Bring Our Marines Home
by Patrick J. Buchanan
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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.
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
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1 Comment by Fred Breisch on 2 February 2010:
Yes indeed, bring them home and not only from Japan, but from around the world. It is time to wothdraw from our empire of bases.
2 Comment by John Marino on 2 February 2010:
I can think of nothing more positive for the economy and our natiional moral health than to bring all the troops home as soon as possible. Ron Paul estimates that we could save at least 500 billion a year by closing all our overseas bases and reducing our military to defend only our own borders and shores. Pat Buchanan has for 20 years been a brave voice crying in the wilderness about this issue. Lets hope he is soon listened to.
3 Comment by Old Rebel on 2 February 2010:
Not only is DC’s world-wide empire costly, its bureaucracy doubles as the machinery of a central government that’s increasingly at odds with the people it supposedly serves and protects. That machinery is rapidly deteriorating into a citizen surveillance and control network.
4 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 2 February 2010:
Pat Buchanan is absolutely correct. Yet many Americans who call themselves “conservative” would yelp that Pat Buchanan’s wisdom was in truth “isolationism” and redolent of Neville Chamberlain, the favorite pinata of those who are called neo-conservative. These neo-conservatives, along with the more numerous military-conservatives, seem to have a Pavlovian need for military opponents. If the USSR will no longer do, then Russia must be made an enemy. And if Russia is not enough, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan must be added to the neo-conservative line-up of enemies. Will China be next? And, of course there is the perpetual War on Terror, a constant button pushing theme for the neo-conservatives. But how does an America in decline on so many fronts- economic, social, cultural- support the neo-conservative worldview? It can’t. Which is why the neo-conservatives preferred party, the Republican Party, should not be returned to executive authority any time soon.
5 Comment by CM Collins on 2 February 2010:
What?! And give up our ability to monitor Al Qaeda’s secret underwater lair in the Korea Strait?!
6 Comment by S.L. Toddard on 2 February 2010:
Apparently Pat has not gotten the news that if we ceased militarily dominating every square inch of the globe Osama bin Laden and other hairy, homeless bums would conquer Earth and establish a universal Caliphate. It’s true – I read it at Commentary.
7 Comment by Federalist45 on 2 February 2010:
The deployment of American fighting men around the world has had a checkered history from the beginning. Certainly, the U.S. has defended national interests in some of these deployments, but much more often, it has gained nothing and lost a great deal when there was nothing to be gained from the start. The collapse of the Soviet Union was the definitive line of demarcation–the opportunity for the U.S. to withdraw all permanently established bases and permanently assigned personnel from overseas, to reduce the standing army and navy by about 50%, and to slow down massive weapons procurement programs. Unfortunately, the Pentagon, White House, and hawks and advocates of American Empire in Congress chose to find a whole host of windmills to slay.
Mr. Buchanan is correct. It is time to bring out boys home. Defend the nation by throwing out the criminal-illegal aliens, beefing up intelligence capabilities around the world, and pouring money into immediate strike capabilities (keep the Navy at sea, capable of hitting anyone, anytime, anywhere; keep SOF units ready to deploy and kill instantly). Get a handle on the Islamic Terrorist threat, get good intel, and kill them. Defend the nation against terrorists at home, industrial espionage, and the crushing burden of massive debt and deficits.
Again, if only Mr. Buchanan were 25 years younger!
8 Comment by robert on 2 February 2010:
“Again, if only Mr. Buchanan were 25 years younger!”
Yes, Pat is a rare patriot. If he jumped in on the republican side of the race for 2012 along with Ron Paul, the party apparatus would take up smoking again and need to intervene so the debates could not be televised. But it is fun to imagine a televised debate with Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, Jeb Bush, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and John McCain. It would be like watching oil and water separate in a glass beaker. It could divide the party of government to such an extent that we could all sing Dixie to Dr. Clyde Wilson and cheer his ageing spirits with a present he has desired for years — A Funeral Dirge for the GOP!!
9 Comment by Edmond on 2 February 2010:
But yet Pat yearns for the day Sarah Palin resides in the White House even though when that day comes, Sarah will expedite space travel in order to send a Marine Expeditionary Force to the moon, before going on to Mars for occupation duty, and let the budget be hanged! Every real conservative must confront PJB when they see him to persuade him to renounce his Republican pals if we are ever to have any chance to escape this “imperialist” trap.
10 Comment by John Seiler on 3 February 2010:
Over here, over here,
Send the word, send the word,
Over here, over here,
That the Yanks are coming home,
The Yanks are coming home.
The drums rum tumming over here.
