The Japanese Cheney

by liberal japonicus

In Japan, the idiots are leading the government.

Japan had been secretly negotiating for the return of the prisoners for months after both men were abducted in Syria last year. Then, on January 17, Abe delivered a speech in Cairo. According to insiders at Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Abe went off-script from the speech MOFA had helped prepare, adding two sentences in particular that attracted a great deal of attention: "In order to help reduce the threat ISIL [the Islamic State] poses, we will offer our support to Turkey and Lebanon and also provide aid to the refugees and displaced persons of Iraq and Syria. To those nations battling with ISIL, we pledge a total of $200 million to aid in the development of human resources and infrastructure."

Two days later, the Islamic State released a video featuring Jihadi John standing between the two hostages, who were on their knees and wearing orange jumpsuits. He demanded a ransom from Japan — for, not coincidentally, $200 million. Negotiations broke down, and both men were murdered. Japan's former ambassador to Lebanon, Naoto Amaki, told the Nikkan Gendai newspaper that the speech was "an unprecedented mistake in diplomatic judgment."

The Abe administration has seemingly used the deaths of the men to further his longstanding military agenda, calling for not only the expanded use of Japan's Self Defense Forces to "protect Japanese lives," but to also justify the use of military force against Japan's economic enemies. It's unclear whether the legislation's expansive wording would technically prohibit Japan from attacking South Korea if Samsung were to rip off Sony technology.

and

A high-ranking MOFA official, who declined to give his name for fear of retaliation, likened the Cairo speech to "a diplomatic IED."

"The lines about 'In order to minimize the threat of ISIS' and 'Japan pledges $200 million in support to those countries battling ISIS' — none of that was in the original speech that our ministry had checked," the MOFA official told VICE News. "Even a first-year bureaucrat at MOFA would know those words could constitute a declaration of war to radicals like ISIL."

a diplomatic IED. ouch.

from https://news.vice.com/article/inside-japans-new-war-with-the-islamic-state

discuss

Comments

[Ugh]

Never underestimate the ability of politicians to be reckless in foreign affairs solely for domestic political gain.

Also, too, it works.

[Brett Bellmore]

I can see you've got some valid points against him, but a good deal of your case seems to be a complaint that he's not engaging in appeasement.

So, he refused to pay the Danegeld to his country's (Civilization's!) enemies, offered money instead to the foes of his enemies, and is enemies were offended. Had he paid the ransom, even assuming the hostages were freed, to what purpose would the ransom money have been put?

Sorry, there's no appeasing these people, a declaration of war against ISIL is redundant for any civilized nation, because they are at war already with all of us.

Some of us just don't want to admit it.

[sanbikinoraion]

I have to say that for once (first?) I'm on Brett's side. Japan has historically paid for the return of hostages, and the continuation of that policy would be funding IS at a time when it sounds like they desperately need money. Jordan's response of "burn our pilot to death and we will bomb the shit out of you" seems more apposite.

[liberal japonicus]

I can see you've got some valid points against him, but a good deal of your case seems to be a complaint that he's not engaging in appeasement.

Given that I wrote 16 words, I'd be interested to know what my points against him are and what precisely my case is. Unless you'd like to admit you are talking out of your ass again.

[Brett Bellmore]

Given that you described Japan as being led by idiots, and then cut to a description of Abe recognizing that the Islamic State was Japan's enemy, and proposing to aid that terrorist organization's foes, how could I not reasonably assume that you objected to that?

Say "What an idiot", and then cut to an account, expect people to think you regard the events in the account as idiotic. If you want me to pick up nuance, you've got to first deploy it to be picked up on.

[liberal japonicus]

Let's look at what I quoted

Japan had been secretly negotiating for the return of the prisoners for months after both men were abducted in Syria last year. Then, on January 17, Abe delivered a speech in Cairo. According to insiders at Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Abe went off-script from the speech MOFA had helped prepare,

If your government has been secretly negotiating and you undercut their efforts by rewriting a speech they prepared for you, that would suggests to me that you are an idiot. I didn't think that was so subtle, but clearly, that was a nuance too far for you.

Of course, you may not have bothered to read the article because I didn't make it a hot link, so in order to help you out,

https://news.vice.com/article/inside-japans-new-war-with-the-islamic-state

and if you read it, you might note points like this:

The Abe government has denied any responsibility for the outcome of the negotiations, saying "we took all the appropriate measures and did everything we could" — and reminding people that discussing the issue is equivalent to giving into terrorism. Seij Maehara, former president of the opposition party, pointed out that the government knew the Islamic State held Japanese hostages at the time of the Cairo speech "How did you assess the risk of announcing support to countries [battling the Islamic State] at such a time?" he asked Abe.

and

And so when Abe gave his speech, MOFA was caught off guard. In addition, the $200 million Abe promised had not yet been approved by the Diet. MOFA later clarified that Abe meant in the Cairo speech that he was going to allocate $200 million "with the approval of the Diet."

He didn't 'refuse' to do anything, he ignored what the MOFA was doing and, either through ignorance or belligerence, Abe took it upon himself to undercut the negotiations. I think that is pretty idiotic. If you think that is an intelligent way to run foreign policy, you are welcome to explain how that works.

[Brett Bellmore]

"If your government has been secretly negotiating and you undercut their efforts by rewriting a speech they prepared for you, that would suggests to me that you are an idiot."

It suggests to me that you're a non-idiot who disapproves of negotiating with terrorists.

[liberal japonicus]

Abe was elected as prime minister in 2012. First rule of holes, Brett.

[bobbyp]

"Sorry, there's no appeasing these people...

Some of us just don't want to admit it.

Who is "us" kimosabe?

[russell]

calling for not only the expanded use of Japan's Self Defense Forces to "protect Japanese lives," but to also justify the use of military force against Japan's economic enemies.

Yikes.

Is there any kind of popular support for this in Japan, LJ?

As far as Abe and his comments about ISIS, I see it as a "wait, you're both right" thing.

Abe FUBAR'd an ongoing diplomatic effort, costing the lives of the hostages.

And, it's not clear, to me at least, that there's any real meaning to the word "diplomacy" when ISIS is involved. "Give us $200M and you can have your people back" isn't really diplomacy between states, it's extortion.

On the specific issue of dealing with ISIS, I'm on the same page, or at least a similar page, as Brett and sanbikinoraion.

Are they a state? If so, hold them to the obligations of a state.

Are they not a state? Treat them like criminals, because they act like criminals.

But yes, Abe sounds like a knucklehead.

[Marty]

And there was Barney Frank on CNBC this morning saying we should allow Japan to remilitarize itself so we could reduce military spending. Good timing if nothing else.

[thompson]

If your government has been secretly negotiating and you undercut their efforts by rewriting a speech they prepared for you, that would suggests to me that you are an idiot.

I don't know much about Abe, he may very well be an idiot, but this seems a little harsh to me. Definitely not Cheney level, imo.

