Loretta Sanchez Wants American Taxpayers To Foot The Bill For Imperial Japan's Aggression

I infrequently take this blog outside the Orange Curtain, but sometimes an issue comes up that cannot be passed by without comment.

House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has a bill that would force American taxpayers to pay reparations to Guam residents who suffered at the hands of Imperial Japan during World War II:

Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act - Recognizes the suffering and the loyalty of the people of Guam during the Japanese occupation of Guam in World War II.

Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to make specified payments to: (1) living Guam residents who were killed, injured, interned, or subjected to forced labor or marches resulting from, or incident to, such occupation and subsequent liberation; and (2) survivors of compensable residents who died in war or survivors of compensable injured residents (such payments to be made after payments have been made to surviving Guam residents).

The bill has 63 co-sponsors -- including Orange County's own Rep. Loretta Sanchez -- who don't understand the simple concept of responsibility. American taxpayers are not morally responsible for what Japanese occupiers inflicted on Guamians. We did not subject them to "forced labor, family separation, incarceration, execution, concentration camps and prostitution" -- Imperial Japan did. Approximately 1,000 people died during Japan's 31-month occupation of Guam -- and Japan is morally responsible for that, not the United States.

3,000 Americans were killed and more than 7,000 wounded liberating Guam in July-August, 1944. Was that not enough? Do Loretta Sanchez and the rest of the House Democrats believe that Americans now have the responsibility of paying Japan's bloody debt?

This morally obtuse and confused bill is scheduled for a house vote today.

Loretta Sanchez has a "Support Our Troops" image on her House website. Her co-sponsorship of this bill dishonors the memory and sacrifice of Americans who died and suffered capture fighting the Japanese invaders in December 1941 and who were killed and wounded liberating Guam in 1944.

Readers ought to call (714) 621-0102 or e-mail Rep. Loretta Sanchez's office and ask her to remove herself as a co-sponsor and vote against this repugnant bill.

Comments

[Karl Rove]

Loretta Sanchez is a discrace to every serviceman and woman who has ever served this country. Enough said.

[R. Scott Moxley]

Does it actually say, "living Guam residents who were killed..."?

I'd like to know what lawyer wrote that one.

[Jubal]

I hadn't noticed that, Scott -- and I'm not sure if anyone else has.

[Tom Kaptain]

You're missing it. Guam is a self governing US territory and it's residents have US citizenship and at the time was run by Washington. For that reason, the residents of Guam were treated by the Japanese as enemy aliens and I am sure (without having read the bill) that this legislation is an appropriate way of reimbursing US citizens for suffering they went through in World War II. Frankly, instead of criticizing it, I wish more would be done for American citizens (i.e. the Air America story in yesterdays Times) that put themselves on the line for our country.

[Allan Bartlett]

Wow...talk about a picture that doesn't fit. This one reminds me of that pic that helped Michael Dukakis lose the 1988 election.

Powder Blue Report

[Quang]

It is incredulous that this woman sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-airamerica7may07,1,1840888.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

An often overlooked fact...

"Few Americans know it, but Air America is embedded in some of the most iconic images of the Vietnam War. In the famous photo of the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, the helicopters lifting stranded diplomats off the rooftop belonged not to the military but to Air America."

That photo was not the U.S. Embassy in Saigon but another CIA building. I saw this old building in 1995 when I returned to Vietnam. The UPI photographer who snapped that iconic photo wrote an op-ed to the NYT in 2005 to correct the oversight. Also see http://www.answers.com/topic/vietnamescape-jpg

"In 1954, Watts took part in perhaps the most storied moment in Air America history, when he and two dozen other pilots made hundreds of desperate deliveries to French forces pinned down by North Vietnamese troops in Dien Bien Phu. Despite 682 airdrops of artillery and other supplies, the communists crushed the French in a battle that marked the end of colonial rule."

I know a Vietnamese man who flew in the back of these unmarked C-119 "Boxcars" and pushed out resupplies over Dien Bien Phu. He later became a fighter pilot for South Vietnam and currently lives in L.A.

[Quang]

http://thehill.com/cover-stories/a-spouse-who-needs-it-2007-05-07.html

"A Spouse, Who Needs It?"

