Posts Tagged ‘bush’

George Bush/Alien video on Japanese TV

The following clip of an old “no bailouts” speech by George W. Bush made it on to Japanese TV the other night because there is a strange object in the window behind the president:

Bush talks to Fuji TV

Here’s a short clip of some highlights from an interview with President George W. Bush conducted by FTV earlier this week:

In the interview Bush assures the Japanese people that he understands their concerns about the North Korea abductee issue, reminding them of his meeting with Megumi Yokota’s parents. He also mentions his desire to enjoy some mountain biking when he comes to Hokkaido this month for the G8 summit.

A full transcript can be found on Asahi’s English site: 1, 2, 3.

Is the Bush Administration Similar to Imperial Japan?

Historian Herbert Bix, whose book “Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan” won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001, seems to think so:

“The current American rampage in Iraq and elsewhere, not to mention the Bush administration’s threats of war against Iran, so clearly replicates Imperial Japan during the period when its leaders willfully disregarded international law and pursued the diplomacy of force,” Bix said during a visit to Tokyo.

Japan defied the Nine-Party Treaty guaranteeing China’s sovereignty, signed in 1922 in Washington, when imperial troops invaded Manchuria in 1931.

Bix compared Japan’s action to current US efforts to scuttle the Treaty of Rome establishing the International Criminal Court, which President George W. Bush argues could unfairly target Americans.

He also said that senior US leaders — not just rank-and-file soldiers — should have been held to account for the killings of 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha.

“US war criminality is justice institutionalised, as Japan’s once was,” Bix said.