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Editor says, What if Barack Obama's father had survived his 1982 car crash in Nairobi? We explore an even more stellar career, examining the importance of fatherhood in our development.
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In 2015, on this day the UN Secretary General Barack Hussein Obama II arrived at the United States deep-water naval base at Pearl Harbour. The former Kenyan President would have absolutely no time to reflect on the personal significance of this odd home-coming, rather he had to focus all his attention on an international showdown with the forty-fourth US President, Hillary Rodham Clinton.The Barack Obama Story, Part 3 - Homecoming Showdown
The crisis had begun the day before Clinton's election in 2008 when General Toshio Tamogami (pictured) lost his job as chief of staff for Japan's Air Self-Defense Force after saying in an essay entitled True Perspective of Modern and Contemporary History that "it is certainly a false accusation to say that our country was an aggressor nation [in World War Two]".
The state-run China Daily commented that "The denial of the aggression history by Toshio Tamogami comes in as an element of disharmony, Yet, as long as the Japanese government has a right attitude to this question, the smooth development of ties between the two neighbors will not be derailed by such discordant notes".
However since his election as Prime Minister of Japan during the summer, Tamogami now was the head of government in Tokyo.
Clinton had spent much of her Presidency building good relations with China and was determined to bring Tamogami and Japan's recently rediscovered belligerence to heel.
Yet in Washington, neoconservatives were eyeing the November 2016 election with glee. Retired General David Petraeus had formed a Presidential Committee. Perhaps Tamogami was the strong man that America needed in the region, combatting both the inexorable rise of China, and also the war on terror with the Islamic forces in Indonesia. Because the hanging of Saddam Hussein had taught the neocons a big lesson about the geopolitical value of such regional strong men. America had been forced to watch the great nation of Iran fill the power vacuum created by his departure ...
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© Today in Alternate History, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Obama Source: CNN Labels: Barack Obama, Kenya, America, Hillary Clinton, Presidency. Editor says, The Tamogami controversy was real, reported in CNN.com Asia on November 3rd 2008 - Japan fires military chief over WWII denial.
Wikipedia reports ~ Tamogami was dismissed due to an essay he published on October 31, 2008, arguing that Japan was not an aggressor during World War II and rather was drawn into the war by Chiang Kai-shek and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had allegedly been manipulated by the Comintern. The essay also criticized the war crimes trials which followed the war and stated that Japan's occupation of parts of China, Taiwan, and Korea had benefited the populations of those countries.[1] Following this publication, Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada removed Tamogami from the post and ordered him to retire, since this viewpoint contradicted the government position and was likely to anger Japan's regional neighbors.
We've used this controversy as a lever to explore an America without Obama, one that is both different, and also, very similiar in outlook.
~ Talk about from bad to worse! Are Obama and Clinton again not too fond of each other in this reality? That the neoconservatives would look to Tamogami as their best hope for the region wouldn't well for bi-partisan relations with the Dems and Clinton. Are there plans to continue this?
~ It's only barely inconceivable to think of Japan denying its role as a monster in WWII, since they've spent so much time since then trying to reform their image. Some people (I'm looking at you, Republicans) just don't like remembering that they're the bad guys...
~ Very nice mix of current events along with the Obama vs Clinton business. More detail about how China would react, should Tamogami ever become Japanese PM, would have been nice. Maybe this can be looked at in the next installment ;)
~ An interesting, slightly-alternate take on things. I wonder how Obama would do as Pres't. of Kenya?
~ My take :
1. This assumes that the neocons will have any influence left by 2016.
2. Something serious events would have to happen to allow Toshio to take power after being dismissed; I don't see this happening in a culture like Japan's.
3. No offense, Robbie, but are you implying that Republicans turn a blind eye to Japanese war crimes?
~ I'd like to know more about how Tamogami would go from having been forced out of his government post to being elected Prime Minister. What political developments after 2008 would have brought that about?
~ The irony is Obama and Clinton will probably fight less in this timeline than they did in OTL. :D
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
