An Appreciation Of Green

Just in case anyone who read my post of yesterday thinks I am down on Dr. Michael Green, I am not. In the two-part interview he has given to Peter Ennis ( Part I , Part II ) he demonstrates his incredibly fine-grained knowledge of the political arena, policy structure and technical demands constraining the operations of the Japan-U.S. alliance. The reader may not like the assumptions Green and his counterparts make (the nonchalance in Abe's justification of reinterpretation over revision takes the breath away) but knowing that the PM, his advisor and military planners on both sides are thinking ante- and not just post-facto is reassuring.

Underappreciated also is "Japan is Back: Unbundling Abe's Grand Strategy," the analysis Dr. Green produced for the Lowy Institute (Link). I am eternally grateful for the devastating anecdote (in the "Values, History, and The Korea Problem" section) on the effect Abe's weekend golf partners have on the PM's thinking.

And yes, the above statement is true, too. My favorite opera is also by a guy named Green, for good measure.

Ue O Muite, Aruko

National Public Radio, on the most improbable #1 hit record ever in the United States.

I had no idea the lyrics had anything to do with the Ampo demonstrations. You learn something every day.

Of course, the coda, which has Sakamoto Kyu dying in 1985 in what is still the worst single aircraft disaster ever, does not quite fit into the uplifting message of the piece.


Later - If you can identify all those singing the song in this string of video clips...you have been watching way too much television.

I do not know what is trippier, Becky's warbles or Miura's Yuichiro's mug.

Time For A Change Of Scenery, Mr. Harlan?

When a dispatched journalist in the third year of a year of a stint tells a lie for effect, one has to wonder what it is he thinks he is doing in this blessed land.

Report: U.S. should allow Japan to use Yokota military air base for commercial flights
The Washington Post

By Chico Harlan, Oct 29, 2012 09:49 AM EDT - TOKYO — This city of 35 million says it badly needs a third airport to help it meet rising demand for passenger flights. And its officials think just the right airport already exists: a U.S. air base in the sprawling western suburbs, under the shadows of Mount Fuji.

Despite almost a decade of lobbying from Tokyo and the central government, Japan hasn't persuaded the United States to grant it partial use of Yokota Air Base. Talks stalled after a 2007 feasibility study raised the possibility of emergency-time chaos if the base were handling both military jets and commercial planes...

(Link)

Yokota Air Force Base? "Under the shadows of Mt. Fuji"? Really?

Let us consult Google Maps...

Yellow - Mt. Fuji summit to Yokota Air Force Base = 70 km

Red - Mt. Fuji summit to Washington Post Tokyo Bureau = 96 km

Hell of an important 26 kilometers. Gets one right out of "the shadows" they do.

Okagesama de indeed.

Mr. Harlan, the relevant authority to which you should send your apologies is the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. Should you want to present your apologies in person, its base is in Tsukuba. You might want to consult a map as to where that is before your departure.

My apologies to those desiring a more substantive post. The mendacious cliché just irked.


Later - Yes, I am going to let the "This city of 35 million" slide. That the population of the Tokyo Metropolitan District is just over 13 million is a technicality. I am not that persnickety.

Later still - I shudder at having to read the Center for A New American Security's report on joint civilian-military use of Yokota (Link). The ancillary effects of such a proposal -- construction of a modern civilian airport terminal and support facilities without affecting the operations of a major military base; the noise lawsuits that will be filed by local residents; the reaction in Okinawa (always negative, no matter what); the transiting through the base of millions of passengers (we are not talking Misawa in Aomori Prefecture, where the total number of commercial departures and arrivals per day at the joint military-civilian airport there is...six); the road and rail link upgrades -- they boggle the imagination.

I Shall Not Henceforth Share With Thee

The New York Times, somehow wrenching its gaze from the Mideast and Central Asia to some place not named Venezuela, has decided to offer, as it seems it believes it must to every human government, its advice on how the government of South Korean should be running its affairs.

A Lost Deal for South Korea and Japan
The New York Times

Nearly 70 years after World War II, old animosities are still making it difficult for South Korea and Japan to establish a reliably productive relationship. The result is self-defeating for both countries and for regional security.

