Japan And Iraq

[Moderate Centrist]

The US has asked Japan to send troops to assist in the rebuilding in Iraq. This is of great concern to Japan's neighbors who view this as a step toward a remilitarization of Japan.

Even more so as Japan has never apologized for it's war time aggression and has resisted paying compensation to victims past(Korean comfort women) and present (from contaiminated weapons dumbs).

Japan's constitution has forbidden it to use force to solve problems or build it's military beyond defense capability. In terms of dollars Japan is second only to the United States in Military spending.

On of the issues that has come up is "Pre-Emption" and it's justification for increased military preparedness.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Morgan]

Japan is in a very dangerous location - it's within easy striking distance of N.Korea, which most people would agree, is currently being run by a wacky, unpredictable nutbar. It's not too far from Pakistan, that's not real stable either and Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

I don't doubt that Japan is considering a philosophy of

pre-emptive strike. Do you blame them? Political realities have changed radically since 1945 when Japan was the aggressor. In 2003, Japan is in self-defense mode.

But Japan re-militarizing itself as a national defense policy doesn't worry me one bit. I feel - hopefully not wrongly - that Japan would be circumspect in its use of weaponry unlike less sophisticated countries near it.

With regards to Japan never "apologizing" for war time aggression...I'm sure there's a very important symbolic meaning to this omission but quite frankly this apology nit-picking sounds like a feel good useless effort that's just meant to rub Japan's nose in poo that's almost 60 year's old. Next we'll have the UN demanding that Europe apologize to the Middle East for the Crusades. Where's the common sense in politics these days?

That Japan has not made "reparation" payments to Korea for "comfort women" is a tricky issue, in my opinion.

In 1965 Japan paid Korea almost $200 Billion yen as reparations for the war. As well, all Japanese assets were left in Korea, amounting to about 6 billion US dollars at that time. The Korean government agreed to not file any future claims against Japan. And Korea did not stipulate any accomodation for individual Koreans to pursue Japan separately.

North Korea did not get anything from Japan, but I think it was largely a result of S. Korea's insistence that it was the only "legitimate" government representing the entire peninsula and therefore, it should get the whole wad for Koreans as a whole.

If "ex-comfort women" are upset that the S. Korean government did not share reparations payments with them, I think it's S.Korea "poor faith" use of funds paid to them by Japan. I realize that there was a UN Tribunal ruling at the Hague in December of 2001 that said Japan needed to pay "ex-comfort women" reparation payments and apologize, too, but I think that judgement was a stretch and PC thinking based.

There's no doubt that over 200,000 women were treated shamefully by Japanese soldiers during the war, but how many times does a country need to pay for historical crimes?

Furthermore, in Japan's case, it had already paid Korea war reparations and Korea failed to adequately compensate its women, though that's even disputable, because there are accounts that Korea made an effort to compensate "comfort women" in the 1970's with money accepted earlier from Japan.

Regarding contaminated weapons dumbs- I'm not sure what you mean...spelling error? did you mean cleaning up the chemical weapons drums abandoned by the Japanese army in China at the end of the Second World War?

If that's what you mean, yes, that is a very big problem for Japan. I think they have about another 8 years to complete that project based on a Chemical Weapons accord they signed onto in 1997. Japan has hardly started the project, nor do they have the proper facilities to dispose of the poisonous weapons containers once they are located in China. Japan has a lot of costly work ahead of it.

[Moderate Centrist]

Japan has gotten off morally scot free from WWII. You must remember we're talking about an empire with crimes equal to Nazi Germany yet without the stigma.

It's attitudes towards it's neighbors give many great cause for concern and they don't teach the history of the war accurately.

With regards to the weapons issue:

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/...10/china.japan/

I have not doubt the Japan of today is different and may feel justified in building up its' military. I guess I'm wondering what effect this will have in the long run.

[Hugo]

The issue is more difficult than that. I agree that Japan should be held accountable for her war crimes in the same way that Germany was, however if Japan were to apologise, that would strengthen the Chinese case for restitution and compensation. That is a problem because until 1950, China was wracked by civil war and even if Japan had been in an economic position to make reparations, any such reparations would probably have lined the pockets of Chiang Kai-shek or Mao Zedong.

After the Communist victory, of course, you have much the same problem. While the survivors of Japanese war crimes and the families of victims often languish in poverty, any money that the Japanese paid would most likely go into the Chinese nuclear weapons programme, cattle prods for torturing political dissidents, or jackboots for the PLA so that they can continue to march through Lhasa where they have absolutely no legitimate business.

Until China either has a regime change, or can offer a solid guarantee that the true recipients of compensation would be the victims and their families, the sad fact is that any apology or compensation from Japan would not fulfill its intended purpose.

As to Japan deliberately vetting history for its students, I agree that that is a problem that should be addressed on the general principle that you're on shaky ground when you start cooking the history books and making stuff up.

[KrustyKidd]

Looks like they will be vetting history to the Iraqis pretty soon.

JAPAN TO GO TO IRAQ

Didn't say how many or when they were thinking of it.