US military Osprey aircraft arrive in Japan amid protests

[alp227]

Source: BBC

Twelve Okinawa-bound US military aircraft have arrived in Japan, amid protests by residents over safety.

The Osprey aircraft arrived by cargo ship at a US base in Iwakuni, western Japan, ahead of deployment to Okinawa later in the year.

The Ospreys will be based at Futenma, an airbase in a crowded part of Okinawa that residents want closed down.

The US has agreed to close the base, but there is deadlock over the proposed replacement site.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18950093

[AtheistCrusader]

1. BRING THEM HOME

Why the fuck are we still occupying Japan?

[jmowreader]

2. It's a damn fine staging area if you need to go to war against North Korea

[hourglass1]

3. staging areas

go to war with north korea? ha! they really do have the bomb and are enhancing rocket tec, so why haven't the good and awesome red, white, and blue done something already? oh, right, they have no natural resouces their transnational corporations can use the u.s. treasury to exploit.

[jmowreader]

7. Not true

http://www.indexmundi.com/north_korea/natural_resources.html

Their natural resources require hard-rock mining to get to, but they've got them. What they haven't got is oil, which is the reason the US likes to start wars.

Think for a second about your scoffing regarding my go-to-war comment: North Korea has always wanted to reunify with South Korea. (South Korea has always wanted to reunify with North Korea too, but there's a problem in that South Korea doesn't want to be a communist country and North Korea doesn't want to be anything else.) And if the DPRK's situation gets dire enough, they might try to reunify by force--IOW, invade South Korea. This is why the US held the Team Spirit exercises in the ROK for so long--Team Spirit was held when the Han Estuary was frozen hard enough to support the weight of T-55 tanks. If we go to war with North Korea it will be because they forced our hand.

[Art_from_Ark]

4. The bigger emphasis is on China

That's one reason why there are so many US bases in Okinawa.

[evirus]

5. Protection Treaty

If japan is attacked we are obligated by treaty to defend them. plus their own military spending is heavily limited by their constitution.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Not anymore.

They can do offensive operations as well.

Nor do we need two naval bases in Japan to fulfill any defense obligations.