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© Japan Today/AFPGov't submits security bills to Diet
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Wc626
Oh please! Says a commie. A weak one at that, making the JCP and its supporters looking like Mr. Bean in political circles both here and abroad.
voiceofokinawa
People may think this is Japan's domestic political affairs per se. But Abe is simply acting along the lines his government promised to the U.S. at the "two plus two" meeting held on April 27 in New York. The two sides concluded the Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation then.
Note that the U.S. had been pressing Japan to revise or at least reinterpret Article 9 of the constitution for years, which conservative Abe welcomed and endorsed himself. Now with the constitutional constraint removed by arbitrary constitutional reinterpretation by the Abe government, the SDF can go anywhere in the world to help U.S. forces fight global wars.
Abe says that will never happen, but the bills, once ratified to be laws, will get ahead of his government and may get out of any control in the future.
The new security bills, which were submitted to the Diet yesterday for ratification, are the materialization and implementation of the new Guidelines agreed on April 27. As alwyas, the U.S. government is behind the scenes pulling the strings.
Yamiko Otokawa
(1) wants to take away the basic Constitutional rights of all Japanese citizens under the false excuses of threatening national security or revealing national secrets. These are the same excuses used by dictators and totalitarian governments to control their citizens.
(2) revises the Constitution without the "required" approval of the two-thirds majority in BOTH houses and the majority of Japanese voters in a referendum. He does not called it revising, he calls it reinterpreting. He has no respects for the highest laws of Japan.
(3) wants the young and the future generations of Japanese to learn history based on "his" interpretations, revisions, etc., not based on factual materials, evidence, etc. This is what happens in North Korea, Soviet Union, etc..
(4) wants to silence and intimidate the press like newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, etc. by using laws on national security and secrets. He wants to deprive Japanese citizens of their Constitutional rights to know about the LDP's secret deal allowing US to bring nuclear weapons into Japan, 18.4 million "missing pensions" scandal, Fukushima radiation leakage, corruption, mishandling of industrial accidents, etc. by the government. He wants the press NOT to show, write or say bad things, even if they are true, about "his" government.
(5) wastes paying billions of yen in "extra" foreign aid to bribe other countries into voting for Japan's permanent membership in the UN Security Council. He squanders this money despite knowing that the bid can not succeed with China's veto. This "wasted" money can be better spent to help millions of Japanese like some of "you", with their living expenses, food, educational expenses, Fukushima resettlement, rebuilding from disasters, etc..
More than 159,000 Japanese were evicted from lands too radioactive to live in the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Many are still waiting for help, compensation, etc. to rebuild their lives.
Wc626
I agree with 3,4 & 5. As well as your closing statement. I think the biggest threat to japan are its own citizens. The ones who unwilling to change. Ones laudable of conformity. The ones ignoring the world outside of Japan.
Living the old fashioned rigid social, family and corporate systems. We all know things change very, very slowly in Japan. This is the downfall.
gokai_wo_maneku
It is interesting that in the Diet, Abe had to specifically say that Japan would not get brought into a US caused war somewhere in the world where Japanese will die. But really? I have confidence that when young Japanese start dying overseas the Japanese public will finally wake up to what's happening, and all these people will be thrown out.
nath
I want to see a more assertive aggressive Japan. Right now they are so wimpy.
voiceofokinawa
Wc626 May. 16, 2015 - 09:43AM JST
Oh please! Says a commie. A weak one at that, making the JCP and its supporters looking like Mr. Bean in political circles both here and abroad.
The issue transcends party or ideological lines. So with this abnormal U.S. military presence in Japan, particularly in Okinawa.
Yoshimi Onishi
The comment above is extremely derogatory and insulting to many people of this country. It also shows the writer's total ignorance of what JCP has actually been doing and what it stands for. Or could it be that Wc626 has been away from this part of the world for about half a dozen decades or so?
Wc626
"extremely derogatory "- That was my point. I would also like to emphatically state that the JCP should never attain political power in Japan. And if they do, I'm gone like a virgin on prom night.
The JCP wants peace. Most parties do. But Commies respect only one word- "force". How can JCP project force if they claim peace? It's Japan's Mr. Bean, national embarrassment. No?
kiyoshiMukai
JCP think that they can get more popularity by doing that.
sf2k
actually if the USA is any lesson, any deaths of Japanese solders overseas will be used to create the "support the troops" mantra of right wing conservatives. I've seen this in my own Canada as the PM is fond of this phrase. What it does is it calls into question the national interest of anyone who complains, and they like that just fine
The slippery slope is just getting started.
Barbara Trout
--------------------Prime Minister Abe just made a seemingly impossible promise.------------
"I want to make clear that Japan will never become entangled in a war being fought by the United States," PM Shinzo Abe told reporters at a news conference Thursday in Washington, April 28, 2015.
Japanese voters should remind him about his probably "empty" promise. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/japans-prime-minister-just-made-173700216.html
Christopher Glen
And they own the diet, so it's a mere formality. There is the pesky matter of getting the peoples' consent though.