Protest held in Tokyo against US military presence

[unhappycamper]

Demonstrators hold up anti-U.S. bases slogans as some 6,000 people gather at a rally protesting against a U.S. Marine base stationed on the southern island of Okinawa, in Tokyo Saturday. The slogans written in Japanese read: "We don't need Futenma base," in red, and "We refuse new Henoko base," in blue.


Protest held in Tokyo against US military presence
By JAY ALABASTER
Associated Press Writer

TOKYO (AP) -- Thousands of protesters from across Japan marched Saturday in central Tokyo to protest the U.S. military presence on Okinawa, while a Cabinet minister said she would fight to move a Marine base Washington considers crucial out of the country.

Some 47,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, with more than half on the southern island of Okinawa. Residents have complained for years about noise, pollution and crime around the bases.

Japan and the U.S. signed a pact in 2006 that called for the realignment of American troops in the country and for a Marine base on the island to be moved to a less populated area. But the new Tokyo government is re-examining the deal, caught between increasingly adamant public opposition to American troops and its crucial military alliance with Washington.

On Saturday, labor unionists, pacifists, environmentalists and students marched through central Tokyo, yelling slogans and calling for an end to the U.S. troop presence. They gathered for a rally at a park - under a banner that read "Change! Japan-U.S. Relations" - for speeches by civil leaders and politicians.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has repeatedly postponed his decision on the pact, with members of his own government divided on how to proceed. Last week he pledged to resolve the conundrum by May, just before national elections.


Rest of article at: http://ap.stripes.com/dynamic/stories/A/AS_JAPAN_US_MILITARY?SITE=DCSAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Mari333]

1. good for them

lets stop being a Militaristic Corporate state and start taking care of the people here. enough with the Imperialistic warmongering chest thumping adolescent macho bullshit.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[FreakinDJ]

3. A couple of friends got married to local girls there

in fact 1 bought a house and lives there now with his family

But Hey - if they don't want all those servicemen spending their money in their local economy I'm sure there are other Host Countries near by that do

[ShamelessHussy]

4. Imagine if it was in your back yard...

we are only there (and the rest of the world) to maintain our empire, and it will only serve to bankrupt us morally and monetarily, in the long run.

Bring our troops home!

[Name removed]

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[Mari333]

6. US does not need to be the world police...and we ARE the thugs

in many places, and have been the thugs many times.

[Name removed]

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[Mari333]

9. sure. there were WMDs in Iraq..NOT. dont give me that Bush propoganda

Ive heard that bullshit meme for decades. we illegally occupy other countries for corporate profit. period. a lot of people make a lot of money off of the military industrial complex. its about MONEY. not about democracy, not about freedom, not about anything more then MONEY.

How sad that you believe Bush's bullshit.

[Yurovsky]

15. Nail, meet head...

no one in their right mind thinks we need a presence in Japan SIXTY-FIVE YEARS after they surrendered. Is that how long we'll have to stay in Iraq or Afghanistan? What about Germany?

We need to bring our troops home NOW and perhaps we'll no longer be viewed as an imperialist power determined to keep the world's neck under it's boot.

Kinda hard to "just give peace a chance" when you're busy bombing & shooting the locals...

[Goldstein1984]

14. That's just BS.

Even Smedley Butler admitted that he was a hired thug and that war is a racket.

We're 5% of the world's population, but we're doing 50% of it's military spending. Worse, we're sending the bill for this spending to our grandchildren.

You need to do some serious reading before you spew any more of the benevolent intervention nonsense. I suggest:

"A People's History of the United States" - Howard Zinn

"A People's History of the World" - Chris Harmon

"The Shock Doctrine" - Naomi Klein

"Open Veins of Latin America" - Eduardo Galeano

"Stripping Bare the Body" - Mark Danner

"War is a Racket" - Smedley Butler

"Perilous Power" - Noam Chomsky & Gilbert Achcar

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. One or two??

