Told you so.
After the Madrid bomb, I said in an entry on this page we should expect an attack against Japanese civilians to lever out the Japanese army from Iraq and to destabilise the government. Most of Japan’s population, like Spain’s, was against the war and the occupation.
Three abducted Japanese in Iraq are facing the threat of being burned alive in less than 24 hours by people who are demanding the Japanese government withdraw its troops from Iraq. Koizumi is adamant that he is keeping his nose in Bush’s arse.
Incidentally, the media here are refraining from showing the video images of the Japanese hostages with knives held at their throats, showing only the images of the hostages kneeling and not threatened. This, they say, is to protect the feelings of the families of the kidnapped.
Unfortunately, suppressing the images is protecting PM Koizumi. There would be considerably more people on the streets protesting if folk here saw the more disturbing images.
When Koizumi was elected, there was a popular misconception that he was the first premiere in memory who actually had the best interests of the country and its people at heart.
He was Japan’s first populist leader. There is a little subtlety of language here that is significant. Populist is a position in the same way that other words that end in -ist are — capitalist, socialist, etc. Populist is a stance, not a measure of sincerity.
April 10, 04