepting the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and contemporary Chinese figures for the numbers of Chinese civilians and soldiers killed. What particularly struck me about her argument was her attempt to charge all Japanese with refusing to accept the fact of the 'Rape of Nanking' and her condemnation of the 'persistent Japanese refusal to come to terms with its past.' [40]

The Rape of Nanking book - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[Unkotare]

It's such a warm and glowing testament to Japanese culture.

?????????????

 

[Tom Sweetnam]

THE HAGUE — Japan announced on Monday that it would turn over to Washington a large cache of weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium, a decades-old research stockpile that is large enough to build dozens of nuclear weapons, according to American and Japanese officials.

In a joint statement by the United States and Japan, the two countries said that Japan had agreed to “remove and dispose” of hundreds of kilograms of nuclear material from the Fast Critical Assembly at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.

The statement said the elimination of the uranium and plutonium would “help prevent unauthorized actors, criminals, or terrorists from acquiring such materials. This material, once securely transported to the United States, will be sent to a secure facility and fully converted into less sensitive forms.”

The statement did not specify the amount of the material to be eliminated. American and Japanese officials said it would include 700 pounds, or 320 kilograms, of weapons-grade plutonium. The amount of highly enriched uranium has not been announced but is estimated at 450 pounds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/w...tes-assume-control-of-nuclear-cache.html?_r=0

I should have posted Iris Chang's 'The Rape of Nanking'. It was a NY Times #1 nonfiction best seller. She committed suicide, you know. She was writing another book about American POW's in Japanese POW camps. She'd been driving around the US interviewing former POW's who were held in those camps. Her friends and husband said she'd begun to fall into a deep depression over this work. They found her car along a farm road 40 miles west of San Francisco. She'd shot herself in the head.

Iris Chang's book was not historically accurate and it was a collection of wartime horror stories still told in the Chinese community. The book became an instant bestseller in the US but academic historians pointed out serious flaws of the book, which was not based on proper historical research as expected from first-class authors. Her suicide may have something to do with harsh criticisms she received after the publication of 'The Rape of Nanking'. We know now that the 300,000 figure she cited from Chinese sources is too high and a number of Europeans set up the Nanking Safety Zone, by which up to 250,000 Chinese people were saved, while 50,000 to 60,000 civilians were killed, according to John Rabe who also appeared in Chiang's book.


Plot: A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.

Joshua A. Fogel, at York University,[38] argued that the book is "seriously flawed" and "full of misinformation and harebrained explanations."[3] He suggested that the book "starts to fall apart" when Chang tries to explain why the massacre took place, as she repeatedly comments on "the Japanese psyche", which she sees as "the historical product of centuries of conditioning that all boil down to mass murder" even though in the introduction, she wrote that she would offer no "commentary on the Japanese character or the genetic makeup of a people who could commit such acts". Fogel asserted that part of the problem was Chang's "lack of training as a historian" and another part was "the book's dual aim as passionate polemic and dispassionate history".[3] David M. Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize-winning professor of history at Stanford University, also pointed out that while Chang noted that "this book is not intended as a commentary on the Japanese character," she then wrote about the "'Japanese identity'—a bloody business, in her estimation, replete with martial competitions, samurai ethics, and the fearsome warriors' code of bushido", making the inference that "'the path to Nanking' runs through the very marrow of Japanese culture." Kennedy also suggested that "accusation and outrage, rather than analysis and understanding, are this book's dominant motifs, and although outrage is a morally necessary response to Nanjing, it is an intellectually insufficient one."[39] Roger B. Jeans, professor of history at Washington and Lee University, referred to Chang's book as "half-baked history", and criticized her lack of experience with the subject matter:

In writing about this horrific event, Chang strives to portray it as an unexamined Asian holocaust. Unfortunately, she undermines her argument—she is not a trained historian—by neglecting the wealth of sources in English and Japanese on this event. This leads her into errors such as greatly inflating the population of Nanjing (Nanking) at that time and uncritically accepting the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and contemporary Chinese figures for the numbers of Chinese civilians and soldiers killed. What particularly struck me about her argument was her attempt to charge all Japanese with refusing to accept the fact of the 'Rape of Nanking' and her condemnation of the 'persistent Japanese refusal to come to terms with its past.' [40]

The Rape of Nanking book - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Oh. Well OK. I feel all dirty and stuff from being set straight on my Japanese/Chinese/Iris Chang history. I feel so ashamed and I'm pretty sure I need to go stand in the shower now, and scrub down, and have a good cry. Thanks especially for all the objective cut & paste.

You missed this one:

Steven Ambrose described her as "Maybe the best young historian we've got." That's good enough for me.
There are hundreds of other testaments of acclaim for Chang's book, and for her, by leading academics and journalists. But if I went through all of those cut & paste orchestrations, I'd look as ridiculous as you, wouldn't I?

 

[Unkotare]

Oh. Well OK. I feel all dirty and stuff from being set straight on my Japanese/Chinese/Iris Chang history. I feel so ashamed and I'm pretty sure I need to go stand in the shower now, and scrub down, and have a good cry.

Wow, someone's little ego sure is sensitive. Why are you so insecure, champ?

 

[whitehall]

WTF are we discussing the nuclear capability of Americas staunch ally while rogue states like North Korea and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and Iran is coming close thanks to Saddam's portable labs? What happened to the USSR's immense nuclear arsenal when the Soviet Union broke up?

 

[SteadyMercury]

No. They don't. And their military is quite small and until a couple of months ago was geared only towards defense.

Japan's military isn't "quite small" they rank 7th in the world in military spending. They have aegis destroyers, brand new cutting edge helicopter carriers, almost 800 main battle tanks, hundreds of fighter aircraft including F-15Js, brand new subs etc.