Regarding the April 8 article "Official defends 'Yasukuni' screening for lawmakers": Japan is already so notorious for its obsession with censoring anything that might sully the illusion that it has created about itself in its own eyes that its previous prime minister made the activity a central pillar of his administration (Shinzo Abe's "Beautiful Japan.")

The excessive amount of taboo subjects that this mind set has brought about has long stifled the Japanese ability to communicate, and to even attempt to be honest about itself and its past. It has become easier to forget the atrocities of the last century rather than to face up to them, and as a result, many Japanese alive today have no idea of what their past really involves.

America undeniably committed the most unforgivable act of the last hundred years in destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki using the weapon of everyone's nightmare, and Japan has every right to bemoan and remember what was one of the worst incidents imaginable in the history of our species, but the past is a double edged sword and Japan only seems to want to allow one edge of the blade to be exposed and visible.

To honor the millions who laid down their lives in service of their country is no doubt the only and most appropriate response that Japanese can make, but again this is only half of a much uglier picture, and to refuse to view reality with more than a single eye open while keeping the other all too firmly shut simply continues to sentence this nation to an unbalanced perspective of its past, a shortcoming which is bound to draw continuing criticism from the rest of the world.

At every turn Japan seems to deliberately cast aside every opportunity to come to terms with its past. The legacy that this behavior leaves behind, however, is not escape but distrust from many if not most other Asian nations about the true motives surrounding this deliberate and sustained policy of avoiding genuine remorse for the past.

david wood