Lantos Compares Yasukuni Criminals to Himmler and Göring

[Update: An elderly nurse has come forward to admit that she helped with the victims’ hasty burials as American occupation forces arrived. The apartments were built on the site later, which causes one to ask how the builders could have failed to notice the bones. The suspicion is that they’re linked to the infamous Unit 731.]

With that crotchety old World War Two vet retiring, at last the American Congress can let bygones be bygones.

[Democratic Rep. Tom] Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, slammed the Yasukuni visits by Japanese prime ministers as ”the most egregious example of Japan’s historical amnesia,” and said they are like laying a wreath at the graves of former Germany Nazi leaders such as Heinrich Himmler, Rudolf Hess and Hermann Goering.

”My message to the incoming Japanese prime minister is very simple: Paying one’s respects to war criminals is morally bankrupt and unworthy of a great nation such as Japan,” Lantos said. ”This practice must end.”

Lantos also strongly criticized the Japanese government for approving textbooks which he said ”deny the Rape of Nanking in China and imply that Japan was simply trying to protect other Asian nations from imperialism by launching World War II.”

”Japan’s failure to deal honestly with its past does great disservice to the nation of Japan, offends the other key players in Northeast Asia, and undermines America’s own national security interests by exacerbating regional tensions,” Lantos said.

Umm, pass the wasabe, please?

Shinzo Abe must be hoping that the Republicans hold the House, because Lantos — a co-sponsor of the North Korean Human Rights Act, I would add — stands a serious chance at becoming Chairman. Unfortunately, that would mean that Rep. Leach might head the Committee, or the Asian-Pacific Affairs Subcommittee:

James Leach, chairman of the committee’s Asia and Pacific Subcommittee, said the conflicts over history and the negative regional dynamics they can engender “should be of concern to Washington” as the issue “renders problematic the prospect of cooperation between the United States, South Korea, Japan and China on a range of important issues, not the least of which is the North Korean nuclear challenge.”

But noting there are signs of efforts to improve ties after Koizumi’s successor takes office later this month, the Iowa Republican said, “Whether these diplomatic initiatives prove durable or are evanescent, however, will depend much on the political will of leaders in Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing.”

Retiring Chairman Henry Hyde also took the Japanese to task for the distorted history on display at the Yasukuni Museum:

“It is troubling to those of my generation to learn that the Yushukan museum in Tokyo is teaching younger generations of Japanese that the Second World War in Asia was launched by Tokyo to free the people of Asia and the Pacific from the yoke of Western imperialism,” Hyde said.

“It should be corrected,” he said.

I’m very glad that I took the time to visit that museum myself, because I can agree wholeheartedly with that. But the words that express it best to me are “unworthy of a great nation.” Japan is unquestionably a force for good in the world through its actions today, and this is the greater truth that shouldn’t be obscured by a moral anachronism. Let those who died with honor rest in honor, and let the wounds heal. Removing the war criminals from Yasukuni and correcting the historical record will be a good start toward those goals.