Even active members of SDF express disagreement with Iraq dispatch proposal

Opposition is growing throughout the country to the plan to send the Self-Defense Forces as the government prepares to publish a basic plan to carry it out. Even ranking SDF officers are expressing disagreement with the government plan.

Akahata of November 28 reported some active SDF officers' comments.

An SDF officer said, "I do not accept the government policy of sending SDF members to Iraq. We are serving the SDF to defend Japan. Dispatching the SDF goes against the stated aim of the SDF."

Some SDF members have expressed hope that public awareness and grassroots movements will increase in and out of the parliament in opposition to the sending of the SDF to Iraq, the paper reported.

Also, a mother of an SDF member called at the JCP head office on November 28, stating, "I have not brought up my son to fight in foreign wars. I have sleepless nights these days."

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Signature campaigns in opposition to the sending of the SDF to Iraq are supported by many people making queues everywhere to sign.

On November 27 in Nagasaki City, an association against the war contingency laws collected 273 signatures in one and a half hours.

In Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture, 100 citizens signed their names in half hour. In Tokyo, similar actions took place at 12 station terminals in Itabashi Ward alone.

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Ignoring increasing public opposition, the ASDF finished painting C-130 transport aircraft at the Air SDF Hamamatsu Base in Shizuoka Prefecture to supposedly camouflage them to avoid possible attacks by ground-to-air missiles. (end)