Sunday, January 24, 2010

World War II Ended 65 Years Ago

So get the hell out of Okinawa.
TOKYO — A candidate who opposes the relocation of an American air base on Okinawa won a crucial mayoral election on Sunday, raising pressure on Japan’s prime minister to move the base off the island, a move opposed by the United States.

The election in the small city of Nago could force Japan to scrap, or at least significantly modify, a 2006 deal with the United States to build a replacement facility in the city for the busy Futenma United States Marine air station. The base is currently in a crowded part of the southern Japanese island.

The fate of that deal has already become the focus of a growing diplomatic rift between the United States and Japan, its closest Asian ally. The Obama administration has been pushing Japan to honor the deal, but the new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has said he will take until May to decide whether to support it or name a new site for the base.

Political experts have said losing Nago as a site for the base would complicate Mr. Hatoyama’s decision, because few other Japanese communities appear willing to host the base and its noisy helicopters.
Hatoyama Yukio has turned out to be everything Barack Obama has not. Noisy helicopters, rampaging crime and corruption, disgusting pollution, the daily running down (or over) of Okinawans by US military vehicles, non-prosecuted murder, and the regular rape of local adolescent girls by Bwana: time is up.