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FTR #970 Partying Like It’s 1932, Part 2: The Japanese Deep State

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This broad­cast was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

Intro­duc­tion: Reca­pit­u­lat­ing key the­mat­ic ele­ments of the pre­vi­ous program–an omi­nous res­o­nance between Japan­ese revi­sion­ist schools Tsukamo­to, Morit­o­mo Gakuen and the Native-Land-Lov­ing School, some of whose alum­ni assas­si­nat­ed Japan­ese prime min­is­ter Inukai on May 15, 1932. The “May 15th Inci­dent,” as it is known, was a key ele­ment in the rise of fas­cism in Japan.

A pas­sage from Hugh Byas’s 1942 text encom­pass­es the dynam­ic:

“. . . . In 1939, his [Kos­aburo Tachibana’s] admir­ers enabled him to estab­lish a school. He called it the Native-Land-Lov­ing School (Aiky­o­juku). Every­body in Japan with a mes­sage to deliv­er or an axe to grind opens a school. . . . Those schools in the hands of the patri­ot­ic soci­eties are at once a method of train­ing young men for strong-arm work and a plau­si­ble excuse for extort­ing con­tri­bu­tions from the rich and timid. . . .”

Pro­gress­ing down­ward from the upper tiers of the polit­i­cal struc­ture, Japan­ese fas­cism stems from the Nip­pon Kagai (“Japan Con­fer­ence”), whose mem­bers exert pro­found influ­ence in the admin­is­tra­tion of Shin­zo Abe, as well as the Japan­ese par­lia­ment.

Fun­da­men­tal to an under­stand­ing of the dynam­ics under­ly­ing the Japan­ese deep state is aware­ness of the rela­tion­ship between the pow­er­ful Japan­ese cor­po­ra­tions, the zaibat­su, U.S.-based transna­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions and the inter­na­tion­al car­tel sys­temFTR #905 exam­ines this rela­tion­ship at con­sid­er­able length.

Anoth­er impor­tant ele­ment in this dynam­ic is Gold­en Lily–the sys­tem­at­ic loot­ing of Asia by Japan in World War II and the use of the bil­lions in recov­ered gold to fund the re-insti­tu­tion of fas­cist infra­struc­ture in Japan, U.S. covert oper­a­tions and the clan­des­tine but­tress­ing of finan­cial and gov­ern­men­tal insti­tu­tions around the world. (FTR #‘s 427428446451501509688689 deal with the sub­ject of the Gold­en Lily pro­gram.)

With much of the world’s atten­tion focused on the blus­ter­ing between Kim Jong-Un and Kim Jong-Trump, the fact that Japan has had a clan­des­tine nuclear weapons pro­gram since the 1960s has gone unre­port­ed:

” . . . . The Unit­ed States delib­er­ate­ly allowed Japan access to the Unit­ed States’ most secret nuclear weapons facil­i­ties while it trans­ferred tens of bil­lions of dol­lars worth of Amer­i­can tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plu­to­ni­um since the 1980s, a Nation­al Secu­ri­ty News Ser­vice inves­ti­ga­tion reveals.  . . . The NSNS inves­ti­ga­tion found that the Unit­ed States has known about a secret nuclear weapons pro­gram in Japan since the 1960s, accord­ing to CIA reports.

. . . . The Rea­gan and George H.W. Bush admin­is­tra­tions per­mit­ted sen­si­tive tech­nol­o­gy and nuclear mate­ri­als to be trans­ferred to Japan despite laws and treaties pre­vent­ing such trans­fers. High­ly sen­si­tive tech­nol­o­gy on plu­to­ni­um sep­a­ra­tion from the U.S. Depart­ment of Energy’s Savan­nah Riv­er Site and Han­ford nuclear weapons com­plex, as well as tens of bil­lions of dol­lars worth of breed­er reac­tor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safe­guards against pro­lif­er­a­tion. Japan­ese sci­en­tist and tech­ni­cians were giv­en access to both Han­ford and Savan­nah Riv­er as part of the trans­fer process.

While Japan has refrained from deploy­ing nuclear weapons and remains under an umbrel­la of U.S. nuclear pro­tec­tion, NSNS has learned that the coun­try has used its elec­tri­cal util­i­ty com­pa­nies as a cov­er to allow the coun­try to amass enough nuclear weapons mate­ri­als to build a nuclear arse­nal larg­er than Chi­na, India and Pak­istan com­bined. . . .

. . . . That secret effort was hid­den in a nuclear pow­er pro­gram that by March 11, 2011– the day the earth­quake and tsuna­mi over­whelmed the Fukushi­ma Dai­ichi Nuclear Plant – had amassed 70 met­ric tons of plu­to­ni­um. Like its use of civil­ian nuclear pow­er to hide a secret bomb pro­gram, Japan used peace­ful space explo­ration as a cov­er for devel­op­ing sophis­ti­cat­ed nuclear weapons deliv­ery sys­tems. . . .”

Key play­ers on the Japan­ese land­scape, such as Yoshio Kodama and Ryoichi Sasakawa (the self-pro­claimed “World’s rich­est fas­cist”) embody the Japan­ese deep state, oper­at­ing from the 1930’s onward in con­junc­tion with the Japan­ese patri­ot­ic and ultra-nation­al­ist soci­eties, the zaibat­su, Gold­en Lily and the clan­des­tine fas­cist polit­i­cal infra­struc­ture the is increas­ing­ly vis­i­ble.

Sasasakawa launched and fund­ed Sasasakawa Peace Foun­da­tion USA, which might be viewed in the same light as “The Adolf Hitler Foun­da­tion for the Study of Peace and Social Jus­tice.” One of its schol­ars (now with the RAND Cor­po­ra­tion) is Jef­frey Hor­nung, a fre­quent “go-to guy” for the media.

After review­ing Sasakawa and Kodama, espe­cial­ly their links to the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church, the pro­gram notes that Abe’s grand­fa­ther, Nobo­suke Kishi was Kodama’s cell­mate in Sug­amo prison. Kishi also signed Japan’s dec­la­ra­tion of war against the U.S. ” . . . . Dur­ing World War II, he was vice min­is­ter of muni­tions and min­is­ter of com­merce and indus­try, active­ly involved in slave labor. Along the way, he made a per­son­al for­tune in side-deals with the zaibat­su. . . .In 1948, when his release from prison was pur­chased by Kodama, Kishi began orga­niz­ing the finan­cial base of the LDP, using Kodama’s black gold and injec­tions of M‑Fund cash. . . .”

