Published on Wednesday, February 2, 2011 by TruthDig.com
by Amy Goodman
“People holding a sign ‘To: America. From: the Egyptian People. Stop supporting Mubarak. It’s over!” so tweeted my brave colleague, “Democracy Now!” senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous, from the streets of Cairo.
More than 2 million people rallied throughout Egypt on Tuesday, most of them crowded into Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Tahrir, which means liberation in Arabic, has become the epicenter of what appears to be a largely spontaneous, leaderless and peaceful revolution in this, the most populous nation in the Middle East. Defying a military curfew, this incredible uprising has been driven by young Egyptians, who compose a majority of the 80 million citizens. Twitter and Facebook, and SMS text messaging on cell phones, have helped this new generation to link up and organize, despite living under a U.S.-supported dictatorship for the past three decades. In response, the Mubarak regime, with the help of U.S. and European corporations, has shut down the Internet and curtailed cellular service, plunging Egypt into digital darkness. Despite the shutdown, as media activist and professor of communications C.W. Anderson told me, “people make revolutions, not technology.”
The demands are chanted through the streets for democracy, for self-determination. Sharif headed to Egypt Friday night, into uncertain terrain. The hated Interior Ministry security forces, the black-shirted police loyal to President Hosni Mubarak, were beating and killing people, arresting journalists, and smashing and confiscating cameras.
On Saturday morning, Sharif went to Tahrir Square. Despite the SMS and Internet blackout, Sharif, a talented journalist and technical whiz, figured out a workaround, and was soon tweeting out of Tahrir: “Amazing scene: three tanks roll by with a crowd of people riding atop each one. Chanting ‘Hosni Mubarak out!’ ”
Egypt has been the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid for decades, after Israel (not counting the funds expended on the wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan). Mubarak’s regime has received roughly $2 billion per year since coming to power, overwhelmingly for the military.
Where has the money gone? Mostly to U.S. corporations. I asked William Hartung of the New America Foundation to explain:
“It’s a form of corporate welfare for companies like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, because it goes to Egypt, then it comes back for F-16 aircraft, for M-1 tanks, for aircraft engines, for all kinds of missiles, for guns, for tear-gas canisters [from] a company called Combined Systems International, which actually has its name on the side of the canisters that have been found on the streets there.”
Hartung just published a book, “Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.” He went on: “Lockheed Martin has been the leader in deals worth $3.8 billion over that period of the last 10 years; General Dynamics, $2.5 billion for tanks; Boeing, $1.7 billion for missiles, for helicopters; Raytheon for all manner of missiles for the armed forces. So, basically, this is a key element in propping up the regime, but a lot of the money is basically recycled. Taxpayers could just as easily be giving it directly to Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics.”
Likewise, Egypt’s Internet and cell phone “kill switch” was enabled only through collaboration with corporations. U.K.-based Vodafone, a global cellular-phone giant (which owns 45 percent of Verizon Wireless in the U.S.) attempted to justify its actions in a press release: “It has been clear to us that there were no legal or practical options open to Vodafone ... but to comply with the demands of the authorities.”
Narus, a U.S. subsidiary of Boeing Corp., sold Egypt equipment to allow “deep packet inspection,” according to Tim Karr of the media policy group Free Press. Karr said the Narus technology “allows the Egyptian telecommunications companies ... to look at texting via cell phones, and to identify the sort of dissident voices that are out there. ... It also gives them the technology to geographically locate them and track them down.”
Mubarak has pledged not to run for re-election come September. But the people of Egypt demand he leave now. How has he lasted 30 years? Maybe that’s best explained by a warning from a U.S. Army general 50 years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He said, “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
That deadly complex is not only a danger to democracy at home, but when shoring up despots abroad.
© 2011 Amy Goodman
Showing posts with label US Allies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US Allies. Show all posts
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Friday, October 23, 2009
US-Japan alliance gets a jolt
US-Japan alliance gets a jolt
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The US-Japan security alliance has been strained as Tokyo’s new centre-left leaders, in a row over a US military base, make good on their promise to be less subservient to Washington, analysts say.
The five-week-old government has repeatedly signalled it may scrap an agreement to build a new airbase on the southern island of Okinawa, where many residents have long objected to the existing American military presence.
The tone hardened this week when US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s government to quickly “move on” and resolve the issue before President Barack Obama visits Japan next month.
