Posted on 10/24/2006 7:34:31 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The first stop on Condoleezza Rice's post-detonation, nuclear reassurance tour was Tokyo. There she dutifully unfurled the American nuclear umbrella, pledging in person that the United States would meet any North Korean attack on Japan with massive American retaliation, nuclear if necessary.
An important message, to be sure, for the short run, lest Kim Jong Il imbibe a little too much cognac and be teased by one of his "pleasure squad" lovelies into launching a missile or two into Japan.
But Rice's declaration had another and obvious longer-run intent: to quell any thought Japan might have of going nuclear to counter and deter North Korea's bomb.
The Japanese understood this purpose well. Thus, at a joint news conference with Rice, Foreign Minister Taro Aso offered the boilerplate denial of even thinking of going nuclear: "The government of Japan has no position at all to consider going nuclear."
The impeccably polite Japanese were not about to contradict the secretary of state in her presence. Nonetheless, the very same Aso had earlier the very same day told a parliamentary committee that Japan should begin debating the issue: "The reality is that it is only Japan that has not discussed possessing nuclear weapons, and all other countries have been discussing it."
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
I wouldn't be surprised if Japan could build a nuke in a matter of weeks if they choose to do so.
c'mon,,,,, how long???
nobody knows electronics llike sony
just repurpose a playstation......
and thats a 24 hr job
I still say; all that has to happen is for W to call the Chicoms up and tell them that unless they get their "Dog" NK back on the porch; not one container of their junk will be offloaded in Long Beach...or anywhere else for that matter. And just to make NK honest, blockade the Sea of Japan.
How do you say embargo in Chinese?
Problem is, you'd then be saying "recession" in English. We are much too dependent on the Chinese. Just a sample:
http://www.alibaba.com
A good American POTUS and a forward thinking Congress should have no concern about Japan taking its turn as a military strong, democratic and independent ally of the U.S., in the manner like Britain has been for many years.
It is time that other Asian countries admit and acknowledge that Japan today is not the Japan of the 19030s and 1940s, and quit using the former Japan to oppose the great, peaceful, prosperous, generous, democratic Japan of today.
I also think the Japanese should quit apologizing for their leaders who pray at the war memorials for their fallen soldiers, even though 14 "war criminals" are buried in the same place.
As misguided as Japan's military leaders were in that era, the vast majority of Japanese troops served as honorably, in their own individual right, as did the vast majority of the men from all the other WWII countries. I don't know how many TV programs I have watched where former WWII American soldiers met in recent years with former Japanese and German soldiers, with whom they shared opposite sides in some particular battles.
If our men who fought and lost their buddies can move on, its time for the civilian people of today to move on as well; particular the civilian people in Asia, who seem to have current leaders that cannot quit using WWII Japan as an excuse to produce unfounded fears about Japan today.
Bump your post. A nuke'em Japan is to our advantage.
I am not in favor of Japan developing nukes and don't see how it would change the equation regarding DPRK. The US would use our nuclear weapons in response to any nuclear attack by DPRK, so Japan having nukes would not create an additional deterrent. The world does not need any more nuclear powers. It already has too many.
Even President Hillary?
I wonder if it would be possible to nullify those bonds.
I'm not sure if she would, but I also doubt she will get elected. I can see why Japan would want them, but I think it is in our best interest to prevent a nuclear Japan.
True!
A nuclear Japan could be a deterrent to a Chinese move on Taiwan and would provide stability to the region. As has been pointed out, there are a lot of negatives for the US if we take sanctions against China. The Chinese know that but they also know that Japan would see any Chinese expansion as a mortal threat and the prospect of a nuclear Japan would give them pause.
Asia should not be in a position where they have to depend on the US as a permanent defender. There is no way to know who will be in the White House in 2008 or after. If we are less of a factor in the equation, there will be a lot less incentive for Asian countries to meddle surreptitiously in our elections as has happened in in the '90s.
The imperial Japanese were every bit as bad as the Nazis.
But could it be done indirectly? Say we get into a world-war type situation. Wouldn't we and our allies be cutting off funds transfers to China?
I was shocked at how quickly Japan said they wouldn't pursue nukes (or at least what the media reported). VERY disturbing. I expect weak (political) behavior like that from South "Sunshine Policy" Korea, not Japan. NK shot a missile over Japan in 1998, IIRC. 1945 was a long time ago. China etc just use Japanese wartime past to scapegoat a now peaceful neighbor. Japan was atrocious 1931-1945. They aren't anymore.
If the Japanese Parliament authorized the production of nuclear weapons Monday morning, Japan would have them the following Friday.
The "Hello Kitty" version would be available the very next week.
Here's a little known fact for you. After the US, Japan has the largest stockpile of plutonium on the planet.
L
Popular Japanese and German pornography is abnormally sadistic and brutal. A window into a county's character is partially revealed in what they fantasize about doing to people. Neither Germany nor Japan is ready to have unsupervised nuclear superpower status.
Let's keep their engineers building cars.
Time for Japan to put its plutonium reserve to good use...
I don't see it that way. Right now the free world is like America is the father-protector and the rest of the world are our children. Better would be if our children grew up and protected themselves.
I would feel much more secure if there were some more nuclear powers among the free nations. If something goes wrong with the United States it would be nice to have a place to run to.
