Quote:
Originally Posted by chiuchimu
I find this statement very logical. The countries are not the same anymore. Politics should be dealing with whats going on now.
According to Mazikeen logic, all the horrible things one country has don't to another in the past are unimportant except the for Germany and Japan. These two are the only ones that must pay forever.
That is such an "American" way at looking at history.
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That is absolute rubbish. Just within our region here in Asia there are prejudices and distrust between countries for things that went on over 1000 years ago. Such things happen the world over, humans are pretty good at holding grudges.
At the end of the day, as others have pointed out, here in Japan the majority of people have few problems with US forces being stationed here. The country is split over the issue of the role of it's own military though. There is a strong pacifist movement here that actually claim it's unconstitutional for Japan to even have a defence force at all (their interpretation of Article 9) and there are the nationalists who would like to see Japan become a great military power to be reckoned with once more. Recent posturing by Nth Korea and the looming threat of the behemoth that is China have certainly reignited the debate in recent years.
I think it's important that Japan be able to defend their country but I believe it's also important that they never be able to wage an aggressive, expansionist war ever again and I think most Japanese would agree with that. I certainly can't see how removing US bases would assist the defense of Japan or lesson any threat to this country.