Last week, at the last minute, South Korea postponed signing a limited military agreement with Japan. The deal would have encouraged the direct sharing and protecting of sensitive military data about North Korea and China and missile defenses. Such intelligence is now shared indirectly through Washington. The agreement was supported by the Obama administration, which has been working to strengthen a trilateral alliance with the two countries, America’s most important Asian allies.

Although Japan’s cabinet approved the deal, a political firestorm erupted in South Korea, and now its fate is uncertain. That is a huge embarrassment, for Seoul and Tokyo, creating more bad feelings between the two. President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea clearly mishandled the politics. The deal was negotiated in secret, with officials informing the public and Parliament just one day before it was to be signed. This is an election year in South Korea; Mr. Lee’s five-year term ends early next year after a successor is chosen in December. He should have anticipated that his political opponents would lash out as they have, accusing the government of being pro-Japanese. Instead of presenting the agreement as completed, he should have made the case for it publicly and worked to build support for it in advance.

Even then, it would have been a tough sell because animosity toward Japan remains very much alive in South Korea. Japan ruled that country as a colony, often brutally, for several decades until the end of World War II. Although the two nations have growing economic and cultural ties, they still have bitter disputes over a set of islets and Tokyo’s rejection of talks on compensating Korean women used by Japan as military sex slaves during the war.

The United States and Japan have said little publicly to avoid inflaming the situation. But we hope they are working to calm the waters on this issue.

(Link)

Why the New York Times should be wading into the failure, at the last minute (Literally -- according some reports, the South Korean side told the Japanese side it was backing out 20 minutes before the signing ceremony), of governments of the Republic of Korea and Japan to sign a General Security Of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) perplexes me. Not because the United States government wants Japan and South Korea cooperating and the Times in the last two decades has become the lap dog of the Washington think tank establishment. What makes Washington unhappy makes the Times unhappy.

What perplexes me is how Washington so enwrapped itself in its own logic that it forgot the hurdles in the way of such an agreement. South Korean activists have been carrying out an almost parodic global war on things Japanese, publishing full-page broadsides about Dokdo to the confusion of the world's dwindling number of newspaper readers, expending energies trying to convince the world's cartographers to change the Sea of the Japan to the East Sea (East of where? Be specific. You are not England and this is not the 18th century. Even the Chinese do not get to call their favorite bodies of water the "the East Sea" and "the South Sea") and turning the sex slaves of the Japan Imperial Forces issue (E) into a bottomless chasm in between the two neighbors.

In order to overcome these domestic political hurdles to intelligence sharing with Japan, the government of ROK would need to be receiving from the GOJ cooperation of such a vital importance to South Korea's security that ROK authorities could just tell its critics to shut the fork up.

However, it seem there is nothing in the agreement that guarantees the government of the ROK gets anything from the GOJ (E) and/or vice-versa.

The GOJ knows after after the debacle of April 13 that it needs real time data on DPRK rocket launches. As for the government of the ROK, it probably wants everything the Maritime Self Defense Forces can tell it about what is going on under the surface of the waters around the ROK, anti-submarine warfare being the one area where the SDF has world-class capabilities.

However, the ROK military would be reticent sharing real time launch data with a non-ally. As for the GOJ side, sharing ASW information with anyone except the United States would go crashing against the current interpretations of Article 9 of the Constitution.

So effectively, a promise of nothing for nothing.

However, the situation for the ROK government is even worse than the above indicates.

First, the national interests of Japan and South Korea are not in sync. Japan wants to stay a non-nuclear state in a nuclear neighborhood with minimal impacts from the presence of U.S. forces and no part in American messianic adventurism. The South Koreans want self-determination for the peninsula even as it China's immense shadow grows. South Koreans lash out at the Japanese to turn attention away from their really problematic neighbor. Lashing out at Japan provides oxygen for the Japanese right wing's effort to revive Japan's ardor for military adventure, for seventy years after the fact, Japan's neighbors still hang on to outdated stereotypes. Respect, the right argues, flows from fear, and fear only comes through strength.

