Following his historic visit to Yasukuni Shrine last Tuesday on the 61st anniversary of Japan's surrender, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi spoke to the media. As usual, his comments had the bland quality of safely scripted pronouncements, but at one point he paused significantly: "I prayed for those who sacrificed for their country and . . . their families." Koizumi, of course, was about to say "the Emperor," since that is what Yasukuni is all about. It's what it was built for, and in the context of the hackneyed phrase Koizumi was uttering, it makes more sense.

Even Koizumi can't believe that all those soldiers thought they were dying for their families, since he also mentioned they probably didn't want to go to war. They were sacrificed for the Emperor, the kokutai, the spirit of Yamato -- whichever lofty abstraction you prefer. That's why they're enshrined in Yasukuni.

Yasuhiro Nakasone, the last Japanese prime minister to visit Yasukuni on Aug. 15 (in 1985), told reporters that the prime minister's job is not to pray at the shrine, but to make it possible for the Emperor to pray at the shrine. The Emperor, of course, never visits Yasukuni. On Aug. 15 he pays his respects to all the Japanese citizens who died in the war, soldiers and civilians alike, at the Zenkoku Senbotsusha Tsuito-shiki in Nihon Budokan Hall.