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Argument Title

Samford Debate Institute

Militarism Aff

The Axis of Evil

The Japan Aff

1The Japan Aff

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Colonialism – Bases Link16

Colonialism – SOFA Link17

Colonialism – Local Opposition18

Colonialism Adv – Presence19

Militarism – Now Key Time20

Militarism – Impact (War)21

Militarism – Impact (Environment)22

Militarism – Impact (Environment)23

Feminism – Rape24

Feminism – Rape25

Feminism – Violence Up26

Environment – Bases Link27

Solvency – Local Demands Key28

Solvency – Local Demands Key29

Solvency – Imperialism Frame30

Solvency - Framing31

Solvency – Post Iraq Opening32

Solvency – Militarism Framing33

Solvency – Cosmo34

Solvency – Move Back Home35

****Defend This House****36

AT: Base Economy37

AT: Base Economy38

AT: Don't Solve All Militarism39

AT: New basing40

AT: New basing41

AT: Obama Not A Militarist42

AT: Obama Not A Militarist43

AT: Spending Proves No Militarism44

****2AC Off-Case Answers****45

2AC: Hegemony DA46

2AC: Hegemony DA47

2AC: Hegemony DA48

2AC: Hegemony DA49

2AC: Hegemony DA50

2AC: Hegemony DA51

2AC: Hegemony DA52

2AC: Security Answers53

2AC: Security Answers54

2AC: Japan Rearm DA55




2AC: North Korea/ China59

2AC: China Threat Con60





2AC: Terrorism Impact65

2AC: T Presence = Active Military Activity66

2AC: T – Presence is supporting Equipment67

2AC: Fem PIC68

2AC: Lacan69

2AC: Marxism K70

2AC: Global Local K71

2AC: Global/Local K72

2AC: Intersectionality K73

2AC: Biopolitics74

2AC: Economy Impacts75

2AC Humanitarian Counter Plan76

2AC: Move the Air force CP77

2AC: Consult –Just Say No78

2AC: SOFA not T79

2AC: SOFA not T80

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Contention One: The US military presence in Okinawa is a form of military colonialism. The existence of military bases both serve to directly control Japan while reshaping the local population

Joseph Gerson, 9 director of programs of the American Friends Service Committee in New England, Bases of Empire, p. 49

Military colonialism, hard and soft, persists in Okinawa and elsewhere in other nearly invisible ways. A century ago European powers consolidated their colonial power over and continued privileged presence in East Asian nations through “unequal treaties,” such as those dictated to Japan, Korea, China, and Indochina. With Japan’s brutal invasions of these colonies and with the destruction of colonialism’s remaining foundations in the course of World War II and the Chinese revolution, these unequal treaties were consigned to the dustbin of history. But, in the immediate aftermath of the war, the unequal treaties returned in a new guise: military alliances and Status of Forces Agreements imposed by the United States on Japan and on many of these formerly colonized nations which have provided the “legal” foundations for the continued presence of U.S. “standing armies” for the past six decades. The “soft” side of military colonialism expresses itself in food, cultural tastes, and markets. Inexpensive and plentiful food on and around U.S. bases in Okinawa – especially during the 25-year formal military occupation (1945–72) – permeated Okinawan culture, changing tastes and creating markets for companies like McDonalds, Burger King, and Mattel Toys. Until recently Okinawans, who “host” three-quarters of U.S. troops based in Japan on 0.6 percent of the nation’s territory, enjoyed the longest life expectancies of any Japanese, with the primary cause being Okinawans’ unique diet. Today in Naha, Okinawa’s capital, people spend 46 percent more on hamburgers than people do in other Japanese prefectural capitals. They spend 60 percent more on bacon, and 300 percent more on processed meats, while spending 49 percent less on salad and 71 percent less on sushi. Okinawan men are paying the greatest price. While Okinawan women remain the longest lived in Japan, Okinawan men’s longevity has fallen to 26th among Japan’s 47 prefectures (Onishi 2004). Military colonialism brings structural violence.

Despite the plans for changing the location of the base in Okinawa it will not challenge the military complex. The new base tries to hide colonialism

Doug Bandow, 10 Senior Fellow @ The Cato Institute, March 25. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11617

The rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. personnel in 1995 led to mass protests against both the SOFA (which left the accused in American custody) and the bases. A decade later the U.S. and Japanese governments agreed to move the Marines Corps Air Station at Futenma out of Ginowan to a less heavily populated area on Okinawa, and relocate 8,000 Marines (plus dependents) to Guam. Tokyo pledged to cover about $6 billion of the relocation cost. However, Okinawa residents want to remove, not relocate the base, and Japanese taxpayers aren't thrilled about picking up part of the moving tab. The DPJ government announced plans to revisit the 2006 agreement. The Obama administration responded by demanding that Tokyo live up to its responsibilities. More recently, U.S. officials suggested that Washington would not agree to any change that lacked local approval — which would conveniently leave Futenma unmoved.

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The security politics that maintain the base at Okinawa are directly linked to the gendered violence that occurs there. For the past 60 years this militarist ideology has provided cover for rape and ongoing abuse

Kozue Akibayashi, 9 researcher at the Institute for Gender Studies, Ochanomizu University, and Suzuyo Takazato, co-chair of Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence and one of the foremost Japanese peace activists and feminists who critically examines U.S. bases on Okinawa, Bases of Empire, p. 260-261

Having worked with many victims and survivors of sexual violence, OWAAMV women started to compile the cases which were brought to their attention or those which occurred in their own communities that were never reported to the police, including in the accounts and memoirs both documented cases and those recorded as oral histories. The most current, the seventh revision of the chronology, accounts for around 300 cases of different sorts of assaults against women and girls, including cases of gang rape, attempted rape, abduction, and murder. OWAAMV members’ efforts to collect cases from various sources including oral histories illustrate the realities of military violence against women. Women in Okinawa have been exposed to gender-based military violence for over 60 years. They have come to analyze their daily and historical experiences and have theorized that the violence against women committed by U.S. soldiers in Okinawa is an inevitable result of the state-based military security system. Cases listed in the chronology reveal the interplay between war preparation and the intensity of military violence. This chronology demonstrates that gender-based military violence in Okinawa began when the U.S. military landed on the island in 1945, during the last stage of World War II. Since then, women and children have been exposed to violence and have lived in fear. In the period between World War II and the Korean War, during which people in Okinawa lived on land that had been damaged by fierce battle, struggling for survival, women experienced rampant and indis- criminate military violence that can be characterized as follows: 1. A group of between two and six soldiers would abduct one woman at gun- or knifepoint. 2. After being gang-raped, the victim would often be given to other groups of soldiers for more gang rape. 3. Soldiers did not hesitate to kill or severely injure those who tried to help victims. 4. Assaults might take place anywhere, including in fields, on streets, around wells, by the water, or in front of families. 5. Assaults of ten demonstrated brutality. Women with infants on their backs were raped and killed, and victims’ ages ranged from 9 months to the mid 60s. 6. Victims gave birth as a result of rapes. In the four years following World War II, 450 children were identified as having been fathered by U.S. soldiers. 7. Perpetrators were mostly not apprehended, and were often left unpunished. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, violence was directed towards women working in the sex industry around the bases, often by soldiers returning from the front who brought the fear and anger of the battlefield to Okinawa. Rape cases were rampant. Three or four women were strangled to death each year. A survey conducted in 1969 found that approximately 7,400 women worked in the sex industry. These women earned dollars in the still economically depressed environment, and many were forced to sell sex because of large loans imposed on them in forced managed prostitution. Furthermore, many of these women were nearly strangled to death more than once, an experience that left them suffering from trauma. More recently, troops stationed in Okinawa were deployed to the Persian Gulf in the 1990s. During this period, military violence against women in various forms again increased in its intensity.

