The Shotgun Blog
« All You Need is Love..... | Main | Don't use the "G" word »
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Margolis' fantasies
I recall that during the free trade debate in 1988 my high school science teacher said that Canada was wrong to align itself so closely with the United States because Japan was the economic way of the future. Science teachers can be forgiven for getting economics and geopolitics wrong but Sun Media foreign affairs correspondents cannot be. Eric Margolis writes in the Toronto Sun today:
"Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi went to the UN this week to request a permanent seat on the Security Council. He has been trying to tiptoe Japan into world affairs.It's high time the UN gave a seat to the world's No. 2 power. Japan needs to be politically integrated with the world and thus exercise a stabilizing influence. Its exclusion from the Security Council is illogical, unfair, and increasingly counterproductive."
Can Margolis be serious that Japan is the No. 2 power? And does having the second largest economy really make for being the second most important economy? Whatever problems there are with the Secuirty Council -- and in the next paragraph Margolis argues that the SC is useless -- giving Japan a permanent seat is not going to fix them. And giving Japan a permanent seat on the SC is not likely to help avert future conflict(s) in North Asia, one reason Margolis cites for putting Japan on the Council. One can't help but to think that Margolis' viscious anti-Americanism is directing his analysis on Japan.
Posted by Paul Tuns on September 26, 2004 in International Affairs | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834515b5d69e200d83432bca653ef
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Margolis' fantasies :
Comments
You didn't include the best (and by best, I mean most outrageous) part of Margolis's latest: that (and this is a direct quote) "North Asia's nations have to forget the past, stop acting like crybabies, and stop extorting guilt money from Japan."
It's the "forget the past, stop acting like crybabies" remark that gets me the most. Japan has done a *pathetic* job of attoning or even apologizing for its conduct before & during WWII. Maybe before those nations that suffered under Japan during that time "forget the past", official Japan could do a better job of remembering it.
As for Eric, I wonder if he'll apply that God-forbid-I-call-it-logic when he talks about the victims of the Nazis, or perhaps those who suffered under Stalin. I suspect (and hope) he won't - unless he can somehow bash President Bush by doing so.
- HJH.
Posted by: Jason Hickman | 2004-09-27 9:46:05 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.