International Affairs: December 2003 Archives

Here's a perfect example of why we need to maintain Coalition control of Iraq, and not turn the country over to the UN or the Iraqis too soon.

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro — Jailed former President Slobodan Milosevic (search) and another U.N. war crimes suspect won seats in Serbia's parliament as an extreme nationalist party swept weekend elections, according to results released Monday.

Vojislav Seselj's (search) Serbian Radical Party, which supported Milosevic's Balkan war (search) campaigns in the 1990s, won 81 seats in Sunday's ballot for the 250-seat parliament — far more than the pro-Western groups that toppled Milosevic three years ago, the state electoral commission said.

It looks like the Serbian Radical Party won seats mainly due to the economic difficulties in Serbia since the war and the appearance of corruption in the pro-West coalition that's ruled the country for the past few years.

After campaigning on a platform of defiance to the West and accusing the post-Milosevic leadership of corruption, the Radicals have also focused on the devastated economy and from deep anti-West feelings generated by the NATO bombing of Serbia for its crackdown in Kosovo in 1999.

Milosevic, who presided over four Balkan wars, has been on trial at The Hague since February 2002 on 66 counts of war crimes, including genocide. Seselj is accused of allowing paramilitary troops under his control to murder and torture non-Serbs during the Balkan wars.

The Ba'ath party must be entirely rooted out and disposed of before our coalition leaves Iraq. We must guarantee that anti-west radicalism has no place in the newly rebuilt country, despite the tough economics that always follow military defeat.

Others have speculated on the likelihood of terrorist groups transforming into mere organized crime syndicates as they struggle to raise money (Steven and Wretchard for two, although I can't find the links), and now it looks like there's evidence that it's happening.

Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network has become deeply involved in international drug trafficking, using the money to buy arms and, possibly, radioactive material for use in a so-called "dirty" nuclear bomb, senior U.S. officials say.

The seizure earlier this month of boats carrying heroin and hashish, and operated by al Qaeda-linked persons, has brought to light an al Qaeda drug operation that has grown tremendously since the September 11 attacks, the sources say.

"Bin Laden does not mind trafficking in drugs, even though it's against the teaching of Islam, because it's being used to kill Westerners," said a defense official who asked not to be named. "He has allies and associates who are not members per se, but who move products for him and take drugs and buy arms and give the arms to al Qaeda."

I'm not pro-drug -- and drug legalization and regulation are complicated issues in their own right -- but if terrorists start turning more of their energy towards drugs then that means they'll spend less time trying to blow things up, right? On the other hand they'll have more money to play with, which would increase their terror capabilities.

Personally, I expect the former. As terrorists get involved more heavily is standard organized crime they'll gain a huge incentive to avoid attention and not rock the boat. They may want money now to fund attacks, but eventually they'll just start wanting money for itself, to support burgeoning hedonistic lifestyles like all drug lords the world over. They'll start fighting amongst themselves for money, territory, and power, and just like the Mafia they'll do everything possible to escape the attention of law enforcement -- getting raided, arrested, or caught with bombs is bad for business.

Additionally, the drug-running industry is pretty crowded already, and if terrorist groups start stepping on toes the lesser criminals may start giving us some useful tips they may not have bothered with before. Greed corrupts the best of us, and I have no doubt that greed will foster competition and conflict between terrorist/criminal groups who once cooperated due to a common enemy or a shared ideology.

Oh no wait, my mistake.

Planes from dozens of countries landed in the provincial capital of Kerman with relief supplies, volunteers and dogs trained to find bodies and survivors in the debris.

U.S. military C-130 cargo planes were among them, despite long-severed diplomatic relations and President Bush's characterization of Iran as being part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea. ...

The United States arranged an airlift of 150,000 pounds of food, water and medical supplies. Four military planes flew into the country from Kuwait.

So an Iranian city is flattened by an earthquake and we send relief supplies... if I remember correctly, Iran's leaders were dancing with the Palestinians after 9/11. Huh.

Now, I completely support sending this aid. There are some good pragmatic reasons to do it, even apart from humanitarian concerns. First, the Iranian people tend to look on America pretty favorably and offering help in this tough situation reinforces their opinion. Second, it's a nice reminder to the Ayatollah that our armed forces are just a hop, skip, and a jump away.

"The reception was beyond expectations," said U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Jeff Bohn, who was on the first plane. "The warmth that the Iranian military and civil-aviation workers gave us was truly incredible."

