Sparky: Maybe Mike Honda is on to something if Nakasone is now copping to holding a WWII officer's mess chess club using Korean female tweens as pawns...

And expect no mercy from me for anyone claiming a GOP stalwart and rapist Ronnie Reagan as a bud. Fair warning - eh?

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denies wartime responsibility for sex slaves

March 2, 2007

A Chinese girl from one of the Japanese Army's 'comfort battalions' awaits interrogation at a camp in Rangoon. Source: IWMCollections IWM Photo No.: SE 4523

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the leader of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, denied responsibility for military brothels set up during World War II. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Abe said, "There is no evidence to prove there was coercion, nothing to support it. So, in respect to this declaration, you have to keep in mind that things have changed greatly."

His statement contrasts with earlier comments in which he seemed to support a 1993 government declaration that Japan had in fact set up wartime military brothels.

Korean believe around 200,000 women from a multitude of different nations were forced into brothels during the war, where they would be raped dozens of times daily. However, conservative elements in the Japanese government have often denied or minimized the extent of war crimes taken place during World War II.

In 1992, historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi discovered a document titled Regarding the Recruitment of Women for Military Brothels in the Defense Agency's library (The content of this order is "A Japanese army prohibits the use for the malignant Korean people broker. "), prompting the government's 1993 declaration. Over the years, several former sex slaves have stepped forward, providing testimony in direct contrast with the Japanese government's.

Sources

• Norimitsu Onishi "Japan's prime minister denies responsibility for wartime brothels". International Herald Tribune, March 2, 2007
• Carl Freire "Growing Chorus Slams War-Brothel Remarks". The Washington Post, March 2, 2007
• Irish Examiner "Sex slaves 'were not coerced' says Japanese Prime Minister". Irish Examiner, March 3, 2007
• Daniel Kohns "Honda Testifies in Support of Comfort Women". http://honda.house.gov/, February 15, 2007

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Former Japanese leader Nakasone denies setting up sex slave brothel in World War II

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone speaks to reporters during a press conference in Tokyo, Friday, March 23, 2007.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone speaks to reporters during a press conference in Tokyo, Friday, March 23, 2007. (AP Photo)
A Japanese former prime minister and elder statesman Friday denied setting up a military brothel staffed by sex slaves during World War II, despite writing a memoir that critics say shows he did so while in the navy.

Yasuhiro Nakasone, who served as prime minister from 1982 to 1987 and was known for his friendship with then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan, described the facility he set up as a place for civilian engineers to relax and play Japanese chess.

"I never had personal knowledge of the matter," Nakasone told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan when asked about wartime sex slaves, known in Japan euphemistically as "comfort women."

"I only knew about it from what I read in the newspaper," he said, adding that such enslavement was "deplorable" and that he supported the Japanese government spokesman's 1993 apology to victims.

Historians say thousands of women -- most from Korea and China -- worked in the frontline brothels, and estimates run as high as 200,000. Victims say they were forced into the brothels by the Japanese military and were held against their will.

The U.S. House of Representatives is considering a resolution that calls on Japan to make a full apology for the brothels, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stirred criticism earlier this month when he denied there was evidence the women were forced into service.

A Nakasone memoir published in 1978 said that members of his 3,000-man navy unit in wartime Philippines and Borneo "began attacking women, while others took to gambling."

"At one point, I went to great pains to set up a comfort station" to keep them under control, he wrote. The essay was in an anthology of war accounts, "The Eternal Navy -- Stories to Hand Down to the Younger Generation."

In the 1990s, former Philippine sex slaves cited the memoir as further proof Nakasone was involved with enslavement, bolstering their demands that Tokyo compensate the victims. The Japanese government in 1995 set up a private fund for the women, but never offered direct government compensation.

A Nakasone spokesman in 1997 told The Associated Press that the brothel was operated by local business people and that the prostitutes worked there voluntarily and had not been forced into sexual slavery.

