By Patrick J. Buchanan
A month after Germany surrendered in May 1945, America’s eyes turned to the Far East, where the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war was joined on the island of Okinawa.
Twelve thousand U.S. soldiers and Marines would die — twice as many dead in 82 days of fighting as have died in all the years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Within weeks of the battle’s end came Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Three weeks later, Gen. MacArthur took the Japanese surrender on the battleship Missouri.
That was 65 years ago, as far away in time from today as the Marines’ arrival at Da Nang was from Teddy Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill.
Yet the Marines are still on Okinawa. But, in 2006, the United States negotiated a $26 billion deal to move 8,000 to Guam and the other Marines from the Futenma air base in the south to the more isolated town of Nago on the northern tip. Okinawans have long protested the crime, noise and pollution at Futenma.
The problem arose last year when the Liberal Democratic Party that negotiated the deal was ousted and the Democratic Party of Japan elected on a promise to pursue a policy more balanced between Beijing and Washington.
The new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, indicated his unease with the Futenma deal, and promised to review it and decide by May. Voters in Nago just elected a mayor committed to keeping the new base out.
This weekend, thousands demonstrated in Tokyo against moving the Marine air station to Nago. Some demanded removal of all U.S. forces from Japan. After 65 years, they want us out. And Prime Minister Hatoyama has been feeding the sentiment. In January, he terminated Japan’s eight-year mission refueling U.S. ships aiding in the Afghan war effort.
All of which raises a question. If Tokyo does not want Marines on Okinawa, why stay? And if Japanese regard Marines as a public nuisance, rather than a protective force, why not remove the irritant and bring them home?
Indeed, why are we still defending Japan? She is no longer the ruined nation of 1945, but the second-largest economy on earth and among the most technologically advanced.
The Sino-Soviet bloc against which we defended her in the Cold War dissolved decades ago. The Soviet Union no longer exists. China is today a major trading partner of Japan. Russia and India have long borders with China, but neither needs U.S. troops to defend them.
Should a clash come between China and Japan over the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, why should that involve us?
Comes the retort: American troops are in Japan to defend South Korea and Taiwan. But South Korea has a population twice that of the North, an economy 40 times as large, access to the most advanced weapons in the U.S. arsenal and a U.S. commitment to come to her defense by air and sea in any second Korean War.
And if there is a second Korean War, why should the 28,000 U.S. troops still in Korea, many on the DMZ, or Marines from Futenma have to fight and die? Is South Korea lacking for soldiers? Seoul, too, has been the site of anti-American demonstrations demanding we get out.
Why do we Americans seem more desperate to defend these countries than their people are to have us defend them? Is letting go of the world we grew up in so difficult?
Consider Taiwan. On his historic trip to Beijing in 1972, Richard Nixon agreed Taiwan was part of China. Jimmy Carter recognized Beijing as the sole legitimate government. Ronald Reagan committed us to cut back arms sales to Taiwan.
Yet, last week, we announced a $6.4 billion weapons sale to an island we agree is a province of China. Beijing, whose power is a product of the trade deficits we have run, is enraged that we are arming the lost province she is trying to bring back to the motherland.
Is it worth a clash with China to prevent Taiwan from assuming the same relationship to Beijing the British acceded to with Hong Kong? In tourism, trade, travel and investment, Taiwan is herself deepening her relationship with the mainland. Is it not time for us to cut the cord?
With the exception of the Soviet Union, few nations in history have suffered such a relative decline in power and influence as the United States in the last decade. We are tied down in two wars, are universally disliked and are running back-to-back deficits of 10 percent of gross domestic product, as our debt is surging to 100 percent of GDP.
A strategic retreat from Eurasia to our own continent and country is inevitable. Let it begin by graciously acceding to Japan’s request we remove our Marines from Okinawa and politely inquiring if they wish us to withdraw U.S. forces from the Home Islands, as well.
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Perception is reality in politics. A quick or sudden US withdrawal without preparation or diplomatic process will make the US look weak.
