3/16/2026

My Dear Friend & POTUS, DJT,

Japan? Is that the best place to be focusing your attention on this week? I know Thursday’s visit from PM Sanae Takaichi (ST) has been on your schedule for a while now, but, given what’s going on in Iran, don’t you think it would be best to cancel?

She’s not in a position to help you fight the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy given the provisions in the Japanese Constitution to avoid war at all costs. She’s got to balance the pacifist desires of ultra-conservative groups like the“Nippon Izokukai,” with the more hawkish folks in her Liberal Democratic Party who want to be ready to fight China.

Have you heard of the Nippon Izokukai (NI)? It translates to “War-Bereaved Families” & they sponsor a Peace Storytelling Project, where youth find out about what happened to their elders  in WWII so they can teach their peers about the horrors of war. NI also has a Memorial Friendship & Exchange Project where they engage with former war zones to understand the damage wrought there by Japan. They’ve built three schools in Burma & are going there again this year. They’ve got a shrine in Tokyo which has had some controversy about whether to honor military men convicted of war crimes. 

Kind of like our challenges around the Confederate statues. I digress.

Back to the tricky position that PM Sanae Takaichi is in by your request to send some ships over to the Straits of Hormuz, I encourage you to cancel your meeting with her ambassador today, so you can concentrate on how to get us out of this mess so she doesn’t have to navigate how to appease you & her voters.

Getting us mired in an expensive effort to escort ships through the Straits of Hormuz will drain our coffers & prevent you from doing all the wonderful things you promised your voters. They are counting on you to make things affordable, so best to get busy with that.

WINTA!

BYBS,