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Article: Perry and Pearl: the unintended consequence.(RECONSIDERATIONS)(Report)
- Article from:
- World Policy Journal
- Article date:
- September 22, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 World Policy Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Japanese did not seek, they abjured our company. It was only the terror [italics added] of our fleets which thrust our society upon them against their will.
--A lonesome British warning about Western intrusion
If civil war rends Iraq as predicted, it will resemble an earlier frenzy about which we never thought twice although we provoked that one too. If its victims mount a bloody reprisal later in this century, the similarity to the opening of Japan in 1853-54, a gloomy forerunner to our current use of force, will be even greater. The bullying of a distant people, never perceived as such by the bullies, was well remembered there.
The ...