We want to look as if we’re withdrawing out of out own volition. If we are to depart from Japan, we should draw up a timeline, arrive at a mutually satisfying agreement, and leave with pride and dignity. If US suddenly pulls out because of some protests in Okinawa, the international perception will be that US is weak and has no legs to stand on.
True, 1945 was long ago, but evil militarist Japan was decisively defeated by a democratic US. We allowed Japan to survive and thrive. We gave them democracy and opened our markets to them. We provided them with nuclear umbrella. If we must go, we must negotiate with the Japanese so that we can leave with our heads held up high. We should not leave Japan like we left Saigon in 1975. Japan owes us that much. Had Japan conquered China and SE Asia, would they have been as generous as we were to them?
Also, sudden political vacuums in the international system can cause problems. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. If the Pacific Rim has been relatively calm since the end of WWII, it was largey due to US presence and domination of the seas. Though communism is dead as an ideology, China is now far stronger now than under communism. It’s no longer ideologically aggressive but it is more nationally aggressive.
Also, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are not merely ‘other nations’ but longtime and loyal friends of the US. They’ve been political planets revolving around the US. If the future portends that they eventually gravitate around the Chinese political sun, let it happen gradually. If US leaves the area SUDDENLY, it will cause gravitational havoc in the political dynamics of the region. US should not expand its ‘empire’ but it must not pull out suddenly in ways that creates political vacuums and drastic imbalances.
Your comments are totally wrong. If their was militarism in Japan there was financialism in US. Both were oligarchies just different structure.
Our system is better because our constitution is well written and provides a certain measure of freedom.
Japan can quickly rearm in no time. So they dont need us. Japan, Russia and India have enough resources, manpower and intellect to contain china.
We cannot bankrupt ourselves just to satisfy the desire not to look weak.
I suggest a timeline of around 10-20 yrs. Let Japan build up its military during that period as the US gradually pulls out troops and material. Not all at once but in piecemeal fashion.
Same should apply to South Korea.
As for Taiwan, why shouldn’t we sell them arms? China sells arms to Venezuela. China has supported North Korea all these years which has caused much trouble for US foreign policy. China stood in the way of quick US victory in the Korean War.
China was the main supporter behind North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
And go back in history. US and Chinese Nationalists were close allies against both Imperial Japan and against the communists. During the Cold War, the Korean War, and Vietnam War, Taiwan was always there faithfully by US’s side. Sure, it was for their own national interest, but there was more than cynicism involved. Had Chiang Kai-shek prevailed in China, US and China would have been famous friends against communism during the Cold War. There would have been no Korean War, no Vietnam War since Nationalist China would have been on our side. We betrayed Taiwan when Nixon visited China, but Taiwan still remained loyal to us.
Given these facts, why should we be sensitive to Chinese interests and feelings? When has China–even since communists took power–ever been sensitive to us?
And, isn’t selling weapons to another country what business is all about? China sells weapons to Venezuela. China is involved in some of the blood-soaked and cynical business deals in Africa. It deals with Iran. Why should we care what they think about our arms export to Taiwan? With all the imports we buy from them, the Chinese should shut the hell up and thank us. Btw, whyh are the Chinese so worried about Taiwan having US weapons if indeed they are committed to peace? The only thing we must not do is support open Taiwanese independence. It is our right–as both a democratic/humane nation and as a business partner–to sell weapons to a nation that has been a dear friend of ours.
Finally, Buchanan fails to understand that ‘human rights’ issue is an element of national prestige and power. US won the Cold War without firing a shot not only due to better weapons and bigger economy but higher moral value. US should be proud of the fact that we helped develop democracies like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in the region while Mainland China has supported North Korea, Burma, and Khmer Rouge Cambodia. To just piss away all our great achievements in the Pacific in a fit of isolationist despair is unwise.
We need to know our limitations, and we need to gradually pull out many parts of the world(and we should NOT be expanding our ‘empire’), but we must intelligently and cautiously withdraw as a power that did much good for the world. We must leave responsibly than despairingly or bitterly.
