The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Paint It Black

12.21.07 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 4)

As of today, there's a battle tactic that might Mr. Lord may have overlooked: During a dog fight (liberal scandal) it's a lot easier to escape a hit (get away with it) when your "6" (check with the Air force) is being covered not only by your wingman (i.e. James Carville) but additionally by concentrated flack burst from ground support (New York Times-NBC et al.)

As of now, Commander Bush and his squad are taking hits from all sides and getting minimal response for backup from the aforementioned...ground support.

Meanwhile, as the good guys continue to remain airborne, let's hope Sgt. York finally gets a computer and e-mail address. It's always better when you know the cavalry is comin'.
-- Dave
Sacramento, California

LUCID SHARON
Re: Jay D. Homnick's Prime Minister of Catatonia:

I seem to be making a career of disagreeing with Jay D. Homnick, but he has missed the point of Sharon's policy regarding the turnover of Gaza. Ariel Sharon had no illusions about the capacity of Palestinians to govern themselves. I believe that his intent was to shed an impoverished, corrupt hellhole and provide the world with a stark example of Palestinian conduct. Had he not succumbed to a coma, I have no doubt that Sharon would have used the Hamas coup as a demonstration of the futility of the peace process and an opportunity for Israel to dictate terms on the West Bank, where a desperate Abbas would take any deal that permitted him to cling to power.

Sharon could have easily annexed East Jerusalem in return for Abbas' continuity as head of the PA and the independence of the remainder of the West Bank under his banner. One counter-terrorism fence later and Israel would have neutralized the Palestinian issue while maintaining the moral high ground. Instead, Olmert has squandered this opportunity, resuscitating a comatose peace process which is far less likely to achieve lucidity than Ariel Sharon
-- Mike Harris
MAJ, US Army

REEDUCATION
Re: James Bowman's Nanking:

The reviewer reveals a gap in his education. One that most of us non-Chinese Americans younger than 90 suffer from. Our children are not taught about the actions of the Imperial Japanese Army in China, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, in fact throughout Asia, during their horrific expansion and occupation prior to and during WWII. The reason the Japanese soldier could say what he did with no perception of irony is precisely because the Japanese, as a matter of policy, would kidnap and transport young girls from the conquered territories to military bases throughout Asia to service their soldiers. They were called "hospitality" girls. This soldier surely was expressing a preference for a "hospitality" girl to an "unwilling" victim. As if the "hospitality" girl was a willing participant! Some of the "hospitality" victims still survive and have told their stories to Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Malaysian, Philippine journalists and historians. Every year, in the Asian countries who suffered Japanese occupation, there are mass protests at Japanese embassies and consulates by local citizens. They are protesting the continuing revision of history texts being published and disseminated in Japanese schools which progressively, year after year, diminish the horrors perpetrated by the Japanese Imperial forces during that shameful period. Not a few of the Korean hospitality survivors have successfully sued the Japanese government, winning substantial reparation, for their lives of suffering. Because, while at the close of the war, these women returned home unfit for marriage, shunned and marginalized for their entire lives, the Imperial Army troops returned to their homes in a relatively beneficently-American-Occupied Japan (of which I know a little, having been born in Osaka, during the occupation, to a US Army MSgt stationed in Kyoto). We Americans never hear of this history, though we are reminded, daily, of the Holocaust. This is why so many ignorant Americans bemoan our being the first to use a nuclear weapon, especially on a "defeated" "innocent" civilian population. Whereas you will not find anywhere in the Japanese-occupied areas of Asia, or in Australia and New Zealand, anyone over the age of 30 who regrets our bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending as it did the horrors they were enduring in a more immediate manner rather than prolonging their suffering through the execution of a conventional invasion of the Japanese nation.

In the national Chinese dialect, Mandarin, as well as in the local (Nanjing) dialect, the pronunciation of the Chinese name of the city is, in fact, Nanjing (or, more like Nehjing). Nanking (or Namking) is the "British" pronunciation as they learned it from the southern Chinese (Cantonese dialect) in Hongkong. The Chinese written characters, Nan Jing (literally, Southern Capital) are read as "Kyo To" in Japanese! Quite ironic! Kyoto was one of the cities we deliberately avoided bombing during WWII because of it's "special" cultural, historic, emotional, and psychological significance to the Japanese people. Yet, here they were, in the cultural, historical, center of China -- a seat of art, poetry, philosophy, and learning - and the express Imperial Army policy was to so debase and terrorize the population that they could speedily eliminate resistance and pound the Chinese into total submission. This was not "frenzied soldiers run amok". This was activity ordered by the Ministry of War in Tokyo and executed by the officers in the field in Nanjing. In fact, one of the commanding officers, days after his return home to Japan, climbed a hill, wrote an abject apology to the Chinese people, especially the citizens of Nanjing, and committed ritual hara-kiri. Until the Japanese, like the Germans, face this shameful episode; take responsibility for their behavior; sincerely apologize to their victims; cease their revisionism; and stop their annual ritual honoring war-criminal officers at the Yasukune shrine in Tokyo, Chinese, Philippinos, Koreans, and others will not forgive or forget. That is why we rarely hear of any Asian countries, especially those who suffered Japanese occupation, protesting China's modernization and expansion of it's military forces. In fact, some secretly welcome the counter-balance to Japanese military expansion and modernization -- especially in light of the recent constitutional debate in Japan regarding removing the constitutional limits on her military's growth and deployment.

For additional reference: The Rape of Nanjing, by Iris Chang; Banzai You Bastards!, by Jack Edwards; and Japan's Imperial Conspiracy, by David Bergamini.

Thank you for your time.
-- Janne Liu

DON'T BLAME AMERICA FIRST
Re: Joseph Baum's letter (under "Blame the Victim") in Reader Mail's Mahony Hits Back:

Sorry, Mr. Baum. Unionized education, not America itself, is responsible for the lion's share of educational deterioration. Don't believe it? Imagine a union which, instead of demanding better perks, payoffs and power for its members, demanded higher levels of accountability, discipline and civility by students and their parents. Imagine teachers and principals threatening to strike if those kinds of demands were not met.

Unfortunately, imagining is as close as we'll get. Wonder why students and parents are all about "me, me, me?" Take a good look at the unionists. Apparently some people do learn to be selfish and self-centered--when they have a perfect "role model" for such right under their collective noses.
-- Arnold Ahlert
Boca Raton

REVERSE ROBIN HOOD
Re: Charles Campbell's letter (under "Socialist Leeches") in Reader Mail's Mahony Hits Back:

Letter to the Editor

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