Okinawa East China Sea ─ Rising Anti-Americanism East?

Southern Island: Okinawa
Anti-U.S. bases
Protests Sunday September 9, 2012

Shadow story: U.S.-occupied oil reserves

Re-reporting, editing by 

Carolyn Bennett

Okinawa

In the East China Sea, Japan’s Okinawa Island is the largest in the Ryukyu Islands archipelago. Its population is 1,361,594. Its offshore wells yield petroleum. The United States occupies the island. Islanders protest the occupation.

Sixty-seven years ago, U.S. troops landed on the heavily-defended Okinawa Island and three months of bloody warfare left approximately 12,000 U.S. forces dead, 36,000 wounded; and  approximately 100,000 Japanese dead. U.S. forces established complete control of the island and in 1972 returned Okinawa Island to Japan but retained extensive U.S. military installations.

Anti-Japanese protests
in China

Current affairs: Okinawa Island in the mix of Far East tensions 

Today anti-Japanese demonstrations are occurring in China over resources and disputed islands in the East China Sea. The disputed islands (called by Japan Senkaku Islands, by China Diaoyu Islands) are located roughly between Okinawa and Taiwan. Japan controls them; China claims they are part of its historical territory.

Seas, resources
Conflict, occupation
East/South China Sea

This international conflict, as others to Asia’s west, is not merely about the land but about what lies underground, in the sea. In addition to rich fishing grounds in the disputed territories, there are, the French press is reporting, “Potentially huge reserves of oil and natural gas.”

A country that establishes ownership of rocks in the middle sea affirms and vastly increases its “exclusive economic zones (EEZ) or a sea zone” where a state then retains exclusive rights “to exploit and extract natural resources.”

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports Chinese and foreign estimates showing East China Sea (Okinawa Island home) untapped oil reserves at 100 to 160 billion barrels of oil.

For the South China Sea, estimates range from 28 to 213 billion barrels of potential oil reserves.

Japan is under fire and in China this week the Japanese have reportedly suspended operations in several of their plants and increased security around the Japanese embassy in Beijing.

Women in
crosshairs of
occupation

Dark Shadow in Asia’s continuing conflict

Japanese politician and Prime Minister of Japan Yukio Hatoyama (September 16, 2009- June 2, 2010) saw his country “still in Cold War mode” and quit his post as Prime Minister over the issue of U.S. occupation. He said 

Okinawans protest U.S. occupation

The idea of having one nation’s military based on another’s soil and depending on its military is not something seen anywhere else in the world.

I felt this was something the Japanese people couldn’t avoid confronting.

The land needs to be returned to the people of Okinawa.

Sources and notes

“China protests continue over island dispute with Japan” (Joseph BAMAT), September 18, 2012,

http://www.france24.com/en/20120918-china-anti-japan-protests-overview-disputed-islands-east-asia-eez-oil

“Another Okinawa Battle” (David McNeill), February 9, 2011,

http://thediplomat.com/tokyo-notes/2011/02/09/another-okinawa-battle/

Wikipedia note

Okinawa Prefecture (a Prefecture is an administrative jurisdiction or subdivision in any of various countries, in antiquity a Roman district governed by an appointed prefect) located in southern Japan, consisting of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) long, extending southwest from Kyūshū (the most southwestern of Japan’s main four islands) to Taiwan.

Okinawa’s capital, Naha, is located in the southern part of Okinawa Island. The disputed Senkaku Islands are administered as part of Okinawa Prefecture.

Worldatlas notes Japan, Okinawa (U.S. connection with East China Sea)

Partial timeline

(1820) China and Japan accounted for approximately half of the world's GDP

(1853) US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Uraga, demanded that Japan open to trade

(1854) Japan and U.S. signed Treaty of Peace and Amity, two ports were opened for trade

(1855) Russia, Japan establish diplomatic relations

(1864) British, French, Dutch, American warships bombed Choshu, forced Japan to open more ports for foreign trade

(1894) Japan and China went to war, Japan declared victory in nine months

(1895) China ceded Taiwan to Japan, allows trading

(1937) Japan launched invasion of China

(1937) Japan captured Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing

(1937) Japanese forces committed major atrocities, including killing of 300,000 Chinese civilians

(1940) Japan became allies of Germany and Italy in World War II

(1941) Japan launched surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Naval Base in Hawaii, sunk 12 ships, damaged nine, nearly 2,500 people killed

(1941) U. S. and its allies declared war on Japan

(1942) Japan occupied Burma, Philippines, Dutch East Indies, Malaya

(1942) U.S. cut off Japanese support lines

(1945) U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima, Nagasaki

(1945) Japan surrenders, placed under U.S. military government, all military and naval forces were disbanded, Emperor Hirohito relinquished status