Our presidents go off script all the time. And vice presidents, and I'm sure various other political actors do as well.

You could argue that this off-script was especially atrocious, because he poked at a terrorist group that his government was secretly negotiating with.

I personally don't think to poorly of him offering infrastructure support and humanitarian aid to ISILs enemies and victims. Could that have ruined the negotiations? Maybe. But I'd expect negotiations with ISIL are fraught with 'IEDs', through no fault of anybody except ISIL.

Abe has to balance multiple concerns, the well being of the hostages but also the threat posed by funding ISIL. He may very well have made the choice he did because he felt that offer support was worth the risk to the negotiations.

And finally, perhaps Abe really is a madman riding a nuke in cowboy hat, I'm not as up on Japanese politics as I could be, but the article seems pretty hyperbolic. Frex:

It's unclear whether the legislation's expansive wording would technically prohibit Japan from attacking South Korea if Samsung were to rip off Sony technology.

Is there really any risk of that happening?

Not that the article being hyperbolic means Abe isn't an idiot, I just take it with a grain of salt.

My two cents, fully acknowledging that LJ's knowledge of Japanese politics is *vastly* superior to my own.

[Hartmut]

Marty, if this is true, Barney Frank is an idiot (at least on this matter) and in the same camp as Cheney/Bush. The Bushies put pressure on Japan to scrap the pacifist parts of the Japanese Constitution (a US love child lest we forget). Btw, they also complained that Germany had lost its pre-1945 martial spirit. In other words they wished to undo two of the greatest success stories of US policy in the 20th century (not that there are so many of those in the first place) for short term gain. Although I fully share Frank's goal to massively reduce US military spending, this would be among the most stupid things to do (of course someone could come up with the idea to finance ISIS and to recognize their caliphate on the condition that they start a war with Iran. I would not put that past some guys).

[hairshirthedonist]

I doubt anyone really has a problem with offering allies financial support in the fight against IS. It's probably more a matter of blurting it out for everyone to hear at an inopportune time.

We don't really know the nature of the secret negotiations and if the goal was simply to broker a release deal. Sometimes there's a side benefit - you learn things. So much for that.

[cleek]

re-militarizing Japan, renouncing vaccines, killing unions... it's like people who grow up in good times don't remember what created the bad times.

[Countme-In]

Teddy Roosevelt.

Seems like Abe whacked a vicious snake with a tiny verbal stick before checking to see how softly his negotiators were speaking and certainly WAY before reconstituting Japan's big military sticks.

As far as so cavalierly raising the specter of the Japanese taking military action against countries who threaten his country's economic interests, this is historically and still a resonant declaration, given the oil embargo placed upon Japan that followed, oh, I don't know, the Rape of Nanking, and preceded, say, just to mention a few milestones, Pearl Harbor, and the Bataan Death March.

When I say "resonate", I mean in East, Southeast Asia, and the sh*theads in North Korea, where history has a long tail, unlike we here in the West who kick the sh*t out of aggressors, wipe our hands, and say, O.K., we're good to go, this is settled forever, right?

There are areas of the Philippines, the hill tribal areas north of Manila, for example, who, to this day, keep their bolos (itaks) sharpened just in case the Japanese tourists taking their pictures have any ideas of reconstituting the death march.

I exaggerate for effect.

Let's recall, too, that there were calls from the usual suspects in this country for military action against North Korea for their less than helpful reviews of a Hollywood movie, though the ones suggesting the action had to interrupt their savaging of Hollywood mores and liberal bias to momentarily glare at the North Koreans.

Anyway, I do hope Abe (Honest Abe, to a fault) thought to check with Japanese consulates throughout the Mideast to learn the whereabouts of the rest of the Japanese nationals in the region before poking the snake.

[wj]

I would say tha there is a serious difference between appeasement and simply refraining from gratuitiously jabbing someone in the eye.

If Abe was opposed to negotiating with ISIL, all he has to do is tell the MOFA so. And, to be fair, tell the families so -- personally. After that, no problem announcing what his country will do to combat ISIL.

Likewise, if he simply wants to wait until the negotiations are done successfully or break down. Announce that, and then announce that there will be no negotiations in the future -- so that everybody considering going there knows what the rules are. It would, after all, be a significant change in past national policy and practice. And then you can announce whatever anti-ISIL policy you like.

But again, there is a difference between appeasement and deliberately kicking the bully in the shins. Which is what Abe did. It may have been a calculated ploy to get something he wants domestically (higher military spending and changes to the restraints on the Japanese military). But he still owes it to the families for the people who were killed to face them personally and tell them why he did what he did.

[Berial]

cleek, maybe it's the '3rd generation' thing writ large?

1st Generation, works hard on their 'great idea' and makes a mint! Makes the kids work at the business so they'll learn the business AND the value of work/a dollar.

2nd Generation, works pretty hard, but has time to cruise a bit because things are working nicely. May or may not expand the business, but doesn't make kids work because they resent some of the 'hard work' their parents made them do.

3rd Generation, doesn't know squat about anything except how to spend the family's money because that's all they've ever done. Typical outcome is lots of rehab and loss of control of the family business.

4th Generation starts with close to scratch.

The ULTRA rich avoid this cycle by making SO FREAKING MUCH money that the next 10 generations can't spend it all.

[wj]

it's like people who grow up in good times don't remember what created the bad times.

cleek, I think it's more than that. They don't really appreciate what the bad times were like. Just like they don't realize what conditions are like outside their little bubble today. It's the same reason that they wax wroth about "sweat shops" in developing countries -- they simply don't realize what subsistance agriculture is like, or that people there go to work in those factories because it's better than their alternatives. (And note that they aren't offering to use their own money to set up factories with the kinds of conditions that they would approve of. Possibly because such factories would lose them their money.)

[Countme-In]

I hate ISIL, but a question about extravagant claims regarding the amount of territory they control in Iraq and Syria.

Coalition forces had to travel, what, 150 miles inside Iraq before encountering any substantial military push back, and that was with a substantially more together Iraqi military than they have now, since we blew it up.

So, it's not so far-fetched is it that masked guys in jeeps with automatic weapons (still talking ISIL here, not Cliven Bundy's Oath Keepers) could command a large swath of desert without too much trouble?

I'm not minimizing the ISIL threat over there, but I mean, I'm pretty sure I could command a small armed expeditionary force from Denver and plant my flag on large areas of Nevada (or Utah) before Bundy and the BLM got their sh*t together and thought to unite temporarily to interdict me.

We leave today.

[Countme-In]

Who is more dangerous to U.S. citizens: ISIL or the burgeoning pro-smallpox Lobby?

[Nigel]

Japan had been secretly negotiating for the return of the prisoners for months...

Bear in mind that Jordan had, in good faith, been negotiating for the release of their pilot - who, it turns out, had already been hideously murdered.

Whatever miscalculation might be ascribed to Abe, I am deeply skeptical that it made any difference at all to the eventual outcome.

