Quote:
Originally Posted by samurai007
Well, in all fairness, 2 cases 13 years apart, out of thousands and thousands of soldiers based there, isn't too horrible a record IMO. No matter how much discipline there is, you'll always have some jerks who get through. The important thing is that it's handled properly, and they turned him over for prosecution, so it sounds like they aren't covering it up or anything.
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These may be the two BIG cases, but you almost constantly hear about smaller cases. There isn`t any chance for people to put these things at the back of their mind when every week *something* happens.
I have heard about a number of similar cases near bases where in the end the girl backed down because the US government refused to take it seriously... Even if they don`t get the international treatment of the big cases, they are enough to sour everyone`s opinions of the soldiers stationed here.
It`s not even so much the events themselves, but more the attitude of the US government when it comes to dealing with things. I remember a case of some old woman being beaten up (not to death, but pretty badly) for trying to close her shop at it`s normal time when there was a group of soldiers drinking there... They snapped and beat her to a pulp when she asked them to leave. The US government basically ignored the case, and I vaguely recall them saying something to the effect of "She must be mistaken" (It was 4 or 5 years ago, so please excuse the poor memory of details.) Japanese police wanted to prosecute, but the soldiers in question were skirted away to a different assignment, so nothing ever happened.
It`s their general lack of concern into what happens off base. There seems to be an attitude of "We can do anything here, the law doesn`t apply to us." - and in some ways, they`re almost right... In the end, the US just responds by reassigning them. As they insist on handling things outside of Japanese law, with their own on base system, the law really doesn`t apply to them.
It`s sickening in a way. The only time the US actually does something about it is when it becomes this big.