Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage War

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Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage War

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun Nov 10, 2013 3:05 pm

Japanese Prime Minister and President Obama Want Japan to Be Able to Wage War
Sunday, 10 November 2013 13:06
By Ann Wright, War Is a Crime | News Analysis

After the end of World War II, the Japanese constitution, written in part by the United States for the defeated Japanese nation, rejected war as a solution for conflict. The Preamble to the Japanese constitution recognized the Japanese government’s brutal actions in Asia during World War II, “…we resolve that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government,” and continues “We, the Japanese people, desire peace for all time and are deeply conscious of the high ideals controlling human relationship, and we have determined to preserve our security and existence, trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world. We desire to occupy an honored place in an international society striving for the preservation of peace, and the banishment of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance for all time from the earth. We recognize that all people of the world have the right to live in peace, fee from fear and want.”
Article 9 states: "Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, 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. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, 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."
Two weeks ago I was in Osaka, Japan as an international speaker at the Article 9 “No War” conference. I was also in Japan five years ago in 2008 at a similar conference, when George Bush was President of the United States and was undermining the spirit and intent of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution by urging the Japanese government to allow the Japanese Self-Defense forces to provide air and sea logistics assistance to Bush's war on Iraq.
One of President Bush’s chief advisors, former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage had complained that “ Japan’s Article 9 is an impediment to the US-Japanese alliance," an alliance the Bush administration wanted to use to spread the financial and military operational burden of the war on Iraq.
Over the objections of many Japanese citizens, the Japanese government did provide ships for resupplying American warships and logistic transport aircraft to fly supplies into Baghdad. A 2008 decision by the High Court of Nagoya found that Japanese Air Self-Defense Force missions into Iraq were unconstitutional as they violated Article 9.
Obama Administration Wants Japan to “Re-examine” legal basis for Article Nine
Five years later it is Barack Obama that is President of the United States, but the demand from the United States government has not changed—that Japan “modify” Article 9 and end its renunciation of war.
On October 3, 2013, the United States and Japan issued a “Joint Statement of the Security Consultative Committee: Toward a More Robust alliance and Greater Shared Responsibilities.”
In the document, the United States “welcomes” the Abe government’s “re-examining the legal basis for its security including the matter of exercising its right of collective self-defense…” In other words, find a way to eliminate Article 9 that will then allow Japan to have a military policy that does not preclude its participation in wars of aggression.
The document puts countries in the region on edge, China, North Korea and even South Korea by touting the U.S. commitment for Japan’s security through nuclear, as well as conventional, military capabilities, by welcoming the Abe government’s “determination to contribute more proactively to regional and global peace,” and by announcing that the United States will strengthen its military involvement in the region. Japan and the United States state that their alliance must be ready to deal with “persistent and emerging threats to peace and security” including “coercive and destabilizing behaviors in the maritime domain, disruptive activities in space and cyberspace; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), man-made and natural disasters and North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.”
The statement also calls for “encouragement of China to play a responsible and constructive role in regional stability and prosperity, to adhere to international norms of behavior, as well as to improve openness and transparency in its military modernization with its rapid expanding military investments.”
America’s Military Pivot toward Asia and the Pacific
With President Obama’s military “pivot” of the United States toward Asia, the government of the United States is putting a heavy hand on the Japanese government to pay even more for the United States defending its security. Japan currently pays the U.S. over $2 billion for the U.S. bases and military personnel stationed in Japan. In effect, the Japanese government is subsidizing the U.S. military.
American military exercises and deployment of strategic military equipment in Asia and the Pacific has increased substantially as the war on Iraq ended and the war on Afghanistan winds down.
For example, the United States will begin flying long-range Global Hawk spy drones from a base in Japan. Surveillance flights will begin in the Spring, 2014 and reportedly will primarily target North Korea. Additionally, the U.S. will construct a new radar system in Japan for its missile defense system.
A new generation of U.S. military equipment is being deployed to Japan, including the new P-8 anti-submarine planes, reportedly marking the first use of the aircraft outside the United States. The US has already sent the Osprey aircraft to Japan and its presence is causing Japanese citizen protests.
In the summer of 2012, the largest “war games” of military exercises ever held in the Pacific off Hawaii was conducted with 42 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel from 22 nations. The exercise involved surface combatants from the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea and Chile. China was excluded from observer status of the exercises, which it had had in the previous “war games.”
In 2012, the U.S. and Japan agreed to cut by half the controversial Marine Corps presence on Okinawa and redeploy about 9,000 Marines across the Pacific region, including a military buildup of about 5,000 Marines on Guam, the redeployment of thousands of Marines to Hawaii, and the rotation of forces through Australia. Between 4,700 and 5,000 Marines will relocate from Okinawa to Guam. The total cost includes an unspecified amount for possible construction of new training ranges in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territorial possession, that could be used jointly by U.S. and Japanese forces.
Conservations groups are already protesting the possible use of the islands of Pagan and Tinian in the Marianas Islands as an aerial bombing target. In the past twenty years, activists have forced the US Department of Defense to close down US bombing ranges on the Hawaiian Island of Kahoolawe and the Puerto Rican Island of Viequez.
On the mainland of Japan, citizen activism has forced the relocation of the Futenma airbase in a densely populated area on Okinawa. However, the U.S. plan to place the new airbase at a Marine base further north on the island, has generated fierce opposition from local residents, who do not want the habitat of unique marine mammals in the area destroyed by a runway that would be on a land fill into the pristine waters off Okinawa.
