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Thread: for news geeks: American war dead and Japanese hostages

  1. #1
    Veteran Member Weluckyfew's Avatar
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    Default for news geeks: American war dead and Japanese hostages

    A few articles for discussion among the news geeks:

    Pentagon upset that photos of flag draped coffins have been leaked:

    and

    Interesting cultural differences: Japanese hostages are shunned and hated in their own country:
    Freed From Captivity in Iraq, Japanese Return to More Pain

    April 23, 2004
    By NORIMITSU ONISHI





    TOKYO, April 22 - The young Japanese civilians taken
    hostage in Iraq returned home this week, not to the warmth
    of a yellow-ribbon embrace but to a disapproving nation's
    cold stare.

    Three of them, including a woman who helped street children
    on the streets of Baghdad, appeared on television two weeks
    ago as their knife-brandishing kidnappers threatened to
    slit their throats. A few days after their release, they
    landed here on Sunday, in the eye of a peculiarly Japanese
    storm.

    "You got what you deserve!" read one hand-written sign at
    the airport where they landed. "You are Japan's shame,"
    another wrote on the Web site of one of the former
    hostages. They had "caused trouble" for everybody. The
    government, not to be outdone, announced it would bill the
    former hostages $6,000 for air fare.

    Beneath the surface of Japan's ultra-sophisticated cities
    lie the hierarchical ties that have governed this island
    nation for centuries and that, at moments of crises,
    invariably reassert themselves. The former hostages'
    transgression was to ignore a government advisory against
    traveling to Iraq. But their sin, in a vertical society
    that likes to think of itself as classless, was to defy
    what people call here "okami," or, literally, "what is
    higher."

    Treated like criminals, the three former hostages have gone
    into hiding, effectively becoming prisoners inside their
    own homes. The kidnapped woman, Nahoko Takato, was last
    seen arriving at her parents' house, looking defeated and
    dazed from tranquilizers, flanked by relatives who helped
    her walk and bow deeply before reporters, as a final
    apology to the nation.

    Dr. Satoru Saito, a psychiatrist who examined the three
    former hostages twice since their return, said the stress
    they were enduring now was "much heavier" than what they
    experienced during their captivity in Iraq. Asked to name
    their three most stressful moments, the former hostages
    told him, in ascending order: the moment when they were
    kidnapped on their way to Baghdad, the knife-wielding
    incident, and the moment they watched a television show the
    morning after their return here and realized Japan's anger
    with them.

    "Let's say the knife incident, which lasted about 10
    minutes, ranks 10 on a stress level," Dr. Saito said in an
    interview at his clinic on Thursday. "After they came back
    to Japan and saw the morning news show, their stress level
    ranked 12."

    To the angry Japanese, the first three hostages - Nahoko
    Takato, 34, who started a nonprofit organization to help
    Iraqi street children; Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a freelance
    photographer; and Noriaki Imai, 18, a freelance writer
    interested in the issue of depleted uranium munitions - had
    acted selfishly. Two others kidnapped and released in a
    separate incident - Junpei Yasuda, 30, a freelance
    journalist, and Nobutaka Watanabe, 36, a member of an
    anti-war group - were equally guilty.

    Pursuing individual goals by defying the government and
    causing trouble for Japan was simply unforgivable. But the
    freed hostages did get official praise from one government:
    the United States.

    "Well, everybody should understand the risk they are taking
    by going into dangerous areas," said Secretary of State
    Colin L. Powell. "But if nobody was willing to take a risk,
    then we would never move forward. We would never move our
    world forward.

    "And so I'm pleased that these Japanese citizens were
    willing to put themselves at risk for a greater good, for a
    better purpose. And the Japanese people should be very
    proud that they have citizens like this willing to do
    that."

    In contrast, Yasuo Fukuda, the Japanese government's
    spokesman offered this about the captives' ordeal: "They
    may have gone on their own but they must consider how many
    people they caused trouble to because of their action."

    The criticism began almost immediately after the first
    three civilians were kidnapped two weeks ago. The
    environment minister, Yuriko Koike, blamed them for being
    "reckless."

    After the hostages' families asked that the government
    yield to the kidnappers' demand and withdraw its 550 troops
    from southern Iraq, they began receiving hate mail and
    harassing faxes and e-mail messages. The Japanese, like the
    villagers in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," had to throw
    stones.

    Even as the kidnappers were still threatening to burn alive
    the three hostages, Yukio Takeuchi, an official in the
    Foreign Ministry, said of the three, "When it comes to a
    matter of safety and life, I would like them to be aware of
    the basic principle of personal responsibility."

    The Foreign Ministry, held both in awe and resentment by
    many Japanese, was the okami defied in this case. While
    Foreign Ministry officials are Japan's super elite, the
    average Japanese tends to regard them as arrogant and
    unhelpful, recalling how they failed to deliver in time the
    declaration of war against the United States in 1941 so
    that Japan became forever known as a sneak-attack nation.

    Defying the okami are young Japanese people like the freed
    hostages, freelancers and members of nonprofit
    organizations, who are traditionally held in low esteem in
    a country where the bigger one's company, the bigger one's
    social rank. They also belong to a generation in which many
    have rejected traditional Japanese life. Many have
    gravitated instead to places like the East Village in
    Manhattan, looking for something undefined.