(1947) New constitution ratified, all adults became eligible to vote

(1951) Japan signs peace treaties with United States and other nations

(1952) Allied occupation of Japan ended, regained its independence

(1956) Japan became member of United Nations

U.S. on Okinawa Island

(1972) Okinawa returned to Japanese; U.S. retained military base

(1995) Mass protests demanding removal of U.S. forces from Okinawa broke out after U.S. servicemen raped local schoolgirl

(2009) City on Okinawa elect mayor opposed to hosting military base; Prime Minister Hatoyama claims Japan has to rethink U.S. military bases

(2010) Prime Minister Hatoyama resigned after failing to close U.S. military base on Okinawa, succeeded by Naoto Kan

(2012) U.S. and Japan reached agreement to move thousands of U.S. Marines from Okinawa, did not reach agreement on closing the airbase

Maps: Worldatlas, Britannica, other sources

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Crimes not crimes when clandestine — rights abusers, mass marketers conspire in dodging culpability

Criminals justify their crimes, purging themselves in prime time broadcasts, on powerful print pages

By Carolyn Bennett (editing, commentary)

I’m CIA, Bobby. Officially I don’t exist.…  My profit’s my reward— for selfless service to god and country.” [Before drilling 7 gun shots into two gagged, tied up internal affairs FBI officials]

“This isn’t about sides, this is about confusion. This is about creating enemies where there aren’t any. …”   [Film “White Sands”]

Art imitates life

This week’s notorious” author spy (retired)

Democracy Now! pushed a clip from CBS’s 60 Minutes with former CIA clandestine operations and lead interrogator Jose Rodriguez headlined: “Ex-CIA Interrogator says [U.S. President Barack] Obama’s Policy is to ‘Kill All Prisoners.’”

TARGETED ASSASSINATION (execution without arrest, charge or trial)

U.S. CIA assassination drone

Commenting on a system he was part of and from which he retired and wrote his book, Rodriguez said: “‘We don’t capture anybody any more … the default option of this Administration has been to kill all prisoners. Take no prisoners.…  How could it be more ethical to kill people rather than capture them? I never understood that one.’”

A Wikipedia profile says Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. is known for being the Director of the National Clandestine Service (D/NCS) of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) — the top Human Intelligence operations post in the United States government.  Rodriguez was the last CIA Deputy Director for Operations (DDO) before that position was expanded to D/NCS in December 2004, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Rodriguez_(intelligence_officer

Former U.S. President (#37)
Richard M. Nixon

Daily Beast reported WATERBOARDING, yes, and lie about it and cover it up

Former CIA official Jose Rodriguez “defends the waterboarding program and says he was right in 2005 to order the destruction of videotapes of the harsh interrogation sessions, in which suspected Al Qaeda terrorists were held down and subjected to a simulated drowning.”

U.S. Presidents 43 and 44
George W. Bush
Barack H. Obama

Criminals’ CONFLICTING STORIES

When Congress member claims deniability, call her a liar

While a ranking member of the House intelligence committee after September 11, 2001, she was fully informed about the use of waterboarding, says the Ex-CIA employee. “‘[House Democratic leader Nancy] Pelosi said that we only briefly mentioned waterboarding and left the impression that it had not been used [but] … I know she got it.’”

Former Speaker of
U.S.. House of Representatives
How many more atrocities 

DRONES yes/no (having it both ways)

“‘Drones can be a highly effective way of dealing with high-priority targets,’ Rodriguez writes, ‘But they should not become the drug of choice for an administration that is afraid to use successful, legal and safe tactics of the past. … There is no opportunity to interrogate or learn anything from a suspect who is vaporized by a missile launched by a keystroke executed thousands of miles away.’”

Committing crime is okay

Legacy:
Nixon government
Obama government

If clandestine

If government officials can claim to have gotten what you wanted by committing the crime

Christian Science Monitor (2011) reports former intelligence officials’ saying, “‘We are concerned about the suggestion by some that the use of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques led U.S. forces to Osama bin Laden’s compound.’”

Retired Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who interrogated generals under the command of Saddam Hussein and evaluated U.S. detention operations at Guantánamo, reportedly said Osama bin Laden “could have wrapped himself in an American flag and had a white flag in both hands” but “if [special operators] were told to go in and kill this guy — and they clearly understood the marching orders — he would have “still been killed.”

A group of former intelligence officials, including Herrington, released a statement in 2011 disagreeing with former George W. Bush officials’ (among them Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s television assertion that anyone saying waterboarding does not produce enormous valuable intelligence is not facing the truth) crediting themselves with criminal methods effecting the Obama government’s hunt down and assassination of Osama bin Laden.

