Small terror attack in Tokyo(?)
posted at 4:00 pm on February 12, 2007 by Bryan
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At Camp Zama, one of my old haunts in my second home town. No one was injured:
There was a scare today at a U.S. military base outside Tokyo when two small explosions occurred shortly after 11 p.m. there. While no one was injured, investigators are looking at the possibility that it was an attempted terrorist attack.
Intelligence reports in Japan and Pakistan suggest al Qaeda has established a small but powerful presence in Japan, which leads some wondering whether or not today’s events are the first attempt at an attack by al Qaeda in Japan.
Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News they have had several reports that Pakistani militant organizations working with al Qaeda had established networks in Japan as far back as 1999.
While Islamic terrorism is a legitimate threat in Japan, I doubt that this attack had anything to do with Al Qaeda. There was a similar attack against Zama and also one against Yokota Air Base in the 1990s. In both cases, Japanese nationalists were responsible. There is a small but annoying group of ultranationalists in Japan who resent the US military presence in their country–at their government’s request–and they fling poorly made bombs against our bases around Tokyo once every few years. In the Yokota attack, iirc the terrorists launched a mortar (which was little more than a flaming ball of socks) from a tea field outside the base perimeter fence in an attempt to strike a C-130 parked nearby. The mortar burned a few blades of grass but did no other damage. I suspect that this latest attack springs from the same source.
Update (AP): The Blotter says it could be … Al Qaeda in Japan! Heh.
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Heh. Sounds like something I’d do after drinking a bottle of Jim Beam.
natesnake on February 12, 2007 at 4:20 PM
We’re lucky it was only socks. This IS Japan, it could have been a flaming ball of Bukakke!
(Sorry, I know that was bad, but I just couldn’t resist!)
wearyman on February 12, 2007 at 4:21 PM
Sounds like the work of Japanese rednecks to me.
BohicaTwentyTwo on February 12, 2007 at 4:28 PM
You’re a very sick man Mr. Wearyman
Defector01 on February 12, 2007 at 4:29 PM
If only Einstein were here… He’d know what to do.
Savage on February 12, 2007 at 4:31 PM
Don’t go anywhere that direction again, wearyman. I like ya, but I’ll ban ya.
Bryan on February 12, 2007 at 4:36 PM
That’s absolutely disgusting, and has no place here.
RightWired on February 12, 2007 at 4:37 PM
I thought Japan was the one country in Mark Steyn’s book that didn’t have a problem with a growing Muslim population? How did al Qaeda get in that country and do they have ninjas in their employ?
And what’s Bukakke? I’m afraid to Google it.
frankj on February 12, 2007 at 4:43 PM
First, Al Qaeda is pretty much dead. We’re making fools of ourselves to call every Muslim attack on America the work of Al Qaeda.
Second, it also misrepresents the Islamic threat to pin the blame on Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is but one instance of Islamic jihad against the West and America which is an expression of the general hostility of Muslims to all things non-Muslim. It’s wrong to beat on the Al Qaeda scarecrow when Islam is the real perpetrator.
Third, for Pete’s sake, everyone stop hyperventilating every time some foreign jackasses set a paper bag full of dogshit on fire outside the base gate. The goal of terrorists is to strike fear into the hearts of their targets so that they downsize their liberty. Screw that. When terrorists do something, get mad and bring fire down on their pointy little heads. Engage them, defeat them, bury them.
Tantor on February 12, 2007 at 4:45 PM
I got into an argument with a semi-reasonable left-leaning person in the comments at another blog, and he insisted that we are not in a global war. I had been commenting back and forth with this guy for a long time and had found him to be a thinking person who could argue with some semblance of reason, but this is where he blew any tiny bit of respect I might have had for him. Other commenters immediately jumped on the guy with dozens of examples of Islamic extremists attacking all over the world for decades, and the guy predictably disappeared. But I was flabbergasted that even the libs who try to use their brains seem incapable of acknowledging the global and long-term nature of this fight we’re in.
aero on February 12, 2007 at 4:48 PM
The commie-left there has been doing crap like this for years. Just noise from the left in a ‘lookie-me’ moment.
