Cautiously, Japan Returns to Combat,In Southern Iraq

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ^ | Friday, January 2, 2004 | SEBASTIAN MOFFETT and MARTIN FACKLER

[presidio9]

TOKYO -- When the first Japanese troops arrive in Iraq later this month, they will mark Japan's largest and most controversial military deployment since World War II.

The deployment also highlights Japan's cautious move away from half a century of a defense-only military policy. Japan renounced military action after its 1945 defeat. A new constitution, largely written by U.S. occupation forces, forbade the country from going to war and from deploying military forces for other than defensive purposes. The country doesn't even officially have a military -- the "Self-Defense Forces" aren't referred to using words such as "army" or "navy."

[presidio9]

[Conservative_Nationalist]

"As Japan has built up its defensive capabilities, it has strived not to appear hostile. In its troops' first U.N. peacekeeping operation, Cambodia in 1992, standard practice was for Self-Defense Force troops to carry their rifles unloaded."

It sounds like they have, or had, very incompetent and foolish leaders who didn't put the lives of their soldiers first. Politicians should stay out of Military affairs as much as possible and this is an example of why.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Wonder if their officers carry samurai swords ?

[Conservative_Nationalist]

Don't the Japanese think they should have weapons and trained soldiers that can invade and attack foreign lands because it would come in handy if they were attacked? I guess they would fight off an attack on the nation and then let the enemy regroup instead of ordering a counter strike? I understand why this was in there constitution but they are fools not to have changed this by now. If North Korea attacked them they would have to invade North Korean. They couldn't just sat back and do nothing.(I guess they could but it would be very ignorant)

[ErnBatavia]

Wonder if they'll try those Banzai tactics again?

[Rebelbase]

What's the word on the street about this?

[Steelerfan]

Aircraft carrier? Do the Japanese have one of those vertical launch carriers the British used to have? I can't believe they launched a full size one, but if so, what are they flying off of it?

[.cnI redruM]

If I ruled a nation located less than five hundred miles from N. Korea and China, I'd be spending 10% of my GDP on defense and developing technologies that would scare Lucifer himself. Japan lives in a target-rich environment.

Keep in mind also, Japan is still hated by both Chinese and Koreans. It's not just the communist governments who want to hammer Japan. If N. Korea or China decided to take a whack at Japan, their armed forces would go in their jacked up and ready to right old, historical wrongs.

Japan displays a remarkable level of restraint, given the threat the Japanese live under every day.

[.cnI redruM]

They pretty much do. I guy where I work war gamed against a Japanese regiment at NTC. They attack with regard to the odds. He said they went for a large number of light vehicles with machine guns and mortars and basically attempt to drive them down the throats of the OPFOR.

His synopsis of their tactics was that they lead an infantry regiment the way he would coach an NBA team. Everything they try to do has to be accomplished in 24 seconds or less.

[fakecanuck]

The Japan government has never apologized officially for the atrocities they committed during the WWI to the ASIAN countries. They have continuously changed their own school text books in order to rid of any traces of all those invasions to Korea, China, Philippines, Singapore, etc. Their killings of Chinese alone was multiple times of the victims of the Hollocast. No wonder they are hated. Think of the 911 and multiply that by 10,000 times. Unless you are telling me Koreans and Chinese have no rights in demanding they should right the wrongs they committed.

[.cnI redruM]

I'm not saying that. I'm only making the point that Japan has a very good reason to be scared if either N. Korea or China ever got the upper hand.

[presidio9]

I'm only making the point that Japan has a very good reason to be scared if either N. Korea or China ever got the upper hand.

No they don't, because they rightly assume that we'll never let it come to that.

[.cnI redruM]

When Bill Clinton sold N. Korea nuclear reactors, Japan lost any reason to believe that the US had real concern for there well being that didn't vacillate every four years, with each new US Presidential election.

[Conservative_Nationalist]

It's a new generation and the current Japanese regime has no obligation to apologize for past Japanese regimes. Japan did a lot of things wrong but now they are a thousand times better than the Chinese or North Korean governments. They shouldn't apologize to either of those CURRENT dictatorships that commit horrific crimes on their own people.

[.cnI redruM]

Agreed. Also, Japan would be totally stupid to rely solely on any country that elects the likes of Bill Clinton as President for its national defense. Japan will massively rearm if their collective IQ is greater than say, 15. We need to deal with that unavoidable reality in an intelligent manner.

[fakecanuck]

No obligation to apologize to their victims? Tell that to descendants of those killed. By your analogy, if the al Qaida changes leadership, it won't be answerable to the horrible 911 event? Just because are anit-communists, this does not make it right to site with Japan's post-WWII treatments of its victims.

[hasegawasama]

Japan has no reason to pay tribute to dictatorships. What's done was done.

[NutCrackerBoy]

Greater military strength and involvement on the part of one of our allies is a welcome development. I worry about the tendency of affluent Western nations to become more and more socialist, and somehow to lose interest in defense.

[Conservative_Nationalist]

"No obligation to apologize to their victims? Tell that to descendants of those killed. By your analogy, if the al Qaida changes leadership, it won't be answerable to the horrible 911 event? Just because are anit-communists, this does not make it right to site with Japan's post-WWII treatments of its victims."

Your analogy is flawed because the current Japanese regime is not responsible for past Japanese regimes. They obviously don't act like the previous regimes and they aren't the same people. With your way of thinking we should be paying reparations to descendent's of black slaves. The Japanese that are responsible for the atrocities are the only ones to blame and most of them are dead and none of them are in the current government.