America, Your Grenada and Panama Sins Are Forgiven

“Thank God for the Americans who, despite their unconscionable sins in Panama and Grenada, certainly have got (the war against Saddam Hussein) right.”

--Bob Jones, Evening Post columnist

“(Saddam Hussein and George Bush) should have undertaken their own war, shooting from the lip, one-on-one . . . in neutral territory--say, in Greenland . . . . A battle of rhetoric to the last drop of splenetic drivel.”

--Alex Veysey, Evening Post columnist

“The United States, its hands still bloody from its invasions of Vietnam, Grenada and Panama, pretends it is wading into a holy crusade against the Beast, or Butcher, of Baghdad to punish him for invading a defenseless little country that had never done him any harm.”

--Frank Haden, Dominion Sunday Times columnist

“If, as is being suggested, Hussein or his commanders are to be held personally responsible for war crimes, they must be captured. That opens a whole new concept in the prosecution of the war.”

--New Zealand Herald editorial

JAPAN

“Japanese pacifism . . . cannot be a type of pacifism where our country alone lives in peace.”

--Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu justifying Japan’s $9-billion contribution to the Gulf multinational forces.

“From now on, they also will be responsible for every drop of bloodshed in Iraq.”

--Iraq’s ambassador to Japan responding to Tokyo’s contribution

“If the government is going to be responsible for peace, it should reflect on some of the history that it does not want to reflect upon, and as the country that had the A-bomb dropped on it, it should take responsibility and donate the $9 billion to a peace fund . . . . The government should be able to speak up more to the U.S. government.”

--Letter to the Mainichi Shimbun

“What we Japanese people must bear in mind is: It is Japan, among all the nations of the world, that benefits most from freedom and democracy. . . . We must also bear in mind the (maintaining of peace and democracy) requires sacrifice on the part of Japan.”

--Editorial in Sankei Shimbun on the Gulf War

PHILIPPINES

“To a Filipino ear, George Bush’s State of the Union address . . . transported (us) a century back, to the days of another Republican President, (William) McKinley. The words spoken then were a little different, but the naive triumphalist vision nearly exactly the same . . . . Given the historical record of interventionism during the first ‘American century,’ his words about (the ‘next American century’) make us shudder.”

--Article in the Manila Chronicle

SOUTH KOREA

“Granted, the Iraqi ‘invasion’ of Kuwait is condemnable, but the trigger-happy attitude of the United States in starting blanket bombing (of Iraq) right after the Jan. 15 deadline makes me shudder. I’m convinced that if there should be a war on the Korean peninsula, the Americans would immediately blanket-bomb this small country and completely ruin it. They would even use the nuclear weapons already deployed here.”

--A citizen of Seoul

“When the United States is strengthening its arms industry (by fighting Iraq), the Korean people should be made aware that this peninsula should never be used as a testing ground for new weapons. The Korean people should step up their efforts for South-North dialogue, asking themselves: Which is nearer to South Korea--North Korea or the United States? The question is not a joking matter. It directly relates to the life-and-death issue for Koreans.”

--A professor at Seoul National University

SINGAPORE

“It is a virtual truism that to fight any foreign war, the United States has to overcome its ingrained isolationism. To justify venturing beyond . . . its near-impregnable continental security, it must believe itself to be defeating a demon.”

--News analysis in the Straits Times

“(When the Americans began bombing Iraq) . . . there was some panic in Singapore. Not over any possibility that bombs might land here, of course; merely the fear that the Gulf War might lead to food shortages and/or price increases.”

--Strait Times editorial

“We no longer take American Express. Things are not what they used to be.”

--A Baghdad hotel receptionist, quoted in the Strait Times

THAILAND

“ ‘All I said is that Iraq is not at war with Thailand. It’s not our job to control the hatred against the Americans of millions of Arabs and Muslims.’ ”

--The Iraqi ambassador to Thailand, quoted in the Bangkok Post

“Much against Thailand’s wishes, it now looks like this country has become embroiled in the Gulf War--albeit in an indirect manner. . . . To avoid complications, the central government in Bangkok should open a serious dialogue with the Thai Muslim population in the south to assure them that Thailand is not--and does not want to be--a direct party to the Gulf conflict.”

--Bangkok Post editorial