Talk:Comfort women

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Archive 1: March 2004-March 2007 Archive 2: March 2007-April 2007 Archive 3: April 2007-July 2007

Contents 1 Sexual Slavery perpetrated by Japan during WWII 2 Reps. Honda and Lantos will be sued 3 Why Japanese government has double standards. 4 Japanese government is sued by many victims right now. Mr. Ikedanobuo 5 American Army ordered Japan to offer "comfort women" 5.1 Liar Sankei newspaper article falsely accused US Army through faulty translation 5.2 Sankei newspaper is a deliberate and clever liar 6 Mistaken view of history must be corrected 7 American, Korean, and German Army's "comfort women" 8 Unlock the article 9 Evidence documenting sex-slave coercion revealed 9.1 Another fake "evidence" 10 Remarks of Chairman Lantos on H. Res. 121, regarding Comfort Women, at committee markup 11 U.S. government doesn't endorse Honda resolution 12 How much longer will this page protection stay in place? 13 typo 13.1 Dead link 13.2 Improved references 14 Conclusions 14.1 Summing up 15 Source for decision to destroy evidence 16 Comfort women Advertisement 17 Suggestion for Move 18 Separation of conclusions 19 Warning: sock puppets 20 Intro wording 21 Recruitment vs. unorganized rape 22 Ban ikedanobuo 23 Show the evidence 23.1 Long time no see 23.2 I told you to show the evidence 23.3 I asked you to have a civil discussion 23.4 Modify, don't destroy 24 The true story 25 Don't delete authoritative secondary sources 26 Overview of the currently contested edits 26.1 Comments 27 A new source 28 Hermeneus' Sensible Comments 29 Deleting unverified info 30 wp:blp 31 Dutch parliament demands Japanese compensation for "comfort women" 32 Greedy comfort women 33 Counter-Theory Section Embarassing 34 "Legal liabilities of the Japanese Government" 35 Counter Theory 36 Claims that Political Right-wingers lie 37 Article snippet moved here

[edit] Sexual Slavery perpetrated by Japan during WWII

"Comfort women" did exist, hundreds of thousands of them, despite the official denials of the Japanese government. It is a shame that Japan is actively trying to erase this fact from their history. I'd like anyone who denies the existence of comfort women to talk to an actual comfort woman face-to-face and tell her that she wasn't forced by the Japanese government to be raped by up to dozens of Japanese soldiers a day.Skandalicious 00:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

This is irrelevant to our issue here. This is not a debate forum, but an encyclopedia. You are quite right. It is a shame. I wish that it never happened. It gives such a bad image to Japan, which could be easily fixed just simply apologizing. However, this is not a battleground for open hostilities. Please refrain from comments that incite an arguement. Let's aim to solve disputes and hold factual information in Wikipedia. Odst 01:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I am adding comments based on the above contents. Japanese government is NOT denying the existence of comfort women. It was an official public policy to control illegal prostitutions especially for japanese soliders. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.34.86 (talk) 02:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reps. Honda and Lantos will be sued

Nobuyoshi Ozaki[1], a writer living in Louisiana, said he would file a defamation suit against Representatives Mike Honda and Tom Lantos who wrote and passed the House Resolution 121 to blame Japan's "comfort women" during WW2 as the Japanese Army's coercion.

The charge is their libel against the Japanese people by attacking them without historical ground. There is no document that proves the Army ordered to coerce the women into brothels. Ikedanobuo 01:37, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

• Japanese government has been repeatedly sued by many people on many occasions...

• It is a free country. A crazy wacko can sue anyone, maybe you. Mr. Ikedanobuo

It seems Mr Ozaki is not really informed at all on what it takes to successfully bring a defmation suit. His claim would probably be striked down even if the courts took everything Ozaki said to be true. Honda said everything in the House and everything said in the House is protected by parliamentary privilege in defamation proceedings. I would have thought he should have done some research on defamation before making such comments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.20.4.172 (talk) 11:25, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why Japanese government has double standards.

Why Japanese government blames North Korea for kidnapping some Japanese?

Because Japanese government ignores human rights for non-Japanese people.

Human rights apply only to Japanese people, not for non-Japanese.

[edit] Japanese government is sued by many victims right now. Mr. Ikedanobuo

Mr. Iledanobuo. Japanese government is currently sued by many victims.

All of them have lost so far. Why? They are liars. Ikedanobuo 06:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Nobuyoshi Ozaki will lose the law suit bacause (removed unsourced contentious material per Biographies of living persons policy).

Please take time to read "Rape of Nanking" and you'll be shocked by the pictures and the text. You too will be sorry.

Please take time to read "Rape of Nanking" in Wikipedia. thanks. KanKan6469 (talk) 09:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

All of them have lost so far because the judge sitting in the courtroom is a Japanese judge. As if a Japanese Judge is going to give justice to people who really deserve it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.20.4.172 (talk) 11:31, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] American Army ordered Japan to offer "comfort women"

Mr. Shoji Takahashi, an ex-official of the headquarter of Japanese Army reported

On August 29 in 1945, an American Army official visited the Police Office of Tokyo and requested to show the brothels. And on September 28, Colonel Sams ordered Dr. Hikaru Yosano of Tokyo Metropolitan Office to let GHQ use five brothel areas and seventeen bar areas. It was the beginning of the Recreation and Amusement Association.

Ikedanobuo 06:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Liar Sankei newspaper article falsely accused US Army through faulty translation

They translated permitted in AP article into 命じた ordered in Japanese version

産経の古森義久記者は、「日本の政府や旧軍当局に売春婦の調達や売春施設の開設を命じた一連の日本語書類」が発見されたと書いていますが、APのリンク先の記事だと「An Associated Press review of historical documents and records - some never before translated into English - shows American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution.

Liar is you. The report above was the record of Mr. Takahashi's speech in a meeting. He was the man in charge of the procurement of comfort women. This speech in Japanese is the original. AP's report was a second-hand translation by a foreign reporter. If they are contradictory, of course the translation was false or mistranslated intentionally to cover up the GHQ's order. Ikedanobuo 15:14, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sankei newspaper is a deliberate and clever liar

On August 29 in 1945, an American Army official visited the Police Office of Tokyo and requested to show the brothels. And on September 28, Colonel Sams ordered Dr. Hikaru Yosano of Tokyo Metropolitan Office to let GHQ use five brothel areas and seventeen bar areas. It was the beginning of the Recreation and Amusement Association

• The American army didnot open the facility. They simply requested to use existing facilities established by Japanese.
• That is the reason why AP's report used permit instead of ordered. Please, read the context.

[edit] Mistaken view of history must be corrected

Japan's largest daily, Yomiuri Shimbun said in its editorial[2]

A resolution adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday urging the Japanese government to formally apologize over the "comfort women system of forced military prostitution" is obviously based on a misunderstanding of facts. [...]there are no documents proving that women were recruited forcibly as comfort women. Despite this, some people even in Japan continue to claim there was "coercion" in recruiting women as comfort women. They develop their arguments without providing undisputable examples of "coercion" and take the U.S. House resolution.

Ikedanobuo 07:37, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Is there need, of such a document, when there is an overwhelming amount of evidence? A record of an occurred event is not always necessary to prove that an event happened. There are countless witnesses and quite pitifully, there are such records. How else do you think we Know that the comfort women existed? Odst 00:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Japan will pay its debt someday.

[edit] American, Korean, and German Army's "comfort women"

According to Asahi Shimbun, Korean Army procured many "comfort women" during the Korean War. In an international symposium, Kim Kiok, Visiting Professor of Kyonnam University in Korea, reported that at least eight witness testified that they used war brothels. And 89 brothels in 4 areas were used 204,560 times, according to the official record of the Korean Army edited in 1956. A Korean government official admitted that they employed prostitutes voluntarily during the war.

According to Yomiuri Shimbun[3], U.S. Occupation forces used such comfort facilities in Japan, and it is now known that the South Korean military had similar facilities during the 1950-53 Korean War. During World War II, the German military also had "comfort" facilities with women who had been recruited systematically and forcibly from areas occupied by the German forces.

So why was Japan singled out as the sole target for the U.S. resolution? Why don't you blame the American, Korean, and German Army? Because you are racists? Ikedanobuo 05:38, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

• Post-War Germany made the right choice. Japan, on the other hand, has actively promoted historical amnesia.

I do believe that the wartime brothels that you say existed in Korea, is of most likely an unorganized collection of prostitutes that provided service to military and civillian men alike. however, Japan's case was different. The Japanese Imperial government sponsored the trafficking of Women for their so-called brothels. The brothels, In technicality, were not brothels. The "comfort women", in fact, were not prostitutes; they were held there against their will and were raped. Odst 00:16, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems completely irrelevant to talk about the Korean government's involvement in the Korean war as this forum is completely about the Japanese involvement in World War Two. The author probably has mistaken the forum as a discussion for Korean brothels. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.20.4.172 (talk) 12:56, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unlock the article

Japanese government collected 230 documents of the Army regarding the comfort women, but they found no evidence of Army's coercion. Prof. Yoshimi and his colleagues who blame Japan couldn't, too. They relied on ex-comfort women's testimonies, but they are confused, inconsistent, and can't prove the existence of the Army's order. So no editor in this article could show the hard evidence or reliable testimony of Japanese Army's organized coercion of women. Therefore administrators should unlock this article to rewrite it. At least it should mention the U.S. House Resolution that falsely accused Japanese government. Ikedanobuo 06:10, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I notice you choose to omit the written proofs such as those made public in April by Yoshimi and Hirofumi Hayashi : the written testimonies of members of the Tokeitai and of Lt. Seidai Ohara of the Kempeitai, who admitted on 13 January 1946 having established a comfort house and abused himself women in Indonesia. [[4]] Unfortunately for you, there are other historians than Hata who are working on the subject... --Flying tiger 14:42, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the second passage. It seems amazing that the author of the first article could say that the Japanese government collected "230 documents" to strengthen the credibility of his/her argument without quoting the source, giving a description of what the documents are and the date of the discovery. Further, while it is true that nobody has found any documents that clearly show that the government coerced the women into the brothel, it is also true that the Japanese government undertook extravagent means to destroy any hard evidence. The only evidence left are testimonies. But testimonies are available from both sides of this dispute. Like the author of the second passage suggests, there are testimonies given by past soldiers and military officers that places culpability on the government. The other testimonies are from the victims themselves. Advocates for the Japanese government have only one line of argument for their defence (defence is spelt with a c in England): "to make such a big allegation of such a big crime, you should have solid evidence (i.e. documents). Since you only have testimonies, you have no proof." If such argument was to be true, the amount of successful domestic criminal prosecutions in the whole world would decline. There are still many ways to prove guilt beyond doubt without using "documents". If questions such as "does the testimonies given by separate and independent witnessess or perpertrators match up? with the historical events?" or "are the witnesses establish credibility even when faced with cross-examination" are answered positively for the victims, then there should be guilt imputed to the defence. This is what is commonly done in reality in domestic courts in all civilised courts of law. THerefore, there is ample evidence that the Japanese government was involved in the coercion of the comfort women and the vast majority of the whole world believes that to be so. It is only a small group of bold and naive authors/advocates and the Japanese government who are bold enough to wilfully close their eyes to the truth they cant handle.Hoeassblaster Oct. 30th, 2007

It was an organized brothels by government of Soul. There was a newspaper article that the city of Soul is recruiting "comfort women". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.34.86 (talk) 03:28, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence documenting sex-slave coercion revealed

Japan had to follow San Francisco treaty. The documents were produced and submitted by the Dutch, French and Chinese governments to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East

• "The Special Naval Police (Tokei Tai) had ordered to keep the brothels supplied with women; to this end they arrested women on the streets and after enforced medical examination placed them in the brothels," one document, titled Prosecution Document No. 5330, says.
• "Women who had had relations with Japanese were forced into there brothels, which were surrounded by barbed wire. They were only allowed on the streets with special permission,"
• "I organized a brothel for the soldiers and used it myself," Lt. Seidai Ohara of the Japanese military was quoted in Prosecution Document No. 5591, dated Jan. 13, 1946.

Japan times[[5]]

[edit] Another fake "evidence"

Profs. Yoshimi and Hayashi held a press conference at the Foreign Press Club on April 17. They claimed that they had found a new proof of military coercion. Here[6] is the press release that has little substance. According to them, a document submitted to Tokyo Tribunal includes following passage:

   Q: How many women were there?
   A: 6.
   Q: How many of these women were forced into the brothel?
   A: Five.

