Blasphemy!

I don't think these guys (Congressman Barney Frank et al) are allowed to write this sort of thing:

Immediately after World War II, with much of the world devastated and the Soviet Union becoming increasingly aggressive, America took on the responsibility of protecting virtually every country that asked for it. Sixty-five years later, we continue to play that role long after there is any justification for it. Huffington Post

Given that every incremental federal dollar spent today is being financed with borrowed funds, maintaining that collection of overseas bases results in a perverse daisy chain of borrowing from foreigners,* spending those borrowed funds overseas then sending never-ending interest payments back overseas as we roll over that debt again and again. (Letter to the National Committee on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform by Rep. Barney Frank, Rep. Ron Paul, Rep. Ron Wyden, Rep. Walter B. Jones Linked PDF from the above Huffington Post)

I have read that Okinawa was mentioned somewhere by Reps Frank and Paul, but can find no direct reference to it. (Edited to add: Here is one.)However, wouldn't it be nice if Americans and Japanese---the people, not just the governments and the "experts"---would get a chance to look at this and debate it and force those "in the know" to explain exactly why forces at the present level and configuration are still necessary in 2010, and to explain what would indicate that they would no longer be necessary at some point in the future?

No, I am not on drugs; I am merely fantasizing.

NPR's On Point is to broadcast an discussion on the military spending issue with Ron Paul and Barney Frank today (audio not up yet.)

Note that they are not talking about cutting expenses on the backs of those in Iraq and Afghanistan, but questioning the continued need for 480 US military installations in 38 countries.

*Ironically, one of the recent justifications given for the need to have US troops in Japan is the----how shall I put it?---the rising China threat. China is one of our biggest creditors, so we are borrowing from China and paying interest on that debt to China, in order to defend against China. Wonder if China would demand higher interest should the the US get into a conflict with them? Or would the US just stop borrowing from China and fund the conflict some other way? Oh, wait....did I say fund a conflict, meaning something like pay for it without borrowing from foreigners? Sorry, maybe I am on drugs.

Nobelist Obama's radical new Japan policy

OK, It's not really brand new:

The United States has asked Japan to help shoulder hundreds of millions of dollars in additional fees to transfer Marines from a controversial base on Okinawa island to Guam, Kyodo news agency reported. USA Today

It's all cool. The poorly informed will still be able to blame the continued problems with Okinawa bases on the folks in the US military there. (Of course, we know that SOFA personnel have much lower crime rates than citizens of Okinawa.*)

*Concerning the linked article about SOFA crime rates, the author notes that on base stats are not covered. Having been a military policeman, I'd guess that unless the world has turned upside down, that on-base crimes and incidents are much, much lower than the civilian population. I see no reason it would be different here, unless one disproves the Hassett article---and others with similar findings over the years.

Futenma becomes interesting

Or at least the issues connected with it do.

For a serious discussion on the U.S.-Japan "alliance" it would be worthwhile---if the whole world has not already done so---to read this June 9 post at Shisaku and download the PDF and read it. Essays include:

• Troubled Alliance by Kenneth B. Pyle
  
• Return to Basics: Recalibrating the US-Japan Security Alliance by Michael Finnegan
  
• Redefining the US-Japan Security Alliance by Michael Green
  
• Alliance Endangered by Kent Calder
  
• The 50th Anniversary: Time for a "Renewal of Vows" by Andrew Oros
  
• A Short-term challenge to the US-Japan Security Alliance Putting its Long-term Heath at Risk by Yuki Tatsumi

Some of the authors should be familiar enough for us to know that they aren't taking the R. Taggart Murphy (below) point of view.

With Friends Like Us

the title of a new article by R. Taggart Murphy in The New Republic.

Having tied their fortunes so tightly to the United States—or, more generously, having had them tied by history and circumstance—Japan's power-holders in the LDP and the bureaucracy, in business, finance, media, and academia have, since the 1950s, built an elaborate and sophisticated infrastructure of relationships and institutions in the United States capable of detecting and acting on the most subtle shifts in American opinion where Japan is concerned—and, when necessary, influencing it...

