Sunday, February 6, 2005
Tokyo Ted
As the destroyer made her way up "The Slot" the sultry voice rang out over the radio: "Hello, boys - you orphans of the Pacific. How do you feel now that your ships have been sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy? How do you like it that while you are fighting and dying your wives and sweethearts are running around on you at home with the 4 Fs?"
Jennifer King: Despite the enduring myth, "Tokyo Rose" was never a real person. Troops in the Pacific came up with the appellation, which was used to describe a variety of female radio propagandists during WWII. Nevertheless, "Tokyo Rose" became American shorthand for "traitor". Iva Ikuro Toguri - an American UCLA graduate accused of being "Tokyo Rose" - was prosecuted and convicted of treason in 1948.
On the eve of Sunday's historic elections in Iraq, Senator Ted Kennedy took to the podium in order to stage a stunning display of defeatism, pessimism and vicious anti-Americanism.
Kennedy issued a variety of outrageous statements, saying that the American military presence in Iraq was "the problem, not the solution" and that Iraq "had to live under Ottoman occupation in the twentieth century, and is now living under American occupation in the twenty-first."
The malignantly magniloquent Massachusettsan further insisted that Iraq be "given back to the Iraqis" and that American troops should leave forthwith.
Senator Kennedy is a bloviating blowhard whose most outrageous libels are nevertheless overlooked by most of the media. Kennedy has called the war in Iraq, "A war made up for political gain", "George Bush's Vietnam" and - of course - the favored "quagmire".
His Johns Hopkins speech, timed to play prominently before the elections, was meant to dampen morale and optimism in Iraqi citizens, the Iraqi police forces, American troops and our allies. It received prominent attention on Al Jazeera.
Nevertheless, on Sunday, the Iraqi people stuck a bright purple finger in the face of Ted Kennedy and all the liberal, pessimistic naysayers. Determined Iraqis were photographed, by the thousands, walking miles to the polling places.
Despite the death threats, dire warnings from the media and personal intimidation, Iraqis nevertheless gathered to exult in outbreaks of spontaneous joy. Many showed off their newly purpled fingers in victory signs.
Someone might want to inform our friends on the Left. The highly successful election and the visible and vivid exuberance of the Iraqis who participated in them has left them wholly flummoxed.
A couple of lefties have also complained, in a chilling bit of unintended irony, that "Saddam Hussein did not get to vote."
Iva Ikuko Toguri was undoubtedly unjustly pilloried as "Tokyo Rose" and unfairly jailed. Other women radio propagandists like "Madame Tojo" and the "Nightengale of Nanking" were far more sinister.
However, Toguri was an American citizen who was perceived to be working against her country and giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy at a time of war. Americans in 1948 were in no mood to sanction that behavior.
Tokyo Rose got ten years in prison. It would be great if Tokyo Ted could get at least one.
As the destroyer made her way up "The Slot" the sultry voice rang out over the radio: "Hello, boys - you orphans of the Pacific. How do you feel now that your ships have been sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy? How do you like it that while you are fighting and dying your wives and sweethearts are running around on you at home with the 4 Fs?"
Jennifer King: Despite the enduring myth, "Tokyo Rose" was never a real person. Troops in the Pacific came up with the appellation, which was used to describe a variety of female radio propagandists during WWII. Nevertheless, "Tokyo Rose" became American shorthand for "traitor". Iva Ikuro Toguri - an American UCLA graduate accused of being "Tokyo Rose" - was prosecuted and convicted of treason in 1948.
On the eve of Sunday's historic elections in Iraq, Senator Ted Kennedy took to the podium in order to stage a stunning display of defeatism, pessimism and vicious anti-Americanism.
Kennedy issued a variety of outrageous statements, saying that the American military presence in Iraq was "the problem, not the solution" and that Iraq "had to live under Ottoman occupation in the twentieth century, and is now living under American occupation in the twenty-first."
The malignantly magniloquent Massachusettsan further insisted that Iraq be "given back to the Iraqis" and that American troops should leave forthwith.
Senator Kennedy is a bloviating blowhard whose most outrageous libels are nevertheless overlooked by most of the media. Kennedy has called the war in Iraq, "A war made up for political gain", "George Bush's Vietnam" and - of course - the favored "quagmire".
His Johns Hopkins speech, timed to play prominently before the elections, was meant to dampen morale and optimism in Iraqi citizens, the Iraqi police forces, American troops and our allies. It received prominent attention on Al Jazeera.
Nevertheless, on Sunday, the Iraqi people stuck a bright purple finger in the face of Ted Kennedy and all the liberal, pessimistic naysayers. Determined Iraqis were photographed, by the thousands, walking miles to the polling places.
Despite the death threats, dire warnings from the media and personal intimidation, Iraqis nevertheless gathered to exult in outbreaks of spontaneous joy. Many showed off their newly purpled fingers in victory signs.
Someone might want to inform our friends on the Left. The highly successful election and the visible and vivid exuberance of the Iraqis who participated in them has left them wholly flummoxed.
A couple of lefties have also complained, in a chilling bit of unintended irony, that "Saddam Hussein did not get to vote."
Iva Ikuko Toguri was undoubtedly unjustly pilloried as "Tokyo Rose" and unfairly jailed. Other women radio propagandists like "Madame Tojo" and the "Nightengale of Nanking" were far more sinister.
However, Toguri was an American citizen who was perceived to be working against her country and giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy at a time of war. Americans in 1948 were in no mood to sanction that behavior.
Tokyo Rose got ten years in prison. It would be great if Tokyo Ted could get at least one.
