Top senators call U.S. military plans in Japan unworkable, unaffordable

Top senators call U.S. military plans in Japan unworkable, unaffordable

www.google.com

The planned reorganization of American forces in east Asia, including on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, is unworkable and unaffordable, three influential U.S. senators said Wednesday.

The Defense Department should re-examine its plans for South Korea, Guam and Okinawa — where many islanders oppose the presence of U.S. forces. A 2006 agreement with Japan aimed at decreasing America's military footprint is outdated and imposes an "enormous financial burden" on the U.S. ally as it recovers from a huge earthquake, the senators said.

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[url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110511/pl_afp/usmilitarypoliticsjapanskorea[/url]

This isn't something you hear very often: A U.S. Military operation not having enough money for something. Before I thought of this as a win for bringing troops home, I poped my conspiracy hat on and wondered:

1.Could this be related to the Japanese nuclear incident?

and

2. Could this mean a relocation of more troops elsewhere in the world? (Probably Africa/ Middle east?)

Interesting line:

The senators also took aim at the military's plans for South Korea, where the U.S. has more than 28,000 forces — a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in an armistice rather than a formal peace treaty. They say plans to realign U.S. forces there should be put on hold pending further review.

Optimist viewpoint: The Military Industrial Complex is going broke! (Along with the whole country)

Either viewpoint is quite bleak, let me know your thoughts.

www.google.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Im not very knowledgeable on the U.S. military's approach to the entire radiation scenario, yet i highly doubt anything the higher-ups do is in favor of the average solider, or our country for that matter.

reply to post by Skerrako

Optimist viewpoint: The Military Industrial Complex is going broke! (Along with the whole country)

Nah! Never happen. They would cut funding for every single social program before the Pentagon got a budget cut.

They will never close our bases in Asia Pacific. Hell no. This is the place the CFR is hedging it's bets on. It is critical that the U.S. retain interests there to survive. They'll find the money.

It will never happen, for all intents and purposes Japan became our 52nd state after World War II, while Israel seems to be our 51st.

It's all about global positioning, gun boat diplomacy, and having a presence in hot spots to make sure they are hot.

Oddly where valuable commodities go way up in price and become so much more profitible when they are hot.

I take no pride in it, in fact the opposite, but the truth is that the US Military pretty much controls 2/3rds of the planet and it grows every day.

I think if anything this is the kind of political posturing that is just meant to give people in those nations hope that they will one day be free of American occupation.

Lot's of luck there.

Originally posted by Skerrako


This isn't something you hear very often: A U.S. Military operation not having enough money for something. Before I thought of this as a win for bringing troops home, I poped my conspiracy hat on and wondered:

Except when it comes to money for adequate body Armour and vehicle Armour for ground forces they can spend millions on ballistic missles but cant scratch together enough to outfit troops overseas with appropriate body Armour.
Alternatively it looks on the surface like someone is reigning in military spending tightening the belt on the military industrial complex.

www.news.com.au...

Perhaps they wanted to counter China's expansionism.

A NEW batch of WikiLeaks cables has revealed that China tried to set up a surveillance radar base in East Timor.

According to US embassy cables leaked to WikiLeaks, China approached East Timor in December 2007, hoping to establish a surveillance radar facility on the country's north coast.

However, East Timorese officials viewed the proposal with concern and entered into talks with the United States and Australia before rejecting the plan, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

China had proposed to build and operate the facility free of charge, to help East Timor in its fight against illegal fishing.

The leaked US cables show that East Timor's deputy prime minister, Jose Luis Guterres, was concerned the radar would be used to extend China's intelligence capabilities further into south-east Asia.

"The only catch was that the facilities were manned by Chinese technicians," Mr Guterres reportedly told the US embassy.

reply to post by Skerrako


If my understanding of the article is correct, the US is NOT really planning to move their troops out of Okinawa.

The Okinawans do not like the US military presence, especially because of the high crime rate they bring. (A case I can remember was the rape of a 12 yr old Okinawan girl by Black US servicemen.)

The Japanese Government was willing to foot the bill (multi-billions of USD) to move the US military to another base in a more isolated part of Okinawa and to Guam. Creating another base in Okinawa would not only cost the Japanese much money, but it would take ten years to finish.

So the US Senators are saying, since Japan has just suffered a catastrophic economic blow from the EQ's & tsunami. we need to re-think the move, to ease the financial burden on Japan.

The other item that they're quashing is the expansion of "Dependent Facilities" in South Korea. Since Korea could blow up at any moment, it's not a good idea to have even more US military dependents (wives & children) in Korea that would have to be evacuated in case of war.

All of this makes sense to me.

reply to post by AuranVector


Wow. I think you're right. Oops, maybe I shouldn't be reading articles at 3 AM.

I mods can close this thread now.

My mistake