RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-ghosts-of-world-war-ii/

World War II ended 74 years ago. But even in the 21st century, the lasting effects endure, both psychological and material. After all, the war took more than 60 million lives, redrew the map of Europe and ended with the Soviet Union and the United States locked in a Cold War of nuclear superpowers.

Japan and South Korea should logically remain natural allies. Both are booming capitalist constitutional states. Decades ago both nations emerged from devastating wars. And in pacifist fashion they vowed never to suffer such mass carnage again.

Both nations are staunch allies of the United States. They are likewise similarly suspicious of their neighbor, aggressive communist China, which threatens their economies and security. Yet Tokyo and Seoul are now more adversaries than democratic allies, and they are locked in a bitter fight. In their acrimony over trade and past war reparations, neither can forget World War II.

South Koreans continue to press for more reparations to atone for the horrific treatment of the Korean Peninsula by Japanese occupiers and imperialists. Imperial Japan stripped Korea’s natural resources and exported thousands of Korean women to war zones to be raped by Japanese troops.

A Bad Deal, 80 Years Ago

The wealthier that South Korea becomes, the more an ascendant Seoul begins to rival — and worry — Tokyo. And the more distant World War II becomes, the more Japan and South Korea relive their bitter shared wartime past.

The United States has had difficulty forming a Pacific alliance of containment against a bellicose China. Australia, the Philippines and Southeast Asian nations fear Chinese aggression. But they also share bitter memories of merciless Japanese imperialism that killed as many as 15 million Chinese — the vast majority of them civilians.

In their minds, our allies know China is the chief threat. But in their hearts, even now they can’t quite forget how their ally Japan once committed genocide throughout the region.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/five-things-they-dont-tell-you-about-slavery/

It didn’t begin or end in the United States.

The same people most obsessed with slavery seem to have little interest in the full scope of its history.

There has been an effort for decades now — although with new momentum lately, as exemplified by the New York Times’ 1619 project — to identify the United States and its founding with slavery.

To the extent that this campaign excavates uncomfortable truths about our history and underlines the central role of African Americans in our nation, it is welcome. But it is often intended to undermine the legitimacy of America itself by effacing what makes it distinctive and good.

Yes, slavery and racial prejudice were our great original sins. It would have been better if we had, like the British, been leaders against the slave trade and for abolition (the representation of slaveholders in Congress and the rise of King Cotton forestalled this). But we didn’t invent slavery, even in its race-based form.

Slavery didn’t make us unique, which is obvious if we consider its history in a little broader context. Critics of the American Founding don’t like to do this because it weakens their case and quickly brings them up against politically inconvenient facts that they’d prefer to pass over in silence.

Let’s dwell, then, on a few things they don’t tell us about slavery. None of these are secrets or are hard to find, but they are usually left out or minimized, since they don’t involve self-criticism and, worse, they entail a critical look at societies or cultures that the Left tends to favor vis-à-vis the West.

None of what follows is meant to excuse the practice of slavery in the United States, or its longevity. Nor is it to deny that the Atlantic slave trade was one of history’s great enormities, subjecting millions to mistreatment so horrifying that it is hard to fathom. But if we are to understand the history of slavery, it’s important to know what happened before 1619 and what happened elsewhere besides America.