An American conservative commentator Dennis Prager recently said in his radio program that in the course of history, war was fought only between police state and police state or freedom state and police state, not between freedom state and freedom state. He is right. And he is not the only person ever said that.
What, then, about the war between Japan and the US? The common understanding today of Americans and vast majority of Japanese is that Japan was the evil; Japan was the invader, that Japan was the aggressor. We were the scary police state, they say.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just bogus. We tried to prevent war with the US. Tojo Hideki is one of the advocates of cutting deals with the US to make peace until the very last minute. Our Emperor’s primary wish was peace. Tojo followed his wish.
Who, then, wished for war? Who wanted to fight? Franklin Delano Roosevelt did. That president of the US who is still admired by current liberals was the one who viewed Soviet Union’s Bolshevik Revolution, Fascist’s takeover of Italy in 1930’s and Hitler’s Third Reich as progress. Jonah Goldberg’s great book “Liberal Fascism” describes the fact that Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and New Deal America were praising each other at least until Germany initiated war with neighboring countries. FDR, a fascist clearly with dictatorial tendencies, violated his country’s own constitution and let himself elected three times as president. Roosevelt issued presidential order to confine American citizens who happened to be of Japanese origin.
Japan, on the other hand, was a constitutional monarchy. Our government back then had checks and balance of power internally, and respectful and law abiding diplomatically. All the action we took, before the war and during the war, domestic and foreign, was decided and implemented through democratic process.
Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and New Deal America – those are the police state at the time. China was a dangerous breeding ground of communism with Soviet’s help. Japan, only to protect its citizen – with no expansionist purpose, had to fight with rising unrest in China. FDR took it wrong, as he took everything else wrong, and hampered our efforts left and right, until we finally said enough is enough.
In the final analysis, Great Asia War (Pacific War) was a war between Japan, the Freedom State and America, the Police State. And, FDR should be held responsible for all deceased and lost.
Finally, to those followers of Democratic Party – it’s your history, too.