In Australia, Robertson Barracks is reported to be a future site of a United States Pacific Command Marine Air-Ground-Task Force rotational deployment. Military facilities in Darwin will become a base for a US Marine task force, airfields and training ranges in northern Australia will be used by American long-range bombers. The port in Perth will be visited by US warships and nuclear-armed submarines. The Australian armed forces are being structured at every level to function as an integral part of US operations in the region.
B-52 bombers will be deployed twice to Darwin this year and an American drone base is being constructed in the Cocos Islands, an Australian possession. A second rotation of more than 200 US marines deployed to Darwin in September, 2013, with plans to increase this force to about 2500 annually.
The Joint Defense Facility Pine Gap was established in central Australia near the town of Alice Springs in 1970. Pine Gap is one of three major satellite tracking stations operated by US intelligence agencies and the U.S. military.
Every day, agents of the US National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the intelligence branches of the US Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corp, as well as Australia’s intelligence agencies, process vast amounts of data that is transmitted to Pine Gap by US spy satellites as they pass over the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian Ocean, China and South East Asia and the Pacific Ocean.
In New Zealand in May, 2012, U.S. Marines conducted the first large-scale combat exercise involving New Zealand in 27 years. The combat training was the first conducted since the U.S. suspended ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, U.S.) Treaty obligations with New Zealand in 1986 after the country’s government passed anti-nuclear legislation that banned nuclear-powered U.S. Navy ships from New Zealand’s waters.
Besides U.S. threats of building a military airport into the pristine marine environment in Okinawa, the United States missile defense system and its Aegis missile ships have already destroyed one of the most pristine marine environments in South Korea with the building of a huge, unnecessary military naval port on Jeju Island to homeport the Aegis missile destroyer fleet. The building of the new military base on an island closer to China is seen as a provocation by the Chinese government.
I visited Jeju Island in 2010 and was there again in October, 2013.
It was heartbreaking to see an unnecessary military naval base constructed in such a beautiful area. The activists on Jeju Island have used non-violent tactics to oppose the construction of the base, while the South Korean government has flown thousands of police and military forces from the mainland of South Korea to arrest and imprison many of the activists.
In the Philippines, the United States is in the midst of negotiations for broader access to military bases. A new security accord, called the Increased Rotational Presence (IRP) Agreement, would permit American forces to regularly rotate through the Philippines for joint U.S.-Philippine military exercises. This agreement would allow the United States to preposition the combat equipment used by its forces at Philippine military bases. The frequency of U.S.-Philippine exercises could increase to the point where there would be a near-continuous American military presence in the Philippines. U.S. military forces were removed from the Philippines in 1992 after citizen protests. Chinese claims over islands traditionally held by the Philippines has fueled the new U.S.-Philippines relationship.
President Obama's postponed visit was to solidify plans for the Philippines to sign on to the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would establish an 11-nation free-trade zone in the Asia-Pacific regions that would give unprecedented authority to international corporations to undercut domestic industries in those countries.
Does China Pose a Threat?
The United States has substantially increased its military involvement in Asia to counter China’s increasing economic and military power in the region. Yet, China’s military spending of $129 billion is dwarfed by the $628 billion spent by the United States. A comparison of military equipment demonstrates the dominance of US military power: the US has 10 floating military bases (aircraft carriers) to one for China; the US has 15, 293 military aircraft to 5,048 for China; 6,665 military helicopters to 901 for China. The disparity between the US and China in numbers of military personnel is striking. With a population 1, 344, 130, 000, China has 2,285,000 on active military duty and 800,000 in the active military reserves. The United States has less than one-fourth of the population of China, 313,847,500, but has 1,478,000 on active military duty and 1,458,500 in the active military reserves.
According to Chinese media, the Chinese navy includes 70 submarines, 10 of which are nuclear powered. At least four of those are capable of launching the JL-2 missiles with nuclear warheads which gives China for the first time strategic deterrence and second strike capability against the United States.'
The United States has 73 nuclear submarines with 3 more under construction and 4 on order: 14 Ohio class ballistic missile submarines, 4 Ohio class guided missile submarines, 7 Virginia class fast attack submarines with 3 more under construction and an additional 4 on order, 3 Seawolf class attack submarines and 43 Los Angeles class attack submarines with 2 in reserve.
The United States has a current stockpile of 5,113 nuclear weapons and missiles with a range of 9,300 miles when fired from land and 7,500 miles when fired from nuclear submarines.
In 2011, Georgetown University estimated China had as many as 3,000 warheads while in 2009 the Federation of American Scientists estimated the Chinese may have as few as 240 warheads.
In 2011, China published a defense white paper, which repeated its nuclear policies of maintaining a minimum deterrent and became the first nuclear weapon state to adopt a nuclear “no-first use” policy and an official pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. China’s deployment of four new nuclear-capable ballistic missiles has caused international concern.
The United States continues to have “all options” open, including nuclear, as spelled out in the October 3, 2013 “Joint Statement of the Security Consultative Committee.”
Caroline Kennedy-New U.S. Ambassador to Japan--Will She Challenge Obama Policies?
The United States will soon be sending a new Ambassador to Japan.
Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, will be the new face of U.S. imperialism in Japan. As a private citizen, Caroline Kennedy stated that she opposed the U.S. war on Iraq.
An important question is whether she will recognize the desires of the people of Japan to retain its unique and important Article 9 “No War” section of its Constitution and convince the Obama administration not to undermine it.
To do so would be an incredible act of political courage as an American Ambassador, one that would be worthy to be included in an updated version of r father’s book, “Profiles in Courage.”
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby jcivil » Sun Nov 10, 2013 5:52 pm