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada shot back later, saying “I don’t think we will act simply by accepting what the US tells us.” Reviewing the base issue, he added, reflected the will of the people. On Friday, Okada relented somewhat, saying new facilities could be built on the island but suggesting they be merged with another US site, the Kadena Air Base, a plan also not favoured by the United States.
Political observers have taken notice of the new tone in Japan. “Hatoyama’s ‘no’ is the first time Japan is rebelling against the US in decades,” said political analyst Minoru Morita, warning that “Japan-US relations are in danger.”
Some commentators warned that Japan’s new government is allowing domestic politics to threaten the security alliance that protected Japan through the Cold War and ever since. The conservative newspaper Sankei Shimbun in an editorial said the government lacked responsibility and should take seriously Gates’ comments as a “warning that the Japan-US alliance could come to a rupture.”
Hatoyama signalled during his election campaign that although he values the US alliance, he would also seek a “more equal” relationship. His government, which ended half a century of conservative rule, has said it will end a naval refuelling mission that has supported the Nato-led Afghanistan campaign since 2001.
Washington initially played down such comments as campaign rhetoric by Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which had never been in government. But concern has grown, especially over the base issue. The Washington Post on Thursday quoted an unnamed US State Department official as saying: “The hardest thing right now is not China. It’s Japan.”
The flashpoint has been the new government’s pledge to “review” a 2006 agreement to reign the 47,000-strong troop presence in the country, where American soldiers have been based since World War II.
Under the plan, the Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Base, located in an urban area of Okinawa, would be closed and replaced with a new facility in a coastal area of the island by 2014, while 8,000 Marines would be moved to Guam.
Gates warned on Wednesday that reneging on the Futenma deal would unravel the wider pact, including the handover by Washington of the current base on Okinawa, an island dubbed America’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier”.
Okinawa is of key strategic importance for the US military, as it lies near mainland China and Taiwan, close to North Korea, and can act as a stepping stone to Afghanistan and the Middle East. Takehiko Yamamoto, professor of international politics at Waseda University, said: “The current uncertainty over the Futenma airbase is accelerating a sense of distrust toward the DPJ, especially among Pentagon officials.”
Mikitaka Masuyama, politics professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, said moving the base off Okinawa would sour relations with Washington, but doubted such a scenario would occur.
“Even if it has promised in its election campaign to relocate the base outside Okinawa, it must by now have realised that in reality there is no such option,” he said. “If there was, the LDP government would have done it much earlier.”
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The US-Japan security alliance has been strained as Tokyo’s new centre-left leaders, in a row over a US military base, make good on their promise to be less subservient to Washington, analysts say.
The five-week-old government has repeatedly signalled it may scrap an agreement to build a new airbase on the southern island of Okinawa, where many residents have long objected to the existing American military presence.
The tone hardened this week when US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s government to quickly “move on” and resolve the issue before President Barack Obama visits Japan next month.
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada shot back later, saying “I don’t think we will act simply by accepting what the US tells us.” Reviewing the base issue, he added, reflected the will of the people. On Friday, Okada relented somewhat, saying new facilities could be built on the island but suggesting they be merged with another US site, the Kadena Air Base, a plan also not favoured by the United States.
Political observers have taken notice of the new tone in Japan. “Hatoyama’s ‘no’ is the first time Japan is rebelling against the US in decades,” said political analyst Minoru Morita, warning that “Japan-US relations are in danger.”
Some commentators warned that Japan’s new government is allowing domestic politics to threaten the security alliance that protected Japan through the Cold War and ever since. The conservative newspaper Sankei Shimbun in an editorial said the government lacked responsibility and should take seriously Gates’ comments as a “warning that the Japan-US alliance could come to a rupture.”
Hatoyama signalled during his election campaign that although he values the US alliance, he would also seek a “more equal” relationship. His government, which ended half a century of conservative rule, has said it will end a naval refuelling mission that has supported the Nato-led Afghanistan campaign since 2001.
Washington initially played down such comments as campaign rhetoric by Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which had never been in government. But concern has grown, especially over the base issue. The Washington Post on Thursday quoted an unnamed US State Department official as saying: “The hardest thing right now is not China. It’s Japan.”
The flashpoint has been the new government’s pledge to “review” a 2006 agreement to reign the 47,000-strong troop presence in the country, where American soldiers have been based since World War II.
Under the plan, the Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Base, located in an urban area of Okinawa, would be closed and replaced with a new facility in a coastal area of the island by 2014, while 8,000 Marines would be moved to Guam.
Gates warned on Wednesday that reneging on the Futenma deal would unravel the wider pact, including the handover by Washington of the current base on Okinawa, an island dubbed America’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier”.
