Iran Disses Millard

Now I’m really pissed. Even the Iranians are dissing Millard Fillmore.

MEMRI TV has a clip aired on Iranian TV that highlighted the fact that murderous thugs have served as President of the United States throughout our country’s history. Here is the transcript:

Masters of the White House - Presidents of the United States of America

Andrew Jackson 1829-1837, AKA "The Slaughterer of Indians " – Annihilation of hundreds of Indian tribes.

Pierce Franklin [sic] 1853-1857 – Threatening the Japanese empire with the American fleet.

Abraham Lincoln 1861-1865 – The American Civil War. Thousands of dead and wounded.

Woodrow Wilson 1913-1921 – World War I. Thousands of dead and wounded.

Harry Truman 1945-1953 – The 1945 destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by means of two nuclear bombs.

Dwight Eisenhower 1953-1961 – The American intervention in Lebanon on July 15, 1958.

Lyndon Johnson 1963-1969 – The beginning of the air bombardment of North Vietnam on February 9, 1956 [sic].

Richard Nixon 1969-1974 – Sending 540,000 American soldiers to invade Vietnam.

Jimmy Carter 1977-1981 – Sponsor of the Camp David Accords with the Zionist entity.

Ronald Reagan 1981-1989 – Supporting the 1982 Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear plant.

George Bush (Father) 1989-1993 - Leading the coalition of thirty countries that invaded Iraq in 1991.

Bill Clinton 1993-2001 – An intensive missile attack on Iraq in 1998.

George W. Bush 2001 till now – Thousands of dead and wounded in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, since 2001 to this day.

But, as Paul Mirengoff at Powerline points out, “it was Millard Fillmore who ordered the fleet to Japan, although the treaty that Commodore Perry's visit produced was signed early in the Pierce presidency.” Once again, Millard gets no respect. He can't even get himself listed as the war criminal that he was.

Even Millard’s own biographer is forced to admit that Fillmore and his thuggish henchmen were in fact blood-soaked murderous imperialist pigs who used the threat of overwhelming and devastating force to crush the peace-loving Japanese – and to serve notice to the entire world that the United States was prepared to destroy anyone who stood in its way:

With regard to Japan, . . . Millard Fillmore decided that the United States would be the prime mover. This, presumably, would give the United States an initial edge in negotiations for whatever trade and other advantages might be derived from Japan, and it would show the world that the young democracy was indeed a world power. . . .

First, however, a “pretext” needed to be found:

Beginning in December 1850, Fillmore’s Japan project slowly took shape. . . . The pretext for the expedition would be the return of some shipwrecked Japanese sailors who had been rescued by an American ship and brought to San Francisco.

Using this cover, the warmonger Fillmore instructed the ruthless Commodore Perry, behind a veneer of professions of friendship, to reduce Japan to vassalage under the heel of the United States:

[Perry’s] orders were difficult. He was to convince the Japanese that the incursion of Americans into Japan was inevitable and that they should abandon their position of hostility. He was to remember, however, that his mission was “necessarily of a pacific character,” and he should use force only in self-defense. The Japanese were “proud and vindictive,” and he was to be “courteous and conciliatory” but “firm and decided.” He was to “submit with patience and forbearance to acts of discourtesy . . . by a people unfamiliar with our ways,” but he was to allow no insults.

At the same time, with a wink and a nod, Fillmore made clear to his commander that he was expected to disregard his formal orders and reduce Japan to a smoking ruin if necessary. Perry was specifically assured that “’Any error of judgment’ on his part would be viewed with ‘indulgence’ by his superiors in Washington.”

With these duplicitous orders, Perry set sail, armed to the teeth and laden with gifts designed to corrupt and debauch that pacific island nation:

Perry set sail with four powerful ships carrying two years of provisions; gifts, including one hundred gallons of Kentucky bourbon whiskey, wines, two telegraph transmitters with several hundred feet of wire, a quarter-scale railroad with 370 feet of track, four volumes of Audubon’s Birds of America; and an excellent interpreter.

Eight months later, Perry delivered these gifts and a deceitful letter from Fillmore

assuring the Japanese emperor, his “Great and Good Friend,” that Perry and the United States wanted only “friendship, commerce, a supply of coal, and protection for our shipwrecked people.” In closing, Fillmore added, “May the Almighty have your imperial majesty in His great and holy keeping.”

Franklin Pierce may have gotten the credit for this bloodthirsty exercise, but it is Millard Fillmore who deserves to live in infamy:

The successful conclusion of Perry’s mission would occur during the following administration, but for better or worse, the combination of military threat and peaceful assurances that opened Japan was conceived, planned, organized, and staffed by Daniel Webster, Millard Fillmore, and Edward Everett.