Japan And Middle East: Weak Allies Of US Causing US Harm Plus Robbers Steal $40 Million Using Counterfeit Bank Cards

The US and our vast military machine is the glue that keeps the G8 nations together.  This expensive glue is also being used to hold together vicious Muslim dictatorships like the Saudi rulers and of course, Israel.  The Washington Post had yet another hysterical APAIC editorial screaming for the US to invade Syria on behalf of Israel.  Meanwhile, Syria has decided to give tactical weapons to the tribes in Lebanon that give Israel many a headache and the ruler of Jordan who has little right to rule anyone, trembles in fear as floods of refugees pour across its border along with armed Muslim fundamentalist gunmen who hate Israel.

As things fall apart in Egypt, the US is unable to do anything due to hatred over Israel:  Egypt Investment Collapsing as Citizens Turn Into Vigilantes – Bloomberg

Interior Ministry figures back up anecdotal accounts of rising crime. Murders rose to 1,885 in 2012, a 130 percent increase, while robbery cases jumped 350 percent and kidnappings 145 percent, according to a report by the ministry’s public security and anti-narcotics departments.
Seizures of illegal weapons and drugs also surged, including crackdowns on illegal arms workshops as authorities try to stem the tide of crime. The Social Affairs and Religious Endowments ministries announced plans in April to use religious schools to raise awareness about the dangers of narcotics.
Some choose to confront the security collapse head-on. There has been a rise in vigilante incidents, with civilians doling out death sentences to suspected thieves, rapists and kidnappers.

The chaos there echoes Afghanistan and Iraq.  As well as Pakistan:  Son of former Pakistan PM kidnapped: just the other day on NPR, I heard ‘experts”(sic) talk about how Pakistan is having a democratic transition of power!  Not so violent.  Not that Europe is doing so well.  Half of the under-30 youth in the Mediterranean sector are without jobs.

Lest we think this is a Muslim problem, Thousands protest over Spain education cuts as between 30-60% of the teachers go on strike.  Like in the US, college costs have soared while cities cut funds for schools.  Armies of idle youth from one end of the planet to the other are causing chaos to rise.  The US is part of the problem, we have eliminated many jobs young people qualify for thanks to free trade.   Obama is supposed to be touring the nation to talk about jobs but in DC it is free trade all the way, all the time and this is because the very rich benefit from free trade and want more and more of this.

Our ally in Asia, Japan, loves one way free trade and briefly had a strong yen which was bad news for the richest Japanese so they violate all rules about manipulating the currency and openly weakened the yen for export profit purposes.  But they have to export goods, too, and many neighbors of Japan are furious with them over many issues:  Japan pulls back on denials of WWII sex slaves ‹ Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

Over the past two days, top officials of Abe’s conservative government have appeared to soften their stance on Japan’s past apologies to neighboring countries for wartime atrocities committed by the Imperial Army, saying Japan does not plan to revise them.

The backtracking appears intended to allay criticisms of Abe’s earlier vows to revise the apologies, including an acknowledgment of sexual slavery during the war, and calm tensions with neighbors South Korea and China. The U.S. government also has raised concerns about Abe’s nationalist agenda.

Japan says it will honor apologies for World War II atrocities:  the fallout of Abe’s warmongering talk and seizure of disputed islands is causing concern so the foreign minister has ‘apologized’ yet again but again, Japan refuses to pay reparations for WWII crimes and thefts and refuses to pay off survivors who were forced into labor or sexual rape camps.  Germany has paid for its war crimes pretty much without dispute.  Japan got off scot-free due to US megalomaniac desires to cheat China and others while making Japan our ‘bulwark in the East’.

Most comments at the Japan Today site are very, very nationalistic and often crudely snide towards Japan many millions of victims of WWII.  Here is a typical example:

3 dcog9065MAY. 09, 2013 – 11:11AM JST The apologies will have to always be honoured, although I’m 100% against Japan paying out any form of compensation to the numerous claimants in Asia.

 

Same thing happened in Australia in 2008, the newly elected PM, Kevin Rudd, made a historic apology to the Aborigines of Australia for past crimes and discrimination; a few weeks later the compensation lawsuits came flooding in.

The game plan is to give some sort of mouthing off some sort of half-hearted, weak ‘apology’ but repartions: no.  Japan isn’t the only imperialist power to refuse to pay up.  The list is sadly long as history itself.  Germany may stand alone in its financial atonement for WWII and Naziism.  The Jews stealing stuff in the Middle East just announced today, they are stealing even more Palestinian West Bank lands and make zero apologies for this and don’t give a damn who is harmed.  So Japan isn’t alone in this but like Israel, gets away with this sort of nonsense thanks to the US protecting them from critics of paying off debts owed to victims.

And when China did a tit for tat demand for Okinawa, Japan protests to China over Okinawa claim.  But it seems US behind the scenes strong-arming has caused Abe to issue a very insincere apology to ‘whoever is out there’ for WWII war crimes.  No real compensation, of course.  The Japanese NEVER apologized to the US.  Instead, they treat us as inferiors.  And few Americans are aware of this.  It just isn’t mentioned in the news here.

But our many wars with Muslims are wearing quite thin!  ATM Fraud Allows Thieves To Steal $45 Million In Hours:  A gang mainly in Yonkers, NY, stole $40 million using fake bank cards during January and February.

Some of the fault lies with ubiquitous magnetic stripes on the back of the cards. The rest of the world has largely abandoned cards with magnetic strips in favor ones with built-in chips that are nearly impossible to copy. But because U.S. banks and merchants have stuck to cards with magnetic stripes, they are still accepted in many places in the world.

 

‘Some of the fault’?  How about 100% of the fault is due to the US being behind the times and our banks, once again, refusing to move into modern times!  Of course, the merchants will have to reconfigure their systems but this costs less than $40 million and if some guys from the Dominican Republic can do this, anyone can do this and we have to fix this now, not later.