Mark Bossingham

News from the East

'Life sentence for killer of teen wife'
   
    Today's ill wind comes to us as the lead brief in the English-language edition of The Asahi Shimbun published Feb. 23, 2005. I paraphrase and comment:

   THE THREE paragraph story is datelined Chiba, the capital city of the prefecture east of Tokyo. We painfully learn that the Chiba District Court has sentenced a 23-year-old man to life imprisonment for killing his young wife. It appears the despicable monster beat a 16-year-old girl to death after he wed her in a ''sham marriage.''   
    If that isn't awful enough, the bastard ''torched'' her body ''with friends.'' The paper states that the killer, Hironobu Suzuki, married Yuko Ishibashi in 2003 and adopted her family name. This "adoption" of a son-in-law into the wive's family is not uncommon here in Japan but not for our killer's reason: he hoped the new family affiliation would allow him to borrow more money from loan sharks.
    I must admit that this is a case where I would agree heartily with the eye-for-an-eye form of punishment. If anyone deserves to be roasted over an open flame like a weenie, it's our killer Hironobu. Remember ''life'' doesn't mean ''life'' here, and try real hard to imagine what Yuko was thinking as she was beaten to death. It's almost too horrible to contemplate. The brief doesn't state what happened to the ''friends" but I think they would make good candidates for crispy marshmellows after we finish with Hironobu.

Generally speaking

Abizaid discusses progress in Afghanistan

By John Valceanu
American Forces Press Service

    BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Feb. 20, 2005 -- U.S. and coalition forces have made significant progress against the al Qaeda terrorist group and remnants of the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, but the coalition must remain vigilant because the threat has not been completely eliminated, the U.S. general in charge of forces in the region said.

    Army Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, visited Afghanistan Feb. 18-19, during a tour of countries in the region. While in Afghanistan, he met with troops and senior leaders, and received briefings about the situation in the area.

    "Afghanistan is a place where military and economic, political and diplomatic activity at both the national level of the United States and also the international level came together in a way that, over the three years that we've been operating there, has shown interesting progress," said Abizaid, who is responsible for an area that includes the Middle East, central Asia and the horn of Africa.

    Afghanistan's first free elections, held in November 2004, along with the end of decades of war in the country, marked major milestones for the nation, Abizaid said.

    The general said progress in Afghanistan can be seen in "the establishment of an elected Afghan government, reconstruction projects that showed some tangible progress, the cessation of hostilities after 25 years worth of hostilities in the vast majority of the country, pretty effective counterinsurgency and counterterrorism activity by coalition forces, and a general belief, probably most importantly, by people of the country that things can get better."

    The vast majority of Afghan people is tired of war and only wants to lead a better life, Abizaid said. He added that most Afghans have come to realize that al Qaeda and the Taliban have nothing to offer them, so they are increasingly denying anti-coalition fighters any support.

    "One of the things that made us successful against al Qaeda in Afghanistan is that the Afghans tell us when Arab fighters show up somewhere, they tell us when there's a cache somewhere," Abizaid said. "Once they realize that their tormentors could actually be pushed out, ... they have come our way and told us about them and enabled our military operations."

    Though things are looking good for the coalition and the people of Afghanistan, Abizaid noted, anti-coalition elements have not been completely eliminated from the country, and he warned against underestimating the enemy.

    "As optimistic as I am about the situation in Afghanistan, the insurgents aren't completely defeated. Al Qaeda has not completely disappeared from there," Abizaid said. "While there has been a tremendous amount of progress and people are generally very optimistic, there can be a series of events that can move it in a direction that is unanticipated or start to move toward a bad security situation. While we're optimistic, we have to still remain vigilant."

    One of the primary coalition units serving in Afghanistan over the past year has been the 25th Infantry Division, base at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. The unit is preparing to rotate back to its home station over the next few weeks, after spending a year in Afghanistan. The Southern European Task Force, based in Vicenza, Italy, will replace the 25th.

