Many Republicans have suggested Ronald Reagan would not be welcome in Donald Trump’s version of the Grand Old Party. I’ll leave that debate to others. But I am sure if Reagan and Trump were on the same debate stage, the Gipper would be recycling the line he used so effectively against President Jimmy Carter in 1980. “There he goes again!”
This time the topic was U.S./Japanese relations. At a rally in Iowa last Friday, the Republican nominee suggested that mutual defense of the two countries was a one-way street.
You know we have a treaty with Japan, where if Japan is attacked, we have to use the full force and might of the United States. If we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to do anything. They can sit home and watch Sony television, OK?
Donald, as usual, is wrong on two counts. First, from a military perspective, it is not a matter of not having to do anything, they constitutionally CANNOT do anything. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution adopted after World War II states:
ARTICLE 9.
(1) Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
(2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.
Second, just because they do not HAVE to do anything, doesn’t mean they have not chosen to support U.S. security. For example, Japan has provided logistical and financial support to NATO since the early 1990s “in a wide range of areas, including peace-support and crisis-management activities, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, cyber defence, defence against terrorism, non-proliferation, as well as participation in military activities.” The full April 2016 press release on NATO/Japanese cooperation can be viewed using the link below.
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_50336.htm
Japanese financial assistance in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and the reconstruction and stabilization of Afghanistan now totals more than $10 billion.
Maybe Donald thought the topic was U.S./Javanese mutual defense efforts.
“NEVER MIND!”
For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP
As always, you teach us something about the world. Trump then is teetering on dementia if he doesn’t know this about the Japanese Constitution; Article 9. And how they consciously contribute through NATO.
This in a nutshell, is why he is not fit for the highest and most complicated job in the USA. He should know these facts! I’ll repeat myself— KNOW THESE FACTS.!!!!!!!!!