Newsletter No. 992
News-Analysis
April 24, 2008

 

THE SELF-DEFENSE FORCES FLEX THEIR NEWFOUND POLITICAL MUSCLE

I’m not quite sure why so few people want to discuss this increasingly apparent development in which the Defense Ministry and the Self-Defense Forces are gaining a larger share of political power in Tokyo. I’m not speaking primarily about the Shingetsu Membership here, but more about the mass media. There’s a big story here and, especially in the English-language media, no one seems to be picking up on it. Perhaps I’m one of the first to sense the broader issue.

SDF Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Takashi Saito has now added his voice to those calling Judge Kunio Aoyama’s verdict mistaken: “We have no operations in combat zones.” This was obviously in contradiction to what the judge has ruled.

In another apparent bid of defiance, an LDP panel on Defense Ministry reform today recommended that a new post might be created in which a uniformed SDF officer would serve as a personal aide to the prime minister. According to Kyodo News, this proposal is “a bid to strengthen the power of uniformed officers in the ministry.” Another reform that has just been proposed is to strengthen the authority of the SDF Joint Chief of Staff by providing him with a new command center and direct command of certain SDF units. This is aimed at “speeding up the decision-making process in a possible emergency.”

A Yomiuri Shinbun article makes it clear that some high-ranking officers have greeted Judge Aoyama’s ruling by making jokes about it to their media friends. One such uniformed officer wisecracked: “Now that it has come to this, we should sue the government for the mental anguish we've experienced after engaging in activities that are considered to be in violation of the Constitution!”

The Yomiuri also hints that some SDF officers believe that they should create their own legal case in order to give a more pliant court a chance to overrule Judge Aoyama’s obiter dicta and thus erase it from the law books. No doubt, the Tachikawa fliers case gives them solid ground for predicting such a possibility. How many other judges are there, one wonders, who have the courage to rule against the government on such a major issue?

Meanwhile, in regard to the rather outrageous Supreme Court ruling on the Tachikawa fliers case itself, a group of 140 legal experts, led by Professor Emeritus of Tokyo University Yasuhiro Okudaira and Professor Emeritus of Tohoku University Toshiki Odanaka, issued a statement on the 22nd protesting that verdict. Their statement was reported as saying, “The Supreme Court has failed to make a convincing case that the nonviolent act of distributing political fliers deserved a criminal penalty… The court did not show how the activists disturbed the private lives of [SDF personnel and their families living in the apartment complex] by the distribution, and it seems unreasonable to brand their act as a crime.”

Come now! Criminalizing the act of handing out antiwar fliers to SDF families? Spying on peace groups? Growing links to fine international role models like the Pakistani military? Mocking civilian judges? A direct pipeline to the prime minister? Active units under the direct command of the Chief of Staff?

Is this really a good start for Japan’s new Ministry of Defense? Where are the effective countervailing political forces here? What about the lessons of Japanese history in the 20th century? If unchecked now, where does this kind of thing lead in the future?

And why is the English-language media still asleep on this?