...But until last August, these “agents of influence,” as the title of a controversial book on the subject put it, were deployed to achieve Japanese government objectives. Now they were brought out to undermine them. Any American seen able to influence Washington's Japan policy was fed a predictable line: Hatoyama was “weak and vacillating,” the DPJ was filled with “amateurs,” and, most damning, Ozawa was “anti-American.” The New Republic.

Murphy writes that Okinawa has "now been radicalized" and that the only way the agreement can be implemented is by "brute force." Should he be right, Kan (and ultimately, Obama) is in for a huge surprise. There is no way that he can fulfill his supposed promise to Obama to implement it.

8:50: Edited

Okinawa Redux

If the Futenma mess---perhaps disaster for Hatoyama, who has thrown in the towel in the fight with the US over who actually runs Japan as far as security issues go---is so unbelievable as to make you pinch yourself to make sure you aren't just dreaming it all, then perhaps you need to read the Chalmers Johnson editorial in the LA Times: Another Battle of Okinawa:

...I find Hatoyama's behavior craven and despicable, but I deplore even more the U.S. government's arrogance in forcing the Japanese to this deeply humiliating impasse...

That about says it all. (Edited to add: I don't personally don't feel that strongly about Hatoyama.)

A thank you towards the Potomac for the heads up.

News not making major headlines in Japan (yet?)

A 43-year-old Japanese man was arrested Monday for allegedly throwing hot coffee at U.S. Consul General Kevin Maher at a Naha coffee shop, Okinawa prefectural police said Tuesday. Kazuo Yamamoto of Naha approached Maher at a Starbucks at about 4 p.m., throwing coffee on Maher’s trousers and shoes before pushing him and demanding he leave Okinawa, according to the police report. Stars and Stripes

What year is this? When did WW2 end? Why are we still there? The answer to this sort of problem is simple: Pull US forces out of Japan and garbage-can the one-way Security Treaty and allow Japan to handle its own defense as it decides. If it wants allies and security treaties, then perhaps it'll figure out a more conventional alliance.

Yes, the thought is childishly naive and probably dangerously nutty. It won't happen because the US never voluntarily---well, almost never---closes bases and removes all military personnel from foreign countries. Rightly so, for to do so would result in disaster for the country the troops are pulled out of and probably a regional/worldwide conflict causing the moon to fall from the sky. Remember the hell that resulted from our withdraw from Taiwan and later from the Philippines?* The fact is that stationing US troops all over the planet is so vital to the US that the military turns away millions of concerned people every year. It's especially tough to keep college kids, the wealthy, and our future "experts" out.

*We are back in the P.I. to some degree, so that probably saved the P.I. from sinking into the ocean.

Chalmers Johnson has it right again

One of the so-called revisionists of the standard Reischauer myth of Japan during the 1980s and early nighties, has written a short article on Japan Focus:

.....the Japanese government speaks with a forked tongue. For the sake of the Okinawans forced to live cheek-by-jowl with 37 US military bases on their small island, Tokyo condemns the behavior of the Americans. Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo called the recent assault "unforgivable" and demanded tighter military discipline. But that is as far as it goes.

The Japanese government has never even discussed why a large standing army of Americans is garrisoned on Japanese territory, some 63 years after the end of World War II. There is never any analysis in the Japanese press or by the government of whether the Japanese-American Security Treaty actually requires such American troops.

See Japan Focus 2886.

The article lightly addresses the questionable need for the U.S. military in Japan. It seems to be just a standard throw-away line used by politicians in both countries as well as policy wonks. The reason for the need for us to be here changes with the wind, but it never changes in importance for the continued existence of the planet. Should the U.S. pull out, Japan will build its military and probably go nuclear. Then of course China will respond. As will both Koreas. Within seconds of the departure of the last U.S. troop, World War 3 will begin as the nukes start flying all over East Asia, ultimately bring the U.S. into the conflict followed by Europe, all of South America, Quebec, and numerous bands of nomadic goat herders. The world will end shortly thereafter.

One nitpic I have with the article is that he refers to military personnel as "heavily armed young Americans." Off duty personnel are not heavily armed. In fact, unless they are training or on alert, very few on duty personnel are armed, let alone heavily armed. One might also get the impression from this short article that rapes and crimes by the military are widespread. They are not.

