How
the Press &
the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career
Today's
Stories
December 20,
2004
Gary Leupp
Japan
in Iraq
December 18
/ 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
They Hated Gary Webb
Saul Landau
Gen.
Pinochet Should Also Face Charges in DC
Patrick Cockburn
Losing
Mosul: Once They Called It a Model for the Occupation
Douglas Valentine
Wolves
and Revolution in Venezuela: a Caracas Romance
Ray McGovern
Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear: the New China / Russia Alliance
Fred Gardner
DEA Upholds Grower's Marijuana Monopoly
Jean-Guy Allard
Locked Up Naked in a Hole Within a Hole: Have the Cuban 5 Been
Tortured in US Prisons?
Ron Jacobs
Drifters Escape, Again: Encounters with Berkeley's Police
Raymond G.
Helmick, S.J.
The Law and Peace in the Middle East
Sean Sellers
Values Voters, Desperate Housewives and Sweatshop Tacos
Lee Sustar
Christmas
on the Picket Line at CNH: "They Want to Break Our Unions"
Richard Thieme
Webb's Wife: "Gary Was Never the Same After They Attacked
Him"
Sam Bahour
WANTED:
Middle East Negotiator
Joshua Frank
The
Spin Doctor: an Interview with Mickey Z.
Dave Lindorff
A Man Who Confers with God Should Have Good Hearing
Stan Cox
What Kids Cost: Dallas v. Delhi
Chris Frasier
Farming By Numbers: More Poets, Fewer MBAs
Poets' Basement
Katz, Melek, Harley, Albert and Ford
December
17, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
CounterAttack:
How the Press and the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career
Dave Lindorff
Racism:
Philly Style
Dan Bacher
Bush Abandons Salmon Restoration
Marisa Jacott
NAFTA and the Environment: Trade Still Runs Roughshod
Francis Thicke
How Now, Industrial Cow?
Rupert Cornwell
The Inuit Strike Back
Website of the Day
Franz Boas Unrolls Over in His Grave
December
16, 2004
Michael
Neumann
How We Became Barbarians
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Ralph Nader
Gabriel
Espinoza Gonzales
The Dubious Career of John Bolton
Christopher
Brauchli
Louis Freeh's New Gig: Usurer
Patrick
Cockburn
Allawi's Pre-Election Ploy: Putting "Chemical Ali"
on Trial
Mike
Whitney
Gearing Up for a Draft?
Walter
Brasch
Hillbilly Humvees and Rumsfeld's New Physics
Bill
Conroy
How Gary Webb Saved My Ass from the FBI
Website
of the Day
Saturday Memorial for Gary Webb
December
15, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Who Killed Baha Mousa?
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Monster Under the Bed
Heather
Gray
Will the Real Christians Please Stand?: a Personal Testimony
Dave
Lindorff
The DNC, Albright and the Iraq Elections
Luis
Hernandez Navarro
To Die a Little: Migration and Coffee
in Mexico and Central America
Joshua
Frank
The Ohio Recount: an Exercise in "Dumbocracy"
Greg
Moses
Eighty-Sixing Civil Rights in Ohio?
George
Caffentzis
The Petroleum Commons
December
14, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
DNC Meddling in the Ukraine Elections
Larry
Birns / Seth DeLong
Haiti is Unraveling and No One is Saying
Anything
Richard
Thieme
My Last Talk with Gary Webb: "I Knew It Was the Truth and
That's What Kept Me Going"
Patrick
Cockburn
A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq
is Getting Worse
Chris
Floyd
Client State: Moral Values and Voluntary Servitude in Bush's
America
Akiva
Eldar
A One-time Hanukkah Miracle
Burbach
/ Cantor
The Legacy of Pinochet: Kissinger
and the Teflon Tyrant
December
13, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Gary Webb: a Great Reporter, Trashed
by the CIA's Claque
David
Phinney
"Contract Meal Disaster" for Iraqi Prisoners: Rancid
Food Sparked Abu Ghraib Riots
Paul
Craig Roberts
A Dose of Non-Delusional Reality
for Douglas Feith
M.
Junaid Alam
The War is the War Crime
Robert
Jensen
The US Has Lost the Iraq War...and That's a Good Thing
Richard
Oxman
Kafkaesque Lessons for the Left
Greg
Moses
Send No Messengers of Defeat
Douglas
Lummis
The Pentagon's Neurosis: Fallujah
Gulag
December
11 / 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Running an Empire on the Cheap
Ron
Jacobs
The Drugs of War: Getting High in the Green Zone?
Saul
Landau
Listening and Talking to God About
Invading Other Countries
Gary
Leupp
Bush's Capital
Sharon
Smith
The Horrible Toll on US Troops
Dave
Lindorff
Deja Vu All Over Again: 5,000 Desertions and Counting
Uri
Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Crazy
Jude
Wanniski
The Neo-Con Smear on Kofi Annan: What Food-for-Oil Scandal?
