politics

Ishikawa governor retracts call to drive N. Koreans to starve

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Your average NK citizen is an innocent pawn in the this madman's insane game of chess... for Tanimoto to wish they would all starve to death is just sick!

17 ( +19 / -2 )

How do these jokers get elected. Says a lot about their constituents!

10 ( +14 / -4 )

The only reason he's retracted his remark is cos he's afraid of losing his gig on the gravy train.

Maybe he could get a job with the CIA though.

10 ( +12 / -2 )

Too late, he said it because he believes it. The really scarry thing is he feels the same about all foreigners and the disenfranchised locals. The mind set of a grumpy entitled old man again reares it's head.

8 ( +12 / -4 )

If that's his true statement, then I doubt I have ever heard worst disgusting drivel from a politician on these shores.

With all the gaffs, sexist, discriminatory, right-wing etc nonsense espoused over decades, calling for the starvation of a blameless people just defies belief.

Can this be real?

7 ( +11 / -4 )

"It's meaningless unless we impose the kind of sanctions that would make the (North Korean) people feel pain,"

Big problem with that ignorant statement... It isn't the 'North Korean People' who are causing all the problems. It's the fat boy 'dodgy haircut' dear leader...

6 ( +9 / -3 )

Isn't the Nork government doing enough already to ensure their people starve?

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Ishikawa Gov. Masanori Tanimoto position is untenable, after the retraction, Masanori Tanimoto should have resigned.

It never occurred to Masanori Tanimoto the people of North Korea could neither democratically choose a fool for a governor as much as remonstrate or challenge Supreme leader Kim Jong-un authority.

None the less Masanori Tanimoto, diplomatically suggested, in his own words.......

 "We must drive the people of North Korea to starve to death by cutting off food (supplies), it's meaningless unless we impose the kind of sanctions that would make the (North Korean) people feel pain".......

5 ( +7 / -2 )

If you ask Japanese people whether we should deliberately starve North Korea, I think 100% of people would say no.

However, if you asked those same people whether we should instead sanction North Korea by banning Japanese companies from doing any and all trade with North Korean companies (and non-NK companies that do business with North Korea), banning North Korean ships from entering Japanese ports, banning Japanese ships from sailing to North Korean ports etc, I think 100% would say yes. Unfortunately, saying yes to this second proposition would effectively starve the North Korean people if every country in the world decided to do the same. This moral question of sanctions and the impact of innocent people is not as easy and clear cut as some might imagine it to be.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

You gotta love these guys -- like retracting your opinion means something. The guy still honestly thinks and believes this, but he just doesn't want the blowback for it. How about he 'respect human lives' and lead by example of what he thinks should be done? Deny him food for a week -- tell him it's because you can do it. Then when he begs for it tell him people in power don't think he should have it. When he, as anyone would be, gets angry, confused, and asks why, point out his comments back to him. And in case he doesn't get the message, point out that the people he would starve to death are not the people choosing to engage in the lunacy North Korea (and he himself) are engaged in. Let's see how truly humanitarian he feels when he himself is starving to death.

Oh, sorry... i retract that.

4 ( +11 / -7 )

Let's face it. Japanese politicians just don't do diplomacy, do they? They seem not to be able to see things from another person's point of view. Perhaps they don't know that they are supposed to represent the people who voted them in.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Is this old man actually a genocidal maniac, or just someone who was clumsy in trying to make a wider point about the ineffectiveness of NK sanction? I think we need to be a bit more forgiving. People are too easily outraged today and the important discussions seem to get buried by the drama. The same people then complain that our politicians have started speaking in meaningless soundbites which have been carefully focus-grouped.

3 ( +9 / -6 )

What he said is awful from a humanistic point of view.

But when real war and conflict start, you see that humans on all sides will try to kill each other.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

The Governor needs to check his facts, the NK Leadership is presently starving its own country without any outside help. The sanctions presently in place appear to have very little affect on the government and heavily effect the general population more so than the NK Regime. NK is a totalitarian government, need I say more.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Many Japanese are naive when it comes to diplomacy and wars.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Perhaps they don't know that they are supposed to represent the people who voted them in.

Perhaps he does represent the people who voted for him?

Sanctions are the least worst option available, doing nothing is worse. They always hit the weak most because the powerful dictators always steal what little is available, until the weak rise up en-mass and then you get the Romanian option!

Because NK is propped up by the communist party of China, the only sanctions that will work are those that will inconvenience the little princes and princesses of the Chinese elite.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

now i understand why he wants to restart a massive NPP on a proven fault line that could fatally harm all his constituents.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Too late for Governor apology. N Korean people are victims of their government.  They shouldn't be hungry further.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Many right wing Japanese cite the imposition of US sanctions on Japan as justification for Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour, invasion of Asia, and the subsequent war. "It wasn't Japan's fault, we were forced into it", they cry. Indeed, this is the position taken by the Yushukan war museum at Yasukuni.

Now, the same Japanese right wingers argue for sanctions on North Korea, with clown Tanimoto wanting to starve the Koreans to death. If the North Koreans were to launch an attack on Japan I have no doubt of the hypocrisy and double standards that we would see from people like Tanimoto and other dribbling Yasukuni visitors. They would not for one moment place any of the blame on themselves or Japan: 100% of the blame would be put on North Korea.

I don't want to argue the rights and wrongs of sanctions, I just want to point out the hypocrisy of these right wing Japanese, so many of whom are in government.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Disgustimg comment

1 ( +2 / -1 )

How did he correct it?

