[Grovenet] Another fine example of American Government Hypocrisy .. .

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Is that surprising? A brothel system maintained for about six months after
American forces landed on the mainland : forces who had been taught that the
Japanese were vicious, sub-human animals. As the article says, the Japanese
used the sex workers as a "breakwater" to avoid rapes and mis-treatment of
other Japanese women. Given the propaganda those troops had been saturated
in for years, and the horrors they had faced, that sounds like it was a good
idea. 
 
I'm not surprised that it's little-known. It doesn't fit the image of the
"All-American" boy in uniform. But, of the millions of such men, I wonder
how many took advantage of the service? Three, thirty, three thousand, three
million?  How easy it is to think that those who did were 'typical' of all
GIs! Is it important to pry under every rock looking for something unsavory
we can use to characterize the whole society? 
 
Women in Europe were having sex with American troops for enough food to keep
themselves and their families alive? Was that any more laudable? 
 
There is nothing nice about war or its immediate consequences, as we found
out with Korea, Vietnam and now we'll  experience a new dose of post-war
problems brought on by Iraq. 
 
Ron D'Eau Claire 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of Bob Browning
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 10:39 AM
To: Grovenet
Subject: [Grovenet] Another fine example of American Government Hypocrisy ..
.




GIs frequented Japan's 'comfort women' 


By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer         Wed Apr 25, 6:20 PM ET 

Japan's abhorrent practice of enslaving women to provide sex for its troops
in World War II has a little-known sequel: After its surrender - with tacit
approval from the U.S. occupation authorities - Japan set up a similar
"comfort women" system for American GIs.

An Associated Press review of historical documents and records shows
American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate
despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution.
The Americans also had full knowledge by then of Japan's atrocious treatment
of women in countries across Asia that it conquered during the war.

Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S. troops
until the spring of 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the brothels
down.

The documents show the brothels were rushed into operation as American
forces poured into Japan beginning in August 1945.

"Sadly, we police had to set up sexual comfort stations for the occupation
troops," recounts the official history of the Ibaraki Prefectural Police
Department, whose jurisdiction is just northeast of Tokyo. "The strategy
was, through the special work of experienced women, to create a breakwater
to protect regular women and girls."

The orders from the Ministry of the Interior came on Aug. 18, 1945, one day
before a Japanese delegation flew to the Philippines to negotiate the terms
of their country's surrender and occupation.

The Ibaraki police immediately set to work. The only suitable facility was a
dormitory for single police officers, which they quickly converted into a
brothel. Bedding from the navy was brought in, along with 20 comfort women.
The brothel opened for business Sept. 20.

"As expected, after it opened it was elbow to elbow," the history says. "The
comfort women ... had some resistance to selling themselves to men who just
yesterday were the enemy, and because of differences in language and race,
there were a great deal of apprehensions at first. But they were paid
highly, and they gradually came to accept their work peacefully."

Police officials and Tokyo businessmen established a network of brothels
under the auspices of the Recreation and Amusement Association, which
operated with government funds. On Aug. 28, 1945, an advance wave of
occupation troops arrived in Atsugi, just south of Tokyo. By nightfall, the
troops found the RAA's first brothel.

"I rushed there with two or three RAA executives, and was surprised to see
500 or 600 soldiers standing in line on the street," Seiichi Kaburagi, the
chief of public relations for the RAA, wrote in a 1972 memoir. He said
American MPs were barely able to keep the troops under control.

Though arranged and supervised by the police and civilian government, the
system mirrored the comfort stations established by the Japanese military
abroad during the war.

Kaburagi wrote that occupation GIs paid upfront and were given tickets and
condoms. The first RAA brothel, called Komachien - The Babe Garden - had 38
women, but due to high demand that was quickly increased to 100. Each woman
serviced from 15 to 60 clients a day.

American historian John Dower, in his book "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the
Wake of WWII," says the charge for a short session with a prostitute was 15
yen, or about a dollar, roughly the cost of half a pack of cigarettes.

