Dispatching SDF in defiance of public opposition? -- Akahata editorial, December 9

The Koizumi Cabinet is to adopt a basic plan on December 9 for sending the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq.

Eighty to 90 percent of the Japanese people say they disagree with the SDF dispatch to Iraq, including those in firm opposition and those who want to proceed with caution.

If SDF troops go to Iraq, they will be part of the occupation forces and cannot evade attacks.

A great majority of the people are of the opinion that Japan should not assist in the U.S. illegal war and occupation so that there should be no more Japanese victims.

No legitimacy for going to war

The Iraq war has been revealed more than ever to be lacking in cause and that all the reasons which the government gave for the need to send the SDF are now invalid.

Even nine months after the start of the war, Iraq's weapons of mass destruction which Prime Minister Koizumi used to justify his support for the war and the dispatch of the SDF have not been found. The U.S. president and the Japanese prime minister cannot but remain silent about them.

The prime minister and the Defense Agency director general have begun to repeat the U.S. president's argument that the Hussein regime must be replaced by a democratic government, in the cause of freedom and democracy. Should the Japanese SDF in Iraq help the United States overthrow the Iraqi government?

The DA director general has linked the SDF dispatch to the security of oil resources, asserting that the dispatch will be in Japan's national interests. This argument will increase the anger of the people of Iraq. Sixty-two years ago, the absolutist Tenno (emperor) government developed a similar argument that the need to secure resources in the south justified the Asia-Pacific War.

Because the Iraq war and occupation lacks cause and the Japanese government scheme to send the SDF is unjust, any pretext that the Koizumi Cabinet may put forward will fail to convince people.

Notwithstanding this, the Koizumi Cabinet is rushing to approve the dispatch plan. Clearly, Prime Minister Koizumi has succumbed to U.S. pressure urging Japan to implement the promise he made to the U.S. president.

In the wake of the killing of two Japanese diplomats in Iraq, a U.S. Department of State spokesman said, "I think the Japanese government has said already that they're committed to sending troops."

As the war in Iraq is bogged down in a quagmire, no country is ready to dispatch troops to Iraq and the governments that have troops in Iraq are facing increasing calls for their withdrawal or reduction. The U.S. Bush administration wants to be successful in having war-renouncing Japan send the SDF to Iraq as an effective leverage to press other countries into dispatching troops to help continue the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

It is clear that dispatching the SDF to Iraq means assisting in the lawless U.S. war of aggression against and occupation of Iraq.

It will rouse people's anger in the Middle East, in particular in Iraq, against Japan and increase the potential of terrorist attacks on Japan.

Most Japanese people are opposing the dispatching of the SDF to Iraq.

Who is destroyer of democracy?

Sending SDF units to Iraq violates the Constitution of Japan banning the threat or use of force.

With the whole of Iraq being turned into combat zones, the Japanese government in its reply to a Dietmember has had to admit that "it can not recognize that combat has completely stopped in Iraq." The SDF dispatch is even in violation of the Iraq special measures law, which provides that SDF units will be sent exclusively to "noncombatant zones."

If the Koizumi Cabinet send the SDF to Iraq in defiance of the strong public opposition, it will reveal its true nature as an opponent of democracy.

The Japanese Communist Party demands that the Koizumi Cabinet decide to not approve the "basic plan" and give up the dispatch of Japan's military forces to Iraq. (end)