September 11th, 2001
Never Forget; Never Forgive.
This may sound to the more sensitive-minded of you like a recipe for an unending war. Horse Hockey. It is a recipe for seeing our part of this war to a lasting and victorious resolution. You see...
There used to be a thing called "State Shintou" in Japan.
There isn't any such thing now, and no one mistakes the religious practice of Shintou with the former "State Shintou". One is a philosophy and practice of living with and in the world. The other was a nationalist political structure that cloaked itself in the supposed legitimacy of a religion... and then was turned into an intolerant ultra-nationalist system of propaganda and social control in the service of aggressive Militarist schemers. (cf. Ienaga Saburou (S. Ienaga)'s "The Pacific War, 1931-1945" for an education in just how hateful it was.)
Good riddance.
It took killing a few million people, or so, to get it done away with.
It cost several hundred thousand Allied lives (many more counting the Nationalist Chinese) and easily that number of civilians caught in the war zones or slaughtered by Imperial troops in places like Manila.
I think it was worth it.
When the topic comes up, so do my neighbors and colleagues... although many of them lost grandparents or parents in the war. I'd go so far to say that even the largest number of those I've met that hold the Imperial System as the proper form of government for Japan have utter contempt for the insane-by-any-modern-measure Army schemers that ruined Taisho Democracy and precipitated the Pacific War.
Yes, I do live in Japan. Have done so for more than a decade. I'm a Permanent Resident. Politically, I'm about as close to being a Meiji-era Conservative Monarchist and Patriot of the nation as one can be without holding Japanese nationality. This is my adopted home and likely where my bones will rest one day.
I can do so because once, ~70 years ago, the forces of Liberty were willing to do what needed to be done to fight back, to turn the tide, to corner each and every element of the enemy, and then to grind them into utter and absolute capitulation... or kill them... and then root out and destroy the very socio-political system that brought forth that enemy. Every.Last.Piece.
Today, as it has been ever since the 2001 AUMF, calls for nothing less. Consider...
Once, back in the early 21st Century, there used to be a thing called "Islamism".
There isn't any such thing now, and no one mistakes the religious practice of Islam with the former "Islamism". One is a philosophy and practice of faith. The other was a nationalist political structure that cloaked itself in the supposed legitimacy of a religion... and then was turned into an intolerant ultra-nationalist system of propaganda and social control in the service of aggressive Militarist schemers...
Never Forget; Never Forgive.