ISIS/ISIL (whatever) have embraced barbarism. Completely.
You can try convincing me that diplomatic nuance might make any difference whatsoever, but you have yet to make that case.

Whether it is right for Japan to embrace militarism is a separate argument.

[thompson]

wj:

Agree and disagree. Agree with this:

But he still owes it to the families for the people who were killed to face them personally and tell them why he did what he did.

disagree with this:

But again, there is a difference between appeasement and deliberately kicking the bully in the shins.

If infrastructure funding and humanitarian aid to people ISIL doesn't like and/or displaced 'is kicking the bully in the shins' I can't see much daylight between that and appeasement.

HSH:

It's probably more a matter of blurting it out for everyone to hear at an inopportune time.

Fair enough. But quiet support sometimes lacks the same power as overt support. If Abe wanted to make the point to the world that they were part of a united front against ISIL, I find that an entirely reasonable policy goal.

[thompson]

Also, what Nigel said.

[Countme-In]

I'm certain that an Ebola vaccine, when it becomes commonly available in Africa, will encounter resistance from enclaves of Africans, probably influenced by their local witch doctors, who in turn will be motivated by the threat of losing even more of their influence.

How will Christie, Paul, Napolitano and crew react to the witch doctors' God-given rights, or is it just affluent, one-issue liberals in Marin County who might be susceptible to voting Republican in 2016 upon whom God has bestowed his bounty of rights?

[wj]

thompson:
If infrastructure funding and humanitarian aid to people ISIL doesn't like and/or displaced 'is kicking the bully in the shins' I can't see much daylight between that and appeasement.

Fair enough. But it was the big announcement which a) was unnecessary and b) apparently motivated ISIL to do what they did when they did. THAT was what I consider kicking the bully in the shins. You have to stand up to a bully. You do not have to pick fights with him. Abe could, for example, have started the humanitarian aid and infrastructure funding immediately; but waited until negotiations succeeded or broke down before making the big announcement.

"You don't mess with me and I won't mess with you" is not appeasement -- but that looked to be the position Brett was taking. (Although I may be misreading him. Wouldn't be the first time.)

[wj]

I'm certain that an Ebola vaccine, when it becomes commonly available in Africa, will encounter resistance from enclaves of Africans

Too right, count. The level of distrust of Western medicine in Africa, especially rural Africa, is enormous. A friend returned from a Peace Corps stint in West Africa with the tale of a woman with a severely burned child, who refused to take the child to a hospital in favor of a traditional healer.

Still, we have our own true believers in natural healing (vs real medical treatments) for everything. So we probably shouldn't be too snotty about the foolishness of others.

[Hartmut]

At least the Africans can point to Western loudmouths (very often very religious and at the right end of the spectrum, although some leftist academicians have joined on occasion) calling for lacing food aid to Africa with contraceptives (even if they claim to want to ban the pill at home) or thinking aloud about making help dependent on 'volontary' sterilisation (OK, they want that in the US too). We have delivered lots of ammo to the demagogues. At home Western governments tended to aim at minorities, so far fewer people have a reason to fear poison fed to them by the government directly (as opposed to private enterprise paying the government to look the other way).

[thompson]

but waited until negotiations succeeded or broke down before making the big announcement.

True, but as I said above there is value of overt support. As to picking a fight with ISIL...in my view ISIL has picked a fight with the world, and specifically with Japan for kidnapping a journalist. I'm really struggling to see Abe as an aggressor here.

That being said, I would certainly understand the view of getting your people back regardless of the price, of not getting involved and putting a target on your back, etc. He certainly had choices beyond going off script like he did. Perhaps even some way of getting the hostages released and supporting the fight against ISIL...but I'm personally doubtful.

Pretty much the only thing I object to is that he's being described as an idiot (or as Cheney) for making what I view as completely reasonable decision.

With the standard disclaimer of I'm not really clear on how he is as a leader overall, I'm judging this from the linked article and a few others I've read.

[Countme-In]

To be sure, I have nothing against believing in natural healing or even preventative medicine via supplements.

I take a supplement -- a baby aspirin -- daily -- to lessen inflammation, so I'm told, though like the Woody Allen scene, I think in "Sleeper", where those in the future smoke cigarettes because they've been found to have remarkably healthful properties and no ill side effects, I expect to find out shortly that taking the aspirin has taken years off my life.

Doctor: These symptoms, which could be fatal, look to me like the result of something I read about in the most recent England Journal Medicine. Make I ask, do you take low-dose aspirin on a regular basis?

Me: (cautiously, fearfully, like Kramer being asked by the malign clown if is afraid of clowns) Yeah ... why?

Doctor: (yelling to his crew in a panic) Code 11! Get this patient ready for the procedure, pronto! And alert the morgue!

Me: (as I'm put under) What about red wine?

Even medical practitioners believe in natural healing to some extent. Witness the practice of placing severe heart attack patients and patients with severe spinal injuries into induced comas to allow the body to rest and summon its own natural healing powers, before more invasive methods are pursued.

And then they stand back and hope, while others pray. No problem there.

Medicine, the "truth" of science, is provisional, but can save your life.

The eternal truths of faith, when it comes to disease and physical frailty, while comforting, just might kill you if they are regarded as absolute.

Then there is luck, a subset of both faith and science.

It's the demagogic crap of some wherein malign and cynical political mileage and advantage is clocked that pisses me off.

I read somewhere the other day, but I can't find it now, that there was recently a lawsuit brought against a big-haired Christian ministry because a man, I think, received the healing benediction on stage and then was pushed backwards by the healing hand of the preacher applied to the former's forehead and the guy fell on his ass and broke something or other.

Besides the obvious point that why couldn't the new injury have been healed right then and there -- a 2 for 1 deal - don't faith healers have emergency rooms? -- think it would be hilarious if the individual then sought medical attention at a hospital emergency room and the doctors screwed up and he sued them too.

That would be two strikes against the dude on FOX and friends.

Maybe I imagined that last incident.

No problem. My most absurd imaginings about what the right wing will do often are headlines in next week's newspapers.

[Countme-In]

(New) England Journal (Of) Medicine.

Though ER doctors are badly overworked.

[sapient]

wj: It's the same reason that they wax wroth about "sweat shops" in developing countries -- they simply don't realize what subsistance agriculture is like, or that people there go to work in those factories because it's better than their alternatives. (And note that they aren't offering to use their own money to set up factories with the kinds of conditions that they would approve of. Possibly because such factories would lose them their money.)

There's no reason to put the term "sweat shops" in quotations. There are a lot of factories where worker conditions are unconscionable. That doesn't negate your argument that many people work there in order to escape the poverty of subsistence agriculture. But Western companies that employ cheap labor abroad can do better for the people who work in those factories for very little additional cost.

At least the Africans can point to Western loudmouths

Africans "pointing" to fringe people doesn't seem to me to mitigate anything. People who are wrongheaded exist everywhere, and "pointing" to them doesn't justify anything, or make any point at all.

