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November 27, 2024

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COMMENTARY

Apr 3, 2003

Economic effects of war concern China

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- The war in Iraq has brought to the surface strains in the Chinese-American relationship that had been papered over because of the two countries' common stand in the war on terrorism.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 3, 2003

U.S. confidence not enough

By Jonathan Fenby

LONDON -- America's notion of its national sense of "manifest destiny" has been a mainstay of its internal expansion and then its involvement with the world in the past century. This has frequently been of enormous benefit to the rest of the globe. But it can lead the most powerful nation on Earth into...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 3, 2003

Will war affect Asian vision?

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- The Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 was a defining moment for a majority of East Asian countries. It made them more aware of their individual vulnerabilities, and impressed upon them the need for regional stability to ensure continuous economic growth.

COMMENTARY

Apr 2, 2003

Caught between Iraq and a North Korean hard place

By Kenzo Uchida

When the war between the U.S.-British coalition and Iraq finally began on March 20, a Japanese magazine put out a special issue headlined "The Realization of Justice or Arousal of the Devil?" to stress the importance of looking through to the essence of the war.

COMMENTARY

Apr 2, 2003

Pessimism about war looks overdone

By David Howell

LONDON -- As the military operation in Iraq rolls forward, those who still have doubts about the project -- and there are many -- have started to focus on all the catastrophes that could lie ahead, however speedy the campaign.

COMMENTARY

Apr 1, 2003

Alternatives to pummeling

By Gregory Clark

WASHINGTON -- After Vietnam and Operation Mongoose (the bizarre 1962 attempt by the U.S. military to invent covert "pretexts" for an attack on Cuba), only flag-waving militarists and small children could want to believe current U.S. and British excuses for the attack on Iraq.

COMMENTARY

Mar 31, 2003

U.S. coalition unnerves allies

By Brad Glosserman

SAN FRANCISCO -- Although the United States didn't go to the United Nations for explicit authorization of an attack against Iraq, the Bush administration never abandoned attempts to craft a multilateral coalition in support of those efforts. But this government's view of "multilateralism" differs from...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 31, 2003

Posturing of 'truths' failed to derail U.N.

By Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK -- One of the first casualties of any war -- although often overlooked -- is language. Perhaps this has never been more true than in the present war against Iraq. Diplomacy, we are told, "failed." The United Nations, we are told, has become "irrelevant." The attack against Iraq, we are told,...

COMMENTARY

Mar 31, 2003

Debt owed to those inclined to be soldiers

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- Americans have grown used to nearly costless wars. The New York Times headlined one story: "Invading Forces Capture Key Bridge -- More American Deaths." It left readers to ponder which was the more interesting news nugget -- that a bridge was taken, or that U.S. soldiers died taking it....

COMMENTARY

Mar 31, 2003

Folly of liberation by force

By Takamitsu Sawa

The Pentagon calls the U.S. military campaign in Iraq "Operation Iraqi Freedom." This is clearly intended to reflect U.S.-British justification of their attempt to overthrow the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and "liberate" Iraq without a United Nations resolution.

COMMENTARY

Mar 31, 2003

Win the peace with Muslims after the war

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- Location, in politics as well as in real estate, is almost everything. When British Prime Minister Tony Blair came calling on U.S. President George W. Bush, America's foremost ally raised with Washington the tender issue of repairing badly damaged relations with America's "old Europe"...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Mar 31, 2003

Modesty marked this great man of letters

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK -- Herbert Passin, whom I had the honor of knowing, died on Feb. 26. Like kabuki expert Faubion Bowers, whom I also knew, Passin was a top graduate of the Military Intelligence Service Language School, which was established in 1941 in preparation for the coming war with Japan. Both did wonderful...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.

Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat

By Greg Dvorak

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