Bring Our Marines Home
By Patrick J. Buchanan
A month after Germany surrendered in May 1945, America’s eyes turned to the Far East, where the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war was joined on the island of Okinawa.
Twelve thousand U.S. soldiers and Marines would die — twice as many dead in 82 days of fighting as have died in all the years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Within weeks of the battle’s end came Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Three weeks later, Gen. MacArthur took the Japanese surrender on the battleship Missouri.
That was 65 years ago, as far away in time from today as the Marines’ arrival at Da Nang was from Teddy Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill.
Yet the Marines are still on Okinawa. But, in 2006, the United States negotiated a $26 billion deal to move 8,000 to Guam and the other Marines from the Futenma air base in the south to the more isolated town of Nago on the northern tip. Okinawans have long protested the crime, noise and pollution at Futenma.
The problem arose last year when the Liberal Democratic Party that negotiated the deal was ousted and the Democratic Party of Japan elected on a promise to pursue a policy more balanced between Beijing and Washington.
The new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, indicated his unease with the Futenma deal, and promised to review it and decide by May. Voters in Nago just elected a mayor committed to keeping the new base out.
This weekend, thousands demonstrated in Tokyo against moving the Marine air station to Nago. Some demanded removal of all U.S. forces from Japan. After 65 years, they want us out. And Prime Minister Hatoyama has been feeding the sentiment. In January, he terminated Japan’s eight-year mission refueling U.S. ships aiding in the Afghan war effort.
All of which raises a question. If Tokyo does not want Marines on Okinawa, why stay? And if Japanese regard Marines as a public nuisance, rather than a protective force, why not remove the irritant and bring them home?
Indeed, why are we still defending Japan? She is no longer the ruined nation of 1945, but the second-largest economy on earth and among the most technologically advanced.
The Sino-Soviet bloc against which we defended her in the Cold War dissolved decades ago. The Soviet Union no longer exists. China is today a major trading partner of Japan. Russia and India have long borders with China, but neither needs U.S. troops to defend them.
Should a clash come between China and Japan over the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, why should that involve us?
Comes the retort: American troops are in Japan to defend South Korea and Taiwan. But South Korea has a population twice that of the North, an economy 40 times as large, access to the most advanced weapons in the U.S. arsenal and a U.S. commitment to come to her defense by air and sea in any second Korean War.
And if there is a second Korean War, why should the 28,000 U.S. troops still in Korea, many on the DMZ, or Marines from Futenma have to fight and die? Is South Korea lacking for soldiers? Seoul, too, has been the site of anti-American demonstrations demanding we get out.
Why do we Americans seem more desperate to defend these countries than their people are to have us defend them? Is letting go of the world we grew up in so difficult?
Consider Taiwan. On his historic trip to Beijing in 1972, Richard Nixon agreed Taiwan was part of China. Jimmy Carter recognized Beijing as the sole legitimate government. Ronald Reagan committed us to cut back arms sales to Taiwan.
Yet, last week, we announced a $6.4 billion weapons sale to an island we agree is a province of China. Beijing, whose power is a product of the trade deficits we have run, is enraged that we are arming the lost province she is trying to bring back to the motherland.
Is it worth a clash with China to prevent Taiwan from assuming the same relationship to Beijing the British acceded to with Hong Kong? In tourism, trade, travel and investment, Taiwan is herself deepening her relationship with the mainland. Is it not time for us to cut the cord?
With the exception of the Soviet Union, few nations in history have suffered such a relative decline in power and influence as the United States in the last decade. We are tied down in two wars, are universally disliked and are running back-to-back deficits of 10 percent of gross domestic product, as our debt is surging to 100 percent of GDP.
A strategic retreat from Eurasia to our own continent and country is inevitable. Let it begin by graciously acceding to Japan’s request we remove our Marines from Okinawa and politely inquiring if they wish us to withdraw U.S. forces from the Home Islands, as well.
nah, the MIC is pocketing $Bs from continuous wars, and will tell its s in Congress, esp the Repugs, to keep the wars going.
aka, War Is Business
By bankrupting the country with wars and $600B wasted on the military, the Repugs will, in their grand scheme to over Americans, start demanding cuts in SocSec/Medicar/medicaid. Guns ALWAYS before butter for the neo-con and Repug assholes.