Hypocrisy natural hypocrisy.

I do not have tv yet it has crawled up my computers ass over the last few years and so I see some shows and such. Dead and dying children and mothers groan and weep and a bloody haze colors my vision thought the entertainments, as I wonder how systems psychologically maintain, create the ole expectations, invisibilities, silences. I watch, sneer spit and curse, the willful ignorance. The complicity.
The horror, the horror.

Yet as I commiserated with the kids and grups of the Philippines still I found myself watching the TV show Big Bang Theory and laughing at the light saber belt buckle scene. The laugh just came out. I don't understand how it happened, but for one moment, I laughed.

I ask my companera/os for forgiveness in this loss of focus and resolve. I spit on the circus of death.

As I laughed the N.W.O.'s objective to synchronize all management systems gained. Billions murdered in my time, who am I to sleep?

Realidad, okay, some sex and r&r, okay. Just hold the circus.

Forgive.

Nippon should be able to wage war as much as anyone else not that anyone should.
Stand Firm!
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby NeonLX » Tue Nov 12, 2013 12:28 pm

Today's trite saying: I don't think we are going to hell; we are already there.
America is a fucked society because there is no room for essential human dignity. Its all about what you have, not who you are.--Joe Hillshoist
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Tue Nov 12, 2013 12:38 pm

...and all of this is a blatant chess move against the one country that actually read & paid attention to Army & Naval War College papers and synthesized the zeigiest into that remarkable document, Unrestricted Warfare (wiki) -- I suspect Japan will have very interesting times over the next 5 years.

I also suspect this could become an early flash point for the hilariously inevitable WW4 ghost dance.

