Elaine Meinel Supkis
After causing huge riots in China and lots of ill will in both Koreas, Japan shrugged off a revisionist history text last year. Now they are extending it to all their history books. Both China and now, South Korea are very angry about this and protesting. Meanwhile, the USA, still thinking we won WWII, try to negotiate a troop rearrangement with Japan only this collapses into a mess, too.
The South Korean government on Thursday sharply denounced Japan for "whitewashing, distorting and glorifying" its militarist past after Japanese officials ordered a series of controversial new changes to high school textbooks.The unusually harsh protest centered on the disclosure this week that Japan's Education Ministry requested new revisions to 55 textbooks in an effort to avoid student "misunderstandings." The revised books clearly label disputed territories-- including a small island chain under South Korean control but claimed by Japan -- as Japanese territory. Also, references to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre were changed to indicate the number of people killed by the Japanese may have been less than the 300,000 victims claimed by China.
Ever since Bush and Condi gave the right wing Japanese the green light to do as they please because we need endless Japanese IOUs to run our own country, they have exploited this to the hilt. When the governing party leaders worshipped war criminals at their official war shrine, the Asian victims of the Japanese attempt at enslaving them rose up in fury. The USA?
We snoozed. We clearly indicated to the Japanese that we don't care about symbols and we think it is OK for them to celebrate the guys we killed. After all, we LOST WWII.
Japan, the world's second largest economy which has a giant trade deficit with America and which is driving our last major industries into the ground, still wants us to foot the bill for our troops over there.
By Hans Greimel
Associated Press
TOKYO — The United States and Japan failed to reach agreement Friday on controversial U.S. troop realignment plans that have gotten bogged down over the cost of moving the forces and opposition from local communities in Japan.With both sides racing to nail down final details by the end of the month, negotiators from both countries plan to meet again next week in Washington, U.S. Embassy spokesman Michael Boyle said.
“There is still work to be done,” Boyle said after the two-day talks ended. “I think they are getting close on many of the issues.”But Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said “quite a difference” remains between the two sides, according to Kyodo News agency, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe urged negotiators to “work hard to reach a decision by the end of March.”
To be frank, the Japanese don't want to pay for these changes. They figure, they got us over an imperial barrel and they can make us pay for it via more IOUs. Why do we have any troops there in the first place? China?
Well, the fact that our troops are there and the Japanese are punching everyone in the eyes in Asia means they are using us as their shield so they don't have to cooperate with anyone----including us! This arrogant attitude is already stirring up great anger in Asia that is being redirected towards us. The Chinese, for example, would have been very happy to form alliances with us but that is fading very fast as we openly publish Pentagon papers deliniating China as our major enemy, we conduct war games with Japan next to Chinese and Korean shores, when the Japanese bonzai their war criminals, we let them.
Letting other nations run our foreign policy is a very bad idea. The game is to use as few troops as humanly possible while manipulating or making diplomatic and trade deals so one gets some gain and increases the security of one's home state, in our case, it is called the "USA" and seems many working in our government have forgotten this which is why, when Bush said the IRAQIS get to decide when we withdraw our troops, I waited in vain for the chorus of rage and jeers greeting such a traitorous notion from our supposed leader.
So it is here! We gain nothing by being Japan's cat's paw. Instead of triangulating all the powers in Asia and having them all come to us for legitimacy and concerted actions, we are passive and at the same time, aggressive. We take sides based on what Japan desires, not what is good for us, in this case. This is causing the potential for war as Japan aggressively demands sovereignty without negotiation which reminds me of Israel which is doing exactl the same thing.
By Paul Eckert
WASHINGTON, March 29 (Reuters) - The United States ordered its diplomats and contractors on Wednesday to cut off contacts with Palestinian ministries after a Hamas-led government was sworn in, the State Department said.
At the same time, U.S. President George W. Bush expressed support for the Palestinian people but repeated his position no U.S. funds should go to the Hamas leadership they elected.
"I think that aid should go to suffering Palestinians, but nor should it go to a government, however, which has expressed its desire to destroy its neighbor," Bush said during a question-and-answer session after he delivered a speech on Iraq.
The Jewish lobby and Israel are demanding the USA take only one side here yet again. In this case, we not only have a trade deficit with Israel, we bankroll their government, to boot. Not satisfied with that, they got our government to do this bizarre action so they can unilaterally seize much of the West Bank illegally.
As the UN censors Iran, Israel gets away with murder yet again. Because we can't triangulate with various parties, not only is there no peace there, there is no hope of peace and our suppression and oppression of the Palestinian native population is making us very unpopular in much of the world and it all serves absolutely no good purpose for the USA, indeed, it has increased our domestic dangers and this is only going to get worse and worse.
Using the miltitary to prop up our lopsided diplomatic initiatives means bankruptcy as this is the most destructive and dangerous way to resolve difficulties. Instead of balancing our needs, our future plans and our collective desire for stability, this method does the opposite. Every day, many people plot and plan for our downfall. Billions of people will cheer our destruction. This is plain pure stupidity, creating this sort of hostility and is doubly so when doing it to help foreign powers who don't care if we all die or go into poverty forever.
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