Perversely, signing GSOMIA makes the most sense if Japan is on a remilitarization course favored by Japan's right wing. If remilitarization of Japan has stalled, as it seems to have done, then chances are that Japan will never find the funding for the protocols, the training and the forces necessary to implement the minimal goals of the pact.

Besides, if the government of the ROK were to share sensitive information with Japan, which has no espionage law or law controlling the leakage of information, it would be taking a chance that what should be kept secret suddenly appears three weeks later in the pages of SAPIO or the Sankei Shimbun.

Finally, if an ROK official were to set sail against a sea of troubles and seek to share vital intelligence with the GOJ, whom would he/she call? Ministries in this blessed land do not talk to other ministries. Ministries do not share in a timely fashion with the Public Security Intelligence Agency or, Amaterasu forbid, the Prime Minister's Residence. At times, agencies inside ministries do not share information with the secretariats of that ministry.

So instead of wringing hands, consider a bullet dodged. For good or ill, the government of this blessed land has not prepared this land for participation in the Great Game.

Yet Another Paraphrase Of Hemingway

Friendly correspondent Stephen Harner has a new post on Forbes.com regarding the ill-starred Noda-Obama summit and the strategic rebalancing of Asia. (Link)

Mr. Harner is a businessman and sees the world from a businessman's perspective. It is not unusual that he should view geographic proximity, increased trade links and enmeshing supply chains as favoring an ascendant China in regional relations over the continued presence of a dominating United States. He and I would probably be in agreement that Hatoyama Yukio and Ozawa Ichiro were not far wrong in steering the ship of state a little closer to China, relying, perhaps unrealistically, on the United States to understand this blessed land's position.

However the idea of a reestablishment of Chinese suzerainty seemingly going beyond the Finlandization of regional territorial disputes is not on anyone's agenda -- nor should it be. Liberty and autonomy are precious and worth the fighting for...if not for ourselves then for those whom education and wealth have not blessed with the ability to deracinate and resettle wherever there is money to be made.

Witless To History

I was reading James R. Holmes' most recent post at The Diplomat (Link). For the most part the essay argues quite cogently that the United States should reduce the size and change the composition of the naval forces it has based upon its Atlantic Coast. Basically since there are no peer competitors or major zones of instability in the Atlantic, north or south, there is really not much point in having half of the U.S. carrier force based in Atlantic ports.

However, one line in the essay made me gag:

The 2007 U.S. Maritime Strategy calls on the U.S. sea services—the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard—to stage "credible combat power" in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean for the foreseeable future, remaining the dominant maritime force in East, Southeast, and South Asia. Yet some 40 percent of the navy remains in the Atlantic, where it risks becoming a wasting asset. It’s high time to reallocate forces in to support the Maritime Strategy, and to back up President Barack Obama’s pledge to keep the U.S. military number one in this critical region. China’s People’s Liberation Army would be the yardstick for a new "one-power standard." Once concentrated in the Pacific—arrayed not only along the West Coast, Hawaii, and Guam but at forward bases in Japan and, preferably, in central positions like Australia—preponderant U.S. forces would dissuade China from mischief-making, much as Theodore Roosevelt’s "Great White Fleet" did vis-à-vis Imperial Japan a century ago.

Oh yes, great. We all remember how well that policy of prevention of "mischief-making" on the part of the Japanese Imperial Navy turned out in the end, do we not?

The key to an extended peace in the East Asian region is not trying to deter China from "mischief-making." First, it is unaffordable, as the means by which Chinese forces will achieve access denial capabilities in the Western Pacific are far, far cheaper than it will cost to counter these access denial capabilities.

Second and more importantly, the accession of China to a certain level of military power needs to be viewed as an inevitable and desirable corrollary of China's reemergence as a world politco-cultural-military center. Rather than the demeaning puffery of seeking to "defer mischief-making," the goal of the allied Pacific naval powers should be to smother the PLA Navy with collaborative and burden-sharing proposals. Diplomats and military experts traveling to Beijing or Qindao or Hainan should bring with them flash drives packed with great presentations on "The U.S. Navy can do this, the Maritime Self Defense Forces can do that, the Korean Navy can do this, the Aussies and Kiwis can do that and you can do this. Together, with each force providing a vital piece of the puzzle, we can solve this."

