Japan Offers Little Response to U.S. Assessment

Laura Brewer

3/17/2011

Blog #8: Japan Offers Little Response to U.S. Assessment

American officials declared the nuclear activity in Japan more dangerous than Japan interpreted. According to the media, the Japanese claimed there was a delay in the relay of information, though American officials deny it. Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated that there was little water left in the pool holding the rods in the No. 4 reactor. The Japanese are reported to have no reaction to the warning, thus resulting in the danger to the Japanese in the area. Americans were urged to evacuate and the embassy provided planes for any Americans attempting to leave. The spokesperson for the embassy stated that she preferred not to disclose the number of planes leaving. Americans were advised to be fifty miles away from the affected area of nuclear activity, while the Japanese were advised only a twelve to fifteen mile radius. The difference could leave hundreds of Japanese in danger of radiation. The Japanese did not flatly deny the claims of Mr. Jaczko, but more or less failed to consider it with urgency. The more concerning issue to most citizens is the potential planned blackout to conserve energy.

I found this article interesting because it is somewhat difficult to discern the true from the false or the biased from the unbiased. This article tends to weigh heavily on the certainty of American warnings and almost passively wags the finger at Japan as if to say “I told you so.” Word usage such as placing “delay” and “prefer” is quotations struck me as somewhat questionable. This could merely be my paranoid, skeptic eye searching for deception but it seemed like a perfectly decent article justifying the prioritizing of American safety over the general public in Japan, or simply just donning a cape on the American superman who tried to save the day. However, since there is a good possibility that is not the case at all, I also found it interesting to see the lack of professional urgency among the Japanese. In the article, officials claimed that they could not be on the scene, thus could not draw an adequate prediction of the dangers in the reactors. I wonder how an American official had perfectly capable resources and access but Japanese could not, thus putting hundreds of lives in danger on top of the thousands already lost.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18response.html?_r=1&ref=world