Through a mayor's office this time:
"In Japan, new mayor opposes US air base" by Blaine Harden, Washington Post | January 25, 2010
TOKYO - In a small-town election that may have a big impact on US ties with Japan, voters in Nago on Okinawa island chose a new mayor yesterday who opposes the relocation of a noisy US military air base to his town.
So do I!
Time to FOLD UP the EMPIRE and BRING OUR TROOPS HOME before we DESTROY the COUNTRY through BANKRUPTCY, folks!!!
Susumu Inamine, who said during his campaign that he did not want the air station constructed in Nago, defeated incumbent Mayor Yoshikazu Shimabukuro, who has long supported hosting the base as a way of increasing jobs and investment....
I don't think the Japanese can make it any clearer than that.
Inamine’s anti-base campaign attracted support from environmentalists and from local members of Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan and its coalition partners, as well as from the Japanese Communist Party.
In other words, the entire populace.
So why won't we leave, America?
Nago’s mayor avoided mention of the airbase in his campaign, saying its relocation was not a matter that could or should be decided by him or residents of his city. That view is shared by US Marine Corps commanders, who view the Futenma air station as a linchpin in the continuous training and on-call mobility of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force, which is based on Okinawa and is the only such US force in the Far East.
Translation: Japan is a vital base of U.S. POWER PROJECTION in the PACIFIC.
“National security policy cannot be made in towns and villages,’’ Lieutenant General Keith Stalder, commander of Marine forces in the Pacific, said in an interview last week....
No, not unless you are attempting to tame insurgencies resisting occupations; then it's a great strategy.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said the results of yesterday’s election reflected the will of the people, and that Japan would completely reexamine its accord with the United States....
Wow, that is SO DIFFERENT than AmeriKan elections; we "vote" for change and we get nothing.
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