By redefining responsibility through implication rather than fact, the argument mirrors the same rhetorical substitution later used in the comfort women controversy.

2016-04-10

As Ōe was sued and it appeared that even he might finally have to accept responsibility, the close coordination between the Asahi Shimbun and Ōe once again surfaced.
At this point, Ōe published in the Asahi an excuse even stranger than the one he offered when receiving the Legion of Honour.
“I never said that the commander ordered mass suicide.
The Japanese military made the residents believe that, in the end, they should commit suicide—this constituted a de facto order.”
This too was likely planted by the Asahi.
From then on, the newspaper elaborated on Ōe’s excuse and developed an argument that the Japanese military was involved in the background of the Okinawan mass suicides.
This is a blatant substitution.
Why is it so despicable?
Because this substitution is exactly the same laughable sleight of hand used when, after finally admitting in August two years earlier that their comfort women reports had been fabricated, they set up a so-called third-party committee and presented as its conclusion vague rhetoric about “the persecution of women during wartime.”
To be continued.