The Iranian people like America. I've got a friend at church from Iran, and I hope to post a Q&A with him soon.

Donald Sensing has a post denouncing the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (in response to a post by Rosemary on Dean's World), specifically American use of nuclear weapons as a response to the detonation of a nuclear device in an American city by terrorists. The term "Mutually Assured Destruction" isn't really apt anymore (and Rev. Sensing doesn't use it), because there are no other nations (Russia included) with the power to annihilate the United States. What MAD has morphed into is a promise to respond to a nuclear attack with the maximum possible force, rather than "proportional force". We have no desire to trade cities one-for-one with terrorists; as soon as they show a willingness to nuke us, game over -- we will respond with enough force to end the war immediately.

Rev. Sensing claims such a response would be immoral, but this quote makes me wonder if he understands MAD:

I reject a nuclear response that seeks simply to lash out at presumed enemies and make Arabs suffer for suffering’s sake. Killing just to kill would not be warranted even under such grievous circumstances.

There are two parts to MAD: the threat, and the follow-through. The threat is intended to convince our enemies that using nuclear weapons against us simply isn't worth it. Terrorists can't get nukes without the aid of some rogue nation (as Rev. Sensing points out -- North Korea or Iran, most probably), and the threat of MAD should serve to deter those nations from helping the terrorists.

It sounds like what Rev. Sensing most objects to, then, is the possibility that we'd actually follow through on the MAD threat if we were nuked. We've never had to before, but there's no guarantee that the threat itself will deter everyone forever. The threat itself is brilliant and costs no lives, but if we're ever nuked we'll be put in a tough position. Do we retaliate with overwhelming (non-proportional) force, as we threatened to do, or do we back down? If we back down, our future threats will be powerless and we won't have any means to deter future nuclear attacks. If we don't back down, and we actually obliterate a city or two in the nation(s) we determine were involved, we'll be responsible for killing a great many people who were only peripherally involved in the attack against us.

However, contrary to what some of Rev. Sensing's commenters claim, such retaliation would not be "murder" or "revenge" -- such terms have no meaning in war. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed when we nuked Japan, but that action probably saved millions of lives (Japanese and American); it wasn't murder it was a strategic use of force calculated to end the war, and it did. Furthermore, since the utility of the threat wholly depends on our willingness to make good on it, it's not revenge to respond to an attack in the exact manner we guaranteed we would. If a thug pulls a knife on a cop, and the cop tells the thug to drop the knife or he'll shoot, it's not "revenge" for the cop to shoot the thug if instead of dropping the knife he charges to attack.

Far from being immoral, MAD is the only moral policy I've ever heard of that has a chance of deterring nuclear attacks against the United States. Rev. Sensing proposes some other possible methods in his post, but they'd all take years to implement, and would do nothing to prevent future nuclear attacks in the mean time. Rev. Sensing's proposals are all excellent long-term policies (most of which we should be doing now), but such possibilities will not be sufficient to deter our enemies from using nuclear weapons against us. You can't correct a child's behavior by threatening to send him to military school in ten years.

Update:
Rev. Sensing has updated his own post in response to mine. First, I'd like to say that I'm sure he's more familiar with MAD than I am -- it was his characterization of deterrence as mere "lashing out" that made me wonder.

By rejecting the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, Rev. Sensing seems to leave no real purpose for their existence at all. We certainly won't use them pre-emptively, and if we won't use them in retaliation either then there's no reason to have them. We can't even threaten to use them if our enemies know we will never follow through.

He describes many dire consequences that may follow from our retaliatory use of nuclear weapons, and he's probably right about many of them. But are those possible consequences worse than seeing another US city nuked by terrorists? I'm not sure that's the case.

We could continue to deter Russia and other nuclear nations with the rest of our arsenal, and withdraw our soldiers from around the world if need be. It would obviously be a Bad Thing all around, but would it be worse than losing another US city to another nuke?

Would our retaliation prevent another attack? No guarantees, but it could sure motivate some of our enemies to clamp down on the terrorists in their midsts right quick. If not -- if they're determined to fight a nuclear war -- then we have no alternatives anyway.

As for furthering the cause of Christ... I'll have to consider it. Off the top of my head I can't think of an effective nuclear deterrence policy that would also win people to Jesus if it had to be used. War in general doesn't tend to turn people to Christ, but does that mean we should never fight? Some pacifists say so, but their positions aren't convincing.