The pro­gram con­cludes with review of the pro­found con­nec­tions of the Japan­ese zaibat­su, the deep state asso­ci­at­ed with that, and Amer­i­can diplo­mats who rebuffed a suit by Allied POW’s to get com­pen­sa­tion for hav­ing been used as Japan­ese slaves.

Pro­gram High­lights Include:

  1. Japan­ese Air Force chief-of-staff Toshio Tam­agami’s view that Franklin Delano Roo­sevelt bears respon­si­bil­i­ty for World War II.
  2. Tam­agami’s view that Japan should acquire nuclear weapons.
  3. Tam­agami’s assess­ment that Japan­ese aggres­sion in World War II ben­e­fit­ed the occu­pied coun­tries.
  4. Tam­agami’s sup­port from many promi­nent Japan­ese politi­cians and mil­i­tary fig­ures.
  5. Japan­ese Finance Min­is­ter, Deputy Prime Min­is­ter and for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Taro Aso’s admis­sion that his fam­i­ly’s coal min­ing com­pa­ny used slave labor.
  6. Dis­cus­sion of the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the Aso Coal Min­ing com­pa­ny may have been involved in stor­ing some of the Gold­en Lily booty.
  7. Dis­cus­sion of the fact that Aso, as Finance Min­is­ter, would have been involved with the M‑Fund and its financ­ing of Japan­ese pol­i­tics.

1. The writ­ten descrip­tion recaps part of the intro­duc­tion to the “Books for Down­load” cat­e­go­ry, dis­cussing glob­al­iza­tion and its rela­tion­ship to the Sec­ond World War and the rise of fas­cism in both Europe and Japan. Note that the process of glob­al­iza­tion described here is fun­da­men­tal to the under­stand­ing of the areas of over­lap between transna­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions, the Gold­en Lily mon­ey and the sym­bi­ot­ic rela­tion­ship between the Japan­ese and Amer­i­can oli­garchies.

In the decades since the end of the Sec­ond World War, much has been writ­ten about the war and fas­cism, the dri­ving force behind the aggres­sion that pre­cip­i­tat­ed that con­flict. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, much of what has been said and writ­ten has failed to iden­ti­fy and ana­lyze the caus­es, nature and method­ol­o­gy of fascism—German Nation­al Social­ism or “Nazism” in par­tic­u­lar.

A deep­er, more accu­rate analy­sis was pre­sent­ed in lit­er­a­ture pub­lished before, dur­ing and imme­di­ate­ly after World War II. Spitfirelist.com is pleased to present a num­ber of books pub­lished dur­ing that peri­od. Almost all more than 50 years old, these works embody a more com­plete, pro­found analy­sis of the his­tor­i­cal forces that dom­i­nat­ed the events of that time and, more impor­tant­ly, our own. Where­as much con­tem­po­rary lit­er­a­ture on the sub­ject presents fas­cism (and Nazism in par­tic­u­lar) as an aber­ra­tion, the phe­nom­e­non was an out­growth of major polit­i­cal forces and dynam­ics that dom­i­nate and con­trol con­tem­po­rary events and process­es. Some of the books pre­sent­ed here illus­trate the extent to which fas­cism (Nazism in par­tic­u­lar) was an out­growth of glob­al­iza­tion and the con­struc­tion of inter­na­tion­al monop­o­lies (car­tels). Key to under­stand­ing this phe­nom­e­non is analy­sis of the Webb-Pomerene act, leg­is­lat­ed near the end of the First World War. A loop­hole in the Anti-trust leg­is­la­tion of 1914, it effec­tive­ly legal­ized the for­ma­tion of cartels—international monopolies—for firms that were barred from domes­tic monop­o­lis­tic prac­tices. Decry­ing what they viewed as exces­sive and restric­tive “reg­u­la­tion” here in the Unit­ed States, U.S.-based transna­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions invest­ed their prof­its from the indus­tri­al boom of the 1920’s abroad, pri­mar­i­ly in Japan and Ger­many. This process might well be viewed as the real begin­ning of what is now known as “glob­al­iza­tion.” [FTR#’s 99361426511 and 532 present an overview of the rein­vest­ment of the wealth gen­er­at­ed by the Amer­i­can indus­tri­al boom of the 1920’s in Ger­man and Japan­ese strate­gic heavy indus­try. It was this cap­i­tal that drove the engines of con­quest that sub­dued both Europe and Asia dur­ing the con­flict.] We also note that the fail­ure of Amer­i­can indus­tri­al and finan­cial firms to invest their cap­i­tal in U.S. infra­struc­ture con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the onset of the Great Depres­sion, depriv­ing Amer­i­can indus­try of the monies need­ed to sus­tain the engines of indus­try and com­merce. At the con­clu­sion of the Sec­ond World War, indus­tri­al­ists, financiers and asso­ci­at­ed lumi­nar­ies formed the World Com­merce Cor­po­ra­tion. Explic­it­ly designed to replace the Ger­man-based car­tels that coa­lesced after World War I, the WCC direct­ed the post­war flow of wealth into chan­nels favored by the glob­al cor­po­rate elite, thus pre­serv­ing the fun­da­men­tal eco­nom­ic order estab­lished in pre­vi­ous decades via the Webb-Pomerene Act. . . .

. . . . Although the book is cur­rent and, there­fore, not avail­able on this web­site, inter­est­ed researchers are emphat­i­cal­ly encour­aged to read Gold War­riors by Ster­ling and Peg­gy Sea­grave. Cov­er­ing the Japan­ese equiv­a­lent of the Bor­mann flight cap­i­tal net­work, the vol­ume is a hero­ic, mas­ter­ful analy­sis and pen­e­tra­tion of the Asian wing of the car­tel sys­tem that spawned fas­cism, as well as the real­i­ties of the post-World War II eco­nom­ic land­scape. (FTR #‘s 427428446451501509688689 deal with the sub­ject of the Gold­en Lily pro­gram suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed by the Japan­ese to loot Asia.) . . . .

2. We note the rise of fas­cism in Japan is a “process guid­ed from above.”

“Part­ners at the Pacif­ic;” german-foreign-policy.com; 3/20/2017.