Social stigma results in underreporting of gendered violence in Okinawa. Existing reports are only the tip of the iceberg

Kozue Akibayashi, 9 researcher at the Institute for Gender Studies, Ochanomizu University, and Suzuyo Takazato, co-chair of Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence and one of the foremost Japanese peace activists and feminists who critically examines U.S. bases on Okinawa, Bases of Empire, p. 260

When OWAAMV women spoke out against the rape in 1995, one of the questions most commonly posed to them by the mainland Japanese media regarded the statistics of sexual crimes committed by U.S. soldiers in Okinawa. Although OWAAMV women often presented the official statistics released by the local authority, they also emphasized the difficulty in estimating the actual number. Furthermore, no official statistics were available about the crimes committed by U.S. soldiers during the period of U.S. occupation. Few women victimized by U.S. soldiers revealed their experiences, even after the occupation had ended. This reluctance resulted in part from the stigma imposed on victims by societies ridden with different levels and forms of patriarchy. In addition, in the Japanese legal system, rape victims are required to report the crime in order for the police to start an investigation. Needless to say, numerous women and girls chose to remain silent. The official statistics on sexual crimes by U.S. soldiers, therefore, reflect only the tip of the iceberg.

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This ideology is also complicit in the racist assumption that white nations must fight expansionist wars in order to maintain global peace – our affirmative questions the power politics that creates expansionist wars in the name of avoiding conflict

Catherine Lutz, 2009, professor of anthropology at Brown University and the Watson Institute for International Studies The Bases of Empire p. 29

The reasons given for stationing U.S. forces overseas, though, cannot simply be called wrong. While the weight of evidence just briefly reviewed suggests that they are, the pursuit of the immense project of circling the globe with soldiers and equipment is fueled as much by mythic structures as by reason and rationality. It then becomes difficult to distinguish one from the other. While such myths may be invalidated by rational argumentation, their explanatory power often remains powerfully intact. Support for foreign military bases hinges first on the idea that war is often necessary and ultimately inevitable. It is widely believed that humans are naturally violent and that war can be a glorious and good venture. Racism adds the notion that the modern and not coincidentally white nations have the responsibility, intelligence, religious ethic, and right to control more primitive (and more chaotically violent) others through violence if necessary. These racial ideas made it possible for people in the United States and Europe to support colonial exterminationist wars in the nineteenth century, but to find wars between indus- trialized or civilized states increasingly unthinkable during the late nineteenth century (despite what went on to happen in the twentieth). They also underpin the assumption that Gusterson (1999) has labeled “nuclear orientalism,” which holds that only the United States and European powers can truly be trusted with nuclear weapons. Such beliefs provide important foundation stones for support of the U.S. basing system.16

Gender violence is a direct result of militarism – we need to challenge the existing economy of violence in order to confront the abuse that occurs at Okinawa


Only recently has the women’s peace movement gained public attention as a distinctive analysis of the militarized security system. Throughout the world, these movements are calling attention to the rise in military violence against women. Many are also challenging the military system itself, as well as the integral element of misogyny that infects military training. Some are raising crucial questions about the prevailing realist concept of security that rationalizes the present proliferation of U.S. military bases around the globe. Women in Okinawa were among the first and most active in posing the challenge and raising the questions.

In the past decade, women involved in the peace and human rights movements in Okinawa have gained increasing visibility by raising their distinctive voices. These women started another “island-wide” protest against the 1995 rape which coincided with the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China, with 71 Okinawan women participating in an NGO Forum organized in conjunction with the intergovernmental conference. One of the workshops they offered, entitled “Military Structural Violence and Women,” presented their analysis of the consequences of the long-term active foreign military presence in their lives. At this workshop, the group presented the history of sexual and gender violence committed by U.S. military personnel against women and children in Okinawa, and demonstrated that the military is a violence-producing institution to which sexual and gender violence are intrinsic. The workshop argued that because soldiers, especially marines, are prepared to engage in life and death combat, they are trained to maximize their capacity to attack and destroy an “enemy,” a dehumanized other. Sexism that devalues the dignity and humanity of women is a primary process of dehumanizing others, and denigration of women is integral to much military training. Pent-up feelings of frustration, anger, and aggression that soldiers acquire from combat training and experiences are often vented against women in their base locality, a reflection of misogyny and racial discrimination. In demonstrating this analysis of the military, the group posed fundamental questions on the notion of militarized security. Whose security does the military provide? From their experience of living in close proximity to an active foreign military whose presence is intended to assure “security,” people in Okinawa knew that the military has in fact been a source of insecurity to local people, especially women and children.

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The resulting impact of subordination amounts in magnitude to a literal war against those who are subjected to gendered violence

Ray, US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 2-1997 [Amy, American University Law Review]

Because, as currently constructed, human rights laws can reach only individual perpetrators during times of war, one alternative is to reconsider our understanding of what constitutes "war" and what constitutes "peace." <=265> n264 When it is universally true that no matter where in the world a woman lives or with what culture she identifies, she is at grave risk of being beaten, imprisoned, enslaved, raped, prostituted, physically tortured, and murdered simply because she is a woman, the term "peace" does not describe her existence. <=266> n265 In addition to being persecuted for being a woman, many women also are persecuted on ethnic, racial, religious, sexual orientation, or other grounds. Therefore, it is crucial that our re-conceptualization of [*837] human rights is not limited to violations based on gender. <=267> n266 Rather, our definitions of "war" and "peace" in the context of all of the world's persecuted groups should be questioned. Nevertheless, in every culture a common risk factor is being a woman, and to describe the conditions of our lives as "peace" is to deny the effect of sexual terrorism on all women. <=268> n267 Because we are socialized to think of times of "war" as limited to groups of men fighting over physical territory or land, we do not immediately consider the possibility of "war" outside this narrow definition except in a metaphorical sense, such as in the expression "the war against poverty." However, the physical violence and sex discrimination perpetrated against women because we are women is hardly metaphorical. Despite the fact that its prevalence makes the violence seem natural or inevitable, it is profoundly political in both its purpose and its effect. Further, its exclusion from international human rights law is no accident, but rather part of a system politically constructed to exclude and silence women. <=269> n268 The appropriation of women's sexuality and women's bodies as representative of men's ownership over women has been central to this "politically constructed reality." <=270> n269 Women's bodies have become the objects through which dominance and even ownership are communicated, as well as the objects through which men's honor is attained or taken away in many cultures. <=271> n270 Thus, when a man wants to communicate that he is more powerful than a woman, he may beat her. When a man wants to communicate that a woman is [*838] his to use as he pleases, he may rape her or prostitute her. The objectification of women is so universal that when one country ruled by men (Serbia) wants to communicate to another country ruled by men (Bosnia-Herzegovina or Croatia) that it is superior and more powerful, it rapes, tortures, and prostitutes the "inferior" country's women. <=272> n271 The use of the possessive is intentional, for communication among men through the abuse of women is effective only to the extent that the group of men to whom the message is sent believes they have some right of possession over the bodies of the women used. Unless they have some claim of right to what is taken, no injury is experienced. Of course, regardless of whether a group of men sexually terrorizing a group of women is trying to communicate a message to another group of men, the universal sexual victimization of women clearly communicates to all women a message of dominance and ownership over women. As Charlotte Bunch explains, "The physical territory of [the] political struggle [over female subordination] is women's bodies." <=273> n272 Given the emphasis on invasion of physical territory as the impetus of war between nations or groups of people within one nation, we may be able to reconceive the notion of "war" in order to make human rights laws applicable to women "in the by-ways of daily life." <=274> n273 We could eradicate the traditional public/private dichotomy and define oppression of women in terms traditionally recognized by human rights laws by arguing that women's bodies are the physical territory at issue in a war perpetrated by men against women. Under this broader definition of "war," any time one group of people systematically uses physical coercion and violence to subordinate another group, that group would be perpetrating a war and could be prosecuted for human rights violations under war crimes statutes.

