Sunday, Nov. 9, 2008

By JAMES BROPHY

Tokyo

Regarding the Nov. 4 article "Axed ASDF chief hawk till the end; no apology": For those who have yet to read the entire essay written by former Air Self-Defense Force chief Gen. Toshio Tamogami, I wouldn't bother. With one exception, there are no new revelations. It seems Tamogami merely took the overused talking points of his revisionist compatriots, and added a few more lines from the storyboards that line the walls at Yushukan (adjacent to Yasukuni Shrine).

What I did see for the first time was a somewhat tortured argument that the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt deceived Japan into starting the Pacific War. In Tamogami's view, Roosevelt desired a war with Japan but, due to a pre-inaugural pledge, could not fire the first shot. So he developed a secret strategy that lured Japan to launch the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Tamogami's assertions would be laughable if not for the vigor and straightforwardness with which he makes them. How could the senior member of Japan's "air force" actually believe he could publish something like this and not suffer some form of censure? How out of touch with reality was he to think that espousing these views would not provoke his civilian leaders, whether they agreed with him or not?

Off-the-cuff remarks by a long parade of politicians only reinforce the view that it is not beyond reason that a far rightwing leader could again rise in Japan -- one that would discard the pacifist Constitution and, given perhaps an economic, environmental or energy-related reason, turn the nation in the direction of violent confrontation.

Tamogami needs to sit down and talk with a generation of Japanese who survived the tragedies of the Pacific War and its terrible aftermath. They may enlighten him.

The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.

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