I have a number of posts simultaneously under construction, so to speak, but am also otherwise too busy to devote much time to them, so I've decided to post this segment now.
When the CIA is ordered to
conduct covert action undertaken in an allied country, the covert action has
geopolitical objectives, as in the case of conducting covert action against a
hostile country, but also has political implications locally in the host
country. The characteristics differ, however, in that one objective is to
artificially prop up the alliance with between the governments, which begs the
question however, in this case, as to what the CIA and Japan’s own secret
intelligence service, the Public Security Intelligence Agency (the “Ko-an-sho”)
could seek to achieve by collaborating to undermine certain Japanese cultural
traditions (e.g., Zen Buddhism, the Noh, Kinko-ryu (Fuke-shu) shakuhachi),
while promoting Evangelical Christian missionaries, for example, and corrupted
(and/or dumbed-down) versions of Fuke-shu shakuhachi.
First, there is a big
picture (geopolitical) issue in that Japan, historically, as a country in East
Asia has developed in a cultural milieu informed primarily by the universalistic
teachings of Confucianism and Buddhism. One objective of the covert US foreign
policy targeting culture is to alienate Japan from its cultural roots, aiming
to culturally divide-and-conquer East Asia as a whole. The respective
governments apparently want to level any cultural differences that might facilitate
forms of social conscience that might serve to give the people pause and
question the collective agenda being pursued by the government in Japan
following the lead of the US. Meanwhile, the personal objectives of the people
in government include, as has been demonstrated—with respect to ‘hereditary
politicians’ (http://www.observingjapan.com/2008/07/banning-hereditary-politicians.html)
in Japan and multi-generational CIA officer families in Japan, the hereditary
inheritance of public office. A second aspect pertains to “the devil is in the
details,” as the saying goes. “Diversity” was a buzzword in the Obama
administration, reflecting an increasingly insecure US position in a post-Cold
War world where the order should return to something more actually diverse (and
normal) than the bipolar alignment with one-or-the-other of the dueling
superpowers. Diversity is a natural occurrence, as demonstrated by evolutionary
biology and the diversity among human cultures and languages, for example.
Insofar as democracy involves a problem-solving discourse among members of
society, diversity of opinion can result in more ideas being put forth in the
course of determining the course of social development. Diversity is something that
has to evolve against a common background, however, if the divergence is to be
mutually intelligible and social cohesion maintained. True diversity cannot be imposed
on a society, and if democracy represents a form of dialectical problem
solving, most forms of diversity will resolve in the transience from one set of
problems to another. That definition may not jibe with one that posits
diversity as referring to radically irreconcilable difference (e.g., species
level), which is another issue according to this schema. Take religion in
Japan, for example. No more than 1% of the population of Japan has ever
espoused Christianity as their religious belief system, even though there has
been freedom of religion since the 19th century. Does that mean that
religious diversity doesn’t exist in Japan? Hardly, I should think, as is shown
by the large number of Buddhist sects that have been established over the ages,
some with belief systems encompassing diametrically opposed elements.
It might occur to some readers
knowledgeable of Japan that I have overlooked Shinto, which is often
characterized as the “native” religion of Japan. I have not overlooked Shinto,
however, as nativism has been a theme that the USA has sought to exploit in Japan
consciously since it rehabilitated Japanese that were had been imprisoned and
were awaiting trial as war criminals—including the grandfather (Kishi Nobusuke)
of Sinzo Abe, the current Prime Minister current embroiled in a scandal (Moritomo
Gakuen) involving a nationalistic elementary school accused of promoting such
reactionary nativist teachings. Shinto has been associated with nativism and
militarism at various points in Japanese history because it has been exploited
for political purposes as a form of particularism in opposition to, for example,
the influence of the overtly universalistic teachings of Buddhism and
Confucianism. To the CIA, Shinto particularism is a form of ideological
currency in Japanese history that resonates with the notion of American
exceptionalism in that of the United States. Accordingly, it is an ideology
that can be exploited in the divide-and-conquer objective pursued through a
modus operandi that encompasses interfering in cultural affairs in civil
society.
It bears emphasizing that
the CIA has been seeking to have the pacifist clause, Article 9, of the
Constitution of Japan, which had been drawn up by Americans, eliminated within
a few years of its promulgation. Nominally, the USA had communism in its
sights, but the behind the scenes diplomatic efforts (since declassified; i.e.,
FRUS documents such as those submitted to the Court and posted below) to
support reactionary Japanese politicians who had been awaiting trial for war
crimes and who favored eliminating the war-as-a-means-of-foreign-policy
renouncing Article 9 represents a foreign policy that was diametrically opposed
to the official foreign policy publically espoused by the government of the US
at the time. Meanwhile, the Cold War ended about 10 years before the formation
of the ultra-nationalist political organization known as the Nippon Kaigi in
1997 (e.g., https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/abe-nippon-kaigi-japan-far-right/).
Furthermore, communism, as an economic system, has all but been supplanted in
China, but the promotion of nativist politicians in Japan by the CIA continues
in the form of Shinzo Abe, Taro Aso, Toru Hashimoto, etc. I have posted links
to some of the scholarly studies, etc., submitted to the Court about Abe’s
grandfather and the founding of the LDP with funding from the CIA; however, I
have not traced the Abe and Aso families connections to the Meiji Restoration. The
family of Aso (Abe’s current Finance Minister and a former Prime Minister), in
particular, and Abe, to a lesser degree, were directly connected to the Meiji
Oligarchy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_oligarchy),
the policies of which gave rise to what is generally described as a form of fascism
in WWII era Japan under so-called State Shinto. Several pages of court filings
are posted below with relevant quotes from scholarly publications, links, etc.
There are divide-and-rule
machinations at various levels, intra- and inter-nationally, each of which will
require more in-depth treatment, but the foregoing can be seen to describe an
overview of a modus operandi aimed at coalescing a ‘home team’, so to speak,
around a form of nationalism that lends itself to military adventurism, while
dividing the opposition so as to be unable to put up a unified front of
democratic resistance to the hegemonic aims of the ruling political clique of
hereditary politicians and their cronies/cohorts internationally.
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