“Right-Wing Pop­ulism from Above”

. . . . Japan, with which Ger­many is seek­ing clos­er eco­nom­ic and mil­i­tary coop­er­a­tion, has tak­en a sharp nation­al­ist course. This course is gen­er­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with Abe becom­ing Prime Min­is­ter. Abe, who arrived in Hanover yes­ter­day, “is antic­i­pat­ing in Japan, (…) what right-wing pop­ulists dream of in Europe,”[6] a lead­ing Ger­man dai­ly recent­ly not­ed. With his vis­it at the Yasaku­ni Shrine, which is also hon­or­ing some WW II war crim­i­nals, he is pro­mot­ing a nation­al­ist trans­for­ma­tion of the state, he is per­mit­ting the grow­ing fal­si­fi­ca­tion of his­to­ry and he is respon­si­ble for the increased patron­iz­ing of the media. As a result, Japan slipped from 22nd down to 72nd on the world press free­dom index issued by “Reporters With­out Bor­ders.” Observers note that with the Nip­pon Kai­gi (“Japan Con­fer­ence”), a nation­al­ist lob­by orga­ni­za­tion has gained sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence. Of the 722 par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, 289 are mem­bers and 13 of the 19 min­is­ters and the Prime Min­ster Abe are in close con­tact with Nip­pon Kai­gi. Nip­pon Kai­gi says of itself that it is striv­ing to strength­en the empire, loosen the sep­a­ra­tion of state and reli­gion, upgrade the tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly and gen­der roles, pro­mote the coun­try’s mil­i­ta­riza­tion and end crit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tion of Japan’s crimes dur­ing WW II. “Right-Wing pop­ulism in Japan” is a “process guid­ed from above,” par­tic­u­lar­ly pushed by the coun­try’s elite, accord­ing to Gabriele Vogt, japa­nol­o­gist at the Ham­burg University.[7] The new nation­al­ism is push­ing the coun­try ever deep­er into a con­fronta­tion with Chi­na. . . .

3. Bil­lion­aire hote­lier Toshio Motoya and his fash­ion­ista (“fas­cionista”?) wife Fumiko are lead­ing expo­nents of an Orwellian re-write of Japan­ese his­to­ry.

QUICK: Can you think of any oth­er reac­tionary, bil­lion­aire hote­liers with fash­ion­ista wives?

“Right-Wing Hote­liers in Japan Anger Chi­na With Their Revi­sion­ist Views” by Jonathan Soble; The New York Times; 1/20/2017; p. B4 [West­ern Edi­tion].

. . . . “As polit­i­cal patrons, they can’t be ignored,” said Tamot­su Sug­ano, an author who has researched Japan­ese right­ist groups. “They spread mon­ey every­where.”

The Mon­toyas have used a for­tune esti­mat­ed to be in the bil­lions of dol­lars to court and sup­port politi­cians, most­ly on the con­ser­v­a­tive end of the spectrum—from the cen­ter-right estab­lish­ment to the fringe. Guests at their long-run­ning wine par­ties have includ­ed Shin­zo Abe, the cur­rent prime min­is­ter, accord­ing to a record of an event in 2005 that includes a pho­to­graph and was cir­cu­lat­ed by APA at the time. . . .

. . . . Right-wing lit­er­a­ture has long been a sta­ple, if odd, ameni­ty at APA hotels in Japan. Much of it is writ­ten by Mr. Motoya, who uses a pen name but acknowl­edges author­ship.

The books and arti­cles describe a kind of alter­na­tive his­tor­i­cal uni­verse, one where Japan fought entire­ly nobly in World War II and in which its alleged atroc­i­ties were invent­ed by Chi­nese and Kore­an pro­pa­gan­dists. The accounts dif­fer sharply from those of main­stream his­to­ri­ans, both in Japan and abroad.

One piece of lit­er­atature that was fea­tured for years was an essay by a for­mer air force gen­er­al, Toshio Tamoga­mi, [the for­mer chief of staff of the Japan­ese Air Self Defense Force and a mem­ber of Nip­pon Kagai–D.E.] which won a prize in an APA-spon­sored con­test in 2008. In it, Mr. Tamoga­mi claimed that Japan had been duped into attack­ing the Unit­ed States at Pearl Har­bor in 1941, in a plot he said was hatched by Com­mu­nists inside the admin­is­tra­tion of Pres­i­dent Franklin D. Roo­sevelt. . . .

4. Tam­agami’s revi­sion­ism is shared by much of the Japan­ese elite. Note, in par­tic­u­lar, how finance min­is­ter and deputy prime min­is­ter Taro Aso (an expo­nent of Hitler’s polit­i­cal method­ol­o­gy) is heir to a fam­i­ly busi­ness that used Allied pris­on­ers of war as slaves: ” . . . . Aso him­self has had to admit to par­lia­ment for the first time that his fam­i­ly-run com­pa­ny used hun­dreds of Allied war pris­on­ers at its mines in the final months of the war. He offered no apol­o­gy. . . .”

“Japan­ese Jus­ti­fy­ing of World War II His­to­ry Stirs Debate” by Bill Mey­er; The Cleve­land Plain Deal­er; 1/11/2009.

. . . . When Japan went to war, the nation was told it was for self-defense, to free Asia from West­ern colo­nial pow­ers, and to deter the Unit­ed States from attack­ing Japan.

Japan offi­cial­ly aban­doned that view of his­to­ry after its crush­ing defeat in 1945, but every so often a Japan­ese high-up would roil the waters by jus­ti­fy­ing Japan­ese con­duct in the war and treat­ment of its neigh­bors. Not until 1995 did a Japan­ese prime min­is­ter acknowl­edge his coun­try was an aggres­sor that had brought about great suf­fer­ing in Asia.

The air force chief’s essay shows that Japan’s argu­ment with his­to­ry isn’t over.

It was entered in a con­test spon­sored by a com­mer­cial com­pa­ny and con­duct­ed by Toshio Motoya, a right-lean­ing busi­ness­man. Motoya said 235 essays were sub­mit­ted, one-third by air force offi­cers, and most shared Tamogami’s views.

“We should review our per­spec­tive of his­to­ry and become a tru­ly inde­pen­dent nation, or our future is at risk,” Motoya said. “I’m con­fi­dent Mr. Tamoga­mi will get cred­it some day for sac­ri­fic­ing his job by what he wrote.”