Even medical practitioners believe in natural healing to some extent.

Absolutely. There are a lot of Indian herbal remedies that people are trying to patent. I'm a pro-science person, but there are some traditional medical remedies that science hasn't done the tests on yet. And some that they have. Turmeric, for example.

[wj]

No question that some traditional remedies are quite useful. Slapping a spider web on a wound is actually quite effective (highly foreign proteins that make up the web cause platlets to shatter like mad, creating a scab); and it's cleaner than most random cloths that you are likely to have at hand. Not as good as a sterile bandage, but damn effective nonetheless.

The problem is that there is little traditional evaluation of which remedies work and which do not. Let alone which sort of work, just not as good as modern alternatives.

[sapient]

Spider webs? Really? I'll keep them handy. Oh, there they are.

[liberal japonicus]

Is there any kind of popular support for this in Japan, LJ?

I find figuring out what popular opinion is in Japan is quite difficult. My datapoints are this, the LDP was elected in a landslide in 2012 and Abe was installed as Prime Minister (I think a lot of that landslide was because LDP politicians refused to work with the DPJ, and undercut the party, especially Naoto Kan in the aftermath of the tsunami, but let's take the landslide as indicative of some level of popular support). However, Abe called a snap election in Dec in which he won a majority, but the election had the lowest participation of any post war election (53%) and was framed as a referendum on Abenomics, though many claimed that it was also a vote on the re-militarization of Japan.

wj hits on what I feel about this. It is not that diplomatic nuance would or would not have made a difference in this case (though the article points out that the National Police Agency wanted to work through Turkey, but MITI and the MOFA (and I think the former dictated to the latter) did not want to endanger the current negotiations over a nuclear power facility on the Black Sea because, strangely enough, they felt that working through Jordan would avoid having ISIL target that project and have the Turks pull out.

[liberal japonicus]

I popped back here just to make sure I didn't miss a comment and I see that I didn't finish my thought in the last para.

It is not that diplomatic nuance would or would not have made a difference, it is that one imagines a nation's foreign policy is based on teamwork and you don't get to simply change it on a whim. Especially when Abe was there well before the two Japanese were kidnapped, so he can't claim that he just disapproves of negotiating with terrorists.

[Hartmut]

Africans "pointing" to fringe people doesn't seem to me to mitigate anything. People who are wrongheaded exist everywhere, and "pointing" to them doesn't justify anything, or make any point at all.

It becomes a problem when those (indeed fringey) people are known to have the ear of official Washington or are already part of it like some GOP congresscritters. This makes the work of the local African demagogues much easier. Confer also the backlash against vaccination in Pakistan when it became known that US agents disguised themselves as part of a vaccination campaign in order to find Osama bin Laden. And then there are the evangelical spitting images of witch doctors that go to Africa to peddle their poison (and get into power struggles with the local quacks). It may not justify the general mistrust but does a good deal in explaining it.

[sapient]

Confer also the backlash against vaccination in Pakistan when it became known that US agents disguised themselves as part of a vaccination campaign in order to find Osama bin Laden.

Perhaps it was a bad policy to mix the two efforts, but the vaccinations were real, and the "suspicion" doesn't explain or excuse the anti-vaccination crusade of the Taliban, or its targeting of aid workers, which began well before the disclosure of that program.

I'm not sure that African (or any other) demagogues need American support to further their own destructive policies.

Finding a way to blame Americans (even fringe groups) for everything that goes on in the world is just another form of American exceptionalism.

[russell]

Barney Frank is ... in the same camp as Cheney/Bush.

If that isn't some kind of sign of the end times, I don't know what is.

Spider webs? Really?

Yes.

Yarrow is also really good to promote healing in wounds. Chew it up, pack it in, and wrap it.

What about red wine?

You can have my red wine when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

[Nigel]

Perhaps it was a bad policy to mix the two efforts

Perhaps ?
It was remarkably stupid, and immoral.

You can have my red wine when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Not exactly an appetising prospect.
Just for the record, I'm prepared to be a little more generous.
:-)

[dr ngo]

Before I venture into the red wine morass, I'd want to know . . .

. . . just how cold are your dead hands?

(If you chill red wine too much, it's hardly worth drinking. Unless you're thirsty, of course.)

[dr ngo]

As for Abe, if there's a team effort in progress, and you decide on the spot to go solo, you're a hero if it works, and an idiot if it doesn't.

Just ask Johnny Manziel.

[sapient]

Amazing about the spider webs. However, I would recommend honey for wounds, especially burns.

It was remarkably stupid, and immoral.

It was stupid, in that the program was exposed, and it was used for propaganda. It seems benign otherwise, and getting rid of Osama bin Laden was seen to be a necessary first step in ending our troop deployment in Afghanistan. That was an end that justified the means, since no one was directly harmed by the actual collection of DNA samples.

It was the disclosure of the program, not the program itself, that caused harm (if any harm was done, considering that targeting health care workers was already happening long before). That said, I have no issue with aid organizations that objected to the program, because they are truly heroic, and their job became even more difficult.

If I were being vaccinated, and a doctor secretly used my DNA to determine whether a mass murderer was hiding in my neighborhood, I wouldn't be particularly upset about it. It was a means to target someone who truly deserved targeting. Isn't that what we should support?

[sapient]

I have no issue with aid organizations that objected to the program, because they are truly heroic, and their job became even more difficult.

What I mean by this is that aid organizations were the ones left with having to regain trust, so they necessarily had to complain about the program rather than the disclosure of it, in order to regain "hearts and minds".

[wj]

On the other hand, there was clearly a good chance that the program would not remain a secret. And it was, or should have been, obvious that, when it came out, there would be a negative reaction. Right?

And given the tradeoff between finally eliminating polio, and finding bin Laden, I think the balance had to be on ridding humanity of the disease. bin Laden was a bad man, but the damage his continued presence on earth would do was less.

[russell]

I would recommend honey for wounds, especially burns.

cool, I did not know about that.

It was the disclosure of the program, not the program itself, that caused harm

I think that relief organizations often, if not always, work under cloud of suspicion of being a front for some foreign military or intelligence agency. To the degree that that is so, it makes it harder for them to build trust and do their work.

When it's shown that they actually were participating in intelligence gathering for a foreign government, that furthers that climate of suspicion.

You may, personally, be fine with people collecting your DNA without disclosing that to you in the course of routine medical care in order to track down mass murderers. Other folks will feel differently.

So, the program might look worthwhile to you, or me, or folks here in general. But it incurs a cost that other folks end up having to pay.