So prepare,
Say a Prayer,
Send the word,
Send the word to be aware
We’ll be home, we’re coming home.
And we’ll be home back here, over here!
11 Comment by Federalist45 on 3 February 2010:
I don’t disagree, Edmond, that Mr. Buchanan is pulled between what the Paleo Conservatives (True Conservatives, Orthodox Conservatives, Constitutional Conservatives, Traditional Conservatives) advocate and what some in the Republican Party (a hodgepodge of politicians with varying interests, few of whom are conservatives at all) advocate. He seeks to walk a fine line between ideology and reality, as he has been a part of, understands, and appreciates, both. Ultimately, he seeks to make the ideals of Paleo Conservatism the reality, but that is a long, long row to hoe. He is doing his best to weed the rows, as he can, but the weeds of liberalism, socialism, and neo-conservatism are difficult to kill. They just keep coming back, no matter how hard he hoes them out of the soil. Mr. Buchanan should be thanked for fighting this fight for so many years. He has entered the arena, which so many of us fail to do.
12 Comment by MilesGloriosus on 3 February 2010:
But, if the marines were home, they’d need a mission, and what more obvious mission than to put them where they’re needed most, Securing our southern border? But the soft-headed members of the GOP and treacherous neo-cons couldn’t countenace that now, could they?
13 Comment by Matt on 3 February 2010:
Mr. Buchanon is living in a dream world of pre-Pearl Habor, Charles Lindburgh’s American Firsters. A fellow trade protectionist Eamon Fingleton, wrote a book entitled “Blindsided” about the hachet job that Japan has done on this country both economically and politically. Mr. Fingleton is deeply suspicious that Japan & China will team up to dominate the world and through America out of Asia. IS PAT UTTERLY Blind to the China’s military build up? The situation would be worse than in World War II. Instead of American, Russia and England facing Japan and Nazi Germany, it would be as though America was facing a county with an economy the same size as itself allied with Germany and Russia. It would be practically hopeless except we still rule the seas. We must keep our finger in Japan and Europe and the Oil Regions of the Middle east. Why was Pat Buchanon so anti-communist, but seem to believes the Nazi’s, Putin, the radical Muslins and Red China are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but Bush,Israel are guilty until proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt? I guess he is an admirer of the French legal system.
- Matt Gilmartin
14 Comment by Andrew Stanton on 3 February 2010:
The only military outside the US should be the Marines guarding our embassies.
15 Comment by robert on 3 February 2010:
@11 “Mr. Buchanan should be thanked for fighting this fight for so many years.”
Virtue is its own reward and Pat knows this. More than a few Chronicles readers have thanked Pat Buchanan with their support— money, time and effort in his previous campaigns — knowing all the while it was something that needed to be done without much hope of any manifest success, especially from within his own party!! John McCain said he would provide the Greyhound bus for Pat and his followers to leave the Party, Dole blamed him for trying to ignite a culture war when what the country really needed was some viagra, Bush preferred he be seen and not heard,while Billy Kristol said he would throw his support to McCain or Gore before he would give Pat a hearing. Pat and his supporters have been smeared, culuminated and condemned by the very Party he tried to serve faithfully for years. As the poet observed about days gone by, sometimes the only thing we can say is “summer sang in us a little while, that in us sings no more.” God Bless Pat!!! And to hell with his party, now and forever. Amen
16 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 3 February 2010:
#13, Matt. China cannot hurt us. We can only hurt ourselves. The idea that we must manage the world is exactly what we must get away from. It is meglomania on the part of our “leaders” who must be the most cowardly and incompetent people ever to aspire to rule an “empire.”
17 Comment by Brock H. on 3 February 2010:
Matt, as a servant of the American Empire seeking a comprehensible response from servants of the American Republic, the Constitution upon which it rests, and the traditional principles of liberty and freedom it espouses, you might not understand the answer to the question you ask. The very actions taken by our imperial rulers in Washington prove that it is only their militaristic interventions into the affairs of other nations that have caused the very problems you wish to remedy: WWII, radical Islam, czarist Russia, etc. You, however, fill your head with the propaganda of the American Empire, that the problems caused by the empire must be cured by doing EXACTLY what caused them, and they just must keeping being done until magically all radical Islam is wiped off the earth, or whatever problem you have in mind.
