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Essay

Here they come again

By Douglas Lummis

As I write this, a Maritime Self-Defense Force (SDF) warship is heading for, sailing at top speed. Maybe it's here already, I'm not sure. Anyway, it will have arrived long before you read this.

The SDF is coming to Okinawa — to do what? Is it to protect the Okinawans against some terrible enemy? No. It's to protect the Japanese government against the Okinawans.

OK, OK, I'll put it more accurately. It's to protect a government project against Okinawans who oppose that project. The government wants to build yet another U.S. military base here — a heliport at the fishing port of Henoko, in northern Okinawa — and present it to the U.S. Marines. To do this they mean to reclaim a part of Oura Bay. "Reclaim" means dumping dirt, rocks, busted concrete or any other junk into the sea (killing the coral or whatever other life there is underneath) until the sea becomes land.

Most Okinawans are against this. Some are so passionately opposed that they have been going out in sea kayaks to prevent the construction physically (though nonviolently). And in fact they have succeeded in putting the project way behind schedule (Hurray for them!).

These people are the "enemy" the SDF has been sent out to defeat. The dispatch of SDF troops to Okinawa is an event of major historical significance. This is the first time since their founding in 1950 that the SDF has been deployed as a defense force. Until now they have been used for "goodwill" visits, for disaster relief, for pretend peacekeeping (without the right of belligerency, they can't do real peacekeeping), and for supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq by going there and hiding away in bunkers.

Now for the first time ever, they are going to live up to their name and actually defend something. For the first time, the fact that they have weapons will be important to their job.

But to repeat (it's worth repeating): What they are going to defend is not the people. They are going to defend the government against the people. All right, again I'll say it more accurately: against a part of the people. Thus, the SDF is revealing to us what it's really for, what it really is.

Remember that the SDF was first established as the Police Reserve. It was founded at the beginning of the Korean War for the purpose of enforcing "law and order" in Japan while the U.S. troops that had been occupying Japan were off making war in Korea. In other words, its original target was not foreign, but domestic.

So by being sent to Okinawa, the SDF returns to its roots. Its primary target, it turns out, does not live in some foreign land. It's right here, where we live. It's us

Or is it? The SDF has roots that go deep into Japan's past. Burned into Okinawa's collective memory is the fact that during the Battle of Okinawa members of the Imperial Army, far from protecting the Okinawans, killed many of those who got in their way. And now, the very first place the SDF has been sent to use their weapons to coerce people is — guess where? But you already know the answer. Here they come again.


Shukan ST: June 1, 2007

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