    Abizaid emphasized to departing leaders the importance of passing along knowledge they gained during their deployment. He told members of the 25th "they are responsible for the first 90 days of the new unit that inherits their battle space, that they should take it as a professional challenge that they gained through a year of hard combat," Abizaid said.

    "We almost always face a problem of new units coming in and new units having to learn the tough lessons of combat," he said. "What I want our professional troops to do is to pass on those lessons to whatever extent they can by just really taking ownership for the new folks who are coming in behind them."

    Though much has been accomplished in Afghanistan, Abizaid said, much remains to be done. "We've got to continue to work for the trust of the Afghan people and still hunt down the enemies of the peace," he said.

AP as terror PR agency

HERE'S AN image of an Iraqi terrorist posing for a picture for one the The Associated Press' embebbed terror photographers, this one named Bilal Hussein. As I recall the infamous photo of terrorists executing poll workers on Haifa Street was also by an embedded AP photograper. That time, the AP refused to indentify the photographer citing fear for his safety. What's changed?

News from the East

THIS IS the first of a new feature: News from Japan as culled from the news briefs sections of Tokyo's daily papers. It would be a daily feature, but there are many days when absolutely noting of interest happens here. The criteria is going to be fairly eclectic but as I like crime stories, it may lean in that direction. Today it certainly does.

Published Feb. 18, The Daily Yomiuri.

''Potter held over burning woman's remains in kiln''

  Fukuoka – A 61-year-old potter has been arrested on suspicion of burning the remains of a woman in a pottery kiln last year at his home in Kanadamachi, Fukuoka Prefecture.
    ...police suspect the remains are those of a missing 31-year-old bar hostess ... who went missing last August.
  (The owner of the kiln) Koichi Shimoyama told police an acquaintance had brought the remains of a young woman to his home and coerced him into burning them in his gas kiln.

UPDATES!

TWO HOT updates today. First up we've got Chapter 7 in the Kiki & Jiji saga. Kiki finds it rough sledding teaching Jiji how to be, uhh, a dog. In our third installment of Rei no Sekai, The Spirit World, the former governor of Tokyo discovers that his mistreatment of foreigners mave have helped him in the short run, but eternity never forgets and has a sense of humor.

I remember...

"Jew York"

I REMEMBER waiting our turn to pass through the Suez Canal, in a line of ships in Port Said, Egypt. I was one member of an eight-man crew aboard the M/V Explorer, a 128-foot ocean going tugboat out of Seattle. While under way, streaming far behind was our tow, a 300-foot high oil rig destined for Bombay.
    It was a pretty amazing feat. This was 1975 and the fist time a submersible barge had been used to haul a rig. The barge was bright orange. In Brownsville, Texas, divers had pumped out the air in the barge and sank it. We floated the rig above the barge and the air was pumped back in. Up it came with the rig on top. This allowed us to tow at much greater speed--all of 7 knots in good weather.
    As soon as we anchored in Port Said to wait our turn, the "bum boats" descended on us. I had barely time to marvel at the shell-pocked buildings on shore, the result of the Yom Kippur War, when Egyptians were crawling all over our boat trying to sell is trinkets. While I don't recall any glow in the dark water buffalo painted on black velvet, it was the usual crap sailors buy.
    These bum boaters were unusually aggressive and the captain eventually kicked them off the boat, but not before one had broken into the focsle where the ordinary and the two able-bodied seamen slept. He had managed to remove a ventilation panel built into the bottom of the door. Nothing substantial was stolen. We bought a case of weak Egyptian beer and I nursed my few bottles halfway across the Red Sea.
    But what I remember most vividly was the first thing my first Egyptian said to me. "Where you from?" he asked. "Jew York?" Call me sheltered, call me naive, but I had never heard the term. I was 25 years old, already a Navy veteran, and had never come across such intense, seemingly, reasonless prejudice. I mean, let's face it, the first thing on this guy's mind when meeting an American was an anti-Semitic slur. He thought it was funny.
    Today I think about the chances of peace in the Middle East and wonder. For the Israelis it's always a "Jew York" moment. My Egyptian is too old to blow anybody up these days, but I bet there are plenty of younger guys just like him around.
    Out turn came at last. We were happy to get through the canal and free from such an oppressive atmosphere. After a few days at sea the incident was forgotten--almost. 