The U.S. military is used by the global cabal to protect and enforce their fiat banking system around the world. Any country that refuses to use this system of financial control and enslavement is declared rogue (or terrorist, etc.) and is subject to political pressure or attack. The U.S. military, our young men, does the dirty work. Its pretty much that simple.
‘The Sino-Soviet bloc against which we defended her (Japan) in the Cold War’ in Pat’s statements may be replaced with ‘the Sino-Soviet communist bloc against which the US has fought as well as against American real and suspected communists purged through Joseph McCarthy’s practices done with so much tensions and fears widespread among democrats, vests, investors, and ordinary people in the US during Cold War’ altough such bloc certainly dissolved decades ago. Immediately after the war, the US protected and defended Sino from and against implacable, unforgiving, and vengeful re-assaulter Japan.
‘China is today a major trading partner of Japan’ may also be a substitution for ‘China has been a major trading partner of the US and been a major source of human resources that are patient or rather earnest to earn minimum wages in the US.’
The US should take the initiative in bringing the Marines home if they want and people in the US believe that they really do.
As a retired military officer who served throughout the Far East, Middle East, Central America, and America, I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Buchanan’s view of our “empire”. Of course, we couldn’t announce we were leaving next year and withdraw without warning or diplomatic work. However, we have left countries who no longer wanted our “protection” very rapidly–we left the Philippines very rapidly. It is time for America to draw in our horns, defend our own country, and allow other countries handle their own problems.
As is not uncommon, I find myself in agreement with PJB.
We have too many foreign entanglements, the type George Washington warned us against. Japan should be able to assume responsibility for its own defense and, as Pat said, if the Okinawans want us out why are we staying?
The same would apply to troops garrisoned in Europe, protecting the West from a Soviet Union that no longer exists.
Yes, I agree with an earlier comment that a sudden withdrawl would be unwise, and would make the USA look weak, but a drawdown of troops makes sense.
I am inclined to heartily agree with the assessment of the poster, “Thomas.”
Andrea Nyx Hemera said:
“Finally, Buchanan fails to understand that ‘human rights’ issue is an element of national prestige and power…”
I disagree with the judgment of A.N. Hemera, on this issue, that Mr. Buchanan “fails to understand” anything.
The United States of America should only be concerned with the “human rights” of our soldiers, not to die for the corporate puppet master.
Following her line of reasoning, the human right of our soldiers to return to their families in one piece, is of paramount importance and trumps all other considerations for our perusal.
“I spent 33 years in the Marines. Most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half-a-dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street…”
- Major General Smedley D. Butler, U.S. Marine Corps
Sixty five years under the nuclear umbrella of the United States, is long enough for these arrogant countries, which have been a parasitic drain on our nation. We should withdraw our troops, as a strategy of war, in this modern-day “Trojan War.” Let us come back as the preeminent naval power, and let our empire consist of the oceans of the world.
Many military bases of the United States on foreign shores which are no longer necessary, should be closed. The new emphasis MUST be on a build-up of naval power, so that our forces will be in place offshore, without the leave of these petty states “involved.”
Fixed fortifications, after all, are a “monument to man’s stupidity,” according to General George S. Patton Jr.
If we want a missile shield for Europe, why put missles on Russia’s back porch, and further aggravate the situation, by entertaining notions of admitting former Soviet satellites into NATO?
The oceans are the supply line to all countries, and he who controls the oceans, controls the geopolitical situation. Why waste time is fruitless talks and diplomacy that goes nowhere?
It is far better to abandon toothless United Nations “resolutions” and enforce our national will through naval blockade of North Korea, and other problem states.
We can no longer serve as a step-and-fetch-it boy for either the United Nations, or the international bankers who pull the strings of our foreign policy, through David Rockefeller’s Council on Foreign Relations.
Mr. Buchanan has presented a rational political and economic course for our nation to follow, despite what all the armchair pundits–including myself–have to say.