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Colonialism is genocidal and results in extinction

Robert Porter, associate professor of law and Director of the Tribal Law and Government Center at the University of Kansas, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of the Sac & Fox Nation of Kansas and Missouri, Member (Heron Clan) and former Attorney General of the Seneca Nation of Indians, Summer 1998, University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, 31 U. Mich. J.L. Ref. 899, p. 953-4

I do not mean to suggest that Indigenous people would not have changed in the absence of colonization. Inevitably, any society that does not evolve naturally by adapting to change will be unable to sustain itself and will run the risk of extinction. Indigenous societies, of course, are subject to these same fundamental rules, and even had there not been colonization of our lands, there likely would have been some form of change in our way of life. Nonetheless, this otherwise natural process was dramatically altered by colonization. These colonizing efforts were accomplished by force and often with great speed, producing dramatic changes within Indigenous societies and interfering with the natural process of adaptation and change. This disruption has had a genocidal effect; groups of Indigenous peoples that existed 500 years ago no longer exist. There should be no doubt that their extinction was not an accident - it was the product of a concerted effort to subjugate and eliminate the native human population in order to allow for the pursuit of wealth and manifest destiny. As a result, extinction is the most dramatic effect of colonization. Allowed to run its full course, colonization will disrupt and destroy the natural evolutionary process of the people being colonized to the point of extinction.

Unchecked patriarchy causes extinction via nuclear war – the aff is necessary to avoid unending conflict

Betty A. Reardon, Director of the Peace Education Program at Teacher’s College Columbia University, 1993, Women and Peace: Feminist Visions of Global Security, p. 30-2

In an article entitled “Naming the Cultural Forces That Push Us toward War” (1983), Charlene Spretnak focused on some of the fundamental cultural factors that deeply influence ways of thinking about security. She argues that patriarchy encourages militarist tendencies. Since a major war now could easily bring on massive annihilation of almost unthinkable proportions, why are discussions in our national forums addressing the madness of the nuclear arms race limited to matters of hardware and statistics? A more comprehensive analysis is badly needed . . . A clearly visible element in the escalating tensions among militarized nations is the macho posturing and the patriarchal ideal of dominance, not parity, which motivates defense ministers and government leaders to “strut their stuff” as we watch with increasing horror. Most men in our patriarchal culture are still acting out old patterns that are radically inappropriate for the nuclear age. To prove dominance and control, to distance one’s character from that of women, to survive the toughest violent initiation, to shed the sacred blood of the hero, to collaborate with death in order to hold it at bay—all of these patriarchal pressures on men have traditionally reached resolution in ritual fashion on the battlefield. But there is no longer any battlefield. Does anyone seriously believe that if a nuclear power were losing a crucial, large-scale conventional war it would refrain from using its multiple-warhead nuclear missiles because of some diplomatic agreement? The military theater of a nuclear exchange today would extend, instantly or eventually, to all living things, all the air, all the soil, all the water. If we believe that war is a “necessary evil,” that patriarchal assumptions are simply “human nature,” then we are locked into a lie, paralyzed. The ultimate result of unchecked terminal patriarchy will be nuclear holocaust. The causes of recurrent warfare are not biological. Neither are they solely economic. They are also a result of patriarchal ways of thinking, which historically have generated considerable pressure for standing armies to be used. (Spretnak 1983) These cultural tendencies have produced our current crisis of a highly militarized, violent world that in spite of the decline of the cold war and the slowing of the military race between the superpowers is still staring into the abyss of nuclear disaster, as described by a leading feminist in an address to the Community Aid Abroad State Convention, Melbourne, Australia: These then are the outward signs of militarism across the world today: weapons-building and trading in them; spheres of influence derived from their supply; intervention—both overt and covert; torture; training of military personnel, and supply of hardware to, and training of police; the positioning of military bases on foreign soil; the despoilation of the planet; ‘intelligence’ networks; the rise in the number of national security states; more and more countries coming under direct military rule; 13 the militarization of diplomacy, and the interlocking and the international nature of the military order which even defines the major rifts in world politics. (Shelly 1983)

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Male dominance must be effectively challenged to protect human survival.

Steans, Senior Lecturer, International Relations Theory, University of Birmingham, 1998 [Jill, Gender and International Relations: An Introduction, p. 102-103]

In this view, not only is war part of women’s daily existence, but war, violence and women’s oppression all grow from the same root. Military institutions and states are inseparable from patriarchy. War is not then, as realists and neo-realists would hold, rooted in the nature of ‘man’ or the anarchy of the international realm. However, the hegemony of a dominance-orientated masculinity sets the dynamics of the social relations in which all are forced to participate. Some feminists argue that patriarchal societies have an inherent proclivity towards war because of the supreme value placed on control and the natural male tendency towards displays of physical force. Though primarily concerned with the discourse of war, politics and citizenship, Harstock argues that the association of power with masculinity and virility has very real consequences. She argues that ‘it gives rise to a view of community both in theory and in fact obsessed with the revenge and structured by conquest and domination’. Furthermore, according to Harstock, the opposition of man to woman and perhaps even man to man is not simply a transitory opposition of arbitrary interests, but an opposition resting on a deep-going threat to existence. She argues that we re-encounter in the context of gender, as in class, the fact that the experience of the ruling group, or gender, cannot simply be dismissed as false. This raises the question of how we conceptualize and understand not only the ‘patriarchal state’, but also the relationship between the patriarchal nation-state requiring in the context of competitive struggle with other states militarism and internal hierarchy. [IT CONTINUES…] Human survival may depend upon breaking the linkage between masculinity, military capacity and death. It is for feminists and others committed to peace to provide new thinking about the nature of politics, to redefine ‘political community’ and our ideas of ‘citizenship’ and, in so doing, confront the ‘barracks community’ directly with its ‘fear of the feminine’. Feminist challenges to dominant conceptions of citizenship, political community and security and feminist ‘revisions’ are the subject of chapter 5.

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Furthermore, the base in Okinawa is in an ecologically sensitive area – over 500 unique species are located threatened by the base

Yoko Abe, 1 MA from School of Applied Social Science West Virginia University Division of Sociology and Anthropology, MANUFACTURING SECURITY: MASS MEDIA COVERAGE OF DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPON USE IN OKINAWA, JAPAN, http://wvuscholar.wvu.edu:8881//exlibris/dtl/d3_1/apache_media/6062.pdf

Since 1972, the amount of financial assistance to Okinawa from Tokyo for “development” has been tremendous (Arasaki, 1999; Tokuyama, 1999; Ui, 1995). Yet contrary to expectations, the main portion of this capital has fallen into the hands of the large mainland corporations and there has been little growth of sustainable industry in Okinawa (Tokuyama, 1999). The main outcome of dependency has been the overgrowth of construction companies and their sub-contractors throughout Okinawa (McCormack, 1999).

