Saturday, September 10, 2011

President Obama's Special 9-11 Message Only for Yomiuri Shinbun

Oh isn't it interesting...

Yomiuri Shinbun says US President Obama has sent a special message to Yomiuri on the occasion of the 10-year anniversary of September-11.

Yomiuri Shinbun (1:09AM JST 9/11/2011):

2001年9月、ハイジャック機が米ニューヨークの世界貿易センター(WTC)ビルやワシントン郊外の国防総省など3か所に突入、墜落して計約3000人を殺害した同時テロから11日で10年を迎える。

It has been 10 years since the simultaneous terrorist attacks when hijacked airplanes hit the World Trade Center buildings in New York and the Pentagon outside the Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001, killing 3,000 people.

WTC跡地ではオバマ大統領も出席して追悼式典が行われ、犠牲者の鎮魂を祈る。

At the "Ground Zero" at the World Trade Center, a commemorative ceremony will be conducted to pray for the victims. President Obama will also join.

 オバマ大統領は10日、「不可欠なパートナーシップ」と題して読売新聞に寄稿し、同時テロから10年を機に、「平和と繁栄の未来を求める国や人々には米国というパートナーがいる。米国は経済問題に直面しているが、世界で比類のない指導的役割を今後も果たす」との決意を表明した。大統領は、同時テロ後、米欧とイスラム世界の関係が緊張したことを踏まえ、「米国はイスラムと戦争をしているのではなく、今後も決してしない」と改めて強調した。(英文は11日付「ザ・デイリー・ヨミウリ」に掲載)

On September 10, President Obama wrote a guest editorial for Yomiuri Shinbun titled "Indispensable Partnership". In the editorial, the president said "There's always the United States as the partner, for countries and people who want a peaceful, prosperous future. The United States is currently facing an economic problem, but is determined to play a leading role incomparable in the world". Touching on the relationship between the US and Europe and the Islamic countries that grew tense after the terrorist attacks, the president emphasized, "The United States is not at war with Islam, and will never be". (The president's editorial will be carried on "The Daily Yomiuri" on September 11.)

It is not President Obama's (or his writer's) own words that you see in the above paragraph. It's my translation of Yomiuri's translation, which will not match the original English verbatum.

Why was this paper, Yomiuri, selected as the vehicle for a guest editorial by a US President?

Yomiuri Shinbun has a colorful history in Japan. After Matsutaro Shoriki bought the then-small Yomiuri Shinbun in 1924, one year after the "Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923" with the help from the earthquake recovery agency, it went on to acquire huge national readership. In 1950s, the paper was used as one of the vehicles whereby Shoriki pushed for nuclear energy and promoted it extensively to the Japanese who were leery and suspicious of anything nuclear after the two bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Daigo Fukuryumaru's Bikini Atoll accident in 1954. The other "vehicle" was Nippon Television, where Shoriki served as the president. Extensively using both media, Shoriki, who in 1956 became the first head of the Science and Technology Agency specifically created to promote nuclear energy in Japan, successfully turned around the extremely negative sentiment among the Japanese concerning nuclear energy into that of ardent support. In 1965, Japan's first nuclear reactor went critical in Tokai-mura in Ibaraki Prefecture.

Shoriki was a former high-ranking official in the pre-war Interior Ministry, and he was incarcerated in Sugamo Prison as a Class-A war criminal but later released. In the post World War II days he was an CIA operative with a code name "podam" and "pojacpot-1 ". It is said that both the US and Shoriki were interested in pushing the national television network and the nuclear power in Japan.

Yomiuri remains unabashedly pro-nuke.

Old ties die hard, and the President of the United States sends a 9-11 message only to this particular newspaper.

(Matsutaro Shoriki's information from Japanese wikipedia and other sources in Japanese.)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Normally this would be the other way around, that the Yomiuri invited President Obama to send in an article. I used to do a little work in the field, and newspapers invite notable people to contribute things all the time before major events. The newspaper makes a request to the important person, not the other way around. So THAT is why it is in the Yomiuri. (It's the same as why the Sankei Shimbun exclusive interview with Naoto Kan was in the Sankei Shimbun-- because the Sankei was the one that asked him to do it, not because Kan likes the Sankei more than other papers and called them up and said, "Hey have I got a story for you.")

And just as an aside, we know that the chance that Mr. Obama wrote this article himself is absolutely zero. But the chance that Mr. Obama even glanced at it, much less read it through, and officially approved it before the ghostwriter sent it off is also very close to zero. Probably less than one in a thousand, maybe closer to one in ten thousand.

Anonymous said...

Obama the total con artist:

Here's the TRUE story of 911, not a book Bush read about goats to toddlers:
http://theinfounderground.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5367


This excellent book shows the extent that US foreign policy helped nurture Muslim dissatisfaction in the Middle East:

Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games by Eric Walberg
http://www.amazon.com/Postmodern-Imperialism-Geopolitics-Great-Games/dp/098335393X

Anonymous said...

EX-SKF is a kook who failed at commodity trading and now is trying to vent his considerable emotional biases in other more profitable ways. Pity he does his cause more harm than good. Objectivity is valuable these days. he lacks it.

Anonymous said...

@ Anon 4:16

Who the fuck asked you? if you don't like what you see here then move on. Nobody is twisting your arm to be here. Go start your own blog and give us a heads up so we can trash it.

P.S. Try to type without a dick up your ass next time it will do wonders for your powers of concentration.

len said...

Ex Skf is bringing those of us outside of Japan and its culture , closer than most authors ever have. His coverage of the Fukushima disaster has been some of the best journalism I have seen concerning the politics of this mess.

Anonymous said...

I thought we were looking at six decades of North American hegemony in the eastern pacific and the inevitable demise of both the culture and people blessed by their influence.

They don't call themselves the wreckers of nations for no reason.

Anonymous said...

Re the DY being pro-nuke: more evidence, hot off the press -
http://t.co/Av4nalz

Anonymous said...

@ Anon 4:16,

Go ahead, you simpleton-cretin, lol, call ex-SKF "gutless" like you want to, after all he's the only one with the courage to present it the way it is.

lol

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