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    Japan learns security from the masters

    Posted by Sean at 20:12, October 12th, 2004

    The Yomiuri reports that prefectural governments will be responsible for drawing up new local security procedures to deal with potential attacks, particularly by missile or terrorism. For its part, the federal government is revising its own outdated Cold War-era rulebook, with a choice of model that I find nothing short of thrilling:


    The government is following Israel’s example in compiling manuals stipulating these measures and distributing them to the public.



    Israel was hit by about 40 missiles from Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. At that time, Israeli authorities distributed manuals that included such measures as having people seal windows and avoid the outer walls when inside a house or building.



    It was reported that only two people were killed by the missile attacks as a result of such measures.



    The government believes that the public distribution of such manuals will be effective in fully informing people of evacuation and other safety measures, according to the sources.





    When the Japanese tendency toward decentralization hits the post-War Japanese tendency toward rigid procedure-worship, the results are often very poor. But there’s an equally strong tradition of initiative at the village level–you can still see it in the organization of parades on festival days, which a fascinating article I read long ago posited was the origin of the Japan, Inc. corporate structure–that at its best combines group loyalty with idiosyncratic local knowledge. The new security plans are still in process, but if they really do succeed in allowing the federal government to expose the nation to the wisdom of Israel’s experience while allowing local authorities to devise the actual protocols that work best for them…well, I’ll be happy as a pig in sh*t.


    Get it straight

    Posted by Sean at 19:49, October 12th, 2004

    CNN has an interview with John Howard posted. It’s pretty much a quickie, but if you follow Asia-Pacific diplomatic jockeying, it’s worth a skim. Howard doesn’t think his close ties to the Bush administration have made it more difficult for Australia to do business with China, Indonesia, and other hotspots in these parts. The article said something else that I’d pretty much expected, but something about it caught my eye nonetheless:


    The Howard government received domestic and international criticism for its steadfast support of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, including sending troops and equipment to the invasion of Iraq.



    But the issue did not play a major role in national elections held last Saturday, with Australians convincingly renewing Howard’s mandate for a fourth consecutive term of government. (Full story)





    The linked article is from Monday, when I was busy with non-news life, so I hadn’t read it when it was posted. But given the context of the link, something jumps out very clearly when you read it:


    That caution clearly outweighed some of Howard’s less popular decisions, such as committing Australian troops to the invasion of Iraq.







    The Howard triumph may give some comfort to fellow “coalition of the willing” allies, George W. Bush and Britain’s Tony Blair, both facing imminent election — Bush on November 2 and Blair possibly in May next year.



    In Australia, Iraq has by no means been a key election issue — despite a major clash of policies on the issue.



    Howard has been a steadfast supporter of the U.S. action Iraq and committed 2,000 troops to the invasion.



    Latham had been opposed to Australia’s involvement in Iraq and had vowed to bring the remaining 900 troops base in Iraq home by the end of the year if he won government.



    But this election has not been fought on the Iraq issue, mainly because Australia’s commitment has been largely symbolic and no casualties have been recorded.





    I follow what’s going on in Australia pretty loosely, but I’d have no trouble believing that analysis–that is, that most voters were thinking about the economy and about the comparative experience of the two candidates rather than the WOT when voting. I’m moved to wonder, though, just how many times in an 800-word article it’s necessary to mention that Howard’s reelection MUST NOT be viewed as signaling approval for his WOT policies before we’re supposed to have gotten the point. Odd that the reporters don’t cite any polls about the Australian electorate’s position on Iraq, since I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some.


    What do I have to do / To get the message through?

    Posted by Sean at 16:27, October 9th, 2004

    I watched the debate with Atsushi yesterday (our time) while making lasagnes for today’s dinner party. That means I was able to stay calm because (1) the presence of my beloved has a mellowing effect and (2) I had a ready excuse to keep opening the sherry bottle. As I expected, I’m not persuaded that I should change my mind about voting for Bush.



    May I just say, though, to everyone who talks as if any of the debates so far has had a “clear winner”: Give it a rest. Unless one of the candidates actually freaks out and starts waving a switchblade on-stage, that sort of conclusion is absolute nonsense. If you need the psychological boost of thinking your man is on a tear, okay. If you need the different psychological boost of feeling secure in your convictions but acknowledging that the opposition is capable of scoring points, that’s also okay.



    But jeez. The same arch of eyebrow and rasp of voice can be interpreted as signaling “defensiveness” or “battle weariness overridden by rock-solid conviction,” depending on who you are and whether your stomach’s acting up. And the “coherence” of someone’s content, while it sounds like a more objective yardstick, really isn’t when the audience represents so many levels of familiarity with the party platforms. What does matter mightily is which clips the media will choose to play over and over on the news and yak shows between now and the election, and whether commentators will pre-label them examples of “defensiveness,” “combativeness,” or “coherence” for the viewers, but you can’t tell that from the original broadcasts themselves.



