Here's her initial comments after 911, published 9-16-01 in the SF Chronicle:
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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.
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.