On Pat’s unyielding anti-Communist politics, there is an easy answer to that one. When the policies of the American imperial government are taken out of the mix, those world threats which you see would be immediately seen as not threats at all – czarist Russia, radical Islam, etc., because it is Washington, D.C. and its imperial battalions like the Armed Forces and the CIA which have caused those problems. Communism is quite different, however. It is unabashedly anti-Western. Its unyielding goal is to infiltrate Western institutions until our civilization’s roots are severed. Whether our power-hungry American government was a powerful empire or if it were to be reigned in to a status resembling the Republic from before the War Against the South, communism hates America as a nation and as an outpost of Western Civilization. It hates its people and its traditions. This is what Tailgunner Joe McCarthy realized, and why Pat supports his principles and not Franklin Roosevelt’s or Harry Truman’s.
18 Comment by Michael Ezzo on 3 February 2010:
If Japan can do a hatchet job on us despite our military presence in Okinawa, doesn’t this just show that our presence there has done us no good?
19 Comment by Matt on 3 February 2010:
You know, I’m wrong. We would so much better off with Japan completely dominated by China and aligned with that country. We would be completely better off with Europe under the thrall of Russia because its energy dependency on that country governed by Putin. We would be completely better off our country out of South America with Hugo Chavez and Castro dominating the Southern America Hemisphere. We would be completely better off with Wahabi or Iranian Shiite Islam killing off any and all remaining Christians in Sudan or other Islamic countries, not to mention Israel and arming themselves with nuclear weapons. This is because, no matter what massive atrocities are committed by the aforementioned countries deranged leaders, really at base, were provoke them. I see your viewpoint. It is much like Saudi Arabia whereby when a woman is raped by several men, she is the one automatically stoned or punished by whipping because she must have enticed them by her lude and livsivious behavior or clothing. Not her rapists. (Oh by the way, Iran shot a rocket into space with your favorite animal, the turtle on board today or yesterday). Never mind that, if you watched the Book Channel and saw the segment on Hitler’s Second Book, wherein he states his ultimate target was America, because Germany couldn’t complete with us economically and would thrawt the ambitions of the master race. Never mind that Mao defense minister would announce in the 1960’s that he hoped to have nuclear war with the US because China would win since it would have at least 100,000,000 survivors, and this same statement was reiterated by China’s defense minister in 2005. Yes – let’s just pull into our turtle’s shell and live in a fantasy that we should conduct our nations affairs like a gentlemen’s squire republic on the eastern seaboard as though two hundred years of history did not happen, that airplanes existed and warships still were powered by sail. Never mind that the very founders of the Republic, such as Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe yearned to build an empire from the very start of the Constitution. Yes – the American Empire is the most wicked creature on the planet now. It all started with the illegal invasion of the South in 1861, then the unprovoked attack on Spain in 1898. Then intervention in WWI and FDR calling up Emperor Hirohito to have him do FDR the favor of bombing Pearl Harbor so FDR could attack the harmless post card painter from Vienna, then Chancellor of Germany, Adolph Hitler. FDR planned repay Hirohito the favor he did by dropping two atomic bombs on him in 1945. Opps! I meant FDR’s successor Harry Truman. Then under US pressure, the evil American Empire and its servants pressured Europe to free its colonies. Then the evil American Empire set up an international trading system through out the world, with the assistance of the British, whereby all of mankind, even to this day, has enjoyed untold wealth and increases in the standard of living which were undreamed of in 1945. This evil America Empire has kept the peace for more than 65 years, rivaling the record of August Caesar. Let us dismantle this wicked 666 creature of an empire and let the better, more worthy leaders of the rest of the world take over and run like they run the UN. Yes – that’s the way to go.
20 Comment by Brock H. on 4 February 2010:
Matt, radical Muslim clerics, Chinese commies, and German Nazis all achieved their positions of power by stirring up populist anger from their people against the U.S. government for its interventions in their affairs. By the way, were the Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars part of that 65-year peace you brag of?
Yes, the Framers of our Constitution had grand visions of power in their minds. No arguments there. They were entrusted with great power by their countrymen, and you know Lord Acton’s take on power. That, dear Matt, is why the personal thoughts and desires of the men who WROTE our Constitution do not matter in the long run. It is the representatives of the states who RATIFIED the document whose understanding of the laws and principles it embodies are what matters.
21 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 4 February 2010:
I dispute that early American leaders like Jefferson and Monroe wanted empires. Hamilton, a wouldbe Napoleon and some of his later followers did. What Jefferson and Monroe wanted was an empire of liberty—a voluntary confederacy (or confederacies) of self-governing commonwealths to be settled by Americans and their posterity in then largely empty wilderness. They relied on the dynamism of free Americans, not military conquest and not the rule of foreign peoples. The Northeastern Republican imperialists like Teddy Roosevelt, lied when they claimed earlier precedent for their deeds. Jefferson and Monroe were motivated by the very real threat of British imperialism, not by the desire for conquest except for empty lands to be settled by future generations of AMERICANS.
