Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic

by Chalmers Johnson

  42. Liza Porteus, “Pentagon Ponders Overseas Military Shift,” Fox News, May 16, 2003; Associated Press, “U.S. to Take Over Bases in Romania,” CNN.com, December 6, 2005.

  43. Steve Liewer, “Plans Slow for Base Closures in Europe,” Stars & Stripes, December 8, 2003; Oana Lungescu, “U.S. Briefs Allies on Army Revamp,” BBC News, December 8, 2003; William J. Kole, Associated Press, “Romania Base Focus of Secret Prison Probe,” Guardian, November 24, 2005.

  44. Holmes, “Bases of Empire,” p. 9.

  45. Judy Dempsey, “U.S. Rejects German Calls to Withdraw Nuclear Weapons,” New York Times, May 3, 2005.

  46. For details on the Echelon espionage network, see Johnson, Sorrows of Empire, pp. 165-67. See also Holmes, “Bases of Empire.”

  47. Mark Landler, “After 60 Years, the Yanks Fly Out, Leaving Just the Ghosts,” New York Times, October 21, 2005. See also Jim McDonald, Associated Press, “U.S. Hands Historic Rhein-Main Air Base to Germany after 60 Years,” San Diego Union-Tribune, October 11, 2005.

  48. See, in particular, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication (Washington, D.C.: September 2004).

  49. Peter J. Katzenstein, A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), pp. 3, 246-47.

  50. Ibid., p. 245.

  51. Karen Kwiatkowski, “Our Inscrutable Iraq Policy: Why We Did It, What to Do Now, and What Happens Next,” LewRockwell.com, October 24, 2005, p. 3.

  52. Joshua Hammer, “Digging In: If the U.S. Government Doesn’t Plan to Occupy Iraq for Any Longer than Necessary, Why Is It Spending Billions of Dollars to Build ’Enduring’ Bases?’” Mother Jones, March-April 2005.

  53. Commission on Review of Overseas Military Facility Structure, Report, p. G7.

  54. Quoted by Bradley Graham, “Iraq, Afghan Commitments Fuel U.S. Air Base Construction,” Washington Post, September 17, 2005. See also Tom Engelhardt, “Can You Say ’Permanent Bases’? The American Press Can’t,” Tom Dispatch.com, February 14, 2006, http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=59774.

  55. Quoted by Sam Graham-Felsen, “Operation: Enduring Presence,” AlterNet, July 28, 2005, http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/23755.

  56. Eric Schmitt, “Pentagon Construction Boom Beefs Up Mideast Air Bases,” New York Times, September 18, 2005.

  57. Hammer, “Digging In.”

  58. Bradley Graham, “Commanders Plan Eventual Consolidation of U.S. Bases in Iraq,” Washington Post, May 22, 2005.

  59. Christine Spolar, “14 ’Enduring Bases’ Set in Iraq,” Chicago Tribune, March 23, 2004.

  60. Graham, “Eventual Consolidation.”

  61. Commission on Review of Overseas Military Facility Structure, Report, p.G13.

  62. See Engelhardt, “Bases, Bases Everywhere.”

  63. See Global Security’s Web site, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/iraq.htm, and http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/iraq-intro.htm.

  64. See Ariana Eunjung Cha, “Baghdad’s U.S. Zone a Stand-in for Home,” Washington Post, December 6, 2003.

  65. Chris Hughes, “Exclusive: Billion Dollar Bunker,” Mirror.co.uk, January 3, 2006, http://www.mirror.co.uk/printable_version.cfm?objectid=165410848csiteid=94762; Barbara Slavin, “Giant U.S. Embassy Rising in Baghdad,” USA Today, April 19, 2006; Kevin Zeese, “They’re Staying in Iraq,” Antiwar.com, April 22, 2006; Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press, “Officials Mum on Huge U.S. Embassy,” Washington Times, April 23, 2006, http://www.Washingtontimes.com/world/20060423-122454-5409r.htm; Daniel McGrory, “In the Chaos of Iraq, One Project Is on Target: A Giant U.S. Embassy,” London Times, May 3, 2006, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines06/0503-05.htm; Liz Sly, Chicago Tribune, “As Lavish U.S. Embassy Rises in Baghdad, Many Hard-up Iraqis Are Irked,” Arizona Star, May 29, 2006.