Heather
Gray
How the South Became Republican: an Interview with John Egerton
Patrick
Cockburn / Ken Sengupta
Fallujah: the Homecoming and the Homeless
John
Pilger
Return to Kosovo: Calling the Humanitarian Bombers to Account
Joshua
Frank
All the Rage: Mr. Solomon, Say You're Sorry
Ben
Tripp
O Canada!: the Truth About the Election of 2004
John
Stanton
God Speaks!
Laura
Nathan
Porn Stars are People, Too: a Talk with Christi Lake
Poets'
Basement
Capaccio, Davies, Louise, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Day
Fallujah Photos: Killed in Their Beds
December
10, 2004
Ralph
Nader
President Bush, Stop Destroying the
Mosques of Iraq
Greg
Moses
Whitewashing Voter Fraud
Nicole
Colson
Rebellion in the Ranks: Grunts Are Resisting Stop-Loss Orders
Frederick
B. Hudson
"They Still Got Those Dogs": A New Book Probes Old
Civil Rights Lessons
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Insurgents Oppose the Occupation, Not the Elections
Kathy
Kelly
From Haiti to Iraq: Burying Water
December
9, 2004
Greg
Moses
Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah
Joshua
Frank
Cobb and the Ohio Recount: Vote Fraud as Fundraiser!
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush: It's Time to
Disclose the Real Casualty Figures
Lee
Sustar
Bhopal: the Making of a Disaster
Tom
Barry
Restrictionist Resurgence
Mickey
Z.
Sander Hicks and the 9/11 Truth Movement
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush in the Bubble
Mark
Donham
Why are House Democrats Trying to
Deny Cynthia McKinney Seniority?
Gary
Corseri
On the Anniversary of John Lennon's Death, 2012
Paul
de Rooij
The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers
December
8, 2004
Ralph
Nader
Will the Real Michael Moore Ever Re-Emerge?
Ann
Harrison
The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials
and Few Rules
Paul
Craig Roberts
War Crime
Dave
Lindorff
They've Got a Secret: Inside the $40 Billion Black Budget for
Spying
Patrick
Cockburn / Andrew Buncombe
CIA Warning on Iraq: Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency
Col.
Dan Smith
Rules of Engagement in Iraq
Emily
Alves / Michael Johnson
Paradise Lost: Corruption and Clientelism in Costa Rica
Richard
Oxman
The Dylan Bob Wouldn't Mention: Up With Dylan Thomas
Ron
Jacobs
In Fallujah, Freedom Isn't Free
December
7, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Running Battles in Baghdad
Behrooz
Ghamari
Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC?
Richard
Oxman
Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview
Ray
McGovern
All Mosquitoes, No Swamp
John
Chuckman
The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada
James
Petras
Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears
Website
of the Day
ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
December 20, 2004
The Samawah Base and the Future of "Pacifist"
Japan
Japan
in Iraq
By
GARY LEUPP
The Fortress
of Solitude
I've visited lots of Japanese castles,
from Kumamoto in Kyushu to Matsumae in Hokkaido. Some sit atop
hills, enjoying a commanding view of the surrounding area. Some
are encircled by moats, or twisting roadways designed to thwart
attacks. Most castles date to the sixteenth through eighteenth
centuries, or are modern concrete reconstructions of fortresses
first built during those centuries. They typically sport elegant
interiors, combining austerity with opulence, and outside the
towering donjon barracks for the lord's samurai retainers. I'm
reminded of those castles when I read about Japan's present-day
fortified base, outside of Samawah, in Iraq. Far to the west
of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" envisioned
by Japanese imperialists in the 1930s, this is the first Japanese
military base outside Japan since 1945, the first year of the
U.S. occupation. It was constructed to please that former occupying
power, and to abet its latest occupation. It may be more defensively
aloof than the citadels in Edo or Osaka ever were; J. Sean Curtin,
of Asia Times Online,
likens it to Superman's hideout, "The Fortress of Solitude."
Samawah is a city of 120,000
in the south, midway between Basra and Baghdad on the Euphrates,
taken
by U.S. forces after fierce resistance in April 2003. The
fortress, housing about 560 modern samurai, perches on a hilltop
ten kilometers outside the city, surrounded
by a moat and zigzagging roads. These are all "lined
with concrete walls and sandbags to prevent vehicles approaching
the base at high speeds."
Curtin calls this "one
of the most high-tech and expensive military camps ever constructed,
one that includes a karaoke bar, massage parlor and gymnasium
It may well be one of the most formidable military camps planet
Earth has ever seen. And those given to hyperbole might say Iraq
will not have witnessed the erection of such an extraordinary
structure since King Nebuchadnezzar II began building the biblical
Tower of Babel in what is now Babylon."