22 Comment by J.D. Salyer on 4 February 2010:
#19
The American Empire you laud has spent the past thirty years presiding over the murder of ~ 45 million of its own children.
Oh, but right, I forget — that’ll change once we get some good Republicans in power.
23 Comment by J.D. Salyer on 4 February 2010:
It’s easy to talk about how great America is when you’re not one of the ones who got your skull crushed, and your brains sucked out by a vacuum cleaner.
24 Comment by robert on 4 February 2010:
“The American Empire you laud has spent the past thirty years presiding over ….”
J.D.,
You forgot to add that most of the presiding (not all of it) was done by the Republican party. Thank God it is just about finished. Finally the ordinary, Reagan democrats and Buchanan brigadiers have realized that if your left hand is an occassion of sin, cut it off. While the neo-cons have come to understand if the right eye is the occassion of sin, gouge it clean out. Somebody should have told the neo-cons that the Cyclops has had only one eye from birth. Now every citizen will clearly see the republican party for what it is, America’s enduring example of the blind leading the blind.
25 Comment by Bryan on 4 February 2010:
In an earlier post someone in their attempt be sarcastic did get a couple points right. The invasion of the South was unconstitutional, the Spanish American War was justified by a fallacy and yellow journalism. But he forgot about the Great War ruse. Had we stayed home where we belonged it would have been nothing but another futile European War. The Nazi’s and Boleshevick’s would have been miniscule groups if they had existed at all, and we would not have a military presence in 140 plus countries. Its common rubbish for rubes to claim they are protecting our freedom. Thats rubbish! The primary threats to our ever shrinking civil liberties is home grown.
26 Comment by Miles Gloriosus on 4 February 2010:
@19 Matt: the Chinese dragon you fear will dominate Japan would only be a garter snake without the American $ our half-witted leaders have been pumping into their economy. If any are serious about the dangers posed by China, they’ll recognize they’ve been feeding that beast for well nigh on two decades now. But, without China Americans would have to look elsewhere for the poisonous trinkets to cram into their children’s Christmas stockings and the toxic shrimp and other tainted goodies they now gobble up with no hesitation.
27 Comment by R. McCabe on 4 February 2010:
Is Matt’s extremism more or less disheartening than the retort of abortion?
Frankly, there is a lot of truth in Matt’s sarcasm noir. The world can be a nasty place, and it might look a lot different if we weren’t so busy pushing our military around trying to fastforward the imaginations and profits of unhinged men. It might be in some ways a better world, it might be in other ways a worse one.
In either case, it would be a more affordable, bearable and conscionable world at the very least for middle class Americans.
28 Comment by Gilbert Jacobi on 4 February 2010:
What a sad irony, that Pat’s achingly poignant call to bring the boys home – especially so for this former Marine who spent time on Oki and in Da Nang:
“Twelve thousand U.S. soldiers and Marines would die ….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.”
should come on the day that the secretary of defense – with the collusion of the top generals! – calls for the military’s final surrender to the gay mafia.
Instead of being able to join gratefully with Pat in his welcome call, I’d almost just as soon they stay away, far away, rather than have to see them up close and prancing instead of marching like men. To think that before long, we will have to see these “couples” dishonoring the uniforms in which so many have sacrificed so much…
29 Comment by Matt on 5 February 2010:
I must say that abortion is a grave sin for which our country and the rest of Western civilization will by harshly judged. But this has little bearing on foreign policy goals, except to export the culture of death to the third world. Miles Glorious, you are spot on about China.
30 Comment by Matt on 5 February 2010:
Correction -
I must say that abortion is a grave sin for which our country and the rest of Western civilization will be harshly judged. But this has little bearing on foreign policy goals, except to export the culture of death to the third world. Miles Glorious, you are spot on about China.
31 Comment by JD Salyer on 5 February 2010:
When we used the term “evil American Empire,” I assumed you were being sarcastic. Apparently abortion wasn’t foremost in your mind, because ~45 million dead babies sounds pretty evil to me. As does — as you yourself mention — exporting the practice.
“A society that accepts the killing of a third of its babies as women’s “emancipation,” that considers homosexual marriage to be social progress, that hands out contraceptives to 13-year-old girls at junior high ought to be seeking out a confessional – better yet, an exorcist – rather than striding into a pulpit like Elmer Gantry to lecture mankind on the superiority of ‘American values.’ ”
– Pat Buchanan
32 Comment by JD Salyer on 5 February 2010:
“we used” should read “you used.”
