Sol Sanders Archive

It is no real mystery why: take a look at the “metrosexual” élan of the weekend edition and you see just how far West 43rd Street has strayed from the great American mainstream, perhaps even their Manhattan neighbors whose skyscape once opened half Hollywood’s movies. Granted the explosion of the electronic media have played the major role. But then, here, too, the Midtown denizens are just not with it.

Still, there is that “cultural lag”, the elapsed time before the changed nature of a phenomenon is generally appreciated. Nowhere is it more apparent than among those still addicted to reading The New York Times. These loyal readers, especially inside the Washington Beltway, hang on The New York Times’ every word as the representation of American and world reality. Like earlier Administrations, the Bush team still thinks getting it out through TNYT is the most effective way to inform the American public. They are not unlike the renegade leakers up the Potomac in Langley or even across the River in The Pentagon.

In fact, time and effort requires these days not only scouring the abundant foreign media on the internet, but even – somehow – sorting out the blogosphere, that avalanche of nothing and everything that fills the digital universe if one wants to know what is happening in the world.

Gruff, sarcastic, media-averse, but common sensical Fred Thompson in one of his occasional zingers had it right the other night: in the Republican candidates’ debate, he noted that you didn’t read much about Iraq on the front pages of The New York Times these days, because news from there is good.

Before, gentle reader, you turn this off as just another “great rightwing conspiracy” screed against the liberals, hang on for what might be an important consideration.

In the war against the Islamofascists – the proper name for they do, however mistakenly, terrorize in the name of Islam, whatever the greater body of that religion’ adherents believe and do, and they do want to turn the world back to a mythical paradisaical past – the West is losing the high ground. Not the high moral ground but the high technological media ground, curiously enough, invented long ago in in New York, London, Paris, Washington, Berlin, Milan, Amsterdam and Buenos Aires — and latterly DARPA and Silicon Valley.

And one reason for that is that the old crumbling organs of the American media establishment are waging war against U.S. foreign policy These mediaistas suffer some weird, distorted intellectual hangover, a combination of the 1930s bifurcated world between fascism and communism, and the nihilism of the 60s. The New York Times is the quintessential benighted warrior in this effort.

Let’s turn to a recent if not all that important example – but quintessential — of the propaganda war “these people” are waging. But to do so, again, courage! as the French say, while “the plot” is laid out like Prufrock on the table:

Let’s prepare the operating room first: Japan, the world’s No. 2 economy [the World Bank has just scaled back all those inflated estimates of China], a representative democracy, high living standards, a society appalled and contrite at its excesses before and during World War II which contrary to conventional wisdom have been publicly apologized for over and over again, with a vast technological base, is rearming in defense of its [own and shared American] interests in the East Asia region.

Forbidden by its constitution, written during the American Occupation of Japan after World War II by Gen. Douglas Macarthur’s lawyers and their Japanese colleagues, Tokyo is forbidden to engage in war — even in defense of Japan. Conservative Liberal Democratic Party [LDP] governments for several decades have been “spinning” the “no war” clause to permit, first “self-defense” forces, and more recently even a Ministry of National Defense [supported by the Opposition Japan Democratic Party].

Japan has even participated, although again the legalities are dubious, in a UN-sponsored Cambodian peacekeeping operation, carefully limiting itself to noncombatant activities [later moving on to Mozambique, the Golan Heights, and East Timor]. That little Asian country’s catastrophes had tugged at Japan’s humanitarian heartstrings and more hawkish politicians saw it as a way to break out of their unrealistic constitutionally-dictated unadorned pacifism.

The debate continued. But then the Japanese were “mugged by reality” in 1998 when North Korea’s Communist Kingdom threw a missile, unannounced, over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese — however reluctantly — have come to accept rearmament [$45 billion in 2005] fostered, particularly under former Junichiro Koizumi’s popular and highly successful prime ministry. Essential to the new strategy was a tightening of the “mutuality” aspects of the American-Japanese Mutual Defense treaty. And important elements of the majority Liberal Democrat Party have campaigned for the heartrending and difficult process of rewriting at least that element of the constitution to go straight.

