The tragedy in Japan has captured the attention and sympathy of the entire world, with even the country’s traditional enemy – China – sending aid. The Deputy Editor of the major Russian newspaper “Izvestiya,” however, had a different view of the events. Yelena Yampolskaya contributed to her newspaper’s ongiong commentary on the disaster by writing that while “none of us are happy to see the Japanese suffer,” the event is “obvious proof” of God’s intervention on behalf of Russia, in retaliation for unspecified Japanese offenses against her country. Yampolskaya doesn’t appear to have ever detailed the nature of Haiti’s crimes against Russia that caused the devastating 2010 earthquake in that country, which left 300,000 people dead and the nation in ruins.
Certainly, we have heard similar pronouncements Stateside on occasion, but they have generally come from people safely ensconced in small, radical churches and not in major news outlets.