The key point to drive home is that the PLA Navy, even as it is currently constituted, can and should provide vital security services within its immediate area of operations and around the globe. The approach should be pro-active, with the navies of the Asia-Pacific showering the PLA Navy with positive actions for its burgeoning assets to perform.

With institutions as with individuals, nothing flusters, confuses and changes plans so much as being loved.

Closing One Loophole

There has always been an odd loophole in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) regarding the handling of cases of traffic accidents caused by members of U.S. forces or Defense Department civilian employees. As long as the perpetrators -- for these are cases where who caused the accident is undeniably a U.S. national working for U.S. Forces Japan -- could argue that he or she was on official duty, then he or she would be handed over to the U.S. for prosecution. This was true even when the perpetrators were found to be drunk at the time of the accident.

This morning, Foreign Minister Gemba Koichiro promised that he would meet with his U.S. counterparts on revising the SOFA so that in these cases or similar crimes committed by a chemically impaired U.S. Forces member or DOD civilian employee the perpetrators would lose the right to argue they were acting while on official duty, i.e. would lose their immunity from Japanese law. He also promised to visit Okinawa, where this has been a big issue, to meet with officials and explain the Japanese government's concern about this issue (J).

Now if only someone could figure out how to close the loophole on the American side -- where civilian employees cannot be tried in military tribunals, meaning that if one commits a crime while on duty in an area under Japanese juridiction, he or she gets off scott-free...

Worth Reading

Gavan McCormack and Norimatsu Satoko have produced a very readable and sobering view of the current state of the Japan-U.S. plan to move the forces at the U.S. Marines Corps Airbase Futenma to a new base to be constructed in the town of Henoko.

"Discordant Visitors: Japanese and Okinawan Messages to the US"

As for myself, place me among the reluctant "unrealists" described in the report, if only for my belief that everyone has a price at which he/she can be bought.

Pour l'exemple - Hadnott sentenced

Last month I was stunned at the U.S. military's filing a mountain of charges against Staff Sergeant Tyrone Hadnott in relation to an alleged rape of a 14 year girl in Okinawa on February 10.

I was beside myself. I could not believe that a U.S. military court could try and convict a service member of serious sexual assault when Japanese prosecutors, laboring under extreme political and community pressure, could not file charges.

Despairing that my own lack of faith in law enforcement may have tainted my assessment of the case, I posted the following on April 25, the day the news broke of Hadnott's arraignment:

I must admit, I have hoped Sergeant Hadnott not guilty of the crimes of which he has been accused. I suppose I have not lost hope that he is still partly innocent--that he is being charged with very serious crimes in order that he may be intimidated into confessing a lesser crime as a part of a plea bargain--a dirty trick but one exasperated prosecutors will employ in order to win a conviction sometimes.

It is a long shot though--and one that unfairly impugns the motives of JAG officers--a really bad initial assumption, generally.

Not so long a shot and possibly not so unfair, as it turns out.

The extremely serious charges against Staff Sgt. Hadnott -- all bargained away.

Hadnott goes to the brig for three years for the crime of abusive sexual conduct: touching the victim in a sexual manner over clothing.

US Marine gets 4 years on sex charge
AP

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA –TOKYO — A U.S. Marine accused of raping a 14-year-old Japanese girl was convicted of a lesser charge Friday during a court martial and sentenced to four years in prison in a case that inflamed public anger at the American military presence on Okinawa.

Staff Sgt. Tyrone L. Hadnott, 38, was found guilty of abusive sexual conduct, said Master Sgt. Chuck Albrecht. He said four other charges — rape of a child under 16, making false official statements, adultery and "kidnapping through inveigling," or trickery — were dropped.

Though Hadnott was sentenced to four years in prison, he will only serve a maximum of three years, with the fourth year of the sentence suspended under a pretrial agreement, the Marines said in a statement...

Justice has been served.

I am sure of it.

We have nothing to fear.

What? Now? The Hadnott Case Resurfaces

After a month and a half, charges.

This is beyond bizarre.

