{"id":5721,"date":"2010-01-31T08:56:43","date_gmt":"2010-01-31T17:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/?p=5721"},"modified":"2010-01-31T08:56:43","modified_gmt":"2010-01-31T17:26:43","slug":"u-s-ambassador-stresses-need-for-troops-in-okinawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/?p=5721","title":{"rendered":"U.S. ambassador stresses need for troops in Okinawa"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/article.asp?section=104&article=67634<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. ambassador stresses need for troops on Okinawa<\/h1>\n

By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes<\/p>\n

Pacific edition, Sunday, January 31, 2010<\/p>\n

TOKYO \u2014 The Marines stationed on Okinawa might be the least understood of the nearly 50,000 U.S. troops serving throughout Japan, according to the United States\u2019 top diplomat here in a Friday speech to explain to Japanese the importance of the military alliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in reality, it\u2019s among the most critical of the forces we deploy in both peacetime and in the unlikely event of conflict,\u201d Ambassador John Roos asserted Friday in a speech before students and faculty at Waseda University in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

Those Marines are the region\u2019s first responders by air and ground, Roos continued as he made his case for U.S. troops in Japan.<\/p>\n

As China\u2019s military spending grows and as North Korea\u2019s missile and nuclear programs continue, Roos said, it\u2019s up to the United States and Japan to maintain security in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake no mistake about it \u2014 the stakes are high,\u201d Roos said before the packed auditorium in the school\u2019s International Conference Center. \u201cOur alliance is the critical stabilizing force in this area of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

His speech came a day after U.S. Forces Japan Lt. Gen. Edward Rice appeared on a two-hour Japanese TV program to talk about and field questions from viewers about the alliance.<\/p>\n

Roos, since arriving in Japan last summer, has faced a new Japanese government less comfortable with the U.S. military presence than the former, more conservative ruling party.<\/p>\n

Now the two countries are struggling to implement a 4-year-old security agreement that includes moving a U.S. Marine Corps air base from an urban part of Okinawa to a rural one.<\/p>\n

The Marines and their helicopters on Okinawa can rapidly put troops and rescuers on the ground in the region, Roos said, which they\u2019ve done a dozen times in the past five years for humanitarian crises. If there were no Marines on Okinawa, that response would then come from Hawaii, he added.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s those helicopters at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, coupled with decades of heavy U.S. military presence on the poor, often-ignored prefecture, that have become a rallying cry for some against a current military realignment plan.<\/p>\n

Now, the helicopters take off and land in densely populated Ginowan. Nago, a rural town selected as the new air station home, doesn\u2019t want the air traffic. The town just narrowly elected a mayor who campaigned against the Marines\u2019 move.<\/p>\n

Roos, however, asked those concerned about the move to look beyond Okinawa.<\/p>\n

\u201cNorth Korea obviously remains the most immediate concern,\u201d Roos said, because of both its military and a possible regime collapse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/article.asp?section=104&article=67634 U.S. ambassador stresses need for troops on Okinawa By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, Sunday, January 31, 2010 TOKYO \u2014 The Marines stationed on Okinawa might be the least understood of the nearly 50,000 U.S. troops serving throughout Japan, according to the United States\u2019 top diplomat here in a Friday speech to … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “U.S. ambassador stresses need for troops in Okinawa”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2409],"class_list":["post-5721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-movements-resistance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5721"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5723,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5721\/revisions\/5723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}