“Sex-Slave” Report: The UN’s Global Hoax (Jiyu-sha) No.4: Chapter 2: The Fiction Equating Comfort Women with Sex Slaves Spreads throughout the World

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Chapter 2: The Fiction Equating Comfort Women with Sex Slaves Spreads throughout the World
1. US House Resolution (2007) and its nationwide repercussions
By Hisae Kennedy
My UN fantasy
When I was a child, I was convinced that the United Nations was an imposing, authoritative organization that stood above all the world’s nations. To me, the UN secretary-general was the president of the world. At some point I learned that the UN is a remnant of the Allied forces whose core members were the victor nations of World War II. I also discovered that Japan and Germany are even today named as enemy nations in the UN Charter. Furthermore, China and Russia, both of which were or might as well have been at war with the Western powers during the postwar era, are permanent members of the UN Security Council!
Those revelations did not sway my vague conviction of the UN’s prestige. After all, 193 nations had joined the organization. I thought that UN resolutions were momentous, and its decisions irrevocable (or rather, that any nation opposing them would be ostracized by the international community). I also thought that to some extent, all Japanese had the same perception of the UN as I did.
When I came to live in the US and learned how the Americans and the US media perceive the UN, I was surprised at how different impressions are from country to country. To Americans, the US is 100% fruit juice. The involvement of other countries means an increase in impurities and additives; the result is a drink you wouldn’t want to consume.
Setting the juice metaphor aside for the moment, it is quite clear that Americans think world affairs should be decided by the US, without interference from other nations. This is understandable, since there are a great many cases in which UN intervention simply complicates problems and makes them more difficult to resolve. In any case, it never occurs to Americans to look to other nations or the international community when a decision needs to be made.
Compensation suits go nowhere
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The comfort-women controversy did not command the attention of Americans on a widespread level until 2007, when the House of Representatives passed Resolution 121. Until then, it had been overshadowed by other controversies between the US and Japan.
The first wave of litigation began in 1998, when Tom Hayden (then a California State senator), Rod Pacheco, and Mike Honda (both California State assemblymen) sponsored what became known as the Hayden Bill, which was passed by the State Senate. The legislation, entitled “Compensation: World War II slave and forced labor,” would enable victims of Nazi persecution who were forced to work without compensation to institute suit for compensation in California State courts. According to the text of the bill, those victims had until 2010 to file suit. Between 1999 and 2000 former prisoners of war, as well as Chinese who had worked for Japanese companies during the war, brought a large number of actions seeking compensation from Japan.
Fifteen women (natives of China, Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan who now resided in California) filed a class-action suit against the Japanese government in federal district court in Washington, D.C. on September 18, 2000. All of them claimed they had been forced to service Japanese soldiers as comfort women during World War II. The Japanese government requested that the court dismiss the suit on the grounds that the San Francisco peace treaty had settled all wartime claims.
Assisting the plaintiffs in the class-action suit was a Chinese anti-Japanese organization that goes by the name of “Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WWII in Asia” (hereafter “Global Alliance”). It was this group that lobbied elected officials to draft state legislation on its behalf, and instigated the class-action suit.
The Department of State and Department of Justice responded by supporting the Japanese government’s position in every case. Consequently there ensued a round of contentious interchanges between the US government and the California legislature. Moreover, the Wall Street Journal and other leading media representatives also sided with the US government (and therefore with the Japanese government), and were intensely critical of the lawsuits.
On January 15, 2003 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the California legislation passed in 1999 recognizing the right to file suit for compensation was constitutional. However, on January 21 a San Francisco federal court ruled the Hayden Bill unconstitutional and dismissed 28 pending class-action suits against Japanese companies. On February 26, 2006 the US Supreme Court dismissed a class-action suit instituted by former comfort women.
In other words, during that era the US government, judiciary and media demonstrated an understanding of Japan’s position, as well as agreement that Japan had no legal obligation to compensate the plaintiffs.
It is my belief that these problems have been legally resolved. Once it became clear that the US government and judiciary were not going to change their minds, and
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Japan-bashers were not going to win the hearts of media representatives or the American people, the anti-Japanese organizations changed their tactics. They abandoned the former prisoners of wars and laborers, whom they’d used to fulfill their perverted mission, and adopted new causes: women’s rights and human rights.