Okinawa is of key strategic importance for the US military, as it lies near mainland China and Taiwan, close to North Korea, and can act as a stepping stone to Afghanistan and the Middle East. Takehiko Yamamoto, professor of international politics at Waseda University, said: “The current uncertainty over the Futenma airbase is accelerating a sense of distrust toward the DPJ, especially among Pentagon officials.”
Mikitaka Masuyama, politics professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, said moving the base off Okinawa would sour relations with Washington, but doubted such a scenario would occur.
“Even if it has promised in its election campaign to relocate the base outside Okinawa, it must by now have realised that in reality there is no such option,” he said. “If there was, the LDP government would have done it much earlier.”
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Strength of Japan-U.S. alliance facing uncertainty
By Richard Halloran
Posted on: Sunday, September 13, 2009
TOKYO — A Japanese diplomat, asked what effect the election of the Democratic Party of Japan and a new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, would have on Japan's alliance with the United States, was succinct: "Nobody knows." An American official, asked the same question, sighed: "We don't know yet."
Advertisement
The Japan-U.S. alliance, considered until now to have been vital to the best interests of both nations, has entered a time of great uncertainty, for two reasons:
• The election of the DPJ to the control of the national Diet and the choice of Hatoyama, who is scheduled to take office on Wednesday, has brought to power a band of inexperienced politicians led by a prime minister who has issued vague, meandering and apparently contradictory statements on foreign policy.
• The absence of an articulated policy toward Japan by President Obama other than platitudes, the dispatch of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to bring greetings but little of substance to Japan last winter, and the appointment of an ambassador, John Roos, whose only credential is political fund-raiser.
Hatoyama wrote an opinion article in the Japanese monthly journal Voice that was translated into English and excerpted in The New York Times, startling some Americans with its anti-American tone. Hatoyama, asserting that his statements had been taken out of context, had the entire essay translated. The anti-U.S. tone remained but was diluted by windy passages lauding the philosophy of Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi.
Coudenhove-Kalergi was an Austrian aristocrat whose mother, Mitsuko Aoyama, was Japanese and who was best known before World War II for his advocacy of European integration. He fled from Nazi Germany to the United States during the war and is said to be the model for the anti-Nazi activist Victor Lazlo in the movie "Casablanca."
Hatoyama, saying the influence of the United States is declining, wondered: "How should Japan maintain its political and economic independence and protect its national interest when caught between the United States, which is fighting to retain its position as the world's dominant power, and China, which is seeking to become one?" He suggested that an integrated East Asian community would be in Japan's interest.
A close Hatoyama adviser, Jitsuro Terashima, who heads a Tokyo think tank, appears to have carried that further. Writing in the current issue of the influential monthly magazine Bungei Shinju, he said: "Since Japan is under the protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella, the Japanese government is not able to form its own foreign policy." Whether Terashima advocated having Japan acquire its own nuclear weapons, he did not say.
"It is unusual that Japan still allows the U.S. to keep forces in Japan more than 60 years after the end of the war," Terashima wrote. "Japan should go back to common sense and not to let a foreign force stay in this sovereign nation." He proposed that the United States shift its forces to Guam and Hawai'i.
Ambassador Roos, who has had little experience in Japan, or in diplomacy, or coordinating the work of other agencies with officials in his embassy, or dealing with the bureaucracy back in Washington, arrived here last month.
Roos has met with Hatoyama and the prospective foreign minister, Katsuya Okada, another advocate of less reliance on the Japan-U.S. alliance. Okada has been quoted here as saying: "It will be the age of Asia and in that context it is important for Japan to have its own stance, to play its role in the region."
Posted on: Sunday, September 13, 2009
TOKYO — A Japanese diplomat, asked what effect the election of the Democratic Party of Japan and a new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, would have on Japan's alliance with the United States, was succinct: "Nobody knows." An American official, asked the same question, sighed: "We don't know yet."
Advertisement
The Japan-U.S. alliance, considered until now to have been vital to the best interests of both nations, has entered a time of great uncertainty, for two reasons:
• The election of the DPJ to the control of the national Diet and the choice of Hatoyama, who is scheduled to take office on Wednesday, has brought to power a band of inexperienced politicians led by a prime minister who has issued vague, meandering and apparently contradictory statements on foreign policy.
• The absence of an articulated policy toward Japan by President Obama other than platitudes, the dispatch of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to bring greetings but little of substance to Japan last winter, and the appointment of an ambassador, John Roos, whose only credential is political fund-raiser.
