Newsletter No. 321
News-Analysis
July 6, 2006

 

SAMAWA PULLOUT BEGINS WITH A BANG

The GSDF is now in the process of pulling out of their base in Samawa, and heading for the Kuwaiti border. This is a journey of about 340 kilometers. They are being assisted by civilian contractors with twenty big trucks, but it is not being reported whether or not this includes help from the KBR division of Halliburton as had been rumored earlier (see Shingetsu Newsletter No. 228).

In late June, Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga declared the GSDF deployment to Iraq to be a success in an interview with the Associated Press: "We met our objectives. The Iraqis are ready to resume control... Our efforts have been praised by both local authorities and by coalition members. I think we can call it a success."

On July 2nd, large explosions were heard in Samawa in the general vicinity of a Sunni mosque in the center of the city. No one has reported what actually happened in that affair, but apparently it was not near any GSDF personnel. On the other hand, there were reports of an auto accident in which several Japanese soldiers were injured, including one with a broken shoulder -- the most serious GSDF injury in Iraq since the beginning of the deployment.

SUICIDES AMONG GSDF IRAQ RETURNEES

The following article has appeared in Japanese in one of the gossipy Japanese weekly magazines, Shukan Gendai. This article was brought to our attention by Khaldon Azhari (Shingetsu Member No. 49), who is an Arabic-language journalist based in Tokyo. The article has been translated into English by Azhari’s K.A. News, and the version provided here is revised from that original.

As for the content, Shingetsu readers can judge for themselves how much credibility Mr. Inoue’s article possesses.

Scoop! Five War Dead among the SDF (Suicides)!
Returnees Suffer from PTSD: The Price for Being the Dog of America, which PM Koizumi and the Defense Agency are Trying Hard to Hide
Shukan Gendai (Weekly Gendai) July 15 edition
By Yoshitake Inoue, Journalist

On August 7, 2005, an SDF member who returned from Iraq (37 years old) committed suicide in mountains near Sapporo City, Hokkaido. He belonged to the 11th Division of the GSDF (Sapporo, Hokkaido) and was a group leader of the No. 3 training group, 18th Regular Regiment. Many of his friends could not believe his death because they thought he must have felt some kind of achievement from his mission in Iraq. This magazine found out that five people among the returnees from Iraq have committed suicide. Why did they choose to kill themselves?

Even though it was revealed that the cause for the Iraq War was fake because there were no WMDs in Iraq, PM Koizumi, who swishes his tail to Bush like his puppy, actively joined this war and risked the lives of SDF members. He boasted in a speech on June 20 that it was great that the SDF can withdraw while local (Iraqi) people were grateful to them. However, it was just the matter of luck that no one among the SDF was killed. There were many mortar shell attacks around the SDF camp. There was a high possibility that someone could have been killed.

For SDF officials, Iraq was a place very close to death and it can be proved from the fact that most SDF members who were sent to Iraq left wills for their families. According to a Defense Agency official, there were five suicide cases among returnees from Iraq, and all of them were male, four from the GSDF and one from the ASDF. There was another case in which a SDF officer tried to commit suicide by cutting his wrist, but failed.

This writer considers that the cause of their suicides was PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) due to their dispatch to Iraq, and if my speculation is correct, they are actually war dead.

A GSDF official who was sent to Iraq, says, “security troops in the GSDF had to guard their camp in Samawa, and also during the activities of the SDF outside of their camp. You don’t know when terrorists will attack you day or night, and moreover, the SDF cannot counterattack the enemy unless it is legitimate self-defense, so the use of arms was strictly limited. The stress of security troops was quite large compared to the other units.”

The officer who committed suicide in Sapporo also belonged to the security troops.

Mr. Masato Ushio, a military critic who covered the first SDF troops in Samawa in spring 2004, says, “many local residents carried guns on the main street and tension was very high. Even though they want to release their stress, it was banned to have drinks in town and only non-alcoholic beer was approved inside the camp. SDF members did two or three missions at a time alone, and it must have been difficult for them to release their stress.”

But there was a dangerous incident that happened near one man who committed suicide near Sapporo City (Let us call him Mr. A). Though many of the officials do not want to talk about it, an SDF security unit was accidentally shot at by an American soldier one day. Fortunately, the bullets did not hit the SDF armed truck, but it was an incident which actually proved a popular saying among the dispatched soldiers then: “Don’t go near American soldiers because they are dangerous.”

The GSDF never disclosed this incident at all, but they should reveal everything, including when and where it happened. It must have been a great shock for Mr. A that his security unit’s armed truck was shot at by an American soldier.

On the one hand, some say that Mr. A was suffering about how to deal with the problem of his two subordinates. One caused a traffic accident which killed all the passengers except himself, and another one killed his family and tried to commit suicide, but only he survived. Others say that Mr. A also had a problem with his boss. Dr. Onishi, who specializes in psychological problems, says, “We call it an acute stress reaction if one shows symptoms like anxiety or depression right after some shocking incident. We call it PTSD if the symptoms start to appear after more than six months. I don’t know if Mr. A had PTSD or not because I didn’t diagnose him, but I suppose the stress from his human relationships inside his organization must have been great. There are cases in which a person can endure the situation while he is very busy with his mission, but once his mission ends and is released from tension, suddenly he feels depressed and commits suicide.”

There are also many cases of PTSD among the returnees from Iraq inside the US military. As of December 2005, one out of seven deaths outside of fighting was due to suicide. One out of ten returnees among the US troops are diagnosed as having PTSD.

It is said that there is also jealousy toward returnees from Iraq among SDF members. Those who were dispatched could get a 20,000 to 30,000 yen additional allowance per day, so that one could get up to three million yen in three months. So, some could buy a car with this money and invite adverse feelings from those who were not dispatched to Iraq.

There are people who quit the SDF after returning from Iraq because their relations with their colleagues deteriorated.

In the GSDF, they implemented psychological tests to dispatched members before, during, and after the dispatch. As a result, it was found out that SDF members who were dispatched in the early phases had higher stress than others, and their stress does not disappear even after returning to Japan (according to a GSDF medical official). Units that were dispatched in the beginning could not predict what would happen, and they were exposed to stronger stress. The five men who committed suicide all belonged to these units, which were dispatched in the beginning, including Mr. A.

The writer inquired to the GSDF Staff Office, Defense Agency, and the No. 11 Division Command Office about the death of Mr. A, but all of them replied the same: that the details cannot be announced out of consideration for his bereaved family.

If the government does not disclose the truth of the suicides and it does not admit that it was PTSD from the dispatch to Iraq, their deaths will be wasted.

Mr. Motoaki Kamiura, a military critic, says, “if a GSDF member dies in fighting in Iraq, the country would pay his family about 100 million yen. If the official commits suicide after returning to Japan, then it has to be proved that the death was related to the dispatch. If it cannot be proven, there will be no compensation.”

There is a possibility that these “war dead” might increase in the future. Mr. Ushio says, “the GSDF will withdraw, but the ASDF will expand their mission and have to fly to Baghdad airport. Not only is there the possibility of being shot down by terrorists with rockets, but also ASDF officials who are in charge of maintenance and communications have to stay in Baghdad, so the risk will be much higher than the GSDF officials who were sent to Samawa. The government should think about how they can protect ASDF members.”

In the Japan-US Summit Meeting in Washington on June 29, PM Koizumi emphasized the role of the SDF in the Iraq War, and promised President Bush further cooperation in the future. How is PM Koizumi, who is a “dog” that obeys the War Without Cause started by America, going to take responsibility for producing “war dead” inside the SDF, a price for his obedience to America?