Section 14 Entry 0001. Date: 2003 March 21 Friday.
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After uploading the latest changes to the website, I went to bed some time after midnight. The alarm went off at 0630, and my first thought was of the war in Iraq. Here in Japan, the American military radio station broadcasting on AM 810 was no longer carrying nonstop AP Network News war coverage.

Instead, it was the usual local programming from Eagle 810, including music and Paul Harvey news, Paul Harvey being a syndicated American radio guy who does a short current affairs program which reminds me of The Readers Digest.

The Paul Harvey format is a mix of straight news, inspirational stories (poor painter so desperate that he burns his paintings to say warm turns out to be Picasso) and carefully selected items which reveal a certain political tendency.

This morning's carefully selected item was about Israel. In Israel, apparently, school kids are taking gas masks to school. And, meantime, Palestinians, apparently, are demonstrating in favor of Saddam Hussein.

This brought the focus of my attention back to Israel, something I've avoided writing about for some months now, since the topic is rather like one of these brightly colored tropical fish which floats around decorated with poisonous spines.

Still, today is a national holiday here in Japan, so I've got the time. However, I think I'll put my disquisition on Israel, the Palestinians, terrorism and Iraq into a separate "topic" file.

While I'm writing this, I'm watching the Iraq war on NHK TV. There's nothing subtle going on, so I've got no particular reason to tune the TV to CNN in search of an English-language commentary. If something really serious happens, the radio will bring me the AP Network News commentary. And the last time I tuned the TV to CNN (a couple of days ago) they were showing some kind of segment about pets left behind in some kind of animal hospital in Kuwait by departing foreigners.

I have to say that I've been disappointed in CNN, which has now been available to me on cable TV for the better part of a year. Sometimes it's interesting, but sometime's it's stuff like Larry King and selected guests sitting around dissecting the case of Mr X who is alleged to have murdered Y in the city of Buffalo Dump or wherever, and I'm sitting here in Japan thinking, "What do I care?" And finally change channels.

Even so ... let's take a look ... so I've tuned into CNN ... one of the headlines says "TURKEY AUTHORIZES MILITARY TO ENTER NORTHERN IRAQ" ... "The sirens have gone off here in Kuwait City" ... okay, I'll stay tuned to CNN for a while and see what they can do ....

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Section 14 Entry 0002. Date: 2003 March 22 Saturday.
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This morning, there were bruises on the tops of my thighs as a consequence of yesterday's expedition to the junkshop. I didn't mind. The venture was a success, even though my significant other was not initially impressed by the spoils of this expedition. (My significant other, in case you're wondering, is a rather large purple giraffe named Giselle, who is not from this planet.)

"It's ten years old," said Giselle, dubiously. "It's even older than the one we've got now."

However, after some experimentation, Giselle found that with this one it is possible to watch one channel and videotape a different channel at one and the same time, something that is impossible when the cable TV service is hooked up to the 21-inch TV we have been living with ever since moving into the new house, the TV which needs to be kicked to encourage it to keep working.

So now the TV which needs to be kicked has been relegated to the guest room upstairs, and the trophy I brought home from the junkshop, a 25-inch Panasonic TV, is plugged in downstairs.

I don't know how much the average 25-inch TV weighs, but it was very difficult to carry this one home from the junkshop. After only thirty seconds or so I found it impossible to support its weight in my arms. In the end, the only way to get it home was to balance it on the top of my thighs so that most of the weight was taken by the muscles of my legs, and my arms were only employed in keeping the TV from falling forwards.

In this way, walking crouched forward and resting after every twenty paces, I eventually got the TV home. And it was the hard edges of the TV, digging into the soft flesh at the tops of my thighs, which inflicted the bruises.

On top of being ten years old, the TV has a broken on/off button. This is not critical, as it can be switched on and off with the remote control. Additionally, the power cable is plugged into a special on/off switch which is then plugged into the power outlet - as I may have mentioned, the standard power outlet in Japan does not come with its own on/off switch.

Because the TV is old, a bit battered and has a broken on/off button, the price (including a remote control) was just three thousand yen (about US $26) which I thought was a bargain, even by junkshop standards. The plan is to use it until it breaks, and then buy a plasma TV. At the moment, a nice plasma TV is selling in Japan for roughly 450,000 yen (about US $3,800) but prices are coming down.

Since moving to the new house, I have now bought from the junkshop a TV, a stereo system, two armchairs, the table that I use as a work desk, a mirror, a television stand (a box on which a television sits, in Japanese a "terebidai"), and maybe one or two other things as well (it's hard to keep track.)

Anyway, thanks to the new ten-year-old 25-inch TV, we have an even better view of the George Bush war, which seems to be going very well for the Americans. In fact, Donald Rumsfeld seems to be speaking through a barely controllable grin.

The impression I get from watching American TV, fair quantities of which have been coming into my livingroom courtesy of CNN and NHK, is that America is rather enjoying this war, which reinforces my belief that, pretty soon, someone is going to say "Let's do it again!"

Of course, the Iraq war is now only in its third day, and there may yet prove to be a jack-in-the-box or two buried in the sand, but what is puzzling me - at this stage - is the question of why the Iraqis don't just throw in the towel and surrender.