Hatoyama wrote an opinion article in the Japanese monthly journal Voice that was translated into English and excerpted in The New York Times, startling some Americans with its anti-American tone. Hatoyama, asserting that his statements had been taken out of context, had the entire essay translated. The anti-U.S. tone remained but was diluted by windy passages lauding the philosophy of Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi.
Coudenhove-Kalergi was an Austrian aristocrat whose mother, Mitsuko Aoyama, was Japanese and who was best known before World War II for his advocacy of European integration. He fled from Nazi Germany to the United States during the war and is said to be the model for the anti-Nazi activist Victor Lazlo in the movie "Casablanca."
Hatoyama, saying the influence of the United States is declining, wondered: "How should Japan maintain its political and economic independence and protect its national interest when caught between the United States, which is fighting to retain its position as the world's dominant power, and China, which is seeking to become one?" He suggested that an integrated East Asian community would be in Japan's interest.
A close Hatoyama adviser, Jitsuro Terashima, who heads a Tokyo think tank, appears to have carried that further. Writing in the current issue of the influential monthly magazine Bungei Shinju, he said: "Since Japan is under the protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella, the Japanese government is not able to form its own foreign policy." Whether Terashima advocated having Japan acquire its own nuclear weapons, he did not say.
"It is unusual that Japan still allows the U.S. to keep forces in Japan more than 60 years after the end of the war," Terashima wrote. "Japan should go back to common sense and not to let a foreign force stay in this sovereign nation." He proposed that the United States shift its forces to Guam and Hawai'i.
Ambassador Roos, who has had little experience in Japan, or in diplomacy, or coordinating the work of other agencies with officials in his embassy, or dealing with the bureaucracy back in Washington, arrived here last month.
Roos has met with Hatoyama and the prospective foreign minister, Katsuya Okada, another advocate of less reliance on the Japan-U.S. alliance. Okada has been quoted here as saying: "It will be the age of Asia and in that context it is important for Japan to have its own stance, to play its role in the region."
Friday, July 27, 2007
Japan Sheds Military Restraints
Bomb by Bomb, Japan Sheds Military Restraints
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
New York Times
Published: July 23, 2007
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam - To take part in its annual exercises with the United States Air Force here last month, Japan practiced dropping 500-pound live bombs on Farallon de Medinilla, a tiny island in the western Pacific's turquoise waters more than 150 miles north of here.
The pilots described dropping a live bomb for the first time - shouting "shack!" to signal a direct hit - and seeing the fireball from aloft.
"The level of tension was just different," said Capt. Tetsuya Nagata, 35, stepping down from his cockpit onto the sunbaked tarmac.
The exercise would have been unremarkable for almost any other military, but it was highly significant for Japan, a country still restrained by a Constitution that renounces war and allows forces only for its defense. Dropping live bombs on land had long been considered too offensive, so much so that Japan does not have a single live-bombing range.
Flying directly from Japan and practicing live-bombing runs on distant foreign soil would have been regarded as unacceptably provocative because the implicit message was clear: these fighter jets could perhaps fly to North Korea and take out some targets before returning home safely.
But from here in Micronesia to Iraq, Japan's military has been rapidly crossing out items from its list of can't-dos. The incremental changes, especially since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, amount to the most significant transformation in Japan's military since World War II, one that has brought it ever closer operationally to America's military while rattling nerves throughout northeast Asia.
In a little over half a decade, Japan's military has carried out changes considered unthinkable a few years back. In the Indian Ocean, Japanese destroyers and refueling ships are helping American and other militaries fight in Afghanistan. In Iraq, Japanese planes are transporting cargo and American troops to Baghdad from Kuwait.
Japan is acquiring weapons that blur the lines between defensive and offensive. For the Guam bombing run, Japan deployed its newest fighter jets, the F-2's, the first developed jointly by Japan and the United States, on their maiden trip here. Unlike its older jets, the F-2's were able to fly the 1,700 miles from northern Japan to Guam without refueling - a "straight shot," as the Japanese said with unconcealed pride.
Japan recently indicated strongly its desire to buy the F-22 Raptor, a stealth fighter known mainly for its offensive abilities such as penetrating contested airspace and destroying enemy targets, whose export is prohibited by United States law.
At home, the Defense Agency, whose profile had been intentionally kept low, became a full ministry this year. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe used the parliamentary majority he inherited from his wildly popular predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, to ram through a law that could lead to a revision of the pacifist Constitution.