Which party controls the executive and legislative branches, again?
Ah, is there any other public figure who more proudly and candidly displays the heart and mind of a tyrant than Buchanan?
How so?
pat poking a stick in the beehive.
blackwater works for corporations, too.
blackwater/xe also works directly for Dept of State.
Liberty is for the people... except the liberty of engaging in commerce with whom he or they want to. If that funest thought raises ones mind, you can count on Mr. Buchanan to lecture the masses about the dearest primacy of the raison d'état.
You're free to do anything you want... except something the state may not like.
so...their liberty is something that can only be attained by US permission?
"Liberty" is now maintaining a military empire so that McDonnell-Douglas can enjoy lucrative contracts for which it buys politicians. Got it, mousefulidioto.
Ah, the mind of a fascist: somebody agrees to a voluntarily, commercial act with somebody else, with no interference from the state - they immediately scream "EMPIRE! THAT'S NOT IN THE INTEREST OF THE PUBLIC GOOD!!". Even better if one of the parties involved is a foreigner, it allows the xenophobic bone to show off.
Internets Political Discussion Rule #2 - the first person to drop "fascist" is the most fascistic in the thread.
oh...it's a commercial venture. got it.
And it's amusing that "fascism" never seems to cover handouts to Wall Street and defense contractors at the expense of all Americans. Oh, we have to worry about wealth transfers down, never up. Go jack off to your copy of The Law, mobastiato.
The Public Good is their God. Bail-outs for big companies? It's in the name of the public good. Restricting freedom of trade? Public good demands it. Restrictions to freedom of speech? Well, it's the public good. Narrow base taxes? Public good.
It's all about the state and the "public good". And nobody is more than a small piece in their insane machinery.
No, Internet Political Discussion Rule #2- Always obey Internet Political Discussion Rule #1
so...how soon should this small piece of a prime minister be punished?
Is there really a need for 13 military bases on Okinawa alone?
There are nine more in other parts of Japan.
it's not about that anymore. the very idea should be outlawed.
Reasons off the top of my head why Marines and Co. should stay in Japan and South Korea:
1. North Korea. They're unstable, got a crazy history, likely just as crazy of a future, have enough men, artilley, and other military equipment to inflict millions upon millions of casualties in the area. Oh yea and they're developing nuke tech. Leaving that area gives NK a chance to do more with their saber than just rattle it - lets not forget they've been actively engaging in skirmishes across the DMZ and surrounding waters.
2. Infrastructure for #1. In the event of a NK invasion, SK and its allies will have milllions of casualties and billions upon billions in monetary damage. This is why having bases in Japan is useful.
3. By having forces in Japan it deters them from rising militarily and from wanting to develop WMD's. Having Americans there strengthens our alliance and puts our money where our mouth is in terms of protecting our allies.
4. High ranking US-military leaders have not been too outspoken about this which speaks volumes considering we've been engaged in several wars since establishing 30,000 troops in the area. If the US military brass says we should stay, I'm going to trust their word over a politician's article.
5. Readily available humanitarian aid. This region is susceptible to monsoons and other potential natural diasters - people don't realize that grunts do a lot more than just fight and in many cases aren't too different from volunteer humanitrian programs.
Unless I am mistaken, this is every inch the non-sequitur.
Power limits whatever it chooses to limit. You may question the legitimacy of that power, but not its existence IMO.
The state in a sense cannot touch natural law but the reverse is often true as well. Political power is often necessary to make natural law effective and enforceable.
This is the tradition in the US, for example. Our form of government was conceived to preserve certain liberties not inconsonant with natural law, but also some traditional English liberties. That it restricts us according to the covenant is part of the covenant, as is the coordinate power of the states over us. Submitting to the authority of the valid laws of the USA and the states we inhabit is part of the bargain.
Pretending it is not marks mogrovejo as the denizen of a philosophical cloud-cuckoo-land, where there is liberty but no political state. Or perhaps, more ominously, of a post-political corporate globalism, where nation-states hollowed out by crippling debt and finlandized by impending default, do the bidding of the great corporations and global finance.
Last edited by Winehole23; 02-02-2010 at 05:37 PM.
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