A new agenda: women’s rights
When activists Mindy Kotler and Annabel Park were lobbying US representatives in their effort to get the anti-Japanese resolution passed, they maintained that the comfort-women system in operation during World War II was the root cause of the infringements of women’s rights and human rights now occurring in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Darfur.
Voters will certainly not be pleased if the politicians they elect neither care about nor oppose regional infringements of women’s rights and human rights. But direct criticism of violations of human rights in these nations can accelerate to diplomatic problems, and that would be a nuisance. Also, we must remember that the Chinese are accomplices in the massacre in Darfur. To show that they are struggling to resolve human rights problems, these activists must choose a country to attack. So why not focus on docile Japan? After all, the Japanese never make a fuss.
Back in 1999, Rep. Mike Honda passed a resolution denouncing Japan in the California State Senate. Honda made the following comment during an interview published in Japan Focus.
I passed the resolution AJR 27 in California Assembly in 1999 and it caused quite a bit of stir with the Consulate General (of Japan) in San Francisco. They said, “Why California? This is a national and international issue, not a state issue.” But it still passed. Then I went to Congress and said, “I am in Congress now. I will introduce this resolution again and it will be on a national and international level.”1
How do you explain Honda’s indefatigable passion for casting aspersions on Japan? Where does this tenacity come from? If human rights really were his chief concern, it would make more sense for him expend his considerable energy on passing a resolution critical of China. But he has not done anything of the kind. To the contrary, in 2015 Honda was one of the representatives who accepted money from Iran, which has a miserable human-rights record, before the nuclear agreement between that nation and the US was concluded, and voted in favor of the pact. For that he was called a traitor by American conservatives. Honda’s “principles” notwithstanding, he doesn’t seem to have the slightest interest in correcting a real, current problem — Iran’s infringement of human rights.
Resolution 121
1 http://apjjf.org/-Kinue-TOKUDOME/2438/article.html (05/02/2007)
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When Resolution 121 passed, thanks to the obsessive campaign waged by Rep. Honda, Mindy Kotler, and others, only about 10 congressmen were present to cast their votes for the resolution. In September 2014 I met with US Representative Dana Rohrabacher at a coffee shop in Huntington Beach, California. He said that leaving the historical background of the comfort-women controversy aside, Japan and the US must show a united front in the face of a greater enemy, i.e., China. For some reason, the Japanese media have reported that Mr. Rohrabacher voted in favor of the anti-Japanese resolution after being approached by Korean lobbyists. This is not true. He did not vote in favor of the resolution. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even know that it had passed.
Very few ordinary Americans know anything about that resolution. The US House of Representatives introduces both binding and non-binding resolutions. The resolution condemning Japan was non-binding; therefore, it was not passed on to the Senate, nor was it passed on to the government to be signed into law. Still, the people of Japan took it seriously, since the US Congress had passed it. And since its intent was to censure Japan, I can see why they would take offense.
They say that approximately 7,000 resolutions have yet to be voted on. Here are some of those resolutions, all non-binding.
 Resolution 2617: Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act
Introduced on July 8, 2013 by Rep. Donna Edwards (Democrat), its purpose is to establish the Apollo Lunar Landing Sites National Historical Park on the moon.
 Resolution 808: Department of Peacebuilding Act
Introduced on February 25, 2013 by Rep. Barbara Lee (Democrat), its purpose is to establish a Department of Peacebuilding, whose mission will be cultivating peace and developing policies that promote national and international-conflict prevention.
 Resolution 997: English Language Unity Act
Introduced on March 6, 2013 by Rep. Steve King (Republican), its purpose is to establish English as the official language of the US.
 Resolution 3276: Shutdown Prioritization Act
Introduced on October 8, 2013 by Rep. Bill Foster (Democrat), its purpose is to prohibit the operation of an exercise facility for Members of the House of Representatives during a Government shutdown.
 Resolution 1665: Read the Bills Act
Introduced on November 7, 2013 by Rep. Rand Paul (Republican), its purpose is to require representatives to sign an affidavit stating that they have read the legislation they are to vote for online one week before the vote, and to wait one week before the final vote.
I hope readers will understand the point I am trying to make here.