Japan's 241,000-member military, though smaller than those of its neighbors, is considered Asia's most sophisticated. Though flat, its $40 billion military budget has ranked among the world's top five in recent years. Japan has also tapped nonmilitary budgets to launch spy satellites and strengthen its coast guard recently.
Japanese politicians like Mr. Abe have justified the military's transformation by seizing on the threat from North Korea; the rise of China, whose annual military budget has been growing by double digits; and the Sept. 11 attacks - even fanning those threats, critics say. At the same time, Mr. Abe has tried to rehabilitate the reputation of Japan's imperial forces by whitewashing their crimes, including wartime sexual slavery.
Japanese critics say the changes under way - whose details the government has tried to hide from public view, especially the missions in Iraq - have already violated the Constitution and other defense restrictions.
"The reality has already moved ahead, so they will now talk about the need to catch up and revise the Constitution," said Yukio Hatoyama, the secretary general of the main opposition Democratic Party.
Richard J. Samuels, a Japan expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that revisionist politicians like Mr. Abe and Mr. Koizumi, once on the fringes of Japan's political world, succeeded in grabbing the mainstream in a time of uncertainty. They shared the view "that the statute of limitations on Japan's misbehavior during the Pacific War had expired" and that Japan, like any normal country, should have a military.
Their predecessors feared getting entangled in an American-led war. But the new leaders feared that Japan would be abandoned by the United States unless it contributed to its wars, said Mr. Samuels, whose book on Japan's changing military, "Securing Japan," will be published in August.
"So what do you do?" he said. "You step up. And that is consistent with what they've long wanted to do anyway. So there was a convergence of preferences."
Today, Japan is America's biggest partner in developing and financing a missile defense shield in Asia. Some Japanese ground and air force commands are also moving inside American bases in Japan so that the two forces will become, in military jargon, "interoperable."
"I think the Japan-U.S. security relationship should be as unified as possible, and our different roles need to be made clear," said Shigeru Ishiba, a defense chief under Mr. Koizumi and now a leader in a Liberal Democratic Party committee looking at loosening defense restrictions.
In Iraq, in accordance with a special law to aid in reconstruction, a symbolic ground force was first deployed to a relatively peaceful, noncombat area in southern Iraq to engage in relief activities. After the troops left last year, though, three Japanese planes began regularly transporting American troops and cargo from Kuwait to Baghdad.
The Japanese authorities refuse to say whether the planes have transported weapons besides those carried by soldiers. Concerned about public opposition, defense officers have spied on antiwar activists and journalists perceived as critical, the Defense Ministry acknowledged after incriminating documents were recently obtained by the Communist Party in Japan.
Mr. Hatoyama of the Democratic Party said that transporting armed American troops contravened Japan's pacifist Constitution.
"Instead of engaging in humanitarian assistance, they are basically assisting American troops," he said. "American troops and the Air Self-Defense Forces are working as one, just as they are training as one in Guam."
In Parliament, Mr. Abe denied that the activities violated the Constitution, saying Japanese troops were restricted to noncombat zones and did not operate under a joint command with any other force.
Here in Guam, American and Japanese pilots simulated intercepts and air-to-air combat for two weeks. In the final days, each side took turns pummeling the tiny island with bombs.
Col. Tatsuya Arima, the commander of the Japanese squadron, said such bombing could protect Japanese grounds troops or vessels from encroaching enemies.
"Bombing does not always mean offensive weapons," Colonel Arima said. "They can also be used for defense, which, put another way, is what we mostly train for."
Lt. Col. Tod Fingal, the commander of the American squadron, said the exercise helped build confidence among pilots by exposing them to a new environment.
"I would equate it to an away game in sports," Colonel Fingal said.
Japan's military has become less shy in projecting its power away from home. Japan lacks the nuclear submarines, long-range missiles or large aircraft carriers that amount to real power projection.
But it is acquiring four Boeing 767 air tankers that will allow its planes to refuel in midair and travel farther, as well as two aircraft carriers that will transport helicopters and, with some adjustments, planes capable of taking off vertically. The United States has welcomed the changes while pressing for more.
"The restrictions that Japan has lived under, which I would say Japan has maintained on its own or imposed on itself, are quite unique," said a Pentagon official who requested anonymity so that he could speak candidly. "The changes that you're seeing in Japan are very unique changes in the context of those restrictions. In the context of everything else that is going on around the world, or in the context of Japan's potential to contribute to the region and the world in security areas, the changes are fairly small."
