After it was learned that Akihiko Saito, a Japanese national working for a British security company in Iraq, was captured by a militant group during an ambush, the media seemed so stunned by the revelation that they couldn't get their bearings. So they seized on the only source of local information they could find: Saito's younger brother, Hironobu, whose behavior at a hastily arranged press conference in Chiba only added to the confusion.

"I never imagined I'd be sitting here," he said to journalists, clearly upset and breaking down into tears. Though the fate of his brother was the main reason for his distress -- Saito is thought to have been seriously injured in the attack -- the emotional nature of the press conference was compounded by his shock at being scrutinized so suddenly. When he apologized to both the Japanese people and the Japanese government for the "trouble" his brother had caused, one couldn't help but recall similar press conferences held last year where relatives of four Japanese civilians being held hostage in Iraq were called upon to apologize for causing such trouble.

The thing is, no one had accused Saito of causing trouble. If anything, he's been painted as a rare man of action, even a hero. Unlike the case with the four civilians, which some high-ranking government officials turned into a strident morality lesson in personal responsibility, this time the Foreign Ministry addressed the Saito crisis without complaint. As some commentators have pointed out, since Saito was working for a private security company, he is that company's responsibility, but the government has nothing to lose and everything to gain, since they might just succeed in saving a man who has come to represent the closest thing Japan has to a warrior.