  66. Thorn Shanker, “U.S. Retools Hussein Pleasure Palace as Camp Victory,” New York Times, June 12, 2004.

  67. See Hammer, “Digging In.”

  68. David R. Francis, “U.S. Bases in Iraq: Sticky Politics, Hard Math,” Christian Science Monitor, September 30, 2004.

  69. Global Security Organization, “Balad Air Base, Camp Anaconda,” http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/balad-ab.htm; Schmitt, “Pentagon Construction Boom”; Thomas E. Ricks, “Biggest Base in Iraq Has Small-Town Feel,” Washington Post, February 4, 2006; Becky Branford, “Iraq Bases Spur Questions over U.S. Plans,” BBC News, March 30, 2006; “U.S. Forces Planning for the Long Haul in Iraq,” Hindustan Times, April 24, 2006.

  70. Steve Liewer, “1st ID Readying New Iraq HQ,” Stars & Stripes, November 10, 2004; Charles Aldinger, “U.S. Forces Leave Some Bases in North Iraq: General,” Reuters, October 28, 2005; David Axe, “Seabees Buzz in to Build Up Bases,” Washington Times, February 3, 2006.

  71. Graham, “Eventual .Consolidation.”

  72. See Brian Loveman, ed., Addicted to Failure: US. Security Policy in Latin America and the Andean Region (Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006); and Greg Grandin, Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006).

  73. Humberto Marquez, “Dutch Islands Caught Up in U.S.-Venezuela Friction,” Antiwar.com, April 6, 2006.

  74. John Lindsay-Poland, “U.S. Military Bases in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Foreign Policy in Focus, Policy Brief 9, no. 3 (August 2004).

  75. Mary Donohue and Melissa Nepomiachi, “Washington Secures Long-Sought Hemispheric Outpost, Perhaps at the Expense of Regional Sovereignty,” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, July 20, 2005.

  76. Michael Flynn, “What’s the Deal at Manta?,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January-February 2005, pp. 23-29.

  77. On private military companies, see Johnson, Sorrows of Empire, pp. 140-49.

  78. Lindsay-Poland, “U.S. Military Bases.”

  79. Larry Luxner and Douglas Engle, “The Arabs of Brazil,” Saudi Aramco World, September-October 2005, pp. 18-23.

  80. CIA Factbook, s.v. Paraguay, http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/pa.html.

  81. Jeffrey Goldberg, “In the Party of God: Hezbollah Sets Up Operations in South America and the United States,” New Yorker, October 28, 2002, http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/021028fa_fact2.

  82. Ibid.; Jessica Stern, “The Protean Enemy,” Foreign Affairs, July-August 2003.

  83. Quoted by Goldberg, “Party of God.”

  84. Letter from Ambassador Rubens Barbosa, “Triborder Dispute,” Foreign Affairs, January-February 2004. Also see Kenneth Rapoza, “The New Fakers: State Department Undercuts the New Yorkers Jeffrey Goldberg,” Counter-punch, May 14, 2003.

  85. Quoted by Kenneth Rapoza, “U.S. Inroads into South America Raise Alarm,” Washington Times, October 25, 2005.

  86. Charlotte Elmer, “Spotlight on U.S. Troops in Paraguay,” BBC News, September 28, 2005; Kelly Hearn “U.S. Military Presence in Paraguay Irks Neighbors,” Christian Science Monitor, December 2, 2005.

  87. Alejandro Sciscioli, “U.S. Military Presence in Paraguay Stirs Speculation,” Antiwar.com, August 4, 2005.

  88. Benjamin Dangl, “What Is the U.S. Military Doing in Paraguay?” Information Clearing House, August 4, 2005; Rapoza, “U.S. Inroads.”

  89. Kevin Gray, Reuters, “Paraguayans Uneasy over U.S. Presence,” San Diego Union-Tribune, September 27, 2005.

  90. Quoted by Sciscioli, “U.S. Military Presence.”

  91. Dangl, “U.S. Military.”

  92. Marcela Valente, “Presence of U.S. Troops Upsets Paraguay’s Partners,” Antiwar.com, August 9, 2005.

  93. “Mexico Ratifies War Crimes Tribunal Treaty,” Associated Press, October 28, 2005; “4 Nations that Won’t Sign Deal with U.S. Risk Aid Loss,” Miami Herald, December 18, 2004. See also Razl Zibechi, “The Installation of a U.S. Military Base in Paraguay: A Wedge in Mercosur,” Agencia L
atinoamericana de Informacion (ALAI), November 29, 2005, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ZIB20051129&articleId=1363.

  5: HOW AMERICAN IMPERIALISM ACTUALLY WORKS: THE SOFA IN JAPAN

  1. For the text of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, see U.S. Forces Japan, http://usfj.mil/references/treatyl.html.

