US Military Presence

We'll be in Iraq forever. We're still in Japan.

A U.S. Marine was arrested on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old Japanese girl on the southern island of Okinawa, police said on Monday, triggering anger from an area where the U.S. military presence is widely resented.

  Reuters

And at least partly so because of incidents like this in the past.

Spreading “America's goodness and America's vision."

Update re comments: I just tried to publish a comment on this post, but I lost it instead. It was from a soldier stationed in Okinawa who says it's not the US armed forces in general who are problematic, just the Marines. I believe the wording was "they screw up everything."

Sorry about screwing up the comment, and to the person who took the time: Thanks for reading and commenting as well.

Update re update: Okay, never mind. Now it shows up. At least I didn't screw up the quote.

Earthquake Damage Assessment

A powerful earthquake tipped over barrels of nuclear waste at a power plant and officials on Tuesday were investigating whether there were any radioactive leaks, a day after they said the quake had caused the reactor to spill radioactive water into the sea.

[...]

The quake had caused a leak of water with radioactive material Monday at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant, the world's largest in terms of electricity output, although officials said that leak caused no harm to the environment.

  Yahoo

Radioactive water into the sea. No harm. When did Rudy Giuliani and Christie Whitman become Japanese officials?

Babies with two heads will actually be sought after in the future. It's all good.

Iwo To

Japan has restored Iwo Jima's original pre-war name: Iwo To.

Retired Marine Maj. Gen. Fred Haynes [...] heads the Combat Veterans of Iwo Jima, a group of about 600 veterans that travels to the island every year for a reunion.

[...]

"It was Iwo Jima to us when we took it," said Haynes. "We'll recognize whatever the Japanese want to call it but we'll stick to Iwo Jima."

  Yahoo

So there.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

The Great Peacemaker

From the 2007 President's Dinner (via W3IAI), a Dubya quote:

“Isn’t it interesting, my dad fought the Japanese, I’m making peace with the Japanese.”

Are we at war with the Japanese again?

He means that 60 years after World War II, he can sit down with the Japanese prime minister and “talk about peace in the world.” Which isn’t really the same thing as making peace. But then they also, he says, “sit at the table talking about making sure that the leader of North Korea doesn’t get a nuclear weapon.” Um, has no one told him that North Korea has had nukes for a while now?

  W3IAI

When will they boot us out of Okinawa?

The US Air Force has apologised to the family of a 10-year-old girl who was allegedly molested by one if its airmen in Okinawa at the weekend.

[...]

Police arrested 27-year-old Sergeant Armando Valdez - who denies the assault - after the girl told her mother a drunken soldier had groped her and taken a photo of her naked chest in a car park in the city of Naha. The Okinawa Times, quoting police, said yesterday that Sgt Valdez still had the photograph of the girl in his mobile phone when he was questioned.

[...]

The incident is the latest in a string of sexual assaults by American servicemen to have angered the inhabitants of the southern Japanese prefecture, which plays reluctant host to dozens of American military bases.

[...]

In 1995, two marines and a sailor kidnapped and gang-raped a 12-year-old girl before leaving her for dead in a crime that capped years of sexual assaults and which caused the largest anti-US demonstrations since the end of the Second World War.

[...]

"There is a lot of anger in Okinawa right now," said Shoichi Chibana, an assemblyman who campaigns for the removal of American bases. "People are afraid of these crimes because they just never stop, and they won't stop until the military leaves."

   Independent UK article

You think? Is there any place on the planet with an American military base that doesn't suffer these horrors? Hell, our guys rape and molest their own fellow soldiers.

But we're the good guys, right?