Today in Japan (11.23.17)
A roundup of the most significant news stories from Japan reported on November 23, 2017.
Tag Archives: Self-Defense Forces (SDF)
The Abe School of Corruption
The Abe government’s electoral dominance over the opposition parties has transformed from an impressively stable administration into a veritable school of corruption.
Reporting from Kumamoto
A personal memoir of the Kumamoto earthquake, reflecting both on the challenges of one-man reporting as well as the experience of being there.
Drones: What’s the Rumpus?
Host Michael Penn interviews journalist and book author Tim Hornyak and learns about the development and purposes of drones.
Uniformed Officers Gaining Control of Defense Ministry
Uniformed Self-Defense Forces officers are currently demanding a larger role in setting military policies, which will for the first time utilize the security legislation forced through the Diet by the ruling coalition last September. Civilian defense bureaucrats have so far rejected the demands of the uniformed officers, fearing that acquiescing will decisively tilt the power balance between the two sides within the ministry.
Trump, Cruz, and Shinzo Abe’s Constitutionalism
Leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been making waves with radical policy notions from the day he announced his run for his party’s nomination. He took this to a whole new level on August 16 when he released a five-page report entitled, “Immigration Reform That Will Make America Great Again.” Briefly noted within a subsection called—ironically enough—“Defend The Laws And Constitution Of The United States,” Trump called for “ending birthright citizenship.”
Tomiichi Murayama Supports Protests
Former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, 91, explains why he supports public protests, and why he joined young demonstrators outside the Diet building to speak against the Abe War Bill.
The Japan that Can’t Say No to War
At the 93rd anniversary event of the Japan Communist Party, Chairman Kazuo Shii offered his view on how the so-called “Legislation for Peace and Security” will make future Japanese governments even less able to resist US government demands that they participate in foreign wars.
Burying the Lessons of the Iraq War
There is probably no better method of predicting what people and institutions might do in the future than to have an accurate understanding of their behavior in the past. So much of what is popularly taken as surprising and “unpredictable” might easily have been foreseen by a better knowledge of the contexts, experiences, and the previous actions of the players involved in the construction of an event. When powerholders attempt to suppress the records of official behavior, it is therefore not simply the concern of a handful of cloistered intellectuals, but a matter that can be expected to have real-world impact on future policymaking and the fate of ordinary citizens.
Zengakuren Protests against the Security Bills
On July 1, a protest was held near the Diet Building that was jointly organized by the All-Japan League of Student Self-Government (Zengakuren) and the National Coordinating Center of Labor Unions, two organizations of the radical labor movement in Japan.