This article by Mr. Buchanan, sounds to this writer like the President of the United States of America speaking and should be adopted as part and parcel of the next presidential campaign, no matter who the candidate may be.
If the United States of America is to remain Supreme Shogun on the chess board of international politics, this republic must rule the waves.
The Law of the Sea Treaty is NOT in the national interest, nor are obsolete military bases, which have become outdated relics of a bygone era.
We have military bases in Asia not for protecting Asian nations but for projecting American power. Of course, US shielded its Asian allies during the Cold War but not because Americans cared about Asian lives but because parts of Asia were seen as chess pieces in the great game of nerves between US and the Communist Bloc. Even so, Americans have been more humane and generous than any other great power that ever existed.
As things turned out, East Asian turned into an economic giant. Japan revived quickly after WWII. South Korea and Taiwan also grew rapidly. Hong Kong and Singapore became international players. And China is now rising. Though Asian nations developed economic power, they relied on the US markets and were politically subservient to US power since US military dominated the Pacific Rim. Japan, though economically #2 in the world, has been a junior partner of the US largely due to the military might and domination of US in the region.
If US pulls out of the region, Japan will have to become a military power in its own right. China too will grow into a major military power. All of the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii will be dominated by Japan and China. Our political booty after WWII will be lost.
Well, we can live with that, and we should make way for such eventuality. After all, history doesn’t stand still. Even so, it will profoundly change the balance of world politics and power. Without military presence in East Asia, US will have no say in the political affairs of the richest part of the world outside the West. It will really be an end of an era–in some ways, bigger than Britain’s loss of India. But, if Brits were imperialist overlords over India, we played a liberating and progressive role in Asia. Nothing to be ashamed of.
To be sure, there has been some bitterness between US and our Asian allies. Such is to be expected whenever you have asymmetrical power relations–after all, the Brits helped American colonials defeat the French and patrolled the seas for their benefit, but the colonials eventually rose up against the Brits. Asians are not as bitter toward us as colonials were toward the British, but there was bound to be some degree of resentment by the weak toward the strong.
Okay, so we need an exit strategy but we should do it with pride, grace, and heads held up high. Buchanan’s attitude is one of gloom, pessimism, and pettiness. For someone who claims to love history, has he forgotten the alliance between US and Nationalist China during WWII and Cold War? Has he forgotten the close America-Japan all these yrs? Has he forgotten how US and S. Koreans fought side by side in the jungles of Vietnam? We need to leave with pride and dignity, not with isolationist bittereness.
Naval power isn’t worth a damn without naval bases. The history of the British Empire bears this out. Once Brits lost their overseas holdings, their naval power had no legs to stand on. Naval power has to be linked to land bases.
If US pulls out of Asia, China and Japan can come to dominate all of the Pacific west of Hawaii. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Who says US must dominate all the seas? Anyway, we need to know full well when we pull out of Asia that at least 1/3 of our naval domination will disappear for good. We can live with it, but we should not fool ourselves that the world will be the same.
I do support an eventual pull-out from much of the world because our involvement with other nations distracts us from troubles we have at home. We have the problem of uncontrolled immigration–legal and illegal–, we are under the rule of liberal global elite(Obama, Emmanuel, Goldman Sachs, Hollywood, Google, etc), our culture is under assault from garbage such as ‘gay marriage’, white population is shrinking and being eclipsed by non-whites, and etc.
We need to focus on the coming (Civil)War and Revolution in America. The MAIN ENEMY is within our gates. The intellectual, economic, cultural, and political elites of America no longer have a connection to the white American masses.
When the America that we once knew is being taken from us, our main concern should not be world power but American survival. When Rome was rotting at the core, it kept looking for fixes through imperial glory. Guess what happened?
So, I do agree with Buchanan in the long-term goal of American withdrawal from much of the world.
But, HOW we pull out will be crucial in how US as a nation will be seen around the world. We should pull out as a righteous and good nation that fulfilled its destiny and now must return home than as a ‘imperialist’ power that’s finally being kicked out of other countries.
