Japanese mayor says that WWII 'comfort women' were necessary

[frogwoman]

I don't condone it. I'm just trying to look at this in a purely factual way. And in the context and in the circumstances this mayor guy is probably correct that these women were part of maintaining discipline in the ranks.

fuck off.

what "discipline"? so they'd be disciplined enough not to rape people?

rape apologist cunt.

 

[frogwoman]

If you take that comment purely as a fact and in the context of war, the guy is probably right. Now that doesn't excuse the crime in any way. But soldiers rape in war and it no doubt does maintain discipline.​

fuck this .​

 

[dylanredefined]

BTW what is meant by the discipline of the troops?

Obedience to order and behavior.
Well disciplined troops see HMS Birkenhead troops ordered to stand to attention to allow women and children to get to the few life boats
which they did till the ship sank.
ill disciplined troops see Mai Lai masscre or any cliche from vietnam war movies. Sloppy dress no respect for their commanders
etc.

 

[dylanredefined]

I'm sure they did. The question is, did the British Army go into a country like Belgium, select women to be slave prostitutes, and set them up in army-run mass brothels?

No not heard of anything like that. It may well have turned a blind eye to how and where the prostitutes came from that appeared near any camp certainly didn't set up any brothels.

 

[Tito Puente]

I'm sure they did. The question is, did the British Army go into a country like Belgium, select women to be slave prostitutes, and set them up in army-run mass brothels?

I'm sure there were prostitutes when the British troops were moving through Belgium on to the Ardennes. Why not? Whenever there are large concentrations of soldiers there will be sex for sale. Russian and Belorussian troops moving in from the east were brutal against Prussian women and girls.

 

[frogwoman]

.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I'm sure there were prostitutes when the British troops were moving through Belgium on to the Ardennes. Why not? Whenever there are large concentrations of soldiers there will be sex for sale. Russian and Belorussian troops moving in from the east were brutal against Prussian women and girls.

The important thing you're skirting around, is the enslavement of women by the army itself, so that a free woman could be provided, right after the rations got consumed at the mess tent.

 

[equationgirl]

There is no excuse for rape. None.

 

[likesfish]

The japanese military was deeply deeply fucked up the brutal treatment of pows was similar to the treatment ordinary japanese soldiers could expect. Getting ill or injured was considered a disgrace and resulted in a beating.
When you have a military that engages in beheading or bayonting contests and considers murdering rival generals accpetable behaviour things have gone off the deep end.

The japenese did the same thing to their own women when they were occupied by the US military that had a less than robust response to an epidemic of rape and murder amognst its own troops who didnt even have the "excuse" of being traumistised combat veterans being mostly fresh troops from the states.
Somebody who survived iwo jima where waves of troops were slaughtered might be a severe mental fuck up.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think they probably were animals as you put it. They weren't there for an evening watching the ballet. They were ruthless, brutal thugs, because that is presumably what the Japanese command wanted. The comfort women were the spoils of war.

Spoils of war go back to the Norman conquest and before. Where the vanquished were stripped of their castles and land and it was given as rewards to the conquering army. Or Visigoths sacking Rome and making off with plunder and the women.

I don't condone it. I'm just trying to look at this in a purely factual way. And in the context and in the circumstances this mayor guy is probably correct that these women were part of maintaining discipline in the ranks.

War is savage, war is cruel, war is sickening. If it was down to me, war wouldn't exist.

The conflation of the actions of pre-modern war-bands and other irregular formations with the actions of professional armies is interesting, especially as such a conflation is counterfactual.
Those pre-modern war-bands acted as they did because within their cultures at the time, people were "booty" just as much as precious metals and other goods were.
As said, the Japanese military acted as it did as a further method of control of its' forces, for reasons of dicipline, and for political purposes (it's hard to maintain a fiction of benevolence if your troops are induging in mass rape willy-nilly, easier to do so if you utilise slavery to sate your forces).
Yes, rape is rape, but trying to spin a narrative that Visigoths taking slaves for personal gain (because that's what "booty" is) is the same thing as what the Japanese did (it may be morally, but it's vastly different historically and politically) is a bit daft, unless you're attempting to justify the phenomenon of war-time rape per se.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Did the British Army have comfort women?

