[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Switching a National Psyche ...

[Bill Totten]

... from War to Peace - Japanese Style

by Ann Wright

www.truthout.org (May 22 2008)


I've been speaking throughout Japan for the past fourteen days on issues 
of war and peace and the Japanese Constitution. That Constitution was 
imposed by the United States after World War II and mandated the 
Japanese government and people abandon war. Article 9 of their 
Constitution says:

"Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and 
order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of 
the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling 
international disputes.

"In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, 
and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be 
maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."


On my last evening in Japan, I spoke in Nago, Okinawa, the southernmost 
island of Japan and the most US-militarized. After the talk, in contrast 
to most evening meals, Hisae Ogawa (the organizer of my visit) and I had 
dinner with five men, all my age, 61 or so, Vietnam veteran age - except 
they were not Vietnam veterans, nor veterans of any war.

After World War II, Japanese men (and women) have been spared the 
obligation of serving in any wars. Because their Constitution (written 
by Americans) says war is not the Japanese national doctrine for 
resolving international disputes or for ensuring their national 
security, the Japanese people have been given sixty years of peace.

I was struck by the questions of the Japanese men - only one generation 
removed from their fathers, who fought to expand economic resources for 
the Japanese emperor and empire in the late 1930s and 1940s.

These men questioned why young men and women of the United States would 
join the US military when it was fighting a war for economic resources 
(oil - their words) and a war based on lies (their words.) The Japanese 
men were amazed by the levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (eighty 
percent) in Iraq war veterans, and were astounded by the Veterans 
Administration's cover up of the number of suicides by veterans 
(eighteen per month, or 216 per year, and 12,000 per year attempting 
suicide). They also questioned why any woman would join the military 
when statistics reveal one in three women in the military will be raped 
by fellow service members during their enlistment.

I responded that, despite an unpopular war, some young men and women 
find the US military their only option for jobs and future education. 
Military recruiters flood high schools, and there are few other options 
for many with marginal grades, much less a criminal record.

The Japanese society has moved from one of the most militaristic and 
warlike in the 1930s and 1940s to, now, a nation at peace despite the 
Bush administration's pressure on the Japanese government for military 
and financial contributions for the war on Iraq and the "war on terror".

Some will say the reason the Japanese people have not had to go to war 
is the United States has taken on the role of defending Japan from 
attack. Yet, most Japanese would ask pointedly, "Attack from whom? From 
those the United States threatens?" They say, "Let us live in peace and 
our example will hopefully make the entire world more peaceful".

I wonder if it will take a series of disastrous events such as what the 
Japanese people endured when they were led by civilian and military 
leaders into successive invasions and brutal occupations of other 
countries (known for rape and torture of local citizens) before 
Americans will decide aggressive wars of choice, invasions and 
occupations known for rape and torture of local citizens are not the 
answer to world problems.

Japanese are very protective of their right to a peaceful country.

Will American ever strive for a different world - one of peace, not 
violence?

_____

Ann Wright is a retired US Army Reserves colonel with 29 years of 
military service. She also was a US diplomat who served in Nicaragua, 
Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and 
Mongolia. She was on the small team that reopened the US Embassy in 
Kabul, Afghanistan, in December 2001. She resigned from the US 
diplomatic corps in March 2003 in opposition to the Bush 
administration's decision to invade and occupy Iraq. She is the 
co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience (2008), profiles of 
government insiders who have spoken and acted on their concerns of their 
governments' policies.

(c) 2008 truthout

http://www.truthout.org/article/from-war-peace-japanese-style

TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this
essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/