SDF sets initial step into unlimited participation in wars

Three military ships of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, a large escort ship carrying helicopters, another escort ship, and a supply ship, on November 9 left Japan for the Indian Ocean.

A Pakistani newspaper noted that Japan is sending its warships abroad for the first time for war since the end of WWII.

The government has explained that their mission is information-gathering. When these ships arrive at Diego Garcia in two weeks, however, their operations will be in support of U.S. forces.

Cheap excuse

Unlike the previous dispatches, the SDF ships and units are now being sent to combat zones to support U.S. forces' combat operations.

To provide military forces in combat with supplies, transport services, and information is an act of war which NATO regards as an exercise of the right of collective self-defense, and is in violation of the Japanese Constitution which definitely prohibits the "threat or use of force." The governments in the past recognized these acts as unconstitutional.

What the MSDF ships will do in the Indian Ocean is not clear because only the U.S. forces will make the decisions on military operations.

U.S. forces are killing and injuring civilians in Afghanistan, and using weapons which are banned by international law.

Defense Agency Director General Nakatani Gen admitted that Japan's MSDF ships could be transporting cluster bombs (inhumane weapons for indiscriminate killing and injuring) to the U.S. forces for use in Afghanistan.

The serious thing is that the Japanese government forced the SDF to go abroad under the pretext of "ending terrorism" exactly when it became clear that the military attacks are bogged down in a quagmire and have nothing to do with ending terrorism.

The U.S. secretary of defense has acknowledged that the search for Osama bin Laden by ways of military action is hopeless. Thus the military attack has revealed its true nature as a retaliatory war, not serving justice.

A severe winter is coming to Afghanistan, and the U.N. staff and local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are now strongly calling for a halt to air strikes and other military attacks.

By sending SDF units abroad to support U.S. military attacks, the Japanese government opted to show hostility to such international opinion.

It is contrary to the will of the Japanese people who have defended for more than fifty years the Constitution's Article 9 based on a bitter lesson from Japan's war of aggression.

Let us now develop public opinion and the movement in opposition to the SDF operating abroad to add to international opinion for an end to terrorism and war. (end)