Related question: Has the US State Dept done anything right at any point?
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby norton ash » Tue Nov 12, 2013 1:05 pm

sorcery when bribery fails
or plague-corpse by catapult
mandarins

plow salt in the fields
where helpful mice will draw the
gilded elephants
Zen horse
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby MacCruiskeen » Tue Nov 12, 2013 1:43 pm

Germany's post-WWII Constitution has also been toilet paper for years now (since unification in 1990, to be exact). German soldiers have now "defended freedom" in about a dozen countries since the smashing of Yugoslavia, and in any case the whole of Germany is an airstrip for US military refuelling pitstops, as well as "secret" rendition/torture/drug-smuggling flights.
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

TESTDEMIC ➝ "CASE"DEMIC
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Nov 12, 2013 7:13 pm

Oh wonderful. Instead of moving heaven and earth to disarm the region the planet, let's just make Michael Ledeen's "Faster Please" our fucking motto. With cherry-flavored nukes on top. :starz:
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby cptmarginal » Sun Nov 17, 2013 6:37 pm

http://www.japansubculture.com/what-are ... y-freedom/

Image

“What are the criteria of these possible secrets?” “Well…it’s a secret.”

Japan’s Kafkaesque Special Secret Protection Bill threatens to destroy freedom of speech


Posted by Nathalie-Kyoko Stucky and Jake Adelstein on Thursday, November 14, 2013

A committee within Japan’s lower house is currently deliberating a new bill that will punish leakers of designated “special” state secrets. The LDP Cabinet recently approved a bill to punish civil servants, lawmakers, and journalists who leak information that it deems will harm national security. The government will be able to determine what they will call “special secret”— almost without limit— because the definition of these possible secrets are “too broad and vague”, according to critics of the new bill. The Abe administration says that the secrecy bill is necessary to protect sensitive information given to Japan by the United States and other foreign countries.

Four lawmakers from four different political parties, briefed reporters today on the dangers of the Designated Secrets Bill at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan (FCCJ). Earlier this week, the FCCJ issued a strong statement of opposition to the bill as well.

Mizuho Fukushima, leader of the Social Democratic Party and wife of a famous anti-nuclear lawyer explained, “This bill represents a great threat to journalism.” A citizen or journalist investigating an arbitrarily declared state secret who reveals it could be prosecuted and jailed for up to 10 years. “The criteria for prosecuting an individual are too vague,” she added. “If a journalist or a member of an NGO accidentally overheard a state secret, he/she would be prosecuted.” Fukushima explained that if a lawmaker got hold of a state secret and wants to reveal it, he/she could also be prosecuted.

Article 19, an organization based in the U.K. and the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan have both issued a declaration earlier this week to urge Japan’s National Diet to reject the pending Secrecy Bill, as it “unreasonably” violates international standards on freedom of expression and the right to information.

The FCCJ statement admonished the Japanese government that investigative journalism is “not a crime, but rather a crucial part of the checks-and-balances that go hand-in-hand with democracy.” Fukushima added that from the standards of the international community, the drafted Japanese bill has too many flaws. Freedom and human rights were suppressed under Japan’s military government’s rule before and during World War II, she pointed out, and discussed how this bill represents a regression for Japan. As the definition of secrecy is “too vague,” there would be a possibility that the government haphazardly restricts the general public’s knowledge by designating anything embarrassing for the ruling powers a “state secret.”

Sohei Nihi, from Japan’s Communist Party said that the “most dangerous aspect of this bill” is that the average person will not be informed that a particular piece of information has been designated as a secret. “The Japanese people would be ignorant of these secrets and the bill will lead to a general suppression or reluctance of people to seek for information, ” he added. Considering the huge amount of opposition to this bill, the ruling party inserted a clause, which says that “there will be due consideration given to people’s right to know and journalists’ right to research and seek information.” However the seeking of information will have to be done in an “appropriate manner,” (正当な行為) and it is questionable and unclear by who and how will this “appropriate manner” be determined. As a result of some deliberation within the Diet committee, it was decided that the courts would make the fundamental decisions and the individual targeted could be subject to arrest and interrogation before a case is even brought to court. In effect, the law will work as presumed guilty until proven guilty.

Of course, exceptions would be made to individuals not aware of holding information classified as a state secret who make it public. “This sounds good in theory but who and how will it be determined that the leaker really wasn’t aware in advance before disclosing a state secret?” Sohei Nihi pointed out. “The government could force the individual to confess, as this kind of practice has taken place in Japan in the past,” he added. Ryo Shuhama, member of the upper house and representative of the People’s Life Party said that the general public was seriously concerned about this bill. According to some newspapers polls about 30% of the Japanese population favor the bill, 42% are against the bill, 68% have concerns over the definition of “secrecy” could be eventually expended, and 64% feel that this bill should not be passed in this current Diet session.

