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Sunday, April 25, 2010

Japanese Want US Out Of Okinawa

The people of Okinawa want the US military bases located on that island to move away.

It would appear that there is solid unified support among the citizens for this.

Yahoo: Japanese islanders stage mass rally against US base
Nearly 100,000 protesters 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.

It did not return Okinawa to Japan until 1972 and still operates more than 30 military facilities on the island, strategically located near China, Taiwan and the Korean peninsula.

4 comments:

Glynn Kalara said...

Then we should leave. We have no right staying if we believe our own propaganda about democracy and freedom. Yes, we fought and defeated Japan in a brutal war 65 yrs. ago but we are not an Empire like they were so we have no right to stay unless they want us there.

Jim Sande said...

Except we have a military presence in practically every country on the planet. That is the dominant aspect of America. We are the world's most formidable military power, and we tend to forget about it. Most people don;t really understand how extensive the military is. Officers can fly in private jets, golf courses around the world, its an amazing and extensive network in and of itself. The US is positioned in Japan because we have surrounded all of Asia. There is only one country where there is no military base and that is in the corridor surrounding China- that would be Iran as we know.

I would suspect they have absolutely no intention of leaving. At best they will move to a less vocal Japanese island which the US can run to their complete liking without any fear of an indigenous population.

The problem here is that the people of Okinawa have eventually figured out how to make a large enough vocal dissent. That is a minor problem.

Glynn Kalara said...

Yes, were an Imperial power and that power is there to benefit whom? Can a country that can no longer afford to even employ big chunks of it's population or even maintain it's own highways , bridges and schools anymore afford a military Empire so Generals can fly around globally to play golf? It's obvious the huge military budget is just another Big Corp. perk that helps these Int'l Corps. loot , pillage and mug anyone they want and do it with the flag flying. It's called Imperialism.

Jim Sande said...

Interesting conundrum because the military I think really does support and enforce our sovereignty. But they also do the work of expanding and supporting American interests which is a cloaked nationalistic type of term for corporate interests. When I think about there are really only two political parties in America - the corporate party which is 100% of the Republicans and 95% of the Democrats, and then the citizens party which is whatever is left over. We do however get to vote on which branch of the corporate party can assume control.