All Gov – by Noel BrinkerhoffJapan’s government has agreed to give Washington $3 billion to facilitate the downsizing of the U.S. Marine force on Okinawa.
The longstanding American military presence on Okinawa has been a sore point for many Japanese living on the strategic island, which has been under U.S. control since World War II.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel met with Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera to sign an amendment to the 2009 Guam International Agreement (pdf), which calls for removing 4,000 Marines from the island.
Japan’s contribution of $3.1 billion will cover more than one third of the $8.6 billion that the U.S. will spend to transfer the Marines and their dependants to Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, as well as develop new infrastructure to support them.
Under a separate agreement signed in 2012, the U.S. plans to withdraw another 5,000 Marines from Okinawa and relocate them to Hawaii and Australia. (The number was reduced from 8,000, which had included family members.)
Members of the III Marine Expeditionary Force stationed on Okinawa won’t begin moving until sometime in the early 2020s.
For many of the island’s residents, the move can’t come soon enough. Many Japanese have been calling for the U.S. to get off Okinawa for decades, particularly after American military personnel stationed on the island were convicted of raping a Japanese woman last year and gang-raping a 12-year-old Japanese girl in 1995.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Would that be extortion, bribery or both?
Germany and Japan both should kick the US out of their lands Period.
There comes a time when the here and now take the top rung of the ladder. That time is well past…..Germany and japan were wrong. WW2 Was an avoidable horror…….The United States is no better than these two countries in what we have done to the globe over, since the end of that war……..and we continue to do……..not only the killings of people in countries far and wide from our own shores, we have totally destroyed our society, our culture, our finances and economy in so doing.
To The United States……!! Get The Hell Out OF Where You Have No Place of Being………….
Vietnam Vet………..in country…army1969
They need someplace to put those Jap Fukushima refugees. China Syndrome doesn’t mean an open road to the Chinese mainland.
if thats the only back bone japan has, then they are a part of history maybe never to contribute much for a very long time……….
No Henry had on this site a few days ago a fine article
listing the disinformation of the nuclear plants befalling situation….the truth from that writing, is the image put out to the public is false……….
And I would say, with intent……..
You can look it up here and see what you think!
Pretty steep price tag for what is essentially theirs to begin with.
The robber barons score again.