Toshiba: helping point weapons at the free world since the Cold War

Man, I am seriously pissed after reading this.

Television viewers in Japan saw an extraordinary news broadcast on the morning of July 2, 1987: nine members of the U.S. Congress were smashing a small Toshiba radio with sledgehammers at a press conference on Capitol Hill. The congressmen were expressing their anger at the Toshiba Machine Company of Japan, which had violated regulations of COCOM, the Coordinating Committee for multilateral export controls, by selling eight computer-guided multiaxis milling machines to the Soviet Union. The equipment permitted the Soviets to mass-produce a more silent propeller for their submarines and thus avoid detection by many of the current U.S. methods. One Pentagon official estimated that it would cost the United States some $30 billion to regain the technological superiority lost in the illegal sale. The sledgehammer scene, which was largely ignored by the American media, was shown over and over again in Japan, to the point where it now lodges uneasily in the collective national consciousness.

The anger of the congressmen was understandable. From the facts then available (and neither the Japanese government nor Toshiba Corporation, parent of the Toshiba Machine Company, has denied them), the security breach was considerable, and possibly irreparable. As seen from Capitol Hill, an ungrateful Japan, still spending only about one percent of its GNP for defense, still protected by American forces and a U.S. defense budget which consumes about six percent of GNP, was aiding a potential adversary for profit.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19871201faessay7874/george-r-packard/the-coming-u-s-japan-crisis.html

Oh, but it gets even better. Never one to abandon a cause, Toshiba is now providing nuclear technology to our current red rival, China.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/7e7c530c-8e86-11da-ae63-0000779e2340.html

See that, folks? Every time you buy a DVD, HD-DVD, or Toshiba branded laptop computer, you're helping send pennies to build China's nuclear program, which could potentially be used to threaten the free world, either through China or one of their many customers such as Iran. :evil:

I've never understood why America and the UK developing nuclear arms and invading other countries = protecting freedom! But China building a nuclear programme is "threatening the free world!"

Toshiba is Japanese.....selling to all countires is part of capitalism.

I guessing we should consider the US evil for selling good to the Germans in early WW1 and WW2.

Man, I am seriously pissed after reading this.

Television viewers in Japan saw an extraordinary news broadcast on the morning of July 2, 1987: nine members of the U.S. Congress were smashing a small Toshiba radio with sledgehammers at a press conference on Capitol Hill. The congressmen were expressing their anger at the Toshiba Machine Company of Japan, which had violated regulations of COCOM, the Coordinating Committee for multilateral export controls, by selling eight computer-guided multiaxis milling machines to the Soviet Union. The equipment permitted the Soviets to mass-produce a more silent propeller for their submarines and thus avoid detection by many of the current U.S. methods. One Pentagon official estimated that it would cost the United States some $30 billion to regain the technological superiority lost in the illegal sale. The sledgehammer scene, which was largely ignored by the American media, was shown over and over again in Japan, to the point where it now lodges uneasily in the collective national consciousness.

The anger of the congressmen was understandable. From the facts then available (and neither the Japanese government nor Toshiba Corporation, parent of the Toshiba Machine Company, has denied them), the security breach was considerable, and possibly irreparable. As seen from Capitol Hill, an ungrateful Japan, still spending only about one percent of its GNP for defense, still protected by American forces and a U.S. defense budget which consumes about six percent of GNP, was aiding a potential adversary for profit.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19871201faessay7874/george-r-packard/the-coming-u-s-japan-crisis.html

Oh, but it gets even better. Never one to abandon a cause, Toshiba is now providing nuclear technology to our current red rival, China.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/7e7c530c-8e86-11da-ae63-0000779e2340.html

See that, folks? Every time you buy a DVD, HD-DVD, or Toshiba branded laptop computer, you're helping send pennies to build China's nuclear program, which could potentially be used to threaten the free world, either through China or one of their many customers such as Iran. :evil:

Timstuff

While I suppose I agree with you in principle, they do make a damn fine product.