Article 9 – No war

Japan “doesn’t” have an army since 1947, that’s because of what is written in the Article 9 from the new constitution designed by the USA:

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. 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. Read original

But Japan HAS an army, in fact it has one of the most powerful armies in the world, but instead of calling it “army” they call it “Japan Self-Defense Forces”(JSDF). Where is the super-trick? Well, what they did is to create a special department inside the National Police Agency. Legally talking, the Japanese army is just a “special police”. I’m sure the Japanese National Police Agency is the police with more money in the world! In fact, only the “Self-Defense Forces” (A police department) are the 6th “army” in terms of annual expenditure in the world. They are after USA, France, UK, China and Germany. That’s a lot of money for “just a” police department, isn’t it?

“Let’s protect the Article 9”

Even having an army with guns, boats, planes and all that kind of useless stuff, they can’t shoot or attack, they can’t even defend themselves. In fact, if you think about it, they have even less power than the National Police. For example, when Mishima Yukio captured the commandant of the Ichigaya Camp, headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan’s Self Defence Forces. They could not stop him, and they had to call the police! The army had to call the police in order to stop five civilians armed with katanas, sounds stupid right? But rules are the rules, and sometimes rules are stupid. I wonder why they don’t respect the Article 9, that it’s a nice rule instead of playing with riddles.

Isn’t it interesting that the “Self-Defense forces”, the Japanese Army, it is supposed to protect a constitution that prohibits its existence as an army. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! But that’s not new, the world is full of stupidity, hypocrisy and irony.

I like the Article 9, the world would be better if every constitution would have a similar article and everyone would RESPECT it 100%.