AMERICAN
RAPISTS ON THE RAMPAGE
The
reason is because, even after all these years, nothing has
really changed. Barely a week prior to the recent G-7/G-8
summit held on Okinawa, an American soldier on a drunken binge
wandered into an unlocked home and molested a 14-year-old
girl; he was found in the girl's bedroom, half-naked, trying
to rape her as the military police walked in to arrest him.
This was only the most recent, and hardly the most heinous,
of a long series of incidents stretching back over the years.
In 1995, three US military personnel grabbed a 12-year-old
Okinawan girl, drove her to an isolated spot in a rented car,
bound her up – her mouth, eyes, hands, and legs –
with duct tape, and repeatedly raped her. As she lay bleeding
and unconscious, according to the account of one of the participants,
Seaman Marcus Gill, they snickered and made dirty jokes about
their victim. Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy
Research Institute, recounts in Blowback:
The Costs and Consequences of American Empire:
"A
few weeks later, from his headquarters at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,
the commander of all US forces in the Pacific, Admiral Richard
C. Macke, remarked to the press: 'I think that [the rape]
was absolutely stupid. For the price they paid to rent the
car, they could have had a girl." Although Macke was permitted
to retire following this lighthearted comment, there was no
Congressional or official inquiry into his leadership of the
Pacific Command and no review of why a decade after the end
of the Cold War the United States still had one hundred thousand
troops based in Japan and South Korea. There was only endless
public relations spin about how the rape of a child was a
singular 'tragedy,' not a consequence of US basing policy,
and how East Asia 'needs' its American peacekeepers."
SINCE
TIME IMMEMORIAL
But
why do we have a right to expect something more of the Admiral
of the Pacific Command? He, after all, is acting like conquerors
have acted since time immemorial. The occupying soldiers of
a victorious empire have traditionally enjoyed the "fruits"
of victory – rape, pillage, and looting – without
much sense of restraint, and the progress of science and technology
has if anything accelerated such barbarian appetites: the
Brits, the Germans, the Russians all raped their vanquished
vassal states literally as well as economically. Why should
the Americans be any different?
RAPE
WITHOUT END
Indeed,
they are worse, in an important sense, because in all these
years they have not let up. Usually when a country loses a
war, it is invaded and suffers all the indignities visited
upon the defeated. Eventually, however, after some period
of time, the enemy retreats, albeit weighed down with as much
plunder as they can carry back to their own castle. But in
the case of the US after World War II, this never happened:
the extension of US military power, across the Atlantic as
well as the Pacific, was never retracted: instead it was institutionalized
and made permanent. Japan was directly ruled by the US occupation
forces, and even after the Security Treaty was signed between
the US and Japan in 1952, officially ending the occupation,
still it continued in Okinawa, which was run as a virtual
military colony for twenty years. The bars, whorehouses, discos,
and clip joints that are a blight on the natural beauty of
Okinawa were the focal point of anti-American demonstrations
during the Vietnam war, and under considerable pressure the
Japanese government finally got up the guts to ask the Americans
if they wouldn't mind giving the island back. Their imperial
overlords in Washington complied – but the American military
presence increased.
CRIME
WAVE
Okay,
you may say, but these rapes and other crimes are the exception,
not the rule: virtually all of the US soldiers stationed in
Okinawa are fine upstanding young men who wouldn't hurt the
people they are supposed to be protecting. After all, as defense
secretary William Perry told the Japanese in 1995 speech at
the Tokyo National Press Club: "The bases are here for your
good more than ours. Without the troops," he averred, "Japan
would be vulnerable." But Japan is already vulnerable
– just ask the parents of the Okinawan child recently
raped on the eve of the summit, or indeed any one of hundreds
of Okinawan victims of an American crime wave that shows no
sign of cresting. Chalmers Johnson cites the following horrifying
figures: in Okinawa between 1972 and 1995, American military
personnel were implicated in 4,716 criminal acts – which
boils down to a crime virtually every single day. Including
only reported incidents, since 1988 US military bases in Japan
have conducted 169 courts-martial for sexual assaults –
a worldwide record. The runner-up is San Diego, California,
which houses more than twice the number of US servicemen –
who commit 66 percent less sexual assaults than their equivalents
in Okinawa. The reported incidence of rape in the US is 41
per every 100,000; in Okinawa, it is 82.