Limerick on February 12, 2007 at 4:53 PM
Yeah, what is bukkake? One google image search…
Savage on February 12, 2007 at 4:53 PM
WHAT THE HELL?!
Savage on February 12, 2007 at 4:54 PM
I’ll bet this was the Japanese ultra-nationalists Bryan referred to and is tied in to the announcement that we are sending some stealth planes to our bases in Japan.
Benaiah on February 12, 2007 at 4:56 PM
Google actually blocked my search. My husband must have some kind of kid filter on or something. Must be bad–I’ll just leave it at that.
aero on February 12, 2007 at 4:56 PM
Thanks, wearyman, thanks a lot. Your disgusting and off topic comment has others here curious and searching out what you’re talking about. Yours has to be the stupidest comment I’ve seen posted here. So thanks, dude.
Bryan on February 12, 2007 at 4:59 PM
Trust me, if you don’t know what bukkake is, BE GLAD!
To the meat of the story, I hope it’s just Ultranationalists, and not Islamic terrorism. Do we really need MORE of them running around?
Vanceone on February 12, 2007 at 5:02 PM
no casualties = ultranationalists = symbolic
casualties = Al Qaeda = typically don’t miss
natesnake on February 12, 2007 at 5:15 PM
They are everywhere!! Except Iraq of course.
roninacreage on February 12, 2007 at 5:16 PM
Left…..left….left….commie left…not ultra-nationalists. Baader-Meinhof wanna be. Tojo isn’t coming back to bomb Pearl Harbor.
Limerick on February 12, 2007 at 5:20 PM
AMEN BRUDDAH! Enough handringin’ more righteous indignation!
-Wasteland Man
WastelandMan on February 12, 2007 at 5:25 PM
No, they’re ultranationalists. In Japan you basically have two longstanding groups associated with terror. On the far left you have the Japanese Red Army (backed by North Korea and not very active anymore). On the far right you have the ultranationalists who want to return Japan to the days of the samurai and the emperor’s unquestioned, divine rule. There’s no analogue between those guys and anyone here in the states, but they’re generally thought of as far right based on their nationalism. Based on the earlier attacks, this attack looks like the work of the latter, not the former.
Aum Shinrikyo, the cult that attacked Tokyo’s subway with sarin in 1995, is its own deal with tenets that put it all over the left-right map.
Bryan on February 12, 2007 at 5:30 PM
Bryan: I humbly submit myself to seppuku!
Limerick on February 12, 2007 at 5:40 PM
Heh. That’s gonna leave a mark.
Bryan on February 12, 2007 at 5:42 PM
I am trying to do this with a broken beer bottle but it isn’t working too well.
I just don’t think it was the ulta-nationalist because usually they make a splash. Gas, bomb, etc. Nothing they would like better then another Manchurian incident. The left does stupid crap. Stink bombs. Kick policemen. Deface posters. Stuff like that. This seems like a pretty amaturish attack for the emperor worshipers.
Limerick on February 12, 2007 at 5:50 PM
That’s the most freakin’ awesome description of a terrorist organization I’ve ever read. It beats the crap out of, “Mysogynistic goat farmers who live in caves and issue threats through youtube.”
Savage on February 12, 2007 at 5:51 PM
The two similar attacks in the 90s were both ultranationalists iirc. We’d see the commies out in Shinjuku with their vans and loudspeakers denouncing capitalism, the LDP, whatever, but they didn’t do much else and no one really paid any attention to them. The ultras usually either slice themselves with old samurai swords to protest Japan’s status in the world or its decadence or whatever, or stage an incompetent bombing of some kind. This thing at Zama looks more like that than anything else, at least to me.
Bryan on February 12, 2007 at 6:08 PM
Hmm. Thanks for the info, Bryan. My question is… what do they want to go back to? WWII era Japanese nationalism? Because the Emporer was a figurehead, I think, for a long time. Back to when the Emporer wasn’t a figurehead? That’s a long, long time ago.
Vanceone on February 12, 2007 at 6:52 PM
Isn’t Tom Cruise a Samurai?
Rick on February 12, 2007 at 7:03 PM
Yep, last one too.
