Regarding the Feb. 20 article "Abe aide pillories U.S. on YouTube": Longtime ally to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Seiichi Eto, was wrong to take the U.S. government, and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, to task for not supporting the prime minister's visit to Yasukuni Shrine in December. Given that America has offered Japan considerable military and economic support since the darkest days of the Cold War era, you wonder if Eto has been living in a cave since the 1950s.
For this so-called special adviser to say that Washington "doesn't make much of Japan" is an insult to every U.S. citizen who has supported Japan's postwar recovery and national defense, often at great cost to the Pentagon and at great personal sacrifice for all those American military personnel who have willingly served in Japan since September 1945.
With advisers like Eto, it's a wonder that Abe has any friends left in Washington. Would Eto say that Germany's genocidal Nazi leaders who where tried at Nuremberg and found guilty of various war crimes and crimes against humanity also "died in the line of duty"? Did the monsters who planned Adolf Hitler's "final solution" die in the line of duty when a hangman's noose was placed around their necks? Gen. Hideki Tojo proved to be an inspiration to Hitler in his dream of a European/Russian empire.
Like many of Japan's right-wing fanatics, Eto should not have a voice in government. Eto should know that Washington's "attitude" is shared by every government in Asia and Europe! Japan might soon find itself without any friends. Then what? Splendid isolation? Economic collapse? The rise of a 1930s-style dictatorship?
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.