Unfinished, simple-minded thoughts 2: Thinking aloud.

While wandering around the Internut looking for crime stuff about Japan, I found something that took me back a number of years to when I was in the USAF.

Now contrary to what we see in the movies, read in some media, contrary to the beliefs of some who think that the military is made up of a bunch of flunkies, high school dropouts, and nitwits who were too dumb to go to college and spend four years in a semi-drunken haze, I never found that to be the case. The Air Force, for example, does not entrust a moron with the life of the pilot(s) and the care of a fighter jet worth millions.

Folks go in for different reasons, but in the AF at least, most went in for the training---which was better than anything I ever did in university as far as practical skills and life skills go---and to get money to go to college. Others go in for a career that is much, much better; much much more challenging; much, much, more intellectually demanding---yes, by far---than most other jobs available for high school grads or even many college graduates. (Provided that you don't get killed in a war.) When I think of the word professional, I still think of the military.

I was a "law enforcement specialist", a narcotics detector dog handler. I was in a good position to know the types of crimes that occurred on the bases I was stationed. I was never stationed in Japan, but I did know guys and gals who were here in a similar capacity.

During my AF time I found most crimes* on bases either overseas to be relatively minor. DUIs, occasional fights, drug possession (usually marijuana* or stimulants), occasional weapon storage---some guy kept his 30-06 hunting rifle in his room in the States---and traffic violations. Access to bases was controlled, people who lived and worked there had background clearances of various levels, and they lived and worked under a disciplined system that could be a real pain-in-the-ass**, but one that worked very well for young people, especially young men. (Haven't tried it, but I wonder what would happen if you compared the crime rates of people of that age in college to those in the military?)

So what? Well, we keep hearing and reading about the dangers and the crimes committed in Japan by US military personnel. It's not only stuff I read in the Japanese press, but I have even seen non-Japanese whose writing I usually respect fall for some unsubstantiated "Deer Hunter/Rambo" theory that those just back from a war zone are somehow naturally unstable and prone to violence.

Anyway, something smells about this supposed danger posed by the US military on the Japanese---or should I say Okinawans? What is the source of most of the claims of this danger? Is it the NPA? The media? Folks with an axe to grind? How do these same people view non-Japanese in general? They wouldn't go around claiming that all foreigners and foreign countries were potentially (if not actually) dangerous and untrustworthy would they?

No, such a thing would be so un-Japanese.

*Includes active duty military, dependents, civilian contractors, and base employees. Even visitors.

**Often exaggerated in movies and on TV. In the States I worked a 9 hour shift. I did not do KP---that's Basic Training---did not march around all day (Basic Training again), did not run around shouting "Sir, yes sir"---Basic Training again. Except for training, exercises, deployments, recalls etc, I pretty much worked as I have in civilian life.

***I once had the biggest quarterly marijuana find in PACAF (Pacific Air Forces). A massive 22 grams if I recall correctly...

Ouch, that hurts

...We already have a country that operates on the notion that it can mass-produce the poor and force young people to join the military and go off to fight on a battlefield somewhere. That would be the US...Minoru Morita in his interesting new book, Curing Japan's American Addiction.*

and it especially hurts because it is so close to true, except only certain young people go and many of them are either poor or not far from it.

Mr. Morita has some interesting things to say in the book, but unfortunately he seems to have an extreme form of the affliction that Paul Krugman had when he was in his NYT columnist blame-every-bad-thing-in-history-on-George Bush mode (before Paul won his Nobel Prize). Morita, however, blames everything wrong with Japan on Bush, Koizumi, and---naturally and most especially---the US.


Life in the shadows, the result of a vast US conspiracy by Bush, Koizumi, the LDP, and evil, evil, yes we do mean EVIL foreign money.

*Available in exchange for your evil foreign money at Amazon.com or for pure Japanese yen at Amazon Japan.

Council on Foreign Relations article

on the basic background of Japan's military post WW2. Includes a brief description of Article 9 and remilitarization. There is nothing especially new or deep in the article, but it does give an idea of the bare basics.

....much of what is perceived internationally as Japanese "nationalism" or "militarism" might simply be political posturing. "The political class may talk in nationalistic terms, and the world press will pick up on it," he says. "But the basic point is, the population is much more moderate. The military policy, the public is really not excited about it." From CFR.org

I think this is true to some extent, but one wonders if the elites continue their posturing and continue to get their way, how long will the public remain "moderate"? I could not prove it, but my experience in talking to people over the last year or two is that they tend to be buying and repeating a lot of what Abe, Fujiwara, and others are pushing. But as the article notes, as long as the US is providing a military for Japan, most Japanese will be happy to rely on it, while complaining about the bases---in other words, have it both ways. And the US will be happy to stay forever. Once we establish a military base somewhere, we will never leave.

Right-wing Nutjob watch

One of the goals of the right-wing emperor worshiping crowd in Japan is to bring back the Japanese military. The military that, according to the nut crowd, freed Asia (ungrateful China included. Maybe not Korea since it was already under Japanese imperialism), did no wrong in China, and was falsely accused of atrocities in Nanjing. Of course Japan suddenly and completely changed after WW2. Did a 110% flip flop into the world's most peaceful nation which didn't even have a military except for the self-defense forces (which is a non-military military). So there could never be a repeat of the imperialism or the atrocities which never happened anyway.

Over the last year in particular, it has been very interesting to watch how the new rightist-nationalist drive is being conducted. One thing that I have personally noticed in talking with people is that the idea that Japan must rethink its American written article 9 of the constitution which prohibits Japanese land, air, and sea forces (well except for the Self-defense forces for which during the Korean war it was decided that this prohibition did not apply to), is that the idea that American cannot be trusted to adhere to the security treaty with Japan. The latest I heard was, that the U.S. would not defend Japan if Japan were attacked, it would only defend its own forces in Japan You could ask how that would even be possible since many bases are near Tokyo. (We would just defend the skies above Yokota air base and ignore everywhere else?)

Notice that it isn't in this case being argued that Japan needs a military for its own reasons, but because the dirty foreigners can't be trusted to keep their word. No evidence was given, except for a claim that when North Korea launched the missiles last summer, the U.S. did not have satellites watching Japan, but only from North Korea to the US. Japan apparently had to get its own satellite because of this. (It is amazing how close this comes to being the exact opposite of a similar argument I heard. In that case, the reason Japan needed its own satellite was because the U.S. might lie and say that North Korea was doing something when it wasn't.)

The fact is, that under the security treaty that Uncle Sucker has signed with Japan, it is JAPAN who has NO duty to assist any U.S. force which is fighting in defense of Japan. The American side would not suddenly assume Japan's passive role during combat.

The right-wingers of Japan cannot seem to make a case for a stronger Japan or a more engaged Japan without attacking other countries or peoples as untrustworthy, sneaky, liars. And the U.S. is much in favor of, and supporting the new role Japan wants to play. I am sure that the government knows what these hard-line Tojo wannabes are up to, but it has made no public responses to any of them. Perhaps they view them like they do Shitaro "Blinky" Ishiara, more of an amusing, harmless, loony-bird than a threat. Or perhaps they believe that it's just necessary rhetoric in order to get the public to accept a strong military which will ultimately be good for the U.S. and the region. Given the U.S. recent record of misunderstandings and misjudgments in this type of thing, I am not reassured.

(This was from a discussion I had today with a guy---Japanese---who had read the article.)