[Hartmut]

And what ruined the polio eradication in Africa was the above mentioned propaganda that it was sterilisation in clever disguise (iirc both Christian and Muslim nuts and/or demagogues successfully played on that fear).
Btw, anti-vaccination campaigns were once a Roman Catholic hallmark based on the principle 'not the slightest evil may be done even to achieve the greatest good' (vaccination being the deliberate infection of a human being = something evil). Iirc protestants jumped on the bandwagon later with a different mix of objections (they were united from the start though in opposing painkillers for women giving birth and anti-STD drugs; still popular in the more conservative leaning circles).
A little known fact: In Prussia the state overrid those objections and got the military vaccinated. In the war of 1870/1 more French soldiers died of smallpox than as a result of enemy action but very few Germans. And smallpox was (and is) one of the riskiest vaccinations.

[Ugh]

I don't think it's a stretch that the CIA's use of the polio caccine will (or already has) result in more deaths than the terrorists caused on 9/11/2001.

It was monstrous and those who approved and participated quite have innocent blood on their hands. Those who participated and approved should be in prison.

[sapient]

And given the tradeoff between finally eliminating polio, and finding bin Laden, I think the balance had to be on ridding humanity of the disease

If that were the trade-off, I would completely agree. But the fact is, the Taliban was spreading this propaganda before it had a hint of truth (not that their propaganda ever actually was true).

The extent to which disclosure of the DNA collection made any difference at all in the number of people actually vaccinated is very speculative. And, again, it was the disclosure, not the DNA collection.

And, russell, I completely agree that in a perfect peacetime world, people have total control of their DNA. I find it hard to believe that I have total control of my DNA at all. Bill Clinton didn't. Unfortunately, people leave it around in various ways all the time.

It's a crying shame that this program was disclosed, and was used to further the Taliban's anti-vaccination policies. In retrospect, it was unwise. It may or may not have had a negative effect on vaccination rates. I don't think it was a particularly immoral program.

[Donald johnson]

So in the future people should just assume that the CIA is behind every humanitarian effort operating in a war zone, because if it is done secretly enough we'd have no way of knowing and no way of persuading people it wasn't happening

[sapient]

If the CIA is truly behind every truly humanitarian effort operating in a war zone, that is a win win.

[sapient]

Also, I looked (rather quickly) and couldn't find how the Guardian actually discovered the vaccine/DNA program.

Keeping in mind that the vaccines were administered, and the Guardian news reports touted the CIA effort as a "fake vaccination drive", what share of the blame should the Guardian accept?

Yes, free press means blab everything in the most sensationalist manner, but sometimes disclosure (in this case, reverse yellow journalism) is what's ultimately harmful.

[Countme-In]

"If the CIA is truly behind every truly humanitarian effort operating in a war zone, that is a win win."

I'm all for mandatory vaccination, but vaccination by drone makes people afraid of needles.

"I find it hard to believe that I have total control of my DNA at all."

I was reading somewhere, maybe the New Yorker, that research into our individually-differentiated bodily bacteria has shown that in married couples who have been kissing and all of the other fun stuff we do through the decades, each individual's bacteria colonizes the other's bacteria to form a completely new bacterial .. whatever it's called ... in each person.

You can't divorce bacteria. Till death do you part.

Also not a great subject to bring up on a second date, though maybe this phenomenon should be worked into marriage vows.

[bobbyp]

It's a crying shame that this program was disclosed...

Let's see here...

1. Probability this program would yield much, if any, useful information: 10%

2. Probability the program would be revealed to the public by decadent western yellow journalists: Apparently high, since is was sussed out. Let's go with 67%

3. Expected blowback to our "standing in good faith" with the Pakistani population: Incalculable.

Summary: This effort was a classic example of wishful thinking and complete lack of foresight.

Major Fail.

[sapient]

bobbyp: Creative use of probabilities! But, yes, the result was definitely a major fail.

Count: Marriage and the ick factor.

[sapient]

Hmmm. Maybe the CIA loves us.

[Countme-In]

Sounds like it's limerick time.

There once was a bachelor named Kant
rarely given to lie or to rant
His girlfriend screamed "Ick!",
Thought his bacteria sick,
And demanded he pull up his pants!

Poor Kant loved a woman named Ruth
she worked nights in a fair kissing booth
She tried to be sly,
Categorically did lie,
for he could not vie with the Truth.

[russell]

I don't think it was a particularly immoral program.

What would have to happen for it to have been immoral, in your view?

[sapient]

What would have to happen for it to have been immoral, in your view?

Any number of things could have made it immoral. Such as if the program hadn't actually been administering vaccinations to people. Or if, as the Taliban propaganda claimed, the vaccinations contained a harmful substance (or "sterilized" people, which has been one of the claims of the Taliban about Western aid organizations).

If there was a local gym where people left sweat on exercise machines, and people's DNA was collected that way, would that be immoral? I don't think it would. This was an attempt to find Osama bin Laden, and not kill somebody else. In a time when people are killing other people, it doesn't seem to me that it's bad for the CIA to be finding the right person, especially while doing a good thing for a large number of people (vaccinating them against Hepatitis B).

Collecting DNA to find a murderer is not, to me, immoral. Would it be better if the murderer came forth of his own accord? Absolutely! Even better, that there wouldn't be organized mass murder of civilians!

[sapient]

I'd also like your opinion on the "morality" of The Guardian's reporting of the "fake immunization program", and its message that "[s]uch programs have prompted attacks on medical workers in Pakistan" when clearly, according to my earlier link, the Taliban's anti-vaccination program and targeting of aid workers had been going on for years beforehand.

[russell]

The vaccination program for hepatitis B was more or less a ruse.

They started in a poor part of the city to establish credibility, then abandoned the program there before the full course of vaccinations was complete and moved the program to the suburb where Bin Laden lived.

I don't know if they completed the full course of vaccinations in Bin Laden's neighborhood or not.

Net/net, there was no intent to actually provide a full, effective course of vaccinations for anybody, and in fact the full course of vaccinations was not provided for (minimally) many of the folks involved.

So, no win/win.

If they could collect DNA by gathering sweat from gym machines I would have no problem. My issue with this program was that it compromised other, legitimate public health programs, and damaged the credibility of aid organizations who have no affiliation with the CIA.

And, it ought to have been absolutely dead obvious to anybody with have a freaking brain in their head that that would the result, if and when the program was exposed.

And, it ought to have been absolutely dead obvious to anybody with a brain in their head that the risk of disclosure was non-trivial.

Here's a plan - let's hire a local doctor to run a vaccination program. We'll start in a poor part of town to make it look good, then we'll dump that and move to Bin Laden's neighborhood. We don't want the health authorities involved, so we'll have the guy pay off a lot of low-level functionaries to keep the program sub rosa.

What could possibly go wrong?

Either somebody in the CIA chain of command utterly failed to consider all of that, or they didn't give a crap. Or they carefully weighed the cost of undermining public health efforts in Pakistan against the possibility of gleaning an additional scrap of information about Bin Laden's whereabouts, and having done so decided that getting the information was more important than the public health of folks living there.

Even assuming the last possibility of those three, which is the most generous reading of the situation, I think the choice was morally wrong.

It's fine to characterize the program as "collecting DNA to find a murderer", but you exclude the obvious and predictable downsides attending on the method chosen to collect the DNA.