There's been a lot of speculation that the United States wants to use information from Saddam to blackmail France, Germany, Russia, and others into being a bit more amenable to American foreign policy. The idea being that those nations wouldn't want it widely known that they were in bed with Saddam and actively working to help him.

It sounds like a good theory, but if it's true then why is President Bush undercutting Saddam's credibility?

But many, including President Bush (search), are doubtful Saddam will spew forth much truth.

"I wouldn't trust a word he said," Bush said in an interview with ABC News this week. "He's deceived and lied to the world in the past. He's not going to change his stripes. And I wouldn't hold much account to the word of Saddam Hussein."

One possibility is that this statement was made as part of blackmail deal in exchange for cooperation from the Weasels, but I don't think that's likely since the statement also reduces the power of future accusations based on Saddam's knowledge.

Someone with more historical knowledge than I have (Donald?, SDB?) please comment on the effect the UN had on the Cold War. Was it beneficial or detrimental for the United States? Would we have been better off without it? Would the Cold War have been fundamentally different without the UN in the picture?

Donald Sensing is entirely correct in writing:

I'll add a thought that I have not seen anywhere. In all the discussions about how Saddam's trial must be fair and the outcome just, surely I am not the only one who thinks that justice cannot be served by any verdict except guilty.

Saddam must be found guilty and there must not be any possibility of finding otherwise. Yes, I know this sounds repulsive to tradtional American virtues of law and courts. But Saddam's case is truly unique. before you hastily rush to comment, stop and really think through what a "not guilty" verdict would mean, and what it would engender.

Saddam's guilt is absolutely unquestionable, and the verdict, to be just, must be foregone from the beginning. So reaching a verdict is not the real issue of the trial. Fully exposing Saddam's deeds to the Iraqi people and the world is the point. Enabling the Iraqi people to face their horrors so they may grow out of them is the point. Discovering the truth of Saddam's ties to nations and international agencies that propped him up is the point.

The trick, though, is in getting Saddam to give us the information we want, and it's hard to imagine him spilling all the beans if he knows there's a guaranteed noose after the 20 questions, no matter what. Part of the trial will revolve around all sorts of "international law" issues that won't add up to much, and the rest will be bargaining between the Iraqis (and the CPA) and Saddam over how much info he'll give them.

I expect he'll be forced -- through mild forms of torture -- to incriminate himself, and his captors will probably hang the life-in-prison carrot in front of him the whole way to give him some incentive to cooperate. I don't think the CPA will let the Iraqis use hard-core torture techniques, and I don't think the Iraqis will let him escape execution (not that the CPA would want him to).

In the first of what I expect will be a long line of critical pronouncements, Iraq's new foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, has denounced the UN for failing to help rescue his country from Saddam Hussein. No matter how Kofi Annan tries to spin it, he's going to have a hard time denying the Iraqis the moral high-ground they've earned over decades of oppression.

Taking a harsh view of the inability of quarreling members of the Security Council to endorse military action in Iraq, Mr. Zebari said, "One year ago, the Security Council was divided between those who wanted to appease Saddam Hussein and those who wanted to hold him accountable. ...

It was not immediately clear how the accusatory tone of Mr. Zebari's speech affected the closed-door discussion over the United Nations' role in Iraq that followed, but Secretary General Kofi Annan, the first to emerge from the hall, appeared taken aback.

"Now is not the time to pin blame and point fingers," he told reporters. Saying that Mr. Zebari was "obviously entitled to his opinion," Mr. Annan said that the United Nations had done as much for Iraq as it could under the circumstances and was prepared to do more.

What circumstances, pray tell? Oh right, the circumstances involving huge (illegal) weapon and oil contracts between Saddam Hussein, France, Germany, and Russia. Naturally, there wasn't anything the UN could do to oust Saddam considering that two of the permanent members of the Security Council were actively working to keep him in power. That's precisely the problem with the UN. International organizations only work when all the participants share the same goals.

What's more, no organization can make any credible claim to authority when history has shown time and again that it will cut and run as soon as it's threatened.

Mr. Annan led off the open session of the council with a speech drawing from his report last week that ruled out a swift return of the United Nations to Iraq because of the bombing of its Baghdad headquarters in August and continuing attacks on diplomats and relief workers. ...

Mr. Zebari took issue with these steps, saying that Iraq could guarantee the United Nations whatever security it needed to return sooner and noting the importance of having the organization back in Baghdad.