    People keep complaining that the debates are superficial–and they are–but to my mind, that’s only approaching the problem from one end. The candidates have truckloads of opportunities to deliver long, detailed explications of their policy proposals and to pick over those of the opposition. The debates involve narrating them, with posturing and gesturing and a Phil Donahue audience.



    One hesitates to say anything that might be construed, in the current cultural climate, as calling for more public vulgarity, but the problem with the existing debate format is that it’s too genteel. As Camille Paglia said about Bill Clinton’s first campaign, there are two television tests a US President has to pass to be effective: prepared ceremonial speeches, and off-the-cuff remarks to left-field questions from reporters. The debates are nearly useless because they’re carefully pitched to land in the prim nowheresville between the two.



    We’ve had plenty of chances to see and read planned statements of position. But I think the television media could have done a real service by showing viewers a compilation of each candidate’s responses to spontaneous questions, as they’ve developed over the last few months. After all, you can love or hate what television has done to politics, but you can’t deny it. Being the President means being on the world stage, on which it’s often necessary to be implacable and consistent and flexible and sympathetic, at turns or at the same time. Presenting oneself well for television is not more important than having effective measures for national security, or not overspending, or appealing to the best in the citizenry in the course of uniting it. But it matters a great deal, in a way that the debates are travestying just as surely as they’re travestying deep discussions of the issues. It affects whether Americans feel they can rally behind their leader, and it affects whether other countries we expect to be on our side in the WOT believe they’re not being cynically used.



    And before anyone brings this up: No, I wouldn’t trust the media to do an unbiased job of culling representative clips and soundbites to give the most accurate possible portrait of each candidate. If television journalists were only able to recognize that they’re as firmly a part of pop culture as Survivor, Madonna videos, and the Discovery Channel, they might learn to use the strengths of their own medium in ways that are genuinely illuminating, instead of pretending it is what it isn’t. But imagining it actually happening makes me giggle uncontrollably, and I haven’t had a sip of sherry for almost 24 hours.



    *******



    Whether John Howard’s successful bid for a fourth term as the Australian Prime Minister was a referendum on the economy or the war is sure to be nattered about over the next week (though if the American media could give short shrift to the Bali bombing a few years ago, it’s hard to imagine that this won’t be overshadowed as well, what with the debates and the elections in Afghanistan). One thing that can be said, though: Australians may not be enthusiastic about the WOT, but they’re clearly not against it sufficiently to put Howard out of office. Good on them.



    *******



    Also not likely to get much play in America: The fifth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) was just held in Hanoi. As you might imagine when the states of the EU, China, and Singapore (among others) are involved, the meeting seemed to involve a lot of pledging to “take proactive steps” and “promote dialogue” about such issues as terrorism, WMDs, and the role of the UN in international disputes. Anyway, I only mention it because the Asian leaders seem to have been pleasantly surprised at the turnout from the Europeans. Interesting that America’s not the only power seen as not understanding the significance of Asia.


    Forces of nature

    Posted by Sean at 11:06, October 8th, 2004

    Hmmm…. Getting kind of boring around here. What would liven things up some?



    I know: Another typhoon! This one is set to land in Shizuoka Prefecture and to pass right over Tokyo. My luckless boyfriend, who’s lived in western Kyushu through the hammering it’s gotten this summer, has followed today’s entrant–the strongest typhoon to hit eastern Japan in over ten years, apparently–here for the three-day weekend. Luckily, the leading edge of the storm didn’t keep his plane from being able to land, though a few dozen other domestic flights have already been canceled. He just cellphone-mailed that he’s on the ground and on his way here.



    Also luckily, we shouldn’t need to grab more than maybe a liter of milk from 7-Eleven, since I made sure everything was stocked for his arrival anyway, including another Columbo DVD. I’ve already watched it, it is true, but I’ll gladly sit through at least one of the episodes again: Vera Miles and Vincent Price play the owners of rival cosmetics companies seeking the formula for a wrinkle-erasing miracle cream. Does it get gayer than that? Oh, and the murder from which the plot is generated involves vengeful Miles impulsively hitting a young Martin Sheen on the head with a microscope, her eyes wide and lip curled in that wonderful fury TV murderers always get right before they bash someone’s skull in. I know it’s anachronistic, since the show was recorded in 1971, but I see it as vicarious revenge for all of us who feel insulted by the hamhanded propaganda orgy that is The West Wing.



    Anyway, in the last few days, it’s become apparent that there are, in fact, at least a few people reading here from within Japan, so stay safe, everyone.



    Added at 11:50: Looks like I jumped the gun. I was looking at the Nikkei site and figured that if the 9:00 a.m. post said the storm was about to make landfall, it probably had by two hours later. It hasn’t.


    Mitsubishi Fuso can’t catch a break

    Posted by Sean at 01:00, October 7th, 2004

    You know, one begins to think that maybe it would be better for everyone if the engineers at Mitsubishi Fuso shifted to careers that didn’t, uh, require so much engineering:


    A seat on a bus made by troubled Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corp. collapsed after the driver abruptly hit the brakes, leaving a woman passenger with minor injuries, officials said.



    Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corp., which has been plagued by a clutch defection cover-up scandal, had earlier informed the government about its intended recall of the same type of buses to repair seat parts.





    That the company was aware of the problem and had taken the novel step of planning a recall before its top managers were threatened with arrest helps, I suppose. And at least this time, it isn’t the sort of problem that could directly cause a crash. (The Asahi article contains this passage: “Although Kawasoe denied any knowledge of the defects, prosecutors said otherwise in their opening statement. They said that soon after Kawasoe became MMC president, the vice president in charge of the problem advised him to end the practice of ordering secret repairs without recalling vehicles with defective parts.” I know it’s just a lack of felicity in English translation, but it suggests a Lewis Carroll-ish corporate structure in which there’s a Vice-President for Defective Products. Unfortunately, that seems to be ghoulishly close to the truth in this case.)


    Your tax yen at work

    Posted by Sean at 12:03, October 6th, 2004

    The LDP’s coalition partner, the New Komei Party, has released a position paper that gingerly revises its former position on the export of weapons. Its new approach may make it easier to relax restrictions on technology transfers to the US.



    *******



    Koizumi has been somewhat more assertive in ensuring that other proposals by his administration are realized. Or not–the article veers back and forth a lot. It also gives a good indication of the headache-inducing nature of factional politics in the Diet, which you need several flow charts, an almanac, a sextant, and perhaps a rabbit’s foot to navigate through. Suffice it to say that–duh!–the Koizumi administration is hoping that it’s posted enough higher-ups who support its Japan Post privatization plan that there will be pressure on those who don’t to fall in line.



    *******



    Finally, two consecutively-posted stories over at the English Yomiuri sum up the state of government spending with (surely unintentional?) dark comedy: Most federal ministries are bankrupt by normal accounting standards, but they are eager to maintain the amount they dole out in subsidies. (Note: The River Bureau is part of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport.)



    The proposal to cut subsidies is part of the Koizumi administration’s proposals for “three-pronged reform” (which is usually rendered “trinity reform,” but that kind of weirds me out). The idea is to cut federal subsidies to local governments, to lower the amount of money passing through the allocation tax system (whereby federal tax money makes a U-turn and is sent back in specified amounts to local governments), and to make up for the decreased amount of money flowing from federal to local government by localizing more tax collection. Take a wild guess why federal ministries are lukewarm on that idea.



    地震

    Posted by Sean at 23:43, October 5th, 2004

    Flamin’ Norah! That one was big somewhere. I guess we’ll know where in a few. Let’s hope it was offshore….



    Added on 7 October: It was centered in Ibaraki Prefecture, 5 on the Japanese scale.


    In the end you will submit / It’s got to hurt you a little bit

    Posted by Sean at 11:26, October 4th, 2004

    I wasn’t going to say anything about Andrew Sullivan’s recent piece on political outing, but Dale Carpenter has also gotten into the act, and there’s something disturbing about both their positions. Here’s Carpenter on when outing is justifiable:


    Hypocrisy by an officeholder meets this test, as when a closeted politician opposes gay equality for homophobic reasons. An example would be a legislator who declares marriage must be


    Where have all the cowboys gone?

    Posted by Sean at 17:22, October 3rd, 2004

    Oh, my. This disturbs me from beginning to end.


    North Korea discovers Minesweeper

    Posted by Sean at 15:43, October 3rd, 2004

    The DPRK’s People’s Army* has a unit of hackers that is operating at a first-world level, says South Korea’s Department of Defense:


    こうした専門要員は人民武力省(国防省)の指揮自動化局や偵察局に配属され、ハッカー部隊として韓国や米国、日本などの軍事情報収集、軍の指揮・通信網を混乱させるなどのサイバー戦を担当しているとした。



    These specialized personnel are assigned to the Command/Mobilization and Reconnaissance Agencies of the Ministry of the Korean People’s Army (the DPRK’s department of defense) and are believed to be in charge of cyberwar strikes such as disrupting South Korean, US, and Japanese intelligence gathering and armed forces command and communications networks.





    You can’t really be shocked by this, but I think it does underscore that North Korea (despite its ineptitude in many areas) is not just sitting there counting its long-range missiles while we natter about “getting back to the negotiating table.” Yet another reason to be thankful that we have resilience and dynamism on our side.

    * Is that what they call it in English? I’ll look later…uh, yeah, it is. Well, it’s the Korean People’s Army, to remind us all that those heirs to the Shilla in the South are not real Koreans but stooges who have sold out to the West. Don’t bother bringing up that if we extended the metaphor, we might remember that the Shilla cooperated with the Chinese to take down the northern Koguryô kingdom, and the side that’s allied with China now is…. It’s not the Tang Dynasty anymore.
    BTW, have you seen the official DPRK website? Not hours of amusement, but certainly minutes. I notice there’s no link to a Korean Friendship Association in Japan, too.