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Bolow posted:Is there anything specific discipline wise you have in mind? In my admittedly limited experience as a LCpl in Japan (Mainland not Okinawa), the SOFA agreement the US has with Japan is rather generous. If you hosed up enough out in town that the Japanese police had to get involved the base would basically go "He's all yours" and let the Japanese judicial system handle you. The biggest issue I saw is the whole college/military town thing. Except in a military town instead of having a bunch of nearly broke 18-20'somethings you have a bunch of 18-20'somethings that have next to no financial obligations and a source of steady decent income. Short of locking everyone down on base which poses severe morale problems there's nothing the leadership can do to enforce stricter discipline. The punishment for loving up out in town is as severe as the UCMJ allows, and nearly every single enlisted person that hosed up was made an example of. I've even had a friend who did everything by the book the instant he lost track of his liberty buddy and he still got loving hammered by our command because "THOU SHALT NOT BE IN TOWN BY THY SELF" *unless you're an E-4 or higher Iv had a few friends go to Okinawa and 1 family member, and from what they told me the biggest issue regarding discipline overseas is that while there is a large amount of effort put into making sure people who gently caress up get punished, there isn't as much emphasis placed on informing people on how not to gently caress up, or making sure people who might gently caress up are not given the chance to gently caress up. The buddy system is insanely retarded because people are just as dumb in groups than they are alone, even more so often times because people get pressured into poo poo. I'm not really informed enough to make a specific recommendation, but something needs to be done because we are never going to give up our bases in the far east. Europe is a different story because Russia couldn't fight it's way out of a paper bag anymore and relies on it's rusting stock pile of nukes so basing isn't as important, but China is very much hungry for more influence which makes the far east much more tricky. The aforementioned leadership issues also make the issue worse, because the marine corp seriously does not know what it wants to do with itself right now.
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Apr 2, 2015 23:08
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Venom Snake posted:I'm not really informed ... but something needs to be done
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Apr 2, 2015 23:47
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Fojar38 posted:Is balkanization the goon solution to every problem? Give every ethnicity and/or geopolitical subdivision self-government? I just think it's condescending to countries to let them off the hook for their own imperial tendencies. There's a longtime goon that grew up abroad who, many years ago when I was immigrating abroad, said, "Don't buy into the noble savage myth." On its face the wording is striking for any open-minded Westerner, like "What?!" But actually it refers to a tendency many here suffer from and he was exactly right. For good or ill, peoples around the world are peoples and operate independently of what any foreigner has to say on any given day. Many of these peoples are from sovereign nations and some of those nations are powerful and have a strong influence in their own affairs, if not total control. To imply that everything they do that one disapproves of is entirely at the behest of foreign powers - which is a constant implication here - is deeply insulting and naive, frankly, and something that would never be said about, for example, a European country. Japan is not 2015 Afghanistan. It is not Puerto Rico, so give it the respect of treating it as what it is, for good and ill. In spite of the military bases in Germany and Italy and so on after defeating and conquering those countries in World War II, no one would say, "Well the US runs the place(s) wholesale and they want all these bad things to happen and that's why they happen." but it's okay to say this about non-majority-white countries because, you know, when your heart is in the right place and you're trying to empathize with perceived oppression then looking down at other races and saying that they're too simple and weak to possibly be capable of exerting power on their behalf is okay. These people over here they may look different but in many cases they largely, if not entirely decide their own affairs and have their own histories of oppression and illegitimate rule. We should hold any foreign power accountable for its undue influence, the US included - and that's a long list for sure - but the D&D narrative that every single thing in the world emanates from America is condescending as gently caress, to be honest. I mean really just "I have never lived in the rest of the world, but I'm going to tell you how it works" condescending.
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Apr 2, 2015 23:48
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Chomskyan posted:Yes, they buckled under pressure from the U.S., but that doesn't change the way the public voted. There's no need to posit some insidious US influence here-- Japan's government has every reason to keep the bases right where they are, electoral promises or no. Chomskyan posted:The actions of Japan's military government during World War II completely justifies crimes and ongoing injustices committed against Japanese civilians. The treaty which allows the US to use these bases in Japan was last amended in 1960, and allows for either country to unilaterally withdraw with a 1 year notice period.
