Sunday, April 25, 2010

Gaijin Go Home

The average citizen of Japan certainly does not want our military bases in their country. The average US citizen likely does not want to spend the money to maintain military bases in Japan. Maybe the Tea Partiers do, but they’re below average.

Nearly 100,000 demonstrators attended a rally on Okinawa Sunday to demonstrate against a US air base in a row that is dominating Japan's national politics and souring its ties with Washington.

Okinawan's are at the lowest rung of the ladder in Japan which is why their island has been cursed with the presence of our bases.

"Okinawa has suffered the overwhelmingly heavy burden of US bases since the end of the war" in 1945, he said. "Today, there are few traces of the war in Okinawa. But US bases still remain in front of us. This is so unfair."

Many of the islanders resent the heavy US military presence on Okinawa, a legacy of Japan's defeat in World War II, and complain of noise, pollution and friction with US soldiers.

Chalmers Johnson is required reading on our occupation of Okinawa. The long version is here. And a short version here.

It’s likely that if we don’t change our imperial ways soon the Japanese will be able to foreclose on our bases, at any rate.

The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union.

Shout out to the American Empire Project.

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