The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Banzai

Not a huge, ominous issue, but a couple news stories today concerning Japan and military forces help demonstrate how no decision is forever.

First, there was the news on Saturday that the Pentagon has acceded to demands from Okinawan residents to shift 7,000 (roughly half of those present currently) marines off the base there and over to Guam.

Second, news from Friday (although I heard about it after the above) is that the ruling party in Japan has approved a draft revision of Japan's constitution - the constitution forced on them by US occupation forces in 1947 - specifically to drop the prohibitions against war and to generally restore to them the ability to have a full, Japanese military.

As I said up top, none of this is meant to imply anything ominous, but as someone raised by a generation who fought the Axis powers for world domination, a generation for many of whom the Japanese were barely considered human (the propaganda machine was highly effective, helping to lay the groundwork for early attitudes towards both Korea and Viet Nam, seeing an asian as an asian as an asian), for whom the end of the war included the promise that Japan would never again be capable of posing a military threat... I wonder how this news is going down.

Personally, I see it as a good thing, since (as with so much of Europe) the U.S. military, funded by our tax dollars, has been essentially providing a military. Better, I think, to let them budget for their own defense and spare us the burden. Under the Bush administration the U.S. has taken on a strong smell of imperialism, so I welcome any moves by nations to step up and tell the U.S. they don't need us there anymore.

Still, these matters are seldom as simple and clear as they first seem. I'll be interested to see how far and how quickly this goes.