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Apr 3, 2015 00:09
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Fojar38 posted:Is balkanization the goon solution to every problem? Give every ethnicity and/or geopolitical subdivision self-government? Well we could establish full communism and abolish geopolitical subdivisions entirely.
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Apr 3, 2015 00:12
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Rent-A-Cop posted:America in a nutshell folks. Except I said it because I only have a general picture, not because I do not know literally anything about the subject other than "thing bad".
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Apr 3, 2015 00:16
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Venom Snake posted:Iv had a few friends go to Okinawa and 1 family member, and from what they told me the biggest issue regarding discipline overseas is that while there is a large amount of effort put into making sure people who gently caress up get punished, there isn't as much emphasis placed on informing people on how not to gently caress up, or making sure people who might gently caress up are not given the chance to gently caress up. The buddy system is insanely retarded because people are just as dumb in groups than they are alone, even more so often times because people get pressured into poo poo. That's a problem with the military as whole it's just much more publicized overseas. A Marine getting DUI in Jacksonville, NC isn't news. A Marine doing it in Okinawa definitely is. Marines, and military members in general are going to gently caress up. No matter how much you say or do people will gently caress up. The problem is that it's a much bigger deal when its done in a foreign country than in the US.
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Apr 3, 2015 00:16
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As far as I can tell, the US would be willing to remove its troops from Japan if the government wanted them to, but they don't (for a bunch of different reasons). Everything else is just the kind of local politics that occurs around every single institutional campus in the world.
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Apr 3, 2015 00:21
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Obviously if the Federal Government of Japan was unambiguously calling for the removal of all bases the bases would be removed. The question is, why isn't the Japanese government calling for that despite repeated public mandates to do so? Obviously the answer isn't as simple as "It's all the US's fault"; it's the result of a number of interests, both Japanese and American, applying pressure, skirting democratic principles, and even evading laws in a single-minded attempt to build a new base in Okinawa. So yes, not entirely the US's fault, but the US undeniably holds a large portion of the blame. If you want more insight, you might look into this analysis of the 2009 confrontation between the Hatoyama and Obama administrations.
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Apr 3, 2015 00:40
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Fundamentally it comes down to the Japanese government not really seeing an upside of ticking off the Americans, having to pony up funding for a replacement military (who would invariably occupy many of the same bases in Okinawa), and destabilizing regional stability. It's kind of a no-brainer. Strategic considerations are going to outweigh minor personnel issues, some messy history in the 1970s, and the occasional diplomatic flap. Sometimes democratic principles mean that the interests of a small group gets overridden in the interests of the whole. Call it what you will.
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Apr 3, 2015 02:48
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Re Okinawa specifically, something everybody forgets - Okinawa isn't as much in range of North Korean attack (for one example) as the rest of Japan. Military basing is like any other kind of real estate, it's (largely) about location, location, location. Okinawa is off by itself, kinda like Guam. It's a lot better place to deploy troops from for operations in most of the Pacific. If you must have troops in Japanese territory (which you really do for political reasons), you may as well put them in Okinawa. Now, could the USFJ consolidate some of their operations to give up excess land? No doubt the answer is yes. But to somehow imagine the government in Tokyo (who actually has a say in the matter) is going to give up the geopolitical advantage of US troops on Japanese soil merely because the Okinawans (who are not exactly politically influential ever) want it...is naive.
