Saturday, Feb. 7, 2004By RICHARD HALLORAN
Special to The Japan Times
HONOLULU -- Japan has crossed the Rubicon, with surprisingly little opposition at home or abroad, by starting to dispatch armed soldiers to Iraq in their first deployment to a combat zone since World War II.
In a departure ceremony in northern Japan, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Defense Agency Director General Shigeru Ishiba presented the colors, or flags, to a detachment of 500 soldiers standing rank on rank in black berets, camouflaged battle uniforms and black boots.
Their commanding officer, Col. Yasushi Kiyota, told his troops, their families and the dignitaries: "We shall overcome all obstacles, no matter how difficult, and all return safely." Those listening said he emphasized the last point. The Japanese have been tasked to help reconstruct Iraq's damaged and obsolete roads, power plants, water works, schools and hospitals.
The ceremony was televised and evidently seen all over Japan where it was greeted with complicated feelings. Japanese parents were worried, as are all parents when their sons and, in this case, a few daughters, are sent in harms way. Japan has sent perhaps a dozen peacekeeping and humanitarian missions abroad in as many years but only after most danger has passed.
In addition, say Japanese who watched the ceremony and related events, there was evidence of a quiet pride that Japan has begun to shed the cocoon of pacifism in which it has wrapped itself for nearly 60 years and started to accept responsibilities and risks in the international arena.
A soldier addressing the departure formation spoke of representing "our country of Bushido," the way of the warrior that was honorable in the days of yore but was corrupted by the militarists of prewar Japan. In Hawaii, a citizen of the Saipan, the island occupied by Japan before and during World War II, approved of Japan "paying back for some of the things they did then."
Japanese opposition politicians protested, but without much fervor, the dispatch of armed soldiers, contending that it violated Article IX of the constitution, which prohibits the use of armed force to settle disputes. About 4,000 protesters rallied in Hibiya Park in Tokyo with banners: "We don't need a war." In a land where demonstrations of tens of thousands have been fashioned, kabuki style, into an art form, a protest of 4,000 is not worth the ink it takes to print this.
Abroad, China and South Korea, which nurture historical animosities toward Japan, appear to have taken the deployment calmly; most press reports have been limited to factual accounts of the departure. A Filipino military officer, whose nation was brutally conquered by Japan in 1942, said in Hawaii: "It's OK even though we have not totally forgotten what they did."
In a round-table discussion at the East-West Center, a research and educational institute in Hawaii, six scholars specializing in Asia were unanimous in saying they expected little criticism of Japan over the deployment. "Too many people in Asia," said one, "have too many other things on their minds."
North Korea, which is at odds with Japan on several scores, was among the few to be openly critical: "This is a prelude," said Rodong Sinmun, an official newspaper, "to the overseas aggression of the Japanese militarists, which may bring immeasurable misfortune and disasters to humankind again in the 21st century."
Ever since Julius Caesar led his legions across the Rubicon River in northern Italy in 49 B.C., that passage has come to be an emblem for decisions from which there is no turning back. Japan, which plans to send about 1,000 troops to Iraq in coming weeks, has passed its point of no return.
What of the future? A research study by Colonel William E. Rapp of the U.S. Army War College notes: "Japan is in the midst of a fundamental re-examination of its security policy." He concludes, however, that "Japan remains deeply ambivalent toward security expansion" and suggests that "Japan will continue slowly and incrementally to remove the shackles on its military security policy."
Some years ago, a Japanese whose name is lost in foggy memory, wrote: "Japanese mothers must understand that they are not the only ones who do not wish to send their sons off to die in battle." Since Iraq is a dangerous place for Americans, Australians, British, Koreans, Poles and everyone else, not to say the Iraqi people themselves, the Japanese are likely to suffer casualties there.
Then Japanese mothers, sadly, will experience, for the first time in six decades, the profound sorrow of mothers everywhere who have lost their sons in hostile action.
Richard Halloran, formerly a correspondent for Business Week, The Washington Post and The New York Times, is a freelance journalist.
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