US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was in Japan to celebrate that country's return to a militaristic foreign policy last week. But the controversy over the 70 year US occupation of Okinawa to take center stage.
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was in Japan to celebrate that country's return to a militaristic foreign policy last week. But the controversy over the 70 year US occupation of Okinawa to take center stage.
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was in Japan to celebrate that country's return to a militaristic foreign policy last week. But the controversy over the 70 year US occupation of Okinawa to take center stage.
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams who is the Executive Director of the Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
He's also the co-host of this program.
Daniel, good to have you with us today.
Good to be back again.
Well good.
I thought we'd talk a little bit about Japan right now.
We're not going to war with Japan, but there are some lingering problems with Japan from World War II.
And our Secretary of Defense right now is going to Japan, is in Japan talking about military things.
Tell us what his trip is all about.
Well, unfortunately, it's not about the removal of all these U.S. troops that have been there since World War II.
As a matter of fact, it really is a celebration of the return of Japanese militarism, ironically.
You know, this is a review of the U.S.-to-Japanese military relationship.
And what it will do is it will, this review will allow Japan to be more actively involved in U.S. military operations, they say, only in defense of an ally under attack.
Yeah.
You know, I see this as part of the announcement that our president made.
There are days when I'm hopeful that the president will be less interventionist than those hawkish neocon Republicans.
But then again, there's always a good war to fight and there's chaos in the Middle East.
He said, well, I guess what we have to do is shift our interests to the Far East.
There must be a little bit of this, so we're over there.
I don't imagine China is too happy about us advancing militarism with Japan, but that remains to be seen.
But, you know, that is a big issue, but there also is another issue in Japan about what we should be doing.
We still have 47,000 troops in Japan, and everybody knows what my position has been for a long, long time.
Just bring them home.
What are they doing there?
Why do we help defend that country?
And yet, there's a lot of Japanese citizens that are pretty annoyed with it, especially in Okinawa.
As you recall, didn't we have some visitors in our congressional office dealing with this very subject?
At least one or two occasions we had some fairly high-ranking individuals from Okinawa, from the Okinawan government, and different citizens groups that came to visit us.
And what they were upset about is, you know, the U.S. has had this base right in the most densely part of the U.S. Marine Air Base in the most densely populated part of Okinawa.
And you can imagine the noise pollution that they would have.
You can imagine the difficulties in a heavily populated area.
So the U.S., Japan, Tokyo solution has been, okay, we're going to relocate this base from the downtown to a remote part of the island.
But the problem with this is that is one of the most pristine nature preserves that the U.S. military is going to take over.
They're already drilling into the seabed, and the people who live there do not want this.
And that's why they came to see us to let us know that they are really opposed to this.
You know, I'm sure our government's goal was to announce the military debate that they're having there.
But this sort of pops up.
I don't think they wanted to hear this, but this might be the biggest issue going.
This might be way bigger than what our secretary is talking about because the governor of Okinawa took the position at one time that he was with the people and they weren't to put the base in the middle of Okinawa and he was doing okay.
Then he changed his mind at the last minute and went along with the American government.
He says, no, I'm from moving the base.
And what happened?
He lost the election.
Exactly.
He lost to a challenger who made it his number one campaign issue.
I'll fight Tokyo and Washington to prevent the moving of this base and to get rid of the base in the downtown.
And his name is Onaga, and he's enormously popular now.
The people, I think over 80% approval rating, the people are by vast numbers opposed to this, and so he's enormously popular.
But he's kind of a David up against a big Goliath.
You know, it does raise the subject, though, that generally is ignored in all this talk, whether it has to do with our troops that the people don't like to have there, or whether we're increasing our military relationship with Japan, but is why in the world would somebody think that this is in America's best interest for national security?
It seems like it costs a little bit of money.
We're not going to be attacked.
I think the attack by Japan is long time over.
So I don't see any way that this can be construed as for national defense.