In the northern mountain region, Yanbaru, there are about 500 animal and insect species endemic to the region (Fukuchi, 1996). On Okinawa’s seventy some islands, collectively called the “Galapagos of the Orient,” there are approximately 2000 plant species (Fukuchi, 1996). These areas contain four to five times the diversity of mainland Japan (Fukuchi, 1996). However, the budgets of endless development projects planned by the bureaucracy in Tokyo do not include costs associated with damage to Okinawa’s unique ecosystem (Ui, 1999). Thus, Okinawa’s precious and fragile environment continues to be destroyed and is losing its biological diversity (McCormack, 1999).The proliferation of the Japanese-style convenient way of life, urbanization, rapacious development by mainland tourist industries, increasing numbers of tourists, degenerative agriculture, and military activities (Okinawa also has bases for the Japanese Self Defense Force) contribute to environmental destruction in Okinawa as well. The Japanese government recognizes the biological significance of the region, but has shown little or no interest in protecting the wildlife habitat in Okinawa. Worse yet, despite the deep-seated protest against the plan among local citizens, the Japanese and U.S. governments are still forcing the plan to relocate Futenma Air Station by constructing a “hybrid base” for the U.S Marine Corps, which will destroy a relatively preserved sea and mountain area, where people have a quiet life and many endangered species exist. The Japanese government is now “dangling before the Nago people a huge $1 billion (110 billion yen) payout over 10 years of ‘Northern Region’ development” (McCormack and Yonetani, 2000). Former President Clinton also blackmailed the OPG by stating that the G8 Summit in the year 2000 would not take place in Okinawa unless the prefecture come up with a solution for the relocation.4

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Extinction results from species loss – the impact is bigger than a nuclear war

Richard Tobin, '90 associate professor of political science at SUNY-Buffalo, 1990, The Expendable Future: U.S. Politics and the Protection of Biological Diversity, p. 13-14

Every time a human contributes to a species’ extinction, a range of choices and opportunities is either eliminated or diminished. The demise of the last pupfish might have appeared inconsequential, but the eradication of other species could mean that an undiscovered cure for some cancers has been carelessly discarded. The extinction of a small bird, an innocent amphibian, or an unappealing plant might disrupt an ecosystem, increased the incidence and areal distribution of a disease, preclude the discovery of new industrial products, prevent the natural recycling of some wastes, or destroy a source of easily grown and readily available food. By way of analogy, the anthropo-genic extinction of a plant or animal can be compared to the senseless destruction of a priceless Renaissance painting or to the burning of an irreplaceable book that has never been opened. In an era when many people believe that limits to development are being tested or even breached, can humans afford to risk an expendable future, to squander the infinite potential that species offer, and to waste nature’s ability and willingness to provide inexpensive solutions to many of humankind’s problems? Many scientists do not believe so, and they are fearful of the consequences of anthropogenic extinctions. These scientists quickly admit their ignorance of the biological consequences of most individual extinctions, but widespread agreement exists that massive anthropogenic extinctions can bring catastrophic results. In fact, when compared to all other environmental problems, human-caused extinctions are likely to be of far greater concern. Extinction is the permanent destruction of unique life forms and the only irreversible ecological change that humans can cause. No matter what the effort or sincerity of intentions, extinct species can never be replaced. “From the standpoint of permanent despoliation of the planet,” Norman Meyers observes, no other form of environmental degradation “is anywhere so significant as the fallout of species.” Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson is less modest in assessing the relative consequences of human-caused extinctions. To Wilson, the worst thing that will happen to earth is not economic collapse, the depletion of energy supplies, or even nuclear war. As frightful as these events might be, Wilson reasons that they can “be repaired within a few generations. The one process ongoing…that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by destruction of natural habitats.” David Ehrenfeld succinctly summarizes the problem and the need for a solution: “We are masters of extermination, yet creation is beyond our powers… Complacency in the face of this terrible dilemma is inexcusable.” Ehrenfeld wrote these words in the early 1970s. Were he to write today he would likely add a note of dire urgency. If scientists are correct in their assessments of current extinctions and reasonably confident about extinction rates in the near future, then a concerted and effective response to human-caused extinctions is essential. The chapters that follow evaluate that response in the United States.

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Plan: The United States federal government should end its Status of Forces Agreement with Japan. We'll clarify.

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Contention Two Solvency: Removing bases in Okinawa provides the frame for building a global anti-basing movement and challenging global imperialism


In the OWAAMV movement, it is believed that closing the U.S. bases and troop withdrawal need to be implemented in the larger context of demilitarization of the entire security system. As the discussions of the movement’s international networking reveal, closing or decreasing the capacity of one Asian base has often led to the reinforcement of other military bases in the region as a means of minimizing the negative effects of the closure on the U.S. military’s global strategies. For instance, when the bases in the Philippines were closed in 1992, those troops previously assigned there were transferred to bases in Okinawa and Korea. More recently, “lessening the burden of people in Okinawa,” a phrase in the Security Consultative Committee (2006) document, will be achieved by build-up on Guam. From the perspectives of the international community and of the U.S. military, which limits access to such “highly classified” information on security policies to a handful of people, thereby creating a new hierarchy, this may be an obvious tactic. It has been very difficult for grassroots peace activists to make such analyses and predictions due largely to the lack of resources and information. In recent years, however, this type of observation of global strategies has been made possible through international solidarity and the exchange of information among areas. Through these networks, members of grassroots movements in Asia and in other parts of the world are now connected and are better equipped to cope with the dwarfing information giant of the U.S. military. People have to unite with each other. There is an increasing understanding among people in the struggle against the U.S. military empire that security of people can never be achieved without demilitarizing the security system. Feminist international scholars have already argued that a gender perspective effectively reveals an unequal dichotomy between the protector and the protected on which the present security system has been built (Peterson 1992). The OWAAMV movement illustrates from a gender perspective that “the protected,” who are structurally deprived of political power, are in fact not protected by the militarized security policies; rather their livelihoods are made insecure by these very policies. The movement has also illuminated the fact that “gated” bases do not confine military violence to within the bases. Those hundreds-of-miles-long fences around the bases are there only to assure the readiness of the military and military operations by excluding and even oppressing the people living outside the gated bases. The practical aspect of analysis, connection, and solidarity among feminist activists worldwide has not been the only empowering experience for women in the struggle. As has happened so many times in the past, people in communities hosting U.S. bases have been divided over such issues as public economic support for the financially distressed localities, and thus have felt isolated and disempowered, unable to mount or maintain protest actions. OWAAMV women have also, at times, been lone voices against a patriarchy that is, they argue, the source of the militarized security system. Not only people in the local communities but also members of communities across borders share knowledge, analysis, and deep rage against injustice, as well as a vision of a demilitarized world with gender justice. Here, we see possibility and hope for transformation. Those who struggle for the achievement of a demilitarized security system may have a long way to go, but they never lose hope.

