Japan: Red State

Japan's new Prime Minister seems to be using the Bush Administration as his role model. Some bits of this article are particularily disturbing:

One of Mr. Abe’s first steps was to increase the number of advisors to the prime minister, adding new posts for aides in charge of national security, education and the North Korean abduction issue. Members of Mr. Abe’s staff have said these aides will have their own staff of experts and researchers, allowing them to draw up policy directly without relying on ministry bureaucrats.

“The prime minister’s office should be built into a control center for the whole nation,” said Yasuhisa Shiozaki, the newly appointed chief Cabinet secretary. “The office will put forward policies based on strategic thinking."

He's going to be the Decider! The strateginator-in-chief! But first he's going to create jobs- for his hand-picked cabal of cronies.
You might think I'm laughing, but I'm not.
There are some serious implications to a nationalistic, expansionist Japan with a bunch of newly appointed high-ranking cronies with little accountabilty or oversight "to draw up policy directly without relying on ministry bureaucrats"

Consider this: A jingoized Japan builds a new military in response to a real or perceived North Korean 'threat'. Even though this would violate their post-WWII Constitution , who could stop them? The U.S. has built N. Korea and lil' Kim up as a boogeyman and Bush has set a precedent for 'pre-emptive wars'...so, a little nightmare scenario: After a very rapid military expansion, a bomb goes off in Japan - perhaps a Korean missile is blamed- true or not, Mr. Abe uses the excuse to invade North Korea. The U.S. would be pressured into vetoing any UN resolutions aimed at preventing this; by the time these events occur, any UN influence would likely be nearly evaporated due it's own lack of gravitas and cohesion.

What if Mr. Abe gets his way?

If you think Japan couldn't produce a powerful military very, very quickly, think again. Mitsubishi, manufacturer of the deadly 'Zero', is still in business and I'm sure that the state-of-the-art factories already in place could be converted to produce fighter jets and tanks in a timely and effective manner.
I'd also wager that Honda would make pretty good tanks and they'd be a lot cheaper than ours.


But that's crazy, right? Japan would never build a real army! Right? Read on:

Instead, many here believe one of Mr. Abe’s top priorities will likely be revising the pacifist Constitution, written by Japan’s postwar American occupiers, to permit the country to have full-fledged armed forces. Mr. Abe has also spoken in favor of a new law to allow Japan to send troops overseas on peacekeeping missions, and of closer military cooperation with Washington, Tokyo’s most important ally.

OK- so he gets his army, and he uses it to spread freedom on North Korea. Predictably, it goes about as well as Bush's war in Iraq- but with such close financial and political ties with Tokyo, it will be difficult for whoever is the U.S. President at that time to intervene in the new , 'pre-emptive' aggression.
This is when China starts getting really dicey with the new Japanese Army. There's a long, bloody history here...what happens if China declares an alliance with oh, let's say, Iran, Cuba, Venezuala and Pakistan? Get Japan out of Korea or we call in our debts, China might say to the US.
Suddenly Japan has a lot of enemies- some of which are also unfriendly towards the USA.
Does the American President condemn Japan for it's attack, or does he send military aid to our Japanese 'ally' instead?

That is what Khruschev did in 1960- he sent Russian missiles to Cuba in order to discourage another Bay of Pigs fiasco- it's not unreasonable to think that a future US leader would send some US nukes to Japan as a 'deterrent' if Japan felt strongly threatend.

WWIII seems a likely result. War needs oil.

And if we are fighting Iran and Venezeula and Iraq is in chaos, where do we get our oil? Will Norway choose sides? Norway is the world's third largest oil producer, so it will be an important factor as pipelines are cut and resources dry up . Will the EU stay out? England seems a bit weary of fighting America's wars-they have enough trouble at home...

Could we still get oil from the Saudis if the Chinese are willing to pay more- maybe even pony up some missiles in the bargain? I hope we never find out.

Mr. Abe also has some very regressive social agendas:

Another was the selection of Eriko Yamatani to the post of education advisor. A 56-year-old former reporter for the Sankei Shimbun, a right-wing daily, Ms. Yamatani has been a vocal critic of sexual education and teaching of "excessive" gender equality in schools. The incoming state minister in charge of gender equality, Sanae Takaichi, was another social conservative who opposed allowing women to legally keep their maiden name after marriage.

Holy freekin' Animal Farm!
What exactly is "excessive" equality? That makes no sense.
Between people, things are either equal or they are not, as Orwell's pigs famously illustrated.
There cannot be "excessive" equality- only equality or inequality.
The fact that Mr. Abe created a Ministry in charge of gender equality indicates that gender equality is, and will continue to be, a serious problem in Japanese society. His appointees are not exactly Susan B. Anthony types, that much is certain.

A woman should stay home and raise the children - and the schools should change:

...the new prime minister risks angering Asian neighbors with his calls for Japanese schools to teach more patriotism and traditional values, at a time when many of Japan’s former wartime victims accuse the country of whitewashing military atrocities from its textbooks.

The last time the Japanese stressed nationalism, patriotism and traditional values , they created a generation of Banzai warriors and Kamikaze pilots. I'm not saying that this is what will happen, but this is how these things start- Japan has the money and industry to build an army quickly, and the new PM is using his nation's long-standing grudge with North Korea to his polarizing political advantage in much the same way Bush Jr. used his dad's beef with Saddam to galvanize public support for his really bad idea.

“Mr. Abe is definitely trying to build something that looks like the White House,” said Tomoaki Iwai, a professor of politics at Nihon University.

Mark my words. Nothing good will come of this.