  2. The Japan SOFA can be found at http://www.niraikanai.wwma.net/pages/archive/sofa.html. Most publicly disclosed SOFAs, including the SOFA with the Republic of Korea (July 1966), are available in United States Treaties and Other Agreements (arranged by Treaties and Other International Acts Series [TIAS] Number) (Washington, DC: Department of State, Distributed by the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, annual), s.v. “TIAS 6127.”

  3. T. D. Flack, “South Korea Refusing Return of U.S. Bases ’As-Is’; General Bell: New Standards Exceed SOFA Agreements,” Stars & Stripes, June 7, 2006, http://stripes.com/articleprint.asp?section=1048carticle=37688.

  4. “Kadena Noise Pollution Suit Stirs Up Residents in Atsugi, Yokota,” Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo), February 18, 2005; “U.S. Military Fails to Pay Compensation Despite SOFAs ’75%’ Clause; Ignores Requests for Payment,” Tokyo Shimbun, February 18, 2005 (Tokyo press reports are in Japanese).

  5. Keiichi Inamine, “The Anger of Okinawa Residents Is Magma Ready to Explode,” Ronza, October 2003.

  6. Wikipedia, “Girard Incident,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girard_Incident.

  7. “The Presidential Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Letter to Dorothy Girard,” June 13, 1957, http://eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/second-term/documents/200.cfm; “The Girard Case,” Time, July 22, 1957, http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/printout/0,23657,862596,00.html.

  8. See, for example, the case of Lieutenant Colonel Martha McSally, the highest-ranking female pilot in the air force, who took the Defense Department to court for requiring her to wear an abaya—the total body covering devout Saudi women put on in public—when off base in Saudi Arabia. She claimed this was an unconstitutional infringement on her rights, and she won. See Johnson, Sorrows of Empire, p. 241.

  9. Quoted in “Girard Case,” Time.

  10. “Only the Removal of U.S. Bases Can Ensure the End of U.S. Military Crimes,” Japan Press Weekly, July 18, 2005, http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/view/1506/1/109?PrintableVersion=enabled.

  11. Wikipedia, “Status of Forces Agreement,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_forces_agreement.

  12. “Girard Case,” Time.

  13. U. S. Department of State, “Backgrounder: Status of Forces Agreements,” April 12, 1996, http://194.90.114.5/publish/press/security/archive/april/ds2_4-15.htm.

  14. William Arkin, “U.S. Air Bases Forge Double-Edged Sword,” Los Angeles Times, January 6, 2002.

  15. There are so many military bases in Japan and in Okinawa, the total numbers are open to dispute. According to the Pentagon’s 2005 Base Structure Report, there are 111 installations in Japan as a whole and 39 in Okinawa prefecture. These numbers are surely accurate, but there are anomalies—for example, the Base Structure Report includes Futenma Air Base under Camp Smedley D. Butler, one of the Marine Corps’ key bases on the island, along with 15 other sites. I have chosen to use the conservative count of 88 bases for Japan as a whole and 37 for Okinawa based on the careful calculations in Mainichi Shimbun, August 6, 2004, eve. ed; Tokyo Shimbun, October 15, 2005; and Kelly Dietz, Ph.D. candidate, sociology, Cornell University, and the Futenma-Henoko Action Network, “Okinawa Update,” October 2005.

  16. Global Security Organization, “U.S. Forces, Japan,” www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/usfj.htm; Thorn Shanker, “Okinawans Ask Rumsfeld to Thin Out Troops,” New York Times, November 17, 2003; U.S. Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information, Operations, and Reports, Worldwide Manpower Distribution by Geographical Area, September 30, 2004, http://webl.whs.osd.mi1/DIORCAT.HTM#M05.

  17. Toshiya Hoshino (Osaka University) and Takashi Nawakami (Takushoku University), “Future of U.S. Bases in Japan and Force Transformation in Okinawa,” Sekai Shuho, April 26, 2005.

  18. See U.S. Forces, Japan, “Agreed Minutes to the Agreement Under Article VI of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between Japan and the United States of America, Regarding Facilities and Areas and the Status of United States Armed Forces in Japan,” http://usfj.mil/references/sofa.html.

  19. See Chalmers Johnson, ed., Okinawa: Cold War Island (Cardiff, CA: Japan Policy Research Institute, 1999); and Johnson, Blowback, chap. 2.

  20. On these issues, see Shigemitsu Dando, Japanese Criminal Procedure, trans. B. J. George Jr. (South Hackensack, NJ: Fred B. Rothman & Co., 1965); Chalmers Johnson, Conspiracy at Matsukawa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972); David T. Johnson, The Japanese Way of Justice: Prosecuting Crime in Japan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

  21. Thorn Shanker, “U.S. and Japan Discuss Transfer of American Rape Suspect,” New York Times, July 6, 2001.

  22. “Inamine Meets Rumsfeld: Perception Gap Not Closed Despite Direct Appeal on Base Issues,” Asahi Shimbun, November 17, 2003.