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Apr 3, 2015 03:31
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And after doing some additional reading on the issue, it becomes clear why the bases went there in the first place: The island's already small population was decimated by the Battle of Okinawa, and the US military had built significant bases in the ruins of the emptied villages to continue their campaign onto the Japanese main island. After the war was ended, there was decades of occupation. The US only turned over the land to the Japanese government by the 1970s, by which time the tiny population of Okinawa had exploded thanks to all the American investment. The tiny villages that had sprung up around the bases now had hundreds of thousands of people living in them. It's basically the story of every major military base: The military finds a suitable and isolated location, the civilians follow for economic reasons, and within a couple generations you've got people objecting to the military presence and demanding that the military leave (at no cost to the locals, of course). I'm not unsympathetic, but frankly the US military and the Japanese government have already spent billions relocating half the troops remaining in Okinawa. There's about 10,000 Marines stationed there, only a quarter of the 40,000 troops in the country, on an island of 1.4 million people. The US is building an entirely new base, away from the existing population centers on Okinawa, by literally reclaiming land from the ocean. The legal clearance has largely already gone through ,and Tokyo is offering the island billions in economic aid in order to resolve the issue. And still there's a vocal group of Okinawans who are demanding that every base be closed, and every soldier leave. Meanwhile the Okinawans have no suggestions for where the US military should go, nor what the country of Japan should do to mitigate the economic and strategic damage that would occur. It's an unreasonable ultimatum.
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Apr 3, 2015 04:03
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Kaal, you've got your history wrong. Where are you reading from? What is your source? I'll happily cite mine: the leading academic work on Okinawan history, in Appendix B: Okinawa since 1945.quote:Okinawa was to be a showcase for democracy in Asia. In October 1949, Major General Josef R. Sheetz, the military governor, launched a two-pronged policy for Okinawa: economic recovery and democratization of government. The former was to be achieved by the construction of massive military complexes, the expenditue for which was to help the local economy. The latter was to be achieved by allowing Okinawans limited autonomy by popular election of the legislature and leaders in four island groups, Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, and Yaeyama. The US didn't build its bases on "the ruins of empty villages" it stole land from living land owners. Then threw them in jail and bulldozed their houses when they resisted. Then they basically declared a military Junta when the elected government they established stepped out of line. The relationship between Okinawa and the US is not at all like you're implying. Maybe there was economic improvement, but that's frankly irrelevant. The establishment of the military bases was entirely against the will of the Okinawans. The idea that the bases should have been established anyways, against their will, "for their own good" is paternalistic at best. Edit: I've added this excerpt to the OP for future reference. Red and Black fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Apr 3, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 04:52
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I'm not going to get engaged in a historical sourcing battle with someone who is ideologically motivated. The history of the major bases in Okinawa, as well as the massive population die-offs as a result of the Battle of Okinawa are well-documented. I'm sure that the book that you have read has plenty of information about it as well. That said, I have no doubt that if you look at the entire 70 year history since the occupation, I'm sure you can find all sorts of incidents that can be spun however you'd like. As for modern politics: Tokyo disagrees. Take it up with them, it's an internal matter. The US isn't going to go to bat on an issue that seems as much wrapped-up in local politics and ethnic identity as anything else. Japan is always free to close the bases and take up the responsibility for Asian-Pacific regional stability itself. Since that is by far the more expensive option, it has thus far had little resonance. The US can barely afford to act as a guardian for the region in the first place, and it has little interest in simply shipping over carriers filled with troops to do laps around the island before heading home. So far it seems to me that your objections are based entirely on nativist NIMBY sentiments, and on some very narrow perspectives on history, with very little interest in recognizing that the other stakeholders seem to be bending over backwards to accommodate Okinawa's burgeoning urban population. Kaal fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Apr 3, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 05:02
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Yeah 25 odd years of military governance and bases built on stolen land are just little "incidents" that I'm "spinning" because of my idealogical bias. You on the other hand are the pinaccle of impartiality presenting things in an honest matter and being completely transparent about your sources.
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Apr 3, 2015 05:26
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Chomskyan, you appear to have created this discussion thread for the purpose of yelling at anyone who disagrees with you. vvvvv Yelling's lovely debate. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Apr 3, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 05:42
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A Debate? Surely there is a more appropriate sub forum.
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Apr 3, 2015 05:44
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Kaal posted:I'm not going to get engaged in a historical sourcing battle with someone who is ideologically motivated. Pretty sure that's the best time for it? 
