What do you think of Yasukuni Shrine?

What do you think of Yasukuni Shrine?

[Yasukuni Shrine - Japanese]
http://www.yasukuni.or.jp/
[About a cyber attack of the homepage - Japanese]
http://www.yasukuni.or.jp/new/osirase.htm
[About a cyber attack of the homepage - J2E(with cache)]
http//www.excite.co.jp.nyud.net/...

[Wikipedia - English]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni_Shrine
[Wikipedia - Japanese]
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9D%96%E5%9B%BD%E7%A5%9E%E7%A4%BE
[Wikipedia - Translates from Japanese to English(with cache)]
http//www.excite.co.jp.nyud.net/...

Yasukuni is a place to pay homage and respect to those who lost their lives for their country irrespective of their role in war.

In USA, there are memorials for American soldiers who fought in Vietnam. Soldiers are tools of the government. Does that mean their life is not worth being remembered?

The problem isn't Yasukuni but Japan's neighbours feeling betrayed that Japan educates their youth by glorifying Japan's role in WWII and denying such accusations such as the use of biochemical warfare, or "Rape of Nanking" (http://museums.cnd.org/mirror/nanjing/nmnwe96.html).

Such a search for the truth and finding out the horrors of WWII is enough to drive someone insane with outrage. Iris Chang committed suicide because of such research.

If Japan wants to mend and heal the scars left on its neighbours, they should do the honorable thing by acknowledging the truth of what happened in war.

It's been more than 60 years and there has never been an official apology, not even for Nanjing, which at most was called "maybe an unfortunate incident".

History is only doomed to repeat itself if nothing can be learned from it. Japan seems to have an ambition to change the constitution and restore the right to have a military. For example sending troops to Iraq was controversial and some even see it as a first step towards that process.

I haven't done much research into this subject because it's too distressing. I think I would go crazy to find out the real truth. An apology and educating Japanese youths about the tragedy of WWII for what it really is, will go a long way to heal wounds and build friendship based on trust.