US troops are stationed in Japan to protect the nation. But to sex workers in Okinawa, they .......

[marmar]

Special Report: US troops are stationed in Japan to protect the nation. But to sex workers in Okinawa, they bring fear, not security


(Independent UK) Business is slow in Okinawa’s biggest red-light district. Touts stand idle beneath neon signs advertising “soap-land” brothels, where prostitutes lather male clients for money. A handful of men loiter to peer at the photos of women pasted on billboards outside, though few appear willing to part with Y15,000 (£100) to spend an hour with one inside. Desperate as some of the businesses are, however, many still decline one type of customer: US military servicemen.

“Too much trouble,” explains one tout working the Tsuji-machi district of Naha, Okinawa’s capital. The soap-land businesses that do admit Americans tend to pair them with older, more experienced women. “They scare the younger girls,” says another tout. “Especially when they have had a few drinks.”

Okinawa has lived uneasily for decades with its huge American military presence. US bases occupy nearly 20 per cent of the crowded main island of Japan’s southernmost prefecture, as part of Tokyo’s half-century alliance with Washington. The US maintains 14 military installations on Okinawa housing roughly 25,000 men and women – the Marine Corps Northern Training Area alone occupies close to 40 square miles, and includes the world’s only jungle warfare training centre.

The controversies associated with such a huge deployment are legion; in 1969, shortly after the start of the Vietnam war, 13,000 tons of poison gas including sarin and VX leaked from a storage base in Okinawa, causing residents to be evacuated and environmental damage that prevailed for years. There have also been a series of recent allegations that Agent Orange was extensively stored there – claims that the US military has denied, following its own internal investigations. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/special-report-us-troops-are-stationed-in-japan-to-protect-the-nation-but-to-sex-workers-in-okinawa-they-bring-fear-not-security-8661078.html

[Warren Stupidity]

1. I've got an idea: get our troops out of there.

[jwirr]

2. Read "Blowback" by Chalmers Johnson. It is not just sex workers.