As far as the Guardian's morality, it's not only possible but likely that the Taliban was already engaged in anti-vaccination efforts, *and* that the involvement of military and intelligence operations in aid programs has led to attacks on aid workers.

The fact that the Taliban's claims *turned out to be true* was likely not very helpful.

Whether the Guardian acted responsibly in reporting the program doesn't seem particularly relevant to the question of whether the CIA acted responsibly in implementing it. Both parties can be culpable.

[russell]

Why do CIA black ops programs always sound like ideas dreamed up by a bunch of undergrads at 3:00 AM after numerous bong hits?

I wish I was making a joke.

[Donald johnson]

No sapient ,having the CIAA run humanitarian programs is not a win/win. If we are going to have wars, it's good to have groups like the Red Cross whic are seen by most as scrupulously neutral, so tha they have at least some chance of doing their work in dangerous situations. And ye, we need the press to report it when the CIA uses a humanitarian cover because in the world you prefer,where the Western press covers up such acticvities it will just increase the overall paranoia about humanitarian groups in war zones. Yes the Taliban are terrible, but there are always going to be wars and the CIA will always think itself justified in pulling such stunts.
And no one in his or her right mind would trust a newspaper run by people who would have covered up what the CIA did. We'd have to assume that maybePakistani papers might cover this or made it up,or that the Western papers are covering it up and we'd living in the world that some
Left wing kooks already believe we live in, where everything in the press is propaganda and everything is a potential CIA operation.
I prefer a world where the press doesn't cover up unethical behavior by the alleged good guys.

[sapient]

russell, your description of the vaccination program doesn't come with a link. Perhaps it was from this story.

I'm not convinced that the Guardian's reports about the program are accurate, considering its reporting uses loaded words like "ruse" and "fake vaccination". The only thing inadequate about the vaccination for hepatitis B was that the entire sequence wasn't given. Maybe there were plans to give the remaining doses - the Guardian certainly wouldn't have reported it, if so.

My issue with this program was that it compromised other, legitimate public health programs, and damaged the credibility of aid organizations who have no affiliation with the CIA.

Why? What if aid organizations, rather than taking DNA samples, had surveillance equipment, and the photographs were used by CIA to identify people? Would that be immoral too? If so, why? If not, what is so special about DNA?

AID workers have been attacked in Pakistan for many years, and there wasn't an upsurge after this program was exposed. See: https://aidworkersecurity.org/incidents/search?detail=1&country=PK

It seems to me that the publicity about the program was much more harmful than the program itself.

[sapient]

I prefer a world where the press doesn't cover up unethical behavior by the alleged good guys.

I would prefer a press that reports what they know occurred in a neutral manner, rather than characterizing activities by using words such as "fake vaccination" leading any careless reader to believe that the vaccinations were placebos (or worse). I would also prefer a press that makes more of an effort to reveal its sources.

[wj]

If they had run an actual, comprehensive, vaccination program . . . that would have been a slightly differrent story. But they didn't; they stopped as soon as they had what they wanted. Which is why it was called a "fake program."

And even so, anyone with two brain cells to rub together would realize the massive negative imp-act on public perceptions of the vaccination program, and thus the negative impact on public health, when the CIA's use of the vaccination program was revealed. And that it was very likely to be revealed sooner or later. So, a bad idea -- not really comparable to gathering DNA from something like the local gym.

[sapient]

But they didn't; they stopped as soon as they had what they wanted.

Do we know that the "stopped"? We don't, actually. Also, one vaccine provides some protection, and although there's a recommended schedule for a series of three for optimal protection, the schedule is flexible. All we know about the program is what the very biased Guardian reported. Even if continuation of the program wasn't planned, anyone who received the vaccine could finish the series at any time.

What if there was only funding for the first in the series? Would that have also been "fake"?

[russell]

If not, what is so special about DNA?

There's nothing special about DNA.

There's something special about public health, and there's something special about the ability of neutral organizations to provide aid without suspicion of colluding with foreign military and intelligence agencies.

I'm not convinced that the Guardian's reports about the program are accurate, considering its reporting uses loaded words like "ruse" and "fake vaccination".

Fortunately, you use no loaded words in your comments here, so the accuracy of your understanding of the situation is above question.

It comes down to this:

That was an end that justified the means, since no one was directly harmed by the actual collection of DNA samples.

"No one was directly harmed" waves away real harm done.

You're free to make whatever moral calculus you like. Other folks, likewise.

[Countme-In]

Apparently, Taliban/al Qaeda, anti-vaccination terrorists have infiltrated U.S. borders:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/glenn-beck-measles-hoax

[Countme-In]

Near as I can make out, they disguise themselves as subhuman Republican Party pork products:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fox-guest-vaccinations-forced-abortions

[Nombrilisme Vide]

I think that relief organizations often, if not always, work under cloud of suspicion of being a front for some foreign military or intelligence agency. To the degree that that is so, it makes it harder for them to build trust and do their work.

It's not for nothing that e.g. the Peace Corps openly refuses to accept anyone who they can determine has ever worked for the CIA, or has worked for any other intelligence agency within 10 years.

The extent to which disclosure of the DNA collection made any difference at all in the number of people actually vaccinated is very speculative. And, again, it was the disclosure, not the DNA collection.

The disclosure couldn't have happened if the DNA connection hadn't happened. One is not absolved of responsibility for the consequences of one's actions simply by a fervent desire that no one ever discovers them.

[sapient]

Fortunately, you use no loaded words in your comments here, so the accuracy of your understanding of the situation is above question.

First of all, I'm not a reporter. I'm making comments on a blog. So whether I used loaded language to put forth my opinions is a bit different than if I were supposedly reporting news. Second, I don't claim that the accuracy of my understanding is above question. Third, I've conceded that the project, if it assisted the Taliban in its already horrific and consistent targeting of aid workers, was, in hindsight, misguided.

What I don't concede is that it was "immoral". I don't think it's "immoral" to obtain information. I don't think it's "immoral" to try to find the leader of an extremist movement with whom we are at war, whose proponents target aid workers, sometimes just because they are women. The Taliban really doesn't need the excuse of CIA involvement - it's been murdering aid workers (and educators, and school children) all along. My guess is that the worst impact of this vaccination project was its propaganda value for those in the West who oppose United States policies. That certainly seems to have been The Guardian's agenda.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

I don't think it's "immoral" to obtain information. I don't think it's "immoral" to try to find the leader of an extremist movement with whom we are at war, whose proponents target aid workers, sometimes just because they are women.

In a vacuum, I don't think any of us think this is immoral, but this is a red herring, because you're offering us an implicit false dichotomy. It's the methods chosen to do these things that are being objected to - the means, not the end.

[sapient]

I'm glad that we killed Osama bin Laden, which was a politically necessary prelude to packing up our troops. The non-lethal means to getting to that end were worth it. I'll leave morality to the purists.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

The non-lethal means to getting to that end were worth it.