In fact this isn't a new proof but an accidental sexual abuse by low-class army officials. The Army's rule explicitly forbid the coercion of women, as the court recognized. So even the prosecutors of the Tokyo Tribunal didn't prosecute this case. So the historical decision has been already made that this is not the war crime.

Do you still believe the rape of only five Indonesian women is the evidence of organized coercion of 200,000 mostly Korean women by the Army? Stop kidding. Ikedanobuo 16:17, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

• Mr.Ikedanobuo. Your reference above is linked to an ad with hot japanese gal. Did you link your reference to a japanese girl deliberately or inadvertently?
• Then, we can assume that 83% of these women were forced into sexual slavery.

• The prosecutors did present document 5330 as an official exhibit to the Tokyo Tribunal. So what it described certainly was considered a war crime. The verdict gives no specific ruling on this particular transgression, it states in general (p. 1001):

"After carefully examining and considering all the evidence, we find that it is not practicable in a judgment such as this to state fully the mass of oral and documentary evidence presented; for a complete statement of the scale and character of the atrocities, reference must be had to the record of the trial."

You are invited to show documents supporting your statement. Unlike other possible sources, the proceedings of the Tokyo Tribunal have not been destroyed. They are still accessible in Tokyo, so if you are right, you should be able to produce a court document refuting document 5330: either prosecutors withdrawing it, or judges excluding it. Better stay away from the magical sources on the island of Semarang, they might be poisoned;-) On a more serious note: have you ever read document 5330 yourself? Can you explain to me how the Army rule you mention would apply to this case?

♥ Stuart LaJoie → talk2me 02:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Remarks of Chairman Lantos on H. Res. 121, regarding Comfort Women, at committee markup

• Post-War Germany made the right choice. Japan, on the other hand, has actively promoted historical amnesia.
• The continued efforts by some in Japan to distort history and play a game of blame-the-victim are also highly disturbing.
• This is a ludicrous assertion totally counter to the facts.
• We want a full reckoning of history to help everyone heal, and then move on.
• I strongly support this resolution and I urge all of my colleagues across the aisle to do so likewise.

[7]

[edit] U.S. government doesn't endorse Honda resolution

John Negroponte, Deputy Secretary of State, replied in a press conference held in the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on August 3.[8]

we've also taken the position that the trafficking in women that occurred during World War II was deplorable and that it was a grave human rights violation of enormous proportions. So we extend our sincere and deep sympathy to the victims, but we also feel that the Government of Japan has taken steps to address this issue, including apologies by a number of previous government officials. And in October of last year, Prime Minister Abe reaffirmed the statements.

Negroponte deliberately didn't endorse the "coercion" by the Army, which Honda had emphasized a lot. So it would be the U.S. government's position that PM Abe apologized the human trafficking, not the Army's coercion.

After the vote, Honda expressed great thanks to the Chinese lobby, "World Association to Remember the Anti-Japanese War", which has proposed, sponsored, and even wrote the resolution since 2001. Honda is (removed unsourced contentious material per Biographies of living persons policy). Ikedanobuo 10:40, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• US congressional resolution is the cuurent official view of US congress.
• John Negroponte, Deputy Secretary of State, didnot refute US congressional resolution.

Cut it out. That is not the point. IkedaNobuo must be going about his useless attempt, expressing his anger against the foreign powers that he says have done worse than Japan...He's partially right, in some ways, and partially wrong, in some ways...Odst 00:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How much longer will this page protection stay in place?

From the tag: "This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved." And when will that be? This page has been protected for months with little to show for it, unfortunately. In good faith, I'm wondering what the next step is. J Readings 07:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I do no even see much of a dispute. There's just been some petty arguements between IkedaNobuo, Myself, and our other anonymous friend. I do not see any reason for a sysop to keep it protected any longer. Odst 23:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• My suggestion would be that those who want to improve the current page present their amendments on this page. If we reach a consensus, the page can be changed accordingly and the edit protection would not be necessary anymore. Such a process would require at least that pertinent questions considering sources and wording be answered. I am quite willing to participate in such a process. At the moment this Talk page clearly shows why the time to remove edit protection has not come yet. Simple removing page protection can only result in a renewed edit war and a lot of badly written POV statements in the article. My best bet would be not to expect a quick fix in this matter, on WP nor IRL;-) ♥ Stuart LaJoie → talk2me 09:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I did some checks on the references, and it seems that there are few questionable details that are unreferenced and/or conflicts with other references. I think that there are some aspects within some paragraphs that need to be re-written, as many vital facts included in the references have been omitted in the articles. Odst 02:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Fortunately (or unfortunately), Wikipedia's protection policy, and I believe the terms of the GDFL license, prevent us from permanently protecting the article. You guys are going to have to work this out in a calm manner, by building consensus, guided by policy and guidelines. When it is in a state that meets consensus, it must be maintained the old fashioned way, by watchlisting it and reverting vandalism. Best, J Readings 04:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] typo

Just reporting there is a typo in a footnote. I'm not familiar with wikipedia system so hopefully someone can attend to this.

wrong ^ a b c 日本占領下インドネツアになける慰安婦 (Japanese). Retrieved on 2007-03-23.

correct ^ a b c 日本占領下インドネシアにおける慰安婦 (Japanese). Retrieved on 2007-03-23.

220.253.24.59 11:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dead link

The link to

http://www.awf.or.jp/woman/pdf/ianhu_ei.pdf

currently in No. 12 in the references list, has apparently rotted away.

Wegesrand 11:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Improved references

Allow me to make three requests.

(1) The section 'Recruitment' still has three 'citation needed' tags. As the topic of this article is the subject of controversy, it is reasonable that sources for statements are clearly indicated. Lack of references is in no no way beneficial for readers of the page or for the discussion on this Talk page. For this reason my kind request to an admin would be to replace the 3 templates with the following references in the same order. Below I have copied the original sentences involved from the article.

Many who answered the advertisements were already prostitutes and offered their services voluntarily. Others were sold by their families to the military due to economic hardship. However, these sources soon dried up, especially from Japan. ^[1]

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs resisted further issuance of travel visas for Japanese prostitutes, feeling it tarnished the image of the Japanese Empire. ^[2]

Many women were tricked or defrauded into joining the military brothels. ^[3]

References used

1. ^ Yoshimi, Yoshiaki [1995] (2000). Comfort Women. Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II, translation Suzanne O'Brien, Asia Perspectives, New York: Columbia University Press, 100-101, 105-106, 110-111. ISBN 0-231-12033-8. 
   Hicks, George [1995] (1997). The Comfort Women. Japans Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War. New York: W.W.Norton & Company, 66-67, 119, 131, 142-143. ISBN 0-393-31694-7. 
   Minister van Buitenlandse zaken [Minister of Foreign Affairs] (January 24, 1994). "Gedwongen prostitutie van Nederlandse vrouwen in voormalig Nederlands-Indië [Enforced prostitution of Dutch women in the former Dutch East Indies]". Handelingen Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal [Hansard Dutch Lower House] 23607 (1): 6-9, 11, 13-14. ISSN 0921-7371. Lay summary – Nationaal Archief [Dutch National Archive] (dutch)' (2007-03-27). 
2. ^ Yoshimi, Yoshiaki [1995] (2000). Comfort Women. Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II, translation Suzanne O'Brien, Asia Perspectives, New York: Columbia University Press, 82-83. ISBN 0-231-12033-8. 
   Hicks, George [1995] (1997). The Comfort Women. Japans Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War. New York: W.W.Norton & Company, 223-228. ISBN 0-393-31694-7. 
3. ^ Yoshimi, Yoshiaki [1995] (2000). Comfort Women. Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II, translation Suzanne O'Brien, Asia Perspectives, New York: Columbia University Press, 101-105, 113, 116-117. ISBN 0-231-12033-8. 
   Hicks, George [1995] (1997). The Comfort Women. Japans Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War. New York: W.W.Norton & Company, 13, 50, 52-54, 69-71, 113, 115, 142, 145-146, 148. ISBN 0-393-31694-7. 
   Minister van Buitenlandse zaken [Minister of Foreign Affairs] (January 24, 1994). Gedwongen prostitutie van Nederlandse vrouwen in voormalig Nederlands-Indië [Enforced prostitution of Dutch women in the former Dutch East Indies]. Handelingen Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal [Hansard Dutch Lower House] 23607 (1): 8-9, 14. ISSN 0921-7371. Lay summary – Nationaal Archief [Dutch National Archive] (dutch)' (2007-03-27). 
   International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1948-11-01). Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East (HTML). Hyperwar, a hypertext history of the Second World War p. 1135. Hyperwar Foundation. Retrieved on April 23, 2007.

(2) As far as I am aware, correction of the typo mentioned above in the final footnote(s), of the section 'Treatment of comfort women' (presently nr. 22) is a valid request too.

(3) My final request would be to add the following Wikisource template to the section 'U.S. Congressional debate':

{{Wikisource|Japanese Military's "Comfort Women" System}}

None of these additions does change anything in the content of the article in its present state.

♥ Stuart LaJoie → talk2me 00:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Stuart, that wikisource doesn't seem to be complete. I read through it and there seem to be some holes in the text. Someone should probably clean that up before it is added anywhere. Yaki-gaijin 00:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conclusions

At last we seem to have reached conclusions based on historical facts. Many editors admit that there is few disputes about historical evidences about following facts:

• There is no official document that orders Japanese Army to coerce the comfort women. There are many documents to forbid coercion.
• Some ex-comfort women allege that they were coerced by somebody who "wore clothes like army suits". Such stories can't prove the existence of the Army's order to coerce them.
• What they prove is that there was the military prostitution that was operated by private agents and supervised by the Army. The women were recruited with very high wages.
• However, some of them were brought by human trafficking. It was a tragedy, but they were forced into brothels owing to their parents' debts, not the Army's coercion. Such practices were common to most prostitution in the world then.
• Military prostitution was common, too. American, British, German, Russian, and Korean Armies had their prostitution systems in the battle fields. Especially American Army employed many prostitutes in the Vietnam War.

If you have an objection to the conclusion, show the fact that refutes it, not an emotional attack or a bad joke about Holocaust denial. Ikedanobuo 15:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• A general remark: Wikipedia articles are not based on consensus about the content, but on consensus about what reliable sources state. Supposing you would like to see some changes in the article, it might be useful to mention the sources for these changes.

1. Your conclusions presume that the existence of written orders is necessary to prove military involvement. This is not a generally accepted view. By this standard many atrocities in world history could be explained away as individual trangressions, not to be blamed on the army involved. I do not dispute that millions of Japanese at the moment believe this is an acceptable view, so in my view a separate section explaining that view could be part of the article. The first four facts you mention would only be relevant in such a section, after an explanation of this different standard.
2. Could you show explicitly whether your conclusions, by themselves or taken together, contradict any statement in the article as it is?
3. There are also testimonies by victims undisputedly showing direct military involvement, both in running of and recruitment for brothels. I would not dispute that 'some' women were recruited by private agents with high wages. But if that was all that happened, this article would not have been written. To falsify a conclusion based on a lot of evidence it is not enough to dispute some of the evidence: it is also necessary to show that without this evidence, the conclusion no longer stands. Do you have any reliable sources doing the latter?
4. Your final conclusion is simply beyond the scope of the present article. If you have reliable sources, feel free and make encyclopedic contributions to the relevant articles, or in some cases, add new articles. Some of the sources cited in the article do make comparisons and conclude that the Japanese army went beyond what happened elsewhere. We could add such a statement to the article.
5. Would you agree it would be valuable to mention IMTFE document 5330 in the article? After all, this is an official government document.

♥ Stuart LaJoie → talk2me 10:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Nobuo, you need to understand how history is written. There isn't always an official record for everything. In fact, there is evidence that proves that such records did exist, but even without that, there is sufficient proof that at least a certain number of them were trafficked into prostitution, therefore giving it the right to be called sexual slavery, or Forced prostitution. There is a record in the United States Army interrogation reports that a number of the interviewed comfort women had no way of knowing the true nature of the offered job, and they were required to sign a contract that binded the, legally and/or financially to their assigned pleasure house. by financially, I mean that the comfort women was financially reliant and bonded to the pleasure house.

• by the way, there was no organized system of prostitution in the nineteenth century onward, if there was any throughout history, for any of the nations you have named except for the Wermacht and the Waffen SS during world war two.
• sure, there were actually prostitutes that provided services to the soldiers, but there was no organized system or coercion. For example, in Vietnam, some American G.I.s that were on leave went to Saigon, where there are many loose whores and brothels in the red-light districts. Do you understand what I am trying to say? Odst 00:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Summing up

All of you seem to agree with my conclusion. There was the military prostitution operated by private agents and supervised by the Japanese Army during WW2, as I wrote above. Most comfort women were generously paid, but some of them were "bought" by agents from their parents by human trafficking.

