Asia has always been the dreamed destination for early American merchants. The goods sought in trade for people back in the United States were certainly cherished items. And, with the added benefit of trading with Opium, made it an irresistible quest. It gave the trade a higher value, than thinking the California Gold rush was worth its weight in gold.
America always envied Great Britain for having acquired territory in China. Britain took Hong Kong as a settlement for winning the Opium Wars. It was a wrongful war, in which Britain also used Opium as a form of currency. Since those treaties with China and Britain, America has always sought an Asian footing.
Defeating Japan in WWII was the real beginning to American Nationalism, from an American point of view. Harry Truman’s use of the Atomic Bomb on nonmilitary targets killing innocent Japanese civilians, established America’s claim in Asia, forging Japans future. The death of civilians, forced the populace to accept American determinism, known also as imperialism. Afterward, Japan’s military surrendered the 2nd time. The first time was several weeks before the bomb was used, but America ignored Japan’s initial attempt.
Japan has no vast resources that America needs, such as oil, or coal, or rare metals. But in those times, as they still wrongfully think today, Japan became a strategic place for American positioning. That positioning is for the U.S military. What a pitiful result from being the nation of Japan to becoming a military launching site for the United States military. Things changed politically for Japan when Russia announced it had the bomb. America's decision was to remain in Japan.
America has not relinquished its control of Japan, because of its strategic importance. Japan, being closer to Russia than the United States, proved to be a valuable base during the Cold War. Nuclear missiles had a closer advantage if need be, to strike Russian targets.
Now when we compare Iraq with its vast oil resources, and its strategic importance in the oil rich gulf, with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Israel...it sends a clear signal to the nations in the world that America will never leave Iraq.
With Iran now claiming its nuclear membership, it’s in similar stark comparison with Russia, when it announced it had the bomb. If America will not leave Japan, and it had no Oil resources, how are we to believe America will pull out of Iraq? It will not happen, unless the people demand it. Later in time China acquired the Atomic Bomb, thereby cementing America to the Japanese pavement.
In examining the reason why Truman ended support to the Kuomintang Nationalist Taiwan party in favor of Chairman Mao's Communist Party in forming a government, we see it had to do with Japan. Truman thought the Chinese Communist, were compatriots with the Russians. He wanted to breakup that relationship by showing Chairman Mao how American Policy was winning the war, to promote stability.
Doing this, Truman gambled that China would end its support to Russia, and forge ahead new Sino-American Japanese Chinese relations. By remaining in Japan Truman hoped for economic development between China and America’s Japan. But it was not to happen.
Truman’s gamble has not paid off. In fact Chairman Mao was very thankful to Truman in stopping the support to the Kuomintang forces in Taiwan, yet he also remained loyal to Russia, because he wanted the bomb for China.
When China became the new member to the nuclear club, it further confirmed the necessity in America in not giving Japan its sovereignty. Sadly, China has always been happy that America dropped the bomb on Japanese civilians. It was their moment in an odd way, of getting justice.
Remember, Japan committed terrible atrocities by slaughtering 300,000 Chinese people in Nanjing. It has been my belief Japan did this to end Britain and American control over the Chinese government, with their Opium markets. Indeed Japans action did end this, and stopped opium, when Chairman Mao rose to power by forcing all foreigners out of China.
Japan's pre-emptive attack on Pearl Harbor was their reason in stopping a pre-imminent threat. They saw American war ships growing in Hawaii, so they did what Bush did to Iraq. They attacked, to prevent an attack on their country.
China's happiness in the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Japan by the United States was challenged when the Vietnam Conflict started. China was supporting N. Vietnam, and the shift from American support to the Kuomintang in Taiwan so to speak, was realized with American new support in Saigon and S. Vietnam. Millions were killed, 58,000 US troops died, and America ended up pulling out of that senseless campaign. The Johnson administration refused to label it as a War.
It created a philosophy that America's military can be stopped. Although the cost was high, the psychology that winning conflicts by war became not an option. Many Republicans today in America want to reestablish that war is a good thing, in order to resurrect their creditability. That creditability they acclaim was by helping to win the campaign across Europe in stopping Hitler.
In all respect, this War on Iraq has been a response to the humiliating withdrawal from Saigon in the 70's. They look at it as humiliating. But in reality it is humility, and humbleness. If any nation had a gripe with America it was not Iraq, but Japan and Vietnam. After all, Vietnam and Cambodian families suffered the loss of 7 million people. More than the loss of life from the atomic bomb blasts in Nagasaki, and Hiroshima. And more than the loss of life the Jews suffered from the holocaust.
