Shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the United States into World War II, an American agency known as the China Information Service issued a dire warning that Japan had a “sensational plot” to “assume overlordship of Moslem nations.” Then in 1943, in the midst of the world war, America's Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA, issued a secret report on this element of the Japanese war strategy. Entitled "Japanese infiltration among the Muslims throughout the world," the report summarizes the program in these terms:
"The Muslim world comprises more than 320,000,000 adherents who cover a huge area of enormous strategic and industrial importance. The goodwill of these people promises incalculable political advantages. Japan is in an unequaled position to capture that goodwill. Thus far Japan has met with signal success in the pursuance of this program. She has expended on it many years of patient labor and has assigned to it some of her ablest political and military leaders. Her cunning and opportunism, her flexible approach and unscrupulous manipulation of the facts have borne fruit in many lands."
The Japanese Jihad is an account of the history of this little known aspect of the Japanese war effort, foreshadowing conflict continuing to the present day.
"The Muslim world comprises more than 320,000,000 adherents who cover a huge area of enormous strategic and industrial importance. The goodwill of these people promises incalculable political advantages. Japan is in an unequaled position to capture that goodwill. Thus far Japan has met with signal success in the pursuance of this program. She has expended on it many years of patient labor and has assigned to it some of her ablest political and military leaders. Her cunning and opportunism, her flexible approach and unscrupulous manipulation of the facts have borne fruit in many lands."
The Japanese Jihad is an account of the history of this little known aspect of the Japanese war effort, foreshadowing conflict continuing to the present day.
