Posted on 11/11/2004 12:38:11 PM PST by EggsAckley
Our prayers for those left behind..............
"I don't buy a woman going to a deserted spot and shooting herself. Doesn't compute. Sound more like a hit to me, too"
Um, where should she have done it? At home where her husband or child might have to confront the bloody aftermath? In the center of town where some paramedics might get her to the hospital in time to save her? The woman had a long history of depression, had been recently hospitalized for it, and meant business.
Ambrose is tilted toward his subject too. If you believe his stuff 100%, Eisenhower was a flawless leader who did everything perfectly.
I don't wear a tinfoil hat but I would not totally rule out a murder-made-to-look-like-suicide perpetrated by a faction eager to quash any anti-Japanese sentiment. The book makes the guilt of the Japanese of the time and the cover-up that persists to this day very plain
Here's her initial comments after 911, published 9-16-01 in the SF Chronicle:
__________
IRIS CHANG, AUTHOR OF "THE RAPE OF NANKING," SAN JOSE
I was in bed suffering from a mild case of the flu, which I'd gotten after speaking at a conference last week in San Francisco called "50 Years of Denial: Japan and her Wartime Responsibilities." My husband woke me with the news. It turns out that my uncle had walked through the WTC a minute before it collapsed! It was very scary.
Strangely, it made me feel sicker. I cried, got a terrible headache, but eventually started calling friends in New York, who thankfully are all OK. Just that day I had been planning to write an open letter to Colin Powell, after hearing him speak on TV of wartime issues, about the death toll in the Japanese war of aggression and the peace treaty of 1951. I was so angry.
After this, I think certainly that airport security will be tightened. And I think if the U.S. decides to bomb another country, it will be done with a sense of moral righteousness, which concerns me. I also think this will give the government the opportunity to erode our rights. They've been talking about the need for us to curtail individual rights for the greater security of the country, and that chills me to the bone.
They called this an act of war. But this is not war; it is terrorism. The hawkish elements of our government want to retaliate, but we should act prudently, so that the world knows that we do not also perform acts of terrorism. In my experience, the most dangerous threat to democracy is too much power in the hands of an elite few.
=== Probably a contract. Japanese old-timers settling a score.
Doubtful.
Most of the pertinent Japanese oldtimers are long dead having already made their money here as esteemed members of our NIH (or founders of "Green Cross" out in LA) after being "paperclipped" into the country by Colonel Murray Sanders after the war.
The only Japanese "old-timer" I know of who tried in vain to "settle a score" was an octegenarian who tried to come and witness to the atrocities of Mukden and Unit 731 at a symposium on the Holocaust and other atrocities.
He was summarily stopped and barred from entry at Chicago. Seems Janet Reno was on the job and had this flunkie's number as "war criminal" not allowed to set foot on our soil.
It's a pity. I'm sure he -- like those of Mengele's shop who DID NOT end up on national boards overseeing our federalized biology texts -- could have proven very enlightening to Americans who are yet unaware of the caliber of physicians and scientists we snapped up abroad, saved from Nuremburg, and incorporated into the elite of our scientific, military and educational establishments lest the Soviets get ahead of us where re-forming, torturing and manipulating the Masses were concerned.
What a loss. Prayers for her family and friends. Depression is a terrible disorder.
For a year or two, I did nothing but study WWII Japanese war crimes. This is actually what led me to becoming a conservative (I learned how much history had lied to me, they always portray Japanese as the victims because of the bombing) but I digress. The Rape of Nanking is NOT the best book on the Nanking massacre because, yes, it is emotional and mostly opinion. My favorite account of it is "The Nanjing Massacre," written by Honda Katsuichi, who is a Japanese journalist. He had to go into hiding because of what he wrote.
I'm kind of torn between what to think. If you want conspiracy theories, here are some I'm entertaiing:
Perhaps it was a Japanese nationalist who offed her; however, that poses the question of "why now?" Plus most Japanese accept that the massacre happened; I can't see an extremist coming to America just to shoot the author of some book. There are bigger fish to fry if a nationalist were to try to even the score for anti-Japanese sentiment.
Another consideration is that it could have been a Chinese person. Chang is actually not even universally liked by Chinese. Many think her book is biased as well and consider it Chinese propaganda (Japanese war crimes in WWII against China have basically been turned into communist propaganda.) Perhaps it was done by a Chinese person who really hates communism. Yes, I know many like that, so it's possible. But it could also be a communist, as Chang criticized the Chinese communist gov't in the book for also covering up what happened in WWII.
But, really, the woman had many enemies. But I'm not believing it was anything other than suicide unless I hear more. I don't know why they would choose NOW to kill her. The book has been out for many years. And the hardcore Japanese nationalists are a dying breed over there anyway.
