When Shintaro Ishihara retired from politics after failing to get re-elected last December, it seemed we wouldn't have the right-wing firebrand to kick around any more, but last week there he was in Shukan Asahi talking to former Liberal Democratic Party comrade Shizuka Kamei about various topics, including the security bills the Lower House just passed.

Ishihara is glad the bills were approved because, as he points out, "I love the Self-Defense Forces," and, naturally, he wants to see those he loves doing the work they were put on this Earth to do. The problem with the bills is that they aren't clear about what that work entails. While Ishihara and Kamei have a mentor-acolyte relationship — the latter refers to the 82-year-old former Tokyo governor as sensei (teacher) — since leaving the LDP Kamei has increasingly cultivated a progressive stance, coming out strongly against capital punishment and restarting Japan's nuclear power plants. These positions clash with Ishihara's.

The two men's conversation about the bills was more useful than the related Diet deliberations, despite Ishihara's tendency to contradict himself after almost every pronouncement. The ruling party has been deliberately vague about what the bills mean. Opposition lawmakers continually asked Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to explain in concrete, specific terms what the SDF could expect when they join in the collective defense activities the bills allow. Does it mean Japanese SDF members will fight alongside allies in overseas battles? Loath to mention anything that may suggest they'd be put in harm's way, Abe provided answers, like the wording in the bills themselves, that were so general as to imply there would be no change in the SDF's status.