【ニッポンの新常識】 安保法案成立の陰で民主党が犯した〝致命的ミス″
Common Knowledge Revisited 34 ： DPJ Fatal Errors Seen in Security Bills Passage
http://www.zakzak.co.jp/society/domestic/news/20150926/dms1509261000001-n1.htm
The National Defense Bills were passed in the wee hours of the morning on September 19 by the Upper House and became law. Since the bills were submitted with unwavering resolve to protect the peace and safety of Japan by the ruling parties who hold more than two-thirds of the seats in the Lower House and a majority of the seats in the Upper House, their passage was a done deal.
In this case, the opposition parties imploded. They seem to have had as their first goal to run out the clock to block passage, with their second goal to use this issue for PR purposes as an election tactic, but they never proposed a concrete alternative, and with their focus on politics from the beginning to the end, they provoked somewhat of a backlash.
First, the Communist Party labeled the bills as “War Bills.” The Social Democratic Party asserted that the result would lead to a military draft. This irresponsible and well-worn tactic of sloganeering as a way to drive false rumors was appalling.
The problem was that the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which had held power for three years and three months, piggy-backed on opposition demonstrations. It was a fatal error.
The argument was made that the proposed bills were unconstitutional. Indeed, at the time the Japanese Constitution was adopted, the maintenance of armed forces for the purpose of self-defense, and even a war of self-defense itself, was deemed unconstitutional. That is why Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida in 1950 undertook a substantial reinterpretation of the constitution which made it possible later to establish the self-defense forces. To ignore this inconvenient reality and then to hold out the further 1972 reinterpretation which held that “the self-defense forces are constitutional, but collective self-defense is unconstitutional” is a very shallow constitutional argument.
DPJ President Katsuya Okada’s flip-flops are also worrisome.
Concerning collective self-defense, in the Yomiuri Shinbun in May 2003, Okada stated “It cannot be stated definitively that no exercise of collective self-defense is allowed by the Constitution,” and in the July 2005 issue of Chuo Koron magazine, he stated “In the end, in each circumstance the current leaders must put their political lives on the line and make a determination.” This was pointed out in the Upper House committee deliberations by Masahisa Sato of the LDP.
I was struck that Okada could foretell the decisions taken by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in this circumstance, but Okada protested vigorously that his comments had been taken out of context. What happened with Okada?
One other serious error by the DPJ was their handling of the alleged assault in the Upper House committee. There is testimony and video evidence supporting the deep suspicion that during the voting on the security bills, LDP female member Mizuho Ohnuma was assaulted by DPJ member Yataro Tsuda.
The DPJ leadership announced publicly before the voting that they would “use all available means to block passage.” If they neglect to address this allegation, there is a good possibility that they will cement an image that the DPJ is a party which condones violence. They should face up to this issue squarely.
And it is inevitable that media outlets which fail to report this incident will also be labeled as “condoning violence.”
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