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Apr 3, 2015 05:53
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Captain Oblivious posted:Pretty sure that's the best time for it? I don't think so. A sourcing exchange is useful when there's multiple viewpoints that are based on uncertain facts, and so everyone involved can go find the best information available and come to some common conclusions. But sourcing isn't going to alter the opinions of someone who is ideologically motivated, and the sources they generate aren't going to be reliably interpreted. I think that it's pretty clear that Chomskyan, for better or for worse, is a clear advocate of the idea of Okinawan sovereignty, and that any presence of American or mainland Japanese authorities represents an unconscionable violation. I could spend two hours going back and forth with this guy, trying to parse fact from fiction, or I can just make a note to check out the book he mentioned for myself and move on with my life.
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Apr 3, 2015 07:02
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Chomskyan posted:Obviously if the Federal Government of Japan was unambiguously calling for the removal of all bases the bases would be removed. The question is, why isn't the Japanese government calling for that despite repeated public mandates to do so? Because the Japanese government does not actually give a gently caress what its voter base thinks. What are you gonna do, vote the LDP out? Look how that turned out last time 
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Apr 3, 2015 07:11
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Kaal posted:But sourcing isn't going to alter the opinions of someone who is ideologically motivated, and the sources they generate aren't going to be reliably interpreted. The point isn't in trying to convince the other person. You show evidence so the other onlookers aren't misled by the other person giving a skewed perspective going unchallenged, or to at least show the onlookers that you aren't just pulling things out of your rear end while asking everyone else to believe you that the other person is wrong.
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Apr 3, 2015 07:18
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Rodatose posted:The point isn't in trying to convince the other person. You show evidence so the other onlookers aren't misled by the other person giving a skewed perspective going unchallenged, or to at least show the onlookers that you aren't just pulling things out of your rear end while asking everyone else to believe you that the other person is wrong. If you're interested, start by checking out this white paper and make up your own mind on the topic. I found it fairly informative, but I'm not invested enough in the issue to be running around debating someone who is clearly representing only a very specific perspective. Note that this paper was prepared prior to a significant divestment of Okinawan-based US personnel that occurred this year as a result of deliberations between the US and Japan. http://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42645.pdf Kaal fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Apr 3, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 07:21
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I think Howard Zinn put it best in his People's History. Everybody has a bias. Everybody emphasizes certain things over others. To emphasize Christopher Columbus as a navigator and explorer necessarily downplays his role as a perpetrator of genocide. Similarly, emphasizing the the economic benefits of the US bases, and the subsidies that Okinawans have accepted from the central government in the past, is to downplay the theft of land, environmental pollution, and other serious offenses the US military has subjected the Okinawans to. I'd argue I'm no more biased than anyone else posting in this thread, and unlike others I don't try hide my position behind a veneer of impartiality. On the other hand, I do make every effort to make my sources transparent so other people can interpret it themselves. Anyways, I don't particularly object to the white paper you linked to, but it doesn't provide a very detailed history of the conflict. Nonetheless, it does confirm what I said about the US military's theft of land. And does very briefly touch on the tensions between the Okinawans and the US established government. quote:The United States maintained possession of the Ryukyu islands in the peace settlement ending Red and Black fucked around with this message at 13:00 on Apr 3, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 12:56
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But seriously the problems Okinawa face is squarely the fault of Japan's state. They are big fans of all the benefits of having a heavy us presence and the only people that are negatively impacted are just some Ryukyuans that arent even Japanese. You can have beef with the US having so many foreign bases as a principle but the US isn't and shouldn't agitate to the central gov on behalf of Okinawa. Tyranny of the majority is japan's problem to fix, and maybe they can stop treating all minority groups as subhuman while they're at it lol no they won't
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Apr 3, 2015 18:46
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I think Chomsky put it best when he said: "I think there is some sort of an absolute basis--if you press me too hard I'll be in trouble, because I can't sketch it out-ultimately residing in fundamental human qualities, in terms of which a "real" notion of justice is grounded."
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Apr 3, 2015 19:55
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Dilkington posted:I think Chomsky put it best when he said: "I think there is some sort of an absolute basis--if you press me too hard I'll be in trouble, because I can't sketch it out-ultimately residing in fundamental human qualities, in terms of which a "real" notion of justice is grounded." Chomsky excels at using as many words as possible to say nothing. He's a very skilled linguist.
