Just days before the recent earthquake struck Japan, a controversy erupted over comments attributed to Kevin Maher, the head of the State Department’s Japan Desk. In news reports that caused widespread outrage and became front page news in Japan, Maher was quoted as describing the Okinawan people as “extortionists” and “lazy.”
On the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, U.S. fighter planes took off to start yet another military action — this time, in Libya. A recent Gallup poll found that only 47 percent of Americans approved of military action in Libya, the lowest level of support for military intervention in 40 years. At the same time, U.S. President Barack Obama has sent Congress a budget that includes $1.2 trillion dollars for military and security expenditures. Clearly, Americans are weary of war, especially during an economic crisis that has threatened jobs, health plans, and pensions most families need to survive.
The Department of Defense has been busy all week feeding copy to the media on its undeniably heroic work in northern Japan. However that same press machine has been slower to report on another of its military projects currently underway in Okinawa. Since January 2011, the Okinawa Defense Bureau has been building a 50 million yen ($600,000) barrier between Camp Schwab and the public beach at Henoko.
A prophet has died. Did his crying in the wilderness matter? At the end, did he think so?
Perhaps because he didn’t discover it until later in life, Johnson’s outrage at American militarism was a well that never ran dry.
One of Chalmers Johnson’s last concerns, closing Futenma air base in Okinawa, may yet come to pass.
According to the 2006 report, 14 of the 38 most valuable large bases in the world are concentrated in Japan. This includes the top three: the Navy base at Yokosuka, home port for a nuclear aircraft carrier ($3.88 billion); the Air Force base at Kadena, the largest air terminal in Asia ($3.82 billion); and the airbase at Misawa ($3.71 billion).
As the dust settles on the August 10 Colombian Constitutional Court ruling declaring invalid the U.S.-Colombia military bases agreement, politicians and analysts are saying that the decision was for the better. Most of those voices come from former supporters of the deal —including Liberal Party presidential candidate, Rafael Pardo.
Prime Minister Kan is on board with the U.S. military presence in Okinawa, but the island’s residents and politicians are considerably less sanguine about it.
Andrew Bacevich is a professor of international relations and history at Boston University and the author of the new book, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. You can read a review of this book here. Bacevich talks with FPIF’s Andrew Feldman about current U.S. military policy and the ethics of intervention.