Another American in Okinawa Facing Allegations
Apparently it has happened again:
U.S. military law enforcers have taken the accused man into custody, but the woman who accuses him of rape has not pressed charges with Okinawa Prefectural Police.
Police are questioning the woman and others associated with the case and will take out a warrant for the soldier’s arrest for rape if the alleged victim files a criminal complaint.
The victim, a Filipina woman, claims the incident took place on February 18th. The U.S. military has since put a curfew into place, limiting 45,000 troops, civilian employees and their families to bases, workplaces or off-base homes indefinitely:
The order, which focused on Okinawa but also affected Marines throughout Japan, was issued after a string of crimes blamed on American servicemen stoked long-simmering sentiment against the U.S. military presence.
Top Japanese officials welcomed the move, but said it was not sufficient.
“We need further concrete measures to prevent a recurrence. The restrictions are worthwhile as the first step of earnest discussions,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, who has sharply criticized U.S. forces in recent days.
Yoshihiko Fukuda, the newly elected mayor of Iwakuni, which hosts a Marine base, said the step was unlikely to make much of a difference until anti-crime education programs for American servicemen are strengthened, the Asahi newspaper reported.
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Those morons should have sent to Iraq to relieve other hard working servicemen in Iraq.
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Even one rape, especially that of a child, deserves all of the media “hype” it gets.
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Yeah like all the “hype” there is about underage prostitution.
Oh but that is a domestic issue.
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The problem with this, though, is that Japanese news ONLY reports this heavily about rapes if it is:
a) Done by a military member.
b) Really gruesome.
So, how is it fair that the Japanese media hypes up foreign crimes, even when the ratios for crimes done by foreigners is 8% lower than Japanese mainlanders, themselves?
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Man. Move all American bases to uninhabited islands!
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That’ll keep morale up. Nothing like a glamorous island to serve on.
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I like how the media convicts them before they ever go to trial.
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Just like the Western media?
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Funny how the Japanese Navy runs over a fishing boat and KILLS 2 people last week, and that news disappears.
Apparently death caused by Japanese is not as important as alleged rape by Americans.
Do we need more proof this is all hype?
How many disgruntled girlfriends and jilted lovers of US servicemen are now weighing whether they can get away with crying “rape”?
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I guess you don’t bother checking the news much before posting your comments. I watched 3 channels’ 5-6pm news broadcasts today, and they all gave extensive coverage to the Fishing boat story. The fishing boat story is also getting top story coverage on Japanese language news portals such as Yahoo.
I agree with level3, this may have simply been a case of a disgrundled girlfriend crying “rape”. there has definitely been similar cases on the alleged victim’s homeland.
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I’m not sure I understand your point. Do I think underage prostitution is under reported? Absolutely. So is the problem of child pornography and sexual trafficking in this country.
Does this mean the “hype” over a marine’s alleged rape of a child is illegitimite? Why? Because the Japanese Mass Gomi is silent about domestic problems does not excuse the marine’s behavior.
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Of course it doesn’t excuse his behavior if it was, indeed, a rape. That doesn’t mean the media should pick every American rape case every time it happens, then blow it out of the water, reporting on it for days and even weeks, especially when there’s probably hundreds or even thousands of cases they could pick out.
I hate soft news, I really do. Even in America where they keep reporting about black men killing white women. It’s the same thing with the Japanese media reporting about American military raping Japanese women.
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This is turning into quite the debacle.
On the one hand, you’ve got the possibility that it’s all blown up false accusations and people jumping on the “band wagon” all at once to exploit a growing anti US forces sentiment.
On the other hand, you’ve got the grim possibility of a lot of marines doing some very bad things.
Obviously I don’t take rape lightly to suggest that the accusations may be false, but lying about rape is a very serious matter too. With accusations like that plaguing you, you can say goodbye to a lot of career and social opportunities…
My biggest concern here is that the curfew might not solve the problem. If it were the case that, hypothetically speaking, the soldiers were getting really aggravated and frustrated and doing these things to “blow off some steam” then cutting off any and all leisure time is just going to make things much much worse.
