Appropriating War Crimes

September 21st, 2006 at 15:59 Björn Hallberg

America does a bang-up job of appropriating war crimes, doing the civilized, responsible thing — as long as the war crimes in question are long past, far away and don’t directly involve Americans. And adding to the definition, it of course helps if the appropriation can produce some sort of blunt rhetorical device to deflect contemporary criticism and literally blackmail foreign powers (see for instance The Holocaust Industry for a brilliant account by Norman Finkelstein on the topic of a similar appropriation).

The latest appropriation is the seemingly altruistic House of Representatives resolution 759 which demands that Japan apologize for the sexual slavery (the use of what is euphemistically called “comfort women”) that went on since 1932 until the end of the Second World War. Hard to argue when taken at face value. But digging just beneath the surface brings up troubling issues. Like the precedence of Holocaust appropriation for instance and questions over the actual motives, not to mention why anyone even cares what the American Congress has to say about anything.

First and foremost it is a mind-boggling concept really with America continually issuing arrogant resolutions for the rest of the world while sitting on a considerable pile of corpses and war crimes of its own. A pile that keeps getting bigger and that isn’t situated in the 1930s by the way. And while we’re at it, digging up ancestral guilt, why not also consider the effect America had on Japan’s development in the late 1800s and the means, ideology to take up an imperialistic policy in the region.

The timing is impeccable given the political happenings in Japan. Is it a genuine (as genuine as it can get with the U.S. at the helm) attempt to set things right or a cynical ploy to assert American dominance and effectively blackmail Japan? And if so, would that indicate that Shinzo Abe is indeed genuine when talking about restoring Japan’s independence (and not for instance pondering a rewrite of pacifist tenets because America wants a more active military ally)? It could be debated whether Japan taking a right-wing turn would be a price worth paying if it also (as unlikely as it is) meant cutting the Trans-Pacific connection.

Entry 636 filed under: Asia. This entry was posted 2 years, 2 months ago. RSS feed for comments on this post.