"Your help and expertise cannot be effectively delivered from Cyprus or Amman," he said.

The UN is an ineffectual debating club and a playground for murderous dictators with no more moral authority than its most corrupt veto-wielding member and no more democracy than the most tyrannical warlord who appoints a representative.

"President Bush told Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview that the Iraqi leader should face the 'ultimate penalty' for his legacy of violence in Iraq." The use of that dodgy phrasing reminds me of the orders given by a cartoon super-villain regarding the captured hero: "take care of him!". You mean, like, kill him?

Couldn't President Bush say the magic words? Or is it not good politics?

Every news site has quoted reactions to Saddam's capture from people around the world. Some of them don't seem to be too pleased:

But in Tikrit, police broke up a pro-Saddam protest by hundreds of university students who chanted: "With our blood and with our souls, we will defend you, Saddam."

I hope they get on with shedding their blood and souls as soon as possible.

Much like Saddam himself, I bet it's all talk and no walk. Some reports indicate that the Islamofascists are starting to realize they look like impotent fools, and that realization is critical to winning the overall War on Terror.

It's simply impractical to physically fight every single Islamofascist on the planet. As some Europeans have suggested, what we need to do is look at the "root cause" of "why they hate us" and try to solve the problem indirectly. Our opponents would have us address these root causes by changing our own behavior and adjusting ourselves to the desires of our enemies (i.e., they want us to surrender). That's clearly a losing strategy, since I don't think most freedom-loving Westerners want to live under Islamofascist regimes ruled by murderous thugs.

The other way to address the so-called root causes of terrorism is to force the Islamofascists to change their view of the world. We ask, "Why do they hate us?" and then, "How can we change their minds?". We answer: not by changing ourselves and submitting to their maniacal demands, but by completely demolishing and restructuring their worldview.

Part of that demolishion project is tearing down the fantasies they've built to protect their egos from the crushing weight of cultural failure. Islamofacists like to see themselves as brave, devout holy-warriors fighting at the command of god against the godless infidels. They believe that if they practice a pure form of worship, god will give them ultimate victory.

If they're religion is right, then god will surely do so. As an American, however, I'm skeptical that the Islamofascist vision for the future is really divinely-ordained. In order to take apart the fantasy they've built, we need to attack it from every angle and demonstrate that it cannot be true.

The battle for Iraq serves many of these purposes. First, the Iraqi army was easily defeated, despite the strong rhetoric coming from its high command. Most of the units didn't even fight, knowing that resistance would be futile. Second, the great Saddam Hussein himself was captured while hiding in a dirt pit; he had two AK-47s and a pistol but didn't fire any of them, preferring to be taken peacefully into custody than to go out fighting.

Saddam wasn't victorious, and in the end he wasn't even brave. Some will claim that he wasn't really Muslim, but judging from the reaction of the Muslim world to his capture his devestating defeat is having the effect we desire. All that's left is to hand him over, humiliated, to the people he once oppressed, and for them to judge him and execute him like the now-powerless scum he is.

Update:
The New York Times has some quotes from some Iraqi leaders who spoke with Saddam:

"The most important fact: Had the roles been reversed, he would have torn us apart and cut us into small pieces after torture," Mr. Chalabi said. "This contrast was paramount in my mind, how we treated him and how he would have treated us."

Mr. Rubaie said: "One thing which is very important is that this man had with him underground when they arrested him two AK-47's and did not shoot one bullet. I told him, `You keep on saying that you are a brave man and a proud Arab.' I said, `When they arrested you why didn't you shoot one bullet? You are a coward.' "

"And he started to use very colorful language," he said. "Basically he used all his French."

"I was so angry because this guy has caused so much damage," Mr. Rubaie added. "He has ruined the whole country. He has ruined 25 million people."

"And I have to confess that the last word was for me," he continued. "I was the last to leave the room and I said, `May God curse you. Tell me, when are you going to be accountable to God and the day of judgment? What are you going to tell him about Halabja and the mass graves, the Iran-Iraq war, thousands and thousands executed? What are you going to tell God?' He was exercising his French language."

French? How apropos.

Haha, Loser!

I don't want to overly belabor a minor semantical point, but I think Mr. Lutas is incorrect in asserting that the development contracts we're handing out in Iraq aren't spoils of war (as I claimed here). He says:

The war was only incidental to the contracts from a political point of view (as opposed to national security). ...