No. They pretty much took their lead from (IIRC) their experience in the revolutionary war in the States, and encouraged soldiers and sailors to use local brothels, where available, which had the "bonus" of somewhat bringing the locals on-side due to the economic growth it caused. I think Hugh Bischino mentions this in his book on the subject of the war.
Of course, there's a case to be made that brothel-use is no more sanctionable than rape, and that in some cases women working in brothels are little more than economically-conscripted into a role that sees them raped, but that's a separate argument to "battlefield rape". I remember my grandad saying that in India, the brothels were often "staffed" by Hindu widows, whose families would otherwise have encouraged onto a bonfire (suttee).

 

[ViolentPanda]

i believe that when the British troops were in large numbers in Germany, their soldiers were not wholly unknown visitors to the brothels of Osnabrück, Münster, Dortmund, or Mönchengladbach.

Hardly the same thing, even if one takes it as read that the women in such brothels were economic conscripts, then the women weren't slaves; weren't liable to murder; weren't liable to military discipline if they objected to having to fuck 12-18 men a day, etc.

 

[ViolentPanda]

There is no excuse for rape. None.

Absolutely.
And that's what "comfort women" endured - ongoing rape without hope of release, except through death.

Peunte's conflation of sex workers with slaves is pathetic.

 

[Tito Puente]

There is no excuse for rape. None.

I agree with you and I'm neither excusing rape nor apologising for it.

I'm looking at this purely from the factual point of view. Did the comfort women help with discipline in the WW2 Japanese army ranks? That is the core question. Is this mayor right or wrong? Now whether the British army used organised prostitute slavery is not entirely relevant to this question. It is sidetracking somewhat.

I've seen no evidence to suggest that in this scenario at this time with this structure of army that the comfort women didn't help discipline. If someone can provide evidence to refute that premise, I will happily accept it.

 

[BigTom]

Yeah it's relevant, you're comparing contemporary armies. If the British army didn't systematically enslave and rape women and were able to maintain discipline then this shows that the systematic rape of women is not necessary to maintain discipline in such an army.

"Purely from the factual point of view" fuck off you cunt, by saying this you are supporting rape by saying that maintaining discipline is more important than not raping thousands (?) Of women.
Not that you've provided any evidence that rape is good for discipline, nor addressed what a lack of discipline would lead to anyway.

 

[Tito Puente]

"Purely from the factual point of view" fuck off you cunt, by saying this you are supporting rape by saying that maintaining discipline is more important than not raping thousands (?) Of women.

I didn't say that maintaining discipline is more important than not raping thousands of women.

I asked whether in the context of this war at this time with this army whether the so-called comfort women helped to keep discipline in the ranks. I don't know one way or the other. And I suspect that you don't either. Unless of course you can provide some evidence to support the case that comfort women didn't help army discipline.

What evidence do I have to back my case?

Whenever you have a large bunch of young blokes together away from wives and girlfriends, especially under the stress of war, then thoughts will meander to (lack of) sex. That is pretty much a given, isn't it? The consensus here seems to be that also applies to the British army, except their approach was sanctioning the use of local brothels.

Now please don't scream "apologist fucking rape nonce loving cunt". I don't agree with rape in any way. I'm just trying to be objective here.

What is discipline in military terms? Order among the ranks, troops obeying orders, that sort of thing???? I'm guessing a lack of discipline would be a breakdown of that.

It's all too easy to sit behind a computer screen and deliberate and pontificate, to tut tut, bawl expletives, and to feign outrage of another time and another place.

 

[BigTom]

How many other contemporary armies systematically enslaved and raped women to maintain discipline?
All those armies that didn't show it's not needed.

I didn't ask what discipline is, I asked what the consequences of a lack of discipline are, are these consequences worse than the systematic rape of thousands of women? Cos that's the argument you are making here, that maintaining discipline is more important.

 

[BigTom]

Objectivity can fuck off too. Objectively rape is one of the worst acts that can be done. You can stand behind devil's advocate crap if you want but by doing so you are inherently and necessarily supporting the argument that rape is fine cos it maintains discipline. Next you'll say you're just asking the question. If you can't see what's dodgy about what you're saying you really need to step back and have a think about it.

 

[Tito Puente]

How many other contemporary armies systematically enslaved and raped women to maintain discipline?

Do you really not know what happened when first the German armies pushed into Russia and then when they were repulsed back all the way through Prussia to Berlin by Russians, Belorussians, and Ukrainians?

 

[Tito Puente]

you are inherently and necessarily supporting the argument that rape is fine cos it maintains discipline.