They've been talking about the need for us to curtail individual rights for the greater security of the country, and that chills me to the bone. They called this an act of war. But this is not war; it is terrorism.
What is "ultra-liberal" about this purely objective observation? She is correct ... assuming the observation of former Secretary Cohen are likewise on target:
But I raised it in the context, and I don't want to delay all of this, but I raised it in the context -- I came back from a conference on terrorism back in 1980. I was over in, not Berlin, I was in Bonn, and I went to a conference on terrorism and I spoke there, Henry Kissinger was there, Helmut Schmidt was there, and as I came out of the hotel I saw the hotel was surrounded by APCs, armored personnel carriers. And all the soldiers or policemen had automatic weapons.
I looked at that and I said, I wonder, would any American city allow VIPs to be protected by virtual tanks in the street? And it had been just after a guy named Schleier, a banker, had been assassinated, stuffed in his trunk of a Mercedes car, so there was real tension over there, and there was some real protection underway. I said no, it will never happen in the United States.
Then I said well wait a minute... What happens if the terrorists come to the United States and the bombs start going off, the killing starts here?
Would we as the American people, say protect our liberties or protect our lives? We've never had to have that debate at this point.
And so when you have an Oklahoma City bombing that's taken place, and you have others who may not be domestic but international, what will be the reaction of the American people?
Will they say the government's responsibility is to protect us, and we say absolutely, but how do we do that?
Do we do it through the local police? The National Guard? The Guard and Reserve? Or do we call upon the military in extremis to provide protection and to help with what they call consequence management?
DefenseLink -- Cohen Breakfast Meeting with Reporters in Washington, D.C. (1/11/2001)
Of course, if you're going to argue next that Cohen and Kissinger are also "ultra-liberals," you'll find no disagreement from me.
But the fact that the The Message They're Sending (to Asia Society sorts) is Essentially the Same Thing does not serve to impugn Iris Chang as ALSO an "ultra liberal" simply for stating the facts which both the words and actions of Kissinger, Cohen & Co. evidence in spades.
Did you by chance read "Good Man of Nanking" by John Rabe? Its a great account of what happened through a German's personal accounts. It was sad to read that someone would have to use the swastika to prevent atrocities perhaps worse than what that symbol came to represent.
Sadly enough I have not read that book, but I know a lot about John Rabe. He was the head of the Nanking Safety Zone, and wrote into Hitler protesting the slaughter (calling it "bestial machinery.") I find it sad that even Nazis were horrified by what happened there.
I think it's also very sad that he was eventually punished even though he'd tried to do the right thing... if I remember right, he was tried at Nuremberg and convicted. But Chinese remember him fondly.
RE: It was all about Chinese being discriminated against in America. It was dull and not comprehensive.
Good observation. I also note with interest that she is lionized over at the pan Sinic, Bush hating, anti Western Asiawind "Our World" forum. She was also, apparently, at least peripherally part of the whole Bay Area Leftist ethnic identity circle. Not to say she personally was a Leftist, that I do not know, but she was socially engaged with the NGO crowd around these parts. Much more investigation needs to be done. For example, was she despondent due to Bush' victory?
So sad. only 36.. she had a few books left in her.
Sympathy to and a prayer for the family and friends left behind.
What a terrible waste. She was such a smart and beautiful woman. No disrespect intended, but I note none of her friends and family are blaming it on Bush's win.
Sincere condolences to her family and friends. The world has lost a dedicated and eloquent historian.
Japan during World War II were very brutal towards Asians, especially Koreans. Many Koreans were enslaved, raped, beaten, tortured, and murdered in large numbers. Many Korean females were used as sex slaves. Japan has invaded Korea in the past, like in the 1500s. Japan from 1910 to 1945 killed at least 10 million people in Asia. There were untold millions of Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Philippinos, Polynesians, and Indonesians who died at the hands of the Japanese.
i dont think he was convicted at nuremburg, but he was convicted for fratenizing with the enemy and speaking out against the government while germany was still in power. he then lost all rights to rations during the war.
I have to reluctantly agree. Even as far back as her promotion of "The Rape of Nanking" she was asserting that the event (and Japanese war crimes generally) had been underplayed for years, for almost conspiratorial reasons. This was so even though some years earlier Arnold Brackman had published a book about the Tokyo War Crimes trials (which, in fairness she cited) that, IIRC, devoted an entire chapter to Nanjing.
In addition to this story the KTVU.com article states that she had a gunshot wound to the head. It's not unheard of but it's rare for a female to shoot herself in the head in a suicide.
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