Taro Yamamoto, actor turned lawmaker last summer, is well known for his anti-nuclear stances and his audacious behavior. Yamamoto breeched imperial etiquette last month by handing a letter to the Japanese emperor in the middle of a royal garden party to which he was invited. Yamamoto, who was one of the first politicians to point out the harms of the secrecy bill even before it changed its name from “secrecy preservation law” to “secrecy law,” said that the bill is basically already in effect. He explained a situation in which the authorities told him that information regarding nuclear facilities exported to Vietnam could not be revealed. According to Yamamoto, the government spent the equivalent of 2.5 million dollars in securing a deal to export nuclear technology to Vietnam—tax money that was taken out of the reconstruction budget for earthquake and nuclear accident ravaged northern Japan.

“There is already a great deal of secrecy preservation in Japan,” he said. Yamamoto said that the government is truly trying to increase the power of the state and that the secrecy bill will eventually lead to the oppression of the average person and freedom of expression. “The path that Japan is taking is the recreation of a fascist state. I strongly believe that this secrecy bill represents a planned coup d’état by a group of politicians and bureaucrats,” he warned.

The secrecy bill has been compared to the peace preservation law (治安維持法) that passed in the period before World War II. Mizuho Fukushima explained that when that law passed it was not considered to be a frightening or threatening law. However, once people started to be arrested, it had a chilling effect on media, citizens’ groups and the general population. During the military rule and the war years in Japan, laws and rules were strengthened so that towards the end, it is said that even weather reports were considered state secrets. There was a famous case involving a young student in Hokkaido (the Miyazawa case) who happened to reveal the location of a particular airport to a foreigner and was sent to prison for divulging a state secret. “Once you open the door to such kind of laws, the government will have the right to designate anything as a state secret and by speaking about it or mentioning it, you can be arrested and prosecuted.” Fukushima explained, “Especially during war time, it was very difficult for defendants and lawyers to fight their court cases, because they were not told what exactly what was the state secret that they had been accused of having revealed.” she added.


As a side note regarding the Obama administration and Japan, also recall:

On July 24th, President Barack Obama declared war on the yakuza (ヤクザ)aka The Japanese mafia, in an executive order which stated that “(the yakuza) are becoming increasingly sophisticated and dangerous to the United States; they are increasingly entrenched in the operations of foreign governments and the international financial system, thereby weakening democratic institutions, degrading the rule of law, and undermining economic markets. These organizations facilitate and aggravate violent civil conflicts and increasingly facilitate the activities of other dangerous persons. I therefore determine that significant transnational criminal organizations constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.”
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby smiths » Sun Nov 17, 2013 8:51 pm

Its the early 1950s version 2.0

For everyone who wished they'd lived through the Cold War, this is our time

The US is 'containing' China who is aligning with Russia, presumably at some point Russia will be bought-off, Nixon-Kissinger style

Japan is muscling up, Australia will be expected to militarise and act as a forward base for the US, and Indonesia, India and Korea are all on board

I think it will be the South China Sea that provides the theatre, with amphibious vehicles and Ospreys getting bought left right and centre
the question is why, who, why, what, why, when, why and why again?
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Mon Nov 18, 2013 11:51 am

smiths » Sun Nov 17, 2013 7:51 pm wrote:For everyone who wished they'd lived through the Cold War, this is our time


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One of the best RI zingers of 2013, seriously. "It's funny because it's true!"
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby smiths » Tue Nov 19, 2013 8:54 pm

China building 1st amphibious assault ship in Shanghai
August 26, 2013
China is building in Shanghai its first amphibious assault ship capable of carrying multiple hovercraft and many helicopters, according to a think tank that monitors Asian defense issues.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news ... p-shanghai



Japan’s Amphibious Buildup
October 9, 2013
The incidents involve what Japanese call the Senkaku islands—the Diaoyu islands to the Chinese. Japan has legal ownership of the islands, which China disputes. The incidents have involved non-government activists and the coast guards of both nations, with many fearing an escalation could lead to some form of armed conflict.
http://news.usni.org/2013/10/09/japans- ... us-buildup


