Free Republic

LET US TALK OF ALLIES, but not, at least for once this week, of Europeans. After all, the United States is human history's one and only superpower. Our security concerns are genuinely global; our political principles are universal. So why should we obsess primarily about how we are regarded only in Paris or Berlin? Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is an irritating man, to be sure, but all the more so for being intermittently insightful. One of Rumsfeld's rules is that the mission determines the coalition. In the early 21st century, the United States has two important missions if it is...

Remarks With Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Japan's Foreign Minister Machimura and Defense Minister Ohno Secretary Condoleezza Rice Loy Henderson Auditorium Washington, DC February 19, 2005 11:40 a.m. EST SECRETARY RICE: Good morning. Secretary Rumsfeld and I have had the pleasure this morning of welcoming our colleagues from Japan, Foreign Minister Machimura and Defense Minister Ohno, to a very productive session on U.S.-Japan security consultations. This is a so-called two plus two. We've had very fruitful discussions this morning. Our discussions have reflected the importance that our President and Prime Minister Koizumi place on this longstanding alliance with Japan. It...

     Joint StatementRichard BoucherWashington, DCFebruary 19, 2005 U.S.-Japan Joint Statement on North Korea The following joint statement was agreed upon by the U.S. and Japan on February 19, 2005: The U.S. Secretary of State and the Japanese Foreign Minister made clear their deep concern over the D.P.R.K. Foreign Ministry Statement dated February 10, 2005, which publicly declared that North Korea would suspend its participation in the Six-Party Talks for an indefinite period and that it had manufactured nuclear weapons. The Ministers affirmed that North Korea’s nuclear program poses a serious challenge to the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and...

Despite public unease and questions of legitimacy under Japan's constitution, the Japanese cabinet agreed on Thursday the country's troops will stay in Iraq for another year. This comes as Japan puts the final touches on a sweeping overhaul of its defense policy that will give its armed forces a greater role globally and could upset neighbours like China and North Korea. The cabinet endorsed the extension of the deployment of up to 600 Self-Defense Force (SDF) troops in Iraq after the ruling coalition -- the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito -- gave their approval earlier in the day....

Allies Seek Peace, Stability in East Asia WASHINGTON - Shared concern about China and its threat to use force against Taiwan are drawing Japan and the United States closer in their determination to maintain peace and stability in East Asia. While the Bush administration says it supports China's emergence as an economic power in the region and the world, the overriding U.S. message to Beijing is, as State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday: "Play by the rules." Increasingly, Japan is growing bolder in publicly seconding that view. During talks Saturday in Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary...

Japan and the US will on Saturday sign a new joint security agreement, that puts Tokyo on a more assertive footing in East Asia at a time of rising Chinese power. Redrafting the 1996 joint declaration on bilateral security, Japan will for the first time join the US in identifying Taiwan as a shared security concern. America's alliance with Japan has been the foundation of Washington's policy in the Asia-Pacific for more than a generation, but Tokyo and Washington have historically diverged over Taiwan, the island that broke away from China after the 1949 revolution. While the US has pledged...

Japan and the United States have agreed upon a framework for carrying out common strategic objectives, the Kyodo news agency reported Saturday. Sources said the objectives will be detailed in a joint statement expected to be issued at a meeting of foreign and defense ministers Feb. 19 in Washington. The framework explains how Japan and the United States will reinforce ties to deal with new threats; including the spread of weapons of mass destruction, ballistic missiles, and activities of international terrorist groups. The framework operates under the claim that China's growing military power amid lingering tensions with Taiwan and North...

TOKYO - Japan's defense chief on Sunday said that Japanese troops could remain in Iraq until late 2005, a year longer than their current mandate. Some 500 Japanese troops are on a humanitarian mission in the southern Iraqi city of Samawah. Their mandate expires Dec. 14, and the government hasn't yet decided if the troops will stay. Asked about a potential pullout, Defense Minister Yoshinori Ono said several factors had to be considered, including whether the troops had fulfilled their mission to help rebuild the country. ``Another factor to consider is that a mission by multinational troops expires next...

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said on Tuesday that Iraqis wanted Japan to keep its troops in the country, amid opposition criticism that the war was discredited after the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. “Helping them with reconstruction efforts, the Self Defence Forces are appreciated by local residents as the troops are carrying out the Japanese people’s goodwill,” Koizumi told lawmakers as parliament convened. “Iraqi Prime Minister (Iyad) Allawi appreciates our country’s humanitarian and reconstruction assistance and asked us to continue our activity as we met last month,” he said, noting that Tokyo would host a two-day donors’ meeting...

