Eideard

Japan and the United States agreed on Wednesday to decouple the transfer of thousands of U.S. Marines to Guam from the southern Japan island of Okinawa from plans to relocate a base on Okinawa, a step forward in resolving an irritant in relations.

The shift of U.S. Marines to the Pacific island of Guam had been linked to progress in relocating the Futenma airbase on Okinawa. But Tokyo has struggled to win the consent of islanders’ to the relocation plan…

Ain’t it nice the diplomats agree? The island’s population wants the air base gone and they’re screwed as usual.

The decision to expedite the transfer of U.S. forces in Okinawa coincides with pressure on the Pentagon to cut spending, including costs associated with the move to Guam, and a new U.S. emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region…

There are a total of about 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan…Each of which costs American taxpayers over $100K/year to support.

The Futenma facility is surrounded by more than 100 schools, hospitals and shops. Defence Minister Naoki Tanaka calls it the world’s most dangerous airbase.

The Mayor of Nago, however, restated his opposition to the relocation plan, Kyodo news agency reported. “We cannot put up with an additional burden stemming from the construction of a new military base,” Susumu Inamine said, noting that 11 percent of city’s total land was already occupied by U.S. military facilities.

Issues surrounding the Futenma relocation has bedeviled not only U.S.-Japan security ties, but also posed major problems for the Democratic Party government first elected in 2009.

Ties with Washington were strained after the election after then-Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama sought to keep his campaign promise to move the Futenma base off the island.

The government, however, could find no alternative site and was forced to reaffirm the 2006 agreement. Hatoyama stepped down.

That is pretty much a lie designed to keep the heat off Obama. What happened was that once Hatoyama was in power he was shown the secret treaties which let the United States do pretty much whatever they wish to in Japan – in perpetuity.

Hatoyama couldn’t fight the agreements signed by a then-occupied Japan without losing tremendous face for preceding governments who let this stand, as well. The embarrassment was the death-stroke for his government.

To arrest one foreign car-making executive under Alabama’s new tough immigration laws may be regarded as a misfortune; to arrest a second looks like carelessness.

A judge has acted to put a Japanese employee of Honda Motor Company out of his misery by dismissing immigration charges against him, three days after he was booked under Alabama’s new immigration laws that have been billed as the most swingeing in America. Ichiro Yada is one of about 100 Japanese managers of the company on assignment in southern state.

Yada was stopped in Leeds, Alabama, at a checkpoint set up by police to catch unlicenced drivers. He was ticketed on the spot, despite the fact that he showed an international driver’s licence, a valid passport and a US work permit.

Bamalama coppers probably think an international driver’s license is just for driving outside Dixie.

Key parts of the new immigration law, HB56, came into effect in late September, including the driving provisions. Under them, the police are required to check up on the immigration status of anyone they stop who they suspect of being in the country illegally…

Yada is the second foreign car executive to fall foul of the new law. Last month police officers arrested a German director of Mercedes-Benz for failing to carry a valid driver’s licence. The move exposed Alabama to widespread criticism and ridicule…

The St Louis-based Post-Dispatch newspaper revelled in Alabama’s embarrassment by publishing an open letter to foreign car companies encouraging them to pack their bags and move to the rival car-producing state of Missouri.

“We are the Show Me State, not the Show Me Your Papers State,” it wrote, telling auto bosses: “You’ve got two choices. Either ask your executives to carry their immigration papers at all times, or move to a state that understands gemüchlichkeit…”

Between redneck idiots, Tea Party idiots and the new Republikan Party idiots, freedom to travel in a free country is only a memory in the Confederate States of America. That includes all the old boundaries plus the states outside of Dixie run by the latest clan of fools dedicated to voodoo economics and ethnic hatreds to match.

On the black sand beaches of Iwo Jima, 18-year-old Marty Connor stood over the body of a dead Japanese soldier. The young U.S. Marine figured it was only a matter of time before he suffered the same fate.

But he didn’t dwell on it and he didn’t ponder whether the enemy had a family, a hometown, or a name. Instead, he reached into the dead soldier’s pack and grabbed his diary…

Little did he know then that this was a moment that would change his life; that he would spend 40 years reuniting such war souvenirs with surviving relatives of the dead enemy soldiers…

When he returned home after the war, Connor locked up his souvenirs in a trunk and rarely thought about them again.

“Some of the Marines were getting back to have a reunion on the 25th anniversary of our landing,” said Connor. “I had a call if I’d like to go, and I thought yes, I would like to go back.”

Connor returned to Iwo Jima in 1970. On top of Mount Suribachi, he and other U.S. Marines shook hands with the Japanese veterans they had once fought against.

“They suffered, we suffered,” said Connor. “We came to tell them what brave soldiers they were… and our people, our Marines, were just as brave.”

The diary, photos and other items Connor had taken from Iwo Jima remained locked up at home. But one of his fellow Marines brought his souvenirs with him, and returned them to their owner’s grateful and tearful family.

The emotional scene stuck with Connor. A Buddhist monk named Tsunezo Wachi explained to him the deep spiritual significance these items had for the families of the dead soldiers.

As soon as Connor returned home, he opened the trunk for the first time in 25 years.