Tamoga­mi called his essay “Was Japan an Aggres­sor Nation?” and wrote that Japan has been unjust­ly sub­ject­ed to “the his­to­ry of the vic­tor.” . . .

. . . .  .for­mer Trade Min­is­ter Takeo Hiranu­ma praised Tamoga­mi for his frank­ness.

“What Mr. Tamoga­mi said was true,” he said in a video mes­sage on his Web site. “We should take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to study hard­er so we can have cor­rect views of Japan’s his­to­ry.” . . .

. . . . “There are many peo­ple, includ­ing polit­i­cal lead­ers, who sup­port Tamogami’s views,” said his­to­ri­an Hisao Ishiya­ma. “It’s not a prob­lem of one fanat­ic mil­i­tary offi­cial.”

Tamogami’s views are com­mon among nation­al­ists, includ­ing for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Shin­zo Abe, who, with a strong seg­ment of the rul­ing par­ty behind him, spear­head­ed a par­tial­ly suc­cess­ful cam­paign over sev­er­al years to remove men­tion of Japan’s wartime atroc­i­ties from text­books.

Only in recent years, after law­suits from vic­tims, has Japan acknowl­edged many of its bru­tal­i­ties, includ­ing the use of poi­son gas in Chi­na and sex slaves recruit­ed in coun­tries under wartime occu­pa­tion.

Aso him­self has had to admit to par­lia­ment for the first time that his fam­i­ly-run com­pa­ny used hun­dreds of Allied war pris­on­ers at its mines in the final months of the war. He offered no apol­o­gy. . . .

5a. In addi­tion to his polit­i­cal revi­sion­ism, Aso is an advo­cate of Japan acquir­ing nuclear weapons.

“Toshio Tam­aga­mi;” Wikipedia.org

. . . .At a semi­po­lit­i­cal meet­ing on the 15 Sep­tem­ber 2004, he said that he felt that it would prob­a­bly be nec­es­sary for Japan to devel­op nuclear arms in order to be seen as an inde­pen­dent nation by Chi­na and that promis­ing nev­er to devel­op nuclear arms is “fool­ish.” After the furor cre­at­ed by his essay and dis­missal, he was asked, by a British jour­nal­ist on 1 Decem­ber 2008, whether he would have used nuclear arms against Amer­i­ca in 1945; he respond­ed he “might have con­sid­ered using nuclear weapons against the Unit­ed States had he been a gen­er­al for a nuclear-capa­ble Japan in 1945, espe­cial­ly if it was a case of nuk­ing in response to the threat of Amer­i­can nuclear weapons.”[6][7]

Tamoga­mi claimed that oth­er mem­bers of the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment and mil­i­tary share his views.[8] . . .

. . . . The essay also argues that the war brought pros­per­i­ty to occu­pied Chi­na, Tai­wan and Korea, that “it is often those who nev­er direct­ly saw the Japan­ese mil­i­tary who are spread­ing rumors about the army’s act of bru­tal­i­ty”, and that the Greater East Asia War is viewed in a pos­i­tive way by many Asian coun­tries. It crit­i­cizes the war crimes tri­als, which fol­lowed the war.[1] . . .

5b. Tam­agami’s advo­ca­cy of nukes for Japan has received clan­des­tine sup­port from the U.S. The Rea­gan and George H.W. Bush admin­is­tra­tions vio­lat­ed U.S. law by deliv­er­ing tons of weapons grade plu­to­ni­um to Japan. Japan has, with U.S. assis­tance, devel­oped a nuclear weapons and inter­con­ti­nen­tal mis­sile sys­tem since the 1960’s, using civil­ian cov­er.
Is this what Taro Aso meant by slip­ping con­sti­tu­tion­al changes past the Japan­ese pub­lic?
One won­ders what effect the Japan­ese clan­des­tine nuclear weapons pro­gram has had on Chi­na and the errat­ic North Kore­an dic­ta­tor?
One also won­ders why we haven’t heard about what fol­lows?

” . . . . The Unit­ed States delib­er­ate­ly allowed Japan access to the Unit­ed States’ most secret nuclear weapons facil­i­ties while it trans­ferred tens of bil­lions of dol­lars worth of Amer­i­can tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plu­to­ni­um since the 1980s, a Nation­al Secu­ri­ty News Ser­vice inves­ti­ga­tion reveals.  . . . The NSNS inves­ti­ga­tion found that the Unit­ed States has known about a secret nuclear weapons pro­gram in Japan since the 1960s, accord­ing to CIA reports.

. . . . The Rea­gan and George H.W. Bush admin­is­tra­tions per­mit­ted sen­si­tive tech­nol­o­gy and nuclear mate­ri­als to be trans­ferred to Japan despite laws and treaties pre­vent­ing such trans­fers. High­ly sen­si­tive tech­nol­o­gy on plu­to­ni­um sep­a­ra­tion from the U.S. Depart­ment of Energy’s Savan­nah Riv­er Site and Han­ford nuclear weapons com­plex, as well as tens of bil­lions of dol­lars worth of breed­er reac­tor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safe­guards against pro­lif­er­a­tion. Japan­ese sci­en­tist and tech­ni­cians were giv­en access to both Han­ford and Savan­nah Riv­er as part of the trans­fer process.

While Japan has refrained from deploy­ing nuclear weapons and remains under an umbrel­la of U.S. nuclear pro­tec­tion, NSNS has learned that the coun­try has used its elec­tri­cal util­i­ty com­pa­nies as a cov­er to allow the coun­try to amass enough nuclear weapons mate­ri­als to build a nuclear arse­nal larg­er than Chi­na, India and Pak­istan com­bined. . . .

. . . . That secret effort was hid­den in a nuclear pow­er pro­gram that by March 11, 2011– the day the earth­quake and tsuna­mi over­whelmed the Fukushi­ma Dai­ichi Nuclear Plant – had amassed 70 met­ric tons of plu­to­ni­um. Like its use of civil­ian nuclear pow­er to hide a secret bomb pro­gram, Japan used peace­ful space explo­ration as a cov­er for devel­op­ing sophis­ti­cat­ed nuclear weapons deliv­ery sys­tems. . . .”

