Let's not forget: it's entirely possible to create a mess of unmaintainable code in any language. Or, "guns don't kill people, people kill people"
That's true. You can write FORTRAN in any language. However, some languages make certain classes of mistakes easier. For example, C makes it very easy leak memory. Java, with its automatic garbage collection, makes it considerably harder.
Does this mean that memory leaks are impossible in Java? Of course not. But I'd still rather have memory management than not.