An American airman at the US military base in Okinawa, Japan has been suspended for one year after pleading guilty to breaking into a Japanese home, ransacking the place, and punching a teenage girl in the face while she was sleeping. He had been drinking heavily, according to reports.
The delinquency by US troops stationed in Japan is appalling. Between 1972 and 2009, there were 5,634 criminal offenses committed by US servicemen, including 25 murders, 385 burglaries, 25 arsons, 127 rapes, 306 assaults and 2,827 thefts. Last October, “two US servicemen were arrested on suspicion of gang-raping a Japanese woman in Okinawa.”
Tens of thousands of US troops have been stationed in Japan since WWII, and the local population has been firmly against the occupation with frequent protests urging their removal. Up to 85% of the Okinawan population wants US troops out. Not only do they not want to be occupied by a foreign military, but they’re fed up with the outrageous behavior of the American Marines.
Japanese leaders can’t submit to the will of the people on this issue for obvious reasons: the mafia don in Washington won’t allow it. “In 2010, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama pledged to relocate the U.S. base, then backtracked under US pressure,” reports the Washington Post. “Outraged Okinawans staged public protests, demonstrations spread to Tokyo, Hatoyama’s approval rating plummeted to 25 percent and he resigned.”
Seemingly in order to placate the Japanese, Washington pledged last year to relocate about 9,000 US Marines from their bases in Okinawa, with about 5,000 transferred to Guam and the rest spread among other locations in the region. This coincided with Obama’s Asia-Pivot, an unconcealed policy of military containment of China that requires boosting US presence in the region. The deadline for the adjustment was 2014.
But now the US is saying the transfer might take up to 13 years. So, basically, it isn’t happening.
In the meantime, the Japanese people will continue to be ignored by Washington and terrorized by US soldiers for the sake of US power projection in China’s backyard.
The NRA says Americans need guns to protect themselves. Does it not think foreigners should have guns in their homes to protect themselves from US soldiers threatening them?
Still, sadly the majority of Japanese support US presence in Japan (as is the case in South Korea). Having the troops in Okinawa was smart because it allowed for the presence away from the majority of Japanese people so they wouldnt have to deal with all the ridiculousness first hand.
As China and Japan relations become more tense, it is unlikely the opinion of majority support for troop presence will change anytime soon. The same goes for South Korea and North Korea (which is a good indication of why the US loves provoking the North so much).
Someone needs to follow the money in this situation…. WHY??????????? WHY????????? are we blindly buying into "US power projection in China’s backyard" ??? It's just more mindless diplomacy by stick which the carotless empire practices to keep it's bloated military taking 60% of Federal revenue. Get the U.N. to take over the thankless task of sorting out the ownership of those contested rocks in the China sea. Is there ANY mess anywhere that we Americans can resist involving ourselves? Africom comes to mind as I contemplate that question…. I believe the answer is … NO!!! Not as long as there is a buck to be made or a deployment commanded! Example Mali.
Get those animals off Okinawa, I cannot imagine anyone tolerating anyone barging into somebody's home at night and beating up a teenage girl, even while drunk !
Right, beating up a teenage girls while drunk should be the exclusive prerogative of Japanese politicians and business executives.
The airman did punch a teenager, but not a girl. I like you guys go for maximum sensationalism, even if that means being untruthful.
I’m not trying to justify the act – boy or girl this is absolutely unacceptable, and I think this airman got off too easily with a suspended sentence and a fine – but if you guys want to be taken seriously you should strongly consider getting your facts straight.
Oh, and the teenage boy wasn’t sleeping either. He confronted the airman after he entered his apartment.
Spanky: "OTHER PEOPLE DO IT SO IT'S OK FOR US TO AS WELL" That's the kind of attitude that allows us to keep committing atrocities all around the world.
"Saddam was killing tens of thousands of his people, so why can't we kill hundreds of thousands, apparently in an effort to prevent more people from being killed?"
"Some people who were hanging out in Afghanistan killed a couple thousand people here, so why can't we go kill hundreds of thousands there?"
The airman assaulted a 13 year old boy, not a girl. Please check your facts more closely next time.
*Taira says the islanders have had enough. "The soldiers get drunk and crash their cars. There are four accidents a day; two rapes a month. Almost every person on Okinawa has a family member who has been assaulted. Then the soldiers go off to kill poor people in Iraq and Afghanistan. It makes my blood boil.* http://www.japanfocus.org/site/view/1768
*One recent survey by a school teacher on Okinawa found a third of his female high school students had been sexually molested by U.S. soldiers, a violation U.S. base officers have often dismissed as ‘flirting, because boys will be boys.’ * http://www.uli-schmetzer.com/vicenza.html
so *our boys* have had their fun with teenage girls, now they'r going after boys eh ?
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Get those animals off Okinawa, I cannot imagine anyone tolerating anyone barging into somebody's home at night and beating up a teenage girl, even while drunk !