The Unit­ed States delib­er­ate­ly allowed Japan access to the Unit­ed States’ most secret nuclear weapons facil­i­ties while it trans­ferred tens of bil­lions of dol­lars worth of Amer­i­can tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plu­to­ni­um since the 1980s, a Nation­al Secu­ri­ty News Ser­vice inves­ti­ga­tion reveals. These activ­i­ties repeat­ed­ly vio­lat­ed U.S. laws regard­ing con­trols of sen­si­tive nuclear mate­ri­als that could be divert­ed to weapons pro­grams in Japan. The NSNS inves­ti­ga­tion found that the Unit­ed States has known about a secret nuclear weapons pro­gram in Japan since the 1960s, accord­ing to CIA reports.

The diver­sion of U.S. clas­si­fied tech­nol­o­gy began dur­ing the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion after it allowed a $10 bil­lion reac­tor sale to Chi­na. Japan protest­ed that sen­si­tive tech­nol­o­gy was being sold to a poten­tial nuclear adver­sary. The Rea­gan and George H.W. Bush admin­is­tra­tions per­mit­ted sen­si­tive tech­nol­o­gy and nuclear mate­ri­als to be trans­ferred to Japan despite laws and treaties pre­vent­ing such trans­fers. High­ly sen­si­tive tech­nol­o­gy on plu­to­ni­um sep­a­ra­tion from the U.S. Depart­ment of Energy’s Savan­nah Riv­er Site and Han­ford nuclear weapons com­plex, as well as tens of bil­lions of dol­lars worth of breed­er reac­tor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safe­guards against pro­lif­er­a­tion. Japan­ese sci­en­tist and tech­ni­cians were giv­en access to both Han­ford and Savan­nah Riv­er as part of the trans­fer process.

While Japan has refrained from deploy­ing nuclear weapons and remains under an umbrel­la of U.S. nuclear pro­tec­tion, NSNS has learned that the coun­try has used its elec­tri­cal util­i­ty com­pa­nies as a cov­er to allow the coun­try to amass enough nuclear weapons mate­ri­als to build a nuclear arse­nal larg­er than Chi­na, India and Pak­istan com­bined. . . .

. . . That secret effort was hid­den in a nuclear pow­er pro­gram that by March 11, 2011– the day the earth­quake and tsuna­mi over­whelmed the Fukushi­ma Dai­ichi Nuclear Plant – had amassed 70 met­ric tons of plu­to­ni­um. Like its use of civil­ian nuclear pow­er to hide a secret bomb pro­gram, Japan used peace­ful space explo­ration as a cov­er for devel­op­ing sophis­ti­cat­ed nuclear weapons deliv­ery sys­tems.

Polit­i­cal lead­ers in Japan under­stood that the only way the Japan­ese peo­ple could be con­vinced to allow nuclear pow­er into their lives was if a long line of gov­ern­ments and indus­try hid any mil­i­tary appli­ca­tion. For that rea­son, a suc­ces­sion of Japan­ese gov­ern­ments col­lud­ed on a bomb pro­gram dis­guised as inno­cent ener­gy and civ­il space pro­grams. . . .

6. Although he has now moved on to the RAND Cor­po­ra­tion, ana­lyst Jef­frey Hor­nung was a “go-to” guy for The New York Times on Japan­ese secu­ri­ty mat­ters. Hor­nung worked for the Sasakawa Peace Foun­da­tion USA. This orga­ni­za­tion was launched with cap­i­tal from Ryoichi Sasakawa, a promi­nent Japan­ese fas­cist. He referred to him­self as “the world’s rich­est fas­cist.”

Like fel­low war crim­i­nal and Uni­fi­ca­tion Church fun­der Yoshio Kodama, Sasakawa was deeply involved with the Japan­ese patri­ot­ic and ultra-nation­al­is­tic soci­eties.

“Jim Mat­tis Says U.S. Is ‘Shoul­der to Shoul­der’ with Japan” by Michael R. Gor­don and Motoko Rich; The New York Times; 2/3/2017.

. . . .“It’s sad that we’ve even come to this point,” said Jef­frey Hor­nung, a fel­low in the secu­ri­ty and for­eign affairs pro­gram at Sasakawa Peace Foun­da­tion USA, a research insti­tute based in Wash­ing­ton. ‘But in the con­text that we’re in, that reas­sur­ance is very impor­tant.’ . . .

7. The pro­gram fea­tures an inter­view with Daniel Junas, an expert on the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church. The inter­view, con­duct­ed on 12/8/1991 (observ­ing the 50th anniver­sary of the attack on Pearl Har­bor), focus­es on con­nec­tions between Japan­ese fas­cism and the Moonies.

Specif­i­cal­ly, the broad­cast high­lights the close con­nec­tions between Yoshio Kodama, Ryoichi Sasakawa, the Japan­ese patri­ot­ic soci­eties and the attack on Pearl Har­bor. In the inter­view, Mr. Junas affirms the hypoth­e­sis pre­sent­ed in RFA‑7—that the Moon orga­ni­za­tion con­sti­tutes an exten­sion of the Japan­ese patri­ot­ic soci­eties through the years and around the world. (It should be not­ed that, although nom­i­nal­ly Kore­an, the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church is root­ed in Japan­ese fas­cism. Korea had been a Japan­ese colony, and many of the organization’s key ear­ly par­tic­i­pants had been offi­cers in the Impe­r­i­al Japan­ese army. This inter­view devel­ops the Moon/Japan link still fur­ther.)

Both Kodama and Sasakawa were very close to, and involved with, the patri­ot­ic soci­eties. (See FTR-296.) Both were also key oper­a­tives with the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church. Sasakawa was very close to Admi­ral Yamam­a­to, who led the fleet that attacked Pearl Har­bor. Sasakawa was also very close to the Mit­subishi heavy indus­tri­al firm—one of the zaibat­su that was prin­ci­pal­ly involved with ship­build­ing for the Japan­ese navy. Kodama found­ed the Kodama Agency on the day Pearl Har­bor was attacked (its found­ing actu­al­ly took place on 12/8/1941 since Japan is on the oth­er side of the Inter­na­tion­al Date Line.)

