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Posted July 16, 2001
How Dumb?
I've always been a fan of Justin's column, but have to say this last one was out-of-form for him. I missed his point. Also, he seems convinced that the "bodies" are legit. Do we, in fact, know this to be so? Past reports of bodies have always been false, or their origin has been misidentified. I am wondering how they can tell so much about them (clothing, papers, etc...) when they have been transported and left in the most awful conditions. Wouldn't all this deteriorate? Also, just how dumb must these people have been? If they wanted to cover up the crime, why not remove evidence that could identify the victims? Or were they feeling smug that if the bodies were carted to Slobo's territory there would never be any need to be careful, since Slobo would not permit anyone to exhume bodies in Serbia?
~ M.
Ignjatovic
Contempt for the Left
Is Mr. Raimondo’s contempt for the Left so overwhelming that he finally succumbed to the NATO propaganda? In "Canonizing St. Slobo" Raimondo is almost unrecognisable as he bounces between attacking Slobo’s inquisitors and discrediting Slobo’s counselors.
Do not get me wrong. I am not saying that Slobo is not guilty, but it is for a legitimate court (or even the illegitimate one!) to prove it first. And the same goes for the infamous "freezer lorry bodies" – why don’t we let the legal investigation, currently underway, give its official results before jumping to far-reaching conclusions. One should be at least little bit sceptical about the timing of the ‘discovery’ and should definitely ask how come the all-powerful NATO Intelligence had nothing on this "atrocity cover-up"?
As for Slobo’s defenders, well what would Raimondo have them say? "Milosevic is only guilty of murdering hundreds, not thousands." What kind of lawyer would do that? Maybe the lefties Raimondo so despises are not best equipped to attack the legitimacy of the ICTFY, but who else is there? Writing columns is really not enough.
Finally, I would like to reassure everyone that the black-shirted fascists have not yet taken over Serbia: ‘thuggish-looking guy in a black tee-shirt waving his fist’ is none other than fattish-looking Ivica Dacic, young SPS (Serb Socialist Party) vice-chairman, who is one of the few acceptable characters in Slobo’s party (and possible future leader). ...Of all the stereotypes, did [Justin Raimondo] have to choose this one?
~ Robert Dimitrijevic, London
Special Treatment
...Where did Justin check his brain this morning? ...It's beyond me where a guy as sharp as Justin Raimondo would become overwhelmed by a story of mass graves of Kosovars in Serbia, with the victims having all their documents properly on them, and a report which alleges Slobo actually ordered the refrigerator trucks and thought it imperative to supply a bloodcurdling code name to the operation just in case the Tribunal ever came knocking.
...One does not have to be a marginal commie legal eagle to raise eyebrows over this one. Sounds almost as good as if Hanoi produced a US POW willing to testify to the conversation between LBJ and Lt. Calley, in which the former gave the order to march on My Lai.
...It is entirely possible the bodies were moved to prevent KLA staging another Racak.
Milosevic surely is no angel: ...He either ordered or condoned the Serbian paras in Croatia and in the beginning of the Bosnian war. Even though the original deployment came in retaliation for the Croatian paras, given the strength of the JNA, it was a huge overkill. The question, however, is: did he do anything that would justify singling him out as a head of state for a special treatment at the Hague? The feeling I have is that he did not, but I am willing to change my mind if anything of substance is raised against him. Until then, I will keep treating the garbage in Sunday Times with the contempt it deserves.
~ Jiri
Severa, Ottawa
Rape of Japan
Although I agree with much of what Justin Raimondo says about the US and its relationship with Japan, I do feel that he isn't too clear on certain aspects of Japanese history, society, and education. Raimondo writes, "Kobayashi and others, rather than 'glorifying Japan's role in World War II,' ... merely put it in perspective. Backed up against the wall by the European colonial powers, subjected to an oil embargo, and the imposition of an economic straitjacket that had to be broken out of, Japan is depicted by Kobayashi and his youthful admirers as having fought World War II in defense of Asia for the Asians – a not unreasonable view, and certainly an understandable one from the Japanese perspective."
I would like to respectfully point out that the "Asia for Asians" excuse for the atrocities of the Japanese Empire is about as laughable as our very own "safe for democracy" nonsense. It is neither a "reasonable" view nor an "understandable" one. The Japanese, by following an active policy of conquest and colonization, set themselves up for a conflict with other colonial powers in the region. (Tojo understood this.) Japan was only "backed up against a wall" after choosing to conquer Asia, and, thus, challenging the established Western empires.
Then Raimondo continues off the mark, asking, "...How long does Japan have to apologize and abase itself?" Not very much, I'm afraid to say. Japan has never fully accepted what it did in the war (both Chinese governments are still waiting for an apology. Korea got a halfhearted one recently). Japan has so many revisionists running around precisely because the Japanese are brought up to believe that they are nearly blameless. Studying the Rape of Nanjing is not de rigeur in the school system, I assure you. It is the Germans who are constantly told how evil they were and can be frequently spotted sitting with their steins, hanging their heads in shame. The Japanese, because of some luck with General Douglas MacArthur's occupational strategy, never received the same unrelenting indoctrination their Teutonic ally did.
As for the Kerry defense (and I'm no defender of this war criminal either), the Japanese revisionists who use it are clearly unfamiliar with and/or unwilling to believe established history. Nanjing, that horrific example of Japanese crimes, was a prolonged orgy of extreme violence and cruelty that eclipses anything that American ground forces have ever done to a civilian population. Those who explain it away are like those who claim the Nazis didn't round up millions of people and kill them: scary.
~ M. Conklin
Justin Raimondo replies:
To begin with, the Japanese never conquered Asia, an impossible task, but merely established their sphere of influence to Manchuria, Korea, and the coastal regions of China. My point about "Asia for the Asians" was not to excuse atrocities. Such atrocities need not be "explained away" since they are inherent in the very nature of war. This point, however, is entirely separate from the question of what our own policy toward Japan should have been: my point is that FDR's policy, one of economic isolation and unrelenting hostility, made war inevitable – and did nothing to put a stop to atrocities. Japanese expansionism was 1) a reaction to the perceived threat of Western domination of the region and 2) a response to the embargo placed on trade with Japan by the US and its allies. I would imagine that the "rape" of Nanjing is about as de rigeur in Japanese textbooks as the bombing of Dresden is in American textbooks. If constantly telling the Germans how evil they are is the solution you propose to apply to Japan, then this, from my perspective, is far scarier than any imagined denialism when it comes to the Nanjing incident.
As for Japan's alleged lack of an apology for its World War II actions: I don't suppose foreswearing even the right to defend its legitimate interests militarily for the past 50 years qualifies as apologetic behavior in your book. I, for one, am sick and tired of this veritable orgy of apologizing for the alleged misdeeds of the past: when the US apologizes for dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then I'll consider entertaining the idea that Japan ought to apologize for resisting Western hegemony in Eastasia.