A spoil of war must, of necessity, be coming out of the hide of the defeated power. If the money is coming out of the pockets of taxpayers in the winning countries or interested neutrals, it might be pork, it might be a political payoff, but it is not a spoil. The term spoil implies that a party is despoiled (dictionary.com defines this as "To deprive for spoil; to plunder; to rob; to pillage; to strip; to divest"). This is a linguistic necessity. But who has been despoiled? Where did the money come from? To speak of spoils of war in Iraq implies that the US is robbing Iraq. That is not true and requires too much explanation to be of any practical benefit other than misleading propaganda.

But take a look at the definition of "spoils" on Dictionary.com and you'll see that definition 1b is "Incidental benefits reaped by a winner...". That's basically what I said, and that's what TML said as well.

Anyway, I don't want to get caught up on a turn of phrase. I don't see anything negative about calling the contracts "spoils"; I think it's just being honest. We're reaping some economic benefit from the war, and we're deciding who we're going to share with -- the Iraqis are getting more benefit than anyone else.

Lots of our "allies" are pissed off that we're not going to cut them in on the reconstruction action going on in Iraq. I expect this will be the big news in the blogosphere today, and I'm sure lots of other people will have a lot of comments.

The White House staunchly defended Wednesday the Pentagon's decision to bar companies from countries opposed to the Iraq war from bidding on $18.6 billion worth of major reconstruction contracts in that country.

But nevertheless, the European Union said Wednesday it would examine whether the United States violates world trade rules with its decision.

"I think it is appropriate and reasonable to expect that prime contracts for reconstruction funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars go to the Iraqi people and those helping with the United States on the difficult task of helping to build a free, democratic and prosperous Iraq," White House spokesman Scott McClellan (search) told reporters. ...

The ruling bars companies from U.S. allies such as France, Germany, Russia and Canada from bidding on prime contracts because their governments opposed the American-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein's regime. Countries that contributed troops and supported the effort -- such as Italy, Africa, Micronesia, Spain, Japan, Rwanda and Afghanistan -- will be able to bid on prime contracts.

I don't know of any country named "Africa", and I wasn't aware that Afghanistan sent troops or supported the effort in any material way. Still, it sounds perfectly reasonable on the surface. After all, hasn't the world been clamoring for the countries who "made the mess" to "clean it up"?

The Canadians actually raise a cogent objection:

"If these comments are accurate ... it would be difficult for us to give further money for the reconstruction of Iraq," said Canada's deputy prime minister John Manley. "To exclude Canadians just because they are Canadians would be unacceptable if they accept funds from Canadian taxpayers for the reconstruction of Iraq."

Steven Hogue, a spokesman for Prime Minister Jean Chretien (search), said Canada has contributed more than $190 million to the rebuilding effort.

I don't know if their money is being used independently from these contracts, or what the deal is. Still, it does seem a bit unfair in that light.

Naturally, some US politicians are completely blind to reality.

"This totally gratuitous slap does nothing to protect our security interests and everything to alienate countries we need with us in Iraq," Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.

We've already shown that we don't need them, and they've already shown that they don't want to help us. I don't see how this contract issue changes anything.

In modern warfare, these types of rebuilding contracts are the closest thing to "spoils" that exists. With capitalism, it's understood that wealth isn't only gained by taking it from other people -- it's generated by economic activity. The rebuilding in Iraq will provide jobs for millions of people, and create a huge amount of wealth, and there's no reason to share it with countries who opposed us every step of the way.

Update:
TM Lutas disagrees and says that reconstruction contracts aren't "spoils".

If I run a car body shop and get into a car accident I might offer to do the work in my shop and not go through insurance. Essentially I'm repairing (and perhaps improving damage from prior accidents) what I fixed from my own pocket. On net, am I any better off? No reasonable analysis would find it so. I incur expenses in parts, labor, wear and tear on my fixed assets, and in the end the repaired/improved car drives away and I get no benefit other than the insurance company doesn't hear about it.

No. The real spoils of the Iraq campaign is not from reconstruction contracts. The spoils of the campaign are in taking one country out of the non-integrating gap and pushing it into the functioning core where they will increase their contribution to global human wealth and create a politico-military situation that not only denies terrorists haven in Iraq but makes them uncomfortable in neighboring countries.

Just because these contracts may not make the war profitable in total doesn't mean that they aren't "spoils" in a sense. The contracts are going to make some people a lot of money, otherwise they wouldn't be controversial.

