Meet the brass

The handshake alone is indicative of the power relationship.

Typical "dead-fish" handshake so common among Japanese here. Freaks me the hell out when a grown man shakes my hand like a prepubescent teenager.

"Meet the brass?" ...more like "Meet the boss"

The admiral, who was born in Yokosuka, has an interesting background.

From Wiki: He is the first Asian-American to achieve the rank of admiral, the highest ranking Japanese American, and the first officer from the U.S. Navy's P-3 maritime patrol aviation community to achieve 4-star rank. He was Commander. U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii from 2013-2015.

Apparently Japan is a sovereign nation with Abe as its leader but all these pictures shown of Abe with US military leaders on JT reveals how much of a puppet state Japan is. The handshake alone is indicative of the power relationship.

Ha ha! Looks like Abe has the Japanese dead fish hand shake!

Looks like Popeye there is about the snap Abe's arm off with that vicegrip handclutch.

What a puny, weakling handshake!

Yelnats

I wish the commander would let us civilians get a special pass to use the Navy Federal Credit Union on the bases. It is a stinking hassle to do business with them without base access.

PACOM wouldn't be able to help you with that because he only owns SEVENTH FLEET and its ships based in Japan. He doesn't have anything to do with the installations (bases) themselves. That's Commander Naval Installations Command's (CNIC) and its subordinate Commander Naval Region Japan's (CNRJ) job.

If you know anyone who has been involved in diplomacy, they will tell you a lot of backbiting goes on before the participants pose with their unctuous smiles for the photographs. This photograph is interesting because Abe has the traditional unctuous smile while the admiral looks like he is doing his best not to smile. What can you read into this? Probably not much. They are most likely in utter agreement as to aims if not desires. Abe wants to militarize Japan for the sake of his progentors. The admiral's bosses, if not the admiral himself, want Japan as a sidekick in America's perpetual wars. That we know without the photograph. But the photograph is interesting as comic relief even if it really tells us nothing.

One of them is the superior, the other the subordinate.

Voting for worst Public Relations staging photo op has now opened.

Yuya Shino/Pool Photo via AP scores a battleship hit.

Quick reminder, 'we're together in this'.

That hand shake!!!

On the way to the podium at the U.S. Congress Abe managed to shake hands with people by keeping his hand horizontal and on top of everyone else's thereby seeming to assert some kind of superiority. What do you think? In spite of all the admiral's efforts to keep the hand positions "equal", did Abe manage to come out on top or not?

Shinzo holding this man's hand reminded me of my 4 year-old nephew holding my hand when I took him on a ride at an amusement park. Cute. My nephew, that is.

The commander jostled to stand on our left which gives him a psychological power position when dealing with hand shaking and photos.

I wish the commander would let us civilians get a special pass to use the Navy Federal Credit Union on the bases. It is a stinking hassle to do business with them without base access.

Harry Harris- meet the brass minus the br

The master and his lapdog. At least the admiral has a cool watch.

Nice that both went for the Cool Biz look.