Monday, July 10, 2006
Madame Polisztra is .... bemused.
With Japan now planning to hit Kim with a pre-emptive strike, the world turns upside down. Japan's militarism has been suppressed since 1945 but not eliminated; you can't simply delete a tradition as deep as the Samurai. It pops up in the middle of the hyper-alien hyper-technical hyper-frivolous play of Japan's young folks. Anime, manga, cosplay, RPG, all have a strong military flavor.
Remove the brakes from this 9000-horsepower race car, aim it against China, and we are now ---- back in 1931? Very hard to tell. Japan can develop and manufacture any existing weapon in a day or two, and can probably develop entirely new types of weapons that we couldn't begin to imagine.
The world is topsy-turvy.
We have now renounced the use of force. We haven't said it explicitly, but when we failed to take out Kim's Big Dong before he shot it at Pearl Harbor, we said it with our actions, or rather lack of actions.
True, the Big Dong didn't work, or was just testing a self-destruct capability.
But we DIDN'T KNOW IT WOULD FAIL, and we DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS CARRYING.
Even so, we just sat there. We took the chance that it would reach Pearl Harbor or Seattle or Spokane. We just sat there and let it launch.
We surrendered.
So it's fortunate for the civilized world -- this time -- that Japan has finally lost patience with our total incompetence or pacifism or whatever the hell it is.
I'm tempted to say that we finally have the ally we need in this war, but since we've taken ourselves out of the fight, we aren't even entitled to call the only remaining fighter an ally.
This time, Japan may be the one who prevents Pearl Harbor.
-----
A bit later ... Polistra summarizes the situation as follows:
Until now we had a war between the 21st Century and the 11th.
Now the 21st has gained assistance from the 22nd.
¶ 9:08 PM
With Japan now planning to hit Kim with a pre-emptive strike, the world turns upside down. Japan's militarism has been suppressed since 1945 but not eliminated; you can't simply delete a tradition as deep as the Samurai. It pops up in the middle of the hyper-alien hyper-technical hyper-frivolous play of Japan's young folks. Anime, manga, cosplay, RPG, all have a strong military flavor.
Remove the brakes from this 9000-horsepower race car, aim it against China, and we are now ---- back in 1931? Very hard to tell. Japan can develop and manufacture any existing weapon in a day or two, and can probably develop entirely new types of weapons that we couldn't begin to imagine.
The world is topsy-turvy.
We have now renounced the use of force. We haven't said it explicitly, but when we failed to take out Kim's Big Dong before he shot it at Pearl Harbor, we said it with our actions, or rather lack of actions.
True, the Big Dong didn't work, or was just testing a self-destruct capability.
But we DIDN'T KNOW IT WOULD FAIL, and we DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS CARRYING.
Even so, we just sat there. We took the chance that it would reach Pearl Harbor or Seattle or Spokane. We just sat there and let it launch.
We surrendered.
So it's fortunate for the civilized world -- this time -- that Japan has finally lost patience with our total incompetence or pacifism or whatever the hell it is.
I'm tempted to say that we finally have the ally we need in this war, but since we've taken ourselves out of the fight, we aren't even entitled to call the only remaining fighter an ally.
This time, Japan may be the one who prevents Pearl Harbor.
-----
A bit later ... Polistra summarizes the situation as follows:
Until now we had a war between the 21st Century and the 11th.
Now the 21st has gained assistance from the 22nd.
¶ 9:08 PM
