Japan Press Weekly

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2008 November 19 - 25 TOP3 [SDF]

Lecturers for Joint Staff Academy’s history program praise Japan’s war of aggression

A list of six lecturers for the history program at the Self-Defense Forces’ Joint Staff College shows that at least five hold the historical view that the last Japanese war was a war for Japan’s survival and self-defense.

The list was provided by the Defense Ministry at the repeated request of Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Inoue Satoshi.

Three of the six are members of the “Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform,” a group that represents the rightist view that Japan was by no means an aggressor country.

In a lecture about “Japan’s proud history,” Sakagawa Takato, a Society member, emphasized that “Japan fought to defend Asian countries against colonization by U.S. and European powers.”

He also said, “The westward advance by the United States crossed the Pacific into Asia, thus, causing the Greater East Asia War.”

In answer to Inoue’s questions in the Diet on November 13, Prime Minister Aso stated, “It is important to strike a balance when making lecture programs.”

However, the document provided to the JCP by the Defense Ministry shows that the education programs at the Joint Staff College is far from what Aso said and that biased education is the norm in the SDF.