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The role of unexamined resolutions
There are countless other proposals of this sort. The Chicago Tribune’s lampooning of the colossal amount of time wasted in Congress really hits the mark.2 When a binding resolution is involved, representatives in favor of it make their opinions known, and then those opposed to it voice their opinions. Supporting documents must be carefully checked and recorded, and not until then does voting take place. But non-binding resolutions have no legal significance, so there is no need to analyze or verify evidentiary material. As they say, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. These resolutions come into existence, despite the fact that they are meaningless manifestations of the introducers’ complacency, and they are why we have National Pi Day and National Lobster Day.
The same conclusion can be drawn for the Coomaraswamy and McDougall reports. We can ignore Resolution 121; it has no real significance, as it never was subjected to analysis. We could ignore the Coomaraswamy and McDougall reports for the same reasons. Unfortunately, however, these reports have taken on a life of their own, just as though they had been verified. When Resolution 121 was passed, anti-Japanese organizations acted as though they had achieved a major triumph, and stepped up their condemnation of Japan. They used the non-binding resolution as the legal basis for the installation of comfort-woman statues in cities like Fullerton, California.
Left-wing Japanese activists and Chinese and Korean lobbyists have perversely and aggressively advertised their positions on the comfort-women controversy. There are also Americans willing to campaign for the installation of comfort-women statues in US cities. I’d like to take a closer look at two such campaigns, in California and New Jersey.
Glendale, California
The first city favored with a comfort-woman statue was Glendale, California. I don’t think many Japanese had even heard of Glendale prior to the statue’s advent.
A five-member City Council governs Glendale; the council selects one of its members to serve as mayor for a one-year term. The mayor has no more power than other council members.
The current mayor is Paula Devine. Serving on the City Council are Zareh Sinanyan (who was mayor in 2014), Laura Friedman (mayor in 2011), Vartan Gharpetian, and Comfort-woman statue
installed in Glendale, California
2 “Resolve not: Getting rid of silly congressional commemorations,” Chicago Tribune, 26 July 2011. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-07-26/opinion/edit-resolution-20110726_1_resolutions-jefferson-or-madison-post-offices (retrieved 6/28/2016).
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Ara Najarian (mayor in 2007, 2010, and 2015). The term of Frank Quintero, who lashed out at members of the Higashi Osaka City Assembly visiting Glendale to express their opposition to the comfort-woman statue, with “What about the Nanking massacre?” has expired. Paula Devine, Quintero’s successor, was elected to the council in July 2014.
The campaign to place a comfort-woman statue in Glendale began when Chang Lee, a Korean businessman residing in Los Angeles, approached the City Council and offered its members a trip to Korea.
Mayor Dave Weaver, who was uncomfortable accepting such an invitation, declined the offer. But the other four members accepted. Frank Quintero reportedly made two trips to Korea.
We have no information about the details of those trips, but when the council members returned to the US, two Korean former comfort-women arrived in Glendale unannounced, and tearfully related their experiences, surprising Mayor Weaver.
A few weeks after their visit, Chang Lee approached the council with his plan to install a comfort-women monument behind the Glendale Central Library. Soon thereafter council members decided to forge a sister-city relationship between Glendale and two Korean cities. When a proposal was made for a third such relationship, it met with vigorous opposition from Mayor Weaver, and was rejected.
As if our story weren’t strange enough already, we learned from the ALPHA-LA (an organization operating under the aegis of the Global Alliance (full name: Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WWII in Asia) website and the Los Angeles Times that the City of Glendale ordered the comfort-women monument well before holding a public hearing on the subject. Council members must have been confident of public support for the installation.
Mayor Weaver opposed the installation till the very end. He was planning on using the site as a parking lot, and says that he had absolutely no knowledge of the comfort-women project.
Chang Lee was subsequently appointed to the Glendale Planning Commission.
Inside the City Council
Now I’d like to take a closer look at two of the council members.
Zareh Sinanyan is an American of Armenian descent. If the purpose of the comfort-women monument campaign is, as the Korean organizations behind it claim, to promote women’s rights and human rights, I find Sinanyan a strange choice. His public comments indicate that he opposes such rights, and for that he should be censured.
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Statements Sinanyan has made on YouTube and other social media outlets would offend any decent, sensible person.
