Here it is, “the
first episode,” I’ve been told.
I’ll
have to trust that the producer did not edit it completely out of context,
since there are few things that I dislike more than watching/hearing myself
talk. My crib sheet, as usual, though it only went loosely scripted.
(1)
Japan's past record on paying ransom money, (2) the international pressure
Japan faces while negotiating with captors and (3) whether aid spending in the
Middle East and the recent reinterpretation of Article 9 in the constitution
might provoke IS to capture more Japanese nationals in the future.
(1)
There is one occasion on which the Japanese government is known to have paid a
ransom to private-sector terrorists. That was in 1977, when it paid a 6 million
USD ransom to terrorists who hijacked a plane in Dacca that was carrying142
passengers including the five terrorists and 14 crew members, and also freed
six men and women criminally convicted or charged with acts of terrorism. As
you can see, the circumstances were very different. Then there are the
state-sponsored terrorists—the return of the abductees and their families from
North Korea in return for cash. Prime Minister Koizumi didn’t get enough credit
for that in my view.
(2)
There was no meaningful international pressure at all. Japan stated at the
outset that it would not pay ransom money, just as all Western European
countries and the United States have always claimed. But all the known
Continental European hostages of Islam state have returned safely except one,
who is still in ISIL hands, while all the known American and British hostages are
dead except one, who is still in ISIL hands. Go figure.
But once ISIL went public
with their 200 million USD demand, negotiating over a cash payment became
extremely difficult for two reasons. First, backdoor negotiations became
problematic. Second and more important, ISIL almost surely made the
announcement to send a message, not to cut a deal. I hoped against hope that I
was wrong, but subsequent developments bore it out.
(3)
On the first point, about aid spending, for two reasons, I don’t think that the
risks to Japanese assets have increased noticeably. First, it remains very
difficult to strike at targets in Japan for tactical and logistical reasons.
Second, attacks on soft Japanese targets overseas are nowhere near as effective
for propaganda and recruitment purposes as attacks on similarly soft West
European and American targets. That said, the more Japanese aid workers and
other personnel there are in the neighborhood, the more likely it is that there
will be an attack that impacts Japanese individuals, just from a statistical
perspective. On the second point, about collective self-defense, which is the
point of the Article 9 reinterpretation, I think that Western liberals and all
South Koreans should leave the obsessing to China. But I digress. Now, maybe
Mr. Abe wants to put troops on the ground in the Middle East combat zone, maybe
he doesn’t. He says that he doesn’t, I don’t think he should, but I’m not
worried in any case, because Komeito, the pacifist coalition partner, will make
sure that it won’t happen. So, until Mr. Abe changes his mind and Komeito turns
nuts, ISIL will have more important things to worry about than Japanese troops
on the ground there.
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