Tapsearch Com EditorThe case for Guam reparations
May 8th 2007 23:08
I'm opposed to slavery reparations, so I was pretty sympathetic when I read Michelle Malkin's post denouncing a new bill that would give reparations to Japan's World War II victims in Guam. After all, if anyone should pay them reparations, Japan should. (Guam has been a US territory since 1898, and Japan invaded it during WWII.)
Here's the bill.
However, there's a major nuance here Malkin (and those she cites) misses. After World War II, the US government did more to help mainland US citizens than to help those residing in US territories. Guam was particularly hard hit -- indeed, brutalized both by the Japanese invasion and the American recapture -- and thus needed help as much as any area did.
The new bill implements the recommendations of the Guam War Claims Review Commission, and one advocate testifying before that commission said:
Here's the commission's report, which found the Japanese were "oppressive, cruel, and barbaric." As for America's postwar response, Guam was "one of the U.S. Navy's first priorities" but:
That doesn't sound like a major injustice -- certainly not compared to what Japan did -- but it's clear the US didn't treat the territory as well as it did its own citizens.
We can debate how much the US owes residents of its territories, and we can ask how far into the past we should go to right wrongs. (In particular, it's immoral to try to settle the scores of long-dead people by transferring wealth between live ones; that's only one of my objections to slave reparations.) But it's not fair to dismiss the issue out-of-hand, as if the US is being expected to atone for Japan's sins. Rather, the bill gives money to people, many of whom are still alive, for a lack of parity in post-World War II aid.
By Robert VerBruggen
Here's the bill.
However, there's a major nuance here Malkin (and those she cites) misses. After World War II, the US government did more to help mainland US citizens than to help those residing in US territories. Guam was particularly hard hit -- indeed, brutalized both by the Japanese invasion and the American recapture -- and thus needed help as much as any area did.
The new bill implements the recommendations of the Guam War Claims Review Commission, and one advocate testifying before that commission said:
There has been some discussion on the directive to "determine whether there was parity of war claims paid to residents of Guam under the Guam Meritorious Claims Act as compared with awards made to other similarly affected United States citizens or nationals in territory occupied by the Imperial Japanese military forces during World War II". This is the heart of the "fairness" issue and the sense among Guamanians that Guam has not been treated equally.
Here's the commission's report, which found the Japanese were "oppressive, cruel, and barbaric." As for America's postwar response, Guam was "one of the U.S. Navy's first priorities" but:
[T]here was a lack of parity in some aspects of the process and the amounts made available for payment to the residents of Guam.
That doesn't sound like a major injustice -- certainly not compared to what Japan did -- but it's clear the US didn't treat the territory as well as it did its own citizens.
We can debate how much the US owes residents of its territories, and we can ask how far into the past we should go to right wrongs. (In particular, it's immoral to try to settle the scores of long-dead people by transferring wealth between live ones; that's only one of my objections to slave reparations.) But it's not fair to dismiss the issue out-of-hand, as if the US is being expected to atone for Japan's sins. Rather, the bill gives money to people, many of whom are still alive, for a lack of parity in post-World War II aid.
By Robert VerBruggen
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