INFECTIOUS
DECADENCE
Something
about being a centurion stationed far from home, on an island
outpost of empire, seems to bring out the worst in us. We
claim to be exporting "democracy," "free markets," and the
benefits of "globalization," but the rest of the shipment
is mysteriously dropped from the packing list: crime, venereal
disease, and the contamination of native cultures with the
American strain of terminal decadence. It isn't enough that
our own culture is swamped with images of pagan depravity:
the contagion must be carried on the spears of our centurions,
to infect the world at large. In this sense, the rape of the
Okinawan women – from the war years to the present –
is a metaphor for what the triumphant globalizers have in
store for all the world's peoples.
THE
LAVENDER SOLUTION
After
the pre-summit incident, US Ambassador Thomas Foley visited
Foreign Minister Yohei Kono in Tokyo and, bowing low, intoned
"I have come to express to you my profound regret for the
events in Okinawa, and to tell you that steps have been taken
so this won't happen again." But what "steps" are these? Will
the Pentagon relent in its opposition to gays in the military,
and replace the 26,000 soldiers stationed on Okinawa with
the Lavender Battalion? This actually might not be such a
bad idea: The sexual violence rate would drop to almost zero,
and it should be a boon to the local economy: not only would
condom sales increase exponentially, but the island's now
almost nonexistent fashion industry would take off like a
rocket.
WITHOUT
APOLOGY
Speaking
of perversion, when the Rapist-in-chief
came to Okinawa for the summit, and addressed
the troops, he did not dare so much as mention the recent
incident, except in the most oblique way:
"We
know our hosts in Okinawa have borne a heavy burden, hosting
half our forces in Japan on less than one percent of its land.
They, too, have paid a price to preserve the peace, and that
is why we need to be good neighbors to them in addition to
being good allies; why each one of us has a personal obligation
to do everything that we can to strengthen our friendship
and to do nothing to harm it. We must continue to hear the
concerns of our Okinawan friends to reduce the impact of our
presence, to promote the kinds of activities that advance
good relations."
"YOU
BETTER PUT SOME ICE ON THAT"
The
man
who raped Juanita Broaddrick then segued into a litany
of charitable and humanitarian activities conducted by the
US military, such as volunteers in an English language instruction
program for Okinawans. Perhaps this would have helped the
victim of the 1995 duct-tape rape understand the lewd jokes
her torturers made about her – just before she slipped
into unconsciousness. Back then, secretary of defense Perry
told the Japanese people: "The American people share this
pain with you," but this time Clinton offered no such gesture.
There was no apology, no condolences to the victims, not even
any acknowledgment that the incident had taken place. It was
a blatant insult to the Japanese people, and specifically
to the thousands of Japanese victims brutalized by American
criminals, that will not be soon forgotten. He then rushed
off to the failing Middle East peace talks, underscoring his
disdain for his hosts. The would-be world hegemons in Washington
may think they can afford to ignore the rising resentment
of their overseas vassals. But it might not be too long before
an American President will have to sit up and take
notice: for a crisis is looming in our relations with the
people of Okinawa – and, in the longer term, with the
government of Japan. If and when the crisis over Okinawa comes,
whomever is sitting in the Oval Office will have had plenty
of warning. Only the special form of arrogance known as hubris,
which practically begs for a comeuppance, could blind American
policy makers to what is coming.
CHOOSING
SIDES
"Okinawa
is sitting atop a pool of molten lava," Governor Keiichi Inamine
told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, "and it can explode
at any minute." In an eight-part series for the Japanese newspaper,
Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe wrote: "I have never before
heard the word bakuhatsu (explosion) as often as I did during
my visit ." According to a piece in the Frankfurter
Rundschau, OE said that "If the authorities take a
hard-line stance, simmering public outrage could boil over
in a number of different forms – in a worst-case scenario,
perhaps even in the form of bloody clashes between US troops
and members of the Japanese Self-Defense Force." If and when
that happens, I know what side I'll be rooting for.
. . .
Please
Support Antiwar.com
A
contribution of $50 or more will get you a copy of Ronald
Radosh's out-of-print classic study of the Old Right conservatives,
Prophets on the Right: Profiles of Conservative Critics
of American Globalism. Send contributions to
Antiwar.com
520 S. Murphy Avenue, #202
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
or
Contribute Via our Secure Server
Credit Card Donation Form
or
Have an e-gold account?
Contribute to Antiwar.com via e-gold.
Our account number is 130325
Your
Contributions are now Tax-Deductible
|
