Back in World War II, the Japanese were pretty much propagandized in every which way. Much of it could be called racist. We are really ashamed of it. And in truth, the internment camps are a stain on our history.
But we were also united with one goal: Defeat Japan. The propaganda went a long way towards keeping us united in that goal. We had no beef with them until Pearl Harbor. (Oh I'm sure some historian will correct me here but let's face it, Pearl Harbor was the big turning point.)
December 7th 1941 the war starts. VJ day is August 14, 1945. Just shy of four years. Four bloody awful years where they hated us and we hated them.
And then they were defeated. Not "we withdrew troops at some predetermined date to make the president look good politically." We dropped two atom bombs and pushed their faces in the dirt.
Then something amazing happened. The hate stopped. Oh not all at once mind you. But by the 50's they were making Godzilla movies. We were buying their products. Cars were being sold here by the 60's. We started eating up Japanese culture and they dug a lot of ours too. We got crazy karate movies, Sony, Nintendo (Mario is a Japanese import of an Italian stereotype... who we also destroyed in the war. Weird.)
Point is, we only had 4 years of war. Bloody horrific, no holds barred, war. It was bad. Enough horrific stuff to make movies about for decades. No one played nice. If you think the Japanese weren't just as committed to death as the islamist, look up Kamikaze.
My question is, if we were as committed as we were back then, (and yes that means silly cartoons and nasty movies, and a little more name calling, instead of hand wringing and worrying about islamophobia,) maybe this war would've been over a long time ago. Maybe, just maybe, if we really went in guns blazing, we could be importing Arabic culture by now.
The left's hand wringing and constant accusations of racism or islamophobia is making these wars take far longer and costing more lives. Is there an end in sight? Not without a helluva lot more resolve.
And maybe a few more offensive cartoons.
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