Quote of the Day (Toshio Tamogami, On Denying History)

“A country that denies its own history is destined to fall.”—Toshio Tamogami, former head of Japan’s air force, concluding an essay that won a contest denying Japan’s role in sponsoring wartime atrocities, as quoted in “The Ghost of Wartimes Past,” The Economist, November 8, 2008

(Allow me to correct that last quote: A general who denies his country’s past is destined to fall. Not to mention make a fool of himself, and cause his country’s neighbors to shake their hands and ask why it was taking Japan so long to accept that it had a problem in its history.

For a long time, I’ve felt that actors should not be allowed anywhere near keyboards lest they type something beyond their understanding, such as screenplays in which people are expected to speak intelligibly. Now, I’m ready to broaden that blanket prohibition to the military—or, at very least, Japan’s.

I mean, what can you say when Gen. Tamogami was just one of 78 members of Japan’s air force who entered this writing contest? I guess they’ve been reading so many flight plans that they never bothered to read how pissed off other nations were—like the Philippines, North and South Korea, and China—upon reading denials by Japanese leaders and institutions that they ever mistreated anyone in what Tamogami called a “defensive” war.

Maybe if you’re Newt Gingrich—who, when he’s not bloviating for Fox News, has taken to writing what-if scenarios about, among other events, the Battle of Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor and 9/11—you like the idea of alternative histories. But you have to keep that straight from real history.

Fortunately, an anniversary today provides an opportunity for a history lesson that Gen. Tamogami never received all these years. You see, on this date in 1948, Gen. Hideki Tojo—part of the militarist cabal that beat the drums for an unprovoked war against the Chinese in the 1930s, then the virtual dictator of Japan from 1941 to 1944—was found guilty, along with 24 other defendants, of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE). Tojo and six of his co-defendants were sentenced to death for their roles.

(The charges referred to crimes against other nations, but as far as I’m concerned, Tojo and his associates could just as easily have been charged with crimes against his own country. The recklessness of Tojo’s actions led to a furious reaction by the Allies, who proceeded to launch devastating air raids—and, of course, two nuclear bombs—on the country.)

The 2 ½-year Tokyo trial of Tojo and his compadres has been called the “other Nuremberg trials,” and like that judgment in Germany there were problems with the proceedings. (The Allies decided not to press charges against Emperor Hirohito—and even stopped the trial to persuade Tojo to reconsider his testimony that the monarch knew of and approved his decisions.)

Nonetheless, a mountain of documentary evidence and eyewitness testimony demonstrated conclusively that Tamogami missed the mark in absolving his government and mitigating its culpability for the war:

* The Rape of Nanking, in which an estimated 20,000 women became victims of sexual violence at the hands of Japanese soldiers.

* Narcotics trafficking, perpetrated on a wide scale in China to weaken resistance to Japanese aggression.

* Waging aggressive war against the U.S., Britain, the Netherlands and France.

To this day, Japanese textbooks downplay their nation’s role in wartime atrocities. As the Tamogami case proves, perhaps it’s time that these textbooks’ authors should start from scratch and get it right this time. Otherwise, God help the world on the day when Japan’s pacifist constitution is shredded and the military returns to power. )