The Kodama Agency uti­lized (among oth­er things) the traf­fick­ing of con­tra­band from Japan­ese-occu­pied Manchuria in order to obtain strate­gic mate­ri­als for the Impe­r­i­al Japan­ese Naval Air Arm. As dis­cussed in RFA‑7, Kodama and Gen­er­al Minoru Gen­da were involved in the Lock­heed scan­dal in 1976. (They were con­vict­ed of accept­ing bribes to effect the pur­chase of Lock­heed air­craft for the Japan­ese self-defense forces.) The com­man­der of the air arma­da that attacked Pearl Har­bor, Gen­da was award­ed a medal by the U.S. Air Force for his work on behalf of Lock­heed!

One of the focal points of the inter­view con­cerns the fund­ing for the Moon orga­ni­za­tion. Despite its numer­ous indus­tri­al and fund-rais­ing oper­a­tions, the source of its vast eco­nom­ic resources remains ambigu­ous. Most of the Moon-owned busi­ness­es are mon­ey-losers. Junas advances the hypoth­e­sis, based on his research, that the most prob­a­ble source for the financ­ing of the Moon orga­ni­za­tion is Japan­ese heavy industry—the Mit­subishi firm, in par­tic­u­lar!

The patri­ot­ic soci­eties were also very close to the zaibat­su (the giant fam­i­ly trusts). Mit­subishi was one of the zaibat­su. (For more about the zaibat­su, see also: FTR #‘s -290, 428, 905.)

Junas dis­cuss­es the Japan­ese eco­nom­ic impe­r­i­al orga­ni­za­tion called the Greater East Asia Co-Pros­per­i­ty Sphere. In dis­cussing the sup­port by Sasakawa, Kodama, the Moon orga­ni­za­tion and WACL for the Viet­nam War, Junas under­scores the impor­tance of that war for the Japan­ese econ­o­my. The cap­i­tal inflow Japan expe­ri­enced dur­ing that con­flict had much to do with the rise of the Japan­ese eco­nom­ic jug­ger­naut. As dis­cussed in FTR-290, a key ele­ment of the foun­da­tion of the post-war Japan­ese econ­o­my was the Kido flight cap­i­tal pro­gram.

It is inter­est­ing and sig­nif­i­cant that Junas notes the his­tor­i­cal links between the patri­ot­ic and ultra-nation­al­ist soci­eties and fish­ing. The Uni­fi­ca­tion Church made sig­nif­i­cant inroads into the Glouces­ter (MA) fish­ing indus­try and dom­i­nates the Sushi busi­ness in the Unit­ed States.

8. For the con­ve­nience of the read­er, we present infor­ma­tion about Ryoichi Sasakawa and Yoshio Kodama, their links to the patri­ot­ic soci­eties, and their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League.

“Japan­ese Nation­al­ism Revives” by Ken­ny Coyle; Search­light; January/2001 [#307].

. . . . The links between orga­nized crime and the ultra-right are well doc­u­ment­ed. When the police crack down on yakuza activ­i­ties, gang­sters find it easy to laun­der mon­ey through legal out­lets such as the ultra-right groups, although even here, almost half of the right-wing groups do not sub­mit their accounts as they are legal­ly oblig­ed to do. These murky links can best be illus­trat­ed, Mr. Hari­na­ka argues, by look­ing at a key fig­ure in the pre­war Japan­ese right who forms a direct link to the pol­i­tics of today, the late Yoshio Kodama.

His life illus­trates the inter­weav­ing of far right fanati­cism, big busi­ness, orga­nized crime and gov­ern­ment. In the 1930’s, Kodama was active in a vari­ety of polit­i­cal nation­al­ist move­ments such as the Inde­pen­dence Youth Soci­ety, Blood Broth­er­hood [involved in the May 15th Incident–D.E.], Holy War Exe­cu­tion League, Fed­er­a­tion of Rad­i­cal Patri­ot­ic Work­ers, and Cap­i­tal Rise Asia Acad­e­my, which broke strikes and attempt­ed to assas­si­nate polit­i­cal fig­ures.

Despite prison con­vic­tions, Kodama was then con­tact­ed by the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment in the whole­sale loot­ing of Chi­na for raw mate­ri­als for Japan’s war effort. By the end of the war in 1945, his indus­tri­al empire, the Kodama Agency, was worth $175 mil­lion. Fol­low­ing the Japan­ese sur­ren­der, Kodama was list­ed as a Class A war crim­i­nal, yet he served only two years in Toky­o’s Sug­amo Prison.

In 1949, he per­son­al­ly direct­ed yakuza gang­sters against a threat­ened strike at the Hoku­tan coal mine. The sec­ond wealth­i­est man in Japan, he bankrolled the LDP at its birth in 1955. In the 1960’s, he teamed up with a then unknown South Kore­an right-winger, ‘the Rev­erend’ Sun Myung Moon, and Ryoichi Sasakawa, a Japan­ese motor boat rac­ing mil­lion­aire. Sasakawa had orga­nized Japan­ese Black­shirts in the 1930’s and once described him­self as the world’s rich­est fas­cist.

The three, with the help of South Kore­an intel­li­gence and Tai­wanese dic­ta­tor Chi­ang Kai-Shek, helped form the Asian Peo­ple’s Anti-Com­mu­nist League. The League set up and fund­ed Moon’s Free­dom Cen­ter in the Unit­ed States in 1964. Kodama was chief advis­er for the Moon sub­sidiary, Win Over Com­mu­nism. In 1966, the League merged with the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations to form the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League, a major inter­na­tion­al net­work of fas­cists and anti semi­tes fea­tured many times in the pages of Search­light. . . .

9. Next, the pro­gram reviews the polit­i­cal resume of Nobo­suke Kishi, Abe’s grand­fa­ther and an author of the polit­i­cal lega­cy to which his grand­son is heir. Note that war crim­i­nal Kishi’s cell mate at Sug­amo prison was Yoshio Kodama. As dis­cussed in FTR#446, Kodama was the god­fa­ther of the Japan­ese under­world, a major Japan­ese war crim­i­nal in his own right, and the CIA’s man in Japan. As dis­cussed in FTR#’s 84, 291, 446, 551, Kodama was a major, ear­ly fig­ure in the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church.

Gold Warriors-America’s Secret Recov­ery of Yamashita’s Gold; by Ster­ling Sea­grave and Peg­gy Sea­grave; Ver­so [HC]; Copy­right 2003 by Ster­ling Sea­grave and Peg­gy Sea­grave; ISBN 1–85984-542–8; pp. 121–122.