That leads us to the latest turn of events and the interpretation of THYT. Its current special correspondent in Japan, Norimitsu Onoshi, with excellent credentials as a Japan-born, Canada-nurtured, bicultural, Princeton BMOC, experienced reporter, has been waging a one-man war against Japan’s conservatives and their commitment to the American treaty obligations.

He has help. For during the whole of Japan’s liberated postwar lifetime, all of Japan’s Big Three national newspapers have had a strong leftward bent – not the least The Asahi Shimbun with which TNYT has had a long incestuous intellectual and commercial relationship. One might say the Asahi, so often said to be TNYT of Japan, is the leader of the Japanese “bien-pesant” [the “right-thinkers, or the PC, politically correct]. Its bona fides for its anti-Americanism hark back to a morning after Pyongyang invaded South Korea in 1950, starting the bitter Korean War. Then its leading editorialist wrote he “could not imagine that the North Koreans had initiated the attack”. The double entendre [and the always great difficulty of translation in often purposefully ambiguous Japanese] permitted him a quick exit, for it was — and that chronology tells you a lot – published while Japan was still under Occupation.

But the leading leftwing Japanese media have never had that much of a direct political impact, not unlike their American cousins. The proof is that the Japanese electorate has chosen conservative governments throughout virtually all of the postwar period. That brings us back to our central point:

One of the recent issues in Japan has been Koizumi’s support of the U.S. and the NATO effort to rebuild Afghanistan after the destruction of its Islamofascist Taliban government gave sanctuary to Osama Bin Ladin’s Al Qaida which claimed responsibility for 9/11. A law, duly passed by Japan’s parliament, instructed its armed forces, and appropriated money [not the least of issues], to supply fuel to American armed units operating in the theater.

There’s a history. Earlier, Japan had refused to take part because of constitutional restraints in the 1991 Persian Gulf War in defense of Kuwait. Tokyo received a good deal of flack from American critics, and some Japanese [and some petrosheikhs!]. It attempted to assuage the chagrin later with a hefty financial contribution [with Germany] of $16 billion [in early 90s dollars] and the dispatch of minesweepers and other postwar cleanup.

This latest move and other non-combatant roles were seen as an effort to make Tokyo’s contribution to that holiest of grails, international collective defense, since the U.S. had been attacked from Afghanistan. But, in the passage of time, like all good democratic legislation everywhere, the law expired. That came, unfortunately, amidst a crisis in the leadership of Japan’s LDP. And along, too, came an election for the upper house of the Japanese Diet. It produced for the first time in postwar history a majority for the opposition, against the lower house and the government formed there. Alas! as happens in democracies, the Indian Ocean supply mission became a political football.

But by mid-January as first order of business after the long new year’s holiday, the new Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda was ready to put the extension bill to a parliamentary vote. He did. He won – and big, 340 votes to 140. The issue died, more or less, for the moment.

But Onishi’s report on events was revealing — and as always insidious. Again, fortitude, dear reader, for, as always, the devil is in the details:

The New York Times: Headline: Japan Approves Bill on Afghan War

A Sense of Asia [ASOA]: Well, no, not exactly. If by the Afghan War, you mean standing off the Indo-Pak Subcontinent at a few hundred miles in the Indian Ocean and refueling ships or planes.

NYT: “…The Japanese government on Friday pushed through a special law authorizing its navy…”

ASOA: Given the vote, it wasn’t much of a “push” – mostly just “passed” after a pretty brief debate, and no fisticuffs or walk-outs that have been known to characterize some heated Diet sessions.

NYT: “…In an extremely rare parliamentary move, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's governing Liberal Democratic Party used its two-thirds majority in Parliament's lower house to override a rejection of the law by the opposition-controlled upper house, an action not taken since 1951….”

ASOA: Yeah, rare, since this is the first time in postwar history the upper house has been in the hands of the parliamentary opposition, and the overriding process is written into the constitution.. The upper house, modeled after the British House of Lords and not the U.S. Senate, cannot vote down the lower house. A motion of censure there is not a vote of no confidence since the government is formed in the lower house [like the British Commons]. It was known, predicted, and a fait accompli, that the lower house would override, the ensuing opposition vote probably larger because the outcome was preordained and it “cost” nothing. Familiar to our U.S. Senate watchers?.