Lacking the charm of the White Heron Castle
in Himeji
, the Samawah bastion may hold greater historical significance.
Its very existence represents a sea change in Japanese military
thinking since 1946, when the Diet approved a new charter including
the following article:
Aspiring sincerely to an international
peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever
renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat
or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land,
sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never
be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not
be recognized.
An Unconstitutional
Fortress
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution
could hardly be more categorical. Japan renounces war, as a means
to settle international disputes, no matter what happens. Even
an unprovoked invasion would not allow the Japanese people to
go to war, since such an attack would be a form of "international
dispute." The fundamental law of Japan, authored
by American staffers in the U.S. occupation in 1946 and adopted
without debate by the Diet, is as pacifistic a document as you're
likely to find among such charters. The German Constitution of
1949, also composed under U.S. occupation, includes Article 26,
which imposes a "ban on preparing a war of aggression,"
and declares that "Activities tending and undertaken with
the intent to disturb peaceful relations between nations, especially
to prepare for aggressive war, are unconstitutional." But
it doesn't renounce the right to wage defensive war or war in
principle. The blanket Japanese ban on the maintenance of military
forces, like much else about Japan, is quite unique.
Not so unique is the penchant
of the Japanese state to contradict or ignore its own laws in
practice. (Article 14 makes men and women equal under the law,
but that's never translated into reality.) Japan most certainly
does maintain land, sea and air forces. It spends only
one percent of its GDP on military expenses, but that GDP is
huge, and according to the CIA Tokyo's military budget at over
$42 billion per year exceeds those of Italy ($28 billion) and
Germany ($35 billion), and approaches those of the U.K. ($43
billion) and France ($45 billion). Some consider Japan the fourth
largest military spender in the world, after the U.S., Russia
and China. Its "Self-Defense Forces" (Jieitai)
number over 246,000, and are equipped with medium tanks, reconnaissance
vehicles, armored personnel carriers, towed and self-propelled
howitzers, mortars, single rocket and multiple rocket launchers,
air defense guns, surface-to-surface missiles, antitank missiles,
fixed-wing aircraft, attack helicopters, transport helicopters,
diesel submarines, guided missile destroyers, frigates with helicopters,
frigates, patrol and coastal combatants, mine warfare ships,
amphibious ships, fighters, reconnaissance aircraft, airborne
early warning aircraft, transport aircraft, surface-to-air missiles,
air-to-surface missiles, air-to-air missiles, and air-defense
control and warning units.
None of this has yet been deployed
in a hostile battlefield, and the Japanese public would like
to keep it that way. Many Japanese point out the obvious: the
very existence of the SDF is unconstitutional. But the timid
courts don't want to hear the case, or insist that the SDF is
a political rather than legal issue. Ever so slowly since the
mid-1950s, prodded by Washington, factions within the long-ruling
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have sought to transform formally
pacifistic Japan into a "normal nation" with a fully
validated Army, Navy and Air Force. In the 1980s they supported
military expenditures slightly exceeding the traditional one
percent of GDP, in order to test the waters of public opinion.
(There was an outcry.) They have supported prime ministers' official
visits to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where the ashes of Japan's
war dead (including convicted war criminals) are interred, and
the revision of school textbooks to downplay discussion of Japanese
atrocities in the Second World War. They have successfully promoted
the use of the Kimi ga yo imperial anthem in schools,
and the mandatory display of the solar disk flag. Their campaign
for "normal" militarism is thus simultaneously a campaign
for normal nationalism. But many Japanese see in both the ugly
shadow of the fascist past.
The law authorizing Japanese
troops' presence overseas was passed after Tokyo received much
U.S. criticism for its behavior during the Gulf War of 1991.
The first President Bush asked Japan for troops for that war,
but Article 9 and popular opinion made this impossible, so Tokyo
simply forked over $ 13 billion to finance the U.S. effort. Since
then Japan has overtaken the U.S. as the number one donor of
foreign aid to "developing" nations, taking over that
role as part of the global inter-imperialist division of labor.
Washington has been happy enough with such contributions, but
some in the LDP depict Japan's "checkbook diplomacy"
as a matter of national embarrassment. Their exploitation of
Japanese sensitivity to collective shame has been an intelligent
strategy to gain public support for changes in the law governing
the SDF. In 1992 the Diet, as if to indicate that Japan was willing
to actually put lives on the line to enforce the New World Order,
passed a law subsequently used to allow troop deployments in
Cambodia, East Timor and Mozambique. In October 2001 the Diet
approved a Japanese military role in the U.S. attack on Afghanistan.
A dispatch to Iraq at American behest was simply the next logical
step. In 2003 the Diet approved the assignment of SDF to Iraq,
but only to provide such services as water purification and delivery,
road repair, reconstruction and medical services.