I am not saying rape is fine. Why do you have to keep up this absurd line?

I'm saying that rape was used to maintain discipline in the troops. Fact. Objectivity. That's what happened.

So back to the OP. Whether the mayor was ill-advised, or whether he had dodgy motivations, technically he is correct.

 

[BigTom]

I am not saying rape is fine. Why do you have to keep up this absurd line?

I'm saying that rape was used to maintain discipline in the troops. Fact. Objectivity. That's what happened.

So back to the OP. Whether the mayor was ill-advised, or whether he had dodgy motivations, technically he is correct.

ok, let me spell this out for you. the mayor, whose argument you are supporting, said that the systematic enslavement and rape of women was necessary to maintain the discipline of the troops. This argument rests on 3 premises (? not sure premises is the right word here tbh):

1) That the maintenance of discipline is necessary at all - fair enough.
2) That rape is the only (or best) way to maintain discipline. Something that is shown to be false by the vast majority of armies fighting in WWII, (some of) whom maintained enough discipline to defeat the Japanese army without systematic enslavement and rape of women.
3) That maintaining discipline through rape is necessary because the consequences of a lack of discipline are worse than the consequences of mass rape.


ergo, if you are supporting the mayor's argument that rape was necessary to maintain discipline you are saying that rape is fine because the consequences of not-raping are a lack of discipline which is worse than rape. You are justifying rape. You have to be, there is no way out of this.

Technically the mayor is not correct, because two of the premises on which his statement rests are provably false. You have more or less said you agree that the third premise is wrong so why are you arguing in support of the mayor?

 

[Tito Puente]

maintained enough discipline to defeat the Japanese army without systematic enslavement and rape of women.

Although they vapourised a few thousand of them when then dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and fire-bombed Tokyo. But I guess that's okay, because they were the good guys.

But that is side-tracking. Back to the crucial word 'necessary'. Was rape necessary? In the framework and structure of the Japanese imperial army I put forward the premise that yes, it was all part of the fear and brutality that was the military discipline in that army. Other armies like the British had different approaches to military discipline, so it's oranges and apples here. Showing that rape wasn't a necessary part of discipline in one army doesn't mean that it wasn't in the military model of another army.

Was rape right? Of course not. But then the whole of war is not right and if it was down to me there would be no wars. But this is similar to the philosophical question, would you grass up your neighbours to save your own family if the Gestapo came knocking on the door? If you were a soldier in the Japanese army among all that chaos, brutality, and mayhem, and possibly coercion from commanding officers and pressure for your peers, could you hand on heart say that you have protested so loudly against the rapes then as you do on this forum?

 

[Red Cat]

I don't think that Tito Puente is saying that rape is fine.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I've seen no evidence to suggest that in this scenario at this time with this structure of army that the comfort women didn't help discipline.

What sort of evidence might there be for something like that?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I didn't say that maintaining discipline is more important than not raping thousands of women.

I asked whether in the context of this war at this time with this army whether the so-called comfort women helped to keep discipline in the ranks. I don't know one way or the other..

One bit of evidence is that there were other armies of the day that were able to maintain discipline without maintaining slave-fuck houses for their troops.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I'm saying that rape was used to maintain discipline in the troops..

That's certainly the excuse that was/is given.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Although they vapourised a few thousand of them when then dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and fire-bombed Tokyo.

What does that have to do with Japanese soldiers raping Korean slave women?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

In the framework and structure of the Japanese imperial army I put forward the premise that yes, it was all part of the fear and brutality that was the military discipline in that army.

But, the fear and brutiality was being exercised against the slave women. It wasn't directed toward the soldiers.

 

[Red Cat]

But, the fear and brutiality was being exercised against the slave women. It wasn't directed toward the soldiers.

How do those in power unleash that kind of brutality, keep it up, and prevent it from being exercised against the soldiers they're fighting alongside or their superiors? How do you create and maintain an army of men that kill the 'enemy' and not eachother?

I don't know the answer to that but I think these are the kinds of issues we're talking about.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

How do those in power unleash that kind of brutality, keep it up, and prevent it from being exercised against the soldiers they're fighting alongside or their superiors? How do you create and maintain an army of men that kill the 'enemy' and not eachother?

I don't know the answer to that but I think these are the kinds of issues we're talking about.

I don't think the Soviet nor the German armies operated army-run slave-brothels. Nor the various Chinese armies; nor the Italian Army, nor the Ethiopian Army.