Some of the women were coerced by the agents and had no freedom to escape. It was a tragedy, and the Army was responsible for the violent treatment of the women by the agents, although the Army prohibited such abuse by documents. On the other hand, there is no document that the Army ordered coercion of the women.

This conclusion agrees with that of Japanese government's and most historian's research. It is also consistent with official documents of the Army and the testimonies of ex-comfort women who said they were sometimes coerced by somebody who looked like a soldier. They are in no position to prove the Army's order.

So I'd like to ask administrator to unlock this article. Ikedanobuo 11:29, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

• Dear IkedaNobuo, I do not agree with your summing up and earlier discussions on this page suggest that I might not be the only one feeling that way. According to the sources we have, the things you mention are part of what happened. But there are many sources showing that in many cases the type of prostitution you mention did develop into the type of prostitution described in the present article. Testimony of victims in this respect is only part of the evidence. I would strongly disagree with any attempt to remove the statements on military involvement in forcefully recruiting women for comfort stations. For your information: the Japanese government has been informed by the Dutch government in 1994 on several cases involving in all about 65 women who the Japanese military forced into prostitution. What happened in Semarang was the worst but definitely not the only case of the Japanese military forcing women into prostitution. The Japanese government has seen no reason to dispute these findings; the AWF, probably using present day criteria, recognized even a substantial larger number of Dutch women as victims, although in the same order of magnitude. For Indonesia there are no sources indicating that women were 'generously' paid.

♥ Stuart LaJoie → talk2me 19:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Nobuo, stop slyly evading the key points of our discussion. I apologize for having to refute your arguements, but the Imperial war ministry administered no uniform code banning the mistreatment of civilians, and quite contrary, endorsed a policy that encouraged the mistreatment and destruction of human lives and property, also known as the "three alls". It was not considered military prostitution, but an act of sexual slavery. But I never said that the military was directly responsible for the obtainng of Comfort women. The Governor Generals of Japanese territory, who were not under the Imperial military chain of command were primarily responsible for that work. What appeared to be soldiers, as you say, may have been provisional military police. There is no Military document, but there are documents from other ministries in the empire. Odst 22:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, the Japanese military carried out orders not only from the war ministry, but also from the prime minister. Which means that orders may have come down from outside of the military chain of command. Odst 22:25, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Source for decision to destroy evidence

There seems to be a dispute on the first sentence of the section "Number of comfort women".

1. On 1 September 2007 Flying_tiger added to "Lack of official documentation" the phrase: perhaps related to the 14 August 1945 decision of the Suzuki cabinet to destroy vast amounts of material pertaining to matters related to war crimes and the war responsibility of the nation's highest leaders <ref>''Burning of Confidential Documents by Japanese Government'', case no.43, serial 2, International Prosecution Section vol. 8; Herbert Bix, ''Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan'', 2001, p.528</ref>
2. On 4 September 2007 Azukimonaka reverted this addition and suggested in the edit summary: Please present this law number. I can confirm the statute book that Japanese Government keeps.
3. Flying_tiger reverted the removal of this addition and stated in the edit summary: Bix does not provide the law. Can you imagine if any source should refer to a specific law name ? You do not understand what a source is !!
4. Azukimonaka reacted by again removing the additon, stating in the edit summary: To prove this content, you should present the law number of Suzuki Cabinet or the minutes. Your proof is waited for.
5. On 5 September 2007 StuartLaJoie has restored the version of Flying_tiger.

I like to explain my reasons for doing so.

1. Wikipedia is not presenting the final truth on any subject. It is, like any encyclopedia, only presenting what reliable sources are saying on a subject. In general it is not necessary to prove any content is "true" beyond the point where you can show that it is based on reliable sources.
2. Like most encyclopedias Wikipedia prefers using secondary sources to using primary sources. Of course, to increase its reliability, a secondary source should take into account all available primary sources. Typically, failure to do so would result in criticism in more reliable secondary sources, which then of course should be reflected in Wikipedia.
3. Statute books and minutes look to me like primary sources. If accessible, it would be valuable for the reader if references to it were supplied. In this respect I do appreciate the offer of Azukimonaka to check such references.
4. It seems quite possible to me that a decision like this was not reflected in statute books or minutes, for this would go against the purpose of the decision. In fact, this is a nice example of the reasons why encyclopedias are reluctant in relying on primary sources. In this respect I feel Azukimonaka is mistaken to expect more than a reference to a secondary source like Bix.
5. As I have not read the book of Bix, I cannot give a judgment on its reliability. It has been documented though, that in the final days of the war, orders from Tokyo were given to destroy documents and that these orders were followed; reliable sources are referenced in the lead section. If Bix is wrong in mentioning a cabinet decision, there probably exist other secondary sources disputing this claim. Anyone is invited to present such sources, which might lead us to a different statement in the article.

As such sources have yet to be presented, I see at this time no valid reason to remove the addition by Flying_tiger.

♥ Stuart LaJoie → talk2me 11:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

There are two problems in his description.

"perhaps related to the 14 August 1945 decision of the Suzuki cabinet to destroy vast amounts of material pertaining to matters related to war crimes and the war responsibility of the nation's highest leaders"

1. This instruction doesn't exist in the decree in Japan.

2. It has not been proven that this instruction is an instruction that conceals the evidence of Comfort Women.

This two cannot be proven to the source of Flying_tiger. Therefore, I deleted it. If you can prove two conditions, I will support this article.--Azukimonaka 17:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no opinion regarding whether or not this item should be in the article. If it is inserted, however, perhaps it might be better to say something like, "Bix suggests...," or something similar. If there is some doubt if the event actually even occurred, it might be nice to add additional qualifiers as well. --Cheers, Komdori 17:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for the clarification. As I explained before, to have the statement in the article it is not necessary that the decision is found in official decrees, as long as it is mentioned in a reliable source. The first point of Azukimonaka does not justify removing the statement. I do not know whether your second point is covered by Bix. For this reason it would be wise to add reliable sources explicitly making this connection. The suggestion of Komdori to rephrase the statement to reflect the sources more accurately seems valuable too. I have adapted the article accordingly. By making the statement more precise there are even more reliable sources to support it than the four mentioned.

♥ Stuart LaJoie → talk2me 00:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Because the mistake "Kantaro Suzuki concealed evidence" that Mr. Fly had written was corrected, I also agree. Thank You --Azukimonaka 21:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• You are welcome. I do not know whether there was a mistake in the previous statement, as I have not read the book of Bix. I just tried to improve it in light of the sources I have read myself.

♥ Stuart LaJoie → talk2me 22:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The fact that user Azukimonaka does not adequatly understand english does not give him the right to accuse other users of lying. Bix can not be clearer : «In the weeks and months that followed, vast amounts of secret materials pertaining to Japanese war crimes and the war responsibilities of the nation's highest leaders went up in smoke, in accordance with the August 14 decision of the Suzuki cabinet.» (p.528) I only refrain from adding this reference to prevent a silly war edit as on Manchukuo and Eugenics in Showa Japan. --Flying tiger 12:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comfort women Advertisement

• Recruitment advertising for Comfort women in newspapers in Korea.
• This is the only exist AD for Comfort women Recruit. However, it is unclear that what is Comfort women work.
• This recruitment advertisement did not inform that Comfort women were sex slave workers. They knew that they worked in military industry, military nurse.

I Prove it what is this AD. This is Korean Language book. published by NGO for comfort women(한국정신대문제대책협의회) [9]

(a liberal translation) This is the comfort women recruitment advertisement which is only exist. (...) It doubtful, who read this advertisement? and they really know what is the comfort women wok? (...) Rockgoals3 14:59, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with you adding the information. We just have to work on your translation so that it's understandable. Let me suggest some grammatically correct sentences, and you can use them if they fit the Korean correctly (as I can't read Korean).

• Advertisement for the recruitment of comfort women in a Korean newspaper.
• This is the only such advertisement in existence (is this true???). However, a comfort woman's duties are not specified in the ad.

Please rewrite or re-translate before you post it again. Sorry for being insistent.Yaki-gaijin 23:49, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, I don't think there has to be a consensus about the fact that your English is grammatically incorrect. Yaki-gaijin 10:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion for Move

This line "Some others found documents giving instructions not to treat comfort women violently." in the very top section of the article should be moved to the "Treatment of Comfort Women" section. All in favor say aye? It's an awkward conclusion to the intro paragraph, and it just seems to fit more naturally under the Treatment section. I figured I'd suggest it here before I do it, so that everyone doesn't blow up at me... ("everyone" meaning Rockgoals3) Yaki-gaijin 10:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC) Ok, I'm gonna go ahead and move it now... Yaki-gaijin 23:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Separation of conclusions

I have a suggestion calling for a major revision to this article.

Since there seems to be an endless struggle between 2 opposing viewpoints; one represented by Ikedanobuo reporting the findings of a historian named Hata, and the other viewpoint represented by the rest of the world,

I suggest that we dedicate an entire section of the article to the "Counter Theory" brought up by Hata and anyone else who agrees with him. There are 3 main reasons why this should be done:

• The majority of the world does not agree with Hata's conclusions regarding the evidence related to comfort women. Thus, he shouldn't be the only viewpoint represented in the article.

• Counter theories should be represented, no matter how unsupported they are, as long as legitimate historians are using legitimate evidence to create them. If we make a section filled with all of Hata's conclusions that run counter to the mainstream ones, there will be a healthy "debate" so to speak. In other words, people will be able to read about both sides of the argument and decide for themselves which is more legitimate.

• Finally, if we don't give the "Hata Counter Theory" (or whatever you want to call it) its own section in the article, Ikedanobuo and others like him will continue the ridiculous edit war that has plagued this article without end.

If the historians of the world can't agree on which theory is correct, how can we Wikipedians be expected to make a decisive article without representing both sides of the debate on the subject? Something needs to be done, or this article will continue to be locked and ultimately be rendered useless from barrages of vandalism, etc.

Please help make a decision about this or please suggest some other solution to this problem. SOMETHING needs to be done soon! Yaki-gaijin 11:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Although I havent been participating in this so called debate to the extent participated by Mr Ikedanobuo, I have thoroughly read the discussion and think that User Yaki-gaijin's proposition should be adopted. I dont think Mr Ikedanobuo was actually seriously trying to contribute to a meaningful discussion to clear contesting views - rather just trying to call people liars and make embarrasing arguments. But still, it is a viewpoint of some people (albeit unreasonable or unjustitified) and we should let them disclose their viewpoints as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gil1984 (talk • contribs) 13:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad someone seconded the idea. What shall I call the section? I was thinking "Counter Theories" or even more specifically, "Revisionist conclusions", or even MORE specific, "Hata and the revisionists". Please give me any ideas, as I will probably add the section tonight and start re-arranging info. Yaki-gaijin 23:05, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I think "counter theories" is good. Other options are "opposing views", "the alternative views" or "the minority view". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.169.220.113 (talk) 07:14, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, here goes nothing. Please help me smooth out the rough edges. Should I start to move all references to Hata and his conclusions to this new section? Yaki-gaijin 12:08, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Doesnt sound like a bad idea. At least with myself, I agrew with most of what you say. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gil1984 (talk • contribs) 08:36, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Warning: sock puppets

I am quite noobish so, I don't know how to "flag" people like this, but I will say that User:Ikedanobuo, User:Tropicaljet, and User:Necmate may all be one group of puppets being dangled by one Japanese person who vandalizes and tends to have edit wars. If anyone knows how to flag these accounts, please do so asap. Thanks. Yaki-gaijin 04:08, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

you need proof, though. honestly, who the fuck cares if he has sockpuppets or not? I don't give a shit about the predator as long as the prey can be defended. Odst (talk) 02:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Intro wording

Another tidbit in the article has become subject of a ridiculous edit war, but I think we can solve it by changing the wording. Here is the current intro:

• Comfort women, or military comfort women, is a euphemism for between 10,000 and 200,000 women, who were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese military brothels during World War II.

Would changing it to the following belittle comfort women?

• Comfort women, or military comfort women, is a euphemism for the thousands upon thousands of women who were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese military brothels during World War II.