Typical of those comments is a threat to rape an opponent with a tennis racket posted on YouTube. Similarly, he uses a vulgar word for the female genitals to taunt his opponent in a debate.
Laura Friedman, another council member, went to Tibet in the summer of 2014 to attend the 2014 Forum on Development in Tibet.
The Tibetan government in exile expressed its concern about the 2014 forum as follows:
China said that the attendees at this event signed and agreed to a document (the “Lhasa Consensus”) that attacked His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama for presenting a “distorted and incorrect” picture of Tibet and claimed that Tibetans were happy and enjoyed religious freedom.
(…)
China claims that over 100 foreign politicians and dignitaries attended this event, but there was no foreign media coverage.
(…)
However, while attendees were enjoying a conference in Lhasa, at least 10 Tibetans in Kardze, Kham (Ch: Ganzi, Sichuan Province) were shot by Chinese police during a peaceful protest. Of the 25 arrested, [at] least five Tibetans have died due to untreated gunshot injuries; one committed suicide to protest the torture.3
We don’t know why Friedman participated in this conference, but we must be mindful that as far as Tibet is concerned, by “development” the Chinese mean destroying Buddhist temples in Tibet, displacing ethnic Tibetans, and sponsoring the migration of Han Chinese into Tibet in large numbers. If Friedman truly wishes to promote universal human rights, why has she not spoken out about China’s slaughter of Tibetans, or robbing them of autonomy? If she cares about women’s rights, why has she not criticized China’s one-child policy?
Rationale for the statues
Former Harvard University professor Mera Koichi and other residents of Los Angeles filed a suit demanding that the comfort-woman statue in Glendale be removed. The Global Alliance submitted an opinion requesting that the suit be dismissed. It was dismissed, and when the plaintiffs appealed, the Global Alliance submitted a brief protesting the appeal. Here we have opinions submitted by a group interested in
3 http://www.tibetnc.org/2014/08/21/tibetan-national-congress-condemns-china-lhasa-consensus/?lang=en
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influencing the outcome of the lawsuit, though not party to it. This was a suit filed against Glendale by private citizens. The residents of Glendale should be made aware that the defendant, the City of Glendale, was supported by a Communist, anti-Japanese organization because its interests happened to coincide with those of Glendale’s government.
Incidentally, though the comfort-woman statue is situated in a plaza behind the library, most citizens of Glendale using that library or walking in the area are not aware of its presence. When I visited the plaza, I did not encounter anyone who knew the statue was there. Nor was anyone aware of the term “comfort woman.” I had to explain. When I told them, “The comfort women were prostitutes who serviced Japanese soldiers during World War II,” most of them seemed confused. I had no intention of adding that the Koreans maintain that the comfort women were abducted and forced to become prostitutes. The Americans were obviously puzzled, but I pretended not to notice.
On July 30, 2014 there was a ceremony commemorating the one-year anniversary of the installation of the statue. The only people who showed up were about a dozen Koreans. This was strong proof that Americans are not interested in the controversy. The stark reality is that the statue’s intended audience is Koreans.
Union City, New Jersey
Since we are on the subject of iniquity, I must mention Brian Stack, the mayor of Union City, New Jersey. His is a typical case, embodying the contradictions facing municipalities that are approached by lobbyists for the comfort-women monument campaign, and choose to cooperate with them.
On August 4, 2014 an unveiling ceremony for a new comfort-woman statue was held in Union City. Two former comfort women, Yi Ok-seon and Gang Il-chul, were present. Unlike Glendale, where there is a sizable Korean community, Union City has very few Korean residents. Nevertheless, the sixth comfort-women monument to be situated in the US was installed in that city on public land, bearing the inscription “In memory of thousands of women and girls from Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, the Netherlands, and Indonesia, who were forced into sexual slavery by the armed forces of Imperial Japan before and during World War II.”
The former comfort women who attended the unveiling are Gang Il-chul and Yi Ok-seon. Gang lived in China, where the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) enjoys one-party rule, for more than 50 years. She worked as a nurse for the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which claimed 45 million Chinese lives. Yi Ok-seon also lived in China until 1999, and she too worked for the PLA.
As employees of the PLA, the two women were part of an organization that slaughtered Chinese, Tibetans, and Uighurs. And now, all of a sudden, they are demanding redress
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from the Japanese government in connection with the comfort-women system of 70 years ago.
