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G7 Summit Opens In Hiroshima Amid Waves of Protests

May 20, 2023 Telesur English. , , ,
On Friday, amid waves of protests, the Group of Seven (G7) leaders' annual summit got underway in Japan's western city of Hiroshima. Hundreds of protesters gathered in Hiroshima's Funairi Daiichi Park, not far from the summit's venue, to decry the finger-pointing bloc that advertises its own version of world order. Seen on-site were huge banners and placards that read "Junk G7," "No Build-up to War" and "No to Japan-U.S. Military Alliance," among many others. Crowds of protesters rallied around the summit venue, chanting slogans such as "U.S. Imperialists, Number One Terrorist!" "Stop the Lies!" "Stop the War!" "Stop QUAD Alliance!" and "Stop NATO Alliance!"

Japanese Rally Against G7 Summit In Hiroshima

May 15, 2023 Telesur English. , , , , , ,
Over 200 Japanese people rallied at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in a protest against the upcoming Group of Seven (G7) summit, carrying banners reading "No War Accomplices" and "No G7." "Japan is saying it will send a peaceful message of abolishing nuclear weapons to the world through this summit, but at the same time it is seeking to rely on nuclear weapons to achieve 'national security.' This is contradictory," said Ichiro Yuasa, a Peace Depot spokesperson. Participant Fumi Akiyama said that Japan's use of Hiroshima, which had suffered the atomic bombing during World War II, to hold the G7 summit completely went against the good wishes of the people of Hiroshima to pray for peace.

Pivot To Asia Ramping Up Ominously

February 2, 2023 Lisa Savage, Went2thebridge.org. , , , ,
A huge new U.S. Marine Corps base on the island of Guam was paid for, in part, by Japan. Why would Japan do this? I read that it was part of a deal during the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” to get Marines out of Okinawa. Locals there despise the presence of gaijin (foreigners) who rape and kill girls and women, and Okinawans have been struggling for decades to get rid of them. Why export the misery to Guam? The indigenous population of Okinawa understands all too well what it’s like to live under Japanese imperialism. And taxpayers in Japan are by no means on board with ramping up military spending and abandoning Article 9 as the U.S. is demanding. Demonstrations against Japan’s remilitarization are common in Tokyo and other Japanese cities these days — but don’t expect to read about it in the U.S. corporate media.

Japan Reenlists As Washington’s Spear-Carrier

January 24, 2023 Patrick Lawrence, Scheer Post. , , ,
It is always the same when Japanese premiers travel to Washington to summit at the White House. Nothing seems to happen and nobody pays much attention even when important things happen, when we should all pay attention, and, when we do pay passing attention, we usually get it wrong. In January 1960, when Premier Nobusuke Kishi visited Washington, President Eisenhower blessed the war criminal and signed a security treaty the Japanese public vigorously opposed. That week Newsweek marked Kishi down as “that friendly, savvy Japanese salesman.” Kishi proved a salesman, all right. Three years later he used armed police to clear the Diet of opposition legislators and force ratification of the Anpo treaty, as the Japanese call it, with members of his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) the only ones present to vote on it.

Japan Rearms Under Washington’s Pressure

December 29, 2022 Sara Flounders, Workers World. , ,
The Dec. 16 announcement by Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of a new defense strategy, while doubling military spending by 2027 to implement it, is the largest defense shake-up in decades and a wake-up call to the antiwar movement. The decision includes openly acquiring offensive weapons and reshaping its military command structure for its expanded armed forces. On Dec. 23, the draft budget was approved by Kishida’s cabinet. Japan’s dangerous military expansion should set off international alarm bells. This major escalation is taking place based on intense U.S. imperialist pressure. It is the next step in the “Pivot to Asia,” aimed at threatening and surrounding China and attempting to reassert U.S. dominance in the Asia Pacific.

The US Military Is Poisoning Okinawa

December 2, 2022 Pat Elder, Military Poisons. , , , , ,
An Okinawan group of activists and physicians known as the Liaison to Protect the Lives of Citizens Against PFAS Contamination has taken the extraordinary step of collecting and analyzing blood samples from 387 residents of the tiny island who live near several U.S. military installations. The results confirm the worst fears of Okinawans regarding the military’s reckless use of PFAS over the last 50 years. Average blood levels for three PFAS compounds: PFOS, PFOA, and PFHxS, were about 25 nanograms per milliliter, (ng/mL), or parts per billion, for those tested from the cities of Ginowan, Kin Town, and Chatan. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma is located in Ginowan.

What’s Behind The Escalations In Korea?

October 8, 2022 Sam Carliner, Left Voice. , , ,
On October 4, in response to ongoing U.S. military buildup in the Pacific, North Korea fired missiles that flew over Japanese airspace — putting an end to five years of relative stability on the Korean peninsula. The United States responded by firing four missiles off the east coast of the peninsula. At the time of this writing, tensions will likely continue to escalate, but it’s unclear by how much.  The U.S. action was taken in close coordination with the militaries of Japan and South Korea. In September the United States and South Korea began their first large-scale joint military exercises since 2017. Large South Korean anti-war protests in opposition to these war games were ignored by corporate media outlets, which are now fearmongering over North Korea’s actions.