U.S. Marine Charged With Rape of 14-Year-Old in Japan
Fox News

TOKYO — The U.S. military in Japan says it has charged a Marine with raping a 14-year-old girl in Okinawa.

The military said Friday it charged Staff Sgt. Tyrone L. Hadnott earlier in the week in the alleged Feb. 10 attack.

No date has been set for the court-martial.

Japanese police initially apprehended Hadnott in the attack, but released him after the girl dropped charges. U.S. authorities then investigated the case under the strict military justice code...

Wow...does not even cover this.

Later - OK, the host nation support bill ("the sympathy budget" - omoiyari yosan) bill did fail in the House of Councillors this morning--meaning that two-thirds of the House of Representatives needs vote for the bill later--but I am not going to go all conspiracy theorist over this news flash--if it turns out to be factually correct.

My first question is procedural--how was it possible for the U.S. military to charge Hadnott with rape "earlier in the week" and not reveal the action until Friday? Or was the announcement held off until after the failure of the host nation support bill made it pointless to delay the announcement further?

Timing, timing, timing...is everything.

Almost Nothing Left to Say

The newspapers are all starting to report almost identical stories about the taxicab murder case, rather than contradictory or wildly different tales.

Today's revelation--a female acquaintance of the accused, in whose residence the accused has had recent entry, has testified that the murder weapon resembles a knife that has been missing from her home. The papers also claim that the sailor, who has been denying any connection to the crime, has begun admitting a connection to the cabby's murder to U.S. military authorities.

How long this daily drip of revelations will be allowed to go on before the Yokosuka police make a formal request for the transfer of the sailor to their custody is anybody's guess.

The Net's Closing In Around

In the case of the murdered taxicab driver (references begin here, et al) assertions today by the Yokosuka Police have made it much harder to believe in the innocence of the accused American sailor.

One report has the sailor calling an acquaintance from within Yokosuka just after the estimated time of the murder. According police, the sailor's words in that telephone conversation intimated that something bad had just happened to him.

The police have also claimed that the image of a person resembling the suspect was recorded by a Shinagawa security camera the night of the murder.

What this tells me is:

a) DNA tests and fingerprint dustings on the murder weapon and from the interior of the car have been inconclusive

b) there is pressure to lock down this case sooner rather than later.

These revelations, though not damning, are going to put extreme pressure on the U. S. Navy and the FBI to transfer the suspect to Japanese custody.

I would like to see a prosecutor convince a judge to issue an arrest warrant here first, before beating myself over the head for doubting the full guilt of the suspected murder.

Later - True to form, the Asahi Shimbun is swimming in the deepest end of the pool. While the other news agencies are claiming that the sailor in his mobile phone conversation "gave hints" or "gave indications" or "intimated" that he was involved in an incident, the headline of the top story of this evening's edition of the Asahi screams:

"The AWOL American Serviceman: 'I Stabbed Him!'"

I note with some sardony that in the article, the Asahi admits that its previous exclusive, that the serviceman claimed he was in a Dobuita drinking establishment at the time of the murder "has yet to be confirmed."

No kidding.

Still later - This is getting stupid.

The evening Asahi Shimbun claims that the serviceman told his acquaintance, "several things including 'I did it, unfortunately...' (yatte shimatta) and 'I stabbed him!' (sashita) and the like." Now the weekly tabloid magazine Shukan Gendai, always a paragon of probity, offers yet another version of today's police revelations, claiming that the serviceman said, "I did it, unfortunately..." (yachimatta) which the Shukan Gendai insists is supposed to be understood to mean, "I stabbed him."

[I file as a mental note for future reference the Shukan Gendai's use of a contraction and the Asahi's use of the formal phrase.]

It seems that nobody really knows anything.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun is hedging the most, noting that the source of today's revelations is not actually "the police," but "sources with connections to the investigation."

Which means...

Tuesday Morning's News

The Asahi Shimbun is reporting that the sailor in the Yokosuka taxi driver murder case is claiming that he was in a drinking establishment on the Dobuita at the time of the murder last Thursday. The paper cites, as a source, "a person with ties to the investigation being carried out by the Navy Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS)."

Possibly unsurprisingly, no other paper is reporting this revelation.