I mean, the actual estimates are already mentioned later in the article. I don't think we need to be so specific right off the bat. (It seems Gil1984 and I are the only ones really watching the article at the moment, but I figured I'd go through the motions of asking the empty auditorium what they think before I start ripping apart the article. Yaki-gaijin 10:52, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I think "the countless thousands"(which is the version I'm looking at) and "the thousands upon thousands" are both subtle POV violations. This is a little outside my field, but I feel "the several thousand women" might work better, even if it is vague. Lindentree 06:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The only problem with "several thousand women" is it makes the number seem small, even though the general consensus around the world is somewhere between 50,000-200,000. But until we can find a better wording, I guess it should be made "several..."Yaki-gaijin 09:39, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

this is an encyclopedia, not an essay for your history class. belittling the comfort women is not a good idea, as it still affects foreign relations in asia. Credible analysis should be relied upon to determine the amount of comfort women during that time. Odst (talk) 04:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recruitment vs. unorganized rape

In the recruitment section, there are several paragraphs describing acts of rape, violence and murder that were unplanned by IJA authorities but carried out by its soldiers anyway. Isn't the section just supposed to to be about organized recruitment of comfort women? Binksternet 01:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Recent large scale deletion and reversion edits include the few paragraphs about rape and murder in the Nanking Massacre. Honestly, I think this material should be removed from the Comfort women page and added to the Nanking Massacre page, unless like Minnie Vautrin's diary entry, it's already there. If a woman is raped and then killed or abandoned, it has little to do with the official comfort women program. Comfort women were recruited and kept for months of sex work, not immediately killed or thrown away. Binksternet 16:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Random rape has little to do with the systemized sex-slavery that went on, except maybe to show that there were a lot of sexual crimes being committed by the Japanese military, which may reveal their view of women/women's rights, etc. If this is not an important part of this article, then I agree the information should be deleted (because I think it is just copied from the Rape of Nanking article).Yaki-gaijin 04:08, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

If he doesn't come into this forum to discuss the changes this time, it seems the "Nanking Rape Adding Guy" is just a vandal. Yaki-gaijin 22:55, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ban ikedanobuo

Ikedanobuo is a biased vandal and a persistent nuisance. Does anyone know how to get him banned? He doesn't discuss major changes before he makes them, and when he does make them they are biased and many times grammatically incorrect. He cannot see past his blinders and he is more of a detriment to Wikipedia than a benefit. I really don't want to continue this ridiculous edit war with him, so please ban him soon!!! Yaki-gaijin 11:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

The article was protected weeks ago because of him. The process for an investigation on an user is described here :[[10]]. You need at least another user to join you. Some user and me thought using it against another similar obnoxious nuisance (user:Azukimonaka), but we made the error to go on mediation. So, we should not make the same error here. --Flying tiger 14:07, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

We've begun to draft a request to ban Ikedanobuo. If anyone else has dealt with Ikedanobuo's misconduct before or has anything else to add to the request, please contact me on my talk page. Yaki-gaijin 04:13, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Yaki-gaijin for the proposal of banning Ikedanobuo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gil1984 (talk • contribs) 13:39, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I suggest contacting the arbitration comittee. A temporary ban should suffice, if he does not agree to cease his incursions. Odst (talk) 02:55, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

If you know how to contact the arbitration committee, please do so, or point me to where I should try to figure how to... Yaki-gaijin (talk) 03:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Not just yet. Ikedanobuo's edits are not entirely false, but he fails to appropriately present his analysis, and in the process, conflicts with the other information in the article. Furthermore, Ikedanobuo fails to appreciate the fact that the evidence is credible to the point where it can be safe to say that the Japanese government was reponsible. We should give it more time for a resolution, and see after for what is appropriate.Odst (talk) 04:45, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

You seem to have experience with these issues. I'll leave it up to you, for now. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 06:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Show the evidence

Yaki-gaijin, before making such stupid proposal, read the above discussion and the archives. Many many discussions were made, and as I wrote in the section 14 "Conclusions" above, nobody could show hard evidence of organized coercion by the Japanese Army. And when I correct the groudless messages, you want to ban me without evidence? Ridiculous. Show the evidence before you delete the "inconvenient truth."

Can you read Japanese? Maybe you can't. If you can, you'll easily understand the (removed unsourced contentious material per Biographies of living persons policy). They held press conference about their alleged "new proof" only in English, because (removed unsourced contentious material per Biographies of living persons policy). Even the Asahi, famous for its leftist stance, stopped attacking the "abduction" and says "such problem doesn't matter." Yomiuri, Sankei, and other newspapers blame the Honda resolution as a false accusation.

There are many fools spreading lies. Norimitsu Onishi, the Tokyo correspondent of NY times and the (removed unsourced contentious material per Biographies of living persons policy) And Yasuji Kaneko you love is (removed unsourced contentious material per Biographies of living persons policy). Even Yoshimi doesn't adopt his "testimony." When I wrote an article about the scandal of Wikipedia in Shokun, Japanese monthly magazine, many Japanese were surprised at the biased article.

I discussed this article with Jimmy Wales and Japanese staff of Wikipedia. Jimmy watched this article and (removed unsourced contentious material per Biographies of living persons policy)." Japanese staff were also sorry for the rude editors that degrade Wikipedia's reputation. I reported your racism to admin. Ikedanobuo (talk) 16:51, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Ikedanubuo, I don't think there would be a problem if you simply add the counter point of view of guys like Hata or anybody of the Tsukurukai but the problem is when you, as a user, minimize the value of Yoshimi's or other respected historians arguments, calling them "leftists" under the pretext that "everybody in Japan know this is not true".

With all respect, given the attitude of the LDP, and the poor value of their history programs, I do not think this is a good criteria. The opinion of Jimmy Wales, japanese websites or anybody not related to academic history is no more relevant. So, just add referenced sources, without unsourced like "The prosecutors of the Tokyo tribunal dismissed that because they did not thought it was relevant". THIS is POV. --Flying tiger (talk) 17:13, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Long time no see

Ikedanobuo, I have read almost all of the discussions you have ever had on this page, including the one named "Conclusions". I don't know how good your English comprehension is, but from what I read, most if not all, of your ideas were refuted. I think it is a little irresponsible to just ignore people who are making valid arguments against your ideas and then just suddenly jump to "conclusions".

I do not want to ban you without evidence. In fact, I will completely remove my proposal for banning you if you agree to discuss radical or controversial changes with an open mind here on the discussion page BEFORE you put them into the article. I think you know that your ideas are controversial, and I for one appreciate your presence. It's always good to have different points of view, and if you are honest and thoroughly researched about what you put in this article (not just repeating what right-wing media and such spew at you) then I think this article will become a great place for the world to see what some Japanese people are thinking. By the way, many times you have implicitly or explicitly stated that "most Japanese agree" with Hata's point of view, but I have lived worked and studied in Japan for years now, and I haven't met one single Japanese person who denies that the government abused comfort women.

As far as reporting me to the administrators, I can't stop you. However, I will say that it's going to be difficult proving that I'm a racist since I don't even know what race you are (I'm assuming Japanese) and you have no idea what "race" I am. If you think I am racist against Japanese people, I suggest you talk to my countless Japanese friends, many of whom are very dear to me. (Did you really talk to Jimmy Wales? That seems a little far-fetched to me...)

In conclusion, I want to tell you 3 things

• I think that you have some valid and truthful information that you can add to this article. (I think that your additions about Yasuji Kaneko's dishonesty are valid) Just make sure that you discuss any controversial or large-scale changes with me and everyone else here. Don't just 勝手に add them without even trying to reach a consensus.
• As Flying tiger has mentioned above, please keep a neutral point of view when editing this article especially.
• Please refrain from making personal attacks against your fellow Wikipedians and other people in the media. Even in the above comment you called my ideas "stupid" and you slandered historians and others across the world with the statement "There are many fools spreading lies." Please be more civil when discussing things, as it can be degrading and insulting to be told such things. Thank you, and I look forward to having many interesting and revealing discussions with you! Yaki-gaijin (talk) 23:07, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I told you to show the evidence

I'm not interested in your excuse. The problem is simple. I repeatedly wanted you to show the undisputed hard evidence that proves the coercion of comfort women by the official order of the Japanese Army. As nobody could show it, I concluded as above and wrote so in the article. Before deleting it, read Hata's brief article.[11] Ikedanobuo (talk) 02:42, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

By the way Ikedanobuo, please read this WP:BRD. Let's follow these guidelines. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 05:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe because wartime brothels were procured by another government branch...but there needs not to be a document for such things t be proven. Witnesses claim that they were taken by men that looked like soldiers. Legally, it is more than enough evidence to indict a charge. Odst (talk) 11:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Odst, even if some negationnists dismiss the testimonies of the women, they have to do a lot of intellectual work to discard the written proof, such as documents found in 2007 by Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Hirofumi Hayashi :Evidence documenting sex-slave coercion revealed. Also, we must always remember that, after its defeat the Japanese military destroyed many documents for fear of war crimes prosecution. (Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Comfort Women. Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II, Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan) as there is hard evidence proving official orders from the Japanese Ministry of War to destroy evidence.[[12]] (Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East). --Flying tiger (talk) 14:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

what's your point? the fact of the matter is that what Ikedanobuo said is correct. As far as we are concerned, there is no surviving imperial army document that orders the coercion of women into sexual slavery. If there is, that's good. If there isn't, it would not make much of a difference. SCAPIN iterrogation documents do exist however, and its content regarding eyewitness prove the ARMY was directly involved with the practice. We are already sure that comfort women were procured by some type of Japanese administration, but Ikeda's argument is, where? In other words, it's a play of words that he is using in order to try and render that the entire practice was not a responsibility of the Japanese imperial government. However, it was. Overwhelming evidence proves that it was the work of imperial Japan, and furthermore, SCAPIN suggests and proves that the army was directly involved in the procurement of comfort women, Again, what's your point? Odst (talk) 02:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Could you put up a link to that SCAPIN evidence? Or atleast a link to an article about it? I would like to take a look at it. Thanks Yaki-gaijin (talk) 03:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow !! Odst, thank you for explaining me that Ikedanobuo is playing with words... No, you are wrong to argue Ikedanobuo is right because he is wrong to write there is no proof...--Flying tiger (talk) 03:56, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Read it again. I said that there is evidence, only I said that there is no surviving document issued by the Japanese military chain of command, not necessarily the cells in the Japanese government.Odst (talk) 04:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I culd not find a report by SCAP, as many still remain classified. I managed to find this, though: [[13]], but I pasted it on here for everyone to see:

Title: “Matters regarding recruitment at military comfort station”

<Notification> From: Assistant To: Army Chief Generals of the troops in northern China and of the expeditionary force in central China

When brokers recruited comfort women for establishment of the brothels during Sino-Japanese war, there were not a few infamous cases to which we need to pay attention: the case that some brokers used the authority of Japanese military for their recruitment, as the result, they ruined Japanese military’s credibility and led to a misunderstanding of ordinary people, the case that some brokers took unruly method of recruiting through embedded journalists and visitors causing social problem, the case that some brokers were arrested and placed under investigation because the way of their recruiting was like kidnapping. From now, as regards the recruitment of comfort women, the expeditionary force properly chooses and controls brokers which recruit comfort women. Also, it is necessary to cooperate with military polices and law enforcement authorities. To keep the prestige of Japanese military and to consider social problems, take careful note of no omission. March 4, 1938

That's a fairly biased source you found there. Have you checked out the other pages that are basically ad-hominem attacks on Korea and other countries? I wish that someone could present the Japanese revisionist position with just cold hard logic. Why does racism and emotion always have to come into it? It makes it very hard to believe, much less agree, with anything Japanese revisionists like Ikuhiko Hata say... Yaki-gaijin (talk) 10:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for giving you the link to some biased articles, but forget that shit. The only reason I linked the source was because it was the only reference I could find of an actual translation of the letter pasted above. Numerous other sources mention and identify that and other documents Yoshiaki found, but the link above was the only page I could find with an actual dated translation. Again, disregard other sections in the link. To avoid that confusion, I pasted it here, on this page. Odst (talk) 04:11, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I asked you to have a civil discussion

I didn't make any excuses.

I have read that article before. In fact, I've cited it as a source for some of my edits to the article (in case you didn't notice). The article is very revealing as to how biased Hata is. He says it's "nauseating" when people present a view opposite to his own. He makes unprovable statements like "None of (the comfort women) were forcibly recruited". It's impossible to prove that without investigating every single comfort woman's case. Hata complains about the media. He also (removed unsourced contentious material per Biographies of living persons policy) saying she has "an abysmally poor grasp of the facts" simply because she has come to conclusions that differ (greatly) from his.

Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda and advertising. Therefore, Wikipedia content is not:

• Opinion pieces on current affairs or politics. Although current affairs and politics may stir passions and tempt people to "climb soapboxes" (i.e. passionately advocate their pet point of view), Wikipedia is not the medium for this. Articles must be balanced so as to put entries for current affairs in a reasonable perspective, and represent a neutral point of view. Furthermore, Wikipedia authors should strive to write articles that will not quickly become obsolete.

If you have decided on your own "truth" regarding comfort women, then please feel free to write all about it on your personal blog or in some other medium, but it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 04:44, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Don't let me say the same thing. I wanted you to show the evidence of the Army's coercion. Can you show it? Answer yes or no. Ikedanobuo (talk) 05:03, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

There is plenty of evidence for it in the article itself. Have you read it? Ikedanobuo, I know exactly what you're thinking, and I know your POV regarding comfort women. If you continue to make huge edits and try to come to some sort of all-encompassing conclusion, then you're not going to make any progress towards your goal, and you will end up making this article useless. I am assuming that you are editing in good faith and that you want this article to become a great and useful article.

So, here's what I suggest; let's start off with small changes. You suggest a change, (a small change that you think we can get a consensus on) and then everyone here will discuss it. Hopefully we will come to some agreement, and you will have the honor of adding the agreed-upon content to the article. How does that sound? Yaki-gaijin (talk) 05:22, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Can't you understand English? I told you to show the hard evidence. There are lots of rumors, guesses, and hearsay articles in the article, but there is even no link to hard evidence. If you believe there is, point out exactly where it is. Ikedanobuo (talk) 14:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I won't assume to be an expert on comfort women. You seem to know a lot about comfort women and the evidence regarding the events that happened so, I will let you lead this discussion. Why don't you take every piece of evidence and source cited in this article, and refute them one by one? It would at least start us down a path of understanding each other, and maybe we can find some of this hearsay and other false evidence. This is the only way you're going to reach your goal of denying that comfort women were sex slaves here on Wikipedia! So, go ahead, pick the first piece of "false evidence" and we will discuss it. ALSO, if you're going to cite sources, try to make sure you use a variety of reliable sources, not just a bunch of Ikuhiko Hata's works. Thank you, and I look forward to discussing the evidence in this article with you. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 22:47, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Modify, don't destroy

OK, you admit you can't show any hard evidence. So I corrected errors one by one in the article. If you think it's incorrect, you can add counter-arguments. Don't revert. Especially the section "Liabilities" is nonsense because nobody should owe liability without evidence. As in the court, the accuser should have the burden of proof.

Is this a court? Even if it was so, the burden of proof does not necessarily need hard evidence to prove guilt. If a reasonably minded person thinks a certain factual event has happened based on other evidentiary indications, then even without documentation (hard evidence as you may call it), they can still say something has happened. This is a question of fact asked to the jury (reasonably minded people). If the jury was the world, would the Japanese government be found guilty? This is a rhetorical question so please dont answer it.

Ikedanobuo (talk) 01:48, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

You're going about this all wrong. Did you even read WP:BRD? I told you to start with one at a time. You must have misunderstood my English. Please be more careful when reading what I and others type so that there are no misunderstandings.

You have been Bold by making so many changes. That's the B in BRD. The next step in BRD is to Revert. If someone Reverts what you have added, the next step in BRD is to Discuss. BRD. Get it? If your changes have been reverted, you should Discuss them with the Most Interested People (namely Flyingtiger and I) until you can reach some kind of consensus on something. Please be more cooperative or people might mistake your edits as soap box editing or even tendentious editing. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 03:45, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

No such rule exists in Wikipedia. Anybody can freely edit it, and if there is any problem they can discuss it in this page. I repeatedly asked to show the evidence of the sexual slavery was ordered by the Army, but nobody could. So, as I concluded in section 14 above, it doesn't make sense to mention the comfort women as the Army's crime. It's my crucial argument, and you couldn't refute it. So I modified the article along with the conclusion. Ikedanobuo (talk) 05:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

BRD isn't a rule, it's a way to follow the official Wikipedia policy of being civil and a way to resolve conflicts. If you have no intention of resolving the conflict regarding the content of this article, I will have no choice but to report you to the Arbitration Committee and request to have you blocked. I really hope that you cooperate and can have a calm discussion with me and everyone else here about this issue. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 10:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The true story

As you are ignorant of history and illiterate in Japanese, we set up a translation site of the (dis)information about Japan.[14] In fact, this phantom scandal of comfort women was fabricated by the Asahi's wrong article in 1992. In 1991, I covered the same problem as a producer of NHK, a public TV Station visiting many victims (men and women) of "abduction" in South Korea. They blamed the fraud of brokers and complained the hard labor environment, but nobody told me that they were coerced by the Army. No other journalists and historians, including Yoshimi, have not heard of abduction or coercion by the Army. It's the truth, like it or not. Ikedanobuo (talk) 05:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I doubt you really are the Author Nobuo Ikeda. Then what the hell are you doing on Wikipedia?Odst (talk) 06:06, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Even if he is a professor at that (little known) university, that doesn't make him any kind of expert on Comfort Women. In fact, the graduate school where Nobuo Ikeda works only has Management and Accounting courses so, regardless of his real name, Ikedanobuo is most likely just a ultra-nationalist right-wing history buff who feels the need to convince the world about the "true" history of the atrocities Japan committed in WWII. Guess I wasn't as illiterate in Japanese as you thought, eh Ikedanobuo? Yaki-gaijin (talk) 07:41, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

In this discussion, when someone can't persuade others by facts nor logic, he call them "ultra-nationalist", "right wing" and so on. Only you can do is reverting without any evidence? There were many such racists in this article. If you can read Japanese, I'll present this phrase for you, Yaki-gaijin. 馬鹿は死ななきゃ直らない。Ikedanobuo (talk) 14:25, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

"馬鹿は死ななきゃ直らない" translated roughly means "Idiots will only be fixed through death." Thanks for calling me a racist, and thanks for the bonus DEATH THREAT. I think your true character is really starting to show through now. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 22:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

That's an old Japanese saying that is used to describe the extent of someone's stupidity. ("He is so stupid that there is no cure for it but death."). Pejorative, yes. Death threat, no. Hermeneus (user/talk) 18:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Something about horses and power? I can't read Japanese. Odst (talk) 19:42, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Horses and deers. Look up "baka" in google for etymology if interested. Hermeneus (user/talk) 23:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Hermeneus, you are taking your tolerance of this guy to a ludicrous level. The Japanese language is all about reading between the lines. If out of the thousands of Japanese sayings about stupidity, this guy picks one with the words "idiot" and "must die" what exactly do you think he is implying? Also, why do you think he wrote it in Japanese? He obviously knew he was writing something he didn't want others to read because he knew it was wrong. He has called me stupid, ridiculous and other things like that, so it obviously wasn't the "idiot" part that he was afraid of people reading either. Please come back to reality. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 22:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Calm down. "馬鹿は死ななきゃ直らない" is a common Japanese expression of profanity, and there is nothing to read between the lines. Besides, you called him "ultra-nationalist" and such also. I don't intend to defend Ikebukuro because he obviously has serious problems with his speech and editing. But I don't like this issue getting turned into a mere case of a single pov-pushing editor acting badly because it does involve a legitimate content dispute. His frustration is understandable to some extent considering the current text of this article as well as his inability to express himself well in English. Hermeneus (user/talk) 23:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with Hermeneus. Please calm down. 馬鹿は死ななきゃ直らない (baka wa shinanakya naoranai) is a standard kotowaza, or Japanese proverb/saying, that is commonly heard in Japan. Yaki-gaijin incorrectly translated it as "Idiots will only be fixed through death" when in fact a more faithful translation reads: "A fool is a fool until he dies." Kenskyusha's Japanese-English Proverb Dictionary (1999) translates the saying for an English-speaking audience: "The folly of others' thoughts sometimes surprises us" (pg. 468). There is nothing to read between the lines and Ikedanubuo is certainly not physically threatening anyone by repeating the kotowaza. Regards, J Readings (talk) 15:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Don't mean to beat a dead horse (wow what a bad pun!), but I found this on this website

• "馬鹿は死ななきゃ直らない...the only cure for a fool is death"

So my rough translation wasn't that far off. Though I will settle for your "good faith" translation, for now. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 12:34, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

-Can someone explain to me how a reference to "ultra nationalism" made by Yaki-gaijin is linked with racism ? This is certainly not a way related to "facts" or "logic" to dismiss an argument...

Here is a list of some additions by Ikedanobuo which are POV and why :

• 1)

"For example, Kaneko alleges that he joined the Nanking massacre in 1937 and murdered many Chinese, but he joined the Army in 1940. His division was located in Qingdao, middle of China, so he could not be a member of Unit 731 in Manchuria, far North of China."

Where is the source ?

• 2)

"It decided that the case was not crime organized by the Army and that the ones who raped violated the Army’s order to hire only voluntary women.^[1] Some researchers have found documents giving instructions not to treat comfort women violently.^[2]"

Reference not related

• 3)

"In 1991, the Asahi Shimbun reported that the historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi discovered incriminating documents in the archives of Japan's Defense Agency on 11 January 1992. According to Yoshimi they indicated that the military was directly involved in running the brothels, for example by selecting the agents who recruited. The Asahi published these findings as a front-page article and reported that the comfort women were abducted as part of "Joshi Teishintai" (women volunteer corps). But it was obviously wrong because Teishintai was the labor team in the factories of military equipment.[15] This article misled the Japanese government because it was scheduled for Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa to visit South Korea five days after the reporting. He apologized to Korean government about the comfort women without confirming the facts."

Personnal interpretation of facts. Dismissing of an historian's finding by association with unrelated error by a journalist. Interpretation of governement raction. Clearly POV

• 4) In reference to Yoshimi's and Hayashi's findings of 2007 : "the prosecutors adopted it as a proof but did not prosecuted the soldiers because it was not the official order of the Army"

Clearly POV without source

• 5)

"But many historians and lawmakers in Japan think that the statement is not based on historical facts and should be corrected.[16]"

Again, those "many historians" is a source by Hata....

• 6)

"Objections from Japan Most of Japanese people don't believe these stories told by foreign politicians and journalists. Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs refutes the Honda resolution as erroneous.[17] Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe presented this observation in March in response to a question by an opposition lawmaker and the Cabinet has formally confirmed that there was no coercion by the Army. The Yomiuri Shimbun, the largest daily in Japan, wrote in its editorial that no evidence had been found showing coercive recruitment of comfort women by military personnel or government officials.[18] Many scholars and historians such as Ikuhiko Hata question the credibility of certain evidence used to prove the existence and scope of various war crimes committed by Japan including the abuse of comfort women. There is no hard evidence to prove the Japanese military's direct involvement in coercion of the women. There was violent treatment of comfort women by private agents, which would make the Japanese Military only responsible for insufficient supervision.[19] One important argument is to question the credibility of testimony given by former comfort women. Hata and other historians points out that the former comfort womens' testimony is inconsistent and unreliable; making it invalid.[20] For example, some self-identified victims state that they were kidnapped by somebody like a soldier, but they didn't know who they were. This problem was perhaps epitomized in the NHK controversy in early 2001. What was supposed to be coverage of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery was extremely edited and an interview with Hata was inserted at the last minutes. He told that the court was a Kangaroo court that prosecutes dead Emperor Hirohito without attorney.[21] A group of Japanese lawmakers and historians in a full-page ad in the Washington Post on June 14, 2007, denied the Japanese government and military had a hand in conscripting women from Asian countries as sex slaves for the Imperial Army during World War II.[22] They also said that no historical document has ever been found that positively demonstrates that women were forced against their will into prostitution by the official order from Japanese Army." _________________

All this is written in a biased way. "Most Japanese people" is not verified. "Stories by foreign politicians" is a cheap way to diminish the value of proofs and testimonies and wrong. "Cabinet confirm there was no coercion by the Army" is irrelevant. "Many scolars" is again Hata...."They didn't know who they were"... is an extrapolation of some cases to all the cases..."A group of Japanese lawmakers" and "they also said that no historical documents has ever been found" is a reference to right-wing politicians as it they defended the "Truth"...

• 7) Deletion of all the section on censorship of broadcasting testimony. Clearly POV

--Flying tiger (talk) 15:52, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I am so sick of politicians that lie... reading this article and these comments makes me think that politicians need to undergo specific tests before they are allowed in the free world... I think if politicians are found to have lied more than 5 times in ways that can be shown to have hurt a specific number of people, they need to be held liable in the courts like a doctor... we need better attorneys in political malpractice. As unrealistic as it sounds (as feasible as a cure for cancer or AIDS in already infected), I think society won't be safe without it.

