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发表于 2011-10-15 11:26:36
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VOX POPULI: Defense Ministry is responsible for jets damaged in tsunami.
A devastating earthquake struck Kyoto in 1185, the year the Heike clan was wiped out at the Battle of Dannoura. According to recent estimates, the earthquake's magnitude was about 7.4. The author Kamo no Chomei (1155-1216) wrote in "Hojoki" (An Account of My Hut) that mountains fell down, the ground broke and houses collapsed.
"Without wings, people could not fly into the sky. If they had been dragons, they would have ridden on clouds," he wrote, describing the horror of the disaster. When I visited the stricken areas of the Great East Japan Earthquake immediately after it hit, I also heard some people say they envied seagulls that escaped damage by flying into the sky.
Even though they were equipped with wings, fighter jets in the Air Self-Defense Force's Matsushima Base in Miyagi Prefecture did not escape the tsunami. Eighteen fighters, each priced at 11 billion yen ($145 million), were submerged. Of them, 12 had to be scrapped. The remaining six will be repaired, but the repairs could cost 80 billion yen. A letter to the editor that recently ran in the vernacular Asahi Shimbun's Koe (Voice) column described the situation as "pathetic."
It cost the Defense Ministry 13.6 billion yen just to take apart the jets to determine whether they were repairable. That is more than the total cost of the planned housing complex in Asaka, Saitama Prefecture, for government employees, which has recently been frozen. The ministry put in a request for a total of 109 billion yen in the third supplementary budget. It is as if taxpayers' money has wings.
According to the ministry, it was judged that the jets could not be scrambled in time and that a forced take-off might have endangered lives. That decision is understandable. Nevertheless, many citizens will find it hard to simply accept such a huge loss of taxpayers' money and spending.
What measures were taken to plan and prepare equipment to deal with a tsunami? The ministry cannot evade responsibility by saying the disaster was "unexpected." Isn't it responsible for the failure to act? Before spending a total of 1 trillion yen for the purchase of next-generation fighter jets, I urge the ministry to examine if its handling of the March 11 disaster was appropriate and to disclose its findings.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 14 |
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