Where to send them, in war-torn
Iraq? Samawah was chosen because it was one of the few towns
outside the Kurdish zone where "a
foreigner can still venture out and eat at a restaurant."
The area was patrolled by Dutch troops who, given the limited
assignment of the Japanese, would have to provide them security.
So since the SDF troops arrived in February 2004, they've been
accompanied by heavily armed Dutch convoys on every excursion
outside the castle. The non-combat designation notwithstanding,
last May a Dutch sergeant was killed by the resistance on a nearby
Euphrates bridge crossing, another has been killed in Samawah
since, and the base has taken fire, so the supposedly safe, humanitarian
mission has sparked much controversy in Japan. Koizumi himself
recently called the situation "severe," however adding
"Samawah is not a combat zone at present, and it will continue
to be a non-combat zone."
An Unpopular
Fortress
The prime minister stated this
as he announced that the Samawah mission would be extended one
year from its scheduled termination December 14, declaring in
effect that the area will be by definition a "non-combat
zone" simply because were this not the case, Japanese troops
couldn't legally be there. If Tokyo can deny that the Japanese
military is a military, surely it can argue that a combat zone
isn't a combat zone. Koizumi wants to anyway, just to keep it
all legal. He wants to play the role of the loyal U.S. ally without
paying too heavy a price domestically. But separate public opinion
polls taken this month, by Mainichi Shinbun and NHK,
indicate that 62% of the population oppose the Iraq mission,
and Koizumi's personal approval rating is at an all-time low
since his election in April 2001: 37%, mostly because of this
issue. And so far no Japanese troops (as opposed to a tourist
and some diplomats) have even been killed.
Koizumi argues, as have all
postwar Japanese prime ministers before him, that Japan must
maintain its close alliance with the U.S. At present, this means
it must cater to Bush's demand that U.S. allies append a fig
leaf to American unilateralism, and play along with the charade
that a broad international Coalition is democratizing Iraq. Had
Tokyo like Canada or Mexico politely declined to either endorse
the invasion or assist in the occupation---had it opted to really
become the "Japan that can say 'no'" to the U.S.---there
could have been repercussions. Among other things, the Bush administration
might have excluded Tokyo from the planning process for regime
change in nations in whose future Japan has deep interests, such
as Iran and North Korea.
In Iran, Japanese policy clashes
with that of Washington. Tokyo has cordial relations with Tehran,
and Tehran sells more oil to Japan than to any other country.
Tokyo has rejected Washington's protests about a $ 3 billion
Japanese loan to Iran to develop its Azadegan
oil field. Japan supports European efforts to negotiate
with Iran the suspension of its uranium enrichment program---efforts
which irritate the neocons in Washington who seek a pretext for
aggression against Iran. In North Korea, U.S. and Japanese interests
more generally correspond, although some in Tokyo surely worry
that the saber-rattling American administration will do something
really stupid in their own backyard, and so seek to exercise
a restraining influence.
The South Korean government
of Roh Moo-hyun has prostituted itself with an Iraq deployment,
3600 strong, hoping that Washington will, in appreciation, not
attack North Korea, ruining the "sunshine
diplomacy" results the South has obtained to date and
throwing the whole region into turmoil. Koizumi may share that
concern, but the hard line towards North Korea promoted by John
Bolton and the other neocons dovetails with the position favored
by some LDP leaders, including rightwing firebrand Ishihara Shintaro.
Tokyo's popular mayor has actually asked recently, "why
shouldn't Japan stand up to [North Korea] and go to war?"
Tokyo has recently, with much
fanfare, revised its defense posture, defining three "threats"
to the nation: North Korea, China, and international terrorism.
It looks poised to clamp sanctions on North Korea, in protest
of Pyongyang's admitted abduction of Japanese civilians for espionage
purposes. North Korea says it will regard sanctions as a declaration
of war.
"The sound of the Gion
Temple bells echoes the impermanence of all things." So
wrote the unknown author of the samurai epic Heike Monogatari,
as he opened his account of events in turbulent twelfth-century
Japan, when a new order based on new rules toppled the old system.
He referred to the Buddhist law of mujo: everything in
the cosmos is subject to change and decline. Much is changing
rapidly in Bush's brave new world, and Japan's "sincere"
renunciation of war, constitutionally intended to be "forever,"
is no exception. The sturdy defenses of the Samawah fortress
project the truth that Japan remains an imperialist country.
But Koizumi's declining poll numbers affirm the truth that the
Japanese people want peace, and reject the pressure from Washington
to endorse Bush's empire-building agenda. The subservient alliance
with the U.S. is also subject to mujo, and will end "like
a dream on a spring night"---whenever the Japanese people
organize to effect its fated fall.
Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University,
and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author
of Servants,
Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan;
Male
Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan;
and Interracial
Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900.
He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle
of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial
Crusades.
He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
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