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The base in Okinawa must be resisted via a frame of injustice – this frame provides the possibility of global opposition to militarism while still preserving local identity

Andrew Yeo, 9 Prof @ Catholic University of America, "Not in Anyone’s Backyard: The Emergence and Identity of a Transnational Anti-Base Network" International Studies Quarterly (2009), 53, 571–594

From a local perspective, the presence of U.S. or other major foreign bases pro- duces both winners and losers. The most obvious benefits are economic, contrib- uting to local business and to the overall economic prosperity of the community. At the same time, military bases generate negative externalities such as noise pollution, environmental degradation, crime, safety hazards, and the growth of bars and brothels which exploit women. Grievances run aplenty. School children pause for 10 minutes as jets roar by schoolhouses. Misguided bombs damage private property. Chemical waste from fuel tank cleaners is dumped into nearby waters. Women are raped. Taxi cab drivers are beaten. Farmers are evicted from fertile lands. The lack of formal channels in addressing grievances related to U.S. or other foreign bases often lead to contentious forms of political action. At the local level, the framing of anti-base grievances remains central to coordinated action (Gamson and Meyer 1996; Oliver and Johnston 2000; Snow and Benford 1988, 1992; Yeo 2006; Zald 1996). The collective action frame will vary depending on the particular grievance caused by the presence of a specific military base. Whether the issues deal with the environment, crime, or dispute over property rights, an underlying commonality in the framing of anti-base contention is the notion of injustice (Gamson 1992, 68). As Snow and Benford (1992) write, ‘‘[collective action frames] underscore and embellish the seriousness and injustice of a social condition or redefine as unjust and immoral what was previously seen as unfortunate but perhaps tolerable.’’ Moreover, with local anti-base protests, ‘‘injustice frames’’ are often used to invoke injustices directed at the local community. For instance, environmental degradation caused by the dumping of toxic waste is framed as an injustice directed at the community surrounding a local base. Sexual crimes, such as rape, are framed as an injustice towards vulnerable individuals which are capable of being repeated within the community as long as U.S. military bases are present.

The military has an aggressive PR campaign to mask the harms of overseas basing – our call for the US to end its militaristic campaign is necessary to challenge this narrative

Cynthia Enloe, 2009. professor of international development and women’s studies at Clark University The Bases of Empire p.x-ix

It is always useful to dig into a lack of curiosity. A great deal of the unequal and often harmful dynamics of international politics depend on ordinary citizens becoming and staying uncurious. What assumptions and attitudes prevalent among ordinary Americans allow the high-level decisions and daily operations of U.S. military-basing politics to persist with virtually no U.S. citizen concern? First of the culprits may be the widespread belief among Americans that any U.S. military base is of material value to the people living within its vicinity. After all, people in most U.S. towns that host a military base exert pressure on their Congressional representatives in order to keep those bases, on the assumption that whatever social or environmental damage the base may cause is outweighed by the good it is doing for the local economy. Of course, it is not clear whether townspeople in Arizona, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Maine would rally around a base if that base were staffed and controlled by the Japanese or the French military. A second assumption dampening American citizen curiosity about U.S. military global-basing politics may be that any U.S. base created overseas is at the invitation of that country’s own officials. There is virtually no news coverage – no journalists’ or editors’ curiosity – about the pressures or lures at work when the U.S. government seeks to persuade officials of Romania, Aruba, or Ecuador that providing U.S. military-basing access would be good for their countries. Thus this popular assumption derives from faith, not evidence. A third common belief nurturing Americans’ current incuriosity could be that their military is the most advanced, perhaps even the most “civilized,” military in the world, and thus, whatever ripple effects it sends out from one of its overseas bases can only prove beneficial to the fortunate host society. Propping up this belief are the usually unexamined presumptions that U.S. male soldiers are models of responsible masculinity, that the U.S. military as an institution is a model of public disease prevention and of environmental accountability. Persisting in these presumptions requires not listening to the stories of ordinary women and men who have lived around – lived with – U.S. military bases in Okinawa, Diego Garcia, the Philippines, and Spain.

1AC

SOFA is the root cause of military crimes and civil instability in Okinawa

Chalmers Johnson, 3, Retired professor of Asian Studies at the University of California, San Diego. From 1968 until 1972 he served as a consultant to the Office of National Estimates of the Central Intelligence Agency http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1112/

The Japanese-American Security Treaty of 1960, which replaced the original pact that was signed along with the peace treaty in 1951, is a short, relatively straight-forward document of ten, normally one-sentence articles. It authorizes the SOFA -- "the status of the United States armed forces in Japan shall be governed by a separate agreement" (art. vi) -- which is a much longer, extremely complex legal document of some twenty-eight quite dense provisions. The text of the Security Treaty is readily available, usually as an appendix to books on Japan's international relations; the text of the SOFA is so hard to come by it is virtually classified. Japanese citizens must search widely to find a decent translation. Its official title is "Agreement Under Article VI of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between the United States of America and Japan, Regarding Facilities and Areas and the Status of U.S. Armed Forces in Japan, January 19, 1960." It has never been modified.8 Among its salient features is article iv: "The United States is not obliged, when it returns facilities and areas to Japan on the expiration of this Agreement or at an earlier date, to restore the facilities and areas to the condition in which they were at the time they became available to the United States armed forces, or to compensate Japan in lieu of such restoration." Too many Japanese and all local government officials this is a deeply resented invitation to the U.S. military to pollute anything it wants to and evade responsibility for cleaning it up. The U. S. military's record on environmental protection is abominable. Art. ix (2) says, "Members of the United Sates armed forces shall be exempt from Japanese passport and visa laws and regulations," meaning that American servicemen accused of crimes in Japan can be spirited out of the country without facing legal obstacles. Article x (1) is truly hated by most Japanese: "Japan shall accept as valid, without a driving test or fee, the driving permit or license or military driving permit issued by the United States to a member of the United States armed forces, the civilian component, and their dependents." Okinawans pay a high price in crashes and hit-and-run accidents because of this clause, especially after 1972, when driving on the left hand side of the road was restored on the island. Art. xiii (1) aggravates art. x: "The United States armed forces shall not be subject to taxes or similar charges on property held, used or transferred by such forces in Japan." The current (conservative) governor of Okinawa, Keiichi Inamine, contends that U.S. military personnel pay less than one-fifth of what Japanese citizens pay for the public services they receive and that if the tax rate on their vehicles were equal to what ordinary citizens pay, Okinawa's income would increase by ¥780 million.9 It should be noted that none of these clauses exists in any of the SOFAs with NATO countries. By far the greatest SOFA-related popular outrage in Japan concerns art. xvii, which covers criminal justice. This one article is over two pages long and contains twelve complex subclauses. Opinion in Okinawa is virtually universal that it should be thrown out, whereas the U.S. military clings desperately to its every stipulation and in 2003 even threatened to rescind a slight concession it made after the abduction and rape of a twelve-year-old Okinawan school girl on September 4, 1995, by two Marines and a sailor from Camp Hansen. The offending words are contained in art. xvii (3) (c): "The custody of an accused member of the United States armed forces or the civilian component over whom Japan is to exercise jurisdiction shall, if he is in the hands of the United States, remain with the United States until he is charged." This means that Japanese authorities investigating a crime committed in their country cannot have exclusive access to a suspect held by the U.S. military until Japanese prosecutors have actually indicted him in court. It also means that the Japanese police are hobbled in carrying out an investigation and that prosecutors may thus be reluctant to indict an American serviceman because of insufficient evidence. Press reports following the September 4, 1995 rape that the three military suspects were lolling around the pool at Camp Hansen eating hamburgers while the child victim (her name has been protected by Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, an organization that came into being after her assault) was in the hospital led to the largest anti-American demonstrations in Japan since the Security Treaty was signed in 1960. All servicemen in Okinawa know that if after committing a rape, a robbery, or an assault, they can make it back to the base before the police catch them, they will be free until indicted even though there is a Japanese arrest warrant out for their capture. Japanese criminal law gives the police twenty-three days during which they can hold and question a suspect before either charging or releasing him. During this period a suspect meets alone with police investigators who attempt to elicit a confession, the king of evidence (shôko no ô) in the minds of all Japanese prosecutors and most citizens. The Japanese believe in a lengthy process of reasoning with a suspect to cause him to see the error of his ways and leading him to try to restore the harmony of the society by acknowledging publicly what he has done.

