Japan: Times Have Changed

No question about it: perception of a threat has a direct relationship to the hospitality–or hostility–with which U.S. forces are received.

After a United States Navy sailor was confined on an American base near here, accused of the Jan. 3 beating death of a Japanese woman, 20 people held a protest at the base. One man held up a sign that read, in English, “Dear Sailors, Don’t Kill Local Women.”

A decade ago, when three American servicemen were detained on an American base in Okinawa for the rape of a 12-year-old girl, 85,000 people marched one weekend, many demanding the expulsion of American bases from the island. The difference is only partly explained by the way the United States handled the two cases. In 1995, American officials were much slower to allow the Japanese to place an American in custody; this time the suspect was transferred as soon as a Japanese arrest warrant was issued. Another major factor is the change in Japanese attitudes toward the military alliance with the United States.

Japan is now very worried about China and North Korea, and with South Korea moving toward neutrality, Japan realizes that Guam is the next stop.

Crime is a statistical certainly when you deploy young men overseas. Our responsibility to our hosts is a fair and open judicial procedure that holds the guilty accountable and separates them from the innocent.