Another error. What happened to fact checking? Or just Googling?

"Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) entered politics at the state level at the age of 21 and was elected to the House in 1995.
Kennedy, who will turn 40 in July, hasn’t settled down yet. His fellow Rhode Island delegate, Rep. Jim Langevin (D), is also unmarried. California congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D) assumed office 10 years ago as a single woman, and like her sister — Linda Sanchez (D), another California delegate — she is not married."

Ever heard of Loretta Sanchez-Brixey, pre 1996?

[redperegrine]

"It is incredulous that this woman sits on the House Armed Services Committee"

No, it is incredible.

[ZZMike]

I think we should seriously consider reparations to the Spartans who were killed by the invading Persians.

Even if Tom is right (and they were American citizens at the time), doesn't it make sense that it should be the Japanese who owe the reparations? (But of course, the people of Nanking are at the head of that particular line.)

I notice that more than a few of the co-sponsors are members of the "Progressive Caucus" (for which, read "Socialist Caucus").

[Keith Carlson]

I saw the "living Guam residents who were killed" line too, but Scott beat me to the punch.

Maybe a compromise would be to limit the payments only to "living Guam residents who were killed" rather than the longer list in the current bill.

[Jubal]

That may be a compromise everyone can live with.

[Anon]

Keith/Jubal:

I'm sure those affected will have trouble living with your compromise. I'm not sure it is fair to impose the will of the majority on a select minority.

[R. Scott Moxley]

Matt,

According to this 2004 editorial in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, U.S. officials in the current White House believe our government assumed $125 million worth of responsibility for Japanese atrocities against the residents of Guam in WWII:

THE ISSUE
A U.S. commission recommends $125 million for Guam residents for their suffering during the World War II Japanese occupation.

WHEN the United States waived claims of reparations against the Japanese following World War II, it essentially assumed the burden of paying compensation to residents of U.S. territories. Guam residents who suffered brutality at the hands of their Japanese for 30 months are still waiting for compensation, comparable to that paid to residents of Micronesia and the Philippines. Congress should approve a federal commission's recommendation of payments totaling $125 million to the victims of atrocities and barbarism.

The Guam War Claims Review Commission, appointed last September by Interior Secretary Gale Norton, conducted hearings and heard stories of "oppressive, cruel and barbaric" conduct by the Japanese during its occupation from the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor until August 1944, when Guam was liberated by U.S. forces. The Japanese tortured Guam's indigenous Chamorros for concealing American soldiers in the territory.

"Public executions -- usually by beheading -- became frighteningly common," the five-member commission said this week in its report back to Norton.

Congress passed a law in November 1945 that was intended to compensate American nationals living on Guam during the Japanese occupation, but it provided an opportunity window of only a year to make such claims. The law's implementation also "was severely flawed due in large part to the chaotic environment on Guam after liberation and the dislocation of families," according to Madeleine Bordallo, Guam's delegate to the U.S. House.

Guamanians who applied for claims during that brief period received only a pittance of what they should have been paid. The family of one man who was beheaded is said to have received just $200 from the United States.

In its 1951 peace treaty with Japan, the United States effectively waived all claims of reparations against Japan by American citizens, which Guam residents had become a year earlier. Efforts have been made for years to follow through with proper amounts.

The commission recommends payments of $12,000 to Guam residents who suffered injury, internment, forced labor or forced march during the occupation, totaling $100 million. Recommended payments of $25,000 to families of Guamanians who died during the occupation would total $25 million.

[Jubal]

I'm sure those affected will have trouble living with your compromise. I'm not sure it is fair to impose the will of the majority on a select minority.

We're having a joke. Playing on the phrase from the bill "living Gaumians who were killed", because, you see, you can't be living if you were killed. Get it?

[FYI]

FYI
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-parsons8may08,1,6813537.column?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=2&cset=true

ORANGE COUNTY
A troubling start for supervisor
Newly elected Janet Nguyen tries on shoes that O.C.'s good 'ol boys once wore.
Dana Parsons

May 8, 2007

In the good old days (remember the 1990s?) when Bob Dornan was an Orange County congressman, it was fun to knock him in print. It was like boxing with a kangaroo — no matter how hard or often you hit him, you could never put him down. The raspy-voiced redhead not only seemed to enjoy the combat, but he was indefatigable.

