July 19 & 21, 2015
The Japanese Communist Party on July 15 celebrated its 93rd anniversary since its founding. JCP Chair Shii Kazuo delivered a commemorative speech at the anniversary meeting held in a conference hall at the JCP head office on July 18, calling for getting the unconstitutional war bills scrapped and ousting the worst-ever administration in postwar Japan.
Keio University Professor Kobayashi Setsu, an expert in constitutional law, and Buddhist priestess and writer Setouchi Jakucho sent video messages talking about their expectations of the JCP. The audience filled the main hall and a sub-hall. The meeting was broadcast live on the Internet and local JCP committees organized viewing events at 674 locations throughout Japan. The video uploaded after the meeting was watched 22,722 times on that day alone.
Japan never recognized US preemptive attacks as illegal
Regarding the controversial war legislation and the collective self-defense right, Shii stated, “The biggest danger is that Japan could be dragged into U.S. unlawful preemptive wars around the world.”
The Abe government has stated that Japan can resort to the right to collective self-defense when Japan’s close ally is attacked by an enemy, but the government refuses to state what its position would be if the ally is the aggressor in a preemptive attack.
Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has kept saying that Japan will not support a country which illegally used armed force or invaded other countries. Shii, however, pointed out that the present government of Japan will refuse to criticize the U.S. for violating international norms and launching first strikes.
The United States, since the end of WWII, has conducted many preemptive strikes such as in the Vietnam War and the Iraq War by trampling on the UN Charter and international law. In post-WWII U.S. wars, the 1983 Grenada invasion, the 1986 Libya bombing, and the 1989 Panama invasion, an overwhelming majority of UN member states in the General Assembly adopted resolutions singling out the U.S. for criticism for violating international law.
Shii said, “Japan has never criticized U.S. wars for violating international law. Japan has always supported whatever the U.S. did. It has even opposed to or abstained from voting on the past three UN resolutions condemning the U.S.” He added, “No matter how much Abe claims Japan will oppose lawless wars, nobody believes him.”
Japan won’t refuse US requests to dispatch SDF
TV Asahi in May last year had an interview with Lawrence Wilkerson who was chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of State Collin Powell at the time of the Iraq War. The interviewer asked the former chief of staff, “If Japan had been allowed to exercise the collective self-defense right, would you have requested the Japanese government to join in the Iraq War?” Wilkerson’s answer was “Yes.”
Prime Minister Abe repeatedly claims that he would not dispatch the SDF to conflicts like the Iraq War to engage in military operations.
Shii said, “In question-and-answer sessions with me, he kept saying the same thing. Can the Japanese government refuse if the U.S. presses Japan to send troops? Until now, Japan may have been able to refuse the request by saying that Japan is not allowed to use armed force abroad due to constitutional restrictions. But if the war legislation is enacted, Japan will undoubtedly give in to the U.S. pressure.”
Shii again stated, “This is most likely to occur. Unwilling to even criticize unlawful U.S. wars, Japan will invoke the right to collective self-defense as requested and engage in military operations abroad.”
Japan unconditionally supports US wars and refuses to acknowledge its past support
Shii said, “It is important for Japan to look into its role during the Vietnam War and the Iraq War because the government of Japan was deeply involved in its support for both wars.”
In August 1964, the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred which led to the U.S. military invasion of Vietnam. The U.S. has looked at this historic event, and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara went to Hanoi in 1995 to determine the facts. He confirmed that the U.S. invented the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The National Security Agency in 2005 released an NSA analyst’s report on the incident. This person checked through all the 122 intelligence data the U.S. intercepted during the Vietnam War and found proof that the U.S. administration’s announcement was a fabrication.
Regarding the Iraq War, the U.S. and Britain claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Then, they used this claim as an excuse to wage war. Now, everyone in the world knows that that was another U.S. fabrication.
To both the fabricated incident and the false accusation, the Japanese government unconditionally accepted the U.S. pronouncements. To this day, the government neither admits to nor reflects on its complicity in support of outright lies.
Shii said, “Unlike the U.S. administration, the government of Japan would just dispose 40-year-old electronic information that could be damaging to its reputation. The latter would never look back and reflect on wrongful past conduct. Japan’s attitude toward history is very dishonest.”
Japan won’t ask US for explanation
Shii noted that Yanagisawa Kyoji, who served as assistant chief cabinet secretary in charge of national security and crisis management at the time of the Iraq War, in his book testified why the Japanese government did not ask the U.S. for an explanation about the issue of weapons of mass destruction.
Yanagisawa said that if Tokyo demands explanations from Washington, it will set a precedent and will have to make such a demand not only over future issues but also over past issues such as the issue regarding the bringing-in of nuclear weapons to Japan. That is why the Japanese government has been reluctant to call for explanations even though it is aware that the WMD issue was a fabricated one, Yanagisawa concluded.
Shii said, “The Japanese government is accepting a one-sided relationship under which it offers unconditional support for information conveyed by the U.S. government and is even unwilling to ask for explanations. This is highly unusual for a supposedly sovereign country. This shows the danger of the Abe government which blindly follows America’s footsteps and intends to join U.S.-led wars around the globe by exercising the collective self-defense right. Let’s use people’s power to block this dangerous move to war.”
