JAPAN: Unprecedented Support for U.S. in Tragedy’s Wake

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Sep 14 2001 (IPS) - Japan, the United States’ strongest ally in Asia and host of the largest U.S. military base in the region, has pledged unstinting support to that Western nation in the wake of terrorist attacks there this week.

According to local media reports, this may include the beefing up of Japanese military actions to help the United States, a move that is bound not to go down well among many Japanese.

As it is, while the Japanese public remains sympathetic toward the United States, which suffered attacks on the Pentagon, as well as the World Trade Centre in New York, some now say they do not particularly agree with Washington’s call for vengeance.

English teacher Kazuko Sugihara, 56, for instance, says that she was shocked when she heard Tuesday how two U.S. commercial airplanes were hijacked and then flown right smack into the famous World Trade Centre while another plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

Thousands are believed to have been killed in the incidents. Says Sugihara: “The attacks were devastating. I was filled with a deep sense of sadness for the American people and supported their call for justice.”

But now, she says, “While I still continue to sympathise deeply with the innocent victims of the attack, I am not happy with the way the U.S. government is acting right now. I do not support President Bush’s call for outright revenge.”

Akira Kawasaki, spokesperson for Peace Depot, a non- governmental group with more than 600 members, also says: “Three days past the aftermath, the Japanese are getting over the emotional shock. They are not happy with the vengeful mood in the U.S. They want Washington to be calm.”

Indeed, Peace Depot will soon release a statement that calls on Washington to investigate the deadly attack carefully and not respond militarily against countries harbouring the suspects.

Kawasaki says that instead, “we call on the United States to take legal action possibly in the International Criminal Court in the Hague”.

U.S. President George Bush had described the shocking attacks as the new type of warfare that characterizes the 21st century. Addressing an angry nation, he also promised to bring the perpetrators, and the people who support them, to justice.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has since pointed to Osama Bin Laden, a known terrorist now based in Afghanistan, as a prime suspect in masterminding the attacks. Afghanistan now fears that it may soon be attacked by the United States.

In the meantime, the world has been expressing full support for Washington. On Thursday, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), invoking a mutual defence clause for the first time in history, pledged collective assistance to the United States.

Japan’s own official support for the United States is also unprecedented in this nation’s history. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Friday that he had spoken with Bush the night before and told the U.S. leader that Tokyo would spare no effort in its support for, and cooperation with, Washington.

“I said that the Japanese government and the Japanese people share a strong anger over the attacks and that both my government and I strongly support the U.S. position to fight terrorism,” the premier told the Japanese public.

Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda also announced Friday that Japan has already “begun preparations” to support the United States. But he stopped short of revealing specifically what those steps were.

The Japanese media, however, now report that Koizumi’s close aides plan to submit a comprehensive bill during next year’s regular Diet session.

The bill will cover functions of Self Defence Forces (SDF) officers and the U.S. military in Japan. According to the Kyodo News Service, the amendments being discussed will include allowing SDF officers to defend US military stationed in Japan.

Under current Japanese laws, only the police can be dispatched to help protect the U.S. military in Japan.

Analysts here say such actions are being considered in response to possible U.S. criticism that the Japan-U.S. relationship is not balanced.

During the Gulf War in 1991, Japan was criticised by Washington for not extending support to U.S. military troops fighting in the Gulf. Japan had cited constitutional restrictions for not sending any troops, and instead pledged 13 billion U.S. dollars to the allied military effort.

This time around, many Japanese observers say that Japan relate more to what the United States is going through because it also has had its share of terrorist experiences.

One example is nerve-gas attack by Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese fanatical religious group, in local subways in 1995 that resulted in several fatalities.

“In this way the Japanese understand the anger of the American people,” says crime writer Hisaki Iwai.

But, he says, “when it comes to collective military action, they draw the line.” He explains that the suicidal attacks in the United States also bring back memories to the Japanese of their own Kamikaze pilots, who were deployed by the Imperial Army during World War II to bomb U.S. planes.

In truth, some Western observers have already begun calling the Tuesday attacks as the “second Pearl Harbour”, in reference to the 1940 Japanese attack on a U.S. naval base in Hawaii that led to U.S. participation in the Second World War.

“The Japanese also understand what those terrorists were doing,” says Iwai. “The situation is very close to them.”

Sugihara cannot agree more. She says, “The attack was fanatic (in nature) and very frightening. “In addition, when I see the devastation in New York, it reminds me of how destroyed Tokyo was after it was bombed by the Americans during World War II.”

“I hope,” says Sugihara, “that the American public, which is experiencing for the first time the horror of seeing their city destroyed, will understand more the reason why countries like Japan and the United States must respond logically.”