I am not aware of any other event that has revealed the hypocrisy that haunts the comfort-women monument campaign as much as this ceremony did. The organizers invited the media and local dignitaries. Attendees gathered around the monument, a butterfly sculpture mounted on a stone slab, as Stack delivered his speech, which was designed to appeal to listeners’ emotions: “It’s about human rights, it’s about education — educating our youth about what took place in the past, so we don’t make the same mistakes again.”
But just a few miles away from the spot where Mayor Stack was making demands on the Japanese government are public houses that were the scene of acts described as “among the most vile crimes I’ve seen in my time as U.S. Attorney” by (then) New Jersey Attorney General Chris Christie in 2005.
Judicial authorities conducting an investigation into human trafficking ascertained that a smuggling ring operating in two bars in Union City and another, smaller tavern in Guttenberg Township, was forcing underage women into prostitution.
The young women, aged 13 to 21, had been lured to Union City from the Honduras. They were smuggled into the US and forced to provide sexual services to bar customers from 12:00 noon until 2:00 a.m., seven days a week. One 21-year-old was impregnated by a customer, and gave birth in a bathtub; the infant died the next day.
Cities overrun by corruption are targets
In a court under State Attorney Christie’s jurisdiction, defendant Luisa Medrano (proprietor of the three bars) testified that she had paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to Union City Mayor Stack and Guttenberg Township Mayor David Delle Donna. In return, she asked authorities to overlook the forced prostitution of underage females at her places of business.
Only the mayor of Guttenberg Township received a judgment with a prison sentence attached. Medrano was sentenced to house arrest. Through Christie’s good offices, the investigation focusing on Stack was discontinued after he contributed the money he’d received from Medrano to a women’s shelter. Why did Christie absolve Medrano and Stack, her accomplice, of guilt in one of “the most vile crimes” he had ever seen?
Unlawful behavior like this is bound to incur the wrath of law-abiding citizens. Many of them (including former Union City Deputy Police Chief Joseph Blaettler, who once campaigned for Brian Stack) have filed suit against the mayor. Meanwhile, Christie’s reputation is at an all-time low. You can even find an organization called “NJ against Chris Christie” on Facebook.
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Other cities that have allowed the installation of comfort-woman statues are similar to Glendale and Union City. Perhaps city fathers are after Korean votes. But it’s also possible that by pretending to care about abuses of women’s rights that allegedly occurred nearly a century ago, they are attempting to draw attention away from their own misdeeds and corruption. And Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Communists are waiting for their chance to pounce on those misdeeds, that corruption.
American political situation
As I mentioned earlier, when the comfort-women controversy reared its head, and lawsuits were instituted, the US government and judiciary consistently sided with Japan. But when the Obama administration took office, Japan policy began veering in a slightly different direction. This change brought a rising shrillness in criticism not only in connection with the comfort-women controversy, but also other issues as well, such as pilgrimages to Yasukuni Shrine and whaling.
Japan wasn’t the only new target of this change in US policy: also pinpointed were other US allies like Thailand, the Philippines, and Israel. This prompted sarcastic remarks from the ASEAN4 nations like, “Please tell us exactly who your allies are.” Israel’s prime minister expressed concern about Obama’s conciliatory policy toward Palestine. The American people certainly do not support Obama’s policies, which don’t make it clear which nations are US allies, and which enemies. Senator Ted Cruz, who has been campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, said recently that the consequences of Obama’s foreign policy are “that our friends no longer trust us, and our enemies no longer fear us.”
Furthermore, in a speech delivered in April 2014 during an official visit to Korea, President Obama made an appeal to the Japanese government regarding the comfort women. He said that “they deserve to be heard; they deserve to be respected; and there should be an accurate and clear account of what happened.”5
In that speech President Obama stressed the importance of “accurate and clear” records, but he is not thinking about something as admirable as creating a truthful, accurate and fair record. He is asking Japan to accept the testimony of the former comfort women as an accurate, fair and absolute account of the past.
It is clear from President Park’s comments at the joint press conference that she favored, at least at the time, a rapprochement with North Korea. No Korean president has spoken out in favor of reunification to the extent Park has. But in 2015 her government began to
4 ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations; member states are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
5 Speech delivered on April 25, 2014. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/04/25/press-conference-president-obama-and-president-park-republic-korea.