And the lethal means fell within the generous bounds of deniability, so since no one can ever force disclosure about whether they were accidental, incidental, or intentional, the only immoral thing about them is that anyone told the public they were employed. It's win-win!

[novakant]

Why do CIA black ops programs always sound like ideas dreamed up by a bunch of undergrads at 3:00 AM after numerous bong hits?

I think they are taking their clues from the movies - in this case it was a double bill of "The Third Man" and "The Constant Gardener".

[Nombrilisme Vide]

I'll leave morality to the purists.

Unless you feel there's nothing wrong with e.g. the gov't crushing the testicles of the sons of suspected associates of terrorists (or for that matter, the local police doing it with murder suspects), you do not actually think that one must be a "purist" to object to particular means being used to achieve an end, so please drop that tired, dismissive pretense.

[russell]

this is a red herring

correct

The non-lethal means to getting to that end were worth it.

Says you.

Non-lethal for whom?

Certainly the program put you, personally, at no risk.

I'll leave morality to the purists.

If you're not interested or concerned about the morality of the situation, why bother offering your opinion about the morality of the situation?

[sapient]

Unless you feel there's nothing wrong with e.g. the gov't crushing the testicles of the sons of suspected associates of terrorists

Didn't realize that was the subject of this thread. I thought we were talking about a very specific program where the CIA allegedly took DNA samples from people who were receiving Hepatitis B vaccines. I see no moral problem with that, sorry.

Certainly the program put you, personally, at no risk.

Perhaps you should state who has been put at more risk than they had been prior to the program. Anyone who has been involved with an aid organization during that last two decades in certain areas of the world, including Pakistan, or is involved with educating women, or happens to be at a market at the wrong time is at risk from the Taliban, and al Qaeda members who enjoy targeting civilians, especially certain civilians. The fact that we have attempted to diminish their power is a good thing, IMO. We are not the people who you should blame for the wrongs committed by the Taliban and al Qaeda, although you are certainly entitled to do that if that's how you feel.

[novakant]

Google:

CIA vaccine ruse

and you get, e.g.:

NYT:

The C.I.A.'s Deadly Ruse in Pakistan

ABC AU:

Polio resurgence in Pakistan following backlash from CIA vaccination ruse in hunt for Osama bin Laden

Scientific American:

How the CIA's Fake Vaccination Campaign Endangers Us All

TIME:

Why the CIA’s Vaccine Ruse Is a Setback for Global Health

LA Times:

CIA's vaccine ruse in Pakistan carries fallout

[sapient]

novakant, yes, it's quite popular to blame the CIA vaccination program for the sins of the Taliban. (Hilarious too that some newspapers apparently thought it was a polio vaccination program since they didn't read the Guardian article well enough).

The fact is the targeting of aid workers had been going on for decades. The targeting of schools and school children is well known. I already provided a link showing that aid workers weren't suddenly targeted in larger numbers. Maybe you should start with the facts rather than with yellow journalism.

[novakant]

Ok sapient, you are just not very bright:

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-05-21/the-cia-stops-fake-vaccinations-as-real-polio-rebounds

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-c-i-a-and-the-polio-murders

[sapient]

novakant, I'll just channel LJ, who I'm sure would tell you to knock it off (the part about "you are just not very bright") as violating the posting rules.

And in answer to those news articles, yes, I'm sure that every polio case in Pakistan is now a result of the CIA immunization program!

Hello!, the anti-vaccination movement in Pakistan is quite longstanding.

Again, it's quite popular to blame the CIA for the Taliban's crimes. Nothing here is new.

[sapient]

Oh, and I note that Michael Specter, in his original article called the vaccine "a dummy vaccine". Excellent investigative reporting!

[russell]

Perhaps you should state who has been put at more risk than they had been prior to the program.

People who would have participated in public health initiatives such as vaccinations, but who decided not to after hearing about the CIA program.

Those people exist, or they don't.

What is your position? Do you think they exist, or do you think they do not?

And no, novakant, sapient is not lacking in intelligence, he's just unwilling to address the substance of your concern, and mine.

[wj]

novakant, there isn't really a problem with sapient's intelligence. The problem is with his fervent determination to believe that something which achieved a desirable end (and I expect we all agree that getting bin Laden was a desirable end) was therefore "right".

In short, that the ends justify the means. I don't think he would agree that this is his position on this issue (let alone in general). But it certainly looks like it from the outside.

[liberal japonicus]

sapient, I'd appreciate you not channelling me. But if you insist on doing so, I'd look at russell and wj, who get a lot closer to what I would say to address any problems.

[sapient]

I'd appreciate you not channelling me

lj, thanks. My attempt failed. And I won't try it again.

People who would have participated in public health initiatives such as vaccinations, but who decided not to after hearing about the CIA program.

Perhaps we saved them from the targeting that they might well have received anyway. I guess the CIA program saved lives.

he's just unwilling to address the substance of your concern, and mine.

At this point, since the CIA has stated that it won't be collaborating with vaccination programs, I'm not sure what your concern is. It was certainly a lesson for the CIA.

he's just unwilling to address the substance of your concern, and mine.

I'm wondering why your concern doesn't reach to the obvious misrepresentation of the program by the press. Does it bother you at all that the "harm" (such as claiming "dummy vaccinations") was grossly exaggerated? And what does it mean that our government institutions are so readily misrepresented in this way?

And where do you stand on the fact that the Taliban has hated vaccination programs for 20 years?

[thompson]

Sorry to jump back in, but to pick up on the original comment, I wanted to follow up with lj, and hopefully learn a little about Japanese government in the process:

It is not that diplomatic nuance would or would not have made a difference, it is that one imagines a nation's foreign policy is based on teamwork and you don't get to simply change it on a whim.

So, I'm probably speaking from my own preconceptions, but it seems like your complaint with Abe is not so much what he did, but that he did it solo. Is that correct?

My view on this is probably well summed up by what dr ngo wisely said upthread:

you decide on the spot to go solo, you're a hero if it works, and an idiot if it doesn't.

In that, I'm imagining Obama making a policy decision and going off script during a speech, surprising the State Department. If I agree with the policy decision, I might think it was unwise, depending on the circumstance. But, ultimately, he's the head of state and was elected to make those decisions. If I disagree with the decision, I may very well think him an idiot...but mostly because I disagree with the policy decision.

Just to give you a flavor of how I perceive this. But as I have been turning this over in my head, I ended up with a few questions:

(1) Is it the policy you object to (that is, confrontation at the expense of the hostage's chances?)
(2) Is it that he went off script without consulting with MOFA?
(3) And finally, all this raised the question for me: Is the prime minister in Japan considered similarly to a US President in terms of representing interests abroad. And if not, does that factor into the 'he's an idiot' response?

To expand on that last a bit: US presidents are generally given a lot more leeway in their foreign diplomatic dealings than they are in domestic policy. If that's not the case in the Japanese system, I can see 'going solo' would be more of an issue.

