JCP Ichida: Stop enacting unconstitutional SDF dispatch law

In the Upper House on October 3, Ichida Tadayoshi, Japanese Communist
Party Secretariat head, challenged the Koizumi Cabinet argument that the
Self-Defense Forces' participation in a U.S.-led retaliatory war on
terrorism is constitutional.

The Liberal Democratic Party government is now rushing to get a law
enacted to allow the SDF to operate abroad together with the U.S. Forces.

In his policy speech on September 27, Prime Minister Koizumi quoted from
the Preamble of the Constitution, which says that "no nation is responsible
to itself alone, but that laws of political morality are universal," in an
attempt to justify the government proposal for a new war law.

Speaking on behalf of the JCP, Ichida reminded Prime Minister Koizumi that
the Japanese Constitution prohibits Japan from going to war, and that this
provision is based on Japan's past mistake: militarism and the war of
aggression which led Japan to international isolation. This means, he said,
that the Constitution cannot be used to justify Japan's military cooperation
with the United States.

What Japan should do now is to call on the world to pursue peaceful paths
to solve the problems of terrorism based on the U.N. Charter and Japan's
Constitution, which is the only way Japan can be respected in the world,
Ichida stated.

Prime Minister Koizumi rejected Ichida's claim that the war law which the
government is considering is unconstitutional. (end)