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The “Fortunes of War,” Part 2

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COMMENT: In FTR #905, among oth­er broad­casts, we have detailed the pro­found cor­po­rate links between Amer­i­can oli­garchs and their coun­ter­parts in Japan. As the Sea­graves not­ed in an excerpt of The Yam­a­to Dynasty sum­ma­riz­ing the after­math of World War II in Asia: “. . . . Amer­i­ca’s oli­garchs had res­cued Japan’s oli­garchs. . . .”

In our last post, we not­ed that “. . . . U.S. bomb­ing pol­i­cy [in Japan]. . . had tend­ed to reaf­firm exist­ing hier­ar­chies of for­tune. . .”

The Amer­i­can air war against Japan may well have been selec­tive­ly con­duct­ed, with dev­as­tat­ing fire­bomb­ing raids dec­i­mat­ing the res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hoods of much of Japan, while spar­ing the infra­struc­ture vital to the Zaibat­su (giant con­glom­er­ates that dominated–and con­tin­ue to dominate–the Japan­ese econ­o­my) and the coun­try’s war-mak­ing capac­i­ty.

The pos­si­bly that this appar­ent­ly delib­er­ate strat­e­gy was designed to dec­i­mate that ele­ment of the Japan­ese pop­u­la­tion that might have sought a more egal­i­tar­i­an polit­i­cal and social struc­ture, while spar­ing the elite is one to be seri­ous­ly con­tem­plat­ed.

The corporate/cartel links between Amer­i­can and Japan­ese oli­garchs, the Cold War strat­e­gy of using Japan as an anti-Com­mu­nist bul­wark, and the fun­da­men­tal posi­tion of the Gold­en Lily loot at the foun­da­tion of the Black Eagle Trust loom large in the scan­dalous terms of the 1951 peace treaty with Japan.

The treaty was nego­ti­at­ed by Sul­li­van & Cromwell’s John Fos­ter Dulles, who was serv­ing as an appoint­ed U.S. Sen­a­tor at the time. (Fos­ter became Sec­re­tary of State under Eisen­how­er, assum­ing office in Jan­u­ary of 1953, while his broth­er and fel­low Sul­li­van & Cromwell part­ner Allen Dulles head­ed the CIA.)

The treaty was found­ed on the myth of Japan being bank­rupt and not hav­ing plun­dered the ter­ri­to­ries it plun­dered in World War II. This myth was the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for exempt­ing Japan from hav­ing to com­pen­sate those who had been enslaved as labor­ers and com­fort women.

“. . . . Wash­ing­ton insist­ed, begin­ning in 1945, that Japan nev­er stole any­thing, and was flat broke and bank­rupt when the war end­ed. Here was the begin­ning of many great dis­tor­tions which would become ter­ri­ble secrets. . . . Because the trea­sure amassed by Gold­en Lily and recov­ered by Wash­ing­ton had to be kept secret, cit­i­zens of Japan and Amer­i­ca were gross­ly deceived. The 1951 peace treaty with Japan and was skewed by these deceits, so thou­sands of POWs and civil­ians (who were forced to per­form slave labor for Japan­ese cor­po­ra­tions) received no com­pen­sa­tion for their suf­fer­ing. To shield Japan from demands for war repa­ra­tions, John Fos­ter Dulles met pri­vate­ly with three Japan­ese to work out the treaty terms in secret. . . . Accord­ing to arti­cle 14 of the treaty, ‘It is rec­og­nized that Japan should pay repa­ra­tions to the Allied Pow­ers for the dam­age and suf­fer­ing caused by it dur­ing the war. Nev­er­the­less it is also rec­og­nized that the resources of Japan are not present­ly suf­fi­cient.’ To rein­force the claim that Japan was broke, Arti­cle 14 stat­ed, ‘the Allied Pow­ers waive all repa­ra­tions claims of the Allied Pow­ers and their nation­als aris­ing out of any actions tak­en by Japan’. By sign­ing the treaty, Allied coun­tries con­curred that Japan’s plun­der had van­ished down a rab­bit hole, and all Japan’s vic­tims were out of luck. . . .”

At the time of the treaty’s negotiation–1951–Japan’s econ­o­my was at its zenith, to date. This high­lights the appar­ent­ly strate­gi­cal­ly selec­tive nature of Amer­i­can bomb­ing dur­ing the war, as well as the fact that Japan was allowed to keep the Gold­en Lily plun­der that had been brought back to the home islands. “. . . . As we now know, Japan was not bank­rupt­ed by the war. By 1951, six years after the war, Japan’s econ­o­my was stronger than it had been dur­ing the best busi­ness years before the war. . . . Japan’s indus­tri­al activ­i­ty was 32 per­cent above pre-war lev­els, its fis­cal posi­tion showed a sur­plus, and its bal­ance of trade had moved into the black. In dis­cus­sions between U.S. mon­e­tary experts and Japan’s Finance Min­is­ter Ide­da Hay­a­to just before the peace con­fer­ence, he admit­ted to a bud­get sur­plus of over 100-bil­lion yen . . . .”

