Japan will continue to collect information on the U.S. F-22 fighter jet as a candidate to succeed its aging F-4EJ fighter fleet, a Defense Ministry spokesman said Friday, despite the U.S. House of Representatives’ decision to ditch funding for the aircraft. Katashi Toyota, press secretary for the ministry, said at a press conference that Tokyo ‘‘does not necessarily give up” on its plan to study acquisition of the F-22 fighter as one of six candidate models. The U.S. chamber passed a defense spending bill Thursday that scuttled the F-22 program. Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said earlier in the day that Tokyo should consider ‘‘an alternative plan,” but Toyota said his remarks do not indicate that Japan will stop exploring the option of purchasing the F-22. ‘‘We recognize the F-22 as one of the world’s most advanced aircraft and will continue to gather information on it as well as on other candidate models,” Toyota said.
At this point, this is a little bit like those Japanese soldiers they’d find in some island jungle in the South Pacific in the 70s — refusing to surrender unless ordered to do so by their commanding officers, unaware that the war was over. But the war is pretty much over. The Democrats in Congress have, at the behest of President Obama, killed a program that could have been worth as much as $15 billion (or 80 bazillion yen) in cash for the U.S. defense industry, helping to defray the cost to taxpayers of developing the Raptor and “saving or creating” thousands of jobs. More than that, a Japanese buy would have added several squadrons of the world’s most capable fighter to a critical region. But hey, the Japanese should probably be spending all that money on green jobs or cash for clunkers or something they really need.