Kyoto Treaty laughathon II

AMONG THE liberal internationalist set, it has always been a given that negotiations are an end, not a means to an end. Witness the EU's insistence that negotiations with Iran are moving along just swimmingly despite the fact that the Iranians have shouted a giant "Never" in their faces and proclaimed they will build a plutonium-producing reactor--''but you can give us a chintzy light-water reactor if it will make you feel better.''
    Kyoto is the perfect paradigm for the unworkable, yet widely acclaimed and unstoppable treaty. Too many world--U.N.--bureaucrats having been dining off this monster for two many years for it to be anything but a huge success--for one day. That one day was yesterday. The Japanese dailies were filled with pictures of cuties dressed up as happy polar bears apparently pleased that the treaty will stop "global warming'' and other such activist photo ops.
    The facts are these: The Kyoto Protocol obligates Japan--the world's second biggest economy--to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 94 percent of its 1990 level between 2008 and 20012. Unfortunately for Japan, by 2003 (God, knows what the figure is now) the nation's emissions were already 8 percent above 1990 levels.
    My math tells me that Tokyo needs to figure out a way to reduce emissions by a minimum of 14 percent over the next seven years. The government assured the world yesterday that ''chances are strong'' that Japan would reach its target. How? Are we all going to be given three years off to go on a camping trip while they shut down the nation's industrial output? No more GameBoys, 42-inch plasma TVs? Digital cameras? Forget it.
    Ahh, but the bureaucrats have created a useless but face-saving out. Instead of the camping trip and the resultant depression, they have built in the idea of emission credits. (Remember the United States rightly thumbed its nose at this abomination and will keep its economy growing. China was exempted. And forget about the EU, with their low-birth rates, pathetic growth of about 1 percent a year and high unemployment, they are already doomed).
    The credit canard is marvelous. Reminds me of the old TV show Queen for a Day. If the Japanese government throws enough cash in the direction of some too-poor to pollute country, it can assume their identity long enough to meet its protocol obligations without the slightest change in its industrial output and international competitiveness. It's called The Sudan for a Day program. Japan can receive emission credits (the right to pollute) from the have-not nations if the price is right.
     Yes, it's a giant shell game, but ultimately who cares? Global warming itself is just an unproven cash cow for grant-seeking liberal internationalist ''scientists.''

Kyoto Treaty laughathon

THIS IS simply hilarious. The idea that the "home team" is ever going to reach its target is simply inane. As this story puts it oh so delicately:

In Japan, a tireless supporter of the pact, the enactment was being met with a mixture of pride and worry that the world's second-largest economy is unprepared to meet its emissions reduction targets.

I'll put it less delicately. Japan will reach 1990 emission levels about the same day hell freezes over. It will fulfill its treaty obligations the same day the moon is determined to be made of cheddar cheese.

Bravo!

YO. LISTEN up. My 17-year-old nephew Joel Drotleff just sold his first story for 50 bucks to the sci-fi Web site DawnSky. I'll post a link as soon as it's available. Great job Joel! Joel's a talented kid, he previously won an essay contest sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution. He lives in north California.

Book sales!

WOW, I'VE actually sold two copies of my novel "Crazy Noise" on Amazon since I started this blog. Of course I sold more before, but these are directly attributable to the blog. Cool. Regardless, I promise to post a chapter a month for those with a lot of patience--34 months worth of patience, I'm afraid. I'm really not in it for the money. And I certainly didn't write it for the money. It seems funny now, but I once had an agent who promised she could get a $1 million advance on the book. She was dreaming. Ten bucks would've been cool with me. Anyway, whoever you are out there, thanks a bunch. You're the best. If you are reading this in Japan. Buy it from Amazon Japan and save a bundle on shipping costs.