A minor item, one that tells us a great deal about President Barack Hussein Obama.
Fleeing from the bad news on unemployment and the necessity of making a decision on how to handle Afghanistan, the president decided once again to resort to a road trip - this time to Asia.
The picture above shows him greeting Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko with a full on bow from the waist,looking as though he was bending down to tie the Emperor's shoes. it's reminiscent of his bowing and scraping to the Saudi King on a prior occasion, an instinctual movement when Obama's early Muslim training took over for a minute.
This time was very different, and was such an embarrassment to the Japanese that several papers avoided running the photo.
Here's why. Bowing in Japan is a custom showing mutual respect, but it's never done in this fashion.
First,it's never combined with a handshake..ever. it's always one or the other.
Second,the normal Japanese bow is a slight hunching of the shoulders and an inclination of the head about fifteen degrees or so, with the person who is subservient or of lower status going a bit lower than the person he's bowing to.
The Emperor never bows to anyone, so either a slight inclination of the head or even better, a handshake would have been the correct way to greet him.
For President Obama to virtually kowtow like this was not only demeaning to America but embarrassing to the Emperor,who covered his discomfort by smiling, as is the Japanese custom. It was the equivalent of Obama's wearing a kick me sign on the seat of his pants.
What's more, I would assume that Obama, being from Hawaii would be familiar with this aspect of Japanese culture. or at the very least, you'd think that he would have the basic common sense to ask our embassy staff in Japan about the correct protocol so as not to embarrass himself and our country.
Here's a cute video showing how virtually every other world leader greets the Japanese Emperor..as compared to Obama's faux pas:
The Japanese are already not exactly enamored of Obama because of our fecklessness on North Korea, which was a factor in their recent elections.
This just sort of underlined it.
1 comment:
I think this incident and the fecklessness on North Korea should be handled separately. With regards to the bowing incident, I'm no expert on how one greets a Japanese leader. Presumably there are individuals within the State Department and the Obama Administration who are. Also, presumably they advised him or should have.
If America is to survive let alone thrive in the 21st century, good relations with countries like Japan will be VITALLY important. Assuming Mr. Obama handled this improperly this raises some very serious questions, especially since these types of snafus do not seem to be isolated.
For example, when Mrs. Clinton gave the Russian leadership a red button that supposedly said "reset" it actually said "overcharge." Who is advising our leaders when they meet with important officials in other countries? Are they simply incompetent or do they have an ulterior motive? In other words, are America's leaders getting bad advice on purpose? As pointed out, we have a number of Islamists, Russian, and Chinese sympathizers within our government. None of those entities particularly want good relations with America right now. As such, we must ask ourselves are our leaders getting sabatoged by unscrupulous elements within the State Department and elsewhere.
One of the reasons the voters elected Mr. Obama is because they felt he would be the best candidate to improve America's image abroad. As such, no one should want him to fail here. His failure is our failure.
Now for the fecklessness on North Korea, two questions need to be asked. 1.)Can we realistically expect to win a war with North Korea right now or in the foreseeable future? 2.)Assuming the answer to question 1 is yes (whcih its not, as the answer is an emphatic no and I'm sure Obama and his team have been advised accordingly by the defense department) do we have the will to engage in such a fight? The answer here is no, as well. Most Americans realize there are much more important matters for Americans that the American government should be addressing. As such, they are not going to be willing to support such an endeavor assuming we could carry it out, which as I pointed out earlier we cannot realistically expect to win a war with North Korea. The North Koreans no doubt are aware of this as well. The ligistics of supplying a force that far from the American mainland make such a fight a fruitless endeavor.
Given these realities what America and Japan should do is have all US troops and support personnel withdraw from Japan in six months or less. Japan is a VERY TECHNOLOGICALLY advanced country. As such, they should be able to have a formidable nuclear arsenal up and running in about six months. From there they can build up their conventional forces. In time, they could be a very formidable buffer between us and North Korea. Also, not having our forces on Japanse soil will relieve a major source of tension. This would go a long way toward the goal of improved relations with Japan.
Once our forces are withdrawn, they can be redeployed along the borders. I would expect morale to go up substantially among our brave warriors, if this were done. After all, presumably they signed on to protect America and not to engage in some fruitless fight with North Korea all the way around the world.
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