Posted on 05/23/2010 5:51:13 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama gave up on a bedrock campaign pledge and accepted a longstanding U.S. proposal for positioning American troops in Japan, backing down from a battle with Washington as the two nations grapple with North Korea's aggression and China's rising power in the region.
The move hands the Obama administration an important foreign-policy victory, allowing Washington to avoid what, for a time, appeared to be an unwelcome need to rearrange its regional defense strategy in North Asia while fighting two wars and navigating other tense diplomatic and economic tussles around the world. Beyond the specifics of the Marine bases in Japan, Mr. Hatoyama's reversal is significant as a reaffirmation of Tokyo's support for the U.S.-Japan security alliance, the pillar of American military policy in the Pacific. Mr. Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan had won a landslide victory in elections in August by promising to reverse a number of policies of the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party. A big target was the LDP's handling of the half-century-old security alliance, which was negotiated and nurtured by the LDP and had lasted as long as the party's nearly unbroken rule.
Mr. Hatoyama had unnerved Washington with his talk of a more "equal" relationship, closer ties with China and creation of an East Asia community that would exclude the U.S.
Japanese in the city of Naha protest the Prime Minister's agreement to relocate U.S. bases to a less-populated area of the island. .Americans nervously watched Mr. Hatoyama's attempts over the past eight months to rewrite a pact between the U.S. and Japan to relocate the base—part of a broader U.S. strategy to rearrange troops in Asia—and to shrink the U.S. military footprint on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Ping.
Getting a rowdy in the neighborhood, ehh Japan??
Chia Head scared that new PM in Japan.
more like nervous
Get the hell out of Japan. Get home and on the MEXICAN BORDER!!
The dumbasses in Japan always think it’s cute to take to the streets and demand the US leave their country.
What would they do if we did leave. Scream bloody murder when they are threatened by NK.
Notwithstanding the weak kneed response from us when their ship was sunk.
I’m sure that the fever pitch of PRC subs lurking around —or the blowing up of the ROK ship— had nnnnnnnNNNNNOTHING to do with this....
Get the hell out of Japan. Get home and on the MEXICAN BORDER!!
And it’s time to phase out of South Korea and Germany.
Can you imagine if this had happened under the Bush whitehouse?
The moonbats would be claiming the sinking of the SK ship was a “inside job” so Bush could increase the military presence in SK and Japan.
But now that this happened under Obama, their hypocritical silence is deafening.
I would have rather seen then move to Guam. The US taxpayer would get more bang from the buck there..
Futenma will not close according to the Japanese PM.
ABSOLUTELY!!! AMERICA FIRST —AMERICA NOW!!
Japan prime minister tells Okinawa U.S. Marines will stay
By David Allen and Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Tuesday, May 25, 2010
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=70165
This point of distinction is often lost due to the distance and of course jaded American newspaper reporting on and from Japan.
Don’t you realize that if all the troops on Okinawa (I never approved of the US’ handing that island back to Japan) were to be transferred to Guam, that island would tip over, and everyone would fall into the Pacific?
lol
No I took that comment as a joke..
Most Americans don’t realize it, but because of the generous host-nation support Japan contributes, it actually costs the US less to maintain a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine in Japan than in the US.
In addition, since the late 1970s, there has been virtually no US-paid military construction at our bases in Japan. This is because Japan has paid for almost all new construction under the “Facilities Improvement Program” (FIP).
All in all, US bases in Japan are a very good deal for the US taxpayer. One could say they’re a good deal for the Japanese taxpayer too, since it would cost Japan much more to replicate the US military deterrent if US forces left.
If China and the Norkos had been smart they would have toned down everyting for a few years and the base would have closed!
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