The Mayor of Osaka, Japan is throwing gasoline on a fire that really needs to be stamped out:  Mayor Toru Hashimoto said that it was “necessary” for Japan to imprison thousands of foreign “Comfort Women” during World War II.

Hashimoto said the “Comfort Women” gave Imperial Japanese soldiers a chance “to rest”, even while acknowledging that the women had been acting “against their will”.

Japan’s wartime conduct and recent attempts to minimize, rationalize, or justify it has become a major hurdle in Tokyo’s relations with its neighbors.  The current administration was forced to issue two clarifications last week assuring its neighbors that Japan will not revise not retract two apologies issued to the nations it occupied and the “Comfort Women”.

Some 200,000 women from China and South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Taiwan were estimated to have been forced into becoming sex slaves for Japanese troops.

By the way, Australia:  Osaka is a sister city with Melbourne.  If case anyone wanted to, you know, write a letter about it.