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Apr 3, 2015 20:59
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Fojar38 posted:Chomsky excels at using as many words as possible to say nothing. He's a very skilled linguist. That's not what linguists do.
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Apr 3, 2015 21:32
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SedanChair posted:That's not what linguists do. You don't say?
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Apr 3, 2015 21:34
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Some interesting Chomsky opinions to be found here: https://www.monbiot.com/2012/05/21/2181/ That doesn't mean the "Chomskyist" side is totally wrong about Okinawa, though. I just had that stored up in anticipation of someone mentioning Chomsky in D&D again, because I'm tired of the idea that SedanChair posted:Chomsky actually has the goods Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Apr 3, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 21:42
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How funny that that quote from another thread is burned into your brain. Well, Chomsky does have the goods on the subject in question (the causes of inequality and lack of representation in the United States). He does not have the goods on determining objective criteria for moral conduct in human beings, and admits as much in the very passage quoted above.
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Apr 3, 2015 23:44
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A big flaming stink posted:Because the Japanese government does not actually give a gently caress what its voter base thinks. What are you gonna do, vote the LDP out? Look how that turned out last time I was on Okinawa for two years. This is pretty much it. Okinawans don't consider themselves Japanese. In fact most people I knew would get offended if you refer to them as Japanese. Japan wants the bases there, the US wants the bases there, some Okinawans don't. Guess who loses that battle. I was military police and had to respond to a few "protests" at the gates on Camp Foster. They were always scheduled, and the protesters were the most polite, agreeable people to us. We'd ask them to back up, they would, ask them to move so they could let a car through, they would.
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Apr 3, 2015 23:54
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This seems to be pretty simple. Okinawa is gonna have to deal with those bases, because the rest of Japan wants them there. If Okinawa wants to become independent and kick off the bases, I'll support their right to do so. But it looks like a pretty small percentage of the population actually supports separation.
7c Nickel fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Apr 4, 2015 |
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Apr 4, 2015 00:49
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Who gives a gently caress about what Chomsky thinks? He was thoroughly discredited when he decided to become a Cambodian genocide denier.
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Apr 4, 2015 04:34
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-Troika- posted:Who gives a gently caress about what Chomsky thinks? He was thoroughly discredited when he decided to become a Cambodian genocide denier. Thank you. I thought I was the only one who realized ideas were meaningless and thinking a blasphemy.
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Apr 4, 2015 04:36
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-Troika- posted:Who gives a gently caress about what Chomsky thinks? He was thoroughly discredited when he decided to become a Cambodian genocide denier. He hosed that up real bad and like many leftwing thinkers suffers from Capitalism Derangement Syndrome but he still has some good ideas. ... what thread is this again?
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Apr 4, 2015 04:56
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Typical Pubbie posted:He hosed that up real bad and like many leftwing thinkers suffers from Capitalism Derangement Syndrome but he still has some good ideas.
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Apr 4, 2015 09:44
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Grognan posted:Chomsky was mentioned so anyone that ever listened to him is just a D&D hivemind. Chomsky quoters are like Coldplay fans.
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Apr 4, 2015 12:03
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-Troika- posted:Who gives a gently caress about what Chomsky thinks? He was thoroughly discredited when he decided to become a Cambodian genocide denier. Congratulations, you're a pasty kid that stands up at every speaking engagement with a sick burn at question time.
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Apr 4, 2015 15:26
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When I was a kid, my dad was a teacher for DoD's schools. We lived on base on Okinawa. Our house was built next to a hill that was a literal graveyard seized from the locals that they were forbidden from visiting. One thing that was interesting is that my grandfather fought on Okinawa, and had taken several souvenirs. One was a stick carved with the name of a family that had been taken from a grave. We were able to return it to the Okinawan family. It made the local papers because it was so rare for something positive to happen between the US and the locals.
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Apr 4, 2015 15:40
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Mayor Dave posted:It made the local papers because it was so rare for something positive to happen between the US and the locals. Other than the several hundred US-Okinawan marriages every year, you mean.
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Apr 4, 2015 15:45
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