Word: okinawa
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Unfortunately, there is nowhere else quite so convenient. Okinawa suits American purposes because of its proximity to the Korean peninsula and the rest of Asia. From the standpoint of the government in Tokyo, keeping so many American troops in Okinawa makes sense; that way they are segregated from the Japanese mainland. Koizumi has said, however, that he wants to "lighten the burden" on the island. Japanese have paid rapt attention to the debate on the U.S. bombing range in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and to Washington's decision to close the range in 2003. But the chances of such a dispensation...
...Okinawa, life in the shadow of geopolitics produces strange anomalies. The weekend following the alleged rape, the Kadena base opened its gates to visitors for a festival with carnival rides, hamburgers and barbecued ribs. Hundreds of locals drove their cars across one of the airfield's long runways to get a glimpse of America's military hardware: an AWAC surveillance plane, armored vehicles, grenade launchers. Still, thoughts of the alleged rape were never far away. "My girlfriends and I are always bothered by these American servicemen," said Kaori Teruya. "They live in this safe place, behind fences, but they come...
When night falls outside the sprawling Kadena Air Force Base in the center of Okinawa, the streets turn into a bacchanalian fest of hard drinking, loud music and raucous, sweaty dancing. American servicemen are on the prowl for liquor and a good time. The local girls, Okinawans and Japanese, come out too, looking for some fun with the buff, dollar-rich and female-deprived American boys. Tattooed guys in muscle shirts and cargo pants rub against women in midriff-baring Tshirts and tight jeans, and as the crowd spills from bars onto sidewalks, the night shifts into hormonal overdrive...
...always. Last week, just 36 hours before Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was to meet at Camp David with U.S. President George W. Bush for the first time, Okinawa suffered the type of ugly incident that happens with depressing regularity?becoming, once again, one of the most tricky points in the complex relationship between the U.S. and Japan. Early Friday morning, a woman in her twenties told police that a foreigner raped her in a parking lot of a shopping mall not far from the Kadena base. Police later said they had identified a U.S. Air Force technical sergeant...
...While the police and the U.S. military tried to sort out the criminal investigation, the two countries' diplomats had to deal with the fallout. With some 26,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines on the 2,300-sq-km tropical prefecture, Okinawa is the cornerstone of the U.S. defense strategy in Asia. But ever since the Americans turned the island into a military fortress after World War II, it has been an uneasy alliance. The Okinawans, already estranged from the Japanese mainlanders who colonized their island and then brutalized them during the war, have long resented being used...