Japan’s Abe Keeps Up Heat on China
October 28, 2013
“We will show our resolve as a nation, that changes in the status quo by force cannot be tolerated,” Mr. Abe told an annual review of the Self Defense Forces. “The security environment surrounding Japan has become more challenging. That is the reality,” he told the 4,000 or so SDF members gathered at a military base just north of Tokyo.
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2013 ... -on-china/


Japan military launches island-taking drills in Okinawa
2 November, 2013
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/ ... ls-okinawa


South Korea Hones Its Amphibious Assault Capabilities
November 07, 2013
http://thediplomat.com/2013/11/south-ko ... abilities/
the question is why, who, why, what, why, when, why and why again?
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby SonicG » Tue Nov 19, 2013 9:23 pm

Japan already has the fifth largest military budget in the world even for its "self-defense" forces. Beyond Benjamin whats-his-name's pushing of that bizarre Red Dragon conspiracy, there is still a large right-wing/mafia contingent in Japan that will certainly get behind this militarism and it might just attract the many disaffected youth in Japan. Stagnant economy with a hollowing-out of the middle class, dropping population...there's quite a bit of ennui that could be replaced with the shining cause of nationalism...
The South China Seas will no doubt be heating up. I've basically been living in Vietnam the last two years and there have been rumors about the US building a base near Danang although I have not seen any proof of it. FWIW - Russian companies are heavily involved in Vietnam's oil industry and crude is a major export of Vietnam.
"a poiminint tidal wave in a notion of dynamite"
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Nov 19, 2013 10:56 pm

Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby SonicG » Sat Nov 23, 2013 10:15 pm

Back to the future: Shinto’s growing influence in politics
A small organization, little known to the public, has helped restore much of Japan’s controversial past — and it is only getting started
BY DAVID MCNEILL
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES
NOV 23, 2013 ARTICLE HISTORY PRINT SHARE
Immaculate and ramrod straight in a crisp, black suit, Japan’s education minister, Hakubun Shimomura, speaks like a schoolteacher — slowly and deliberately. His brow creases with concern when he talks about Japan’s diminished place in the world, its years of anemic economic growth and poorly competing universities. Mostly, though, he appears to be worried about the moral and spiritual decline of the nation’s youth.

“The biggest problem with Japanese education is the tremendous self-deprecation of our high school children,” he says in an interview at his Tokyo office. He cites an international survey in which children are asked: “Are there times when you feel worthless?” Eighty-four percent of Japanese kids say yes — double the figure in the United States, South Korea and China, he laments. “Without changing that, Japan has no future.”

Shimomura’s remedy for this corrosive moral decay is far-reaching: Children will be taught moral and patriotic education and respect for Japan’s national symbols, its “unique” culture and history. Textbooks will remove “self-deprecating” views of history and references to “disputed” war crimes. They will reflect the government’s point of view on key national issues, such as Japan’s bitter territorial disputes with its three closest neighbors: China, Russia and South Korea.

Education reform represents only one layer of Shimomura and his government’s ambitions. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a close political ally, wants to revise three of the country’s basic modern charters: the 1946 Constitution, the education law, which they both think undervalues patriotism, and the nation’s security treaty with the United States. The Emperor would be returned to a more prominent place in Japanese society. The special status of Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines most of Japan’s war dead, including the men who led the nation to disaster between 1933 and 1945, would be restored.

“They’re trying to restore what was removed by the U.S. Occupation reforms,” explains Mark Mullins, director of the Japan Studies Center at the University of Auckland. If it succeeds, the project amounts to the overturning of much of the existing order in Japan — a return to the past, with one eye on the future.

For an explanation of the core philosophy behind this project I visit an imposing black building that sits on the leafy borders of Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. The Association of Shinto Shrines, representing about 80,000 shrines, is classed as a religious administrative organization. It is also one of Japan’s most successful political lobbyists.

Many of the nation’s top elected officials, including Abe and Shimomura are members of the organization’s political wing, Shinto Seiji Renmei (officially, the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership — eschewing the word “political” from the title). A sister organization, the Shinto Political Alliance Diet Members’ Association boasts 240 lawmakers, including 16 out of the government’s 19-member Cabinet. Abe is the association’s secretary-general.

