According to the Nov. 16 editorial "Deviant thinking on defense," the thinking of the recently dismissed Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Toshio Tamogami "permeates the ASDF." If this is true, it is a dangerous state of affairs. A major cause of such thinking is wounded national pride. Many Japanese resent criticism of Japan's behavior during the Pacific War, particularly criticism that Japan was the aggressor.

Instead of denial and historical revisionism, a more balanced way of addressing these feelings would be to acknowledge Japan's mistakes, while adding that Japan is not the only country with some soul-searching to do. For example, how about an apology from the U.S. government for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? These two unnecessary acts are up there with the all-time great crimes against humanity, but the U.S. has shown no remorse.

Digging a bit deeper, the U.S. government should also apologize for the unprovoked aggression of Commodore Perry and his black ships off the coast of Japan in the mid-19th century. This calls to mind an essay that a Japanese friend of mine wrote when we were both studying at the Australian National University. It was an outpouring of wounded pride, tracing the origins of the Pacific War back to the arrival of the black ships.

Of course, members of the ASDF and other people sympathetic to the views of Tamogami are in no position to force the United States to make such apologies. However, they could pressure the Japanese government to demand that the U.S. apologize for these incidents. Such a demand should be accompanied by a sincere and unequivocal official apology for Japan's own war crimes and acts of aggression.

The way to treat an ASDF with wounded national pride is to remove the stigma that Japan alone was at fault during the Pacific War by instilling a historically informed awareness that war and military aggression are bad regardless of whether you end up on the winning or losing side.

philip white