Mariab —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.250.246.46 (talk) 04:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Don't delete authoritative secondary sources

Don't delete authoritative secondary sources, if you don't want to read them. >Flying tiger Blue011011 (talk) 16:40, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

What are you refering to?....--Flying tiger (talk) 17:04, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Overview of the currently contested edits

	Old	New (Ikedanobuo)
1	Based on these estimates, most international media sources quote about 200,000 young women were recruited to serve in Japanese military brothels. The BBC quotes "200,000 to 300,000" and the International Commission of Jurists quotes "estimates of historians of 100,000 to 200,000 women."[3]	Based on these estimates, most international media sources quote about 200,000 young women were recruited to serve in Japanese military brothels. The BBC quotes "200,000 to 300,000" and the International Commission of Jurists quotes "estimates of historians of 100,000 to 200,000 women."[4] However, historian Ikuhiko Hata estimates the number between 10,000 and 20,000, because the number of soldiers in the pacific front was 2.5 million compared to the mainland Japan where there were 200,000 prostitutes for 30 million customers.
2	According to Unit 731 soldier Yasuji Kaneko[5] "The women cried out, but it didn't matter to us whether the women lived or died. We were the emperor's soldiers. Whether in military brothels or in the villages, we raped without reluctance."[6] Beatings and physical torture were said to be not uncommon.[7]	According to an ex-soldier Yasuji Kaneko, "Whether in military brothels or in the villages, we raped without reluctance." But his testimony contradicts historical facts and not cited by historians, even by Yoshimi.[23] For example, Kaneko alleges that he joined the Nanking massacre in 1937 and murdered many Chinese, but he joined the Army in 1940. His division was located in Qingdao, middle of China, so he could not be a member of Unit 731 in Manchuria, far North of China.
3	Ten Dutch women were taken by force from prison camps in Java by officers of the Japanese Imperial Army to become forced sex slaves in February 1944. They were systematically beaten and raped day and night in a so called "Comfort Station".[7][8] Although they were returned to the prison camps within three months upon protest of the Dutch prisoners against the Imperial Army, the Japanese officers were not punished by Japanese authorities until the end of the war.[1] After the end of the war 11 Japanese officers were declared guilty with one sentenced to death by the Batavia War Criminal Court.[1] It decided that the case was not crime organized by the Army and that the ones who raped violated the Army’s order to hire only voluntary women.[1] Some researchers have found documents giving instructions not to treat comfort women violently.[9]	Ten Dutch women were taken by force from prison camps in Semarang in Indonesia by officers of the Japanese Imperial Army to become forced sex slaves in February 1944. They were systematically beaten and raped day and night in a so called "Comfort Station".[7][8] Although they were returned to the prison camps within three months upon protest of the Dutch prisoners against the Imperial Army, the Japanese officers were not punished by Japanese authorities until the end of the war.[1] After the end of the war 11 Japanese officers were declared guilty with one sentenced to death by the Batavia War Criminal Court.[1] It decided that the case was not crime organized by the Army and that the ones who raped violated the Army’s order to hire only voluntary women.[1] Some researchers have found documents giving instructions not to treat comfort women violently.[10]
4	The system of comfort women used by the Japanese government during WWII falls under the international definition of slavery at the time, and slavery (sexual or otherwise) was illegal at the time. The 1926 Slavery Convention embodies one such definition. International prohibition of slavery was included in the Tokyo Charter which was used to make the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.[11]	The system of comfort women during WWII falls under the international definition of slavery at the time, and slavery (sexual or otherwise) was illegal at the time. The 1926 Slavery Convention embodies one such definition. International prohibition of slavery was included in the Tokyo Charter which was used to make the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.[11]
5	Rape (including forced or coerced prostitution) was a war crime at the time; regardless of whether prostitution was widespread during WWII.[11]	Rape (including forced or coerced prostitution) was a crime at the time; regardless of whether prostitution was widespread during WWII.[11]
6	Enslavement and other inhumane acts committed by the Japanese government can be considered “crimes against humanity.” In crimes against humanity, the nationality of the victim is irrelevant thus, (it doesn’t matter if the Japanese government was committing crimes against its enemies’ citizens or its own) it is liable for these offenses.[11] The Japanese government is liable for crimes against humanity because of the considerable scale on which these crimes were committed.[11] Arguments that the enslaving and raping of comfort women was perfectly legal at the time is similar to an argument that was used and refuted at the Nuremberg Trials.[11]	A United Nations report called "McDougal Report" alleged that Japanese Army was guilty for enslavement and other inhumane acts can be considered “crimes against humanity.”[11] But Japanese government rejected the accusation as groundless because it presented no hard evidence of the involvement of the Army.[12]
7	n/a	In 1991, the Asahi Shimbun reported that the historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi discovered incriminating documents in the archives of Japan's Defense Agency on 11 January 1992. According to Yoshimi they indicated that the military was directly involved in running the brothels, for example by selecting the agents who recruited. The Asahi published these findings as a front-page article and reported that the comfort women were abducted as part of "Joshi Teishintai" (women volunteer corps). But it was obviously wrong because Teishintai was the labor team in the factories of military equipment.[24] This article misled the Japanese government because it was scheduled for Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa to visit South Korea five days after the reporting. He apologized to Korean government about the comfort women without confirming the facts.
8	n/a	But many historians and lawmakers in Japan think that the statement is not based on historical facts and should be corrected.[25]
9	==Counter theories== The main opposition to the mainstream ideas about comfort women is perhaps the view held by Ikuhiko Hata and other revisionist historians. They question the credibility of certain evidence used to prove the existence and scope of various warcrimes committed by Japan including the abuse of comfort women. These Japanese historians argue that there is no evidence to prove the Japanese military's direct involvement in coercion of the women. In their view, there was violent treatment of comfort women by private agents, which would make the Japanese Military only responsible for insufficient supervision.[citation needed] Hata estimates the number of comfort women to be more likely between 10,000 and 20,000 (in contrast to 60,000 to 300,000 estimated by other historians).[13] Hata claims that NONE of the comfort women were forcibly recruited.[14] He alleges that in the 1930s, there were 200,000 prostitutes in mainland Japan where there were more than 30 million customers, while the number of soldiers was only 3 million in the entire Pacific front.	==Objections from Japan== Most of Japanese people don't believe these stories told by foreign politicians and journalists. Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs refutes the Honda resolution as erroneous.[26] Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe presented this observation in March in response to a question by an opposition lawmaker and the Cabinet has formally confirmed that there was no coercion by the Army. The Yomiuri Shimbun, the largest daily in Japan, wrote in its editorial that no evidence had been found showing coercive recruitment of comfort women by military personnel or government officials.[27] Many scholars and historians such as Ikuhiko Hata question the credibility of certain evidence used to prove the existence and scope of various war crimes committed by Japan including the abuse of comfort women. There is no hard evidence to prove the Japanese military's direct involvement in coercion of the women. There was violent treatment of comfort women by private agents, which would make the Japanese Military only responsible for insufficient supervision.[28]
10	The proportion of countries of origin of the women is also in dispute. Though the precise number of comfort women is still under debate, Hata's study concludes that 40% of them were from Japan, 20% from Korea, 10% from China, and others making up the remaining 30%.[citation needed]	One important argument is to question the credibility of testimony given by former comfort women. Hata and other historians points out that the former comfort womens' testimony is inconsistent and unreliable; making it invalid.[29] For example, some self-identified victims state that they were kidnapped by somebody like a soldier, but they didn't know who they were.
11	One important argument revisionists use to oppose the mainstream conclusions about the abuse of comfort women is to question the credibility of testimony given by former comfort women. Hata and other historians claim that the former comfort womens' testimony is inconsistent and unreliable; making it invalid.[15] For example, some self-identified victims state that they were kidnapped by somebody like a soldier, but they didn't know who they were.[citation needed]	This problem was perhaps epitomized in the NHK controversy in early 2001. What was supposed to be coverage of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery was extremely edited and an interview with Hata was inserted at the last minutes. He told that the court was a Kangaroo court that prosecutes dead Emperor Hirohito without attorney.[30]
12	One of Hata's long term goals is to revise or completely retract the Kono statement.[16] Right-wing groups in Japan have even gone as far as attempting to censor the broadcast of testimony regarding comfort women. This was perhaps epitomized in the NHK controversy in early 2001. What was supposed to be coverage of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery was extremely edited and an interview with Hata was inserted at the last minute to appease the right-wing groups that complained to NHK.[17]	A group of Japanese lawmakers and historians in a full-page ad in the Washington Post on June 14, 2007, denied the Japanese government and military had a hand in conscripting women from Asian countries as sex slaves for the Imperial Army during World War II.[31] They also said that no historical document has ever been found that positively demonstrates that women were forced against their will into prostitution by the official order from Japanese Army.

[edit] Comments

While it's true that some of Ikedanobuo's recent inputs are unsourced and possibly biased, the old version isn't much better, either. It's obviously heavily biased toward those who support the cause of comfort women, and all the Japanese arguments that are critical of the issue are segregated in a little section called "Counter theories," which is filled with hideous Ad hominem attack on Japanese critics. This article is in serious need of full-fledged revision. Hermeneus (user/talk) 19:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't help but agree with Hermeneus' statement, but nevertheless, that does not mean we can condone Ikedanobuo's incursions. Like Hermenius said, we need a re-write of this article. but before that, let's settle some disputes, most notably our quarrel with Ikedanobuo. Odst (talk) 04:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Ikedanobuo needs to provide sources to back up every controvercial edit that he is making first and foremost . Hermeneus (user/talk) 04:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we need to both re-write the article and settle the Ikedanobuo dispute, but I think we can do both at the same time. Ikedanobuo isn't always online, and, as you can see here he is quite a disagreeable and disruptive character. So, waiting around for him will be a waste of time.

I read through the Counter theories section, but I could not find the "hideous ad-hominem attacks" you mentioned. Could you please clarify what you were talking about? Yaki-gaijin (talk) 06:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

For a starter, the term "revisionist" is a label that is both pov and pejorative in nature. The issue of comfort women is rather new one that has come to the attention of the public only around the 1980. There is no long-established, mainstream theory to revise to begin with, at least not in Japan which is one of the major countries where the subject is most extensively studied.

It is at 1991 that Kim Hak-Sun of the first Comfort women was excavated in South Korea. The Comfort women has not appeared in the report of North and South Korea in 1980. --211.3.121.109 (talk) 14:45, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

That "[o]ne of Hata's long term goals is to revise or completely retract the Kono statement" has got nothing to do with the merit of the argument that Hata advances on the subject if not as an ad hominem attempt to discredit it.

"Right-wing groups in Japan have even gone as far as attempting to censor...." isn't even a theory. That's a political activity. Putting it in the same section as Hata's theory has an obvious implication to reject Hata's (and other "revisionist" scholars') argument as a product of right-wing politics that's not worth a serious consideration of scholarship.

Also, calling another editor "ultra-nationalist," "right-wing," etc. constitutes a personal attack. Hermeneus (user/talk) 09:49, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I looked up "revisionist" in the dictionary and the definition is quite neutral. A revisionist is someone "attempting to reevaluate and restate the past based on newly acquired standards" I think this is a good description of what is going on with this issue. Most of the world (including various renowned historians, academics, and experts) have concluded that Japan did in fact enslave and abuse women; thousands of them. Ikedanobuo is representing a voice protesting that "mainstream view," as you might call it, thus he and others promoting that "counter view" easily fit the definition of "revisionist." The fact that Ikedanobuo's "counter view" is such a minority is also the reason why it is being segregated into the Counter theories section. Otherwise he can put "but this is disputed" after every single sentence in the article, as if a majority of historians and experts are wavering over the evidence. The simple truth is that they aren't, and this "counter view" is a extreme minority. An article needs to represent both sides of a debate, but it also needs to have balance.

About the inclusion of Hata's goal of retracting the Kono statement and the actions of the right-wing groups who strongly complained (to put it lightly) to NHK over the broadcast in early 2001. I think these are important to the article to show what and where the revisionists are protesting. It adds to the description of their theories, their way of thinking, etc.

Saying that Ikedanobuo is most likely an "ultra-nationalist right wing" person may be borderline ad-hominem, and I apologize for saying it unnecessarily. But I do believe that it accurately describes the "truths" he insists on, the sources he cites, and other websites he links to when he posts here on Wikipedia. I don't think there's anything wrong with calling someone "right-wing" if their beliefs represent a "right-wing" perspective.

