Time usually heals historical wounds. This lesson has been lost on Japan's current leadership, and the dangers it poses for the future of the country are enormous.

Japan never went through the wrenching, effective process of facing up to the terrible crimes its armed forces committed before and during World War II the way Germany did. For more than half a century, Japanese leaders generally kept a low profile in their public statements and carefully sought to avoid offending China, the Republic of Korea and other Asian countries that had been occupied or ravaged by Japanese forces during and before WWII.

Yet now, more than 75 years after the Imperial Japanese Army slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians in its drive to Nanjing, we find the current government and major institutions of Japan seeking to deny and suppress the raw, unbending facts of history.