Page 18 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • October 29, 2014 Stalinism’s last gurgle? While Chinese students in Hong Kong roll into a second month of drastic protest against China’s absence of politi- cal freedom and justice, the Chinese government has a far more serious problem to face. A key witness to make the “comfort woman” story a lodestone of protective anti-Japa- nese propaganda has been exposed as a pathological liar. Josef Stalin – excuse me if you have heard this before – was not a nice man. According to R.J. Rummel of Rut- gers, the British historian Robert Conquest, and the French historian Stephane Courtois, communism murdered about four times as many people as the German-Italian-Japanese Axis -- yet the United States was lured into an alliance with Stalin. The man who did the luring was Harry Dexter White, a U.S. Treasury Department official who knew just what he was doing but was covered by Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. White saved the Soviet Union from fighting the Axis on two fronts by picking a war with Japan when the Japanese were trying to get out of a war with China. He influenced dumber men in Franklin Delano Roos- evelt’s cabinet to turn down every offer the Japanese made – including an offer to evacuate China (minus Manchuria, which President Theodore Roosevelt conceded to Japan in 1908). When offers choreographed by White demanded Manchuria and what amounted to Japan’s total military capitulation, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor rather than face colonization or internal revolts. The United States lost 400,000 personnel in the war with the Axis, and the Axis lost about 12 million combat- ants and civilians. Stalin was saved. White became a Soviet superhero. Starting about 1946, evidence began to point to extreme Soviet influence in American foreign policy, leading to a war 80 percent of pre-war Americans wanted to sit out and a war that the generals and admirals had said they did not want to fight. Morgenthau was sacked by Harry Truman in 1945. White – never mentioned in the Morgenthau or Roos- evelt biographies on PBS – was exposed by Soviet defec- tors and American code-breakers. After a hearing where he listed some of the known communists he had admitted to the U.S. Treasury Department, he died of an overdose of digitalis. The Rosenbergs were caught teaching the Russians how to make atomic bombs, and got the chair. The squealer who actually stole the secrets died of old age two weeks ago. Stalin was no longer a good guy by 1950. Justification for the war found one undeniable lode- stone: Hitler’s Holocaust. The sickening Nazi mass mur- ders covered a lot of ground toward justifying our presence in Europe. Problem: We got into the war by way of Japan, and the Japanese never murdered any Jews. They sheltered any Jewish refugees who made it to Shanghai in occupied China. What to do? The Japanese killed a number of Chinese. Rummel estimated that Hirohito’s henchmen killed about five million Chinese, though Chiang Kai-shek, our beloved ally, killed 10 million Chinese. Wait! Rape! The Japanese had raped a number of Chi- nese women and could safely be accused, once we were at war with them, of raping any number the Chinese National- ists said they did. American, British, Danish, and German witnesses estimated about 1,000 rapes at Nanking in 1937, and confirmed 360. The Tokyo Trials in 1948 – carried out in a city where 160,000 Japanese women and children had been killed by incendiary bombs – decided that the actual number had to be 20,000 rapes and 200,000 murders in a city with a population of 200,000, as opposed to the 25,000 Chinese casualties actually buried by Chinese burial crews, who reported that 1.2 percent of the dead were women or children. The Chinese now claim 300,000 dead at Nanking. Communist China may be the only country where dead people reproduce. As a cynical Japanese darkly observed, “Even we can’t kill people more than once.” Rampages by drunken Japanese soldiers were not, however, quite bad enough for general satisfaction. (The Germans, who have a real, organized, documented exter- mination plan to explain away, have bankrolled six sepa- rate films about Nanking – which killed fewer women and children than one day at Lidice or Ouradour or one hour of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The Japanese were not “just as bad as the Nazis” – not even close.) Yet during and just after the war, American and British officers learned that Japanese front-line units were amply supplied with pros- titutes who had been purchased by local authorities for family debt and handed over to the Japanese military to work off their time until the debts were paid. The same odious system is still widely practiced in the more back- ward Asian countries. U.S. Army Intelligence Report 49, taken down in Burma in 1944 after interviews with 20 Korean contract prostitutes serving with the Japanese Army, stated: “The majority of the girls were ignorant and uneducated although a few had been connected with ‘the oldest profession on Earth’ before. The contracts they signed bound them to Army regula- tions and to work for the ‘house master’ for six months to a year....the average Korean ‘comfort girl’ was about 25 years old, uneducated, childish, and selfish...They lived in near- luxury in Burma as opposed to other places...they...attended picnics, entertainments, and social dinners....The girls were allowed the prerogative of refusing a customer. This was often done if the person were too drunk...In the later part of 1943 the (Japanese) Army issued orders that certain girls who had paid their debts could return to Korea.” The report was a look at a coarse and morally repulsive abuse of women – but it was not bad enough for the avowed purpose, to