One of the darkest episodes of the second world war was the brutal slaughter of 30 million people in East Asia by the Japanese. The death rate of Allied POWs in this region was a staggering 30% (more than 7x higher than the death rate in Nazi camps). Yet, there is little discussion today of these war crimes. In fact, every member of the imperial family was exonerated. Why were Japanese royalty let go, while Germans were prosecuted? The grotesque answer lies with riches that were looted from the Chinese, Koreans, and Burmese during the conflict.

When Allied forces blockaded the Japanese, much of their stolen treasure was buried in the Philippines. Upon their surrender, General Yamashita was taken into custody along with his surrogates. His driver, Major Kojima Kashii, was tortured to reveal the booty’s location.

Since Yamashita had arrived from Manchuria in October 1944 to take over the defense of the Philippines, Kojima had driven him everywhere. In charge of Kojima’s torture was a Filipino-American intelligence officer Severino Garcia Diaz Santa Romana, a man of many names and personalities, whose friends called him ‘Santy’. He wanted Major Kojima to reveal each place to which he had taken Yamashita, where bullion and other treasure were hidden.

Supervising Santy, we learned, was Captain Edward G. Lansdale, later one of America’s best-known Cold Warriors. In September 1945, Lansdale was 37 years old and utterly insignificant, only an advertising agency copywriter who had spent the war in San Francisco writing propaganda for the OSS. In September 1945, chance entered Lansdale’s life in a big way when President Truman ordered the OSS to close down. To preserve America’s intelligence assets, and his own personal network, OSS chief General William Donovan moved personnel to other government or military posts. Captain Lansdale was one of fifty office staff given a chance to transfer to U.S. Army G-2 in the Philippines. There, Lansdale heard about Santy torturing General Yamashita’s driver and joined the torture sessions as an observer and participant.

Early that October, Major Kojima broke down and led Lansdale and Santy to more than a dozen Golden Lily treasure vaults in the mountains north of Manila, including two that were easily opened.

$100 billion in wealth (in 1945 prices) was estimated to be buried in the Philippine hills, including tens of thousands of tonnes of gold. Adjusted for inflation, its worth is valued at about $3 trillion. After being briefed of the situation, the Truman administration decided to keep the treasure a state secret. The loot would be funneled into a covert political action fund to fight communism. It was called the Black Eagle Trust.

According to [CIA Deputy Director] Ray Cline and others, between 1945 and 1947 the gold bullion recovered by Santy and Lansdale was discreetly moved by ship to 176 accounts at banks in 42 countries. Secrecy was vital. If the recovery of a huge mass of stolen gold became known, thousands of people would come forward to claim it, many of them fraudulently, and governments would be bogged down resolving ownership. Truman also was told that the very existence of so much black gold, if it became public knowledge, would cause the fixed price of $35 and cause the fixed price of $35 an ounce to collapse...

Documents do show that between 1945 and 1947 very large quantities of gold and platinum were deposited in the world’s biggest banks, including Union Banque Suisse and other Swiss banks, which became major repositories of the Black Eagle Trust.

Hirohito & Asia’s Stolen Treasures

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Part 2: From Golden Lily to the War on Terror

Part 3: The Collateral Damage of Golden Lily

Part 4: Golden Lily's Liar Loans and the Subprime Meltdown

I post this not to so much educate those of us who already know torture doesn't work, is morally wrong and there never will be an excuse to practice it. I post in the hope of changing the minds of those few who read DKos and wander back to their right wing safe heavens and post "24" plot lines to justify it. I post for those who still believe we must in order to keep us "safe."

On that note let me take you back to WW II Britain.  A small isle that didn't imagine they might be attacked again and again they were being attacked by all manner of frightening messengers from the sky. London was being reduced to rubble, children were evacuated into the country side for fear the next generation would be lost to the bombs and rockets.

With this scenario going on and the fear of imminent invasion from across The Channel, one might think a blind eye would be turned in order to get any all information needed from captured spies to keep the British people safe.

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In this great post on the Movement Vision Lab blog, grassroots activist Dan Horowitz Garcia argues that if there is a peace movement (and he doubts it...) it needs to change its tactics.  According to Dan, marches don't end wars --- and never have.

Dan Horowitz Garcia says that history repeats itself, and so do movements.

Contrary to many beliefs, the peace movement didn't end the war in Vietnam. Three things ended the war in Vietnam. They were, in order of importance, the Vietnamese, the tanking economy, and the resistance of U.S. soldiers. If I extended this list by 100 more items, I still wouldn't include marches on the U.S. capitol or attempts to raise the Pentagon. It is beyond doubt that popular resistance in the U.S. had success in restricting the scope of the war, but it didn't end it. If public opinion alone could stop a war, then the Iraq occupation would have ended back in November 2004 when public support dropped under 50%. Majority opinion may hold sway in a democracy, but not in the U.S.

Dan also details how marches against WWII in the United States didn't really stop that war, either.  So what makes us think they'll stop this one?

Instead, Dan says the anti-war movement has to stop being merely anti-war --- and offer a clear alternative instead.  Here, Dan argues for a peace movement that is challenging hegemony and violence much more broadly:

I believe we also have to expand the conversation from Iraq to the so-called war on terror. This is the elites' latest framework for empire, and we have to challenge it. The "peace movement" (it still doesn't feel right to say that) can learn a lot from organizers fighting the criminal justice system. The parallels between the rhetoric justifying the war on terror and the war on crime are plain to see, if you look at them. In the war on crime, bad people are coming into your neighborhood or even your house to do you harm. (These people just happen to have dark skin.) To keep you safe, we need to be tough on these criminals. We need more cops with more equipment (i.e. guns), and we need places where we can put the bad people far away from the good people. In the war on terror, bad people are coming to your country to do you harm. (These people also happen to have dark skin. Coincidence?) To keep you safe, we need to be tough on these terrorists. We need more troops with more equipment (i.e. big guns), and we need to kill the bad people in places far away from the good people.

In a comment on the blog, another community organizer Gabe Gonzalez talks about how his daughter is convinced there are monsters under the bed.  So he has to spend his energy convincing her otherwise.  In other words, even if progressives were to take up the agenda  that the "war on terror" and its ever-present threats are false, why should we have to convince the public?  Shoudn't we be forcing the Right wing hawk fear mongerers to prove their point?  

Otherwise, we're in the position of proving that the invisible threat doesn't exist.  Which is sort of like disproving monsters under the bed.  

We should be fighting the "war on terror" by making THEM defend it!

What do you think?

Sally Kohn is the Director of the Movement Vision Lab.

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Algonquin, Sioux and Cherokee Indians roamed the Sandhills following the buffalo.  Few settled the area primarily due to the thick carpet of longleaf pine straw that made for hard travel and quick moving fires in the lightening season.  When the Europeans discovered that longleaf pines were a good source of naval stores such as turpentine and tar, the trees in the area were quickly used up and cut down.

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