Kaburagi said the sudden demand forced brothel operators to advertise for
women who were not licensed prostitutes.

Natsue Takita, a 19-year-old Komachien worker whose relatives had been
killed in the war, responded to an ad seeking an office worker. She was told
the only positions available were for comfort women and was persuaded to
accept the offer.

According to Kaburagi's memoirs, Takita jumped in front of a train a few
days after the brothel started operations.

"The worst victims ... were the women who, with no previous experience,
answered the ads calling for `Women of the New Japan,'" he wrote.

By the end of 1945, about 350,000 U.S. troops were occupying Japan. At its
peak, Kaburagi wrote, the RAA employed 70,000 prostitutes to serve them.
Although there are suspicions, there is not clear evidence non-Japanese
comfort women were imported to Japan as part of the program. 

Toshiyuki Tanaka, a history professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute,
cautioned that Kaburagi's number is hard to document. But he added the RAA
was also only part of the picture - the number of private brothels outside
the official system was likely even higher. 

The U.S. occupation leadership provided the Japanese government with
penicillin for comfort women servicing occupation troops, established
prophylactic stations near the RAA brothels and, initially, condoned the
troops' use of them, according to documents discovered by Tanaka. 

Occupation leaders were not blind to the similarities between the comfort
women procured by Japan for its own troops and those it recruited for the
GIs. 

A Dec. 6, 1945, memorandum from Lt. Col. Hugh McDonald, a senior officer
with the Public Health and Welfare Division of the occupation's General
Headquarters, shows U.S. occupation forces were aware the Japanese comfort
women were often coerced. 

"The girl is impressed into contracting by the desperate financial straits
of her parents and their urging, occasionally supplemented by her
willingness to make such a sacrifice to help her family," he wrote. "It is
the belief of our informants, however, that in urban districts the practice
of enslaving girls, while much less prevalent than in the past, still
exists." 

Amid complaints from military chaplains and concerns that disclosure of the
brothels would embarrass the occupation forces back in the U.S., on March
25, 1946, MacArthur placed all brothels, comfort stations and other places
of prostitution off limits. The RAA soon collapsed. 

MacArthur's primary concern was not only a moral one. 

By that time, Tanaka says, more than a quarter of all American GIs in the
occupation forces had a sexually transmitted disease. 

"The nationwide off-limits policy suddenly put more than 150,000 Japanese
women out of a job," Tanaka wrote in a 2002 book on sexual slavery. Most
continued to serve the troops illegally. Many had VD and were destitute, he
wrote. 

Under intense pressure, Japan's government apologized in 1993 for its role
in running brothels around Asia and coercing women into serving its troops.
The issue remains controversial today. 

In January, California Rep. Mike Honda offered a resolution in the House
condemning Japan's use of sex slaves, in part to renew pressure on Japan
ahead of the closure of the Asian Women's Fund, a private foundation created
two years after the apology to compensate comfort women. 

The fund compensated only 285 women in the Philippines, South Korea and
Taiwan, out of an estimated 50,000-200,000 comfort women enslaved by Japan's
military in those countries during the war. Each received 2 million yen,
about $17,800. A handful of Dutch and Indonesian women were also given
assistance. 

The fund closed, as scheduled, on March 31. 

Haruki Wada, the fund's executive director, said its creation marked an
important change in attitude among Japan's leadership and represented the
will of Japan's "silent majority" to see that justice is done. He also noted
that although it was a private organization, the government was its main
sponsor, kicking in 4.625 billion yen, about $40 million. 

Even so, he admitted it fell short of expectations. 

"The vast majority of the women did not come forward," he said. 

As a step toward acknowledging and resolving the exploitation of Japanese
women, however, it was a complete failure. 

Though they were free to do so, no Japanese women sought compensation. 

"Not one Japanese woman has come forward to seek compensation or an
apology," Wada said. "Unless they feel they can say they were completely
forced against their will, they feel they cannot come forward." 

___ 

Associated Press investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York
contributed to this report.