  23. “Okinawa Governor Urges Rumsfeld to Reduce U.S. Bases,” Japan Today, November 20, 2003, http.7/www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news8cid=279127; Shanker, “Thin Out Troops.”

  24. David Allen, “Friend of Accused Testifies in Rape Trial on Okinawa,” Stars & Stripes, November 10, 2001.

  25. “Japanese Parliament Panel Seeks Review of U.S. Forces Pact,” Agence France-Presse, July 10, 2001.

  26. Shanker, “U.S. and Japan Discuss Transfer.”

  27. Sheila K. Johnson, “Another Okinawa Outrage,” Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2001; and Johnson, “Blame Misplaced in Okinawa Rape Case,” Japan Times, August 2, 2001.

  28. “Airman Gets 32 Months for Rape in Okinawa,” Japan Times, March 29, 2002; Howard W. French, “Airman’s Rape Conviction Fans Okinawa’s Ire Over U.S. Bases,” New York Times, March 29, 2002; Komako Akai, “Woodland Convicted of Rape, Sentenced to 32 Months in Japanese Prison,” Stars & Stripes, March 28, 2002.

  29. “Attempted Rape Incident in Okinawa: U.S. Military Suspect’s Statement: T Was Seduced,’” Tokyo Shimbun, December 9, 2002; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Statement by Minister for Foreign Affairs Yoriko Kawaguchi Concerning Charges Against a U.S. Marine Major of Attempted Rape,” December 3, 2002, http://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/announce/2002/1203.html; “U.S. Officer Named in Rape Bid on Filipina in Japan,” Agence France-Presse, December 5, 2002; “U.S. Suspect in Rape Case ’Intoxicated,’” Kyodo, December 8, 2002; and “Criminal Case Involves Officer,” Okinawa Times Weekly, December 7, 2002.

  30. “USMC Major Charged with Attempted Rape in Okinawa,” Asahi Shimbun, December 4, 2002; Elaine Lies, “Japan Calls for Crackdown on U.S. Military Crime,” Reuters, December 4, 2002.

  31. Teruaki Ueno, “U.S. Refuses to Hand Over Marine in Japan Rape Case,” Reuters, December 5, 2002; “Attempted Rape in Okinawa: U.S. Refuses to Turn Over Suspected U.S. Serviceman,” Asahi Shimbun, December 6, 2002.

  32. “Police Raid Home of Accused Marine,” Associated Press, December 7, 2002.

  33. “MOFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] Expresses Regret to U.S. Envoy,” Asahi Shimbun, December 4, 2002; “Foreign Minister Kawaguchi to Ask for Improvement in SOFA Operation to Allow Handing Over of U.S. Military Personnel Even in Attempted’ [Rape] Incidents,” Mainichi Shimbun, December 6, 2002; “Attempted Rape in Okinawa: Prime Minister Says Pre-indictment Turnover of Suspect Unnecessary,” Yomiuri Shimbun, December 7, 2002; “Japan Won’t Press for Marine Rape Suspect,” Japan Times, December 7, 2002; “U.S. Rejection of the Handover of U.S. Marine Major Exposes U.S. Upper Hand Regarding SOFA; Japan Must Conduct National Debate by Taking Okinawa’s Voice to Heart,” Yomiuri Shimbun, December 17, 2002.

  34. “Japanese Court Seeks Arrest of U. S. Marine,” Associated Press, December 3, 2002; “Japan Protests Over Alleged Rape Attempt,” Agence France-Presse, December 3, 2002; �
��Okinawa Prefectural Assembly Adopts Resolution Protesting U.S. Refusal to Hand Over Marine Corps Major,” Asahi Shimbun, December 11, 2002; “Governors Call for Revision to SOYA” Japan Times, February 13, 2003.

  35. “Japan Prosecutors Indict U.S. Marine on Rape Attempt,” Reuters, December 19, 2002; “Marine Handed Over to Local Authorities over Attempted Rape,” Nihon Keizai Shimbun, December 20, 2002.

  36. The text of the petition is available at http://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/maj_michael_j_brown_v_usa.htm. It was filed in Washington, D.C., on the logic that George W. Bush is the petitioner’s commander in chief and he resides in Washington.

  37. “Free Major Brown” Web site, http://www.majorbrown.org/major_brown.htm. As of June 2006, his Web site had disappeared from the Internet.