Great article. We should immediately withdraw from Eurasia and rebuild our navy and rule the oceans.
Let Russia, India and Japan have their own NATO to stabilize China. These three can join forces and act together to contain china.
There is no need of US.
I have found a news article reporting Ambassador Mr. John V. Roos made a speech at Waseda University in Tokyo on January 29, 2010 where he specifically emphasized millitary threats of ‘China’s dramatic and well-funded military modernization and North Korea’s missile and nuclear program’. His speech is fully persuasive and seems successful in inducing young generations in Japan to make aware of what security alliance between two countries requires of Japanese people who are not defended by their own self-defense force but are defended by the US Marines as expressed by Pat. URL linked to the article is http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20100129-71.html.
While I was in the US, I lived in Fort Washington, MD where Andrew Airforce Base is and many millitary professionals, career soldiers and their family live in the community. So far as you live in the US, or so far as I live in the US, ‘millitary threas’ in Far East or even in Middle East are beyond a fetch of awareness and recognition without knowing what have actually been going in such regions.
After moving back to Japan, I have seen, here and there, an astounding number of Chinese and Korean tourists Japan hadn’t had two decades before, and felt mental threas caused by blog commentators with handlenames such as ‘Nanking Atrocities’ who always leave a string of message ‘Japanese who are guilty of raping Nanking should not have told a word’ regardless of topics of weblogs, whether they are about news on foreign affairs or on domestic affairs. Excessively conscientious Japanese or aggressively pestering Chinese? Or rather a geek or a punk employed as a copying machine or just preferring idiocy to content? He or she is mysteriously and stupidly frustrating.
PJB is on target……..It was made clear long ago in the Japanese book “The Japan That Can Say No”, that Japan is sick of being a mistress to the U.S……Never really treated like a wife, where do you think those chips for I.C.B.M. missles came from? Their economy is in great shape, and they have sacrificed to build up their gold reserves to the obscene….They have been a wonderful aly, and it’s time to respect their wishes. We now have three of the worse things that our Founding Fathers warned us about?
1. A standing army.(Military Industrial Complex).
2. National Banks.(The Federal Reserve.)
3. Bad Foreign entanglements.(Israel)
And we question why we are broke?……And still, some think that we have 10-20 years to resolve our financial condition before disaster? We have to downsize everything including the welfare/warfare state.
First of all, they’re not our Marines; they’re the offshore banksters’ Marines. They’re our sons and daughters, alright, but they’re not “our” Marines.
They’re trained to follow orders, but not the orders of the people because the people don’t control the politicians that order them around.
We have been told that a major “terror attack” is going to occur in this country within the next 3 to 6 months. The underwear bomber was clearly a black op to promte the naked body scanners going into all the airports, court buildings (malls and subways are next). That’s right, because the contracts for these expensive machines were already in force a year earlier but the people don’t/didn’t want them. But in-our-face slave training must continue. Thus the underwear bomber op.
The banksters failed at Copenhagen (global warming taxes), in Mexico (swine flu hoax) because people are waking up. So we need a major new “911″ to put us in our place. The propaganda groundwork for new wars in Pakistan, Yemen and Iran are being paved right now. The numerous new executive orders supporting martial law are cocked, loaded and ready.
BUT DON’T YOU FALL FOR IT. STAND UP! NOW! WE’RE WINNING.
Answer…
Global hegemony…American imperialism…and, feeding the military industrial complex – this is why we are all over the world.
“If Tokyo does not want Marines on Okinawa, why stay? And if Japanese regard Marines as a public nuisance, rather than a protective force, why not remove the irritant and bring them home? Indeed, why are we still defending Japan?”
It’s not about protecting anyone in the Asia or pleasing them; it’s all about control. We want to maintain our empire. Our imperialistic government sees our presence there as being vital to national security and in our interest, which may or may not be true, depending on your definition of “interest” and “national security”.
I agree with USMC General Smedley D. Butler:
“Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
1- We must take the profit out of war;
2- We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether should be war; and
3- We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.
“I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. … There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.”