TOKYO (Reuters) - If Junichiro Koizumi could vote in the November U.S. presidential election, the Japanese prime minister would almost certainly cast his ballot for his diplomatic soul mate, President Bush. Koizumi has closely linked his security policy to the Republican president, spending considerable political capital to back the war in Iraq and send troops there on a risky non-combat mission -- despite opposition from Japan's own voters. "Koizumi feels that he did certain things to support Bush in Iraq and believes that Bush owes him one," said Glen Fukushima, a former head of the American Chamber of Commerce in...

CAMP FUJI, Japan — (July 23, 2004) -- Marines demonstrated security and stability operations, like those currently in use in Iraq, for a contingent of Japan Self Defense Force officers here July 23. The demonstration was conducted to help prepare the next group of JSDF soldiers for an upcoming deployment to Iraq. According to Col. Ronald F. Baczkowski, 4th Marine Regiment commanding officer, Camp Fuji is an appropriate location for this historic moment in the history of cooperation between the Marine Corps and the JSDF. For years, both forces have shared the training ranges here and the SASO training will...

TOKYO (AFP) - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet approved a plan to allow Japanese troops to join a UN-sanctioned multinational force in Iraq. Japan, one of Washington's staunchest backers over the Iraq war, has around 550 troops in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa providing post-war humanitarian assistance in its most controversial and dangerous mission since 1945. "Under the multinational force, the Self-Defense Forces (Japanese military) will continue their activities," after the handover of power to Iraqis on June 30, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a news conference after the cabinet meeting. "The Self-Defense Forces will act under the...

<p>TOKYO (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney will appeal Tuesday to a divided Japanese public, in shock over the kidnapping of three citizens in Iraq, to get behind the U.S.-backed mission there.</p> <p>Cheney pledged in closed-door talks with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to "do everything we can" to secure the release of the hostages, and praised Koizumi for standing up to the Iraqi insurgents and keeping troops there despite mounting domestic pressure to withdraw.</p>

<p>TOKYO (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney, on a mission to urge nations allied against terrorism to stand fast with the United States in Iraq, arrived Saturday in Tokyo as anti-war groups demonstrated in the city for a second day.</p>

<p>TOKYO — Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (search) denounced threats that three Japanese captives in Iraq (search) would be burned alive as "cowardly" and vowed Friday that Japan's troops would stay in the country, despite tearful pleas from the families of the victims.</p> <p>Television networks repeatedly aired dramatic video of the captives -- two aid workers Noriaki Imai, 18, and Nahoko Takato, 34, and photojournalist Soichiro Koriyama, 32.</p>

TOKYO (Reuters) - Facing his most serious political test, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said on Friday he had no plans to withdraw Japan's troops from Iraq (news - web sites) despite the kidnapping of three Japanese civilians in the increasingly violent country. Calls for Koizumi to withdraw Japan's non-combat troops are growing after the kidnapping, and some analysts said mishandling of the crisis could even bring down the government. A previously unknown Iraqi group released a video of the hostages on Thursday and vowed to "burn them alive" if Japanese troops did not leave Iraq within three days. Asked...

<p>April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Japan has ``no reason'' to withdraw its troops from Iraq after Qatar's Al-Jazeera television station reported kidnappers are holding three Japanese journalists, a spokesman for the Pacific nation said.</p> <p>Kidnappers will kill the journalists they are holding in Iraq in three days unless Japanese forces withdraw from the country, Al-Jazeera reported, showing video pictures of the hostages, and citing a group called the Mujahedeen Brigades.</p>

April 3, 2004 TOKYO, April 2 — As the United States races to erect a ballistic missile defense system by the end of the year, it is quietly enlisting Japan and other allies in Asia to take part in the network, which could reshape the balance of power in the region. Last week, a few days after the United States Navy announced that it would deploy a destroyer in September in the Sea of Japan as a first step in forming a system capable of intercepting missiles, Japan's Parliament approved spending $1 billion this year to start work on a...

KUWAIT-IRAQ BORDER, March 20 (Reuters) - A new group of Japanese troops crossed into Iraq from Kuwait on Saturday to join countrymen serving as part of U.S.-led forces in Iraq, days after Spain said it plans to withdraw soldiers from the country. Some 130 Japanese troops rolled into Iraq in a convoy of about 50 trucks and armoured personnel carriers mounted with heavy machineguns. They were heading towards the city of Samawa in southern Iraq, where some 250 Japanese troops are building a base and conducting humanitarian operations. The deployment comes several days after Spain's Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez...

Around 190 Japanese ground troops have left for Iraq to join about 240 troops already in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa on humanitarian work, an army spokesman said. Following a send-off ceremony with colleagues and family members, the troops departed on two government planes from Hokkaido, northern Japan. They will arrive in Kuwait on Sunday and stay there for a few days to undergo training at a US army camp before heading to Samawa, 270 kilometres south of Baghdad. By the end March, another 120 ground troops, the last contingent of Japan's some 550-strong humanitarian mission, will leave for...