Ohiocore

America has no monopoly on militant nationalism. As though to reinforce the principle "whatever USA can produce, Japan can produce better", the Legislature in Tokyo has reconstituted a National Holiday to honor WWII Emperor Hirohito:

A House of Representatives committee on Friday approved a bill to rename April 29, which is now Greenery Day, as Showa Day to mark the birthday of Emperor Hirohito... known as Emperor Showa... in 1989 following his death.

The socialists at WSWS have a remakably thorough account of the bill and its historical context. (Unlike American political landscape, various socialist parties have minority representation in the Japanese Parliament.) Among the details reported:

• The actual vote tally: 202 for, 14 against.

A struggle over terminology:

• Showa: "enlightened peace," specifically "the title given to the period of Hirohito’s reign from 1926."
  
• Tenchosetsu: "Until 1945, April 29 was called Tenchosetsu—the day to pray for the long life of the emperor. Hirohito’s birthday only continued to be observed following the World War due to the actions of US imperialism... The American occupation authority exempted Hirohito from charges of war crimes and left the emperor in place as the symbolic head of state." To be clear, this word is NOT Tenchusatsu, meaning "divine strike from the heavens".
• Midori no hi: Greenery Day.
• Kokumin no kyujitsu: Between Day, a holiday so named because it's only virtue is that it falls between two other national holidays.
  

Although the role of the emperor as a nexus for government, national pride, religion, tradition, stability and culture is clearly central to Japanese identity, this holiday is not so refined. It is a Hirohito holiday, on his birthday. For once, a hypothetical involving Hitler is actually warranted: would Germany today ever consider a "3rd Reich" Holiday? I'd guess no.

In the shuffle, "Greenery Day" replaces "Between Day", and Showa Day now kicks off the string of 4 national holidays known as "Golden Week," one of the 3 major holiday seasons in Japan.

The construction of clever Golden Showa references is left as an exercise to the reader.

Remember the cases of Sr. Airman Ahmad Halabi or Capt. James Yee? They were commended military men untill they were swept up, denounced publicly with great zeal, confined in solitary, formally threatened with execution, and ordered not to speak Arabic. In Yee's case, he was manacled, blindfolded, ear-covered (so novel a fuckwithing we don't even have a good word for it), etc., et cetera. He was made a "bad guy". And you know what we do with bad guys.

In prosecuting those cases, the military demonstrated its peculiar capacity to just keep on keeping on, which is to say, make things worse for themselves. Or, to hear it from a more distinguished source:

"I find it difficult to believe professional prosecutors are proceeding with these two cases in this manner," said Gary D. Solis, a former Marine Corps prosecutor who teaches the law of war at Georgetown University. "The ineptitude at each step of the proceeding is amazing."

Some months later, as the substantive charges evaporated, the military substituted "Mickey Mouse" accusations of adultery and downloading porn, but continued solitary confinement as though it were still mutiny. Eventually, even the adultery reprimand was removed. Review USAtoday or, if you prefer, an apt blogospheric rundown that also adds to our acronym vocabulary: The War Against Terror (T.W.A.T.). Nice. Anyway, the reason I mention the Yee/Halabi cases is because we are seeing some of the same things. Keep your eye on the bait-and-switch.

I submit to your attention, The Case of the Karpinski Cream. The Army Reserve's Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was in charge of more than a dozen prisons in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib, as part of the 800th Military Police Brigade. She's the fall gal for the notorious prisoner abuses there. However, a formal prosecution of charges against her would no doubt scandalize folks higher up the chain, including regular Army (in particular, Gitmo's Gen. Miller), while revisiting many, many more inflammatory details of the case. Clearly this outcome is unacceptable to top brass.

I believe the .mil already have an acronym for their approach: C.Y.A. Butt how? Last week, the report of the Army Inspector General actually concluded by saying "Actions Gen. Karpinski took or failed to take in no way contributed to the abuses at Abu Ghraib." So she's clean, right? No, she's demoted.

They hauled out a several-years-old "validated" charge against Karpinski for... ... ... shoplifting. Not torture, murder, assault, violating the Geneva Convention w/ "Ghost Detainees", assraping young boys, malice, dog mauling, etc.. The headlines will read "Abu Ghraib General Demoted", but they miss the point. It's really about shoplifting:

Army spokeswoman Pamela Hart said the demotion was unrelated to prison scandal but resulted in part from Karpinski's "leadership failures" and the shoplifting allegation.

Shoplifting what? Cosmetics! Tons? No, just half a bottle of facial cream! And it's not even a real case! I'm not kidding. I wish I were kidding. The Post's story is Karpinski Denounces Shoplifting Allegation.

Now Republicans did recommended a shoplifter to be the new Director of Central Intelligence, but I guess that job isn't as important as Reserve Brig. General Karpinski's was. The Philly Enquirer actually gets the point:

"the inspector general's report does not link Karpinski's deficiencies to the abuse and, as reported last week, clears four other top officers who were in charge of the war in Iraq. Those officers were:

• Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq;
  
• his deputy, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski;
  
• Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, Sanchez's top intelligence officer; and
  
• Col. Marc Warren, Sanchez's top military lawyer

The problem is that the report whitewashed everybody, her included, and somebody's gotta go down. Apparently it doesn't matter for what. Canadian press quotes Karpinski:

"They had nothing to use against me, so they exploited this so-called charge of shoplifting and made mention of it in conjunction with the final report, making it appear this demotion was about Abu Ghraib."

I guess they couldn't get her for adultery or porn on her computer. She must not have had those photos after all...