Japanese pacifists unnerved by lifting of ban on military intervention

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/01/japanese-pacifists-unnerved-by-lifting-of-ban-on-military-intervention/



Japanese pacifists unnerved by lifting of ban on military intervention
By Justin McCurry, The Guardian
Tuesday, July 1, 2014 10:20 EDT

When Takeshi Ishida was drafted into the Japanese military in 1943, he believed that he was fighting a just war to liberate Asia from western colonialism. It was only after taking part in daily exercises in which he was trained to kill that Ishida began to question Japanese militarism.

When the full horror of Japanese atrocities became apparent in the aftermath of its surrender, Ishida devoted himself to defending the pacifist constitution, imposed by victorious US occupation authorities. Now, the former imperial army officer is consumed with fear that young Japanese will again be sent to fight overseas, following the most dramatic shift in the country’s defence policy for almost 70 years.

On Tuesday, the conservative prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and his cabinet agreed to lift the longstanding ban on Japan’s troops engaging in combat overseas, a move Ishida believes could once again drag his county into a reckless war.

“What Abe is doing is destroying the principles of our pacifist constitution,” Ishida, a professor emeritus at Tokyo University, told the Guardian. “Not killing anyone abroad is, in a sense, a precious part of our heritage. Why should we have to throw it away on the orders of one man rather than through the will of the people?”

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Abe is Japan's dubya.