Society + Culture,

 A Lesson Not Learned

There are few cliches that actually hold water, the most of them being short-cuts to thinking. One of these exceptions is: Learn from history.

The American government and the American military do not seem to believe in this adage, for not only have they effectively not learned diddly from even recent world history--in which they took part--they have not learned from their own mistakes. . .made since then.

An old Chinese adage has it that when you are travelling with companions, be wary of whom you choose to follow: the one who makes the mistakes is the best teacher. Confucius (Kongzi to the Chinese) through his followers, wrote that the difference between a fool and a wise man is that a fool believes he knows; a wise man knows to ask.

Since the occupation of Iraq, there have been innumerable comparisons with the U.S. involvement in Vietnam: all from the mistake end of the spectrum and implying that the U.S. did not learn anything from its second post-WWII involvement. To my knowledge, only one reference has been made to Korea, the first post-WWII occupation that was a fiasco: the U.S. did not learn, either, from this experience, it would seem. So, apparently, the U.S. is somewhat slow on the uptake--retarded might be a better label. Let us say these in-your-face lessons are part of the U.S. historical perspective: I am peacock.

Yet, there is another parallel, another historical lesson the U.S. has failed to learn from. This involves the Sino-Japanese War, in which the U.S. was involved, albeit in a subsidiary and tangential fashion. Perhaps this is because this lesson includes peoples the U.S. loves to hate: the Chinese and the Japanese. Perhaps, too, the lesson from this insidious war is not available to learning because of the one-size-fits-all worldview that burdens and limits U.S. thinking. In this case, all Communists are alike. But it might just as well be all Chinese are alike or all intellectuals are alike or all. . .well, it doesn't matter which all, even though the lesson here mostly comes from Japan's behavior in its war with and attempted colonization of China.

This ignorance, this selective blindness via racist and ideological stereotypes evidenced by the present U.S. leadership, is exacerbated by the fact that the intellectual lessons, the writings of so-called experts and empirically involved others has been available since before the end of WWII. To wit:- Japanese archives, particularly military; Chinese sources; University archives; U.S. government archives; the works of Karl W. Deutsch, Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China (1938), George Taylor's The Struggle for North China (1940), Michael Lindsay's North China Front (1943), Harrison Forman's Report From Red China (1945), Lawrence Tipton's personal adventures as an expat running from the Japanese, China Escapade (1949); and the incomparable study by Chalmers Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China 1937-1945 (1962).

The lesson that has not been learned in the U.S.' invasion and occupation of Iraq (much less Vietnam) come by way of Japan's invasion and occupation of China that even high Japanese military officials admitted, during the Sino-Japanese War, was faulty. Before the Japanese invasion of 1937-8, the Communists were a remnant horde holed up in the vast backwaters of Sha'anxi (then, in Wade-Giles transcription, Shensi) with little to no influence over the Chinese people. The Japanese changed this with their cruelty, their mopping-up activities and their general strategy of "kill all, burn all, destroy all" (sankō-seisaku). This policy, very similar to U.S. military activity in Iraq (as well as Vietnam), worked to bring the countryside together to resist such horror and such inhumanity; people were mobilized to protect themselves. They were mobilized by the Communists, who utilized their people's philosophy to create a vast nationalism, a sense of China as a unified people and nation.

The Kuomintang (Guomindang) either remained passive in a wait-and-see posture or became collaborators by way of puppet governments. Thus, they became traitors to the Chinese people, traitors to the Chinese nation. That both the government of Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) and the puppet government of Nanking (Nanjing) called themselves Kuomintang did not help matters.

Thus, it was the Japanese invasion that served to mobilize and alienate the masses; the Communists being the only people with guerrilla war experience and the only force willing to fight Japanese oppression and abuse, they naturally came to fill the leadership void. That the Japanese also included in their policy the eradication of the Communists only aggravated the situation. That is, by going out of their way to kill off the Communists, the only people willing to fight for their country and protect their countrymen, the Japanese forcefully pushed the Chinese people into the arms of the Communists.

The U.S. in Iraq is committing all, all of the mistakes the Japanese made in China. It is no wonder the populace passively and actively supports guerrilla tactics to counter U.S. oppression and terror, U.S. inhumanity. It should therefore not be surprising that the Iraqi people are becoming more Islamic fundamentalist and militarist and more anti-American. It should not be surprising that the surrounding Middle Eastern countries are also becoming more Islamic fundamentalist and militarist and more anti-American. It should not be surprising that the people are hating us more fervently than ever they might--and, if China is any predictor, will continue to hate for a long time (to this day, the Chinese despise the Japanese).

But the U.S. policy makers and military brass cannot learn from this history, for all Communists are the same even though Chinese Communism is miles apart from Soviet/Russian Communism, in the least because Chinese Communism is Nationalistic. U.S. policy makers and military brass cannot learn from this history, for they are led by Confucian fools: they believe they know (it all). U.S. policy makers and military brass cannot learn from this history and so create the situation they say they are working to eradicate.

Japan lost China as much to the U.S. Pacific War as to the Chinese national mobilization: the Japanese could not defeat a people fighting for their lives, for their right to exist. Result: the U.S. will lose in Iraq and it will lose in the world (war on terror). There will be no Greater U.S. Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Studs Terkel called WWII "the good war." How traitorous of the U.S. policy makers and military brass to undertake the same tactics as their WWII nemesis, Japan, and thus cheapen and make fools of the soldiers who fought and died to rid the world of such inhuman monsters.

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Jimsecor is a freelance writer who has travelled extensively overseas, especially Japan and China. He has published in all genre and produced several plays over the years and has taught theatre, writing and literature.

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