Just when I thought it was going to be a boring news day, what with the Dems 100 day legislative blitz done with (snicker) and them regrouping for another round of "cut and run" legislation, I catch this story via Michelle Malkin
A federal commission recommended yesterday that the U.S. government provide $125 million to eligible Guam residents as further compensation for their suffering during the Japanese occupation of the territory during World War II.
In its report to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the Guam War Claims Review Commission said the compensation was to acknowledge the suffering and loyalty of Guamanians during the occupation.
"The review commission finds that the Japanese occupation of Guam was particularly cruel, oppressive and brutal, and that the loyalty and steadfastness shown by the people of Guam in the face of the atrocities and barbarism inflicted on them by their Japanese occupiers was all the more extraordinary in the circumstances in which they were forced to live," the report states.
Huwhat? I’d like to think this is a joke, but progressives have no sense of humor. They really are proposing that Americans pay for the suffering imposed on Guamians (?) by the Japanese.
Leo at Blogs for Bush
Where is Japan in this equation? Why aren’t they paying? Haven’t Americans sacrificed enough, spilling our blood and in the process wiping out our own future generations of what would be the sons and daughters of those killed trying to liberate the Guamanians?
Again I ask: What have the democrats been smoking!?!
This could be the first time in recorded history that a government has seriously considered paying reparations for another country’s war crimes…
You can view the Bill here, and, as Eric at Red State writes
You can stop this madness. You can call your Congressman and tell him to vote against this bill. Call right now and tell your Congressman to oppose H.R. 1595. Call 202-224-3121. Fight this resolution.
I would, but mine is Brad Miller, major league leftists, and sure to buy in to the Apology Syndrome.
This is what you get from that "we are going to fix everything" Democrat congress. Their other legislation has imploded, going nowhere. Has anything of consequence actually reached President Bush’s desk other then their pull out of Iraq funding bill? We are fast approaching 4 months of Dem control.
Next up, reparations for descendents of the Japanese pilots killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Since when did lefty loonies ever recall the Spanish-American War (1898) and the American – Filippino War, and the U.S. territories we acquired for our Great White Fleet? Thank-You Teddy Roosevelt!
[…] for the democrats to "regroup for another round of "cut and run" legislation" a little earlier. I had no idea it would come so […]
Regardless of your opinion on the idiocy of this proposal itself, the fact that you fail to note that Guam was and is an American territory is a crime in itself. It is not that “Americans” pay to assuage the suffering of “Guamanians,” it is Americans looking for justice for their fellow Americans. Guamanians served disproportionately in Vietnam (as my dad did) and serve and die disproportionately in Iraq.
Whether you agree with the use of funds is your own business. But, your ignorance with regard to your fellow Americans is just plain dumb.
There are two major misconceptions concerning the proposed reparations to the people of Guam that need to be addressed. Objectors believe that (1) the United States rescued the people of Guam from the Japanese and ,therefore, (2) asking Americans to pay reparations is obsured.
(1) After the Spanish-American War, Guam was seeded to the United States. The people of the island had never persued territorialism (or colonialism for that matter). During WWII, U.S. forces had already began to pull out of Guam (leaving the local people) before Japan moved to seize her. When American forces eventually moved to reclaim the island, it was not to save the people that were suffering enslavement, beatings, rape, mutalation, dismemberment, and murder. It was because Guam’s value (to the U.S.) lied in its strategic location for military operations.
(2) The treaty that the United States signed with Japan absolved the Japanese of any wrong-doing. In effect, America’s then-leaders assumed responsibility for the attrocities on behalf the country.
You worry that $125 million is a lot of money to pay out for something that happened a half-century ago but you don’t put things in context. Schools and jails overflow, homeless people shiver in the cold of night, sick people suffer without treatment… but we spend billions on a “war” that has no merit.
To this day, the people of Guam are still affected by what happened during WWII. Loved ones lost are still mourned, phsycological scars have not healed, and we, the people of this island, are still waiting to be acknowledged for enduring the savage brutality of a war that was not ours. Reparations do not change what happened in the past, but will award us an opportunity to build toward a better future.