Newsletter No. 1349
News-Analysis
April 27, 2009

 

YUKIHISA FUJITA’S 9.11 CAMPAIGN GATHERS INCREASED SUPPORT

Contrary to my expectations, it seems that DPJ House of Councillors Member Yukihisa Fujita’s campaign to question the official narratives of the 9.11 attacks continues to gather steam, and liberal sectors in Japan are giving his investigations a serious hearing.

Fujita has recently co-authored a book in Japanese with a title that translates, Questioning 9.11 in Japan’s Parliament: Can Obama Change the USA?

The formal reception for the publication of the book was held on April 8th at the Tokyo Dome Hotel. Among the speakers honoring Fujita were DPJ Secretary-General Yukio Hatoyama and Tadashi Inuzuka, a DPJ upper house member deeply involved in Afghanistan policies. There were other guests from the political and media world, and even the father of one of the twenty-four Japanese citizens who were killed on 9.11. According to one report, “All speakers fully supported Mr. Fujita’s efforts emphasizing the importance of the 9.11 questions in the context of the need of peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan and the protection of Japan non-military constitution.”

Other prominent supporters of Fujita’s campaign are said to include Jitsuro Terashima, Minoru Morita, Kazuhisa Ogawa, and almost all the top executives of the DPJ.

As one enthusiastic report concludes,

The very widespread support for Mr. Fujita’s struggle to expose the official 9.11 lies could very well make the 9.11 issue become an election issue for the first time. Japan must hold the election by October at the latest, but the ruling government has been hard pressed to find a favorable opportunity as the country battles its worst recession since World War Two. The 9.11 issue might play an important in this election. In case Fujita’s party could win at the polls, things may really start to move.

Analysis

I have previously expressed my views about Yukihisa Fujita’s 9.11 campaign in Shingetsu Newsletter Nos. 877 and 1187. I would simply wish to underline once again that I believe that the DPJ and the Japanese left are ill-advised to pursue this line. As I have said, there are plenty of other ways to go after the conservatives that rely on established facts, and there is no reason to venture out into farfetched realms of speculation.

I know that some of my friends on the political left seriously believe that there is some kind of hanky-panky about the official narrative of 9.11, but I think that our efforts are better expended sticking to the concrete and the knowable. While I very much appreciate the desire of the Japanese left not to rely on official US sources of information, this is not the correct issue from which to launch an attack. There are much better angles to pursue. (In fact, a very good example of a “better angle” would be Yukihisa Fujita’s own recent investigations on POWs and the Aso Mines, as published in English translation at Japan Focus about a week ago.)

If I may be so bold, I would suggest that this “sexy” 9.11 issue is getting attention only because of the high level of indifference to international politics in Japanese society. Put another way, Fujita’s 9.11 campaign and the significant degree of support it is receiving only exposes the naivete of the Japanese political world—I mean, get real!