[bobbyp]

But the fact is, the Taliban was spreading this propaganda before it had a hint of truth (not that their propaganda ever actually was true).

Sapient,

I read the link to the Guardian story from 2007 that you provided. The article stated the anti-vaccination message was spread by "extremist clerics" not "the Taliban".

Just asking.

Also: If we are free to bomb people in Pakistan who oppose vaccinations, why can we not bomb Jenny McCarthy's house?

The ends justify the means, do they not?

'/alcohol fueled sarcasm'

[bobbyp]

And where do you stand on the fact that the Taliban has hated vaccination programs for 20 years?

From The Guardian, 7-8-14:

The Taliban has banned polio vaccination teams from southern Helmand because it suspects them of spying for the government at a time of heavy clashes with government forces, the insurgent group said in a statement on its website.

"The announcement is a worrying development, because although Taliban groups across the border in Pakistan have attacked and killed polio vaccinators for years, their Afghan counterparts have mostly supported, or at least tolerated, international efforts to wipe out the disease."

[sapient]

Yes, bobbyp, the very trustworthy Guardian reporting on the very trustworthy Afghan Taliban. Note this letter from 2009.

I'm pretty sure we should blame the CIA retroactively for any polio that has ever occurred in human history.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

The fact is the targeting of aid workers had been going on for decades.

Right, and the Taliban has been targeting NATO forces in Afghanistan for going on a decade and a half, so e.g. when the buffoon preacher in FL did his loud little Qur'an-burning publicity stunt back in 2012 NATO forces in-theater didn't intensify security in anticipation of a backlash at all. It's all binary, don'cha know? Either something is happening, or it isn't; it's simply not possible for something to happen "more" or "less".

[liberal japonicus]

Hi Thompson, thanks for the question

I have problems with the following
-Abe going solo: news outlets were asked (and complied) not to report the kidnappings because the MOFA was trying to resolve them, it seems clear that Abe really did go solo. All the reporting suggests that he did this on a whim. So the phrase 'policy decision' doesn't really capture what Abe did. However, there is probably a larger policy issue, which is

-Abe is doing this because of a nationalistic agenda: When Abe first took office, his first policy announcement was that he wanted to change the 2/3rds requirement for Diet approval to make changes to the constitution. This Economist article for 2013 explains Abe's aims

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21578712-shinzo-abes-plan-rewrite-japans-constitution-running-trouble-back-future

(I disagree with the para about how 'national pride' wants a revision of Article Nine and a recent JT article
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/02/05/national/politics-diplomacy/hostage-crisis-renews-focus-on-abes-dream-of-revising-constitution/#.VNgJ9FWUf8c

notes that the majority of Japanese don't want it to change, but the point that Abe is going a lot further than Japanese want is very clear)

and this was in the cards in July
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/07/02/editorials/abe-guts-article-9/#.VNgInlWUf8c

Also
-bully shin kicking: as WJ points out, there is a difference between not backing down and needlessly angering a bully

Finally
-Abe using the death of a person committed to peace (Kenji Goto) to introduce more violence and uncertainty into a region that could certainly do without it.

Any parallels to Obama are problematic because they are two totally different jobs and the history of the two countries is totally different. There's a discussion about what 'head of state' means, but for me, there are enough differences to make any kind of comparison moot. But I invoked Cheney because he too invoked a similar rewriting of the constitution

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/cheney_claims_hes_not_part_of_executive_branch/

[thompson]

LJ:

Thanks for the response, I'll peruse the articles. Your reference to Cheney makes a lot more sense now...I really didn't connect your post to Cheney's 'I'm not executive' attempts. Perhaps a little too subtle for me.

Regarding the shin kicking, I've said my piece upthread in response to wj...it's likely we just don't agree on this point.

[liberal japonicus]

it's likely we just don't agree on this point

No worries thompson, and I'd be lying if I said that I don't sometimes imagine retribution being meted out. I totally understand the feeling. But in this case, I think that the downsides outweigh any upsides of overt support. But I appreciate that not everyone would agree.

[russell]

And where do you stand on the fact that the Taliban has hated vaccination programs for 20 years?

I think it's bloody splendid. Thanks for asking.

You steadfastly refuse to address the basic concern, expressed by myself and others here, that the CIA engaging in off-brand vaccination programs for the purpose of gathering intelligence about Bin Laden compromises legitimate public health programs, run by neutral agencies.

You might, for instance, address by simply saying "yes, that exists, but IMO gathering information about Bin Laden's whereabouts outweighs that concern".

I'd disagree with that, but it's a credible position to take.

But you won't do that. Instead, you'll trot out one red herring after another, and ask us what we think about the Taliban.

It's a waste of time talking about this with you. Over and out.

[sapient]

the CIA engaging in off-brand vaccination programs for the purpose of gathering intelligence about Bin Laden compromises legitimate public health programs, run by neutral agencies.

Sorry, but I still don't know, or have any evidence, that such a thing occurred. "Legitimate public health programs, run by 'neutral agencies'" (my quotes) have been targeted for years.

I do personally know some people who have gone on aid missions to some of the countries that have been cited as polio scares. The people I happen to know are Christian fundamentalist missionaries. The Taliban has killed some aid workers in this category. They're not "neutral". Does that make the Taliban's actions any better? What kind of test do aid workers have to pass, in your view, in order to be sufficiently above-board?

I (frankly) am skeptical of "missionaries" who are also aid workers. I support Doctors Without Borders because it's my impression that they're neutral. But the world isn't in a contest between "neutral" and "having-an-agenda". There are a lot of people who want to do good, but who also have an agenda.

In this case, there was a vaccination program with a hidden agenda to find Osama bin Laden. So freaking what - there are all kinds of good works with hidden agendas. The Taliban would have hated them either way, and would have made up a hidden agenda if they hadn't had one, as they have done for many years before the CIA ever showed up.

I'm less concerned about what the Taliban thinks, and more concerned about what the Western "groupthink" has been - various newspapers glomming onto the idea that the CIA was giving fake vaccines (polio or whatever, they barely bothered to check that it was hepatitis b) and it was all bad!!!!

I find that to be disturbing in the extreme.

[novakant]

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news-stories/press-release/alleged-fake-cia-vaccination-campaign-undermines-medical-care:

“The mere suggestion that the provision of medical care was carried out under false pretenses damages public perception of the true purpose of medical action,” said Dr. Unni Karunakara, MSF’s international president. “With all populations in crisis, it is challenging enough for health agencies and humanitarian aid workers to gain access to, and the trust of, communities—especially populations already skeptical of the motives of any outside assistance.”

[novakant]

“The alleged fake CIA vaccination campaign constitutes a grave manipulation of the medical act,” said Dr. Karunakara. “The risk is that vulnerable communities—anywhere—needing access to essential health services will understandably question the true motivation of medical workers and humanitarian aid. The potential consequence is that even basic health care, including vaccination, does not reach those who need it most.”