The April 30 article about Raymond "Hap" Halloran, "War trauma leads to efforts to reconcile," brought tears to my eyes. Not so much the part about his being displayed as a war prisoner at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo in 1945, but the very end of the article, where Halloran declares that he has no answer as to what it would take for peace to prevail in future generations, and the mistaken observation that there are no winners in war. Within the second part of his statement lies the key to the first.
I too was once misled into believing that nobody wins wars, that everyone loses, that wars just happen. But that is false. Wars happen because somebody makes them happen, let there be no doubt. And when you further realize that the people who make wars happen profit handsomely from their endeavors, you will have to question the "conventional wisdom" that there are no winners in war.
We are asked who won World War II, Japan or the United States, but the real question lies elsewhere. The fact is that the American common people and the Japanese common people lost the war. But there were winners on both sides.
The real winners remain well hidden, but if you search hard enough, you will find them in England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.S., Russia and other countries. Until that fact is understood, there will never be an end to wars.
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