Perhaps it is because the Dobuita is the main bar zone just outside the Yokosuka U.S. Naval base.

If I were a Navy sailor who has gone AWOL, I think the last place I would be hiding out is in a bar in the rowdiest district of town, next to the base. It would tend to be crawling with MPs (and I do not mean "Members of Parliament").

But then, I am the cynical one.

Then again, it was not until this morning that I realized what it was that was bothering me so about the case.

Imagine if you will that you are a 61 year-old Japanese taxi cab driver, in Shinagawa on a Thursday night at 8 p.m. You have been driving a cab in Tokyo for thirty years, so you have seen pretty much everything, twice.

You pick up a really dark-skinned, 22 year old male who asks you to take him to Yokosuka.

What do you do at this point? Do you drive 45 kilometers south with a passenger whom you know is paid, at Japanese rates, what are less than poverty wages? Or because you are in Shinagawa and it is 8 p.m. do you drive over to Shinagawa Station, turn around and say, "Here. Take Train Here. Yokosuka. Very Fast. Cheap." and if the passenger refuses to get out, you go over the Kōban and tell the policeman, "I have a nutcase of a U.S. serviceman in my cab demanding to be taken to Yokosuka. Can you help me get him out of my cab?"

I think it is the latter.

He Who Fell From Grace With the Sea

Curiouser and curiouser...

According to reports, the AWOL (the news reports have called him a deserter but the Navy would probably charge someone stationed in Japan with the lesser crime of being "Absent Without Leave") sailor is of Nigerian extraction. He claims to have no connection to the murder of the taxi cab driver.

If the sailor is indeed of Nigerian heritage or even a Nigerian citizen, then his ability to hide out in Japan becomes more comprehensible. Anyone who has walked through Roppongi on a Friday night knows there are plenty of jobs available for English-speaking African men in the entertainment and leisure industry, principally as bouncers and touts.

In general, non-Americans seem to have an easier time of disappearing into the nooks and crannies of Tokyo. Recall that last June on the occasion of the second goodwill visit ever by the Pakistani Navy, 11 Pakistani sailors simply vanished .

I have had a difficulty believing the sailor to be the murderer. Part of my doubt can be attributed to my recurring pattern of sympathy for defendants in high-profile criminal investigations. A more significant portion, however, is is attributable to my unease when the number of inexplicable events exceeds one. The absurd itinerary (from Shinagawa to the gates of the Yokosuka Naval Base by taxi, then back to Shinagawa by some unknown conveyance) the too convenient presence of an incriminating credit card, the 62,000 in cash still in the cabby's purse--does not fit the story of a desperate deserter on the lam. If he were on the run, why take a taxi back to the gates of the Navy base? If he were desperate, why did he not take the money?

Who killed this cab driver and why? A pair of questions not so simple...

The Missing Sailor

American MPs have apprehended the AWOL serviceman. According to the evening reports, they picked him up in Gotanda--the armpit of the Yamanote Line (honestly, it is an unappealing place).

Now just how this fellow, missing for 6 3 weeks, made his way south from Shinagawa (Gotanda is in Shinagawa Ward) all the way to Yokosuka, murdered a cabby on damn near the doorstep of the U.S. base, took none of the wads of cash on the cabby's person, dropped his credit card in the cab, then made his way back up to Shinagawa with the police looking for him everywhere--is a mystery to me.

A further mystery--how did the MPs find him in Tokyo and not the local police? Unless he called the military police asking them to come pick him up, of course

Why did the cabby have to die, if not for robbery purposes?

Too many questions send my fervid imagination to spinning out up ever more ridiculous scenarios...

Ambassador Schieffer, Line Two

On the front page of this morning's The Asahi Shimbun, a cabby was found last night slumped over in the front seat a taxi in Yokosuka, a knife sticking out of him.

Inside the passenger compartment, a U.S. serviceman's credit card.

Methinks today is going to be a long day for the denizens of Akasaka Ichōme.

The Asahi story in 日本語 can be found here . The Mainichi Shimbun site has a sketchier English version of the story here.

Hi ho, hi ho!

It's home from work I go.