This is my reasoning, but I am, of course, willing to compromise. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 11:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

The act of labeling someone "revisionist" could be pejorative. It doesn't matter if it's a fact or not. Even if someone is mentally retarded for a medical fact, that doesn't mean that calling him/her a "retard" is merely a neutral description of him/her. "Historical revisionism has both a legitimate academic use and a pejorative meaning.... The pejorative use refers to illegitimate manipulation of history for political purposes, for example Holocaust denial" (cf. Historical revisionism). The latter part exactly fits the treatment of Hata and his fellow critics in this Wikipedia article.

"Most of the world...." is your pov that is very much contested here, not a fact. Labeling those who don't agree with you "revisionists" is definitely not a neutral description. The amount of scholarship on the subject is naturally most in Japan and Korea; in the rest of the world it's not a very studied subject. Conservative critics in Japan alone constitutes a very good proportion. Unless you are suggesting a biased view that the entire industry of history in Japan is prejudiced, censored by the rightist government, and what not, and so doesn't count as a legitimate place of scholarship, it doesn't hold true.

The treatment of theories by mere Wikipedia editors like Ikedanobuo alone doesn't constitute any "fact" about those theories. The way Ikedanobuo has been conducting the defense of his cause on Wikipedia is apparently not smart anyway. Ofcourse he should have "put 'but this is disputed' after every single sentence in the article" if that's what he believes right.

Hata's political activity has got nothing to do with the credibility of his scholastic works. Putting together his politics and scholarship in the same section is definitely not a fair and neutral treatment. That's as wrong as mentioning that a certain scholar is an avid supporter of the Republican party who has contributed a big amount of money to the party, received grants from some conservative organization, etc. at great length in an article about the various analyses of policies under the Bush administration. The same can be easily done to scholars like Yoshimi and others who support the cause of comfort women and are often accused of being "traitors," "radical leftists," "communists," etc. as well as former comfort women themselves. Create a separate section if you want to write about politics, or write about it in his own article, "Ikuhiko Hata," if it's not directly related to the subject. Don't mix them up arbitrarily. Hermeneus (user/talk) 17:54, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I realize that people don't call others "retards" anymore, so what's the PC term for a revisionist?

Where can one learn about exactly how many historians are weighing in on the revisionist side and which are not?

I think I agree that Hata's political actions would be more appropriate in his bio.

You told me to calm down, and I think that makes a lot of sense. Unless you feel that you need me here to talk things out with Ikedanobuo, I am going to take a 24hr break from this article. Good luck! Yaki-gaijin (talk) 03:55, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Wiki conventions reccommend assumption of good faith. Besides, He'll be back to disrupt it if we don't settle it. I say we settle the dispute, first. It's never too late to go back and fix the article. Odst (talk) 07:07, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how I can assume good faith in the comment "Idiots will only be fixed through death." Yaki-gaijin (talk) 07:13, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Yaki-gaijin, user Ikedanobuo has already been warned once over his consistent breach of Wikipedia:Civility as seen here - not to mention the myriads of other times an editor has pointed this out on this talk page. I've left another warning on his user page. Phonemonkey (talk) 19:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

How long can someone be consistently disruptive here on Wikipedia before they're banned or at least punished in some way? Yaki-gaijin (talk) 22:52, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

It has to be done in steps, because admins won't take action until other steps to try to change his behaviour have been exhausted. If he continues, the next step would probably be to request community-wide comments via WP:RFC#Request_comment_on_users. Hopefully he'll eventualy wise up. Phonemonkey (talk) 23:10, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A new source

Here's a good article that's fairly recent as well. It also has a very useful map on the last page. JWRC Homepage, and it quotes from those elusive trial documents Odst was talking about. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 11:46, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I CANT READ JAPANESE!!! nor Simplified Kanji.Odst (talk) 19:44, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I changed the link above to go the JWRC homepage where the article is. Scroll down to the link that says Reference Materials of the Press Conference on Japanese military sexual slavery ("comfort women"), 17 April 2007 at The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan Sorry about that. Didn't know they disallowed direct links. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 22:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

o I saw this before. I considered linking tis, but I figured it was way too long. Odst (talk) 00:01, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

It's long, but it's broken up into lots o' little chewable bits. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 03:49, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hermeneus' Sensible Comments

I have deliberately avoided editing this article because it requires a great deal of re-adjustment in order to maintain NPOV, NOR, and verifiability. I agree with most/all of Hermeneus' sensible comments regarding the POV-pushing in this article (that needs to change) and I also think it is understandable why other editors such as Ikedanubou are frustrated. By replacing weasel words, non-attributed statements, and ad-hominem adjectives with non-descriptive and publicly verifiable authors, journalists, and historians, the reader is allowed to assess the information independently from whatever POV-pushing others wish to convey. Granted, there are reliable source issues to consider when adding material, but having said that, I also agree that Ikedanubou needs to source all of his edits as much as everyone else does. The problem is, and I tend to agree with Ikedanubou here, it is considered a foregone conclusion that the so-called comfort women were all "sex slaves" and other POV/partisan descriptions demanding to be taken as fact. This is a terrible mistake when editing an encyclopedia article, especially when not all historians agree. For example, George Hicks is selectively cited in this article. Yet, Hicks also states in his book that the Burmese comfort women were not necessarily "sex slaves" --- they participated willingly. Whether one agrees with Hicks is irrelevant; that was one of many subtle nuances found in his book and should be included to maintain NPOV. I'm confident that if we start to re-edit the article to show all of the relevant points of view in this controversy, those who some regard as "disruptive" will be happy to listen and work with other editors on this project. Regards, J Readings (talk) 14:12, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I was only recently brought to light of the fact that not all comfort women were sex slaves. J readings is correct. Odst (talk) 03:33, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

this calls for a drastic cleanup of the entire article... Odst (talk) 03:34, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

So let's clean it up. You said Ikedanobuo has to cite all of his additions, however, are articles like this considered reliable source material for talking about comfort women? Just wondering because Ikedanobuo likes to quote from it. I admit, it does reveal a lot about what Hata thinks on the subject, but is it academic? Yaki-gaijin (talk) 10:54, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Having read the comments added here in the last few three days, I see a dangerous tendency to relativism. So, "poor Ikedanobuo"'s frustration would be justified and why not, Yaki-gaijin's additions, would be one-sided POV.

As I wrote above, we must not forget that Ikedanobuo's behavior has been characterized for many months by savage deletions followed by agressive additions of non-sourced personal interpretation and extrapolation of facts such as his dubious explanation of why the Tokeitai members were not prosecuted for coercion of women.

Mostly, all his references come from Ikuhiko Hata, an historian yes, but a political activist linked to many negationist organisms such as the Tsukuru kai. I support the fact that Hata's publications should not be discarded from the article and that it he should not be identified as an activist but I completly disagree with this dangerous relativism which is arguing that all historians have ultimately neutral point of view and as such, "Hata's opinion has got nothing to do with the credibility of his scholastic work". We can be neutral without being naive and thus not make Wikipedia the voice of shōwa nationalism. --Flying tiger (talk) 01:00, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

What Flying tiger calls "a dangerous tendency towards 'relativism'," I would simply call a faithful implementation of one of Wikipedia's most endearing policies: NPOV. Respecting that and other policies, I think, would make editing this article less problematic. As it is, all editors here seem to agree with Hermeneus' suggestions, so I am left wondering where the naiveté enters the picture. If we assume good faith, obviously we are not here to debate the history and politics of the comfort women controversy (that violates WP:NOT and WP:BATTLE). Nor are we here to promote any one agenda or turn Wikipedia into a partisan propaganda vehicle for or against the comfort women lobby (that violates WP:SOAP). On these, we all hopefully agree. So what is preventing us from documenting (that is the correct word to use) a balanced, non-judgmental overview of the controversy?

Regarding Hata, his scholarship may not be a few editors' cup of tea (and his historical findings may irritate some), but his work remains highly respected among academics and even journalists. Writing a review for the Journal of International Affairs, Malcolm Kennedy considers Hata's The Hidden Crisis between Japan and the USSR: 1932-1934 to be an "absorbing study" and "enlightening to the general reader interested in Far Eastern history." Professor Shinobu Seizaburo (Nagoya University) praises Hata's A History of the Japanese-Chinese War (Nitchu-Senso-shi, macrons unavailable) stating that "from now on no study of the political history of the Showa era will be possible until [Hata's] book has first been read." David McNeill, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education (April 27, 2007), not only considers Hata to be a historian but also the author of "seminal works" such as Nankin Jiken (The Nanjing Incident, Tokyo: Chuo Koron, 1986).

I can cite many other journalists and academics who consider Hata to be an expert in modern history, but I think I made my point: Hata is a notable academic whose views deserve to be documented and treated with respect, regardless of whether some may disagree with his conclusions on the comfort women controversy. But, again, the only real policy issue here is with undue weight being afforded to any one historian, not with whether he should be included. Best regards, J Readings (talk) 18:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Other than the undue weight policy, I see another conflict. Here on Wikipedia, there isn't a clear definition of what is or is not a "reliable" source. Yes, there is a policiy write up on it, but almost anything could fit into that category by the loose definition given. I am wondering if the papers that Ikuhiko Hata writes on his own (not published in what I would consider reputable publications) should be considered reliable sources. Does anyone have a list of reliable sources regarding comfort women that we might persue?

Will an article about comfort women be at all useful if it is constantly contradicting or arguing with itself? Take estimations of the number of total comfort women. we would have to write

"Some historians have concluded there were 200,000 comfort women. Some historians have concluded there were 10,000 comfort women. Some historians have concluded that there were ZERO comfort women (using the term to mean sex slave)."

I think giving every POV equal weight in this article would render it useless (not to mention the disgrace and injustice it would do to any comfort women who were coerced into sexual slavery, but I guess that doesn't matter on Wikipedia). I hope that a fair balance can be found, but I have a feeling this article is going to be overrun with revisionists. Give them an inch... Yaki-gaijin (talk) 04:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

The reliable sources page presents guidelines to help WP editors deal with the more important policy issue: verifiability. Some sources are reliable and others are not. For example, in my experience, any editor wishing to add content directly from the internet risks having it removed unless it can be shown that it was published somewhere that offers editorial review and/or has a good reputation for fact checking. Blogs and personal websites are usually the first suspects to be carefully scanned and removed vigorously from WP pages unless they were written by the subject himself/herself (blogs are usually only allowed on the living person's own article page). Now, before you jump to say "Hurray! Now we can get rid of the Hata PdF", Wikipedia has caveats for well-regarded experts on any given subject. I have to go back and review the policies because Prof. Hata is well-regarded as a historian according to virtually every newspaper and academic journal that featured his views in English or Japanese, so the PdF might be allowed. Also, a quick and useful way to assess if someone's opinion is notable for this WP article is to make use of Lexis-Nexis, Factiva, Worldcat, and sometimes Google News. I entered "Hata" and "Comfort women" in those English search engines (especially Lexis-Nexis and Factiva -- the most powerful of the search engines), and I received countless hits from reputable sources. We can use these in place of more dubious materials, if need be. J Readings (talk) 09:54, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I tried out Lexis-Nexis and Factiva, but I couldn't find any of the "countless, reputable hits" you were talking. I'll take your word for it, though I still don't have access to any new sources.

The reason I think Hata's pdf isn't a source is because it's written more like an editorial/propaganda; not like an academic paper.

By the way, if we were to give equal weight to each side of the argument it would look a lot like this article in the Japan Times. Basically just saying "we don't know anything, sorry!" Yaki-gaijin (talk) 12:52, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, as I said above, reputable sources are generally determined by their editorial review process and/or reputations. National newspapers are just as acceptable as academic books (though obviously the latter would be preferable.) Directly citing Hata's books would be the better choice, though one can easily cite the Japan Times article you mentioned in this article for certain details if need be. And yes, I apologize, I should have simply put a number on the talk page rather than said "countless" (In my defense, I was in a rush), but I think that you take my point: Prof. Hata is not generally regarded as a crank by journalists and academics. Apparently, Hata published that English-translated article in Shokun -- a Japanese monthly. I have not read the original Japanese (yet), so I can't comment about its accuracy. But what we can say is that the benchmark for inclusion in Wikipedia is not "truth," but verifiability (see WP:V). Original Japanese language materials from third-party sources are acceptable provided that we footnote the original Japanese for those wishing to check the accuracy of the translation for themselves (see WP:RSUE). I'll be visiting a Japanese library soon, so perhaps I can look up the original Japanese for cross-referencing purposes if I get the chance. Thanks for the note, J Readings (talk) 14:40, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting unverified info

Perhaps we should start by finding sources for or deleting info that isn't cited. I went through and highlighted a bunch of statements that just pop out of the blue. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 12:11, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

It's the Thanksgiving weekend, so I'll be taking some time off... Godspeed my fellow anti-revisionists. (Odst ) 71.130.127.229 (talk) 07:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] wp:blp

I have again removed several unsourced contentious statements about living people from this talk page per wp:blp: "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles,[2] talk pages, user pages, and project space." Mdbrownmsw (talk) 18:11, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch parliament demands Japanese compensation for "comfort women"

The motion requests the Dutch government ask Japan to "refrain from any declaration that will devalue the 1993 declaration of remorse" made by then Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono.

