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Letting Down Our Friends
Yesterday the prime minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, spoke to a joint session of Congress. It’s a remarkable fact, given the history, that today Japan is one of our closest and most reliable allies, and its people among the most pro-American in the world. (Kishida’s family is from Hiroshima.)
During his remarks, Kishida reminded the U.S. of its history of being a champion of freedom and democracy in the world:
You believed that freedom is the oxygen of humanity. The world needs the United States to continue playing this pivotal role in the affairs of nations. And yet, as we meet here today, I detect an undercurrent of self-doubt among some Americans about what your role in the world should be.
It is a sure thing that our adversaries have noticed how weak, and weak-willed, the U.S. has become. That scares me. And at the same time, it saddens me to be assured that our friends have noticed as well. They depend on us, they need us, and we are no longer willing or able to do our part.
I think Kishida got one thing wrong, however. It is not “self-doubt” that he perceives. Those who have weakened us have no doubts at all; they have quite deliberately chosen not only to surrender, but to abandon our friends.
Published in General
America is suffering from
self-doubtself-loathing.this exactly. Tragic and evil.
I believe Kishida was being polite.
What a shame George HW Bush couldn’t show up to vomit on him too, just to keep up with tradition.
And you might ask, why not FJB?
Well, FJB wouldn’t VOMIT on him…
Kishida was probably thinking: You will come to our rescue if China comes after us, won’t you?
I used to think that treating allies poorly and projecting weakness was largely the work of the Left, but now the isolationist Right has joined forces with them.
Biden’s idea of helping Japan would probably be to invite the entire nation to just come through the southern border like much of the rest of the world is doing as we speak.
I’m sitting in a US military facility in Tokyo now, so let me point out that we’re already big in Japan. It hosts the largest population of overseas US military personnel, the largest concentration of forward-deployed naval forces, largest number of bases with US forces, probably the largest number of US military aircraft stationed or on extended deployments outside America, and perhaps the most fuel and ammunition stored outside the continental US. The two nations maintain perhaps the most robust bilateral training program of any of our allies and partners. The recently-announced agreement to restructure the US command that works with the Japan Self-Defense Forces is further proof that our cooperation remains on a gradual upward slope. And Japan is expanding ties and securing military agreements with other allied and friendly nations and expanding efforts to export military equipment and know how in response to regional threats. While there are no guarantees, it’s a relationship that is helping both nations to maintain peace in the region.