John Akagi comments

So what if a politician is transparent and speaks what is he, and many people, are truly thinking. Box office hits has been dominated by Hollywood for so long that many think that the Oscar is inherently American award. Does anyone remember when the first foreigner won a sumo tournament? Does anyone remember the reaction of the American public when Toyota entered NASCAR? Plenty of nationalistic comments in the beginning but people in general, will soon get used to it.

I see many here assume this is about all foreigners, but based upon my own international travels including in Japan, I think this is about a particular group of travelers from a particular country who are notoriously rude, loud, and boisterous.

In response to the comment regarding the US coming to the rescue of the Philippines, and since we are all talking about historical accounting and accuracy, let's not distort the real reason that the US was in the Philippines in the first place. It was the extension of the Manifest Destiny that pushed our colonialism beyond Mexican holdings of the southwest and the west coat into the far reaches of the Pacific. The US overthrew the monarchy of the Kingdom of Hawaii for financial and military gain. They also brutally suppressed the independence movement in the Philippines. Let's not distort history to make the US military presence as a benevolent one. It was simply to protect their own empire. Yes, the Japanese were trying to play the same game, to claim foreign lands to reap their natural resources. The Japanese mission was to throw out all the western colonial powers out of Asia, and in a back handed way; mission was accomplished.

The victors get to write the history, but atrocities were committed on both sides. War time always brings propaganda that dehumanize the enemy making it easier to kill, like shooting vermin. It was routine to shoot all survivors and search the bodies for souvenirs, often in the form of extracting gold fillings, sometimes from live soldiers. It was also a common practice to decapitate and clean the skulls to take home as war momentos. A friend told me that his uncle had brought home such a souvenir. This uncle had served in the European theater prior to the Pacific and observed that the latter was one of hateful extermination. I remember the Japanese government asking for the skulls after discovering the remains of so many Japanese soldiers without their heads. Unfortunately, there were 2 more wars against Asian foes after WW2 and trade friction to keep some of the hate propaganda alive.