Liberal Japan

Recently in a radio program at antiwar.com Michael Scheuer stated the following:

I think part of America’s problem is that the American congress, and both parties are responsible, have abdicated their responsibility for declaring war. They passed these resolutions to allow the president to go to war and it lets them off the hook … it allows them to change their mind and to start attacking the president. I would think that one of the great safe guards for the American people against unnecessary wars like Iraq is demanding that the constitution be abided by. That there be a formal declaration of war that everyone of those 535 characters have to stand up and say yea or nea.

This is all too true.

Let’s travel back to 2002, prior to the Iraq war, to the American congress. There was a great debate over the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution. In a speech delivered on October 8, 2002 on the floor of the House, U.S. representative Ron Paul stated the following:

This is not a resolution to declare war. We know that. This is a resolution that does something much different. This resolution transfers the responsibility, the authority, and the power of the Congress to the President so he can declare war when and if he wants to. He has not even indicated that he wants to go to war or has to go to war; but he will make the full decision, not the Congress, not the people through the Congress of this country in that manner. … My argument is when we go to war through the back door, we are more likely to have the wars last longer and not have resolution of the wars, such as we had in Korea and Vietnam. We ought to consider this very seriously. … I must oppose this resolution, which regardless of what many have tried to claim will lead us into war with Iraq. This resolution is not a declaration of war, however, and that is an important point: this resolution transfers the Constitutionally-mandated Congressional authority to declare wars to the executive branch. This resolution tells the president that he alone has the authority to determine when, where, why, and how war will be declared. It merely asks the president to pay us a courtesy call a couple of days after the bombing starts to let us know what is going on. This is exactly what our Founding Fathers cautioned against when crafting our form of government: most had just left behind a monarchy where the power to declare war rested in one individual. It is this they most wished to avoid.

Why did Ron Paul state this? He explained in an essay written around the same time as the speech:

The language of Article I, section 8, is quite clear: only Congress has the authority to declare war. Yet Congress in general, and the committee in particular, have done everything possible to avoid making such a declaration. Why? Because members lack the political courage to call an invasion of Iraq what it really is – a war – and vote yes or no on the wisdom of such a war. Congress would rather give up its most important authorized power to the President and the UN than risk losing an election later if the war goes badly. There is always congressional “support” for a popular war, but the politicians want room to maneuver if the public later changes its mind. So members take half steps, supporting confusingly worded “authorizations” that they can back away from easily if necessary.

Now, let’s fast forward again to the present, and look at what two prominent democrats said during a recent presidential debate in South Carolina:

Former Sen. John Edwards: No, I think that’s a question for the conscience of anybody who voted for this war. I mean, Senator Clinton and anyone else who voted for this war has to search themselves and decide whether they believe they’ve voted the right way. If so, they can support their vote. If they believe they didn’t, I think it’s important to be straightforward and honest, because I think one of the things we desperately need in our next president is someone who can restore the trust bond between the American people and the president of the United States. Because I think that trust has been devastated over the last six years. And I think, beyond that, it’s important for the president of the United States to restore trust between the president and the rest of the world. It is impossible for the United States of America to provide the stabilization and the leadership in the world that the world desperately needs from us unless, first, the American people trust their president, believe he’s an open, honest, decent human being, and the rest of the world has faith in the president of the United States.

Williams: Senator Clinton, I owe you a response probably in terms of your vote.

Clinton: Well, Brian, I take responsibility for my vote. Obviously, I did as good a job I could at the time. It was a sincere vote based on the information available to me.And I’ve said many times that, if I knew then what I now know, I would not have voted that way. But I think that the real question before us: Is what do we do now? How do we try to persuade or require this president to change course? He is stubbornly refusing to listen to the will of the American people. He threatens to veto the legislation we’ve passed, which has been something that all of us have been advocating for a number of years now. And I can only hope that he will not veto it. And I can only end by saying that if this president does not get us out of Iraq, when I am president, I will.

Former Senator Edwards is wrong. He talks about “anybody who voted for this war.” He nor anyone else voted for war. Instead he basically voted to give the president free reign to use military power in Iraq.

If the congress had voted to declare war on Iraq, they could now vote to end the war. However, as the congress turned their authority over to the president, they are free to support or not support the war depending on how many political points they can score.

What Ron Paul stated has turned out to be prescient.

Now, I bring this up to point out three things.

1. The English speaking media is happy to parrot out almost like a catch phrase that changing Japan’s constitution adds to fears of growing militarism in Japan. The blog, Ampoten, has written about this bias, and points part of the blame at the influence of the Chinese press. See here for the article. I don’t necessarily agree with everything in that article, but I do think most Japan watchers are familiar with the sort of knee jerk reaction to Japan changing the constitution. Immediately, article 9 is invoked and the return of Japanese militarism. What’s amazing here is that this is done in blissful ignorance that the American congress is not fulfilling its own constitutional duties by shirking off war responsibility onto the president, and that — at least according to authors like Andrew Bacevich — America has already traveled a fair way up the road to militarism. Basically, the perceived threat of militarism in Japan gets more media attention than the real presence of militarism in America.

2. Japan is not alone in using obtuse interpretations of its constitution in order to foster the growth of the military. Clearly, Japan should not even really have a military. Clearly, Japan should not be engaged in operations overseas. Yet it is. This is generally explained away using obtuse legal arguments which like the Emperor’s new clothes everyone knows are plain out silly, but that it is inappropriate to say so. Similarly, in America, the idea that the government can basically go to war without congressional approval has become ordinary operating procedure. No declaration of war was made prior to the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the invasion of Grenada, and in the recent war with Iraq. Not only that, but the American government constantly engages in proxy wars around the globe by funding guerillas (basically terrorists) so long as they are engaged against the enemy. It’s hard to view any of this as constitutional in the sense that congress has never formally declared war against any of these enemies. So when the issue of Japan reinterpreting its constitution comes up, perhaps reinterpretations of America’s constitution should be used as a comparison.

3. Now, the most important lesson to draw here is just how problematic changing article 9 of Japan’s constitution will be. Indeed a little bit of fear is not a bad thing. However, the fear should not based on some kind of irrational notion that Japanese are culturally militant. Instead it should be based on the fact that any country can have trouble controlling its military. A clear majority of Americans oppose the war in Iraq. A clear message was sent to congress last election to bring the soldiers home, yet there they are still in Iraq. Not only this, but everyday the rhetoric regarding Iran gets hotter and hotter. Will the president even bother to inform congress if it becomes necessary to bomb Iran? To what extent do people in America have control over the actions of their own military? Japanese people who fear overseas involvement and lack of control of their military should take note of this as they debate exactly how article 9 should be modified.