Regardless, I could see a lot of political agendas charging into play here. Public opinion is turning against the US forces fast, so all it takes is some opportunistic politician to jump on a soap box and start yelling “Troops out!” I’m not even going to get into whether taking the troops out would be a good thing or a bad thing, but regardless I think it’s bad when things like this happen as a political stepping stone to accelerate someone to power.
I’ve got to pity the families on the bases, though. Their leisure time just vanished too…
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Other.
This has been happening since the American Fleet Landed on Okinawa in WWII, and they experienced the “Rape Boom”. 3000 rapes in the span of 3 months or so. This is an ongoing problem and unless the US plans to better police their troops or pull out of Japan all together it will continue to happen.
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In regard to “chojoki’s” comment:
I don’t think for one second that what the Marines may or may not have done is excusable in any way. However, I do believe that it seems Japan seems to forget its history of “comfort women” during that same WWII. An estimated 10-200 thousand women were kidnapped and forcibly “recruited” by the Japanese army and forced into sexual slavery in order to keep up troop morale. These women were raped hundreds of times each, some until they died. If you want to pull out numbers, the “rape boom” you mentioned pales in comparison to the Japanese atrocities.
I think that in consideration of this, it’s a bit hypocritical to vilify the U.S military because of these incidences. Looking at pure numbers, many more rapes occur in Japan by Japanese…this is not something that just the MILITARY does. There are sick people everywhere. Blaming it on the US gov’t or removing all the troops is not going to get a solution. Unless you’re trying to say that as long as it’s not the U.S military who is doing the raping, it’s ok.
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The difference is that the US is in a position to do something about these as they are ongoing. Your logic is poorly thought out.
And yes, removing US troops would actually stop troops raping women in Okinawa, because there would be no troops doing the rape.
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I’m speaking of rape in general in Okinawa. The question was: is this being unfairly hyped-up by the media? In my opinion, my answer is still yes. They are overreacting. Rape is a crime that is equally disgusting no matter WHO commits it. You can’t tell me no Okinawan has ever raped another Okinawan. You can’t tell me that a member of JASDF has never raped someone. The outrage should be EQUAL. There are sick Japanese, there are sick Americans, there are sickos everywhere. No gov’t can take responsibility for every member of its military. Removing the troops does not solve the problem (rape). According to you, removing the troops solves the problem, I don’t agree. Your logic only works if you only care who’s doing the raping. As I said earlier, removal of the troops only solves WHO is raping…rape in Okinawa will still continue, but according to your logic, that’s ok, because at least it isn’t US troops doing it.
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Oops, they did it again!
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The Okinawa Prefectural government publishes detailed statistics about the island’s military bases, including crime data, going back to 1972 (the year of Okinawa’s reversion to Japan). I generated some graphs using those statistics and data from a couple of other sources and published them at http://nihon.awardspace.com/okinawa_sofa_crime.html along with links to the original reports for anyone who is interested.
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This is definitely the most over-hyped situation I’ve ever seen or even imagined in my 30 yrs on this planet. The military community is committing crimes at a lower rate than the local population (crunch the numbers & see for yourself) & that includes rapes & sexual crimes (the majority of which are not reported when not involving foreign men). The initial suspect of rape against the 14 yr old girl was immediately turned over to local police & has not yet even been charged with rape yet (has admitted to forcing her to kiss him). The reason that the Filipino woman has not sought justice is because she is a “comfort woman” here in Okinawa on an “entertainment” visa. In other words, she uses her body to entice men for a living (whether she engages in intercourse for money is not yet clear). There is no way such a crime would be noticed by media normally. The other crimes exacerbating the situation include DWI (much bigger problem among the local Okinawan population that relies on personal vehicles due to unsatisfactory public transportation options) & entering the wrong house while intoxicated (nothing was damaged & no one was harmed). The crimes are like all crimes, regrettable & deserve punishment to those that committed them. Infringing on the civil liberties of 45,000 people, most of which are not trained killing machines but rather dependenst & civilian support workers (teachers, doctors, therapists, social workers, etc.) is COMPLETELY WITHOUT MERIT!!!
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