NYT: “…The refueling mission, which was suspended in November after the opposition Democratic Party gained power in the upper house last summer, is expected to resume by the end of the month….

ASOA: No, it wasn’t. It was suspended because the sunset clause in the legislation took over. A crisis of leadership in the LDP prevented it being reintroduced immediately. The DPJ victory in the upper house elections could not affect the lower house vote if the Prime Ministry pursued an extension, as he did.

NYT: “…A Japanese refueling vessel and a destroyer had operated in the Indian Ocean since 2001, supplying 132 million gallons of fuel to warships from the United States, Britain, Pakistan and other countries. Though the mission was not considered militarily significant, it carried political significance for a country whose military activities are severely curtailed by its pacifist Constitution. …”

ASOA: Not quite; more significantly, by constitutional provisions that some interpret to mean Japan may not participate even in UN-sponsored peacekeeping operations, Tokyo is indirectly joining in with an NATO peacekeeping, its first outside the [European] theater.

NYT: “…The Democratic Party said it would endorse only missions led by the United Nations and said the Liberal Democrats were slavishly following the United States….”

ASOA: Not likely. The Democratic Party is composed of odd remnants of former parties – leftwing Socialists and expelled conservative members of the LDP and everything in between. The DJP leader, Seiji Ozawa, an ex-LDPer who dashes between superhawk and superdove, walked out on the Prime Minister’s speech in the voting process. A few weeks ago he resigned as DPJ leader, then withdrew his resignation, after he was caught talking “a grand coalition” with the Prime Minister.

NYT: …” In forcing through the legislation, Mr. Fukuda, who took over the leadership from former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in September, risks a backlash from a public that is divided over the mission. The public remains much more concerned about the economy and other issues.”

ASOA: So Fukuda faces a backlash on a foreign policy issue because people are interested in other domestic issues? Logic 101? And who says? The New York Times — or perhaps its Japanese alter ego, The Asahi Shimbun, that great analyst of the Japanese body politic.

NYT: “…Mr. Fukuda's approval ratings have fallen into the 30s because he has been unable to pass other legislation in Parliament since taking over as prime minister. …”

ASOA: Fukuda had been in office only three months, at this writing, including the extended yearend and Japanese new year’s celebrations, after taking over "abruptly" from his predecessor, Shinto Abe. Has Mr. Onishi investigated the Pelosi-Reid Congress’ progress lately, including the polling of the approval ratings of the U.S. Congress and Bush?

NYT: “…The Democratic Party, whose approval ratings have surpassed the governing party's in recent polls, is expected to press with renewed vigor for a dissolution of the lower house of Parliament and a general election….”

ASOA: Vigor is in the eye of the beholder, perhaps. Why would Fukuda accede to a new election now, not required, when he has a former landslide Koizumi majority in the lower house which governs?

NYT: “…Mr. Fukuda does not have to call a general election until the fall of 2009. But with the impasse in Parliament, he will probably be forced to do so and seek a popular mandate later this year….”

Ah, szooooo! Because the Asahi Shimbun, the NYT of Japan, might “demand” it, eh?

Devoted reader, who may still be there. There is a maxim in our little allegory.

You will have to take it on faith [unless you want another two thousand words] that this lesser event in the history of TNYT’s coverage of foreign events is not unique. The newspaper is saturated with such highly tangential renderings of opinion masquerading as reporting.

Nor, of course, is the TNYT the only culprit. Much of the American media wanders off the reservation, convinced as Mike Moynihan told us so many years ago [http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/The-Presidency-the-Press-4893], that our new journalism journalists believe they are anointed to lead. Not for them the role of their forebears in the days of Ben Hecht’s Chicago newspapering. Then a working journalists’ effort was to get as much as possible of the working class world around them they knew so well past the editors and owners to their readers.

In a much more dangerous world, the American media will be of little help in fighting the intellectual issues underlying the struggle for peace and stability against new kinds of enemies. That will be the curse and, perhaps, an opportunity for U.S. leadership [if they are largely ignored] in a new era beginning in 2009.