'Never Bend': Thousands Protest New Air Base After Okinawa Switch

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/27-1



Protesters hold signs reading 'Never Bend' outside of governmental offices in Okinawa Friday

'Never Bend': Thousands Protest New Air Base After Okinawa Switch
- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer
Published on Friday, December 27, 2013 by Common Dreams

The U.S. military base in Okinawa, which has been surrounded in scandal in its decades of existence, will finally be closed after years of mass protest, officials announced Friday.

~snip~

Agence France-Presse reports:

More than 17 years after the two allies agreed to move the U.S. Marines' Futenma Air Station from a densely populated urban area, the local government has finally consented to a landfill that will enable new facilities to be built on the coast.

The agreement will burnish the credentials of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the U.S., possibly taking some of the sting out of American criticism of his provocative visit Thursday to a war shrine seen by China and Korea as a symbol of Japanese militarism.

The issue has been deadlocked for years, with huge opposition to any new base among Okinawans fed up with playing host to an outsized share of the U.S. military presence in Japan, and who want it moved off the island altogether.

[ConcernedCanuk]

1. USA don't seem to be getting the message, or they just don't care . . .

.
.
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MOST COUNTRIES DON'T WANT USA's FRIKKEN BASES ANYWHERE NEAR THEM!

It's not as if these bases create peace and stability;

and most countries have to put up with USA's caveat that the USA's military do not have to obey the host country's laws;

not that the military ever break them . . . .

ya right . . . .

(sigh)

CC