Guarding U.S. aircraft carrier is unconstitutional: Akahata

Two Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) vessels, the Shirane and the
Amagiri, provided an escort for the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, as it
left the U.S. Navy Yokosuka Base in Kanagawa on September 21. It is the
first time for MSDF warships to escort U.S. military vessels outside of
Japan-U.S. joint exercises.

Akahata on September 22 said:

Escorting the U.S. aircraft carrier which is reportedly getting prepared
to take part in retaliatory operations against terrorist attacks means
taking part in U.S. military operations. It has nothing to do with the
defense of Japan. It means invoking the collective right to self-defense,
which Japan's Constitution prohibits.

Japan under Article 9 of the Constitution renounces "war as a sovereign
right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling
international disputes." Therefore, Japan's successive governments had to
say that using the collective right to self-defense is unconstitutional.

Even the 1999 Japan-U.S. Guidelines for Defense Cooperation-related War
Laws stipulated that: "Japan's rear area support will be provided primarily
in Japanese territory" and on the high seas around Japan "which are
distinguished from areas where combat operations are being conducted."

At the time of the Gulf Crisis, the U.S. government in October 1990
requested Japan to escort the U.S. aircraft carrier Midway from Yokosuka,
but Japan's government refused.

Now, pressed by the U.S., Japan's government wants to remove the
constitutional restriction on the use of the collective right to
self-defense so that the SDF will carry out military operations overseas
jointly with the U.S. Forces. Escorting the Kitty Hawk by MSDF ships is
being used as a lever to this end.

The government and the Defense Agency explain that what MSDF ships did
was not act as an escort of the U.S. carrier, but participants in "guard and
watch" activities under the DA Establishment Law. But, the agency says that
watching for possible attacks against the carrier is part of their missions.
So, these are in fact escort actions.

Besides, under the September 19 government 7-point plan in support of
U.S. military retaliation, the agency is considering deploying other vessels
to the Indian Ocean "for information gathering."

By enacting a new law in the extraordinary Diet session from September
27, the government wants to enable the SDF to carry out logistics support
for the U.S. Forces in larger areas than those under existing war laws.
Then, as is examined now, the government will send large transport, supply,
and escort vessels, and P-3C anti-submarine patrol planes for a new war.

In the November 1998 Japan-U.S. joint/bilateral exercises, the MSDF
supplier Hamana fueled a U.S. cruiser guarded by MSDF escort ships and
P-3Cs.

With the enactment of new war laws, more SDF ships and planes will be
sent to the Indian Ocean to carry out such operations as conducted in these
exercises. (end)