Ernest Schaal wrote:

> in article 4173C109.341688@yahoo.co.jp, Eric Takabayashi at
> etakajp@yahoo.co.jp wrote on 10/18/04 10:11 PM:
>
> > Ernest Schaal wrote:
> >
> >>>> I wasn't going to ask that question, since I knew he was an American, an
> >>>> American who hates America and particularly hates white Americans.
> >>>
> >>> Funny. Eric has never given me that impression, and I have been reading
> >>> his posts for a long time.
> >>
> >> I didn't think so either at first, but many of his recent messages seem to
> >> focus his rage at White Americans in general. I don't know, maybe something
> >> has happened recently to cause that bent in his thinking.
> >
> > It is your double standard of judging history. That simple.
>
> No, it is a standard that realizes that magnitude is a factor in determining
> degree of culpability, and that there are often aggravating and mitigating
> circumstances. A mass murderer is usually more culpable than someone who
> kills only once. A serial murder is usually more culpable than someone
> killing a robber invading his house.

Oh, Americans only killed one innocent, or innocents once.

Thank you clearing that up. Those damned emotional, political Iraqis.

> You, on the other hand, seem to be arguing that it is unfair to complain
> about the use of massive rape and murder of innocent civilians as a military
> tactic by the Japanese military because American troops have violated
> military law to rape and murder.

No, I am not excusing Japanese. Never have. I have years of anti-Japanese posts
you seem to have forgotten.

> You ignore the difference between using
> rape and murder as a military tactic and simple inability to control troops,
> and you ignore the relative magnitude of the crimes.

So what is your excuse for conduct as seen in Vietnam or what being found out now
in Iraq?

Why should I ever excuse what my own country or what other countries have done,
simply because it is not as bad as what Japanese or Germans did in WWII?

Should Japanese be taught what their forefathers and country did in the previous
century and feel sorry about it?

Sure. And so should people in other countries for dark periods in their own
history.

--
 "I'm on top of the world right now, because everyone's going to know that I can
shove more than three burgers in my mouth!"