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Opinion

First blood coming?

By Douglas Lummis


最初の血が流れる

イラクに派遣された自衛隊員が 「テロリスト」を殺しても罪に問われなければ 「交戦権」の復活という可能性が出てくる。 そして日本は「平和憲法」を捨てるのだろうか?

You can learn a lot from a taxi driver.

This driver was talking about what he heard from a passenger, a Self-Defense Force trooper coming home from a New Year's party. One of the older party members, emboldened by alcohol, had made a speech: "Here in Japan, if you kill somebody, you can get arrested for murder. So we use live ammunition only in practice. But it's not like that in Iraq. When you shoot people there, it's not murder. So you men leaving for Iraq, go for it!"

Sure, drunk people say all sorts of things. But then there was that little article on Page 34 of the Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 23, announcing that the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association and the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan had agreed not to do any "dangerous" reporting in Iraq.

What is "dangerous" reporting? The article gives two examples: chasing after SDF vehicles and standing around outside SDF bases.

Why is that dangerous? Because such reporters "could be mistaken for terrorists, and shot."

There it is. If the information in this article is correct, it means that the SDF troops are prepared to shoot people they judge to be "terrorists." Reading between the lines, we can understand that the SDF made it clear to the newspeople: "And if you're not careful, we might shoot you too."

There are (at least) two problems with this. First, the article doesn't say "a person about to carry out a terrorist act." It just says, "a terrorist." As this word is used by the U.S. government, and apparently now in Japan as well, "terrorist" means a type of human being who might someday in the span of his or her life commit a terrorist act. So the way to eliminate terrorism is to kill all of this type of people.

But think. A country is invaded and occupied. The occupying military brings in military units from other countries to aid in the occupation. People continue to fight the occupiers. Are they "terrorists"? In World War II, when the Nazis occupied France and established a puppet government, people continued to fight back. Of course, they didn't wear uniforms; to do so would have been suicide in an occupied country. We didn't call them terrorists but rather fighters in the Resistance. What is the difference?

Second, if the SDF troops do follow the drunken advice of their senior member and start shooting people who look to them like "terrorists," and if the government lets them get away with it, that moment will signal a momentous change in the constitutional basis of the Japanese state. It will be the revival of that special right of the state to kill, known as the Right of Belligerency.

Are you ready for that?

To help people think about this, I have recently published a book, "Are You Really Going to Junk Your Peace Constitution?" (Heibonsha, November 2003). If you want to read it you'll probably have to order it; the bookstores don't seem to want to put it on their shelves. (That's not because people don't want to read it. Here in Okinawa, I have already personally sold 300 copies.) But whether you use this book or not, I strongly recommend that you think about this question one more time. This may be your last chance.



Shukan ST: Feb. 13, 2004

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