And if indefatigable means colorful and sharp-witted, he was that, too.

To a lesser degree, it was the same with some other public figures. Supervisors and sheriffs, councilmen or clergymen — from time to time, they all provided excellent column fodder. And since Orange County tended to be classic good-ol'-boy territory, the targets of scorn or scolding tended to be men.

Today, I'm not having nearly as much fun.

Newly minted Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen has told her attorney to return money that she solicited to help pay down the sizable debt she incurred from the post-election recount and trial that eventually handed her a three-vote victory. As The Times' Christian Berthelsen reported last week, those solicitations appear to violate county finance law that specifies that donations for legal expenses count as campaign contributions. As such, donors are limited to a maximum of $1,600. She told Berthelsen that three people, whom she didn't identify, gave more than the $1,600.

The donations were made out to a client trust fund of her attorney, Phillip Greer. Nguyen says Greer told her that was an acceptable way to raise money for the debt but later had second thoughts. At that point, Nguyen says, she told him to return the donations.

Greer told me Monday that Nguyen's version of events is correct.

I'm not thrilled to dive into this, because I met Nguyen on election night in February and enjoyed her company and that of her inner circle. I haven't been her advocate, other than to predict that first night — even without knowing whether she'd won or lost the election — that she had a bright future in politics.

I have to say, however, that her debt-reduction approach leaves much to be desired. For starters, directing money to a nondescript client fund sounds like a pretty obvious dodge. At minimum, it raises suspicions why Greer would first think it permissible but then have a change of heart.

From Nguyen's standpoint, even if she were merely accepting her lawyer's advice, a bell should have sounded about asking people for contributions in excess of normal campaign contributions. The fact that some apparently exceeded those levels only drives the point home deeper that an officeholder might be overly beholden to whoever ponied up big-time.

Nor is it an especially good sign that Nguyen won't say who the over-the-top donors were.

When we talked late Monday afternoon, Nguyen was neither contrite nor defensive. She argues, with persuasiveness, that she wouldn't have sent out a "flurry of mass public e-mails" seeking the donations if she were trying to hide anything. She says the frenzied atmosphere of the dead-heat election, recount and legal challenge by her opponent led to quick decisions.

She says she was assured the solicitations weren't subject to campaign reporting laws. Once Greer advised her of a potential problem, she says, she took the "conservative" approach and reversed field.

I'm not looking for Nguyen's head here. For one thing, I still like many things about her personal story and what I hope she can bring to public office. And the meter for her legal bills clearly was running and probably still is.

But it troubles me that she doesn't acknowledge the inherent problem of directing money to an off-the-books account. Theoretically, a single "donor" could have written a check for $100,000 and paid her entire debt. That would raise the obvious question of that person's future access to her.

Nguyen says she realizes she'll be under scrutiny but attributes that to the publicity she got as the first Vietnamese American supervisor, the closeness of the election and its contentiousness.

This isn't about being under a microscope. It's about basic campaign finance and the public's perception of elected officials. Not to put too fine a point on things, but it's a big reason there are campaign finance limits.

"In order to help with the legal battle," Nguyen says, "I had to fight the recount, I had to ask for help. Any candidate would ask for help."

To borrow a phrase, it's all in how you ask.

This is a woman, I still think, of intelligence and commitment.

I was hoping Monday for a bit more contrition. In that vein, I asked if there were lessons learned.

"There's always a lesson learned," she says, "including in my own election and the recount process. Every day there's a lesson learned."

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Dana Parsons can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com . An archive of his recent columns is at http://www.latimes.com/parsons

[Alex Burrola]

"WHEN the United States waived claims of reparations against the Japanese following World War II, it essentially assumed the burden of paying compensation to residents of U.S. territories."

So WHY the heck did we waive reparations in the first place?!

[killerjoe]

Maybe loretta could pay them from her own pocket. Opps sorry she's a lib, so it must come from people other than her.