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adopt a hardline attitude toward the military threat from the north. US-Korean joint maneuvers were thorough. At the end of the year Japan and Korea concluded an agreement that claimed to be an irreversible solution of the comfort-women controversy. Prime Minister Abe ranks the agreement as a necessity for regional security reasons. But while US and European media expressed their approval, the Chinese government was dissatisfied. The Chinese were scheming to cause estrangement between Japan and Korea over historical disputes, and then estrangement between Japan and the US, so the agreement was a huge disaster for them.
Obama is quite different from previous US presidents, to the extent that there are rumors circulating that he is a Communist. In fact, his grandparents and his mother were reportedly quite left-leaning.
Then we have Donald Trump, another Republican candidate for president in the 2016 election. His outlandish pronouncements have the media in a tizzy, but his Asia policy does not favor US allies there. He has gone so far as to say that he might remove US troops from Japan, depending on the situation. Of course, the US president has considerable power, but he cannot singlehandedly violate or discard treaties. The removal of US troops would require congressional approval. US intervention would also require the agreement of Congress and the American people. Given that the notion of one-nation pacifism (which means not getting enmeshed in other nations’ disputes) has become entrenched in the US, it makes sense for Prime Minister Abe to think that it is crucial to bolster relationships of military cooperation with nations vulnerable to the same threats, i.e., Korea, India, and the Philippines.
As the Obama administration treads the anti-Japanese pro-Chinese road, and Korea has opted for an extremely pro-Chinese pro-North Korean course, what diplomatic path should Japan pursue? Should it be, as some online sources hint, one that involves abrogating the alliance with the US, or breaking off diplomatic relations with South Korea? Should Japan withdraw from the United Nations? I am sure that Communist China would be delighted at any or all of those eventualities.
Japan must be prepared
Japan always remits its designated financial contribution on time, but Japan has almost no influence on UN positions or actions. The organization has condemned Japan with respect to comfort women for discrimination against women and infringement of women’s rights. But I am convinced that Japan has never violated human rights to an extent that would justify interference from the UN.
I met with a former UN official in Los Angeles who writes under the pseudonym Frank Morse. He offered the following advice.
Apparently, at one time the US was experiencing the same sort of problems with the UN. The US always paid its assessment on time. But it had no influence on the UN.
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Then the US stopped paying its assessment on time. The Americans decided to withhold payment until the US was given consideration in keeping with its national interests and its demands were accepted. Once it did that, the US was no longer ignored. This is how the UN functions. This is the devious foundation on which diplomacy and international politics are based.
The former UN official spoke softly. “One can always object to these practices. But that’s how the international community functions. If Japan wants to do something so much that it’s willing to completely change the way it’s been doing things, then … .”
I don’t agree with the extreme position that would have Japan suffer in silence when it is not given an opportunity to state a claim, and then when withdraw from the UN when its limit has been is reached. That wouldn’t accomplish anything. The limits of patience are reached when you don’t voice your opinions. Is Japan willing to change its way of doing things to protect its national interests?
What is the true objective of activists who insist on calling attention to problems or controversies, using the UN, or US Congress, or midsize American cities as their stage? We really need to find out why they are using these problems to fuel the flames of hatred. It can’t be simply that they want to dishonor Japan. There must be more to it than that.
As I mentioned earlier, the mission of the anti-Japanese campaigns waged by the Global Alliance is purportedly to heighten Japanese awareness of the history of the alliance between China and the US. Obviously the group wants to tell us that Japan is the enemy of both the US and China, and is attempting to turn American public opinion against Japan. And it seems that these forces have selected left-leaning American cities where corruption is rampant as their bases of activity.
The Obama administration, which wants to curtail military expenditures, was enthusiastic about the agreement signed by Japan and South Korea about the comfort women. There may be more attempts to install comfort-woman statues in other American cities, but they are unlikely to be welcomed by local governments. At least the controversy will no longer be considered a problem that needs resolution, and will not attract a great deal of public sympathy.
When the comfort-woman-statue fever has waned, we will need to take a long hard look at anti-Japanese activity in the US, and do our utmost to combat it.