Japanese ambassador fired after voicing dissent over US-led war on Iraq

[dArKeR]

A veteran Japanese diplomat, who was the country's ambassador to Lebanon until August, said he was fired after expressing his opposition to the US-led war on Iraq (news - web sites) in two official telegrams.

Naoto Amaki, 56, sent the first telegram directly addressed to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi six days before the US-led forces launched their attack on Iraq on March 20.

"In that telegram, I said we should continue to exhaust all our diplomatic efforts so as to avoid the war...We must opppose the unilateral military action by the United States," Amaki told a news conference in Tokyo.

But Koizumi's announcement of Japan's support for the war came just hours after the beginning of US airstrikes in Baghdad and Amaki, feeling angry at what he called "arrogant and inhuman" US military action, sent another telegram to Tokyo, urging Koizumi to do something to end the war.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1514&e=20&u=/afp/20031008/wl_mideast_afp/japan_iraq_diplomacy_031008104522

[jonoboy]

1. another man of integrity pays a price for speaking out

[dArKeR]

2. These kind of guys come back to haunt Satan's Little Helpers.

Don't close the book on him! Proably end up a Prime Minister after we throw Bush into the Insane Asylum.

[Nancy Waterman]

3. How many foreign officals has Dub had fired?

A Canadian, a German, now a Japanese. Were there others? I am losing count.

[TacticalPeek]

4. We need a wall devoted to this type of casualty in this damned war.

http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/resignations.html