When the new U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, tweeted her concern about Japan's drive hunting of dolphins, that was a good thing. Sure, she upset the Japanese government and the fisher folk who earn money from the trade in dolphin meat but most Americans, particularly those who have seen the documentary film about this annual hunt, sympathize more with the dolphins. Her concern for the humane treatment of animals is praiseworthy, but it is only a first step.
It would be better for Ambassador Kennedy to expand her concern for marine life to the waters of Henoko, Okinawa, where the U.S. military plans to destroy several square kilometers of precious marine habitat important to soft corals and dugong, an endangered mammal similar to our manatees, in order to construct a Marine Air Base to replace the controversial Futenma Base, which the Clinton Administration committed to moving or closing in 1996. Eighteen years later, the best the U.S. can do to honor that pledge is to destroy sea life in another part of Okinawa and disrupt an existing community that has already lived next to a U.S. Munitions Depot since 1959. The new base will be larger than the Futenma air field it will replace, and much larger than the munitions depot, so it is hard to see the change as anything other than part of the U.S. military “pivot” to Asia, a move that the present government of Japan wholeheartedly supports.
Since she has so upset the government of Japan, Amb. Kennedy might also consider reversing her support for the Japanese government's strict new secrecy law, which the Abe Government railroaded it through Japan's legislature in early December. The law is very unpopular and seen as part of a larger effort to re-militarize the country, a policy goal perceived to underlie Prime Minister Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine recently. (What so upsets Japan's neighbors, and should upset Americans, is that the Shinto shrine has become a focal point and gathering place for those in Japan who deny Japanese war crimes and enthusiastically advocate a return to militarism.) In addition to revitalizing Japan's Self Defense Force, Abe hopes to expand Japan's military reach and regional role and perhaps ultimately to amend or repeal Article Nine of Japan's Constitution, the article which renounces the use of war as an instrument of policy by the state. The Abe Government has even floated the idea that Japan should consider acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, a trial balloon which by itself risks destabilizing Northeast Asia—North Korea is closer to Japan than New York is to Chicago and quite touchy about threats to its existence.
Amb. Kennedy could finally tweet a strong statement of support for preserving Article 9 after first explaining to her own government the risks in aiding and abetting a Japanese military rival at the present time. Neither action would endear her to the Japanese government or our own, but it would be consistent with her principles and beliefs as a Catholic in public life.
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