    Others have gone to Iraq looking to report the true story,
    since Japan's big media outlets have generally avoided
    dangerous places. (Almost all of them left Iraq over the
    last week on a government-chartered plane, leaving Japan's
    most important military mission since the end of World War
    II essentially ignored by the news media.)

    Mr. Yasuda - who was in the second group of hostages and
    also described the stress of his return as far greater than
    what he felt during his captivity in Iraq - quit his
    position as a staff reporter at a regional newspaper to
    report as a freelancer in Iraq.

    "We have to check ourselves what the Japanese government is
    doing in Iraq," Mr. Yasuda said during an interview
    Thursday night. "This is the responsibility on the part of
    Japanese citizens, but it seems as if people are leaving
    everything up to the government."

    The okami reacted with fury at such defiance. Some
    politicians proposed a law barring Japanese from traveling
    to dangerous countries; even more of them said that the
    hostages should pay the costs incurred by the government in
    securing their release.

    "This is an idea that should be considered," The Yomiuri
    Shimbun, Japan's biggest daily newspaper, said in an
    editorial. "Such an act might deter other reckless,
    self-righteous volunteers."

    When two freed hostages mentioned wanting to stay or return
    to Iraq to continue their work, Prime Minister Junichiro
    Koizumi angrily urged them "to have some sense."

    "Many government officials made efforts to rescue them,
    without even eating and sleeping, and they are still saying
    that sort of thing?" he said.

    The comment was revealing, one that would not likely be
    heard from the United States government. Here, the
    government is now trumpeting "personal responsibility" for
    those going to dangerous areas - essentially saying that
    travelers shouldn't expect any help from the government to
    secure their safety or get out of trouble.

    Again, no Japanese politician dared to speak out against
    this idea.

    Indeed, Mr. Koizumi's handling of the hostage crisis
    translated into positive evaluations in public opinion
    polls, and the issue diverted attention from Iraq's
    worsening security situation and the fact that Japan's
    troops, according to this country's war-renouncing
    Constitution, are supposed to be in a noncombat zone.

    Grasping Japan's attitude toward them, the hostages found
    themselves under crushing pressure, Dr. Saito said.

    According to him, Mr. Imai, the 18-year-old former hostage,
    registered a high blood pressure reading. Ms. Takato, who
    had a pulse rate of over 120 beats per minute, kept
    bursting into tears. When the doctor told her she had done
    good work in Iraq, she cried convulsively and said, "But
    I've done wrong, haven't I?"

    On Tuesday, Ms. Takato used the tranquilizers Dr. Saito
    gave her and finally left Tokyo for her hometown in
    Hokkaido. Ms. Takato, the news media reported, expressed
    fear about returning to her family home, but she may as
    well have been talking about returning to Japan. "I feel
    like going back home quickly, but I'm also afraid of going
    home."

  2. #2
    mermaidnz
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    Default Re:for news geeks: American war dead and Japanese hostages

    its hard for us to imagine a hostage as a countries let down etc, but to a japanese person, well they have entirely different values etc. i can kinda see their point ( about 10% of it....btu i think its a bit fucked up)

    as for the flags
    who cares if people se the pics. damnit its the truth aint it. poeple died. it moving images such as those which make or beak a nation when faced with a war.refer to the vietman war , and THAT photo ( i hope you know the one i mean, i dont know if it was titled as anythign.) with a child, black and white, the one that helped start the flower power revolution? well imagine what those casket photos can do your your nation. maybe you will all realise you dont need a war, you dont need to send your friends,brothers, sons out to war AGAIN for the sake of your dumbass gov values.

    i dunno, just a thoguth.

    i think the pics are great examples of photojournalism. they SHOULD be published. why should the gov be allowed to restrict and censor what you see.???
    fuck them.

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    God/dess Rhiannon's Avatar
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    Default Re:for news geeks: American war dead and Japanese hostages

    I think it's completely ridiculous that they're making such a big thing out of a woman snapping pictures that were moving to her as they passed through the airport.

    What amazes me even more, is that they're going after the woman who snapped the pictures, when she gave the rights to them to her friend. Her friend is the one who sold them (for $1400 every time they use them).

    They really didn't make a big deal with all the overly published images of 9-11. It affected us, as does this. It's the same damn thing.

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    Default Re:for news geeks: American war dead and Japanese hostages

    As for the caskets photos.........To me it is in extremely bad taste to show that. Let the families have their time with loosing a loved one.

    And for the record, watched the news last night, and they talked to two families who had lost a loved one Iraq, and they said seeing that photo made them re-live their hard times all over again.

    My 2 cents.........
    I've heard that a good signiture sets you apart from everyone.
    Well......is this good enough???

  5. #5
    mermaidnz
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    Default Re:for news geeks: American war dead and Japanese hostages

    thats a good point samart, but those pictures could prevent another young man going to war and getting himself killed. ( its a bit of a turn off aint it?) so in a sence, it may save lives.

    although i do feel sorry for the families, it must be hard having to see stuff like that on tv every night, knowing how much it has affected them, how horribal.

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