Small or not, they are causing anxieties in a region where distrust of Japan has deepened in direct proportion to Japanese tendencies to revise the past. South Korea reacted sharply to Japan's desire to buy the F-22 Raptor. Also, in a recent ceremony unveiling South Korea's first destroyer equipped with the advanced Aegis weapons system, President Roh Moo-hyun said, "Northeast Asia is still in an arms race, and we cannot just sit back and watch."
Mr. Ishiba, the former defense chief, said the region's distrust was softened by Japan's alliance with the United States. But he acknowledged that Japan's inability to come to terms with its wartime past restricted its ability to project power positively.
"Unless everyone understands why we weren't able to avoid that war," Mr. Ishiba said, referring to World War II, "and what Japan did to Asia, it could be dangerous if we get power-projection capability."
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
New York Times
Published: July 23, 2007
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam - To take part in its annual exercises with the United States Air Force here last month, Japan practiced dropping 500-pound live bombs on Farallon de Medinilla, a tiny island in the western Pacific's turquoise waters more than 150 miles north of here.
The pilots described dropping a live bomb for the first time - shouting "shack!" to signal a direct hit - and seeing the fireball from aloft.
"The level of tension was just different," said Capt. Tetsuya Nagata, 35, stepping down from his cockpit onto the sunbaked tarmac.
The exercise would have been unremarkable for almost any other military, but it was highly significant for Japan, a country still restrained by a Constitution that renounces war and allows forces only for its defense. Dropping live bombs on land had long been considered too offensive, so much so that Japan does not have a single live-bombing range.
Flying directly from Japan and practicing live-bombing runs on distant foreign soil would have been regarded as unacceptably provocative because the implicit message was clear: these fighter jets could perhaps fly to North Korea and take out some targets before returning home safely.
But from here in Micronesia to Iraq, Japan's military has been rapidly crossing out items from its list of can't-dos. The incremental changes, especially since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, amount to the most significant transformation in Japan's military since World War II, one that has brought it ever closer operationally to America's military while rattling nerves throughout northeast Asia.
In a little over half a decade, Japan's military has carried out changes considered unthinkable a few years back. In the Indian Ocean, Japanese destroyers and refueling ships are helping American and other militaries fight in Afghanistan. In Iraq, Japanese planes are transporting cargo and American troops to Baghdad from Kuwait.
Japan is acquiring weapons that blur the lines between defensive and offensive. For the Guam bombing run, Japan deployed its newest fighter jets, the F-2's, the first developed jointly by Japan and the United States, on their maiden trip here. Unlike its older jets, the F-2's were able to fly the 1,700 miles from northern Japan to Guam without refueling - a "straight shot," as the Japanese said with unconcealed pride.
Japan recently indicated strongly its desire to buy the F-22 Raptor, a stealth fighter known mainly for its offensive abilities such as penetrating contested airspace and destroying enemy targets, whose export is prohibited by United States law.
At home, the Defense Agency, whose profile had been intentionally kept low, became a full ministry this year. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe used the parliamentary majority he inherited from his wildly popular predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, to ram through a law that could lead to a revision of the pacifist Constitution.
Japan's 241,000-member military, though smaller than those of its neighbors, is considered Asia's most sophisticated. Though flat, its $40 billion military budget has ranked among the world's top five in recent years. Japan has also tapped nonmilitary budgets to launch spy satellites and strengthen its coast guard recently.
Japanese politicians like Mr. Abe have justified the military's transformation by seizing on the threat from North Korea; the rise of China, whose annual military budget has been growing by double digits; and the Sept. 11 attacks - even fanning those threats, critics say. At the same time, Mr. Abe has tried to rehabilitate the reputation of Japan's imperial forces by whitewashing their crimes, including wartime sexual slavery.
Japanese critics say the changes under way - whose details the government has tried to hide from public view, especially the missions in Iraq - have already violated the Constitution and other defense restrictions.
"The reality has already moved ahead, so they will now talk about the need to catch up and revise the Constitution," said Yukio Hatoyama, the secretary general of the main opposition Democratic Party.
Richard J. Samuels, a Japan expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that revisionist politicians like Mr. Abe and Mr. Koizumi, once on the fringes of Japan's political world, succeeded in grabbing the mainstream in a time of uncertainty. They shared the view "that the statute of limitations on Japan's misbehavior during the Pacific War had expired" and that Japan, like any normal country, should have a military.