But on Friday, Nakasone was vague about the activities at the facility, skirting a question about whether prostitutes were active there.

"The engineers ... wanted to have a facility to relax and play 'go,' so we simply established a place so they could have that," Nakasone said, explaining that the men -- civilian engineers -- needed someplace for rest and entertainment.

Nakasone's government, as all Japanese governments until the 1990s, denied any official involvement with the wartime brothels.

The former prime minister is known in Japan for his nationalist stance. In 1985, he was the first Japanese prime minister to visit a Tokyo war shrine after it began honoring executed war criminals. (AP)

March 23, 2007

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For good folks who were real heroes - Guy Kawasaki's blog will link to this.

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Kinda back - Sparky

PS Look! Mel and his anger issues are news at my old Alma Mater! I'm with the Mayans here you hate filled bastard! Convert and get cut and give up your belief in a man as God bull and then you have a chance ...

Sparky sees clear headed thinking in the below:

HuffPo Paul Abrams: Madam Speaker: Impeachment Proceedings Against Cheney is No Longer a Choice

You have taken the reins of the House with skill and vigor. In just 10 weeks you have passed important legislation and struggled to cobble together a meaningful opposition to the Iraq War. Now, however, you have an obligation---to convene an investigation into impeaching Dick Cheney---that cannot be avoided without violating your own oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.

I have been writing here for nearly 2 months that the uncontroverted evidence at the Libby Trial demonstrated that Dick Cheney provided aid-and-comfort to enemies of the United States. (see here as provided below.)

Today, Valerie Plame testified before the House Government Operations Committee. In addition to confirming her covert status (reconfirmed by the DCI in a written statement) at the time she was outed, she directly stated that her network, and her project that dealt with counterproliferation, was compromised.

Dick Cheney informed Libby of Plame's CIA employment, and started the process to discredit the Wilsons' revelation that Saddam Hussein had not tried to purchase uranium in Niger by falsely stating that Plame sent her husband on some boondoggle. (Imagine the Wilsons' pillow talk: Valerie: "Darling, I think you need a vacation from your retirement. Why don't you go away for a week?" Joe: "Well, may be you're right, I have been relaxing poorly." Valerie: "Why don't you go to the Riviera?" Joe: "Nah, that wouldn't be any fun. I think I'll go to Niger. My birthday's coming up, and I'm told they make a killer yellowcake".).

The Republic Party called Victoria Toensig, a former Intelligence Committee staffer, to rebut both Plame and the DCI, claiming she was not covert within the meaning of a particular statute. Ridiculous as that is, it really does not matter for Cheney's culpability. Plame testified that her outing, not the statute or legal definitions, compromised her operation and her network. The most benign term to describe her outing, which she used, was "recklessly". Since we know that Cheney was quite deliberate in mounting a campaign against the Wilsons, and was told of Plame's CIA status, we also know that the outing was more than reckless.

To make the argument as favorable as possible to Cheney, however, let us assume that his actions were "reckless" and no more. If a Vice-President of the United States is reckless with respect to US national security, and provides aid-and-comfort to enemies of the United States, has he not violated his oath of office? Should anyone continue in the Office as Vice-President of the United States, a sacred trust, if he has treated national security recklessly?

Madam Speaker, investigating Dick Cheney to determine if articles of impeachment should be brought is no longer a choice, it is your duty. Otherwise, reckless (or, more likely, deliberate) behavior compromising the national security of the United States will go unpunished. And, if Patrick Fitzgerald says it would be inappropriate for him to testify about the results of his investigation, remind him that he spent taxpayers' money, and that impeachment is not a criminal trial, but rather an action for removal for malfeasance of office.

As Sir Edmund Burke wrote, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing."

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Libby Trial Shows Cheney Provided Aid-and-Comfort to Enemies of the United States

The Libby Trial has already provided the insights required to recreate the story and motivation behind the leak of Valerie Plame's identity and the coverup. If Cheney testifies, allowing Patrick FitzGerald to cross-examine on the issue of credibility (already raised by the Defense when it voir dire'd the jury), Cheney will be found either to have perjured himself before or at the trial.