But once again, that is not the point. The point is that many people, at least in the media, think that military crime is widespread. Plus, SOFA is not viewed as fair. As long as there is any crime by a U.S. military member in Okinawa, it will be too much crime for the media and much of the public. The answer is a quick goodbye and good luck from Uncle Sam to Japan. Never happen though.

Time for Japan to grow up and take care of itself?

Observing Japan, on which a few weeks ago the author (Tobias Harris, who is a good source of well-written/thought-out articles about Japanese politics) expressed shame, "...that members of the US Armed Forces have so abused the hospitality of the nation hosting them as to undermine US national interests."

Well, I doubt he means that like I read it to mean, but I am not ashamed of members of the US Armed Forces for abusing Japan's self-interested hospitality, and I also question just how well it serves our national interests to have a lop-sided security treaty with Japan.* These crimes happened because an extraordinarily small percentage of the people stationed on Okinawa are criminals. One doesn't have to live in Japan long to understand how crimes committed by non-Japanese are so often sensationalized and blown out of proportion by the media, the police, and politicians. I don't then feel ashamed that non-Japanese have abused Japan's hospitality, I feel anger and disgust at the criminals who commit the crime, not the group they do or don't belong to.

I do have just a bit of personal experience regarding law enforcement and crimes in the military. I was in the Air Force, as a military policeman (called Security Police at that time) and a drug dog handler . It is a bit dated perhaps and it goes back to well before Bush's (and our) war so damaged the military and recruitment efforts that some branches have had to start accepting those with criminal---or even felony criminal records---but compared to similarly populated civilian towns/cities the crime rate was much, much, lower. In fact, most of the very serious crimes that I saw involved civilian perpetrators. These were Air Force bases, but we did occasionally work with Army/Marine MPs. These were not places overflowing with criminal thugs either.

So no, the U.S. military is not full of rapists and thugs as the Japanese media/politicians like to imply. The idea of restricting everyone to base is frankly idiotic and will achieve nothing except as a show. (Maybe every time there is a crime by a non-Japanese in Tokyo, non-Japanese should be restricted to their homes.) And the claim by the Japanese government that it is going to put more pressure on the US to reduce the (extremely small) number of crimes by military personnel is a joke. They know it too. What could be done? Lock everyone in chains?

What this does show is that it is time to get the US out. All the way out. We can't argue with Japan that it is only a small percentage of people committing crimes. That isn't really the point---the point is that it is 63 years after the end of the war and there is a big question as to whether the US should still be here. This is not our country. I think we ought to withdraw our forces and re-negotiate the Security Treaty so that there will either be an equal obligation on the part of each country to risk blood to assist the other in a war in which both are involved, or that the US will no longer be expected to send Americans to be killed for Japan. Let Japan take full responsibility for its defense and its actions. The U.S.-written constitution is not our problem. If Japan wants to be the "peace nation" let it do so without U.S. military backing. If it wants to admit that the SDF are a military and start making decisions and polices to reflect that , let it. Let it rescind Article 9. It is a Japanese problem; not a U.S problem.

This will never happen as the U.S. will rarely voluntarily remove bases from a country. Think Philippines or John McCain's idea of keeping U.S. forces in Iraq for decades and decades.

Anyway, Observing Japan also has a post today in which it is argued that some reduction in U.S. military forces in Japan is a good idea and the plan to relocate 8,000 Marines and dependents to Guam by 2014 should be advanced. This won't happen either as the U.S. wants/needs Japan's money. (What? Increase US taxes to pay for its military? Are you joking? We won't even do that to support them in a war.) And removing only 8,000 Marines ain't enough either.

*This reminds me of that old load of bullsh*t by Mike Mansfield: ''The U.S.-Japan relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world, bar none." Someone forgot to ask Mike, "Why?" Same applies for the US national interest in having such a treaty with Japan, or the fact we have to have forces here and everywhere else on the planet.