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Chile, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Cuba, The Congo, Angola, Mozambique, Greece, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, and a whole slough more of our efforts to promote "good", "stability", and "democracy" that ended up doing exactly the opposite.

[PacerLJ35]

12. There is a SOFA in place in Japan

US servicemen that commit crimes in Japan are typically prosecuted by Japanese courts. You can't get more "fair" than that. In any case, most of the Marine infantry will be moved to Guam, which is where most of the few troublemakers come from (young kids away from home for the first time...in any large group you're going to have a few screw ups). The air base at Futenma is primarily aircrew...folks that are greatly "dialed down" and much more mature when it comes to antics.

[Obamanaut]

7. IIRC, many if not most of the participants in the various protests are

hired to protest. When the prescribed period for protest that they were hired for expires, they peacefully go home. Not true in all cases, I would think.

I was aboard the USS Midway, forward deployed with other ships, in Yokosuka 1981 - '83. Every time we came home to Yokosuka there would be protests, always peaceful. Many times I walked through the crowd of protesters with no ill will expressed toward me at all.

But even so, I think it is time, past time, to bring all the troops home from all the hundreds of bases in other countries - and downsize the military via normal attrition.

[olegramps]

10. I fully agree. It is past time that Japan provide and pay for its own security.

This applies to virtually every place that we have stationed troops at the expense of American citizens.

[TheMightyFavog]

16. While we're at it, let's drop Japan's Article 9 obligations.

That way they don't have to keep calling their military a "Self-Defense Force"

Japan is very able to defend itself and does not need us.

[arcadian]

11. There was a big deal when they moved the USS George Washington to Yokosuka

I think the people who had two nuke bombs dropped on them didn't want a nuke powered aircraft carrier parked in their front yard.

[Thothmes]

20. I was in favor of sending either the Harry Truman or the Nimitz

to japan. cooler heads prevailed.

[arcadian]

24. What? To shove it in their faces?

That's sick man.

[Mixopterus]

25. I don't quite understand

Why does a giant nuclear steam engine = very small nuclear bombs?

I won't touch the issue of the nukes themselves, people get so emotional over what amounts to tac nukes getting dropped on a racist hate nation during the course of a war -they- started. The firebombs did significantly more damage, but I guess that isn't nearly as dramatic of a symbol.

[Overseas]

13. K&R . //nt

[Iggo]

17. It's their country, man.

[Goldstein1984]

18. I was stationed at Futema in the 1970s

I visited Okinawa again, just for old times sake, a few years ago.

The base is congested, noisy, and an economic benefit only to a bunch of bars and strip clubs.

We're spending a ton of money beefing up Guam as a base from which to project power in Asia. The companies who are doing the work, like the one I work for, will be brining labor in from the Philippines, China and Japan to make sure that Guamanian wages aren't inflated (Yes, that is the reason.). The Chamoru people, who have been the victims of colonization by first the Spanish and then the U.S., which a short bit of terror from the Japanese during WWII, aren't in favor of further militarization of their island.

The benevolent spreader of democracy nonsense just doesn't fly. We're engaged in two illegal wars that we know about; we send Predator drones anywhere we want to assassinate alleged terrorists without due process; we call dictatorships and pseudodemocracies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia allies; meanwhile, we demonize democratically elected leaders like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, and abandon democratically elected leaders like Manuel Zelaya, because they don't subscribe to our economic model equating democracy with capitalism; we're 5% of the world's population doing 50% of its military spending; we have colonies that we call territories, where American businesses and the U.S. government can tax and enforce laws on people without representation in Congress.

[leftstreet]

21. +1

[leftstreet]

22. K&R

[Mixopterus]

23. OK

I'm not opposed to this, so long as we are not obligated to bail them out in the event of China going ballistic and the Japanese don't get some choice funny ideas in their head in regards to Korea and Manchuria they are prone to every couple centuries or so (only half kidding).