Just when you thought you'd seen the last palpitating puppet march walleyed into a legacy of disgrace, here goes the Japanese Prime Minister walking into a propeller for the "War Against Al Qaeda."
Mr. Abe’s resignation came only three days after the start of a current parliamentary session. In a speech at the start of the session on Monday and in news conferences, Mr. Abe had laid out plans for the future, including extending a law to allow Japan’s naval forces to participate in a mission in the Indian Ocean. Referring to the law on the Indian Ocean mission, he added: “We should seek a continued mission to fight terrorism under a new prime minister.” The opposition leader, Ichiro Ozawa, has focused his attention on a contentious law that allows Japan’s naval forces to join a mission to refuel American and other ships participating in the war in Afghanistan. The law will expire on Nov. 1 unless it is extended.
The debate over the law is expected to be bruising. Opinion polls have shown that most Japanese opposed extending the law. And Mr. Ozawa tapped into a general unease that, under Mr. Abe and his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, Japan had grown too close to the United States militarily, even to the point of possibly violating its pacifist Constitution.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Japan has passed special laws to circumvent its pacifist Constitution to participate in the American-led wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq. But the Japanese government has released few details about the nature of its assistance to the United States military, leading many opposition politicians to suggest that Japanese troops are in fact violating the Constitution.
Opposition politicians have suggested that Japan has refueled American vessels that were involved, not in Afghanistan, but in Iraq. In addition, they have said that Japan’s air force — which has been transporting American troops between Kuwait and Baghdad — has clearly overstepped its stated mission of engaging in humanitarian activities.
A special pale hell awaits The Coward