(Technically, since he was not under oath before the trial, his 'perjury' crime, like Martha Stewart's, will be lying to federal agents, but that is only a small part of what the Libby Trial reveals.)

We always suspected, but now have sworn testimony from inside the Veep's office, that combating the Wilsons was a major preoccupation. Cheney has a top security clearance and would be authorized to receive information from the CIA that Valerie Plame was an undercover counterproliferation operative. Cheney was also authorized, by Bush, to declassify top-secret information.

It is not clear (to me) whether such authorization means that anything Cheney says is putatively declassified, or whether he can declassify only by going through the CIA's process. Although that distinction is critical in determining whether Cheney committed a crime by revealing Plame's identity, it is really not so important in deciding whether Dick Cheney has provided aid-and-comfort to the enemies of the United States.

Whether he properly declassified or not, Cheney decided to out an undercover CIA agent for no counterveiling national gain, but rather to continue the public misperception he created of the basis for the Iraq War, and to exact domestic political vengeance. Wilson's NY Times op-ed would be impugned by claiming that Wilson's wife, not Cheney, sent him to Niger to investigate the "16-words" prior to their insertion in the State-of-the-Union, and that Cheney did not find out the results of Wilson's trip. For that, Cheney compromised a counterproliferation operation of the United States.

Whether Rove, Libby (Bartlett, Armitage, ? others) committed a crime by telling reporters about Valerie Plame's identity depends on whether Cheney told them she was an undercover agent, and whether Cheney had, in fact, declassified that information. But, there can be no question that Cheney's use of that information, properly declassified or not, is an impeachable offense.

Cheney wrote "one staffer should not be sacrificed (emphasis supplied) to protect another". What was Cheney thinking about when he used the word "sacrifice"? If they had done nothing wrong with respect to leaking Valerie Plame's identity, as they continue to assert, what is there for which anyone had to have been "sacrificed" at all?

"Sacrifice" would only have meaning if, in fact, Cheney (and perhaps Rove and Libby) leaked Valerie Plame's identity knowing that to do so would give aid-and-comfort to our enemies. Karl Rove called Chris Matthews immediately after the Novak article to declare that Plame was "fair game". Thus, "sacrifice" was not required to protect them from the embarrassment of trying to manipulate the news, there was already proof that that is exactly what they were doing. "Sacrifice" could only have been required to protect a deeper truth.

There was a point in this pathetic affair that someone who knew that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent conveyed that information to another who was not entitled to know. The likely conveyor was Dick Cheney, because the CIA was entitled to tell Cheney and Cheney claims he was given authority by Bush to declassify.

That brings us back to Cheney's use of the word "sacrifice". It would have been relatively simple for Rove (or Libby) to assert that Cheney never told them that Valerie Plame was undercover at the CIA, and thus they had committed no crime because they did not knowingly convey classified information. But, that leaves Cheney exposed for having declassified Valerie Plame's status, and thus compromising her operation, for a personal political vendetta (which, of course, is exactly what he did do).

The rest of the story can then be constructed. Libby, Rove and others transmitted the information to at least 6 reporters on the "hush-hush" hoping perhaps that that background would result in a different slant to the news stories about the 16 words. When they did not, rightwing curmudgeon Novak published the information (I believe with CIA begging him not to), and they were then surprised by the CIA's decision to investigate the leak, perhaps as payback to Cheney for demeaning CIA's professionalism and demanding pre-ordained results.

Together, then, they created the story that Rove and Libby had heard Plame's name from reporters (both Rove and Libby gave that story) believing they had constructed the perfect circle. The problem with a circle is that once it breaks, everything unravels.

Bush will pardon them all. But, he cannot protect Cheney from impeachment.

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Forgive me for camping the HuffPoCo for the rest of you — but the above needs to be read.