America's 703 officially acknowledged foreign military enclaves (as of September 30, 2002), although structurally, legally, and conceptually different from colonies, are themselves something like microcolonies in that they are completely beyond the jurisdiction of the occupied nation.1 The United States virtually always negotiates a "status of forces agreement" (SOFA) with the ostensibly independent "host" nation, including countries whose legal systems are every bit (and perhaps more) sophisticated than our own....the military has the option of simply flying an accused rapist or murderer out of the country before local authorities can bring him to trial, a contrivance to which commanding officers of Pacific bases have often resorted. At the time of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001, the United States had publicly acknowledged SOFAs with ninety-three countries, although some SOFAs are so embarrassing to the host nation that they are kept secret, particularly in the Islamic world.3 Thus, the true number is not publicly known....
There is nothing particularly unusual about this manifestation of American military imperialism in Okinawa except for its concentration. It offers scenes that are easily reproduced in Germany, Italy, Kosovo, Kuwait, Qatar, Diego Garcia, and elsewhere, including more recently Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Iraq. However, one distinguishing feature of the Okinawan bases is how much money the Japanese government pays to support them...to keep American soldiers well out of sight of mainland Japanese... "The United States is not obliged, when it returns facilities and areas to Japan on the expiration of this Agreement or at an earlier date, to restore the facilities and areas to the condition in which they were at the time they became available to the United States armed forces, or to compensate Japan in lieu of such restoration." ...invitation to the U.S. military to pollute anything it wants to and evade responsibility for cleaning it up.
Press reports following the September 4, 1995 rape that the three military suspects were lolling around the pool at Camp Hansen eating hamburgers while the child victim (her name has been protected by Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, an organization that came into being after her assault) was in the hospital led to the largest anti-American demonstrations in Japan since the Security Treaty was signed in 1960. All servicemen in Okinawa know that if after committing a rape, a robbery, or an assault, they can make it back to the base before the police catch them, they will be free until indicted ...58-year-long record of sexual assaults, bar brawls, muggings, drug violations, drunken driving accidents, and arson cases all committed by privileged young men who proclaim they are in Okinawa to protect the people from the dangers of political "instability" elsewhere in East Asia. .."If the local community's negative reaction is strong, they
will turn over suspects. And, if not, they won't...
Most Okinawans thought it highly unlikely that consensual sex would have taken place on the hood of a car with several other men looking on. But American soldiers did not agree. Several of them argued in print that the victim was merely an "Amejo" (American girl) or a "night owl" and that, as one put it, "Every Japanese girl I have dated or known as a friend has stated that she is intrigued by having sex in public." Another soldier referred to the victim as "a miniskirt-wearing little 'yellow cab' who couldn't remember what her name was. . . . Most of these trashy tramps can't think far enough ahead to order fries with their Big Mac."...
http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=1112
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
