Civillian Staffs Control

Forging concept is frequent method of bureaucrats when they deceive innocent people. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for some reason likes it. In explaining responsibility of Japanese government in recruiting comfort women, he admitted responsibility in broad meaning, while denying it in narrow meaning. In short, he tried to say that the government had not directly recruited, synonym of human trafficking, comfort women, but it might be responsible for leaving those brothels operate around the military camps. Now, Abe administration is creating new concept in civilian control.

Ministry of Defense is considering an amendment of Ministry of Defense Settlement Act, to equalize the status between its civilian and military staffs. The law determines that civilian staffs assist the job of Minister of Defense to make an order to chiefs of military staffs. The concept is called “civilian staffs control,” consisting a part of civilian control on military officers. The ministry is trying to delete the provision about civilian staffs control to expand, or maybe unleash, the power of military.

Based on firm regret on excessive power vested on military officers in wartime, the Constitution of Japan requires the government strict civilian control. It is interpreted as the power of legislators, properly elected, to always put the military under control. Under the Constitution, Prime Minister or other members of Cabinet have to be civilians. The supreme commander of Self-defense Force needs to be Prime Minister. In the system of Japanese government, there has been a concrete structure of civilian control.

The amendment of Ministry of Defense Settlement Act is an attempt to extract “civilian staffs control” from “civilian control.” Leaders of the ministry assert that civilian control will be maintained, even if civilian staffs control is lost. Minister of Defense, Gen Nakatani, a former staff of Self-defense Force, even denied the significance of the provision of civilian staffs control. When the reporters asked him whether the provision had been made for not repeating wartime military excessiveness, he answered “I don’t think that way.” “I don’ really know about it, because I was born after the provision was made,” he also explained. This minister seems to know nothing about what happened before he was born.

This is what Japanese officer is all about. In current militarization under Abe administration, military section of Japanese government is getting pretentious, regarding themselves as something invincible. Bureaucrats put moral obligation aside, when they find, or fabricate, appropriate cause to do a thing. There is no hint of self-restriction in military to win a firm credibility from the public.