It seems like maybe special interests, say the military-industrial complex or somebody else might benefit from this.
But how in the world can you think of any reason why the average American taxpayer would get any benefit from us pursuing this and insisting that we change these bases around and continue this instead of accepting that very simple solution?
Just bring the troops home.
You know, as you said earlier, President Obama's pivot to Asia, it sounds like a great idea, but I think you would prefer a pivot of U.S. business and U.S. trade and opening up to Asia.
But unfortunately, in the mind of Washington, a pivot to Asia is only a military pivot.
You know, and there was a really funny scene in the State Department press briefings.
One of the great reporters who I really enjoy, Matt Lee from AP, always challenges the State Department briefer.
And on this occasion, it was a few weeks ago, she was complaining that how terrible it is that the Russians were flying planes around in Eastern Asia.
This just shows how horrible that they were.
And then Matt Lee pointed out, well, isn't it true that we're also flying planes around there constantly, and actually increasingly so?
And it was really a comical scene to see her trying to defend this.
Yeah, I don't think they're exactly interested in being consistent.
If a country, whether it's Russia or Iran or somebody, and they are influencing their next door neighbor or they're in the open sea near some area, then all of a sudden they're the worst people in the world.
And our people don't generally stop and think, well, you know, we're in 150 countries and our special forces are in a lot of these countries and none of it goes well.
And here we are advancing this and we send our Secretary of Defense over there and he's expanding our military cooperation with Japan.
I wonder, you know, who they're prepared for.
But, you know, there are some hawks in Washington that think that China is an enemy.
I'm still the optimist about that.
You know, Nixon was by far not my favorite president, but the fact that things changed dramatically with opening the door to China, I mean, really the odds are so slim that China is going to militarily attack us.
And so I really believe this, and this is why I'm a little bit disappointed by Ukraine, because I always thought Russia, by joining the West in the sense that there was a lot of trade, still trade going on, you know, with the West, that we wouldn't end up in a hot fight with them.
But it seems like the determination of some of our people who run our foreign policy are almost obsessed with, you know, we can't stand the idea of the peace breaking out.
And yet, you know, even if our president can't be complimented in all that he does, but I have to say that, You know, an effort to at least talk to the Iranians, and that's a complicated issue that we've talked about before.
And it looks like some positive things are happening from Cuba.
But ultimately, and I think you've made this point before, that when the people themselves want to trade, you know, if other countries want to trade, and like this, say, as a result of these negotiations in Iran, ends up with other countries trading, what will our business people do?
Cuban Negotiations and Concerns00:01:46
Hey, we're going to miss out on this.
And that's sort of what's happened in Cuba.
I think many business people and individuals, families, and all would like to see, it's time we treat Cuba in a different way.
But of course, I think this talk about increasing the militarism with the Japanese government and not negotiating and talking about the real issue the people want to talk about is maybe closing these bases down.
At the same time, I would say our biggest problem here, which we try to counteract, is the complacency of the American people.
Do you think very many people knew that our Secretary of Defense is over in Japan negotiating more militarism?
Or do you think they care about an air base in Okinawa?
Yeah, it's unfortunate, and you don't see a lot of it reported in the mainstream media in the U.S.
The concerns of the people that we would share if the shoe were on the other foot.
Yeah, that's for sure.
And that is one point that I tried to make quite frequently.
If you could just look at it from the viewpoint, is what if they did it to us?
And should we ever do anything to somebody else that we wouldn't have them do to us?
Of course, that was blasphemy.
You don't say things like that.
But anyway, I wanted to bring this subject up.
I think it's important.
I don't think this is one of these danger spots.
There's so many other spots in the world that are dangerous.
But it's this subtleness, this moving and changing things.
I'd like to see them someday address the subject of our troops in Japan and Germany around the world.
I'm afraid when that time comes when they do, it'll be in the midst of a bankruptcy of this country, which could be a very devastating issue for us all.