U.S. Navy bans alcohol in Japan after crime spree

[BanzaiCat]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/06/06/us-navy-bans-alcohol-okinawa-after-crime-spree/85477734/

TOKYO — The U.S. Navy imposed a total ban on alcohol consumption in Japan on Monday and ordered all American personnel confined to their bases for non-essential activities to thwart a string of crimes that has provoked outrage among Japanese.

The announcement followed the arrest early Sunday of an American sailor on drunken-driving charges. A Japanese woman was hospitalized and a man was slightly injured after Okinawa police said the sailor drove the wrong way on a busy highway late Saturday, striking two other cars head on. The sailor was not injured but was arrested by Japanese police after she was found to have a blood-alcohol level six times Japan's legal limit, according to Japan's Kyodo News service.

The arrest came just a week after U.S. authorities announced that all military personnel on Okinawa would be banned from drinking alcohol off base as part of a 30-day period of "unity and mourning."

The mourning period was declared after a U.S. base worker, who is a former Marine, was arrested May 19 and charged with the brutal rape and murder of a 20-year-old Japanese woman. Her body was found stuffed in a suitcase and dumped in a wooded area.

-snip-

Roughly half the 54,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan are in Okinawa, and some residents have long complained of noise, congestion and crime associated with the heavy military presence.

The recent arrests generated headlines and sharp reaction across Japan, where violent crime is infrequent by U.S. standards.

Protesters are organizing a mass rally on June 19 that they said they hope will attract a larger crowd than the 85,000 who showed up to protest the kidnapping and rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S servicemen in 1995. That incident led to negotiations to reduce the U.S. base presence on Okinawa.

On Sunday, Okinawa voters elected a solid majority of anti-base candidates to the prefectural legislature. That seems certain to further complicate the national government's efforts to relocate the U.S. Marines' airbase at Futenma to another part of Okinawa.

http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/sailor-allegedly-drunk-during-okinawa-wrong-way-crashes-1.413269

Aimee Mejia, a Navy petty officer second class assigned to the Navy Munitions Command at Kadena Air Base, was traveling southbound in the northbound lane of Highway 58, a main artery on Okinawa's west coast, at about 11:40 p.m. Saturday near Kadena Gate 4, police said.

Her car crashed into an oncoming vehicle, injuring a 35-year-old woman in the chest. Mejia's car then struck another car, bruising the arm of a 30-year-old man, police said.

A Breathalyzer test revealed a blood-alcohol level of 0.18, six times the legal limit in Japan, police said.

A blood-alcohol level of 0.18 is otherwise known as twice the legal limit in the United States, or "Tuesday morning at work" for mirth.

[BanzaiCat]

Ha, and mirth looks at the page right when I add my update. ;)

[mirth]

If the Japanese want us out so badly, I say we oblige them and go. Let them have fun dealing with the Chicomms.

[mirth]

A blood-alcohol level of 0.18 is otherwise known as twice the legal limit in the United States, or "Tuesday morning at work" for mirth.

I do my best coding that way.

[Boggit]

This is ONE person. How many US personnel are on Okinawa? It seems a kneejerk response.

[mirth]

This is ONE person. How many US personnel are on Okinawa? It seems a kneejerk response.

The Okinawans have long wanted us off the island. To be fair to them, this is not the first incident. However it is not representative of US military personnel in Japan. And it is extremely short sighted on their part.

[Staggerwing]

As far as Japan as a whole goes, I've heard that Okinawans are not your typical ethnic Japanese and strongly resent the larger Japanese Islands' dominance of international relations, remembering a time when they were a separate people with their own language, not part of the Japanese empire. I have to wonder if this cultural division made it much easier for the Japanese mainland to accept the enormous US Military presence there.

[BanzaiCat]

^ +1.

Okinawa did not become part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Japan until the 19th century (1879 I think), and then it was rather forcibly annexed by the Meijis. The Ryūkyū people there were most certainly not cool with it since the Japanese did their best to eliminate their culture and integrate them with Japanese interests.

[Boggit]

^ +1.

Okinawa did not become part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Japan until the 19th century (1879 I think), and then it was rather forcibly annexed by the Meijis. The Ryūkyū people there were most certainly not cool with it since the Japanese did their best to eliminate their culture and integrate them with Japanese interests.

It sounds a bit like the policy with the Emishi, and Ainu in Hokkaido.