The freedom we've brought to Iraq and the integration of Iraq into the world economy will have vast economic benefits for Iraqis and others around the world, and by limiting these contracts to people we like we're effectively "divying up the spoils". Obviously not all the benefits of liberation will be economic, but even reductions in terrorist attacks and Islamofascism can be measured in dollars and cents.

Everyone may know this already, but the difference between chiefs (heads) of state and heads of government wasn't always clear to me, so I'll give a brief tutorial (inspired by an article reporting on the visit of the Chinese Premier (who is the head of the Chinese government, but not the head of state)).

In America, the President is both the chief of state and the head of government, but in many countries the two offices are divided. In modern times, the main function of the head of state is to serve as a individual human representative for the nation as a whole, and the office is often non-political. Heads of government are administrators that wield government power and handle the management of the country. When most Americans think of things our President does as part of his job, we think of the duties of a head of government. In many countries the actual head of state has little real power, unless he is also the head of government.

In the UK, the head of state is the King or Queen, and the head of government is the Prime Minister. Technically, the Prime Minister is appointed by the monarch to administrate the country, but the monarch always appoints the head of the party who wins the most votes in the Parliamentary election. I'm told that this isn't a requirement, but no one really knows what would happen if the Queen decided to ignore an election and appoint someone of her own choosing.

France is somewhat of an anomaly; the head of state is a President who is elected to five-year terms (changed from seven years in 2001), and the head of government is the Prime Minister, who is nominated by the legislature and appointed by the President. The current President of France, Jacques Chirac, doesn't have a majority in the legislature, and thus is forced to appoint a Prime Minister from an opposition party. Since France's office of President has some political power of its own, this split between the head of state and the head of government leads to all sorts of complicated political power struggles.

Chiefs of state are always given much more elaborate treatment when they travel than heads of government are, even though they often have far less power. For instance, it's my understanding that when the Prime Minister of England Britain visits America he's greeted by the Vice President, rather than the President himself (although he will obviously meet with the President later). The Premier of China is the head of the Chinese government, which makes it unusual that he's being received with as much pomp as is apparently the case.

President George W. Bush may have stripped down White House protocol in keeping with a time of "war" but Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will get "spectacular" treatment Tuesday, complete with a 19-gun salute, an official said.

Wen will arrive at the presidential mansion for a South Lawn ceremony only offered during this administration to visiting heads of state, a senior administration official said.

Then he and Bush will hold talks in the Oval Office before sitting down to lunch.

Some observers have commented that Wen's reception will fall short of that accorded by the Clinton administration to the last Chinese premier to visit Washington, Zhu Rongji in April 1999.

Clinton and Zhu held a joint news conference, and appeared together at a sparkling White House black tie dinner similar to those held for heads of state, with an A-list of guests from politics, academia, the arts and entertainment. ...

A 19-gun salute will crack overhead, two blasts fewer than the 21-gun volley offered to heads of state, but much more than the average foreign head of government can expect at the White House.

Premier Wen won't be hosted by President Bush, but rather by Secretary Powell, which is more appropriate.

I'm encouraged to read that Japan intends to send peacekeepers to Iraq. Although the story says that America criticised Japan for only sending money and not troops during Gulf War I, that's a lot more than many nations sent. (I don't remember the US being critical, considering we designed their pacifist Constitution, but I was pretty young then.)

The dispatch, expected to begin over the next month, will involve elements of Japan's land, sea and air forces.

According to media reports, 600 ground troops will be sent, along with armored vehicles and up to six naval ships, including destroyers. Eight aircraft, including three C130 transport planes, will also be deployed.

The total number of troops would be about 1,000. ...

The troops will stay for six months to one year, and, as defensive measures, carry rocket-propelled grenade launchers and other arms that Japanese peacekeepers have never used, reports in most major newspapers said, quoting unnamed ruling party sources.

In the meeting with ruling party executives earlier Tuesday, Koizumi stressed the need for Japan to live up to its international responsibilities, "instead of just talking about them," according to the Kyodo news service.

Japan is one of the richest nations in the world, and generally a strong ally of the United States. I'll be glad to have them involved in rebuilding Iraq, and I think it will be beneficial to the world (particularly East Asia) if the Japanese become more active militarily.

TM Lutas has a great possible explanation for why we aren't super-sizing our military in response to increasing international threats. It's a question I've wondered about myself, and his explanation sounds very plausible. I won't steal his thunder by quoting it all directly!