EnochCain on February 12, 2007 at 7:35 PM
LoLz! I just shot Sobe out my nose!!!!
Just be glad this isn’t an image board….
liquidflorian on February 12, 2007 at 8:51 PM
aero: Other commenters immediately jumped on the guy with dozens of examples of Islamic extremists attacking all over the world for decades, and the guy predictably disappeared. But I was flabbergasted that even the libs who try to use their brains seem incapable of acknowledging the global and long-term nature of this fight we’re in.
Aero, the reason your liberal friend can’t admit that Muslims are engaged in a global jihad against the West is that would exclude the possibility that the West, particularly America, is the aggressor in a racist war for oil. If the Muslims are to blame, that would mean that Bush isn’t and how is that possible?
Tantor on February 12, 2007 at 10:59 PM
natesnake: no casualties = ultranationalists = symbolic
casualties = Al Qaeda = typically don’t miss
On the contrary, most of Al Qaeda’s terrorists were incompetent. Most of Al Qaeda’s terror plots were bungled in the planning and assembly stages. Only a few of them actually delivered a bomb on target.
For example, the first attempt to attack a US warship in Yemen failed because the rubber raft swamped. They barely made it back to the beach they launched from. Some Yemeni fisherman found their raft on the beach at night and ripped it off along with everything valuable in it. It was a comedy of errors.
The Islamists have a lot of enthusiasm for killing infidels but they’re mostly dumb as a box of rocks.
Tantor on February 12, 2007 at 11:11 PM
>what do they want to go back to? WWII era Japanese nationalism?
Basically that’s what they want. Before modernity, the emperor really had little power. You have to get back to ancient times to find a period during which the emperor was the real ruler of Japan. However, when you get back that far, “Japan” is a much smaller geographical area. The “unification” of the various clans, etc., into something similar to present-day Japan didn’t happen until about 1600. Medieval Japan and early-modern Japan were essentially ruled by a series of military governments (shogunates, etc.).
In 1868, the shogunate finally lost power and Japan had what is usually referred to as the “Meiji Restoration,” in the sense that the emperor was being “restored” to his role as ruler. Again, the emperor hadn’t had any real power for many centuries, and the system of imperial government was almost completely new, so it’s more accurate to refer to it as the Meiji “Renovation.”
After the Meiji Renovation, and especially during the buildup to the Pacific War, the Japanese military/government utilized a manufactured religion, “State Shinto,” to mobilize the people around a manufactured nationalism, an image of “authentic Japaneseness” that made Japan special, and gave them a role in leading Asia, blah, blah, blah. That’s where a lot of the current ideas about “traditional” Japan come from, and most of them are modern creations. (Of course, the whole idea of “traditional” Japanese culture is problematic anyway. Which “traditional” Japan are we talking about? And which Japanese culture are we talking about? Contrary to popular propaganda, Japanese is not the least bit homogeneous.)
That’s probably way more than anybody cares about, but it’s a rare occasion that knowledge from my field is relevant to anything, hahaha!
Doghouse on February 13, 2007 at 3:01 AM
Defector01, Rightwired, Bryan.
Whoah guys! Relax! It was a joke. (I thought that was obvious) I’ve seen FAR WORSE coming from some other people here who weren’t threatened with a ban. I assumed that we were a group of adults who could take a ribald quip now and again, perhaps I was wrong.
The comment was intended to be a somewhat off-color dig at Japanese Adult pop-culture. Apparently it falls upon deaf ears here.
To those that were offended, may I suggest some growing-up time? While I wouldn’t want Hot Air to come to resemble the Men’s locker room, an occasional dip into the ribald side shouldn’t beget such an outcry.
I won’t apologize for offending anyone (that’s what liberals do.) But I will refrain from the adult humor if that’s what it takes to stay un-banned. From this point forward I will endeavor to keep my comments “family friendly”.
wearyman on February 13, 2007 at 8:31 AM
Actually, liberals don’t apologize for offending others – they chalk it up to “freedom of speech”, “artistic expression”, or something along those lines.
Rick on February 13, 2007 at 12:27 PM
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