Asia Quotes
Some citations quote Patton using the word “Asiatic” rather than “amiable” in the fourth sentence but sources with the full diary entry use “amiable.”
This quotation shows Washington's amazing tolerance for the times.
The issue of unilateral or multilateral foreign policy efforts faced America after WWII.
At the time, the George W. Bush Administration policy was to have the United States running a very large trade and budget deficit—the largest in the history of the world. In order to finance the deficit, the U. S. Government had to borrow money and it did so by selling bonds and other financial instruments. Many of these were purchased by Asians, but Paul’s point was that they were “propping up” American spending habits and might not continue to do so.
This statement caused great consternation. NcNutt did try to explain that he was speaking personally and not for the Government, but there was a small proportion of America who had concluded that all Japanese should be killed. Such an concept which was unthinkable 5 years earlier was considered as a result of several factors: The Japanese had murdered many American prisoners of war. Killed millions of civilians throughout Asia including doing medical and weapons experiments on live human beings. They had practiced torture, compulsory prostitution and mass rape of conquered territories. At the same time, the Germans had tried to exterminate all the Jews and, with some Japanese help, did kill two-thirds. The concept of genocide had been introduced to Americans as the concentration camps were liberated. And American casualties in the Pacific had been heavy. Vengeance was desired by many. Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of Americans never considered genocide seriously.
There are other religious groups that also fear modern secular invasion, so they tend to wall themselves off as do the Amish or have their own schools as many Catholics do. However, the Muslims believe that the danger calls for a jihad and the killing and intimidation of those who advocate, create, defend or spread the secularism. Notice also that Al-Qaradhawi refers to Communism as having destroyed “Muslim countries in Asia and Eurupe.” Many countries of Europe and Asia were fought over by Christians and Ottoman Turks with one side or the other gaining control, only to be displaced by the other in subsequent years. Fundamentalist Muslims therefore think of Albania, Yugoslavia, Crimea, Croatia, and Azerbaijan, for example as Islamic countries because at one point in history they were controlled by a Muslim empire. But that was years ago. When they were invaded by the Russians, Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists all suffered and not a single country was then controlled by Islam.
This was the 14th part of the Japanese reply to a previously made American peace proposal. The Japanese policy was to unite all of Asia into a co-prosperity sphere controlled by Japan where Japan would militarily conquer those Asian countries which did not “voluntarily” want to join. The Japanese were in the process of conquering China and the United States and Britain had embargoed oil and other material to Japan trying to pressure them to withdraw their troops from China and cease Japanese conquest by force. Japan believed that it was their right to conquer and control Asia and it was beneficial to the region, and that the U. S. and Britain had no right to curtail the expansion that Japan required to assure raw materials and other necessities. At the very time that these negotiations were on going, the Japanese fleet was sailing for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack took place the very day this part of the Japanese reply was received.
