On 12/22/2003 7:19 PM, The 2-Belo wrote:

> Eric Takabayashi and fj.life.in-japan is a baaaaaaaaaaad combination:
> 
> 
>>But no, they fear what their much more
>>militarily powerful and politically influential neighbors will think regarding
>>any changes in Article 9, or publicly admitting they have a force capable of
>>military aggression.
> 
> I wonder why no one ever considers what the US would think of Japan repealing
> Article IX completely. I have a small hunch there are a great number of people
> in the US government who would soundly applaud it.

The US government has been pushing the Japanese to repeal Article 9 for 
years. As it is, the Japanese government has been blithely ignoring it 
for quite some time by changing their "interpretation" of it whenever 
they find it expedient.

Remember, Article 9 does not permit Japan to have ANY armed forces, 
whether defensive or otherwise, and it was understood to mean exactly 
what it says when the Constitution was originally adopted. It was only 
later that all of the strained "interpretations" -- a "Self-Defense 
Force" is permitted, military spending is OK as long as it does not 
exceed 1% of GNP, the dispatch of the SDF to support "preemptive" wars 
of aggression launched by the Americans is constitutional so long as it 
is preceded by lots of hand-wringing -- came along. Next thing you know 
they will be saying that the Constitution allows them to launch a 
preemptive strike against North Korea under certain conditions. Oh, 
wait, they have already made such claims.

So Article 9 has been a dead letter for quite some time.

> Japan's own citizens, having been taught for the past 50 years that Japan's
> military forces are naught much more than a glorified Peace Corps, would
> probably riot in response, but there you go.

That I would like to see. It used to be that some Japanese cared about 
such things strongly enough to take to the streets. But not now, it 
would seem.

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Scott Reynolds                                      sar@gol.com