Seiji Renmei sees its mission as renewing the national emphasis on “Japanese spiritual values.” In principle, this means pushing for constitutional revision and patriotic and moral education, and staunchly defending conservative values in ways that seem to contradict Abe’s internationalist capitalism. The association opposes the free trade of rice and the sale of “strategic property” such as forests or lakes to non-Japanese, for instance.

Since its birth in 1969, Shinto Seiji Renmei has notched several victories in its quest to restore much of the nation’s prewar political and social architecture. In 1979, it successfully lobbied the government to reinstate the practice of using imperial era names. In 2007, it won a national holiday, April 29, for Japan’s wartime monarch, Hirohito — a day when Japanese might “look in awe at the sacred virtues of the Showa Emperor.”

Over the past decade, Tokyo has tried to impose a directive demanding that teachers lead schoolchildren in singing the Kimigayo national anthem — another Shinto concern. In April this year, 168 Diet members visited Yasukuni for its spring festival — the largest number since these counts began 24 years ago. “A lot more politicians now understand the importance of our views,” concludes Yutaka Yuzawa, head of Shinto Seiji Renmei.

Though not a member of the association, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi helped end the taboo on any overt show of sympathy with the militarism of the past with his six pilgrimages to Yasukuni, climaxing in his visit on Aug. 15, 2006. Yuzawa’s father, Tadashi, was the head priest of Yasukuni at the time. For both, it was a vindication of years of struggle. “Our stance is that it is natural for the prime minister to pay his respects at the shrine on behalf of the country.” Lawmakers such as former Prime Minister Naoto Kan who refuse to go are “impertinent,” he adds.

Yuzawa accepts that these visits will worsen already dangerously frayed ties with Beijing and Seoul but insists it is “not something Japan can bend on.”

“It relates to our culture, history and tradition,” he says. “To us, Yasukuni Shrine is a god.” Criticism that prime-ministerial visits confer legitimacy on the Class-A war criminals enshrined there cannot be taken seriously, he says.

“Perhaps, according to today’s judgment, they might have made mistakes but back then they were doing their best for the country. In Japan, our way of thinking about the dead souls is that we don’t criticize them. They were protecting the Emperor and, by extension, the Japanese people.” That vital point, he says, is now understood by a growing number of Japanese politicians.

The American Occupation of 1945-51 ended Shinto’s status as a state religion and attempted to banish its influence from Japan’s public sphere, notably its emphasis on a pure racial identity linked to the Emperor. The core element of this belief, ruthlessly enforced through the education system, was the emperor’s divine status as a direct descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu. Though weakened, Shinto conservatives in Japan “were simply biding their time” until they could restore the religion’s rightful place in Japanese society, says Mullins.

He sees 1995 — the year of the Kobe earthquake and Aum Shinrikyo deadly gas attacks on Japan’s subway — as a turning point. The two events, combined with the agonizing decline of the miracle economy, had a profound impact on the nation’s confidence. “The sense after that was: ‘We have so many troubles in Japan, we need to go back and get what we had,’ ” recalls Mullins. “There are certain people very sympathetic to that, to Shinto’s restoration vision.”

One of those people is Abe. In October, he became the first prime minister in 84 years to attend the most important ceremony in Shinto, the Sengyo no Gi at Ise hrine — a centuries-old ritual in which the main shrine buildings are demolished and rebuilt. Ise is considered home to the emperor’s ancestors; Amaterasu is enshrined in the inner sanctum. The highlight of the ceremony is the removal of a mythological “sacred mirror” used to lure the sun goddess out of her cave. Abe took eight members of his Cabinet along to watch. Some scholars were agnostic on the visit, given that prime ministers routinely go to the shrine to show respect for Japanese traditions and culture. Others, however, were alarmed.

“In the past, Ise Jingu (shrine) was the fountainhead for unifying politics and religion and national polity fundamentalism,” author Hisashi Yamanaka recently told the Asahi newspaper. “Abe’s act is clearly a return to the ways before World War II.”

It is far from clear how much of the past, exactly, Abe and his Cabinet want to revive, or how much sway Shinto holds over them. Shimomura swats away concerns about the government’s agenda. “Sections of the media have an allergy to moral education,” he says. “They are sending out the wrong image that we are trying to reinstate the prewar education system.” However, parts of Shinto clearly sit uneasily with the modern, globalized economy the government says it is trying to build.