Tokyo should "take full responsibility for the involvement of the Japanese army in the system of forced prostitution," the motion says.

The Japanese government is urged to "make an additional gesture by offering the comfort women still alive a form of direct, moral and financial compensation for the inflicted suffering," according to the motion.

Japan should also revise its history text books and give a more accurate picture of World War II, including moves by the Japanese military to force Asian and Western women into prostitution, the motion says.

[32]116.33.12.9 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 03:35, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Xinhua News has been labeled as the "world's biggest propaganda agency". I also can't seem to find this article in any other reputable sources. Is this article telling the truth, or what? Found this, but where are all the major news organizations? Most of the articles I found were Chinese media. Maybe we should delete it until it hits some more reliable sources. I should also edit it for POV stuff. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 08:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Similar motions have already been accepted by the American and Dutch governments, which condemned Japanese action and urged redress [33]116.33.12.9 (talk)

[edit] Greedy comfort women

Here's a jab at the argument "Former comfort women are just gold diggers," which I hear online from anonymous Japanese extremists.

• The Japanese always say all we want is money, but I don't want it. I want an official apology. They have to come out and say 'it was cruel and it was our fault.' -Dutchwoman Ellen van der Ploeg, who was captured by the Japanese in Indonesia during World War II and forced to be a sex slave.

got it here. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 22:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

What does this "jab" have to do with Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia project? If you have some political agenda to educate Japanese "ultranationalists" with the moral "truth," Wikipedia isn't the right place. There are plenty of online forums that are more appropriate for such a political discussion.

It's only making you look bad on Wikipedia that aims to be a neutral and objective encyclopedia. Not a wise thing to do. --Hermeneus (user/talk) 00:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Calm down. I'm not the person you should be barking at.

I posted it here because I thought it might be useful to discuss it and how it fits into the article. There's plenty of sources that talk about how comfort women are simply prostitutes who are embarassed to admit that they weren't forced, or that they are just bitter women out to get money. I'm just cutting that off at the pass. Or at least, drawing a source to the attention of Wikipedians that they may be able to use now or in the future. The fact that I didn't just add it to the article and start a humongous Revert War shows that I'm not pushing some agenda with this quote. You could have just told me politely that it's not useful at the moment, or not said anything at all, and it would have ended there. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 04:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Counter-Theory Section Embarassing

I have read the arguments here, and realize determining what exactly should be included has already been under debate for some time. I think there are numerous unanswered questions and legitimate controversies that support these disputes. I also realize I'm coming quite late. However, I still can't help but point out the obvious here. I feel it needs to be said. How is wikipedia ever going to be taken seriously with articles like this? There's nothing wrong with including a mention of Hata's extremist view. But devoting a whole section to it is insane. Especially insane is including the idea that "NONE"(The article has it in caps) of the women were forced into slavery. The evidence is overwhelming to the contrary and even most Japanese revisionists would not make such an all encompassing claim. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia. It would be like opening up Brittanica and seeing a whole section about how the Holocaust was a myth. It's an embrassing contrast to the great strides wikipedia has been making in constructing reliable articles.

Hata should be mentioned, and if necessary, the whole section can remain. But at the least the idea that no women were forced should be removed. Or at least find some more sources for it. The views of one person, when they are completely in opposition to what even those who downplay comfort women claim, is unjustifiable in an encyclopedia. It's unreal to me that with all the sensible contributers wikipedia has, articles like this still exist.--208.103.143.6 22:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

It's only embarassing because you haven't re-written the entire article yet ^_^

The Counter theories section was made as an alternative to having the phrase "but this is disputed (by Hata, etc)" after every single bit of information presented in the article. Giving Hata (and others' ideas) a separate section makes it easier for people to read one side of the debate and then read the other. If you can come up with a better idea, I'm sure everyone here would love to hear it. Yaki-gaijin 08:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I didn't want to create a firestorm by messing with it, but by the same token, I was probably going overboard with that rant. My main problem is the overreliance on Hata. It is a large section to devote to the theories of a single individual. If more sources could be found for those views, it would improve the article in my estimation.--205.146.54.14 19:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi guys: I added this to the counter section:

This argument, of course, can be categorized as a type of victim blaming, a characteristic human response to the discovery and accusation of rape. Because the argument is not novel and has central characteristics appropriate to denial, such an argument does not negate coercion from Japanese military facility, but rather simply calls for more indicative evidence.

I hope everyone will find these comments objective. I wrote them with the implicit assumption that people want to determine the responsible culprits for these crimes as well as tie the obviously non-novel argument (though definitely counter to egalitarian views of humans and who s to be blamed in crimes of rape) to victim blaming, which is also on wikipedia. Please keep my work!

Mariab

"The evidence is overwhelming"? But this wiki article is not providing ANY SINGLE EVIDENCE. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.34.86 (talk) 04:43, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Legal liabilities of the Japanese Government"

The list of "liabilities" at the top of this section looks like a list of arguments presented in a specific paper. Am I right? In which case, in accordance with WP:NPOV if these arguments are to remain in the article, they should be presented in a way so that it is clear that we are discussing the fact that this paper presented these opinions, not merely asserting these opinions as if they are facts. To quote WP:NPOV, "where we want to discuss an opinion, we attribute the opinion to someone and discuss the fact that they have this opinion". Until then I am removing the list. Phonemonkey (talk) 13:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

these facts were, in fact, presented as an argument in the prosecution of about 25 Japanese war criminals. The information is true, therefore it has no choice but to violate jpov. However, it in no way violates npov. o.d.s.t. : feet first into hell (talk) 04:48, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree with Phonemonkey that the section needs to be reworded so that the reader is aware that it was simply an argument made by the Allied prosecution. In order to maintain NPOV, it would also be a good idea to present the defense argument presented AT THE TIME by the legal defense during the trials so the reader has a full picture of the subject matter. Do that, and we maintain NPOV. Wouldn't you agree, Odst? J Readings (talk) 10:18, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead with that; I admit there were some statements that had to be restated in a less infuriating way. As far as I'm aware, the information Phonemonkey has been trying to delete was factually accurate. What Phonemokey was doing could not be condoned in my eyes...( improve it; don't delete it ) o.d.s.t. : feet first into hell (talk) 21:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply. Also, I'm glad we agree that there's some common middle ground to be found here. I'll be stopping by the library this afternoon to research a separate subject for Wikipedia. I'll start looking through the literature for mentions of the Japanese defense team's point-by-point arguments to the Allied Prosecution. I can't guarantee that I'll find it right away (though I'm sure it will be recorded somewhere), but once I do find it I'll be sure to report back anything worth mentioning. Best, J Readings (talk) 22:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

There should be lots of books about nuremberg at the library... I'll see If I can find something, too. o.d.s.t. : feet first into hell (talk) 22:21, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Odst, don't get me wrong - if that is indeed a list of arguments presented by the Allied prosecution it's undoubtedly an important piece of imformation which I'd be glad to include in the article. However 1) it needs to be presented as a list of arguments presented by the Allied prosecution and 2) backed up by a suitable source which shows that this was indeed a list of arguments made by the Allied prosecution. Now if I had sources to hand which shows the list of arguments made by the prosecution I'd stick them up myself - but I don't. I can't really make edits to that section to say "these are the arguments made by so-and-so" because I haven't got a source I can go into (the linked reference doesn't seem to work for me - perhaps if it works on your browser you can make the relevant edits?). Right now, it's just a list of arguments presented without an attribution as to who actually made those arguments - I haven't got sources to improve it, so I am only removing it until someone else can present it in a way which complies with wikipedia guidelines. Please don't get offended or assume any bad faith on my part. Thanks, Phonemonkey (talk) 18:18, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

It's unfair to the article here that you delete the material even though you are in a minority group of people who can't open the reference URL. The reference is a UN analysis work from 1998. I returned the list of arguments preceded by a description of the UN paper and its authors and purpose. There's more copyediting to do in the immediately following sections but I ran out of time today. Binksternet (talk) 19:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand, Phonemonkey; I've seen your previous edits and you don't seem to hold malicious intentions at all. you see, to be a devoted wikipedian... Nevertheless, I do think there could have been an alternative action you could have taken. I understand your motives, but the res' were not untrue>Just some weasel words, that's all. o.d.s.t. : feet first into hell (talk) 09:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Counter Theory

Hi, this is what I added:

This argument, of course, can be categorized as a type of victim blaming, a characteristic human response to the discovery and accusation of rape. Because the argument is not novel and has central characteristics appropriate to denial, such an argument does not negate coercion from Japanese military facility, but rather simply calls for more unrefutable evidence. For example, sufficient evidence may be found that the military culture and not official Japanese memorandum, faciltitatied coercion of Comfort women. In such a case the Japanese military would be guilty of professional negligence and corruption which facilitated crimes.

I hope that we can keep this content for a long time, with few revisions.

Mariabrenna (talk) 04:31, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Mariabrenna. One question: can your added sentences be attributed to an author responding specifically to Prof. Hata's work on this subject? Right now, it reads a little bit like original research. J Readings (talk) 09:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi: I don't know about original research; Prof. Hata isn't the only researcher in existence though, so whether it is his statement or not isn't necessary to include and maintain in the article. Linking one concept to another in wikipedia seems common practice. It doesn't need to be research to link to predefined definitions in other articles. Original research would be like me stating that the under diagnostic means we know that the psychology of victim blaming and can definitely attribute it to those using a type of argument. But no one has done that research so it's not really a concern.Mariabrenna (talk) 17:24, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

What we're really talking about here is original synthesis. Specifically, "Synthesizing material occurs when an editor tries to demonstrate the validity of his or her own conclusions by citing sources that when put together serve to advance the editor's position. If the sources cited do not explicitly reach the same conclusion, or if the sources cited are not directly related to the subject of the article, then the editor is engaged in original research." If you read your above argument in specific relation to the comfort women issue, and you can cite (i.e., attribute) it within the article to a reliable source, then it would be appropriate for the comfort women article. That was my point. Thanks, J Readings (talk) 22:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Claims that Political Right-wingers lie

I am so sick of politicians that lie... reading this article and these comments makes me think that politicians need to undergo specific tests before they are allowed in the free world... I think if politicians are found to have lied more than 5 times in ways that can be shown to have hurt a specific number of people, they need to be held liable in the courts like a doctor... we need better attorneys in political malpractice. As unrealistic as it sounds (as feasible as a cure for cancer or AIDS in already infected), I think society won't be safe without it.

It's about as sick and corrupt as swindling old people out of their social security.

Mariabrenna (talk) 04:31, 1 January 2008 (UTC)Mariab —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.250.246.46 (talk) 04:25, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I, too, the find the denial of well-documented crimes against humanity repugnant. However, I think anything that tends towards criminalizing political differences sets a frightnening precedent.128.165.87.144 (talk) 16:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article snippet moved here

This snippet was added by 202.40.139.170 in Revision as of 17:26, May 27, 2008. I've moved it here for discussion.

, some of whom were eventually forced to prostitute for the U.S. occupational force.<ref>http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_pacific.html</ref>

1. The cited supporting source is a personal web page. As such, it does not meet WP:RS criteria. The same information, however, is available from an arguably more reliable source here.
2. The assertion added to the article ("some of whom were eventually forced to prostitute for the U.S. occupational force") is not supported by either source. A parenthetical remark in both sources under "The Truk Massacre" reads, "After the war the US occupational authorities allowed continued use of a number of these Comfort Women still alive, as prostitutes for their own GIs stationed on the island" -- there is nothing there suggesting that the continued prostitution was forced.

I question whether this information belongs in this article at all, but concede that it might. If it does belong in this article, it does not belong in the lede section. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)