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Most US SOFAs deny host countries jurisdiction over US military and civilian personnel who commit crimes. Exceptions only occur at the occupier's discretion.
US bases usurp, distort and subvert local authority. Doing so assures absolution for murder, rape, other crimes, unacceptable noise, pollution, environmental contamination, and appropriation of valued public land.
It lets unaccountable US soldiers get drunk, cause damage, and ignore local customs. They also get away with accosting, raping, and murdering local women. Okinawa highlights conditions no country should tolerate.
It's Japan's poorest/most southerly prefecture. It's much like America's Puerto Rico. It's also a decades-long battleground. It pits Okinawans against America and their own government.
Washington appropriated around 20% of its choicest real estate. Okinawa remains repressively occupied. Local citizens lost rights. They remain subservient to US interests. American military and civilian personnel have special privileges not afforded local citizens or Japan.
SOFA terms agreed on decades earlier remain in force today. When will Japan grow up and stop acting like a child? When will it assert its sovereign rights?
When will it place its own interests above America's? When will it send Washington packing? When will it realize its future lies in Asia, not its destructive US relationship?
Japan is a virtual American colony. It permits itself to be a satellite or vassal state. It affords Washington rights above its own. It serves US imperial interests. Doing so is counterproductive. One day it'll bite hard.
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