by Reza Fiyouzat

The thing that is too depressing is what everybody knows yet gets zero negative mention in the official press, especially the right wing newspapers such as the Yomiuri Shimbun or its associated papers and magazines: the shame of Japan’s rapid remilitarization, much encouraged and helped along by the US since at least the 1990s, and much accelerated since the coming to power of George W. Bush. The International Herald Tribune of August 8, 2005, reporting on the atomic bombings’ anniversary ceremonies in Hiroshima, described the survivors’ mood as worrisome. An interviewed survivor who is a physician summed up well how the sands have shifted. “Ten years ago, few could question Article 9 of the Constitution [which bans participation in offensive wars]. But people talk about it openly now.” Another survivor, Akihiro Takahashi, former director of the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, was quoted as saying, “The dispatch of the Self Defense Forces to Iraq is completely out of line with pacifism. In the future the peace constitution will no doubt be revised, and that will lead to conscription and, eventually, the possession of nuclear arms.”....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug05/Fiyouzat0815.htm