Americans will die for Japan...

should Japan be attacked. No problem. Don't sweat it. We've plenty of American troops to send to their deaths for you. This is basically what Condoleezza Rice told Foreign Minister Aso today. It is important that the US renew and reaffirm its promise (treaty obligations) to defend Japan to America's last drop of blood while asking no commitment from Japan in return. I guess that is what the US government assumes young American men and women are raised for---to be killed fighting another country's war. We never even got a clear promise this time that Japan would not go nuclear. Uncle Sucker rides again. Oh, where is the UN and all of the European critics and know-it-alls in the North Korean nuclear problem? (They agreed to go along with an embargo against North Korea, and did so quickly. What a shock. Perhaps they can give the US advice on how to proceed with this after the embargo starts and likely fails.)

Why doesn't the US just hand these problems to the UN (bah ha ha, what a joke), or say another country--China? Japan? (double ha, ha, ha ha)---and let those folks deal with it. Seems everyone else knows what the US is doing wrong all over the world and has all the answers and solutions, so where are they here? The Korean armistice, and the 38th parallel is under UN responsibility. Perhaps they should actually do something other than whine about the US, or that the "US won't let us do nuttin'."

One can bet that few Japanese think that defending the US would be worth even one Japanese life, but again and again I talk to people (Japanese and American) who believe that America has some moral obligation to send its men and women to die for Japan. That would be interesting to explain to a mother in Iowa why her son died fighting for a country (Japan) in which many don't even believe their own troops should die for.

Japan however, is a uniquely peaceful people and country (easy to say since the US has provided a military for Japan for 60 years). The Japanese are morally superior and must leave the fightin' and dyin' to the barbarians. Them gaijin (derogatory term) like war and killin' anyway. The NYT article about Rice's one-sided promise is here.