1AC

Japanese judges treat guilt established in this way much more leniently than it would be in an American criminal proceeding (except for the American practice of plea-bargaining). On the other hand, a suspect in a Japanese courtroom who refuses to cooperate or who continues to asserts his innocence in the face of material evidence and witnesses is likely to receive a harsh sentence. During the period of interrogation, a criminal suspect is not permitted to consult an attorney, be released on bail, or seek a habeas corpus hearing. In Japan, a criminal suspect who is arrested and charged is much more likely to be found guilty than in the United States, but the Japanese police and courts are much less likely to arrest or convict an innocent suspect.10 The American military contends that these procedures, which are a long-standing part of Japanese culture and apply to all suspects arrested in Japan, not just American servicemen, could lead American soldiers to make false confessions and thus constitute violations of their "human rights." In refusing to turn over suspects to the Japanese police before indictment, the U.S. military relies on another part of the SOFA's art. xvii, namely clause (9): "Whenever a member of the United States armed forces, the civilian component, or a dependent is prosecuted under the jurisdiction of Japan he shall be entitled: (a) to a prompt and speedy trial; (b) to be informed, in advance of the trial, of the specific charge or charges made against him; [and] (c) to be confronted with the witnesses against him." These requirements do not apply to an investigation prior to an indictment, but the U.S. military contends all the same that Japan does not live up to this clause and that Japanese criminal justice as a whole does not meet American standards. The Americans seem to have resurrected the old defense of extrality in China: no "white man"-or American soldier-should be subjected to the laws of an alien society where respect for human rights allegedly differs from ours.

The status of forces agreement represents inequality in Japan, and emphasizes US imperialism

Johnson 2004 (Mr. Johnson's newest book is The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic [Metropolitan Books]) “America's Abominable Record in Okinawa” http://hnn.us/articles/2867.-html

Okinawa, Japan's most southerly prefecture and its poorest, has been the scene since 2001 of a particularly fierce confrontation between Washington, Tokyo, and Naha over the Japanese-American SOFA and its use by American authorities to shield military felons from the application of Japanese law. To many Japanese and virtually all Okinawans, the SOFA represents a rebirth of the "unequal treaties" that Western imperialists imposed on Japan after Commodore Perry's armed incursion in 1853.

Resisting the realist logic behind foreign occupation is the only way to prevent rampant conflict and war


Etched in my memory is the face of an Okinawan woman who described how, when she was a child, her entire generation of girls – now middle-aged women – was terrorized by the brutal GI rape and killing of a young girl. Other faces are there too: the agony of a young Korean describing life within and around the Maehyang-ri bombing range and how people living there continued to suffer frequent live-fire practice bombings in what was for them the never-ending Korean War. There is the memory of another intense young Korean who insisted that I look at a CD his organization had made about Shin Hyo-soon and Shim Mi-sun, two young schoolgirls who were killed by a U.S. tank as they walked to a party – a military crime, like so many others, for which no one in the U.S. military was ever held legally accountable. There are also more hopeful life-affirming memories, such as the image of older Okinawan farmers – each wearing a headband declaring that “Life is Sacred” – conducting a sit-in outside the courthouse in Naha, demanding the return of their land. Bases bring insecurity: the loss of self-determination, human rights, and sovereignty. They degrade the culture, values, health, and environment of host nations – and of the United States. And, they make catastrophic wars possible.

Colonialism – Bases Link

These bases westernize the areas they occupy

Richard Stubbs & Geoffrey Underhill, 2004 (Oxford University Press), “The United States and Globalization: Struggles with Hegemony” Page 1 http://www.lehigh.edu/~bm05/research/US&globalization7.pdf

For their occupants, these are not unpleasant places to live and work. Military service

today, which is voluntary, bears almost no relation to the duties of a soldier during World War II

or the Korean or Vietnamese wars. Most chores like laundry, KP (“kitchen police”), mail call, and

cleaning latrines have been subcontracted to private military companies like Kellogg Brown &

Root, DynCorp, and the Vinnell Corporation. Fully one-third of the funds recently appropriated

for the war in Iraq (about $30 billion), for instance, are going into private American hands for

exactly such services. Where everything possible is done to make daily existence seem like a

Hollywood version of life at home. According to the Washington Post, in Fallujah, just west of

Baghdad, waiters in white shirts, black pants, and black bow ties serve dinner to the officers of the

82nd Airborne Division in their heavily guarded compound, and the first Burger King has already

gone up inside the enormous military base we’ve established at Baghdad International Airport.

Some of these bases are so gigantic they require as many as nine internal bus routes for

soldiers and civilian contractors to get around inside the earthen berms and concertina wire.

That’s the case at Camp Anaconda, headquarters of the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, whose

job is to police some 1,500 square miles of Iraq north of Baghdad, from Samarra to Taji. Anaconda

occupies 25 square kilometers and will ultimately house as many as 20,000 troops. Despite

extensive security precautions, the base has frequently come under mortar attack, notably on the

Fourth of July, 2003, just as Arnold Schwarzenegger was chatting up our wounded at the local

field hospital.... Our armed missionaries live in a closed-off, self-contained world serviced by its own

airline — the Air Mobility Command, with its fleet of long-range C-17 Globemasters, C-5 Galaxies,

C-141 Starlifters, KC-135 Stratotankers, KC-10 Extenders, and C-9 Nightingales that link our farflung

outposts from Greenland to Australia. For generals and admirals, the military provides 71

Learjets, 13 Gulfstream IIIs, and 17 Cessna Citation luxury jets to fly them to such spots as the

armed forces’ ski and vacation center at Garmisch in the Bavarian Alps or to any of the 234

military golf courses the Pentagon operates worldwide. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flies

around in his own personal Boeing 757, called a C-32A in the Air Force.

Colonialism – SOFA Link

SOFA costs the Japanese a ton of money – we’re currently violating SOFA by making them fund bases

Johnson 2004 (Mr. Johnson's newest book is The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic [Metropolitan Books]) “America's Abominable Record in Okinawa” http://hnn.us/articles/2867.-html

There is nothing particularly unusual about this manifestation of American military imperialism in Okinawa except for its concentration. It offers scenes that are easily reproduced in Germany, Italy, Kosovo, Kuwait, Qatar, Diego Garcia, and elsewhere, including more recently Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Iraq. However, one distinguishing feature of the Okinawan bases is how much money the Japanese government pays to support them-some $4.25 billion a year out of a total annual cost of approximately $7.6 billion It does so in part to keep American soldiers well out of sight of mainland Japanese -- much as the Tokugawa Bakufu quarantined Dutch merchants on the island of Deshima -- because fully enfranchised Japanese citizens would not tolerate them. It also hopes to keep them happy living in the Japanese equivalent of Puerto Rico, a culturally heterogeneous part of the country that Japan forcibly annexed in 1879 and that has long been subject to official and popular discrimination by mainland people and authorities. The Japanese press refers to these base-support payments as the omoiyari yosan (sympathy budget), meaning sympathy for the poor Americans who cannot afford their expansive foreign policy. The SOFA covering American forces in Japan says that the United States will cover all costs of the deployments (art. xxiv) but since 1978, when the omoiyari yosan came into being, the Japanese government has in fact paid more than half. No other nation offers such lavish "host nation support" to the United States.