“I sent back whatever I had, and in most instances, [Wachi] found the families within two weeks after he received whatever I sent.”

Among the grateful recipients of Connor’s souvenirs was the widow of the soldier whose diary Connor had taken.

And that was the beginning of a 40-year mission to return the spoils of war to the Japanese families that survived the death of their loved ones in the Pacific Islands during World War 2.

RTFA. Please. Understand how the best of those who survived, who “won” a war – find the place in their hearts where they can replace victory with sympathy for those who fought just as bravely on the other side.

Absent friends…

The former public face of Australian prisoners of war will spend Christmas behind bars after admitting his war service claim was a lie.

Arthur “Rex” Crane, 84, posed as a World War II veteran for 22 years and achieved a national profile as Australian president of the Ex-Prisoners of War Association until he was outed by a military historian who believed his story did not add up. During that time, Crane successfully claimed $464,409 in war pension and disability payments, which he was not entitled to receive.

He pleaded guilty in Brisbane’s District Court last month and was yesterday sentenced to four years in jail, of which he will serve six months.

The court heard Crane developed the false war story to fit in with actual veterans he was working alongside in a country pub in the 1960s. Within a few years, Crane had convinced everyone, from doctors to his own family.

Crane explained his lack of documentation by claiming he was a boy guerilla, conscripted by the British while living with his parents in Malaya in the 1940s.

He claimed he was then captured by the Japanese, tortured and sent to work on the notorious Thai-Burma Railway alongside 13,000 other Australian POWs.

But Crane’s story came undone during a speech to veterans last year when historian Lynette Silver found his story unbelievable. Within a month, the historian found documents showing Crane had been enrolled at an Adelaide school during his supposed imprisonment…

The historian yesterday said she was “astounded” the Department of Veterans Affairs failed to identify such a blatant fraud…

Crane has been ordered to repay the money, although it is unlikely the sum will ever be recovered.

This speaks volumes about acceptable lies, lies which qualify a fraud automatically as so deserving that no one ever checks to verify the tale.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

A Japanese oil tanker damaged in the Strait of Hormuz off Oman last month was hit by an explosives-laden dinghy, the Emirati state news agency has said. The report…was the first official confirmation that the incident that left a large dent in the hull of the M.Star was an attack.

An al-Qaeda-linked group said…that one of its suicide bombers had hit the tanker to avenge the plunder of Muslim wealth. If true, the claim by the little-known Brigades of Abdullah Azzam would mark the first time the armed group has attacked the Japanese…

The Marshall Islands-flagged ship, loaded with 270,000 tons of oil, was heading from the petroleum port of Das Island in the United Arab Emirates to the Japanese port of Chiba outside Tokyo.

In its claim posted on the internet, the al-Qaeda-linked Brigades of Abdullah Azzam carried a photo of the purported bomber pointing to a photograph of a tanker on a laptop.

It said the bomber was a “martyr”, meaning he had died in the attack…

The WAM report said the vessel left the Emirati port of Fujairah today after the damage to the hull was fixed.

These terrorist fools – masquerading as religious zealots – have neither the sense nor the sensibilities to refrain from attacks which would diminish the day-to-day lifestyle and values of the ordinary people in the region they claim as ideological fiefdom.

Send them up against military forces who would grant their wish on the spot.

Arab nations are leading a “historic” charge to make the world wide web live up to its name. Net regulator Icann has switched on a system that allows full web addresses to contain no Latin characters.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the first countries to have so-called “country codes” written in Arabic scripts.

The move is the first step to allow web addresses in many scripts including Chinese, Thai and Tamil…

The three new suffixes will allow web addresses to be completely written in native characters.

The first country codes:

Egypt: مصر
Saudi Arabia: السعودية
United Arab Emirates: امارات

“All three are Arabic script domains, and will enable domain names written fully right-to-left,” said Kim Davies of Icann in a blog post.

One of the first websites with a full Arabic address is the Egyptian Ministry of Communications.

RTFA for questions and fixes.

This is as welcome as all those preceding.

People come to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall to mourn the victims of the Nanjing massacre committed by Japanese invading troops during World War II, in Nanjing, capital of east China’s Jiangsu province, Dec. 12, 2009. Dec. 13, 2009 is the 72nd anniversary of the Nanjing massacre, which left 300,000 Chinese people dead.

I’ve written about this before. People in China haven’t forgotten. Why should I?

The head of the Japanese air force is to be sacked after saying the country was not an aggressor in World War II, Japan’s defence minister said.

Yasukazu Hamada said Gen Toshio Tamogami’s views, written in an essay, ran counter to the government’s position on the war. “Therefore it is inappropriate for him to remain in this position and I will swiftly dismiss him,” he said.

China, North and South Korea and other Asian nations still have traumatic memories of Japan’s aggression and colonial rule.

In his essay on the theme of “true views of modern history”, he wrote: “Even now, there are many people who think that our country’s ‘aggression’ caused unbearable suffering to the countries of Asia during the Greater East Asia War.

“But we need to realise that many Asian countries take a positive view of the Greater East Asia War.

“It is certainly a false accusation to say that our country was an aggressor nation.”

Just might be a few folks, Stateside, who recall Pearl Harbor as part of that Greater East Asia War, eh?