Japan's Militarism Sets Dangerous Direction
Prime Minister Disgraces Himself, His Government and Country
Protest against Japan's
militarization at events marking the anniversary of the
bombing
of
Hiroshima, August 6, 2024.
In his official speech on the occasion of the 79th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan's then Prime Minister Fumio Kishida refused to identify the U.S. state as perpetrator of the inhuman act or shed light on why the U.S. acted contrary to the laws of war and decency. Not once did he mention the U.S. yet felt obliged to denounce Russia for its "nuclear threats." Kishida's speech revealed the depth to which Japan has sunk in its aggressive military alliance with U.S. imperialism to encircle and threaten China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Russia, and reduce Japan to a zone for war.
The U.S. atomic bombing of Japan when the Japanese militarists were already defeated and the world only awaited the formal signature of capitulation was a signal that U.S. imperialism had abandoned the united front against fascism and militarism and was renewing its campaign for world domination. The U.S. atomic bombing of Japan was the announcement that U.S. imperialism would commit any crime in its thirst for world hegemony and was assuming the mantle of defeated German Nazism, Japanese militarism and Italian fascism. The atomic bombing proclaimed that the U.S. was intensifying its original premise as a colonial, genocidal, enslaving and expansionist state, a threat to the peoples of the world that was bent on seizing the world's resources, markets, labour and economic and political power.
The atomic bombing, which was filmed and widely disseminated, was meant to instill in the world's peoples the image that if they were to resist U.S. pressure, invasion and control they would incur losses reminiscent of the horrific crimes of the fascist aggressors of World War II. And so it came to pass: the U.S. began its postwar rampage yet the people have never stopped resisting: just as the heroic Palestinian people are today resisting the U.S./Zionist campaign of expulsion and genocide against them; just as the Koreans have stood firm and forced the U.S. aggressors to halt their invasion at the 38th parallel; just as the Vietnamese people compelled the U.S. invaders to flee their country in 1975; just as the Chinese forced the Japanese to abandon their ruinous war to conquer China and chased the U.S.-supported pro-imperialist remnants across the Strait of Taiwan to there surround themselves with the U.S. military; just as the Cubans and many others have stood firm in their struggle for independence and resistance to U.S. imperialist control. Throughout the world following World War II, people have suffered U.S. invasion, interference and destruction on an unprecedented scale such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia, Syria and elsewhere.
The Japanese ruling elite in their defeat and capitulation in 1945 found in the U.S. victor an ally for post-war control and used its newfound military alliance to position Japan within the U.S. war economy. The Japanese ruling elite of private interests profited from supplying the U.S. wars of aggression in Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere including the U.S./NATO march east in Europe to threaten Russia and wage its current war to seize Ukraine, conquer Russia, and use that country's immense resources to seize all of Asia.
Demonstration for
Palestine at Peace Memorial Ceremony in Hiroshima, August
6,
2024
The people are determined to stop the global U.S. rampage and Japan can play an important role. The world's peoples today want Japan to break its military alliance with the U.S. imperialists and expel the thousands of U.S. troops and weapons of war that threaten China, the DPRK, the entire Korean Peninsula and Russia, which borders China, Korea and Japan. The people dearly want to see Japan as a zone of peace with a courageous anti-war government that expels the U.S. military occupationist forces and becomes a peaceful nation for the first time since its modern inception in 1868 upon the overthrow of the feudal economic and political system.
Kishida was replaced as Prime Minister on October 1 by Shigeru Ishiba, following the 2024 Liberal Democratic Party presidential election. Kishida, Ishiba and their political party are mostly despised in Japan but the people are trapped within the western liberal democratic system that sustains the control of the ruling elite. Even though Kishida has been replaced, the U.S.-imposed constitution and ruling system exclude the people from empowerment and deny them the right to decide on issues that affect their lives including the crucial one of war and peace. The world's peoples dearly want the Japanese to join them as one humanity in a project for peace, democracy and freedom for all in equality and mutual benefit. The peoples would rejoice to see in Japan an anti-war project that begins with the expulsion of the U.S. military occupiers and the establishment of peaceful relations with their Asian neighbours.
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 43 - October 14, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/TS544316.HTM
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