Colonialism – Local Opposition

The local population does not want the base to stay in Okinawa

OWAAMV 2007, (This article is based on reports to the East Asia-US Women’s Network Against Militarism prepared by Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence) “Okinawa: Effects of long-term US Military presence” March 2007 Accessed from http://www.genuinesecurity.org/partners/report/Okinawa.pdf on June 30, 2010.

There is a strong anti-militarist tradition among Okinawan people that goes back many generations. The Ryukyu kingdom (as Okinawa was called) was involved in trade from the 13th century. There was a spirit of openness to outsiders, and a rejection of military attitudes as antithetical to making connection with others. This long-standing anti-militarist perspective was reinforced by the devastation experienced by Okinawans during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. The continued presence of the U.S. bases is challenged by anti-war landlords, organized labor, religious groups, women’s organizations, and political organizations, with increasing demands for self-determination over the past few years. The abduction and a rape of the 12-year-old girl, mentioned above, revitalized popular opposition to the U.S. bases. In October 1996, a year after this incident, a majority of voters opposed U.S. bases in a Prefecture-wide referendum. Under the Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO) there is a US.-Japan proposal to return 20% of the land used for U.S. bases to local control, including the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station. However, both governments proposed its replacement by a “floating heliport” off the coast of Henoko, Nago. The heliport construction would destroy an area of coral reef and sea grass that is the habitat of the Okinawan manatee (dugong), a rare variety of seacow. They are an endangered species, particularly susceptible to sound. Despite strong pressure from Tokyo, local people voted against the heliport proposal in a (non-binding) referendum in Nago, December 1997. Governor Ota also opposed it, and earned great disfavor with Tokyo officials who cut off promised funding for development as a result. Governor Inamine accepted the idea of a joint commercial-military airfield in the north of Okinawa, considered a compromise proposal. Since he was elected, over 35 anti-bases and environmental groups joined together in an anti-heliport association called the Anti-Relocation Association. The heliport proposal met with strong protests by Okinawans as well as mainland Japanese supporters for nearly a decade. The protest became especially difficult when the government started to build towers in the ocean for test drilling. People took to the ocean in small boats and kayaks to obstruct construction. Others maintained a daily vigil on the beach for over a year. Protestors succeeded in defeating the heliport plan, but Tokyo then proposed constructing a new runway by the coast on land that is part of Camp Schwab. Japanese officials claim that this will create less environmental damage than the original offshore plan, but that is doubtful as it means building into the ocean well beyond the current coastline. Besides, this proposal will still cause noise pollution. Local residents, especially from Ginoza village next to Henoko, will be directly affected by over-flying and they have been at the center of strong protest in addition to the protest already going on in Henoko area. Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence noted that SACO announces no downsizing of military forces. Rather, they argue that because facilities will be moved to other locations, the SACO proposals represent a modernization and build-up of U.S. military facilities in Okinawa and mainland Japan.

Colonialism Adv – Presence

Presence is directly liked to the suffering of people in Okanawa

Yoko Abe, 1 MA from School of Applied Social Science West Virginia University Division of Sociology and Anthropology, MANUFACTURING SECURITY: MASS MEDIA COVERAGE OF DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPON USE IN OKINAWA, JAPAN, http://wvuscholar.wvu.edu:8881//exlibris/dtl/d3_1/apache_media/6062.pdf

Despite the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972, thirty-eight U.S. military bases still remain in the prefecture.While the local residents’ entreaties to end their suffering from the consequences of the U.S. military presence remain strong, the U.S. and Japanese governments have adopted measures to maintain the U.S. military foothold. This study examined the viewpoints of six claimsmakers to illustrate an overlooked political process in the perpetuation of the U.S. military presence. The research applied a content analysis of newspaper articles appearing in the Okinawa Times following the disclosure of the U.S. Marine Corps’ use of depleted uranium weapons.The study analyzed the degree to which the Okinawa Times connected the Okinawans’ experiences to those of other people around the world who are also suffering from the presence of U.S. military forces, and to the role of the strengthened bilateral military alliance in manufacturing the security required by corporate Japan.

The Okinawa bases erodes the local community


I was shaken by Okinawan and other Japanese descriptions of what it means to live in communities routinely terrorized by low altitude and night landing exercises, by crimes committed by GIs that regularly go unpunished, and about how people’s land had been seized to make way for U.S. bases and how these bases block economic and social development. I was upset by reports of the pervasiveness of prostitution and of seemingly endless sexual harassment and violence near U.S. bases. People shared their agonizing memories of military accidents: planes falling into schools, drunken military drivers who caused deadly accidents, and the destruction of people’s homes and property during military exercises. People also spoke of their shame at being complicit in U.S. wars and aggressions, especially the savaging of Vietnam. U.S. bombers and warships were launched from their communities, and much of Okinawa still serves as a jungle warfare training base. As people scarred by war and massive aerial bombardments, they could identify with the pain, suffering, and losses of other innocent Asians terrorized by the tsunami of U.S. bombs and military might.

Removing the base would reconfigure US-Japanese relations and empower Japan to construct its own identity

Miyume Tanji, 7 "FUTENMA AIR BASE AS A HOSTAGE OF US-JAPAN ALLIANCE: POWER, INTERESTS AND IDENTITY POLITICS SURROUNDING MILITARY BASES IN OKINAWA" November 2007. http://wwwarc.murdoch.edu.au/wp/wp147.pdf

After the Cold War, alternative international relations perspectives expanded theoretical horizons. It became possible to open national security issues up to questions of national history, identity and culture. Constructivism is useful in addressing the oversights of realist and neo-realist, as well as liberal institutionalist theory. Within these expanded horizons Okinawa becomes an opportunity for Japan to begin reconstructing its identity in the international realm as well as vis-à-vis the US as an ally. The absolute closure of Futenma (i.e. without relocation within Okinawa) is also a demand consistent with the international norms such as human security, repudiation of militarism and gender violence, as well as arms reduction. Adhering to such norms would enable Japan to transform its image among nations in northeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific. Taking a more assertive position would also create breathing space in its currently exclusive relations with the US. Japan would become a sovereign rather than a ‘client state’. This would certainly contribute positively towards the building of a multilateral security regime in the region that is not controlled by the dominant US interests.

Militarism – Now Key Time

People are starting to realize militarism dominates every aspect of our life but won’t act in the status quo

Christine Ahn and Gwyn Kirk, 2009 (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus), "Fashioning Resistance to Militarism"

In the silver lining to the devastating economic crisis, critiques of excessive military spending are now beginning to echo around Capitol Hill and throughout mainstream media. Federal budget priorities — and the billions of dollars tied up in the military budget — are coming under much wider scrutiny. For years, the National Priorities Project, WAND (Women's Action for New Directions), and War Resisters League have calculated the tradeoffs for military spending with readable pie charts, diagrams, and interactive websites to educate and empower ordinary people to take part in this policy debate. Yet what all the facts and figures cannot quite crack is the deeply entrenched military mindset that so dominates American society and culture. That's why in May 2005 we worked with the Women of Color Resource Center in Oakland, California to stage a popular education project, "Fashion Resistance to Militarism." Professional designers and home dressmakers created eye-catching outfits to deconstruct military policies. We wrote scripts for each runway that were read by a narrator as the models strutted their stuff. An enthusiastic crowd of 450 people convinced us that this unlikely genre is a highly effective way to discuss the militarization of culture in accessible terms and to get the audience thinking about heavy topics like the military budget or sexualized military violence. For all the talk of change, militarism hasn't gone away in the new administration. Despite campaign promises to sit down and talk with U.S. "enemies" and his recent announcement to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq by 2011, President Barack Obama is deploying 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan and has announced increases in military spending as well as increases in the overall number of U.S. soldiers and Marines.

