Text 16475, 95 rader
Skriven 2011-04-06 06:41:38 av Bob Ackley (1:300/3)
  Kommentar till text 16402 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Names will never hurt me...
===================================
Replying to a message of Robert Bashe to Roy Witt:

 RB> Roy Witt wrote to Björn Felten on Monday April 04 2011 at 12:29:

 BF>>> With more than 2,500,000 U.S. personnel serving across the planet
 BF>>> and military bases spread across each continent, it's time to face
 BF>>> up to the fact that our American democracy has spawned a global
 BF>>> empire."

 RW>> How does this so-called 'global empire' rule the countries who hosts
 RW>> it?

 RB> Hey, that's easy: it threatens to pull out, taking all the soldiers =
 RB> customers with it, and the host country begs it not to because the
 RB> economy will otherwise collapse ;-)

 RB> This has happened on a local and regional basis many times in Germany
 RB> and presumably elsewhere.

Forty years ago when I was stationed on Okinawa - at the time it was a US
possession -
there were three main political factions on the island:  an ultra-left
generally anti-American
crowd that demanded reversion to Japan immediately; a right wing group
generally pro-American that was making tons of $$$ off the Americans, they
wanted things to
stay just as they were; and a third, smaller and relatively quiet group (and
the only group
that had any brains, IMO) wanted complete independence (which the Ryukyu
Islands were
until the mid 1800s when they were conquered by Japan).

There was a HUGE US military presence on Okinawa at the time.  Two big AF bases
(Kadena
and Naha, Naha is now Okinawa's civilian airport) plus a smaller AF radio site
at Onna Point,
north of Kadena.  Two huge Marine bases )Camp Hansen and Camp Schwab) plus at
least two
smaller installations (Camp H M Smith and MCAF Futenma).  Two big Army bases
(Fort
Buckner and Sukiran), plus a huge vehicle rehab operation (repairing
damaged/destroyed
vehicles from Vietnam) fun by the 2nd Logistic Command at Machinato and a
communications site at Torii Station.  The Navy had a fleet base at White Beach
on the east side of the island and a communications siste at Hanza.  There were
numerous smaller operations, the Seabees had a small base just east of Kadena,
there was a huge bomb dump north of Kadena, a big radar station at Yoza Dake on
the southern tip of the island, etc.

The US government warned the locals that IF the US lost complete control of the
island 
there would be a massive cutback in the installations there.  The left - and
loudest -
wing screamed 'we don't care, we want to be part of Japan' (never mind the fact
that the
Japanese treated the Okinawans horribly prior to WW II).   Bottom line is that
beginning in
about late 1970, units started closing down and moving off the island (my
outfit shut down
and moved out in 1971, shortly after I left).  Naha Air Base was closed except
for the
runways and civilian terminal and turned over to the Japanese Air Force (the
bar girls in
Naha soon discovered that (a) Japanese airmen didn't have much money and (b)
Japanese
airmen spoke Japanese and treated the girls like sh*t).  Most of the small
operations were
closed, and that huge 

As soon as those operations started to wind down, the need for Okinawan
employees
dwindled and they were pink-slipped.  The roar from the "All-Okinawa Employees
Union"
(one of the loudest voices screaming for reversion to Japan) was deafening and
got even
louder as more of its members lost their jobs.  A number of the local
businesses that 
catered to either the US military or to US troops also downsized or closed
completely.
Note that after reversion was accomplished the Japanese police and military
didn't take
any sh*t from demonstrators - they basically beat the sh*t out of them, as
often as
necessary.

Shortly before I left the island government (still a US possession) started a
program of
buiilding up tourist-type accomodations and businesses to attract Japanese
tourists that
couldn't afford a long trip (to Hawaii, for instance).  Dunno how successful
that was, at
the time I left the island economy was still dependent on the US military.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+
 * Origin: Bob's Boneyard, Emerson, Iowa (1:300/3)