[masraum]

Originally Posted by Tervuren

Have also met similar.

Have also met some that forgave.

I believe the answer is multi-fold.

First, the Japanese changed aspects of their culture.

They went from honor/dishonor and gradually implemented our idea of right/wrong.

It is difficult for us to grasp as a society that does has a sense of right and wrong ingrained an entire country that does not.

So one part is a change of culture.

Another part is family, the Japanese had very strong family ties in their culture.

Something the descendants of slaves where families are easily broken up by being bought and sold do not.

Then there is the aspect referred to already, something I consider less important. There are people motivated to keep this contentious, motivated to prevent healing. But leaders need willing followers, and not all the blame can be put out into this category. We are however putting out policies that will help perpetuate the situation.

Not that I'm justifying anything, but the Japanese were also fairly brutal to their own in the military. Lower ranks were often treated very harshly by upper ranks, so the poor treatment of "inferiors" by "superiors" was an ingrained part of the culture. On top of that, there's the fact that Japanese culture thought that you should fight to the death rather than surrender, and that if you did surrender, it was dishonorable. Lots about their culture made things that they did "ok" in their book.

Yes, Unit 731 did horrible things. And the Allies performed minimal prosecution of the folks from Unit 731 in exchange for the results of their "research". There were some folks prosecuted, and then most of their sentences were reduced or commuted.