Meanwhile,

Whilst everyone is obsessing about the Murtha debacle, the Japanese government has placed a constitutional amendment on the table. The amendment would give the Japanese military the right to officially call itself an army again, eliminating the tag "self-defence force.

Ostensibly, the cause of this is to enable the Japanese military to participate in peacekeeping missions and the like without special Parliamentary approval of particular efforts. I wonder, however, if the goal isn't partially for the Japanese government to show that Japan is, once again, one of the great nations of the world. On one level, this doesn't really make a ton of sense, as they have clearly been a leading force in the G8 and the WTO and the like for a while.

Perhaps, however, they wish to lead on global security, as well. The wa-po article does cite a growing sense of Japanese nationalism. For now, I can only see another counterbalance to the US as a good thing, that's for sure. Long term, increased militarism everywhere is pretty damn scary. let's hope for the best, I guess.