It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
The move offered further evidence of the pacifist nation's march toward militarism, with one protester telling NBC News: "This is going to make it easier to go to war. It's wrong." According to news outlets, hundreds of protesters stood outside the parliament building on Thursday, chanting anti-war slogans during the debate and vote. Some held banners that read: "No to war legislation!"
And according to the Associated Press, polls show about 80 percent of Japanese oppose the bills and the majority believe the legislation is unconstitutional. Sheila Smith, writing at the Council on Foreign Relations' Asia Unbound blog, states that "[c]itizen activism against the prime minister’s policies is spreading, and on the streets and in town halls across Japan, there is a push to build a coalition of opposition to Abe’s effort at defense policy reform."
Late last week, Reuters reported that Japan is interested in joining a 12-nation NATO missile building consortium that would give Tokyo its first taste of a multinational defense project. The news outlet wrote: "Two Japanese sources familiar with the initiative said discussions in Tokyo were at an early stage, although joining the consortium would dovetail with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's more muscular security agenda, which included the lifting last year of a decades-old ban on arms exports."
originally posted by: TheChrome
This has been talked about for a while, now it has happened.
Things continue to get more and more tense in the Pacific.
www.nytimes.com...