Questioning the War of Retribution

Hiroichi Yamaguchi
Professor, Faculty of International Studies

1

Those were terrible terrorist attacks that struck the United States on September 11. But are these sufficient reasons why the US can go to war?

The term retribution is being widely used as if it is permitted. True, the UN Charter in its article 51 recognizes the right of individual or collective self defense in case of an armed attack. However, the concept of self defense does not apply in a case when a country openly talks of, and prepares for, retribution for weeks after an attack has been made. Mere retaliation is forbidden by international law. It is, moreover, going back to the logic of the Cold War to divide the world into two camps, black or white, as the US is now doing.

The Taliban forces came into being out of the US and Pakistani support to the Afghan people's fighting against the invading Soviet army. To that extent the US is responsible for their existence. Even Osama bin-Ladin is a man whom the CIA nurtured and sent to Afghanistan during the 1980s. It is commonly observed that the end of the Cold War has led to the age of ethnic conflicts. As the case of the Taliban would show, however, most of the seeds of those conflicts were sown during the Cold War, which witnessed a lot of bloodshed in a number of peripheral areas. The US may well do a stock-taking at this time and refrain from being the foremost exporter of conventional arms, which are arming many peoples the world over.

In order to carry out her avowed policy of building a global coalition against terrorism, the US is likely to forget about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal (though a number of people are against nuclear weapons in Pakistan and India), or Pakistan's support to the terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir, and to help the military government of Pakistan, which seized power in a coup, through economic assistance and writing off the debt. Is it still going to be a war of justice? The British Prime Minister, a close ally of the US, visited Pakistan on October 5 to put additional pressure. During those bloody nine years of anti-Soviet war from 1979 onwards also the US supported the then military regime of Pakistan which seized power in a previous coup.

Pakistan is not the only country the US is trying to induct into the coalition with a reward. The US is now on the side of the Russians who expressed support to the US so that they may further crush the freedom movement in Chechnya in the name of fighting terrorism. The human right abuses in the Central Asian countries will also recede into the background. Are these the cost only the US will have to bear? No, they are the prices the whole mankind will have to pay.

2

Let us move on to Japan's response. It is even more military-oriented than the US. The political leadership here appears keener on taking this opportunity, than on solving economic difficulties, to legislate a contingency law, to make Japan's right of collective self defense exercisable, and even to revise the Article 9 of the constitution. A mighty aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk left Yokosuka naval base heading for the Indian Ocean on October 1. Is the Indian Ocean part of the Far East, as is mentioned in the Japan-US Security Treaty? Has the provision of prior consultation, which is supposed to be made in case of important changes in the deployment of US forces in Japan but has never been activated during the 40 years of its history, been applied this time? If Afghanistan is attacked, it will bring endless disaster to a people who have not known peace even for a day since 1979. Should Japan provide bases like this indefinitely?

The government says that we should do as much as possible within the limitation of the constitution so that Japan will not be internationally isolated. The article 9 states that we will renounce war and the threat or use of force forever, and will not have army, navy, air force or any other war potential. One wonders if there is anything that can be done to help the US military action within those premises. The government presented an anti-Terrorism Bill on October 5. The Prime Minister said that there is a gap between the Preamble of the constitution and the above article. Apparently the Bill is intended to bridge the gap as he perceives it.

Japan was criticized at the time of the Gulf war for not contributing fighting forces. The criticism stung, and the government is determined not to repeat it. Under the Bush administration the pressure on Japan to make the right of collective defense exercisable grew stronger. As long as we heed their demand, and as long as there is the Security Treaty, Japan has no other choice but to respond militarily. Is that what the Japanese people really want?

No, it cannot be. The article 9 is testimony to the Japanese people's will not to go to war again. It is essentially due to this article that the Asian people's trust in the Japanese is maintained. I have witnessed in several Asian countries in recent months that Japan stands almost isolated in Asia largely because of the difficulties created by our own government. Contrary to what the government says, if we respond to a crisis like this only militarily we will get more isolated. That will be far more grave than not joining the US-led coalition. For a way-out it is necessary, and the sooner the better, to agree on some objectives common to us and our fellow Asians and to jointly act for them. They are easing of tension, disarmament, and democratization, on one hand, and alleviating poverty, on the other. That will be the surest way to make Japan secure against the dangers of terrorism and war.

On September 17, some Buddhists, Christians and Muslims held a prayer meeting in front of the US embassy in Bangkok, under the sponsorship of the Thai Inter-Religious Network for Peace, and said that the violence will only lead to unending violence. It may be a matter of time before the US will start acting against the Taliban forces. The voice against war, however, is much stronger today than at the time of the Gulf war, even in the US itself. In that sense the US is also at crossroads, as it was during the Vietnam war.

( This was written on October 7, the day before the outbreak of the war, but I am publishing it without revising as I do not see any need to do so.)

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