. . . . In 1956, for exam­ple, the Eisen­how­er Admin­is­tra­tion labored long and hard to install Kishi as head of the new­ly-merged Lib­er­al-Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and as Japan’s new prime min­is­ter. This was the same Kishi who had been a mem­ber of the hard-core rul­ing clique in Manchuria with Gen­er­al Tojo Hide­ki and Hoshi­no Nao­ki, head of the nar­cotics monop­oly. Kishi had also signed Japan’s Dec­la­ra­tion of War against Amer­i­ca in Decem­ber 1941. Dur­ing World War II, he was vice min­is­ter of muni­tions and min­is­ter of com­merce and indus­try, active­ly involved in slave labor. Along the way, he made a per­son­al for­tune in side-deals with the zaibat­su.

Fol­low­ing Japan’s sur­ren­der, he was one of the most promi­nent indict­ed war crim­i­nals at Sug­amo, where he was a cell­mate of Kodama. In 1948, when his release from prison was pur­chased by Kodama, Kishi began orga­niz­ing the finan­cial base of the LDP, using Kodama’s black gold and injec­tions of M‑Fund cash. For ten years, Kishi was groomed as America’s Boy by Har­ry Kern, Eugene Dooman, Comp­ton Pack­en­ham and oth­er mem­bers of Averell Harriman’s group at the Amer­i­ca Coun­cil for Japan (ACJ). They worked tire­less­ly to improve Kishi’s mousy image, tutored him in Eng­lish, and taught him to like Scotch. To them, Kishi was America’s ‘only bet left in Japan.’ All this was done covert­ly, for if the Japan­ese pub­lic learned that Wash­ing­ton was using the M‑Fund to replace one prime min­is­ter with anoth­er, the democ­ra­cy fic­tion would col­lapse. . . .

10. In what the Sea­graves describe as the “last bat­tle of the Pacif­ic War,” sur­viv­ing vic­tims of Japan­ese atroc­i­ties, includ­ing Amer­i­can for­mer POW’s sued for com­pen­sa­tion for their wartime suf­fer­ing. The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment effec­tive­ly blocked these suits, main­tain­ing that inter­na­tion­al diplo­mat­ic rela­tions took prece­dence over legal ethics and moral­i­ty. Note that the wife of U.S. Ambas­sador to Japan Thomas Foley and Deputy Chief of Mis­sion Christo­pher J. LaFleur have strong pro­fes­sion­al links with Sum­it­o­mo and Mit­subishi, two of the zaibat­sus. Lafleur is mar­ried to the daugh­ter of for­mer prime min­is­ter and finance min­is­ter Miyaza­wa, who appears to have been a finan­cial over­seer of the M‑Fund.

Gold Warriors-America’s Secret Recov­ery of Yamashita’s Gold; by Ster­ling Sea­grave and Peg­gy Sea­grave; Ver­so [HC]; Copy­right 2003 by Ster­ling Sea­grave and Peg­gy Sea­grave; ISBN 1–85984-542–8; p. 12.

. . . . The real issue is con­flict of inter­est. Dur­ing the Clin­ton Admin­is­tra­tion, U.S. Ambas­sador to Japan Thomas Foley was adamant in reject­ing com­pen­sa­tion for POW’s and oth­er slave labor­ers, insist­ing that ‘The peace treaty put aside all claims against Japan.’ His Deputy Chief of Mis­sion, Christo­pher J. Lafleur, echoed this dog­ma at every oppor­tu­ni­ty. . . .

. . . . It was a mat­ter of some inter­est to vic­tims that Foley’s wife was a well-paid con­sul­tant to Sum­it­o­mo, one of Japan’s biggest zaibat­su con­glom­er­ates, heav­i­ly involved in wartime slave labor and a tar­get of the law­suits. The moment Foley end­ed his tenure as ambas­sador and returned to Amer­i­ca, he signed on as a paid advi­sor and lob­by­ist to anoth­er huge con­glom­er­ate-Mit­subishi-one of the biggest wartime users of slave labor. . .

. . . . Of greater sig­nif­i­cance, per­haps, is that Lafleur is mar­ried to the daugh­ter of for­mer prime min­is­ter and finance min­is­ter Miyaza­wa, one of the three Japan­ese who secret­ly nego­ti­at­ed the 1951 treaty with John Fos­ter Dulles. (Miyaza­wa also is con­sid­ered by pro­fes­sor Lausi­er and oth­ers to be the finan­cial over­seer of the M‑Fund.) Con­flict of inter­est does not seem to be an obsta­cle in diplo­mat­ic appoint­ments to Tokyo.) . . .

Discussion

3 comments for “FTR #970 Partying Like It’s 1932, Part 2: The Japanese Deep State”

  1. The Bank of Japan recent­ly had to issue an apol­o­gy over the com­ments by one of its board mem­bers, Yuta­ka Hara­da, for sug­gest­ing that the stim­u­la­tive eco­nom­ic poli­cies of Hitler were not just suc­cess­ful, albeit with hor­ri­ble con­se­quence, but were also need­ed due in part to the rest of the world not imple­ment­ing stim­u­la­tive poli­cies ear­li­er and allow­ing the glob­al depres­sion to fes­ter. As far as com­ments that could be con­strued as pro-Hitler it was actu­al­ly rel­a­tive­ly mild and arguably not real­ly praise of Hitler since that par­tic­u­lar chap­ter in his­to­ry is extreme­ly rel­e­vant for learn­ing about the con­se­quences of dif­fer­ent macro­eco­nom­ic poli­cies. Com­pared to the many oth­er pro-Hit­ler­ian remarks that have emerged from the right-wing Abe gov­ern­ment in recent years it was real­ly quite tame. Although giv­en the abun­dance of pro-Nazi remarks from Shin­zo Abe’s cab­i­net offi­cials in recent years one could argue that Harada’s com­ments were, at a min­i­mum, an attempt to pla­cate a pro-Nazi sen­ti­ment with­in his gov­ern­ment.

    The pro-Hitler com­ments just made by Japan’s Deputy Prime Min­is­ter and Finance Min­is­ter Taro Aso, on the oth­er hand, are much clos­er to what we’ve sad­ly come to expect from the cur­rent gov­ern­ment:

    The Guardian

    Japan­ese min­is­ter Taro Aso prais­es Hitler, say­ing he had ‘right motives’

    Finance min­is­ter forced to retract com­ment after crit­i­cism that he appeared to be defend­ing Hitler’s motives for the geno­cide of mil­lions of Jews

    Justin McCur­ry in Tokyo
    Wednes­day 30 August 2017 00.46 EDT

    Japan’s finance min­is­ter, Taro Aso, has court­ed fresh con­tro­ver­sy after express­ing admi­ra­tion for the Nazis, describ­ing Adolf Hitler as “hav­ing the right motives”.