Okinawa Poll Results Hamper Plans To Expand US Military Presence

September 13, 2022 People's Dispatch. , , ,
In a major setback to plans for expanding US military presence in Japan, Denny Tamaki, the anti-US base governor of Okinawa, has won a second term in office, continuing his platform against US military bases in the prefecture. In the gubernatorial election held on Sunday, September 11, Tamaki won with a clear majority by defeating Japan’s ruling party candidate Atsushi Sakima. As per the final results released on Monday, Tamaki, supported by a coalition of opposition groups and local movements, secured 339,767 votes, nearly 51% of the total votes polled. Tamaki defeated his nearest rival Sakima for the second time, with a margin of nearly 10%. Local conservative politician Mikio Shimoji, also a former parliamentarian and minister, stood a distant third with around 8% votes.

How Shinzo Abe Whitewashed Genocidal Imperial Crimes

July 12, 2022 Ben Norton, Multipolarista. , , ,
Japan’s longest serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe tried to rewrite the history of the fascist Japanese empire and its genocidal crimes. And he and his Nazi-collaborating grandfather enjoyed staunch Western support. After World War II, the US government pardoned and recruited many of the fascists who had led imperial Japan, putting in power war criminals who had committed genocide in China, Korea, and Southeast Asia, carrying out biological warfare, human experimentation, and mass sexual slavery. Multipolarista editor Benjamin Norton discusses how Japan’s political system still today is a one-party right-wing regime run by descendants of these fascist war criminals.

The Death Of A Capable Revisionist

July 8, 2022 Moon of Alabama. , , ,
Last night some man with a self build gun killed the former prime minister of Japan Shinzo Abe. Adhering to family tradition Shinzo Abe has been an Japanese imperialist. As Peter Lee wrote about him back in 2013: Myth: Shinzo Abe is a leading member of the team of world and Asian democracies standing up to China in the name of universal values like “freedom of navigation” and to help ensure the shared peace and prosperity of Asia. Reality: Shinzo Abe is a revisionist nationalist using friction with China to pursue Japanese national interests, put Japan on the right side of a zero-sum economic equation opposite the PRC, maximize Japan’s independence of action as a regional hegemon, hopefully peacefully, but if not...

Iwakuni Residents Fight Back Against US Military Presence

May 7, 2022 People's Dispatch. , , ,
Iwakuni, Japan - A group of residents of the city of Iwakuni, in the Yamaguchi Prefecture, announced plans to use a lawsuit to demand a ban on military aircraft flights in the city on May 2. Residents have long complained of noise pollution from both Japanese and US aircrafts in the city’s military base, and have sought a ban on their activities as well as damages. The group is expected to file the lawsuit at the Yamaguchi District Court later in the month. Once filed, the lawsuit will be the second of its kind to emerge from Iwakuni. According to reports, the same group of residents were plaintiffs or supporters of an earlier lawsuit in 2009 that won JPY 735 million (USD 5.66 million) in damages for the noise pollution. The earlier lawsuit failed to win the ban on military aircrafts that the petitioner had also demanded.

With Rising COVID-19 Cases, US Bases In Japan Come Under Scrutiny

January 11, 2022 People's Dispatch. , , ,
The United States’ extensive military presence in Japan is coming under strong political scrutiny after a surge in COVID-19 infections. On Saturday, January 8, Japan reported more than 8,000 cases in a single day, the second time since September 2020, compared to just 456 reported on January 1. Local officials and Japanese opposition groups have blamed the US military bases in the country for being largely responsible for the rise in cases. Unlike previous waves that affected major metropolitan cities like Tokyo and Osaka, a significant number of the new infections are being reported from regions that house US troops stationed in Japan. On Saturday, when Japan recorded the highest daily reported numbers in months, the Okinawa prefecture which houses over 70% of all the US military personnel in Japan reported over 1,700 cases.

Pearl Harbor: Don’t Drink The Water Or Believe The Myths

December 5, 2021 David Swanson, Let's Try Democracy. , , ,
The U.S. government planned, prepared for, and provoked a war with Japan for years, and was in many ways at war already, waiting for Japan to fire the first shot, when Japan attacked the Philippines and Pearl Harbor. What gets lost in the questions of exactly who knew what when in the days before those attacks, and what combination of incompetence and cynicism allowed them to happen, is the fact that major steps had indisputably been taken toward war but none had been taken toward peace.

Okinawans Demand Clean Drinking Water From US Military

October 31, 2021 Robert Kajiwara, Peace For Okinawa Coalition. , , ,
For at least the past five years the Okinawa Prefectural Government has been monitoring the amount of foreign substances in Okinawa's water. In 2016 Okinawans discovered high levels of toxic chemicals originating from U.S. Kadena Air Base in the drinking water of the densely populated region of central Okinawa, home to some 450,000 people (ANN News). The chemicals are referred to as PFOS, PFAS, and PFOA, and are linked to a plethora of serious health problems, including cancer, reproductive issues, stunted development, immune diseases, cardiovascular problems, and hepatic issues, among others (CDC). They are referred to as “forever chemicals” because they do not breakdown and instead accumulate over time (EPA).

Hiroshima-Nagasaki: The Story They Want Us To Forget

August 5, 2021 Bruce K. Gagnon, Organizing Notes. , , , ,
The world's first nuclear explosion occurred on July 16, 1945, when a plutonium implosion device was tested at a site located 210 miles south of Los Alamos, New Mexico, on the barren plains of the Alamogordo Bombing Range, known as the Jornada del Muerto (day of the dead). US President Harry Truman ordered the first atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. Days later (August 9) Washington dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki. Official figures of those killed by the atomic bombs is well over 150,000 from the two cities. More than 100,000 were injured with most likely dying. Then over the years many thousands have died from the initial radiation poisoning.
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