convince the world that the Japanese soldiers and nation were rabid carnivorous baboons in need of exter- mination. The American military tolerated the same sort of rampant contract prostitution all over Asia on about the same scale, and everybody who has served knows this. The Germans sometimes did worse on the Eastern Front, and the Russians under Stalin did much worse, sometimes to allies and enemies. Japan’s atrocities, bad as they actually were, were simply not bad enough, at least when done to fellow Asians, to excuse using the wanton 1941 U.S. provocation of Japan to rescue Stalin or the late-war area bombing. Then came Seiji Yoshida, the Stalinist trump card. A Japanese communist who had served in the Japanese Army, Yoshida ran for office in Japan on the communist ticket in 1947 and failed to get elected. In 1977, he wrote of his adventures in Korea kidnapping 2,000 girls as sex slaves for the dishonorable emperor. Asahi Shimbun, the biggest Japa- nese leftist newspaper, picked up on Yoshida and eventually published 16 stories describing the “comfort woman” case as replete with kidnapping and rape. Yoshida wrote another book in 1983 on the same vicious adventures, especially those on Jeju Island. In Japan and in Korean translation, his books made him a lot of money. Enter Ikuhito Hata, who noticed serious discrepancies between the facts in the 1977 book and the 1983 book. He dug deeper and said Yoshida the kidnapper was Yoshida the fabricator. Then Asahi Shimbun -- who helped introduce and substantiate the comfort woman case and once supported Yoshida – started digging. The leftist interviewed 40 elderly people of Jeju Island in 2012 and said no Korean girls had been reported as recruited there. Korean academic researchers also said the stories could not be substantiated, and that Yoshida’s descriptions of factories where he kid- napped Korean girls did not match vintage photographs. Yoshida, who died in 2000, claimed he left notes in his wife’s diary. Yoshida’s son said Yoshida’s wife never kept a diary. A Japanese professor from Tokyo University said the military deployments Yoshida described on Jeju Island were entirely wrong and that Yoshida was in the wrong unit to have engaged in voluntary recruiting. Asahi Shimbun retracted all 14 of Yoshida’s comfort women stories. The comfort women were real, and their fate was a sad disgrace to many. They were not kidnap victims. They each received $20,000 from the Japanese government 20 years ago – about the same time the $20,000 U.S. reparations to the Japanese-Americans who were herded into U.S. concen- tration camps at the instigation of Morgenthau and White. Some people must think Morgenthau and White must be covered up at all costs, but FDR let Pearl Harbor happen and White made it happen. Advocates of war with Japan, however, may have finally used up the comfort women. Could this be American Stalinism’s last gurgle? Letters to the Editor Let’s re-elect Brian Scanlan Dear Editor: Wyckoff Township Committeeman Brian Scanlan is running for re-election. Brian works diligently for the citi- zens of Wyckoff, improving our quality of life in so many ways, and I will vote for his re-election on Nov. 4. Just one way in which Brian is improving our lives is in the quality of our recreation department. Brian Scan- lan is working hard to ensure that Wyckoff citizens of all age groups have top quality recreational opportunities. As the township committee liaison to the Wyckoff Recreation Department, Brian oversaw the creation and execution of a survey that generated more than 500 responses. The survey is being used to assess program effectiveness and to evalu- ate new programs that may be added to current offerings. All of my family members utilize the recreation depart- ment. We appreciate current offerings and look forward to expanded recreational opportunities in the future. The online registration for recreation programs, which Brian championed, is also greatly appreciated as a convenient time saver for busy residents. Please join me in supporting Brian Scanlan for Wyckoff Township Committee. Let us keep this hard-working, caring, dedicated individual in office. Susan Fuhr Wyckoff Urges support for Christie & Yudin Dear Editor: For decades, the Township of Wyckoff has benefited from strong Republican leadership, which has maintained Wyckoff’s small town charm, volunteer spirit, and fiscal conservatism. Neighboring communities often marvel at how Wyckoff has been able to provide excellent municipal service, while holding the line on municipal taxes. Again this year, the Republican candidates for Wyckoff Township Committee, current Mayor Doug Christie and running mate Susan Yudin, espouse these same principles. Both Doug and Sue are business owners who have raised their respective families in Wyckoff. As business owners, they know how vitally important it is to set a responsible budget and live within it. They will bring the same common- sense fiscal responsibility to the township committee. As a former mayor of Wyckoff, and as a current member of the Wyckoff Republican County Committee, I ask you to support the Christie-Yudin ticket on Nov. 4. Christopher P. DePhillips Wyckoff Residents and children will be well served with Holst Dear Editor: I have known Vicki Holst for 15 years and believe she is an outstanding candidate for the Franklin Lakes Board of Education. As someone who has known her professionally, I can tell you Holst has the professionalism, determination, and intelligence it takes to represent all of the constituents of any community. I have observed her on multiple indus- try boards and committees and have had the pleasure to see firsthand how she effectively impacts building consensus on a board. When I first met Holst, she was in sales. I watched her (continued on page 19)