2017: Trump's Threat - More for US Forces

Security in East Asia  -  China - USA - Japan
Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Volume 15 | Issue 1 | Number 5, Jan 2017
Mit freundlicher Erlaubnis von Japan Foccus

Trump's Threat to Charge Japan more for U.S. Forces: Taoka Shuni says "Let them leave."

Taoka Shunji
Introduction and translation by Steve Rabson

"Ever since the end of America's Vietnam catastrophe, experts on both sides of the Pacific have sounded warnings about anachronistic, wasteful, and dangerously misguided U.S. military policies, seemingly perpetuated by inertia, in East Asia. Yet their recommendations are ignored and new policy initiatives thwarted. As a candidate for president in early 1975, Jimmy Carter advocated removing U.S. forces from South Korea. Of Carter’s meeting that year with researchers at the Brookings Institution, Senior Fellow Barry M. Blechman recalled, "I told Carter we should take out the nukes (nuclear weapons) right off and phase out the ground troops over four or five years. I said the most important reason was to avoid getting the U.S. involved with ground forces almost automatically in a new war which is, of course, why the South Koreans want them there." However, Major General John K. Singlaub, U.S. Forces Korea Chief of Staff at the time, publicly criticized Carter’s proposed withdrawal and CIA Director Stansfield Turner privately expressed misgivings.1 It was never implemented.

Retired Admiral Gene R. Laroque, Director of the Center for Defense Information, also favored U.S. troop withdrawal from South Korea. And he advocated closing U.S. bases in Okinawa as strategically unnecessary and fiscally wasteful.2 Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA consultant and later Director of the Japan Policy Research Institute, has written that South Korea “is twice as populous [as North Korea], infinitely richer, and fully capable of defending itself.” 3 Johnson also explained why “defending Korea” and “defending Japan” are false rationales for perpetuating the oppressive burden of U.S. bases in Okinawa, documenting the many atrocities committed by U.S. forces there, even after its reversion from U.S. military occupation to Japanese administration in 1972.4

After an 18-month crisis during which North Korea announced its intention to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the U.S. and the DPRK signed the Agreed Framework on October 22, 1994. ..."


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Krisenregion Ostasien

Die Präfektur Okinawa

2.273 qkm Fläche
98 Inseln
1,36 Mill. Einwohner
41 Gemeinden

Hauptstadt Naha
Sürache: Ryukyu
3 Universitäten
Größte Militärbasis der USA

Polizei und Demonstrantin


No Base !


Gib uns den Frieden wieder
 

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