Posted on 05/10/2003 5:39:56 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Now that the U.S. has brought down the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Professor Emeritus Shoichi Watanabe of Sophia University calls for the formation of a four-nation alliance of Japan, the United States, Britain, and Spain — countries that supported the attack on Iraq — to take the place of the United Nations, which was paralyzed in the face of the Iraq crisis.
Writing in Voice magazine, he says this would lead to a strengthening of the security bonds between Tokyo and Washington and the correction of such unrealistic notions as not accepting that Japan can exercise the right to collective self-defense and not allowing American nuclear weapons to be brought to Japan because of Japan's three nonnuclear principles.
It would also put a check on North Korea and China and enable Japan to become a more reliable partner in U.S. eyes.
According to Watanabe, the split in Japanese opinion regarding the attack on Iraq stemmed from people's exclusive focus on the question of which party had justice on its side, whereas the really important issue was the defense of Japan's national interests.
Criticizing the fact that the United Nations has yet to delete clauses from its charter designating Japan and Germany as enemy states, Watanabe argues that the appearance of cracks in the United Nations and NATO, the two organizations that led the world after World War II, will work to Japan's clear advantage.
He sees the situation today as resembling that in Japan at the time when the Edo shogunate was established. As the battle begins to crush the remnants of communism, Watanabe urges Japan to play Todo Takatora to America's Tokugawa Ieyasu. Takatora was a military commander at the time of the civil conflicts that led to the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Though formerly a vassal of the Toyotomi family, Takatora, realizing that he could not defeat the Tokugawas, allied himself with them when they seized power and was rewarded by being appointed one of their chief retainers.
Meanwhile, "a unipolar system is better for world peace than the multipolar and bipolar systems of the past," declares playwright and University of East Asia President Masakazu Yamazaki in an article in Chuo Koron magazine.
Much now depends on how wisely countries around the world deal with this new system, states Yamazaki, and the key to this lies in the United States' awareness of its own power and in the dogged diplomatic prodding of its allies.
Viewing the reconstruction of Iraq as a litmus test of how this system functions, he calls on Japan, as a U.S. ally, to offer more than mere humanitarian assistance by helping to build Iraq's social infrastructure and reestablish law and order and governance in the country.
Some have criticized America's status as the sole, undisputed superpower by likening the country to an "empire," but Yamazaki argues that the advent of a globalized media and of transnational citizens' movements has made imperialistic self-righteousness structurally difficult. In the buildup to the military attack on Iraq, one thing that stood out was the confrontation between Washington and Paris.
While curious about "France's motivation for changing its mind," Yamazaki sees the U.S.-France spat as indicative, first, that the confrontational model of the Cold War is a thing of the past and, second, that a "clash of civilizations" is not the crucial issue in modern politics.
As such, the disagreement is historically significant and a welcome sign.
On the other hand, writing in Sekai in a story titled "Empires Never Stop Fighting Wars," Professor Kiichi Fujiwara of the University of Tokyo expresses disgust that the U.S. attack on Iraq has shown the world today to be one in which the United States uses violence, and other countries must either go along with this or be destroyed.
The attack on Iraq lacked international authorization and, judged by the normal standards of international relations, was a war of aggression, argues Fujiwara.
Yet however self-righteous the justice trumpeted by Washington may be, no nation has the power to resist the United States, and the world is now in a situation similar to that at the time of the Roman Empire.
Citing the strains visible in the authority of the U.S. empire, the lack of international backing for the war in Iraq, and the united opposition of European public opinion to the use of force, however, Fujiwara stresses that the U.S. administration and U.S. society are isolated from the rest of the world.
There is no guarantee that Iraq will be the last war pursued by this empire, he notes, predicting that in order to maintain its hegemony the United States will have to commit itself to constant overseas military operations.
He blasts Japan's behavior, remarking that while Japan clearly demonstrated a lack of interest in ideals through its support for the U.S. action, what it has proved is its willingness to follow America wherever it leads.
Professor Kiichi Fujiwara of the University of Tokyo expresses disgust that the U.S. attack on Iraq has shown the world today to be one in which the United States uses violence, and other countries must either go along with this or be destroyed.
As the glassy slag-heap that was formerly known as Berlin, the wind-blown ashes of Paris and the stony rubble of Moscow demonstrates conclusively to the entire world.
Now that the U.S. has brought down the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Professor Emeritus Shoichi Watanabe of Sophia University calls for the formation of a four-nation alliance of Japan, the United States, Britain, and Spain ? countries that supported the attack on Iraq ? to take the place of the United Nations, which was paralyzed in the face of the Iraq crisis.Hear, hear.
Can't the globalists in Washington get their act together and start thinking in terms of protecting the sovereignty of our country as well as nations we deal with? Why do they criticize the UN to please the conservative crowd and then rush back to the UN for approval when they well know that the UN is a bastion of a world socialist dictatorship in the making?
I think both Australia and Poland supplied more fighting men than the Japanese.
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