Honestly, after the grind at the office today, it is all I can do to share the above image taken by yours truly a week ago from Morito Beach in Kanagawa Prefecture's Hayama Township.

Sleep well, sleep soundly, sleep safely all. We will try to figure out tomorrow what Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura Nobutaka will be suggesting to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as means of improving the "lax" (tarunde iru - his words, not mine) discipline of U.S. Marines.

Good luck Nobutaka-kun! Just don't start talking about the Nazca Lines again, please!

Surveiller et punir

If Michel Foucault were still alive, he would get a frisson at the government's latest idea for a means of preventing U.S. servicemen and Defense Department personnel from committing crimes:

Surveillance cameras.

Engage the Panopticon!

Let me see if I understand this.

The Marines (and sailors and soldiers) are here to protect the nation from its enemies...and yet we are going to go to the expense of putting up surveillance cameras all around the exteriors of the bases to keep an eye on those Marines (and sailors and soldiers) at all times...because they pose a threat to the local population.

At some point, the imposition of ever more layers of security measures to counteract the unintended deleterious effects of previously imposed security measures starts looking a bit...bizarre.

Juggernaut

A U.S. active duty serviceman has been arrested in Okinawa Prefecture for assault of a sexual nature upon a 14 year old girl. Christopher Pelligrini over at Trans Pacific Radio has tried to put the case into context in a thoughtful essay on the prosecution of rape in Japan while Tobias Harris has examined the politico-military background to the case (here and here).

There is a limit to the level of sympathy anyone can extend to the accused: he has already admitted to forcible sexual assault upon a minor. His assertions that he did not engage in sex or know that the girl was not of legal age do not detract from his having forced his attentions upon a person who lacked the physical means to resist him.

Nevertheless, the rapidity of Staff Sergeant Tyrone Hadnott's transfer to Japanese custody, his immediate arrest on the incredibly flexible charge of bōkō (暴行）and the multi-ring media circus ever since leave little room for faith that he will be tried only for the crimes he has committed. More likely he will be tried for all the unprosecuted or insufficiently prosecuted rapes and murders of the occupation period and the U.S Defense Department's shielding of its warfighters and civilian personnel with the Status of Forces Agreement after the reversion.

The hopelessness of Sergeant Hadnott's situation was made clear in the first comment out of Foreign Minister Kōmura Masahiko's mouth as regards the incident. "Ii kagen ni shiro" ("Give me an effing break") he told the bank of cameras, explaining what the people should be feeling when they first hear of the story on the news.

When the two-time Minister of Foreign Affairs, the nation's top diplomat and the holder of a degreee in law, eschews the language of diplomacy in favor of an earthy, exasperated "What the hell? Again? Give me an effing break" locution--you can pretty much discount the "innocent until proven guilty" presumption.

Ambassador Thomas Schieffer and Marine Lt. General Richard Zilmer have gone before the cameras and sworn, solemnly--with either with complete incomprehension of the situation or with the coldest, most calculating of hypocrisies--to "cooperate fully with the investigation."

I must confess, I laughed. "Cooperate fully with the investigation? What investigation? You have already handed him over to He is in the hands of the Japanese legal system. They have already booked him for assault. What is left to investigate, aside from the length of his sentence?"

Why care? Why should anyone care that a jerk, an idiot, possibly a pedophile, possibly a rapist, is crushed beneath the wheels of the law? If that is the cost of keeping the alliance going-- that a fool is tossed under the wheels to excite the crowd even as his superiors proclaim the openness of their minds as to his guilt--then so be it, right? Is he not a soldier, ready to lay down his life for his country anyway?

We should all be pragmatic--let the law be used to settle old scores, clear old debts from old accounts. We also need to give the people a moment or two of righteous indignation since that makes them feel better about Japan's semi-colonial status.

Anyway, it too late to change anything. The judicial process has begun--the guy's toast. Why waste the resources and the energy? We ourselves could never do anything stupid that could be misrepresented or misunderstood...and the police and prosecutors would never imprison us in order to fulfill a quota or respond to political pressure to "do something!"

Think about the greater good.

