AliBabaIncorporated
09-19-2004, 07:22 AM
David Frum takes our present situation with officials accused of passing information to Israel, proposes a similar hypothetical situation involving Japan instead of Israel, and claims no one would care as much as they care about Israel. It's like identity politics for neocons: "We're more oppressed than anyone else, therefore we're right!"
Seriously, hasn't this guy ever heard of the Robert Kim case?
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary090904.asp
SEP. 9, 2004: THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
Suppose that the Pentagon official responsible for North Korea concluded that US policy toward that nuclear dictatorship was dangerously complacent. Suppose he and his staff drafted a proposal for a more tough-minded approach. Suppose he then looked up a contact at the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan to outline his thinking on North Korea – and to ask his contact that the Chamber press higher-ups in the US government to adopt this more tough-minded approach.
How big a story would that be? Wouldn’t most of us think that (a) Japan is a pretty important ally; (b) that it is more directly exposed to North Korean aggression than the US; (c) that a mid-level draft policy document would be about the 943rd most important secret that the US government shared with our allies in Japan that month; and that (d) Americans with a special interest in Japan might have something useful to say about common US-Japanese threats?
Let me add a few more suppositions. Suppose a former government official now working as a registered agent for the government of China began telephoning journalists in Washington to inform them that there existed a network of “neo-Zen LDPniks” in the Pentagon engaged in treasonable communication with Japan. How seriously would journalists take those phone calls?
Suppose further that some of that former officials’ one-time associates in law-enforcement were now summoning every Japanese-American in the Pentagon for questioning.
Suppose finally the editor of a magazine that had argued that the US should acquiesce in a North Korean nuclear bomb - and who had himself argued that North Korea would be no threat to the US if only we gave them what they wanted, including Seoul if necessary - went on television to suggest that those Americans who wanted to defend the country against North Korea constituted a nest of disloyal "Pearl Harborites" inside the Pentagon.
Wouldn’t most of us think that this kind of conspiracy talk by those who believed in appeasing an American enemy and denigrating an American friend and ally and those who shared an ethnic background with that friend and ally was demented at best – and possibly something a lot uglier than mere dementia?
Seriously, hasn't this guy ever heard of the Robert Kim case?
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary090904.asp
SEP. 9, 2004: THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
Suppose that the Pentagon official responsible for North Korea concluded that US policy toward that nuclear dictatorship was dangerously complacent. Suppose he and his staff drafted a proposal for a more tough-minded approach. Suppose he then looked up a contact at the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan to outline his thinking on North Korea – and to ask his contact that the Chamber press higher-ups in the US government to adopt this more tough-minded approach.
How big a story would that be? Wouldn’t most of us think that (a) Japan is a pretty important ally; (b) that it is more directly exposed to North Korean aggression than the US; (c) that a mid-level draft policy document would be about the 943rd most important secret that the US government shared with our allies in Japan that month; and that (d) Americans with a special interest in Japan might have something useful to say about common US-Japanese threats?
Let me add a few more suppositions. Suppose a former government official now working as a registered agent for the government of China began telephoning journalists in Washington to inform them that there existed a network of “neo-Zen LDPniks” in the Pentagon engaged in treasonable communication with Japan. How seriously would journalists take those phone calls?
Suppose further that some of that former officials’ one-time associates in law-enforcement were now summoning every Japanese-American in the Pentagon for questioning.
Suppose finally the editor of a magazine that had argued that the US should acquiesce in a North Korean nuclear bomb - and who had himself argued that North Korea would be no threat to the US if only we gave them what they wanted, including Seoul if necessary - went on television to suggest that those Americans who wanted to defend the country against North Korea constituted a nest of disloyal "Pearl Harborites" inside the Pentagon.
Wouldn’t most of us think that this kind of conspiracy talk by those who believed in appeasing an American enemy and denigrating an American friend and ally and those who shared an ethnic background with that friend and ally was demented at best – and possibly something a lot uglier than mere dementia?