Japan Press Weekly

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2008 September 10 - 16 [SDF]

Japanese ASDF’s participation in assistance to Iraq proven to be a mistake

Akahata editorial

The government has decided to withdraw the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force from Iraq by the end of this year, ending operations to assist US forces there.

The reason it gave for the decision was that the situation in Iraq is improving. But the fact of the matter is that the Japanese government no longer can ignore the growing calls in Japan for an end to support for the lawless war and calls in Iraq as well as in the international community for the withdrawal of foreign military forces from Iraq.

It is obviously wrong for Japan to have supported the lawless war in Iraq from the start.

The government should withdraw the Self-Defense Forces from Iraq and from the Indian Ocean.

SDF has no role to play

There have been media reports since July that the SDF would be pulled out of Iraq. However, the government has denied considering the pullout on the grounds that the U.N. Security Council was discussing the Iraq situation and that talks were underway between the United States and Iraq for the conclusion of a Status of U.S. Forces Agreement. Then Defense Minister Ishiba Shigeru on July 29 said, “The SDF will continue its mission in an orderly manner.” The government was thus insisting that ASDF airlift operations for U.S. forces should continue.

The government, however, changed its mind because the UNSC resolution that has been used by Japan and the United States to justify their deployment of forces to Iraq, will terminate in December and because the conclusion of a U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement has become unlikely.

The Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki demands that the UNSC resolution be discontinued after this year because Iraq’s government has no other option but to comply with the demand arising in the country for the withdrawal of foreign troops. Without the UNSC resolution, multinational forces, including the Japanese SDF, will have no option but to withdraw from Iraq. It is reported that troops of only a few countries, including the United States and Britain, will retain forces in Iraq.

The United States is desperate in maneuvering to conclude a Status of U.S. Forces Agreement with Iraq with the aim of enabling U.S. forces to continue to be stationed in Iraq after the expiry of the U.N. Security Council Resolution. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, however, urges the U.S. to set a time frame for the pullout of its forces from Iraq as a key provision of the agreement. The matter is not evolving as the United States expected. The U.S.-Iraq talks were to conclude by the end of July but have reached a deadlock.

The voices of Iraqi people as well as Iraq’s parliament have obliged the Maliki government to demand the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign forces from Iraq. From the outset, the Iraq War was lawless. It was a preemptive war. In complete disregard of the international community’s massive opposition to the war, the United States invaded Iraq because the former Saddam Hussein regime supposedly had weapons of mass destruction.

The U.S. led allied forces’ blanket attack killed more than a million Iraqis and resulted in deepening Iraqi people’s animosity towards the allied forces.

The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force mission in Iraq is to facilitate the U.S. occupation of Iraq through air lifting troops and supplies to Baghdad. For Iraqis the Japanese Self-Defense Force is an accomplice in the U.S. war of aggression and occupation of Iraq. It is natural that the Japanese government is facing calls for the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force to leave Iraq.

Stop the war

In the lawsuit demanding an end to the deployment of the SDF to Iraq, the Nagoya High Court ruling in April said that the Air Self-Defense Force airlift mission for U.S. forces in Iraq violates both the Japanese Constitution and the Special Measures Law on Iraq.

Seven years have passed since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan ostensibly to fight terrorism, and five years since the invasion of Iraq.

It is increasingly clear that trying to settle international disputes by using force is wrong. The Japanese government should stop supporting the war and urge the U.S. government to put an end to the lawless war.