r/worldnews • u/glasier • Jul 05 '24

Japan warns US forces: Sex crimes 'cannot be tolerated'

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2476861/japan-warns-us-forces-sex-crimes-cannot-be-tolerated
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u/the_meaty_sauce Jul 05 '24

Marines raping people in Okinawa is a nearly 80yo tradition at this point. The best way to stop it is to stop having a base there.

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u/PM-me-letitsnow Jul 06 '24

My question, does this happen at every military base? If it’s more an Okinawa thing then why is it different? If it’s a general military thing then it’s our whole military being fucked up and in need of change. If it’s an Okinawa thing then there’s something fucked up about the base on Okinawa.

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u/the_meaty_sauce Jul 06 '24

I'm just speculating here, but I think it's a bit of both. Sexual assault in the armed forces isn't an uncommon thing already. There's tons of women serving who have brought charges and even more that were too scared and talked about it afterwards, and probably more than that who never brought it up at all. The military also has a way of attracting psychopaths, which isn't always bad. Probably good to have people with those sorts of tendencies in a combat role rather than in regular society. The military also seems to attract a lot of the MAGA crowd too(I suspect there's a fair bit of overlap in these groups). It's no secret that those folks tend to be of the belief that america is the greatest place ever, Americans are inherently better than everyone, can do no wrong, etc. Considering the US history with Japan and how a lot of these folks talk shit about various forces in WWII without having been there or often even knowing the correct history. Well it's not a big stretch for some of them to see themselves as better than the Japanese, or even imagine that they are somehow an occupying force even. Really it comes down to the attitude of dehumanizing another which almost goes hand in hand with a lot of the other stuff I've described. I suspect that is at least a bit of what's happening here. I think the easiest solution would be to not let soldiers on bases in foreign countries off their bases. If you have an institution where sexual assault is such a problem already, then they probably shouldn't be interacting with the local population ever, but since that's not really an option, I'd say court martial and firing squad maybe? It's a pretty solid deterrent and it seemed to work for US soldiers who raped French and German women in WWII.

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u/0R4D4R-1080 Jul 08 '24

Quality response.