U.S. - Japan Military Folly

Just as America is coming to terms with Vietnam, and Germany has come to terms with its World War II follies, Japan will have to come to terms with its official hypocrisy and deception for its wartime role in China and other countries it invaded.

The issue is highlighted in Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine, which honors the country’s war dead, including 14 war criminals. Japan’s prime ministers make annual visits to the shrine, which has caused concern about separation of church and state. But because the shrine is also a symbol of Japanese militarism and imperialism to those countries Japan conquered in World War II, it has become extremely controversial. China cites the prime ministers continued annual visits as the reason it bars top Chinese leaders from going to Japan, even though Japan is China’s largest trading partner.

The hypocrisy is further magnified by the lawsuit filed by 32 elderly Japanese war orphans left in China after the war who returned to Japan at the dawn of the 21st century. They seek compensation from the government for its failure to promptly repatriate and resettle them. They received little or no Japanese-language education or job-search support after they returned. “Japan is a nice country, but you have criminal leadership,” former world chess champion Bobby Fischer said on his release from detention in Japan.

The highly acclaimed three-hour film Japanese Devils shows 14 former Imperial soldiers discuss and confess their brutal roles during the war. One Japanese war veteran confesses to 328 murders. A former army sergeant describes throwing babies on to campfires for
laughs. Another says he raped and killed a woman, then carved up her body to feed to his troops. “I actually had that kind of experience myself,” a 77- year-old veteran said, coming out of the movie theatre with tears in his eyes. “I was in China. Nanking. I was wrong.”

Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has suggested that Japan’s self-defense forces are a “military” instead of simply a “force” and Article 9 of their constitution should be amended to allow Japan to be a military state that can take offensive measures -- not just defensive. The U.S. imposed the military ban in the constitution after Japan’s defeat in World War II. The fact that America now agrees to the amendment because of Japan’s desire to support the U.S. missile defense shield is doubly worrisome.

The U.S.-led war against terrorism in Afghanistan and the Iraq war saw the quiet re-emergence of Japan’s naval forces from constitutionally mandated quarantine. Two Japanese destroyers and a supply ship sailed to the Indian Ocean to support America in Afghanistan, along with ships and peacekeeping troops in Iraq. This decision was supported by the U.S., but it has to be questioned by We the Apathetic Maids.

Japan has the raw materials and technology to develop nuclear weapons in less than a year. That assumes they haven’t already done so. With plutonium for 25 bombs missing from the Japanese nuclear reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, one wonders if the conclusion of the 15-year probe into the shortage, which blamed it on shoddy book keeping, is believable. To attribute the shortage to faulty calculations in a country that prides itself on its precision engineering and quality control is at the very least highly suspect.

The passage of a law allowing Japan to send self-defense forces to maintain peacekeeping in Iraq marks a dangerous new era of Japanese militarism and violates the constitution imposed by America after WWII. The constitution reads: “The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. Land sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

The Japanese right-wing faction makes Bush’s neo-cons look like innocent pacifist choir boys. “Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, with Bush administration support, is pursuing a dangerous political course. By committing to military involvement in Iraq, he is trying to end one of the last vestiges of the Second World War – the prohibition of Japanese military action on foreign soil,” William Beeman, who teaches anthropology at Brown, said. This is something America cannot permit or encourage. For America to allow Japan to again become a regional military power because it believes it is an ally is delusional. Japan will never be America’s true ally. Only a short-term self-serving one.

Japan admits to an annual defense budget of $50 billion. It successfully launched its first commercial rocket at the dawn of the 21st century – an action that does not fall into any military budget. On March 28, 2003, it launched its first spy satellite, which also is a non-military budget item.

In 2004, Japan shifted its main defense focus away from Russia and toward China in a once-a-decade military review. Henceforth, the Japanese military is to regard North Korea and China, not Russia, as the main dangers to its home islands. China reacted with outrage. The Japanese defense outline stated that China is “pushing forward its nuclear and missile capabilities and modernization of its navy and air force. It is also trying to expand its scope of naval activities.”

On December 19, 2003, Japan announced it was going to spend at least $4.2 billion for a U.S.-built missile defense network to defend itself against North Korea. The network will become operational by 2007 and be fully deployed by 2011. Japan is on a 21st-century kamikaze mission. Japan also has lifted its long-standing ban on military exports – so it can cooperate more closely with the U.S. on a missile defense program.

Is it really necessary for America to support the amendment of the Japan constitution because of its support for the missile defense shield and potential support in an attack against North Korea? Isn’t it safer and more cost-effective to have a fleet of U.S. Aegis destroyers positioned in the Sea of Japan? The Aegis can track an incoming missile in a matter of 20 seconds or so, and determine where it will hit. North Korea’s Nodong medium-range missile takes 10 minutes flying time to reach Japan from North Korea. A few Aegis destroyers are a lot safer, cost-effective and offer more protection than a missile defense shield or an amended constitution.

And if the American-imposed constitution can be amended, why isn’t the real McCoy on which it was modeled in America also amended to address the new realities of the 21st century?