Keio University Professor Kobayashi Setsu, an expert in constitutional law, and Buddhist priestess and writer Setouchi Jakucho sent video messages talking about their expectations of the JCP. The audience filled the main hall and a sub-hall. The meeting was broadcast live on the Internet and local JCP committees organized viewing events at 674 locations throughout Japan. The video uploaded after the meeting was watched 22,722 times on that day alone.
Japan never recognized US preemptive attacks as illegal
Regarding the controversial war legislation and the collective self-defense right, Shii stated, “The biggest danger is that Japan could be dragged into U.S. unlawful preemptive wars around the world.”
The Abe government has stated that Japan can resort to the right to collective self-defense when Japan’s close ally is attacked by an enemy, but the government refuses to state what its position would be if the ally is the aggressor in a preemptive attack.
Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has kept saying that Japan will not support a country which illegally used armed force or invaded other countries. Shii, however, pointed out that the present government of Japan will refuse to criticize the U.S. for violating international norms and launching first strikes.
The United States, since the end of WWII, has conducted many preemptive strikes such as in the Vietnam War and the Iraq War by trampling on the UN Charter and international law. In post-WWII U.S. wars, the 1983 Grenada invasion, the 1986 Libya bombing, and the 1989 Panama invasion, an overwhelming majority of UN member states in the General Assembly adopted resolutions singling out the U.S. for criticism for violating international law.
Shii said, “Japan has never criticized U.S. wars for violating international law. Japan has always supported whatever the U.S. did. It has even opposed to or abstained from voting on the past three UN resolutions condemning the U.S.” He added, “No matter how much Abe claims Japan will oppose lawless wars, nobody believes him.”
Japan won’t refuse US requests to dispatch SDF
TV Asahi in May last year had an interview with Lawrence Wilkerson who was chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of State Collin Powell at the time of the Iraq War. The interviewer asked the former chief of staff, “If Japan had been allowed to exercise the collective self-defense right, would you have requested the Japanese government to join in the Iraq War?” Wilkerson’s answer was “Yes.”
Prime Minister Abe repeatedly claims that he would not dispatch the SDF to conflicts like the Iraq War to engage in military operations.
Shii said, “In question-and-answer sessions with me, he kept saying the same thing. Can the Japanese government refuse if the U.S. presses Japan to send troops? Until now, Japan may have been able to refuse the request by saying that Japan is not allowed to use armed force abroad due to constitutional restrictions. But if the war legislation is enacted, Japan will undoubtedly give in to the U.S. pressure.”
Shii again stated, “This is most likely to occur. Unwilling to even criticize unlawful U.S. wars, Japan will invoke the right to collective self-defense as requested and engage in military operations abroad.”
Japan unconditionally supports US wars and refuses to acknowledge its past support
Shii said, “It is important for Japan to look into its role during the Vietnam War and the Iraq War because the government of Japan was deeply involved in its support for both wars.”
In August 1964, the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred which led to the U.S. military invasion of Vietnam. The U.S. has looked at this historic event, and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara went to Hanoi in 1995 to determine the facts. He confirmed that the U.S. invented the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The National Security Agency in 2005 released an NSA analyst’s report on the incident. This person checked through all the 122 intelligence data the U.S. intercepted during the Vietnam War and found proof that the U.S. administration’s announcement was a fabrication.
Regarding the Iraq War, the U.S. and Britain claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Then, they used this claim as an excuse to wage war. Now, everyone in the world knows that that was another U.S. fabrication.
To both the fabricated incident and the false accusation, the Japanese government unconditionally accepted the U.S. pronouncements. To this day, the government neither admits to nor reflects on its complicity in support of outright lies.
Shii said, “Unlike the U.S. administration, the government of Japan would just dispose 40-year-old electronic information that could be damaging to its reputation. The latter would never look back and reflect on wrongful past conduct. Japan’s attitude toward history is very dishonest.”
Japan won’t ask US for explanation
Shii noted that Yanagisawa Kyoji, who served as assistant chief cabinet secretary in charge of national security and crisis management at the time of the Iraq War, in his book testified why the Japanese government did not ask the U.S. for an explanation about the issue of weapons of mass destruction.
Yanagisawa said that if Tokyo demands explanations from Washington, it will set a precedent and will have to make such a demand not only over future issues but also over past issues such as the issue regarding the bringing-in of nuclear weapons to Japan. That is why the Japanese government has been reluctant to call for explanations even though it is aware that the WMD issue was a fabricated one, Yanagisawa concluded.
Shii said, “The Japanese government is accepting a one-sided relationship under which it offers unconditional support for information conveyed by the U.S. government and is even unwilling to ask for explanations. This is highly unusual for a supposedly sovereign country. This shows the danger of the Abe government which blindly follows America’s footsteps and intends to join U.S.-led wars around the globe by exercising the collective self-defense right. Let’s use people’s power to block this dangerous move to war.”