33 Comment by JD Salyer on 5 February 2010:
My point is that if abortion really is murder then our society is guilty of more murders than Nazi Germany and Bolshevik Russia put together. I do not see how one could deny this, granting the premise.
And I do not see how such guilt could not affect how we relate to the rest of the world — especially when we start invoking moral terms.
Thus it seems more than a little odd to dwell on how awful women have it in Saudi Arabia, much less to imply that the US has been some unprecedented, near-divine blessing to the world, “whereby all of mankind, even to this day, has enjoyed untold wealth and increases in the standard of living which were undreamed of in 1945. This evil America Empire has kept the peace…”
Again, unless your one of those who drew the short straw, in which case you don’t enjoy no untold wealth and you don’t so much as receive the piece of the grave, being consigned instead to a dumpster.
If Al Q’aida nuked cities the size of Chicago 13 times over, they still couldn’t reach the death toll Americans have inflicted on themselves.
But the nice thing about our way is that it’s out of sight, out of mind, so we can all still go about our business stuffing ourselves with consumer rubbish.
34 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 5 February 2010:
The again, if the government brings the Marines home, it may use them against us.
35 Comment by Brock H. on 5 February 2010:
Dr. Wilson @34
Yes, there must be some sects of WASP church-going and home-schooling families out in the hinterlands who need to be taught a little Waco- or Ruby Ridge-type lesson concerning what happens when you run afoul of the great empire.
36 Comment by Gilbert Jacobi on 6 February 2010:
China is one of the only points of disagreement I have with PJB. I think Pat is just too invested in his part in the grand historical opening to China under Nixon to go back and admit it was a mistake.
Prof. Wilson’s assumption that “China cannot hurt us” I find harder to understand. Getting away from the idea that we must manage the world is all well and good, but should not be based on the assumption that no one can hurt us but ourselves.
I would like to know where China has shown it can be trusted to forswear doing anything that costs America in treasure, prestige, and potentially, as in its nefarious Korea machinations, blood. The Chinese have a deep seated animosity toward Europeans, and those already in America constitute a vast fifth column, as repeatedly demonstrated by their involvement in industrial spying and counterfeiting.
Many of those coming into power in China today are former Cultural Revolutionists, the hardest of hard-core Maoists, whose anti-Americanism was far more virulent than that of their American ’60s campus imitators. They may not wish to annihilate us; but they are certainly aware of our waning strength, and of their growing opportunity to reduce us to impoverished, drugged chattel of company store China.
37 Comment by Gilbert Jacobi on 6 February 2010:
I should say “one of the very few points of disagreement I have with PJB.”
38 Comment by Extremely Extreme Extremist on 7 February 2010:
Not that it makes me an expert, but I did spend four consecutive years deployed in Okinawa with the Marines of the 3rd FSSG, was married to an Okinawan woman, and have talked extensively with many civilian survivors of the horror that was Battle of Okinawa. While in principle I am extremely sympathetic to the goal of “bringing our boys home,” I think Americans today do not appreciate the depth and intransigence of the martial spirit in the Japanese soul. It is not always (or even, these days, often) apparent, but behind the polite, self-effacing demeanor and smiling face of Japanese politicians and giddy, Madonna-loving schoolgirls still lurks the heart of a lion…and it is a lion to this day untamed by any humane Christian values.
The primary reason for our post-WWII presence in Japan was not our need for forward bases. The primary reason we took on the burden of defending Japan and maintaining bases there was the widespread fear of a resurgent Japan repeating its aggression in the Pacific theater. That reason still exists, and as some have pointed out, with the rise of a potential partner in China, the danger may well be even greater. Should we care? I don’t know enough about geopolitics and all our alleged interests in the area to be able to answer that. But it certainly seems to me to be a point that should be considered when discussing this topic.
39 Comment by Gilbert Jacobi on 8 February 2010:
Triple E:
I never even got to the battlefield part of the Rock; what a wasted opportunity to visit one of our most hallowed grounds! You are on the same track as my late father, who grew up in Chicago’s tough ethnic neighborhoods of the pre WW l era, who never believed for one moment that the Japs had had the fightin’ spirit whipped out of em’.
I would say, expert or not, you have revealed a truth here.
40 Comment by Chris on 10 February 2010:
A couple of things to keep in mind:
1) Since WWII, the US is responsible for more death and destruction outside its borders than any other state.
2) China does not need the US for continued economic well being. The world market is more than large enough.
3) The fighting spirit which leads Americans to spread death and destruction abroad must also be curbed. There’s a lack of introspection in American culture.