Brace yourself for this one. Your tax dollars are being called upon to pay for reparations to the people of Guam for the ***anese's actions in WWII. That's right. You read it correctly!
Americans will pay for what ***anese did in a war that was fought over 50 years ago.
Here's the story. A bill will be introduced this week in the House called the
Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act. This act calls for reparations"”costing about $135 million"”for the "unspeakable harm as a result of the occupation of Guam by Imperial ***anese military forces during World War II, by being subjected to death, rape, severe personal injury, personal injury, forced labor, forced march, or internment." Now mind you, these are terrible things that happened to the people of Guam, but why do I have to pay for it? And why now?
Well it turns out that
Truman signed an agreement with ***an in 1951 basically stating that from then on, ***an is not responsible for "individual American war claims." Because Guam is a U.S. territory, the burden to compensate for ***anese abuses falls on U.S. taxpayers. Thanks a lot, Harry Truman. You are a great American Democrat.
But in 2003, Bush authorized the appointment of the Guam War Claims Review Commission. I guess we can assume that this was the result.
Now here's an interesting question. I have heard, though I have never taken the time to verify, that there was only one major war engaged in by the U.S. where U.S. taxpayers didn't fork over huge sums to rebuild the loser. That would be the War Between the States .. sometimes erroneously referred to as the "Civil War."