04/30/24 Japan…our Perfect Ally Being Shirked

As a baby-boomer I am old enough to harbor some animosity toward the Japanese, not only for the Day of Infamy December 7th, 1941 that they inflicted on us but for the way they conducted the war. Japanese soldiers fought to the death which meant a lot more American soldiers had to die to kill them. There is justified ill-will in the region harbored by the Chinese and the Koreans for brutal treatment from the Japanese army. The survival rate of allied prisoners of war held by the Japanese was very low due their inhumanity. By contrast if US POWs reached German Stalags there was a high probability, they lived to talk about it after the war. The war ended and Douglas MacArthur did not repeat the mistake of Versailles ending WW1. He let the Japs up easily, allowing them to keep their Emperor, who was legitimately a war criminal, recover their dignity and due to good behavior, their independence. The Japanese people took it from there, rebuilding their nation and joining the community of nations to become a respected ally from the last cold war into this new one. They are a stable liberal Western democracy and one of…