Dies Irae: Japan Meets the Fork in the Road

Mr Abe and his backers say that the tragedy is precisely why Japan needs to play a bigger part in the world. At the least, Japan’s rather weak diplomatic and intelligence presence in the Middle East will need to be boosted. Some hope for much more, including the legal basis to allow rescue missions, which the current reading of the pacifist constitution forbids. And given that the government is due soon to submit legislation to the Diet to allow the armed forces to come to the aid of allies (ie, America) under attack in areas around Japan, some want the legislation to be extended to other parts of the world.

(Economist)

Journalists, lawyers and citizens attended a meeting in Tokyo to express their views on the crisis that has gripped Japan. 

“One act of revenge calls for another act of revenge. I feel that we are caught up in a negative chain,” war correspondent Rei Shiba said at the event held Feb. 4 in the Upper House members’ office building. 

Under the theme of “what we think of the hostage crisis,” the meeting attracted about 130 citizens and professionals. 

During the meeting, participants learned that Jordan had hanged Sajida al-Rishawi. She had been sentenced to death for her role in a 2005 suicide bomb attack in the capital of Amman that claimed 60 lives. 

The Jordanian government had offered to exchange the pilot for her release. 

The Jordanian government went ahead with the execution hours after an online video was released Feb. 3 that purportedly showed the Jordanian pilot being burned alive. 

Earlier, the Islamic State released videos showing the decapitated bodies of Haruna Yukawa, a company operator, and freelance journalist Kenji Goto. 

In the video released Feb. 1 by the group showing that Goto had been killed, a militant mentioned Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by name and stated the group now regards Japan as an enemy. 

“Nonetheless, Japan would play into its opponents’ (Islamic State) hands if we respond to their provocation and raise our fists,” said Shiba. “When the Japanese government makes remarks about them, it should give due consideration to the situation in the Middle East and the intentions (of the Islamic State).”

(Asahi AJW)

“To be honest, they caused tremendous trouble to the Japanese government and to the Japanese people. In the old days, their parents would have had to commit hara-kiri (ritual suicide) to apologize,” said Taeko Sakamoto, a 64-year-old part-time worker, after first expressing sympathy over the deaths of Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa. 

Sakamoto also sees Abe as part of the problem, for not being more mindful of the risks at a time when he had already been pushing to expand Japan’s military role, which is limited to its own self-defense under the US-drafted pacifist constitution after its defeat in World War II. 

“I don’t want Mr. Abe to do anything else that may be seen as provocation, because that’s what would put us at a greater risk,” Sakamoto said.

(Times of Israel)

It is natural that Abe, as the leader of Japan, could not suppress his anger over the terrorists' atrocious acts. But his following moves have prompted questions about his real motives. 

After the killings, Abe first said that Japan would redouble its efforts to work with the international community and not tolerate such acts of terrorism. 

One day later, however, the prime minister announced that Tokyo should not impose limits beforehand on where its Self-Defense Forces (SDF) would be dispatched to defense allies in collective self-defense. 

What's more, Abe reiterated his willingness to amend Article 9 of the country's peace Constitution that strictly defined items of "self-defense" and "use of force." 

What tricks is Abe playing under the pretext of fighting against terrorism?

(Xinhua)

Not having an intelligence organization to collect information about foreign affairs, such as those in the United States and Britain, Japan must rely on information from these foreign intelligence organizations when confronted by an international terrorist organization. 

“Japan has no choice but to depend on foreign countries’ information. If a terrorist attack was plotted in Japan, the current state of preparedness could not prevent it from occurring,” said a senior NPA official, expressing a heightened sense of crisis. 

It was the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States that prompted Japan to begin monitoring Islamic extremism, which is linked to international terrorism. In the 2001 terrorist attacks, about 3,000 people, including 24 Japanese, were killed.

In October 2002, the Metropolitan Police Department made preparations for investigations into terrorist attacks by establishing the 3rd Foreign Affairs Division, mainly for handling Islamic extremists. 

But an incident came to light in the spring of 2004 that made Japan keenly aware of the weaknesses in its antiterrorist measures. 

It was revealed that a senior member of an Al-Qaida-related organization, who had been arrested in Germany after breaking out of jail in Europe, had been at large and concealing himself in Japan from September 1999 to September 2003. As police authorities had paid no attention to the man, it was necessary to conduct a substantial review of the antiterrorist measures.

(Yomiuri)

For two-and-a-half decades, Japan has watched its economic power ebb and regional tiffs over territorial sovereignty rise, while its most significant ally, the United States, has seemed to lose interest in Japan’s needs. The U.S. has grown increasingly entangled in military campaigns that have little direct meaning or import for most Japanese. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration’s vaunted pivot to Asia has meant more attention paid to the threat of China than to the situation of Japan. 

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was elected, in this environment, on a promise to restore Japan’s former power. As part of his over-all push to strengthen the country’s economic and political authority, Abe, a member of Japan’s longstanding, conservative ruling party, has been pressing for a revision of Japan’s constitution, specifically Article 9, which forbids the country from taking part in war. Abe has made it his mission to ultimately overturn Article 9 so that Japan can become more directly engaged in overseas campaigns as a proactive military regime. 

Last summer, amid protests at his residence in Tokyo and a pro-pacifist act of self-immolation by a middle-aged Japanese worker in a major shopping district, Abe snuck through what was called a “reinterpretation” of Article 9, using a Cabinet decision to bypass parliamentary referendum. The reinterpretation means that Japan’s military, known as the Self-Defense Forces, could for the first time in seventy years take action against other countries. It came on the heels of another provocative act: in late 2013, Abe’s party passed a “Special Secret Protection Bill” to curtail freedom of the press and freedom of expression in the name of guarding confidential matters of state. 

The U.S. has either openly approved of Abe’s actions or more subtly welcomed them. In a rare public statement, the ambassador Caroline Kennedy said of the secret protection bill: “We support the evolution of Japan’s security policies, as they create a new national-security strategy, establish a National Security Council, and take steps to protect national-security secrets.” The Obama Administration hailed reinterpretation of Abe’s Article 9 as “an important step for Japan as it seeks to make a greater contribution to regional and global peace and security.” Since the signing of the 1951 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, the U.S. has been committed to defending Japan. But now, the message is clear: the U.S. would like to see the country take care of its own.

(The New Yorker)