An Occupational Hazard

It reads like old news: two U.S. sailors have been arrested for raping a Japanese woman in Okinawa. Japan has protested before American authorities, but, as I said recently, Okinawa is doubly occupied, by Japan and, most importantly, the U.S.

Regardless of the truth, nothing much will come of it. It's happened before and will happen again. Getting raped by U.S. military personnel is, pun intended, "an occupational hazard" wherever they are stationed. They have the guns and the bombs. "Might makes right", even when it's wrong. Okinawa is crucial to the national interest of the U.S., or so it says. What's a rape here or there, when the future of the free world hangs in the balance?

The conquerors of old used to go by the motto of "rape, pillage and plunder." The tradition lives on.

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