US House Committee Passes Sex Slave Resolution; Measure Heads to Full House
What happens when you take out full page ads in US newspapers attempting to put forward the ‘Show us the proof!’ line of argument concerning WW2-era sex slaves and then have a sitting lawmaker announce, “We are absolutely positive that there was no massacre in Nanking,” to the world?
You end up pouring gas on a fire. I actually did this once, when I was ten or so years old. I learned, in a flash, that it was a bad idea. These are grown men who cannot comprehend the concept of pouring gas on a fire in the international public relations arena.
Back in January, before Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pushed the issue to the front page of newspapers all over the world, it was doubtful that Representative Mike Honda’s nonbinding resolution would come to vote in the committee, much less get passed on to the full floor of the House of Representatives for debate.
That’s exactly what happened today.
On Tuesday US time, the resolution introduced by Japanese-American lawmaker Mike Honda was approved 39 to 2 by the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee in a step that allows the nonbinding measure to move to the full House.
39 to 2. The opposition to Honda’s bill only managed a safety.
This is a significant result, yet it does not mean that the resolution has been passed by the full House. It will have to be debated and brought to a vote. It can still be killed; the Japan lobby will no doubt swing into full gear in an attempt to have this bill not get passed, as they did last year with House Resolution 759.
Last time, former Congressman Bob Michel, working with legal and lobby firm Hogan and Hartson, convinced US lawmakers not to pass the resolution.
Representative Tom Lantos, the committee chairman, said that Japan is “our greatest friend in Asia and one of our closest partners in the world. Yet, Japan’s refusal to make an official government apology to the women who suffered as so-called ‘comfort women’ is disturbing to all who value this relationship.”
Mike Honda himself had this to say:
What they said today in their vote was that, yes, there were victims, there were women who were used as sex slaves, yes, there was a systematic military program that captured, coerced women and girls to be used as sex slaves…It is time that the Japanese government approach and acknowledge, take full responsibility and apologize in an unambiguous, formal way.
Whether Japan has or has not actually made an adequate apology (which has been debated much on these pages) is not the issue. It’s the perception. It’s the public relations.
And Japan is losing that game.
Maybe some good will come of this, and the Japanese government will learn how to do public relations properly, in a way that doesn’t ensure that they end up with egg on their face, and thus blinded, shoot themselves in the feet.
Related Posts:
- Seijigiri #12 - November 16, 2006: A special discussion on the Japan lobby
- The “Comfort Women” Resolution (HR 121) Passed: Why That’s Not Bad
- Nazi Eyes On Canada, part 4: Holly Metcalf and Bob Maxwell Story (starring Orson Welles and Vincent Price)
- UN Sanctions Against North Korea Passed
- Comfort Women and the US, Abe’s Approval Ratings, Election Delay, Losing Meat Hope, and Japan Blogs: TPR News for Monday, June 25, 2007