This morning, the American military radio 810 AM channel (Eagle 810) was broadcasting nonstop war coverage to the Tokyo-Yokohama area . The coverage was from, if I remember correctly, CBS news. (Yesterday it was AP Network News, but, as after the 9/11 terrorist incidents, the 810 AM channel seems to be switching from one news provider to another). This morning, NHK One, the main NHK channel, was also broadcasting nonstop war news, including coverage of antiwar demonstrations around the world.

Tonight I'm in Gunma prefecture, well out of range of 810 AM (and far from my Internet connection) so what the Americans are doing with their radio channel I have no idea. On NHK, normal programming has resumed, and this evening I watched the kids' news, a weekly summary of the world's news which is aimed at kids.

The kids' news is great, because, compared to the adults' news, the Japanese is much easier for me to handle. There are child presenters who interact with adult presenters (all scripted, presumably) and this evening one of the child presenters asked (assuming that I understood this correctly, and there's no guarantee that I did) something like "Why does Japan's Prime Minister Koizumi support America's war against Iraq?"

The background to this question is that pretty much everyone in Japan is opposed to the war.

It was a girl kid asking this question, and I noticed that first she said "Koizumi," and that it was only after a second or so that she remembered her manners and added the honorific "san."

And the adult presenter said something like (and, again, I have to confess that I can't guarantee the accuracy of my interpretation of what was said), "Well, North Korea exists, you know, and Koizumi needs America's help in this situation."

(I've written "North Korea exists" because I couldn't work out if he really said "North Korea is a potential threat" or "North Korea has missiles" or what.)

To which the girl kid said (and here I'm a bit fuzzy on what she said, but I think I got the gist of it) "But there's no connection between North Korea and Iraq!"

It's a bit late at night to start analyzing this statement, so I'll skip the analysis. However, the indisputable truth is that George Bush has put Iraq, North Korea and Iran all together in one and the same basket, the Axis of Evil. And the question in my mind, now, is which one he tackles next, North Korea or Iran.

I rather suspect that George will choose to attack North Korea next rather than Iran, for a bunch of reasons.

For a start, Iran is a country in which the Shi'a brand of the Islamic faith predominates, and it seems reasonable to speculate that the Shi'a Muslims in the south of Iraq might get a little restive if the Bush regime started bombing hell out of the Shi'a nation of Iran. Given that President Bush apparently wants Iraq to become a model state, a golden propaganda victory, this makes an attack on Iran less attractive, at least in the short term.

There's also the problem that Iran is a democracy, sort of. The moderate, democratic forces are struggling against the influence of a hidebound priesthood, but, nevertheless, seem to be making some headway.

Given that Iran is a democracy (of sorts) and a genuine, homegrown Islamic democracy at that (democracy of the Muslims, by the Muslims, for the Muslims) George would probably find it a little hard to sell the hometown audience on the idea of bombing them. (And, judging by the TV footage of street violence in San Francisco, the hometown audience could potentially get a little difficult to control.)

North Korea, however, is a much easier proposition, at least from an American point of view. The objective truth is that North Korea is a Stalinist state, a totalitarian state of the nineteen eighty-four kind, where the leadership has failed at pretty much every task it is possible to fail at, including the basic task of feeding the population, much of which lives at the starvation level.

Given that the Bush regime was able to sell the American public (or a substantial part of the American public) on the idea of going to war with Iraq, an attack on North Korea should be perfectly doable, from a public relations point of view.

The American strategy, as far as it can be guessed at this point, looks to be:-

(i) Withdraw American troops from the Korean peninsular, since the American troops currently in South Korea are vulnerable to a preemptive attack by the North Koreans.

(ii) Bomb North Korea.

(iii) Bomb some more.

The big question mark is what the North Koreans do. Before the American attack, do they sit around like a bunch of paralyzed rabbits, like Saddam Hussein and his gang? Or do they preempt? If the North Koreans preempt, do they try to hit the American forces while the American forces are withdrawing from the border area? Does North Korea try to seize the South Korean capital of Seoul?

And, assuming that the North Koreans have nukes, do they use them?

As long as the North Koreans don't go so far as to nuke Tokyo, I'm assuming that a war between America and North Korea will not have significant lifestyle consequences for me here in Japan.

However, one little thought did occur to me today.

Right through my lifetime, the People's Republic of China has regarded Taiwan as a renegade province, one which must eventually be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. Now, there seems no reason to believe that this niggling problem will develop into a crisis during the next few years. However, the leaders of the People's Republic of China have taken a very negative view of the George Bush war against Iraq, and it's easy to guess what scenarios they must be wargaming.

A war between George Bush and North Korea would given the American public another good war movie to watch, and, without a doubt, quite a few Korean people would still be left alive at the end of it. Viewed from a sufficiently remote perspective, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

But if, for some reason, the Taiwan crisis were to come to the boil during the remaining years of the Bush regime, then we really would be in Big Trouble City.

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Section 14 Entry 0003. Date: 2003 March 23 Sunday.
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This weekend, George Bush has been at Camp David, relaxing. I am in Gunma, thinking. Today's thought is this: supposing George Bush decides to go to war with North Korea, and suppose China takes a "not in my backyard" attitude, what then?

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