Japan's elitist right-wing against the Japanese

A few months ago, I wrote about Abe's and his merry band of loony-toons' effort to rewrite the history of WW2 in Okinawa. Not only was Abe and crowd trying to lie about the Imperial Japanese military's role in kidnapping and forcing women into sexual slavery, they were trying to claim---and force Japanese teachers to use school texts which said---that the pure Japanese Imperial Army had no connection to civilian suicides during the Battle of Okinawa.

Unfortunately for the nutjobs, many Okinawans who were there disagreed with the whitewash. Whereas Abe et al could freely call foreign women who had been victims of Japanese atrocities liars and well-paid whores, it was a bit more inconvenient to do so to Okinawans as they are Japanese citizens (although quite often discriminated against). This sort of "confusion" is always a problem for the government in general and the LDP in particular. Confusion usually results from people not accepting the tatemae and their calling bullshit what it is: bullshit.

After Abe, the son of a former prime minister and war crime suspect, resigned suddenly, the less extreme government under the new prime minister (who as far as I know has no family connections to WW2 war criminals or profiteers--how rare recently) may back down without admitting to government interference in text selection, or that the military actually did do anything wrong. The government will still be able to claim textbook selection has no political interference and later can come back and try to lie and decieve again and claim that the Japanese military was purity itself.

This story has been on TV and in newspapers over the last few weeks, but the New York Times has an article today by Norimitsu Onishi here.

It ain't over though. The right wing is still around and will be back. They'll be back even stronger as more Japanese of WW2 age die and memories fade.

Excerpt from the NYT story:

...Toshinobu Nakazato, chairman of Okinawa’s assembly. Angered by the revisions, Mr. Nakazato broke a 62-year silence and talked about his own wartime experiences.

Inside a shelter where his family had sought refuge, Japanese soldiers handed his family members two poisoned rice balls and told them to give them to Mr. Nakazato’s younger sister and a cousin, he said. Instead, his family fled into the mountains, where his younger brother died.

“I’m already 70,” he said in an interview, “and the memories of those over 80 are already fading. So perhaps this time was the last opportunity for us to resist.”

Japanese Imperial Army innocent in Okinawa too.

Up until now, it has been accepted historical fact, even in Japan, that the Japanese Army in Okinawa in WW2 ordered civilians to kill themselves as the US forces advanced. Now neo-imperial militarists, such as the non-veteran Abe, have been able to convince the Education Ministry to remove this from school textbooks. Like the sex slave issue, this did not happen either.

Is there any idiot left on the face of the earth who thinks Abe and Japan still honestly stand behind the 1993 Kono apology concerning sex slaves? Is there any naive apologist left who believes that Japan (the elite rightwingers) sincerely think that Japanese actions in WW2 were especially wrong? It won't be long, if Abe and his ilk continue on this path, until this view of history becomes accepted as fact among the Japanese. I already hear the idea when discussing China, that the problems Japan has is due to "a different view of history."

From the New York Times:

The decision [to revise the texts] on the Battle of Okinawa, which came as a surprise because the ministry had never objected to the description in the past, followed recent denials by Mr. Abe that the military had coerced women into sexual slavery during the war.

It was only in the late 19th century that Japan officially annexed Okinawa, a kingdom that, to this day, has retained some of its own culture. During World War II, when many Okinawans still spoke a different dialect, Japanese troops treated the locals brutally. In its history of the war, the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum presents Okinawa as being caught in the fighting between America and Japan — a starkly different view from the Yasukuni Shrine war museum, which presents Japan as a liberator of Asia from Western powers.

During the 1945 battle, during which one quarter of the civilian population was killed, the Japanese Army showed indifference to Okinawa’s defense and safety. Japanese soldiers used civilians as shields against the Americans, and persuaded locals that victorious American soldiers would go on a rampage of killing and raping. With the impending victory of American troops, civilians committed mass suicide, urged on by fanatical Japanese soldiers.

“There were some people who were forced to commit suicide by the Japanese Army,” one old textbook explained. But in the revision ordered by the ministry, it now reads, “There were some people who were driven to mass suicide.” Full story here.

I guess Abe and his whitewashers should say that the revision is necessary due to the meaning of some word in a "narrow" sense or some others mealy-mouthed horse manure.