The continued efforts by some groups to downplay the facts surrounding Japan's treatment of the "comfort women" who were forced into prostitution during WWII have reached a new low with the filing of a lawsuit against Glendale, California that attempts to force the city to remove a monument recognizing the suffering for the "comfort women."

Legally, this lawsuit is completely without merit.

The suit was brought by Japanese-American residents of Glendale and GAHT-US, a corporation that appears to have been created only shortly before the filing of the lawsuit, according to California business records.

The primary claim of the lawsuit against Glendale is that the city has violated the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution via the monument's impact on Japanese-American relations. 

While there are other points that were raised in the lawsuit, the main argument has ignited a firestorm of condemnation of the lawsuit and the groups supporting it on the part of free speech advocates.  

It is true that in some cases the Supremacy Clause has been used to prevent local jurisdictions from taking action that may materially impact the US government's conduct of foreign policy.

Some examples include local attempts to control illegal immigration or to engage in targeted boycotts of selected foreign nations.

However, Glendale's monument does not represent such a violation. The monument merely seeks to build awareness of one of imperial Japan's many crimes before and during WWII.

As influential First Amendment blog Popehat points out, the arguments used by GAHT-US and the other plaintiffs could easily apply to any type of monument, ranging from Holocaust memorials to remembrances of the Armenian Genocide. 

Essentially, what the lawsuit attempts to do is establish that outside parties will always be able to effectively veto the desires of a local jurisdiction. 

Such a view is wildly inconsistent with the robust protections granted individual and collective speech under US law, and is bound to be slapped down in court.

But Glendale will have to spend time, money and effort to defend against this harassing lawsuit. 

In fact, that may be the true purpose of the lawsuit, to discourage other cities from following in Glendale's footsteps by threatening them with similar frivolous lawsuits.

For that reason, the court should not only find for the city, but should also demand that the plaintiffs compensate Glendale for all associated legal costs.

However, this lawsuit may do far more harm to the cause of the Japanese right wing than simply remaining silent would have done.

It calls further attention to the existence of a movement in Japan that not only desires to rewrite the history of the war, but is also intolerant of any opinion to the contrary.

This lawsuit will bring far more public attention to the undoubted wartime atrocities of Japan.

The documentation of the suffering of the comfort women is beyond serious dispute. 

Everyone who looks will find abundant documentation, including many firsthand accounts, of the suffering of the "comfort women" and will learn to doubt other right-wing claims. 

This may be especially beneficial in neutralizing attempts to downplay other wartime Japanese atrocities in China, such as the Nanjing Massacre in 1937. The claim that the monument may cause the plaintiffs emotional harm is a claim that has a simple resolution. By forthrightly exploring Japan's wartime actions and following the German government's path of refusing to tolerate right-wing revisionism, the plaintiffs can help their nation come to terms with its actions, rather than continuing in a doomed attempt to justify unjustifiable crimes.

The author is a freelance writer based in Corona, California. charlesgray109@gmail.com