Their predecessors feared getting entangled in an American-led war. But the new leaders feared that Japan would be abandoned by the United States unless it contributed to its wars, said Mr. Samuels, whose book on Japan's changing military, "Securing Japan," will be published in August.
"So what do you do?" he said. "You step up. And that is consistent with what they've long wanted to do anyway. So there was a convergence of preferences."
Today, Japan is America's biggest partner in developing and financing a missile defense shield in Asia. Some Japanese ground and air force commands are also moving inside American bases in Japan so that the two forces will become, in military jargon, "interoperable."
"I think the Japan-U.S. security relationship should be as unified as possible, and our different roles need to be made clear," said Shigeru Ishiba, a defense chief under Mr. Koizumi and now a leader in a Liberal Democratic Party committee looking at loosening defense restrictions.
In Iraq, in accordance with a special law to aid in reconstruction, a symbolic ground force was first deployed to a relatively peaceful, noncombat area in southern Iraq to engage in relief activities. After the troops left last year, though, three Japanese planes began regularly transporting American troops and cargo from Kuwait to Baghdad.
The Japanese authorities refuse to say whether the planes have transported weapons besides those carried by soldiers. Concerned about public opposition, defense officers have spied on antiwar activists and journalists perceived as critical, the Defense Ministry acknowledged after incriminating documents were recently obtained by the Communist Party in Japan.
Mr. Hatoyama of the Democratic Party said that transporting armed American troops contravened Japan's pacifist Constitution.
"Instead of engaging in humanitarian assistance, they are basically assisting American troops," he said. "American troops and the Air Self-Defense Forces are working as one, just as they are training as one in Guam."
In Parliament, Mr. Abe denied that the activities violated the Constitution, saying Japanese troops were restricted to noncombat zones and did not operate under a joint command with any other force.
Here in Guam, American and Japanese pilots simulated intercepts and air-to-air combat for two weeks. In the final days, each side took turns pummeling the tiny island with bombs.
Col. Tatsuya Arima, the commander of the Japanese squadron, said such bombing could protect Japanese grounds troops or vessels from encroaching enemies.
"Bombing does not always mean offensive weapons," Colonel Arima said. "They can also be used for defense, which, put another way, is what we mostly train for."
Lt. Col. Tod Fingal, the commander of the American squadron, said the exercise helped build confidence among pilots by exposing them to a new environment.
"I would equate it to an away game in sports," Colonel Fingal said.
Japan's military has become less shy in projecting its power away from home. Japan lacks the nuclear submarines, long-range missiles or large aircraft carriers that amount to real power projection.
But it is acquiring four Boeing 767 air tankers that will allow its planes to refuel in midair and travel farther, as well as two aircraft carriers that will transport helicopters and, with some adjustments, planes capable of taking off vertically. The United States has welcomed the changes while pressing for more.
"The restrictions that Japan has lived under, which I would say Japan has maintained on its own or imposed on itself, are quite unique," said a Pentagon official who requested anonymity so that he could speak candidly. "The changes that you're seeing in Japan are very unique changes in the context of those restrictions. In the context of everything else that is going on around the world, or in the context of Japan's potential to contribute to the region and the world in security areas, the changes are fairly small."
Small or not, they are causing anxieties in a region where distrust of Japan has deepened in direct proportion to Japanese tendencies to revise the past. South Korea reacted sharply to Japan's desire to buy the F-22 Raptor. Also, in a recent ceremony unveiling South Korea's first destroyer equipped with the advanced Aegis weapons system, President Roh Moo-hyun said, "Northeast Asia is still in an arms race, and we cannot just sit back and watch."
Mr. Ishiba, the former defense chief, said the region's distrust was softened by Japan's alliance with the United States. But he acknowledged that Japan's inability to come to terms with its wartime past restricted its ability to project power positively.
"Unless everyone understands why we weren't able to avoid that war," Mr. Ishiba said, referring to World War II, "and what Japan did to Asia, it could be dangerous if we get power-projection capability."
Friday, June 29, 2007
US Allies to use the Northern Marianas for Training
US allies to use Marianas for training
By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff
friday 29 june 07
--------------------
THE U.S. and its major military allies in the Asia-Pacific region — Australia and Japan — will be using air, sea and land areas on Guam and the Northern Marianas for training.
This month, the U.S. defense representative to Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau began the early stages of preparing an environmental impact statement/overseas environmental impact statement in connection with the range complex’s proposed update and active use.
This range complex, which covers Guam and the Northern Marianas, was last updated in 1999.