Once something has been said/done it can't be unsaid/undone.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

I understand what everybody is saying here, and I understand why the guy retracted his statement... yeah, "Starve to death" was definitely the wrong thing to say...

But, just to play the devil's advocate here, "cutting off sanctions to NK until they stop nuclear testing" is a pretty common suggestion throughout the world these days I think, maybe not politically but at least among the general population (such as JT posters)... but isn't that the same thing as what Tanimoto is saying? If we cut off sanctions, and Kim Jong still refuses to stop building his nuclear arsenal, then his people are going to starve to death, unless we give in and give them back their sanctions which renders the whole concept meaningless.

My point is, maybe Tanimoto's sentiment is a lot more common than we think... Think of it from his (Ishikawa prefecture) point of view; why should we send food and sanctions to a country who is shooting missiles at us? We send them food, and they send missiles back?

Just saying...

1 ( +2 / -1 )

We must drive the people of North Korea to starve to death by cutting off food (supplies)."

Japanese politician have no honor anymore, they won't resign anymore even for calling publicly for a genocide! There is no limit how low they can go. Until now, the only threat on a Nuclear Plant has been from Japanese utilities sponsored & encouraged to build NPP on fault lines by the same type of politician who are taking their cut in exchange of closing their eyes and/or look the other way. Those are real and imminent threat to the Japanese people who already had to flea their home once, anything else are just ...hyperbole extrapolation based on "what if..."

1 ( +2 / -1 )

What he said are what many people believe needs (or atleast to the extremes, but perhaps just falling short of) to be done, but wont do or even say outloud.

If you are going to do sanctions they have to be very tough for them to affect a country already as backward, controlled and downtrodden as NK. Otherwise it simply wont work, period.

Now do I believe what he said was politically correct? No. Do I believe in truly starving people into submission? No. But there is not much more you can do at this point that has not already been done.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

What an idiot. He's suggesting doing what the Kim regime and the KPLA with their "MIlitary First" policy are already doing to the people.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

YankeeX - Your point is right on the mark. What a sad thing to read about coming out of Japan.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

What was the American justification for nuking Japan, "the lives it would save"?

What is the USA doing to Cuba?

A report by the American Association for World Health found that "the US embargo has caused a significant rise in suffering-and even deaths-in Cuba". At one point, leading to a 33% drop in caloric intake (between 1989 and 1993).

When someone's lobbing intercontinental or potentially nuclear missiles at your nuclear power stations, what are you supposed to do? Sit around and sing "Give Peace a Chance"?

The consideration he voiced is a typical strategic consideration all nation at all times would make as they prepared for conflict or war would make, and in dealing with rogue players. Perhaps his only mistake was to voice it in public to the wrong audience.

Who is it propping up the NK regime these days, and why?

Someone must be benefiting from it, and the potential of the standing army?

It is another gambit in the chess game going on between the USA and China? A response to American encirclement of China and the "spear" aimed up at its belly via Okinawa and South Korea?

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Economic sanctions can be just as devastating to innocent life as nuclear weapons so we obviously have to use them wisely. Thankfully, unlike nuclear weapons, they are completely ineffective in the hands of a tyrant since they need significant international consensus to have any effective. But just like nuclear weapons, it would probably be irresponsible to remove this 21st century economic weapon from our arsenal or unilaterally declare that we will never use it unless no innocent human life is ever affected. The whole point of sanctions, just like nuclear weapons, is not to kill or starve people but to coerce them into behaving in a particular way because the alternative is much worse. It's obviously a difficult moral issue.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

retracts his comment? Is that supposed to be an apology?

0 ( +2 / -2 )

@scrote

Theres no morals in war. If Japan had won the war, we'd all be reading about how bad the west was.

How do you see things? America Good, Japan Bad? Spartans Good, Persia Bad? South Korea Good, North Korea bad? Too bad life isn't as simple as legos.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

There is a wider humanitarian picture as others correctly suggest. I can only hope that war is unnecessary. History has shown that regimes like the one in NK do eventually fall. Hopefully when this does happen the loss of life is minimal.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Not sure what the issue is here though, NK is almost entirely sanctioned, including most foodstuffs. It wouldn't matter if food was allowed in anyway as the NK government is already deliberately starving its own population. The entire point of sanctions is to punish the country into submission, so TBH I agree with his statement that the entire point of sanctions is to severely punish the nation

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Then how come the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are justifiable when only a few of the Japanese top brass started WWII?"

We'll get back to you when a few of the North Korean top brass start the next WW.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

The N Korean people, by accepting totalitarianism without even a faintest hint of pushing back, are Kim's accomplice to a certain degree. Like the Chinese, when their totalitarian country becomes powerful and rich, they will all become little dictators in the image of their Great Leader. After all, where does the leader gets his immediate supporters, and where do those supporters get their supporters? You guys are too naive. Read V Havel.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Looks like another foot-in-mouth contest between Korean and Japanese politicians is going on. Can´t these guys grow up?

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Well, what he said might be truth but its not, they are already starving. I would suggest a surgical attack to the fat ball.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Kono hage!!!!!

LDP revealing their true colours this week. Anyone would think that they've gone end-of-term crazy now that the Conspiracy Bill has been passed....

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

He has reflected the true colours of Shinzo Abe and the LDP but I guess they all doesnt cares when paranoid!

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

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