Understanding War On Terror

“Understanding” was the wording of Japan to support new phase of war on terror by United States. Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, told reporters in New York that he understood it as a measure for avoiding further serious situation. But he did not mention how Japan would help U.S. Although he has been willing to pass legislations to let Japan involved in military operations overseas, he has no idea to send Japanese troops to Iraq or Syria for promoting U.S. freedom agenda. This is the man U.S. President Barack Obama trusted in over a sushi dinner in Tokyo this spring.

Obama stressed that U.S. was not alone in the war against Islamic State. “The United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death,” he told in his address to the General Assembly of United Nations. While he praised forty nations joined the coalition in the effort to train and equip forces fighting against the terrorists, to cut off their financing, and to stop the flow of fighters into and out of the region, it was not clear whether Obama included Japan in them.

In diplomatic term, “support” and “understand” have clear difference. The government of Japan chose neutral expression this time. “We are worried about the situation not only in Iraq but in Syria, in which several cities are occupied causing many deaths. We understand the air strike by U.S. was done as a measure of avoiding further serious situation,” told Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga. Grilled by reporters, Suga admitted that Japan had not fully been informed details of the air strike on Syria.

Criticism against U.S. air strike is spreading in Japan. U.S. explained that the strike was done as an exercise of self-defense right in Article 51 of U.N. Charter. But there is no nation now more sensitive on the word “self-defense right” than the Japanese. Some reporters asked Suga whether the U.S. operation violated international law that demanded request of the first-party for military attack.

Furthermore, some newspaper developed the possibility of this issue connected with hot argument over collective self-defense right of Japan. The decision of the Cabinet in July allowed Japan to exercise collective self-defense right in a case which would fundamentally overturn citizen’s right for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. If the government of Japan recognizes the situation in Iraq and Syria as critical for security of Japan, it can send Japanese troops there.

“It is unthinkable,” said Suga when he asked about possibility of applying collective self-defense on the situation in Iraq. So, what was the purpose of the Cabinet decision? Japan once declared joining war on terrorism in the time of former Prime Minister Jun-ichiro Koizumi, a mentor of Abe in politics. Abe stressed Japan’s effort in helping refugees or humanitarian support in neighbor countries of Iraq and Syria, which could be done out of the concept of collective self-defense. That is why it is obvious that Abe made that decision not to contribute international security effort, but enhance his internal right-wing political agenda.