James Hoagland’s latest column is titled, “Remove Germany, Japan from War Probation Status”. It contains more common sense than I’ve seen in one place in several years. To wit:

Germany and Japan have served six decades on global probation. It is time for their neighbors, their citizens and the international community to acknowledge the thorough transformation of the former Axis powers into fully democratic and morally responsible nations.

and…

Prime Minister Koizumi gave China an opening to rake up Japan’s militaristic past last week by visiting the Yasukuni war shrine…But China and other Asian nations are engaged in the pursuit of tactical advantage, not historical truth, in pretending they possess moral superiority over an unreconstructed Japan.

It is the unfinished transformation of China, not of Japan, that is the urgent moral and political question today in Asia. It is China’s military buildup — not Japan’s increased willingness to take on the burdens of global security — that is the destabilizing force today in Asia. Americans and Europeans should not be taken in by Beijing’s flimflammery on the Yasukuni visit.

and…

Japanese membership in the Security Council is a necessary first step toward serious reform of the world body.

The entire column (which also deals with Gunter Grass’s recent admission that he was part of the Waffen SS) is here.