    “Hitler, who killed mil­lions of peo­ple, was no good even if his motive was right,” Aso told a meet­ing of his fac­tion of the gov­ern­ing Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty, accord­ing to Jiji Press.

    Aso retract­ed the com­ments on Wednes­day after crit­i­cism that he appeared to be defend­ing Hitler’s motives for the geno­cide of mil­lions of Jews dur­ing the sec­ond world war.

    “It is clear from my over­all remarks that I regard Hitler in extreme­ly neg­a­tive terms, and it’s clear that his motives were also wrong,” Aso said in a state­ment, adding that he did not intend to defend Hitler, but to stress the impor­tance of politi­cians achiev­ing results.

    “It was inap­pro­pri­ate that I cit­ed Hitler as an exam­ple and I would like to retract that.”

    The Los Ange­les-based Simon Wiesen­thal Cen­tre, which mon­i­tors anti-semit­ic activ­i­ties, voiced “dis­tress and dis­ap­point­ment” at the com­ments.

    “This is just the lat­est of a trou­bling list of ‘mis­state­ments’ and are down­right dan­ger­ous,” the centre’s head, rab­bi Abra­ham Coop­er, said in a state­ment.

    It is not the first time the gaffe-prone Aso has made con­tro­ver­sial remarks about the Nazis.

    In 2013, he came under pres­sure to resign after sug­gest­ing that Japan should fol­low the Nazis’ exam­ple when con­sid­er­ing how to change its con­sti­tu­tion.

    Crit­i­cis­ing the lack of sup­port among old­er peo­ple for revis­ing Japan’s post­war paci­fist con­sti­tu­tion, Aso said it could learn from how the Nazi par­ty changed Germany’s con­sti­tu­tion by stealth before the sec­ond world war.

    Since revis­ing Japan’s con­sti­tu­tion could trig­ger protests, Aso sug­gest­ed “doing it qui­et­ly, just as in one day the Weimar con­sti­tu­tion changed to the Nazi con­sti­tu­tion with­out any­one real­is­ing it. Why don’t we learn from that sort of tac­tic?”

    He lat­er retract­ed the com­ments but refused to resign.

    His com­ments came soon after anoth­er pub­lic fig­ure in Japan attract­ed crit­i­cism for voic­ing admi­ra­tion for the Nazis.

    Ear­li­er this week, the Simon Wiesen­thal Cen­tre said it had called for an inves­ti­ga­tion into Kat­suya Taka­su, a well-known plas­tic sur­geon and TV celebri­ty, who high­light­ed the Nazis’ con­tri­bu­tion to sci­ence and med­i­cine, and appeared to deny the Holo­caust.

    The cen­tre asked the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Cos­met­ic Surgery to expel Taka­su, whose posts, accord­ing to Coop­er, “vio­late all norms of decen­cy and reveal a per­son who is a racist anti-Semi­te and out­right lover of Nazism”.

    The acad­e­my said it took the alle­ga­tions against Taka­su seri­ous­ly and was inves­ti­gat­ing Takasu’s com­ments.

    Taka­su post­ed the tweets in 2015 but they recent­ly gen­er­at­ed a huge response on social media after a Japan­ese blog­ger trans­lat­ed them into Eng­lish.

    After say­ing he had learned “how great Nazism was” while study­ing at Kiel Uni­ver­si­ty in Ger­many, Taka­su wrote: “There is no doubt that the Jews were per­se­cut­ed. But we only know it from hearsay and all of it is based on infor­ma­tion from the Allies.”

    In June, Yuta­ka Hara­da, a mem­ber of the board of Japan’s cen­tral bank praised Hitler’s “won­der­ful” fis­cal and mon­e­tary poli­cies, but said they had enabled him to go on and do “hor­ri­ble” things.

    The use of Nazi sym­bol­ism has land­ed Japan­ese celebri­ties in trou­ble. Keyakizaka46, a pop­u­lar girl band set up by an exec­u­tive board mem­ber of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organ­is­ing com­mit­tee, was crit­i­cised last year for giv­ing a Hal­loween con­cert in cos­tumes mod­elled on Nazi Waf­fen-SS uni­forms.

    ...
    ———-

    “Japan­ese min­is­ter Taro Aso prais­es Hitler, say­ing he had ‘right motives’ ” by Justin McCur­ry; The Guardian; 08/30/2017

    “Hitler, who killed mil­lions of peo­ple, was no good even if his motive was right,” Aso told a meet­ing of his fac­tion of the gov­ern­ing Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty, accord­ing to Jiji Press.”

    So Hiter’s motives, which includ­ed killing mil­lions of peo­ple, were good. It was just all the killing that spoiled every­thing. That’s the kind of pro-Nazi rhetoric we’ve come to expect from the Abe gov­ern­ment: unam­bigu­ous­ly pro-Nazi state­ments fol­lowed by a ‘whoops, I hope peo­ple did­n’t mis­un­der­stand me!’ apol­o­gy. And it is, of course, just the lat­est pro-Nazi and pro-far-right ‘gaffe’ from Taro Aso and the Abe gov­ern­ment. Plen­ty more will no doubt fol­low.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | August 31, 2017, 10:10 am
  2. Speak­ing of the US reward­ing trea­son and mass mur­der, here’s a baf­fling and dis­turb­ing item from the NYT.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/17/obituaries/general-minoru-genda-84-dies-planned-attack-on-pearl-harbor.html

    Gen­er­al Minoru Gen­da — Japan­ese Gen­er­al who planned attack on Pearl Har­bor lat­er received the high­est Unit­ed States hon­or giv­en to for­eign­ers, the Legion of Mer­it.

    Posted by Bill in Sacto | October 29, 2020, 9:16 pm
  3. @Bill in SACTO–

    Coin­ci­dence indeed!

    I spoke about Gen­da in AFA#7.

    Best,

    Dave

    Posted by Dave Emory | October 30, 2020, 2:48 pm

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