-------------------------------------
Photo: Demons tormenting the damned
Detail from the Enma Scrolls of the Zendōji
Yorii City, Saitama Prefecture
February 11, 2008

-------------------------------------

Later: Many thanks to reader AC for the correction. According the timeline printed in the Asahi Shimbun evening edition of February 12, local police found Mr. Hadnott sitting in his car in front of his off-base home just after midnight on February 11. The officers convinced Hadnott to voluntarily come with them to the police station for questioning. They arrested him at the police station at around 2:10 a.m.

Even later: After reading the various accounts of the purported rape in the various major dailies, none of the actions or words of any of the main actors makes any sense at all.

So it's Charismatic Megafauna 1; Badass Hyperpower 0

He came with eyes aflame, whifling through the off-gold lobby.

He burbled the Five Tasks:

1) Bilateral assessment of strategy and threats
2) Assessment of different roles
3) Assessment of respective force structures
4) Examination of basing structure for U.S. and Japanese forces
5) Consideration of force presence issues

He accentuated the Many Recent Positives:

· Research Cooperation in Missile Defense
· East Timor
· Operation Enduring Freedom
· Refueling of the Fleets of 10 Nations
· Operation Iraqi Freedom
· Contingencies Legislation
· Launching a Missile Defense Program
· Relaxation of Weapons Exports Rules
· Revised National Defense Guidelines

But he was not finished. He was not satisfied. He needed to diss:

But measured against Japan's capabilities to contribute to international security, and measured against Japan's global interests and the benefits Japan derives from peace and stability around the world, these changes remain quite modest.”

Raise eyebrow. Shift in seat. Think to oneself:

"Mr. Deputy Under Secretary, we are seated no more that 150 meters away from the office of the celebrated Mr. K. himself. All the Japanese networks have their cameras rolling. You are a guest in this country. What is appropriate in a presentation before the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcomittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee might sound discourteous in this neck of the woods, if not within the confines of the particular room you are standing in right now."

But he was not finished, no.

"We must make up for the time we have lost."

Who is this "we" Kemosabe*?

When did this losing of time begin?

How far away is this place where "we" belong?

Do "we" have time for a vote before "we" start off?

"Remained caught up in parochial issues"

Local parochial issues such as, for instance,

- environmental regulations,

- international animal protection treaties,

-judicial precedent,

-local law and

-the opinions of local elected officials?

Then the kicker, at least as I remember it (transcripts and sound recordings are frequently unreliable. MTC memory products, however, are definitive):

"If the security relationship is not brought up to the point where it should be, we will not be able to secure the alliance."

Nice use of the conditional there. Inspires fear. And who is this "we" again?

The Deputy Under Secretary's speech was mighty entertaining, jolting even. "The highlight of the conference so far," RS confided over dinner.

Boy, it sure seemed that this was one American official who was going to grab his Japanese interlocutors by the eri (collar) and tell them what's what and who's who.

But last night, as night fell upon the great city, he must have stood at the window of his hotel and raged at the peaceful, flickering ocean of lights:

"Hearken to my words, my friends. See therein that I threaten you. Look upon my name — LAWLESS — and despair. I am Shiva, devourer of worlds. I am the ugly man with the pretty wife** . I am Sauron with both the Ring and a Ferrari Testarossa. I am the representative of the most awesome killing machine to ever stalk the surface of this planet and I am being GUMMED TO DEATH BY DUGONGS!"

For it was on the next day that the Deputy Under Secretary went before the microphones and signaled surrender.

With a presidency adrift, an official visit looming, a 10 year-old dispute festering and a mild-tempered, extremely endangered sirenian in the way, he was not going to get a promise for an offshore helicopter base any more substantial than the promises made a month ago to the DPRK for a new light-water reactor.

Ah, the mysterious East...kabuki first, then karma.

------------------------------------

* Reference to the old Lone Ranger and Tonto joke:

"Tonto, there are 1000 Sioux to the north of us, 2000 Shoshone to east of us, 3000 Cheyenne to the west of us and 4000 Navaho to the south of us. We're surrounded."

"Hmmm...What do you mean by 'we', paleface?"

** In the metaphorical sense, only. Mr. Lawless is no Quasimodo. I know less than nothing about the appearance of Mrs. Lawless.