To be a superpower means having the ability to take control over other countries' decisions and not allowing other countries to make decisions for us.
Like I mentioned before, they have ways of influencing our own elections. Way too much cash is being funneled into our political parties from friends like Japan and Taiwan and not-so-friendly like Saudi Arabia. I don't like that. One way to stop it is to distribute that power to our allies.
Do we fear China that much that we are willing to barter away our influence and power to second-rate countries like Japan?
We won't be losing anything. We will be gaining a more powerful military ally.
That's getting less sure every day as Europe hurtles at breakneck speed towards Islamic subjugation.
One thing about war, though, is that uncertainty is the bane of military planning. A nuclear armed Japan would make it even more complicated for NK and China to plan any mischief.
The Japanese used a military grade rocket to fly to an asteroid and land on it. The probe is currently in the process of returning to Earth. While not a total success they now have the technology to direct an asteroid to hit Earth. To think this attempt was all in the name of science would be looking the other way. They also have been testing a cutting edge scramjet to deliver supersonic payloads that can "deliver donor organs" quickly to hospitals world-wide. Yeah, right.
(1)How can their be "thousands" of war criminals, when there were not thousands of convictions of Japanese for war crimes.
(2)In as much as those that were convicted by allied trials of war crimes are buried in the same war memorial cemetary as the thousands of common Japanese soldiers, to not visit that cemetary is to not honor the bulk of those soldiers as well, which Japanese leaders have every right to honor.
(3)Every nation honors their men who died in war, even when there is general agreement to not honor the leaders who led them in the war. The common soldier is accepted as honoring the common national sentiment, in any nation, not because the common soldier knew or understood the truth behind any propagand they were led to believe and not because the common soldier agreed to any megalomania of the war leaders.
The Japanese leaders visit the shrine of the men of their country who died because those men thought (rightly or wrongly), for the most part, they were dying for their country, not because they agree with the militaristic sentiments of the people who took those men into war. It is the honorable sentiments of the common soldier that all national leaders of all nations pay tribute to, in honoring their war dead. There is nothing that any nation's leaders should apologize for in doing so.
What has been ignored in all the Asian publicity about the leaders who visit the Japanese war shrine is that there is no indication that the visits have ever included specific visits or prayers at the specific graves of any of the war criminals and the visits to the shrine have not been preceeded, accompanied or followed by the visiting Japanese leaders defending or issuing statments in support of the aims and actions of any of the war criminals.
Could Japanese text books be more bold in being more accurate about some of the worst actions of its WWII era military leaders; particularly as applies to the treatmnent of civilians in the lands they occuppied? No doubt.
That said, I don't think the success or failure in that area should bear on their leaders honoring their war dead. Every nation does.
To be fair you'd have to let Germany have the H-bomb as well. I can't believe how receptive people are to this foolish idea. Will Japan and Germany be our allies 50 years from now? They were busy killing us with abandon just 60 years ago.
So, you think the US would give up Honolulu or even Seattle, to avenge Osaka? We might, but I doubt the Japanese like the idea of counting on that.
Do you have a source for that statistic?
Would the US stop working with the World Food Program and end all attempts to revive the starving in North Korea? Kim Jung Il wouldn't flinch. The situation is very complicated.
I wouldn't be real surprised to find out that they've already designed and tested a bomb, without the plutonium of course.
"We dump 200 Billion in US Bonds chop-chop. Your stock market crash. On-demand economy grinds to halt."
Chinese Economy grinds to halt, people riot, using cell-phones and fax machines to gather as China runs out of money to buy oil and heating fuels like coal, and foodstuffs.....
A symbiotic relationship breeds mutual need...
Probably more likely than an Islamic France, which already has nukes, and systems to deliver them. Force de frappe they call it. It has the third largest inventory of nukes, after the US and Russia.
But they have pretty good fighter aircraft, some indiginous, some imported designs. Plenty of range to get give Little Kim a few Mushrooms.
The Japs don't need nukes. Just post one or two of our Ohio Class Trident Subs in the sea of Japan and that should take care of N. Korea (China too if necessary).
Only if there's a World Cour.
Yes, Charlie Kraut's good, but he misspelled "rovries".
And he doesn't understand the functionality of North Korean rovries in keeping Chia Head from becoming ronery.
The Japanese don't have to make that decision, or even a decision to bulk up the JSDF to old Imperial Navy/Army dimensions and missions, for several years.
Unless Chia Head develops a significant armory (assuming we don't take it away from him), or unless it becomes obvious that Chia Head is part of a Chinese "borrowed knife" strategy (like all that Chinese nuclear technology that went to Pakistan and the infamous Dr. Khan, the one-man proliferation shop), the Japanese won't face any pressure to remilitarize or embrace nuclear weapons or propulsion technology.
Actually, even if they remilitarized, a new Imperial Navy oriented toward defending across the Sea of Japan against a threat from the west would have a much different mission and force structure from a navy oriented, as the old Imperial Navy was, toward the U.S. Pacific Fleet and the European possessions and colonial forces to the south.
Bump for later.
If they decide not to be our allies there isn't much to stop them. We have plenty of enemies with the bomb. Why not allow a few more of our friends to have it.
Legality? Whose legality?
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