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Maciamo
Aug 15, 2004, 13:57
BBC News : US questions Japan's pacifism (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3561378.stm)


US Secretary of State Colin Powell says Japan must consider revising its pacifist constitution if it wants a permanent UN Security Council seat.


Mr Powell told Japan's Kyodo news agency that the US supported Tokyo's quest for a permanent seat at the Security Council.

But he added that: "If Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council, and have the kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, Article Nine would have to be examined in that light."



Mr Armitage told a group of Japanese lawmakers that it would be difficult for Japan to become a permanent member of the Security Council if it could not have a greater military role in international peacekeeping.


Both the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Democratic Party are in favour of a change in the constitution, but many lawmakers and members of the public are unwilling to renounce Japan's pacifist stance.

A poll published in May in the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper showed that 78% of Japanese lawmakers were in favour of making some changes to the constitution, but 70% were against alterations to Article Nine.

Foxtrot Uniform
Aug 15, 2004, 14:04
Powell makes me so mad I want to spit on the ground. I'm proud of Japan's pacifism and I'm definity against changing article 9, although I can't control it. (Sorry I didn't have anything intellectual to say)

60Yen
Aug 17, 2004, 01:48
I guess it's a choice of Japan to be pacifistic. But why does it want to stay permanent in the Security Council then?

digicross
Aug 31, 2004, 09:57
Remember that the constitution said that the Japanese army can only be use for the self defense of its own country, it didn't said anything about the country can't participate in a war. Though in a kind of way, being selfish is being a pacifist.

Unfortunately, there are people who wish people to be not selfish.

And of course remember on who made the constitution in the first place after World War II.

'They' use the U.S.A. to made it, and 'they' too can use the U.S.A. to undo it.



Anyway. I don't mind a selfish constitution, if people would be more selfish, then the world would be a much better place, since that there would be less conflict because each people mind their own business.



The problem these days with government is that the people who controlled aren't from the inside, but instead from the outside.

Currently, the government of Japan wasn't in the control of a Japanese who wish to do things in his own way. Because if it did, then there will be a movement much like the Meiji restoration designed and executed to take the control away from him.

blessed
Aug 31, 2004, 11:10
goddamn republican morals make me puke blood till the early hours of dawn.

Japan shouldn't change its constitution on this. from what I looked up, under 100 people have died from major terrorist strikes in recent times (including 9/11), so, and this might be unpopular, but amending a constitution for 100 people is silly (they might be ammending it for others, ie. not their own citizens, which is even more ludicrous), especially if the ammendment will lead to many more deaths as troops die while fighting anothers war, and terrorists suddenly (and, to american policy makers, unexplainably) take an interest in a little eastern island,

grrrrrrrrrrr... ah whats the point. Humanity's doomed anyway. I just hope that happy aliens come and shield the Japanese penninsula when it happens. oh, and maye a krispy creme factory as well.

Brooker
Aug 31, 2004, 12:46
blessed wrote....

under 100 people have died from major terrorist strikes in recent times (including 9/11),

I'd have to say that that's incorrect. I believe somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks alone.

...and...

(and, to american policy makers, unexplainably) take an interest in a little eastern island,

It doesn't really seem that this whole thing was America's idea. It seems that Japan was pursuing a seat on the UN Security Council. America is just telling them what would be implied by them doing so (it wouldn't be right to vote to send troops into battle if you didn't have any troops to send), and saying that they support them if they want to do it. I'm sure America has a lot of influence, but now the choice is up to Japan.

Timsan
Sep 10, 2004, 19:01
i hope they don't. war is the result of idiocy and immaturity

blessed
Sep 10, 2004, 19:09
blessed wrote....

I'd have to say that that's incorrect. I believe somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks alone.


yeah... sorry, I was gonna make it clear that few Japanese people (under 100) have died from terrorism so changing a constitution for so few is a bit over the top...

could have got carried away... :(

yutaka kaneshiro
Sep 25, 2004, 07:24
yeah... sorry, I was gonna make it clear that few Japanese people (under 100) have died from terrorism so changing a constitution for so few is a bit over the top...

could have got carried away... :(you snortin blocks man?
yea a hundred of my citizens died we are just doing the same thing america did
and thats revenge no matter how many or how few have died the evil must be stoped,as you see terrorism would be harder if you have more than one country as honest and as compasionate plus allmost the same laws and freedoms,as the united states killing off terrorist left and right,plus some goodies america is giving us when we join the u.n. i.e.nukes from america,
stealth fighters and bombers plus all those guns tanks and ships and aircraft
the united states has,so when we say yes we become an instant super power,nukes yay.
now we get to blow stuff up!

Sukotto
Oct 24, 2005, 08:28
I would have to say I disagree with Powell's assessment that Japan would have to amend its pacifist constitution to become a perm. member of the UNSC. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said the same in July '04 the article
states.

These 2 seem to imply that security can only be reached or ensured by
military means.

This is just plain false.

One Japanese trade rep guy spoke to our class once and stated that
for Japanese education is key for security.


For security more is needed than just brute strength.
In fact would security not be truer if achieved without falling back on coersion or force?



The pacifist lines in Japan's constitution, rather than being erased,
should be more (or actually) talked about and emulated.


Article 9:
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. 2) 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.

"renouncing war as a soveign right of the nation"
"The right of the belligerency of the state will not be recognized."

how beautifully true that is, that war is not a soveign right of a nation.


How struck I was to find out that indeed Japan did have a standing army.
excuse me, "self defense forces".
But isn't that what all countries militaries are supposed to be for?
self defense.

Did you know that previous to the great anti-fascist war (WW2) the United
States all but disbanded our armed forces after every war.
This changed when Truman and his advisors chose to steer the States
into a permanent war time economy for fears of returning to pre-war depression economy. They thus stirred the population's fears of
'international communism' to justify paying for it.
Thus the US began what Dwight D Eisenhower later called the "military-industrial-complex".

Who's going to invade Japan anyway?
N Korea who can't even feed themselves?
China which seems happy to just get some respect
and do trade with others as long as its not forced upon them.




That,
if one thinks the SC should even exist at all,
but that is another thread....