American against War and Violence. Writer, English Teacher, Inventor, Creator of the First Manmade Floating Farm On The Ocean.... My companies name is ACET: Algae Charcoal Ethanol Technicorp. We grow Algae for Oil.
Interesting;... that after I wrote the article, " America's Occupation Of Japan!", Japan Prime Minister Koizumi withdraws Japanese Troops from Iraq.
Todays date: June 20,2006
Japan orders pullout of troops from Iraq
By JOSEPH COLEMAN, Associated Press Writer 21 minutes ago
TOKYO - Japan ordered the withdrawal of its ground troops from Iraq on Tuesday, declaring the humanitarian mission a success and ending a groundbreaking dispatch that tested the limits of its pacifist postwar constitution. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said the 600 non-combat troops — deployed in early 2004 — had helped rebuild infrastructure in the area where they were based, and he pledged further aid to Iraqi reconstruction.
"Today we have decided to withdraw Ground Self-Defense Forces from the Samawah region in Iraq," Koizumi said in a nationally televised news conference. "The humanitarian dispatch ... has achieved its mission."
The withdrawal was decided in consultation with the United States and other allies, Koizumi said. Defense chief Fukushiro Nukaga told reporters earlier in the day that the pullout would take "several dozen days."
Koizumi has been a vocal supporter of U.S. policy in Iraq, arguing that the deployment was needed to aid reconstruction, secure oil supplies and bolster ties with Washington. He is to travel to Washington for a summit with President Bush the last week in June.
Japan, which hosts 50,000 U.S. troops under a security treaty, will continue to stand with Washington, said Koizumi, who steps down in September.
"Japan's policy to cooperate with the United States based on the importance of the Japan-US alliance has never changed and will not change," he said.
The dispatch constituted Japan's largest and most dangerous overseas military mission since the end of World War II. While concerns for the troops' safety were high, the region they were based in was relatively peaceful. As security deteriorated, they were largely confined to their base.
Tokyo will now consider expanding air operations in Iraq to include transport of medical supplies and U.N. personnel, following a request from U.N. General-Secretary Kofi Annan, said Takenori Kanzaki, head of the ruling party's coalition partner, the New Komei Party.
"Even after the withdrawal from Iraq, we must continue the efforts to support Iraq," Kanzaki told reporters.
Japan has about 600 troops in the city of Samawah in southern Iraq. Although the mission is strictly non-combat and humanitarian, the deployment in early 2004 broke new ground as a symbol of Tokyo's more assertive military policy.
The move to withdraw followed the announcement on Monday that Britain and Australia would hand over responsibility for security to Iraqi forces in southern Muthana province, where the Japanese troops are based.
That apparently was the signal to Tokyo that is was time to go. Japan has been concerned that its troops could be drawn into the fighting in Iraq.
Nukaga issued an order for the withdrawal to begin later Tuesday. The Yomiuri newspaper reported the target for completing the pullout was the end of July.
Polls showed half or more of the Japanese public opposed the mission, and many were concerned about the safety of troops in Iraq and the possibility that the dispatch would make Japan a target of terrorists.
Critics also said the dispatch violated the U.S.-drafted 1947 constitution, which foreswears the use of force to settle international disputes. The Iraq mission followed a dispatch of Japanese ships to offer logistical support for military action in Afghanistan.
Koizumi defended the deployment on Tuesday.
"I believe we made the right decision," he said.
While no Japanese soldiers suffered casualties, other citizens in Iraq were targeted by militants demanding a Japanese withdrawal. Seven Japanese have been kidnapped in Iraq since the deployment, and two of them were killed.
Japanese backpacker Shosei Koda, 24, was kidnapped and decapitated in Iraq in October 2004. Militants claimed to have abducted Akihito Saito, 44, a Japanese security manager employed by the British company Hart GMSSCO. A later statement said he died of wounds suffered in an ambush.
Throughout, Koizumi was steadfast in his insistence on continuing the dispatch, despite polls that showed most Japanese were against it.
The harshest test of the policy came in April 2004, when three Japanese aid workers were kidnapped and threatened with death unless Tokyo withdrew. Koizumi refused, and all three were later released unharmed.
Still, opposition to the dispatch was strong. A poll published in the national Asahi newspaper late last year showed 69 percent of respondents opposed to continuing the mission. Nevertheless, Japan's government in December extended the dispatch for another year.
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 934 comments)
on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 5:00:27 AM
