Nearly anything to piss the right in Japan

is fine with me.

Japan will withdraw the troops it had based in the Middle East in support of the US-led coalition.

Government officials said that some 200 air force troops would be brought home from Kuwait by the end of the year.

They have been deployed to fly goods and personnel into Iraq since Japan withdrew its ground forces from the country two years ago.

Japan's pacifist constitution blocks military operations, but humanitarian troops served for two years.

The pacifist constitution which bars a military, allows humanitarian operations by non-military SFD military personnel. I understand. (Oh wait, the SDF isn't really a military.)

This does not mean that the increasingly close (at the expense of other US allies in the region) military relationship between the US and Japan will cool down a bit. One can only hope though.

Our allies

Nope. Nothing about Japan. One can criticize Japan (well, some folks think that you cannot) but there is no comparison with anything here with out allies or enemies in Iraq. If Bush's plan had been successful, and we had been able to make Iraq a functioning democracy with human rights respected, certainly the area would have been a better place. It's pretty obvious that isn't going to happen.

One of the areas of Iraq in which we reportedly have had some success is in the Kurdish area. But, from this news report and videos, it appears that we may have a long way to go. In fact, it appears that we are deceiving ourselves there much more than anywhere.

This report and embedded videos are brutal. A group of 1,000 men beat a teenage girl to death while the police watch (and help kill her) because she was running away from her family to marry a Muslim. From AINA here.

The History of US Torture
A Japan Focus article---while it lasts.