Gold War­riors by Ster­ling and Peg­gy Sea­grave; Ver­so [SC]; Copy­right 2003, 2005 by Ster­ling and Peg­gy Sea­grave; ISBN 1–84467-531–9; p. 6.

. . . . Wash­ing­ton insist­ed, begin­ning in 1945, that Japan nev­er stole any­thing, and was flat broke and bank­rupt when the war end­ed. Here was the begin­ning of many great dis­tor­tions which would become ter­ri­ble secrets.

Because the trea­sure amassed by Gold­en Lily and recov­ered by Wash­ing­ton had to be kept secret, cit­i­zens of Japan and Amer­i­ca were gross­ly deceived. The 1951 peace treaty with Japan and was skewed by these deceits, so thou­sands of POWs and civil­ians (who were forced to per­form slave labor for Japan­ese cor­po­ra­tions) received no com­pen­sa­tion for their suf­fer­ing. To shield Japan from demands for war repa­ra­tions, John Fos­ter Dulles met pri­vate­ly with three Japan­ese to work out the treaty terms in secret. One of the three Miyaza­wa Kiichi, lat­er served as Japan’s prime min­is­ter and repeat­ed­ly as its min­is­ter of finance. Accord­ing to arti­cle 14 of the treaty, “It is rec­og­nized that Japan should pay repa­ra­tions to the Allied Pow­ers for the dam­age and suf­fer­ing caused by it dur­ing the war. Nev­er­the­less it is also rec­og­nized that the resources of Japan are not present­ly suf­fi­cient.”

To rein­force the claim that Japan was broke, Arti­cle 14 stat­ed, “the Allied Pow­ers waive all repa­ra­tions claims of the Allied Pow­ers and their nation­als aris­ing out of any actions tak­en by Japan”. By sign­ing the treaty, Allied coun­tries con­curred that Japan’s plun­der had van­ished down a rab­bit hole, and all Japan’s vic­tims were out of luck.

In return for going along with the treaty, we doc­u­ment that Wash­ing­ton sent secret ship­ments of black gold recov­ered by San­ta Romana, to beef up the Allies’ exhaust­ed cen­tral banks. . . . 

Gold War­riors by Ster­ling and Peg­gy Sea­grave; Ver­so [SC]; Copy­right 2003, 2005 by Ster­ling and Peg­gy Sea­grave; ISBN 1–84467-531–9; p. 237.

. . . . As we now know, Japan was not bank­rupt­ed by the war. By 1951, six years after the war, Japan’s econ­o­my was stronger than it had been dur­ing the best busi­ness years before the war. [Ital­ics mine–D.E.] Car­los Romu­lo, head of the Philip­pine del­e­ga­tion to the peace con­fer­ence, “demol­ished the U.S. argu­ment that Japan lacked the abil­i­ty to pay for eco­nom­ic rea­sons”.  Japan’s indus­tri­al activ­i­ty was 32 per­cent above pre-war lev­els, its fis­cal posi­tion showed a sur­plus, and its bal­ance of trade had moved into the black. In dis­cus­sions between U.S. mon­e­tary experts and Japan’s Finance Min­is­ter Ide­da Hay­a­to just before the peace con­fer­ence, he admit­ted to a bud­get sur­plus of over 100-bil­lion yen and planned to use 40-bil­lion of it as a tax rebate to Japan­ese cit­i­zens. The gov­er­nor of the Bank of Japan plead­ed with U.S. author­i­ties to take cus­tody of $200-mil­lion worth of gold hold­ings because he feared “the Fil­ipinos might try to attach the gold as repa­ra­tions”. . . .

 

Discussion

One comment for “The “Fortunes of War,” Part 2”

  1. The inabil­i­ty of our fear­less lead­ers (polit­i­cal, military,financial, moral) to step up to a live micro­phone with a large audi­ence, speak the truth, and sur­vive con­tributes to the inevitable down­fall of the present US empire. Who is in the wings to pick up the pieces and/or who is doing the dirty work for same is revealed in the anti-fas­cist and oth­er­wise hon­est recount­ing of mod­ern his­to­ry by authors whose works, if not banned out­right are cer­tain­ly not encour­aged. The con­clu­sion is that the ‘sys­tem’ is rigged.....the details are avail­able if one knows where to look. The major­i­ty of the pop­u­lace is in the posi­tion of Dav­e’s favorite qoute from the pro­fes­sor in ‘they thought they were free’. “the farmer can­not see the corn grow­ing in the field day to day until one day it is over his head”...

    Posted by lou e | December 9, 2019, 11:30 am

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