Targeted Assassination

EVEN WHEN THE COVER SLIPS and barbarity of soldiers, embracing the pattern set by their masters, reaches sunlight, U.S. officialdom (government and mass media) denies wrongdoing and culpability, and no court holds higher ups to account for their crimes.

On the World Socialist Web Site David Walsh ended an article published on April 19, 2012:

How many individual atrocities have to take place before it becomes clear that an entire operation is criminal to its core?

Greenpeace image

“After the exposure of each U.S. atrocity—including the slaughter of civilians, the abuse and torture of prisoners, the mutilation of corpses for trophies, Marines urinating on the Afghan dead, the desecration of the Koran—American officials express dismay and describe the incidents as the actions of ‘individuals’ who have perverted a righteous cause. This is a lie. 

First, considering the unprecedented level of censorship of the war in Afghanistan, the episodes that come to light are undoubtedly only the tip of the iceberg. It can be asserted without hesitation that these sorts of crimes occur on virtually a daily basis. The exposure of the Qalat desecrations depended entirely on one soldier’s courageous act.

Second, the incidents that have been publicized make clear a pattern of barbaric behavior on the part of U.S. and allied troops. This flows inevitably from the predatory character of the war and the situation in which American and other occupying forces find themselves: resented and hated by the Afghan population (the brigade lost 35 members during the year-long deployment, 23 of them to homemade bombs or suicide bombers), the soldiers’ increasing demoralization finds expression in acts of brutality.

How many individual atrocities have to take place before it becomes clear that an entire operation is criminal to its core?

Hang legal and moral questions

The “asserted” end (often itself untrue) justifies the means. Right and wrong are no more than “colored bubbles.”

As defined by a clever Clinton on matters of less import, crime and punishment, law and order, right and wrong all depend who does the crime and how, whose political party or what individual (backed by what private interest) holds the seat of power when crimes are committed; and or whether a criminal is in office committing the crime or out of office writing a book about having committed a crime.

This collective failure to call a crime a crime and to prosecute it as such results from the fact that there are powerful conspirators in the act and cover up of high crimes: from government officials to “educators” to book writers to mass communications industries (newspapers, broadcasters, hard copy and electronic publishing, web makers and masters) promoting purgative tomes of “truths,” half-truths, cover-ups, and protracted lies.

Sources and notes

Transcription from ending scenes of “White Sands” film, a speech by Gorman Lennox (Mickey Rourke)

“White Sands” [not what it seems] is a 1992 Roger Donaldson-directed film starring Willem Dafoe as New Mexico Deputy Sheriff Ray Dolezal; Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as well-heeled finder of money for any “causes” for her kickback on front or back end, whichever is more profitable; and Mickey Rourke as “I’m C [BLINKING] I A…” arms trafficker mayhem-maker, murdered for profit

White Sands at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105813/; and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sands_(film)

Democracy Noq headlines April 30. 21012, http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/30/headlines#43011

“CIA Veteran Jose Rodriguez Defends Waterboarding in New Book,” April 29, 2012,

CIA veteran Jose Rodriguez answers critics of the agency’s harsh interrogation techniques—and defends his decision to destroy the tapes. Philip Shenon on his explosive new book

©2011 The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/29/cia-veteran-jose-rodriguez-defends-waterboarding-in-new-book.html

Wikipedia Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr.  profile Being the Director of the CIA/National Clandestine Service.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Rodriguez_(intelligence_officer)

“Military interrogators: Waterboarding didn’t yield tips that led to bin Laden — Several former military interrogators refute assertions that waterboarding and other ‘enhanced’ methods provided intelligence that led the U.S. to bin Laden. Some lament lost opportunity to grill Al Qaeda's leader” (Anna Mulrine, CSM Staff writer),/ May 5, 2011, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2011/0505/Military-interrogators-Waterboarding-didn-t-yield-tips-that-led-to-bin-Laden

“Photos of U.S. troops defiling corpses expose Afghan war’s savagery” (David Walsh), April  

19, 2012, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/afgh-a19.shtml

Images

“High Crimes” was 2002 film (starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman) portraying an case of U.S. military massacre of Latin American villagers, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0257756/

Nancy Pelosi image at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediarepublic/category/politics/

When the president does it, Nixon-Obama

http://fullmetalpatriotblog.com/2011/10/government-accountability-office-reports-executive-office-of-the-president-violated-federal-law/

File:Waterboarding From The Inquisition To Guantanamo.jpg

commons.wikimedia.org

stoptorture.png

blogs.law.harvard.edu
DoNoHarm.jpg
flashreport.org
no_war.jpg
greenpeace.org.uk
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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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