US military personnel in Japan ‘forces of occupation’: Analyst
Thousands of US forces stationed in various military bases across Japan are in fact forces of occupation with a mission to promote violence, says an American political commentator.
Don DeBar made the comments while discussing crimes committed by American forces in the East Asian country.
The arrest of an American naval officer on Saturday for driving under the influence of alcohol in Okinawa and causing a head-on collisions with other cars has sparked public outrage among residents of the island, days after they were shocked by the rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman by the hands of a US military base staff.
“The US military is in Japan positioned to make war,” DeBar told Press TV on Sunday. “These are people that are trained to do mass violence and they carry with them all of the prejudices that go with American culture.”
The New York-based analyst said US forces think they are protecting Japan form other Asian countries and see themselves as being “above Japanese law.”
He called the public outrage among Japanese people against American troops a “natural resentment to an occupation force” that gets exacerbated by the US military’s actions and is by no means limited to Japan.
This “is not a condition that is exclusive to Japan but it exists around the world where the United States is positioned; there are more than a thousand US military bases around the world,” he said.
“In each case there is friction with the local population based on the fact that they are in effect an occupying army living there to impose the will of the US and its elite on the people and to threaten violence by their presence if people assert their interests against that,” he continued.
America’s many bases and soldiers on Okinawa have long been a cause of tension in relations between the US and Japan.
The island is home to the lion's share of American bases in Japan, where there are currently 47,000 US personnel under a decades-long security alliance.
US military personnel, dependents and civilians have committed crimes, including rapes and assaults as well as hit-and-run accidents, which have long provoked local protests on the island.
US President Barack Obama and other senior American officials have extended apologies to Japanese people over the crimes.
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