[/caption]Barely nine months into his new administration, the Japanese Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, was forced to resign. What is so telling about Mr. Hatoyama’s resignation was the fact that he was elected by nearly 70% of the votes. So what was the pressing issue that brought down the new Prime Minister - it was his support to extend the American troop presence in Japan.
The Japanese public has been voicing its disapproval of America’s presence in Japan for some time now and didn’t help matters that a soldier brutally raped one of its citizens… adding even more fodder for those who want the troops to go home. We are at the point where no amount of good will or the largess the United States dole out to these countries economies (Japan included) can change the people's mind.
It is time to bring the troops home from these foreign shores; the younger generation doesn’t remember what America did for their grandparents. Our young Japanese brothers and sisters do not remember that General Douglas McArthur undertook what was tantamount to the Marshall Plan for the East… rebuilding Japan after America’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Revisionists and conspiracy theorists have also complicated matters by positing that FDR knew of the imminent attack on Pearl Harbor. I will not begrudge the young Japanese need for pride… but pride should be matched against the strategic reasons why the troops were stationed there in the first place.
I am afraid I have to side with the Japanese in agreeing that the strategic reasons, which compelled the stationing of troops in Japan and elsewhere, are no longer valid. Maybe I am being blinded and biased because America’s fiscal house is in disarray and I see the monies saved by bringing the troops home as helping us out of our fiscal mess. The expenses alone to house our troops must be enormous; think of the billions that could be saved, if we were to bring the troops home. Why not bring the troops home and station them on our porous borders?
I know a little about the respective histories of all these countries that are clamoring for our exit from their shores. There is an element of ungratefulness on their part, but the truth is that they cannot be beholden to America forever. The younger generation will forget history and national pride will always trumped what grandma or grandpa has to say positively about the Americans.
There are those who think that having a Presidential ambassador like Obama will foster more good will – this may be so now, but it is temporary and simply putting off the inevitable. Those familiar with the histories of Hegemonies should know what is happening to America: the Romans, the Brits... and the Saracens can testify.
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