Yuzawa says Japan should prohibit sales of land and property to China, Japan’s largest trading partner. Another possible point of conflict is the free trade of agricultural products, a key demand of U.S. negotiators in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks. Traditional ties between rice cultivation and Shinto rituals make this a no-no for Shinto fundamentalists, historian Matthew Penney notes in a recent article on the Asia-Pacific Journal.

Mullins says this magnetic tug of the past is not unique to Japan. “I see Shinto fundamentalists as very similar to U.S. Christian fundamentalists and Hindu neo-nationalists,” he says. “It’s people trying to cope with the modern world: to make it all black and white and nail it down.”

But he says an “ecumenical group” of like-minded conservatives is in the ascendancy in Japan, led by Shinto and Nippon Kaigi, a nationalist think tank that advocates a return to “traditional values” and rejects Japan’s “apology diplomacy” for its wartime misdeeds. “Abe’s comeback has given them this sense of confidence,” Mullins says.

Whatever happens to his government’s larger agenda — much depends on Abe’s economic performance — Shinto conservatives will likely continue their quiet mission to transform Japan. John Breen, a religion specialist at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, cites the restoration of imperial markers on the annual calendar: State Foundation Day; Culture Day, which marks the birthday of the Meiji Emperor; the current Emperor’s birthday in December; and Labor thanksgiving, which marks “the Emperor’s annual performance of the Niiname rite, a celebration of Amaterasu’s gift of rice to Japan.”

“The deep imperial meanings of these holidays are concealed behind innocuous names like Culture day and Labor thanksgiving,” Breen says. But the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership is determined to restore their original titles, “and so make apparent to all their true meaning."
THE JAPAN TIMES LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/1 ... s/#.UpFa2p
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Re: Japanese Prime Minister & Obama Want Japan Able to Wage

Postby Ben D » Sat Nov 23, 2013 11:37 pm

Chuna...bring it on!
China creates new air defense zone in East China Sea amid dispute with Japan

SEOUL — China said Saturday that noncommercial aircraft entering a broad zone over the East China Sea must first identify themselves to Beijing, at the risk of facing “defensive emergency measures” by Chinese armed forces.

China’s establishment of a so-called [url="http://eng.mod.gov.cn/HomePicture/2013-11/23/content_4476147.htm"]air defense identification zone[/url], announced by its Ministry of National Defense, adds a new dimension to the simmering territorial dispute with Japan and raises the odds of armed conflict.

The eight uninhabited islands at the center of that dispute fall within China’s new aerial zone. Based on [url="http://eng.mod.gov.cn/DefenseNews/2013-11/23/content_4476141.htm"]guidelines[/url] that China’s Defense Ministry released Saturday, any Japanese aircraft flying around those islands would need to submit their flight plans to China’s Foreign Ministry or civil aviation administration. They would also need to maintain radio communication with Chinese authorities.

China did not detail what measures it would take against aircraft that disobey the new rules, but defense experts say its military could scramble jets or even shoot down planes it views as a threat.

Later Saturday, the country’s air force conducted its first air patrol after the establishment of the new zone, with two large scouts leading the mission and early-warning aircraft and fighters providing support and cover, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

“The patrol is in line with international common practices, and normal international flights will not be affected,” said Shen Jinke, spokesman for the air force. He said the Chinese armed forces would take measures to deal with any air threats to protect the security of the country’s airspace.

Numerous countries, including the United States and Japan, have air defense identification zones of their own. The zones are established to help countries track or monitor aircraft nearing their territories, but in this case, the zones of Japan and China overlap. Security experts worry that China’s new zone could increase the likelihood of a mishap that sparks a wider armed conflict, drawing in the United States, which is treaty-bound to protect Japan.

China’s move makes “the already dangerous area surrounding the [disputed] islands even more ripe for an inadvertent collision,” said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

In a statement, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said, “The airspace the Chinese side established today is totally unacceptable and extremely regrettable as it includes the Japanese territorial airspace over the Senkaku Islands, an inherent territory of Japan.“Unilaterally establishing such airspace and restricting flights in the area is extremely dangerous as it may lead to miscalculation in the area,” the statement said.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel expressed strong concern over the Chinese decision. “We view this development as a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region. This unilateral action increases the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculations,” Hagel said in a statement Saturday. “This announcment by the People’s Republic of China will not in any way change how the United States conducts military operations in the region.”
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