This month, American and Japanese pilots held a two-week joint aerial live bombing exercises on the uninhabited island of Farallon de Mendinilla, about 45 miles north-northeast of Saipan.
This is the first time that Japanese pilots tested their high-tech war planes known as F-2 outside of Japan since the prototypes were made in 2000.
Lt. Donnell Evans of the U.S. Commander Naval Forces Marianas public information office said the military is not conducting any new training but simply wants to update the study of the ranges amid plans to more actively use them.
“The training that we’re doing now is sometimes obvious to the public and sometimes not obvious,” said Evans. “We’re looking at training on currently controlled-(Department of Defense) lands but the difference is this is an update to the study of the ranges. We’re a little bit behind because of budget and financial (constraints).”
“(The Mariana Islands Range Complex) is very important. It allows us to get quality training. Not just for the U.S…. These same training ranges will be available to our allies. It helps us in relationship building. It helps us in being proficient in working with the different military and it also helps us be proficient in what our business is,” he added.
Besides Australia and Japan, the navies of Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, among others, may also use the ranges for training, said Evans.
Among the proposed upgrades include activities for underwater mine warfare and antisubmarine warfare, underwater training range, new small arms and mortar ranges and military operations on urban terrain.
Northern Marianas is claiming rights and control over its 200-mile submerged lands. But the U.S. claimed the islands surrendered its rights on such when it became part of the nation through their Covenant Agreement in 1976.
During the recently held scoping meeting on Saipan, a public document showed that the Mariana Islands Range Complex has provided the U.S. military with a safe testing and training environment for over 100 years.
“The land, air, and sea areas of the Mariana islands are irreplaceable. These areas are important to all people of the Marianas, including members of the U.S. military services who call the Marianas their home,” the document stated.
“The ranges and facilities of the Mariana Islands Range Complex are unique because of their location in the western Pacific where deployed forces can maintain warfighting proficiencies. This range complex is also in proximity to Forward Deployed Naval Forces, which also need to maintain their warfighting proficiency,” it added.
By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff
friday 29 june 07
--------------------
THE U.S. and its major military allies in the Asia-Pacific region — Australia and Japan — will be using air, sea and land areas on Guam and the Northern Marianas for training.
This month, the U.S. defense representative to Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau began the early stages of preparing an environmental impact statement/overseas environmental impact statement in connection with the range complex’s proposed update and active use.
This range complex, which covers Guam and the Northern Marianas, was last updated in 1999.
This month, American and Japanese pilots held a two-week joint aerial live bombing exercises on the uninhabited island of Farallon de Mendinilla, about 45 miles north-northeast of Saipan.
This is the first time that Japanese pilots tested their high-tech war planes known as F-2 outside of Japan since the prototypes were made in 2000.
Lt. Donnell Evans of the U.S. Commander Naval Forces Marianas public information office said the military is not conducting any new training but simply wants to update the study of the ranges amid plans to more actively use them.
“The training that we’re doing now is sometimes obvious to the public and sometimes not obvious,” said Evans. “We’re looking at training on currently controlled-(Department of Defense) lands but the difference is this is an update to the study of the ranges. We’re a little bit behind because of budget and financial (constraints).”
“(The Mariana Islands Range Complex) is very important. It allows us to get quality training. Not just for the U.S…. These same training ranges will be available to our allies. It helps us in relationship building. It helps us in being proficient in working with the different military and it also helps us be proficient in what our business is,” he added.
Besides Australia and Japan, the navies of Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, among others, may also use the ranges for training, said Evans.
Among the proposed upgrades include activities for underwater mine warfare and antisubmarine warfare, underwater training range, new small arms and mortar ranges and military operations on urban terrain.
Northern Marianas is claiming rights and control over its 200-mile submerged lands. But the U.S. claimed the islands surrendered its rights on such when it became part of the nation through their Covenant Agreement in 1976.
During the recently held scoping meeting on Saipan, a public document showed that the Mariana Islands Range Complex has provided the U.S. military with a safe testing and training environment for over 100 years.
“The land, air, and sea areas of the Mariana islands are irreplaceable. These areas are important to all people of the Marianas, including members of the U.S. military services who call the Marianas their home,” the document stated.
“The ranges and facilities of the Mariana Islands Range Complex are unique because of their location in the western Pacific where deployed forces can maintain warfighting proficiencies. This range complex is also in proximity to Forward Deployed Naval Forces, which also need to maintain their warfighting proficiency,” it added.
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