Militarism – Impact (War)

Militarism creates a self-justifying culture of death and destruction through imperializing the media

Boggs 05 (Carl Boggs is Professor of Social Sciences at National University in Los Angeles, Adjunct Professor at Antioch University in Los Angeles) “The Hollywood War Machine” Pg 4-5

THE PENTAGON has been increasingly sensitive about how the U.S. military presence around the world is depicted to mass publics. The film industry has a long partnership with the armed forces: military public relations offices typically review movie scripts in exchange for access to bases, equipment, stock footage, and expert consultation, all needed for "authenticity." The deep patriotic and militaristic content of most combat pictures, however, is rarely determined by stringent Pentagon controls over how producers, writers, and directors do their work, but flows from the larger political and media culture that is the repository of imperialist ideology. So attached are many Hollywood filmmakers to the combat spectacle with its enduring assumptions of superpower benevolence that they rarely wander far from the "bipartisan" foreign-policy consensus. Of course, the Pentagon would prefer to transform Hollywood movies into simple infomercials for the military, but no filmmakers nowadays would be ready to follow such a dictat. Phil Strub, longtime chief of the Pentagon's liaison office, has said that "any film that portrays the military as negative is not realistic to us," adding that combat-themed movies ought to satisfy three criteria: depict military life as "realistically" as possible, inform the public about U.S. military prowess, and assist in recruitment.4 Historically, this agenda has met with considerable success. As David Robb writes in Operation Hollywood: "Allowing the world's most powerful military to place propaganda into the world's most powerful medium -- unchecked and unregulated -- for over 50 years has certainly helped the Pentagon get more recruits for the armed forces and ever-increasing appropriations from Congress . . . "5 While there is a legacy of frequent, sometimes intense conflict over armed-forces guidelines, in fact Strub has been uniformly admired in Hollywood and few pictures have deviated much from the ideological consensus he fostered -- patriotism, a virtuous U.S. military, glorification of battlefield exploits, masculine heroism.6 Although the Pentagon has refused assistance to works like Memphis Belle, Courage Under Fire, A Few Good Men, and Oliver Stone's Vietnam trilogy -- all savaged for their "negative" images of the military -- the overall historical record is one of intimate collaboration serving both partners. From its earliest days, Hollywood promoted a culture of militarism, with mass audiences offered a regular diet of combat and action movies replete with graphic scenes of death and destruction. At first this contribution was muted owing to the relatively small scale of U.S. military power. But the studios quickly became fascinated with the combat genre (the dominant form if combat Westerns are included) since it guaranteed huge box-office returns given the nonstop action, graphic violence, appealing heroes, exotic settings, the contrived glamour of military life, and happy endings. The armed-forces brass naturally relished this kind of cinema too and worked diligently with filmmakers to glorify battlefield action and everything that surrounded it. During and immediately after World War II, combat movies dwelled on noble American military triumphs over evil monsters in the form of Hitler and Mussolini -- propaganda for the ultimate Good War, no reservations or apologies. The famous Why We Fight series, organized by Howard Hawks and other studio luminaries including John Ford and Frank Capra, exemplified this close alignment of Hollywood and the War Department. With great war dramas fresh in mind, the public was drawn to battlefield stories made more authentic owing by extensive use of stock footage and technical advances over earlier renditions of combat. Films released over the next two decades fit this pattern, assisted by swollen Pentagon public relations apparatus. To win such assistance, studios had to follow strict guidelines: no "negative images" of military officers, no excessive foul language, no "sexual improprieties" like adultery, only moderate drinking, and so forth.

Militarism – Impact (Environment)

Militarism leads to Environmental Contamination


Highly carcinogenic materials (fuels, oils, solvents and heavy metals) are regularly released during military operations, affecting the land, water, air, and ocean, as well as people’s health. Okinawan people suffer deafening noise from low-flying military aircraft. In other parts of Japan, U.S. planes cannot leave or land after 7pm. At Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, they can leave or land any time, and generate severe noise. Students in schools near the bases often have classes disrupted due to noise, and suffer from poor concentrations. Speaking to students and faculty at American University in October 1998, Mie Kunimasa said, I come from Ginowan City. My house is located 80 feet from the fence of the military base. Everyday is very noisy—day and night—without a break…Futenma Air Base is located in the middle of a very congested residential area. Sometime when I’m driving, I see very dark things flying in the sky. I fear that a jet might crash at any moment. She then played a tape of aircraft noise recorded in her house near Futenma, and amplified it through the microphone. The noise was so loud that no one could hear her next words, but she went on speaking to show how everyday conversations and school classes are continually disrupted. On August 23, 2004, a U.S. Marine CH-53D Sea Stallion (a heavy assault transport helicopter) went out of control and crashed into the administration building at Okinawa International University. Immediately after the crash, U.S. Marines occupied a large section of the campus and the public road running alongside the damaged building, allowing no one—not even the police or university officials to enter the site. Some debris flew into surrounding homes as far as 300 meters (984 feet) from the site. Just 100 meters (328 feet) away was a gas station, and 150 meters away an elementary school and day-care center. Miraculously no was killed or injured. The U.S. Naval hospital initially reported that the pilot was in critical condition but the U.S. military did not release further information concerning the pilot or two other service members who were supposedly involved in the accident. Regular training exercises using live ammunition have caused forest fires, soil erosion, earth tremors, and accidents. In 1996, U.S. Marines fired depleted uranium shells into the ocean. The U.S. military defines this as a conventional weapon, but, officially, they are not allowed to fire depleted uranium in Japan. White Beach, a docking area in Okinawa for U.S. nuclear submarines, is an area where regional health statistics show comparatively high rates of leukemia in children and cancers in adults. In 1998, for example, two women from the White Beach area who had been in the habit of gathering shellfish and seaweed there died of liver cancer. Also local people are affected, sometimes killed, in traffic accidents caused by U.S. troops. In October 1998, for example, a U.S. Marine killed a young woman in a hit-and-run accident. Under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA, Article 4), the U.S. is not responsible for environmental clean-up of land or water. As in Korea and the Philippines, host communities do not have adequate information on the extent of military contamination. The Japanese government does not release information about it. After the incident with the depleted uranium shells mentioned above, the U.S. government must inform local officials about military operations, but Okinawan people doubt that this is really working. After years of complaints from host communities about live-firing drills, the Japanese government arranged for them to be transferred from Okinawa to four sites in mainland Japan, at Yausubetsu (Hokkaido), Kita-Fuji and Higashi-Fuji (near Mt. Fuji), and Yufuin (Oita Prefecture, Kyushu). Besides damage to the land, and fires caused by these drills, another environmental hazard is the unexploded ammunition left at the sites. The Okinawa prefecture has had to pay for this to be cleaned up in the past. Now the military are seeding the bare hillsides from helicopters. The hills look green but local people are concerned about safety. Once the old firing ranges have been seeded it will be impossible to see the unexploded ordnance.

Militarism – Impact (Environment)

Militaries are notorious polluters and destroy environment.

Simon Doolittle 2003. (graduate student at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism) “Ten Reasons Why Militarism is Bad for the Environment” March 2003 Accessed from http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/s_doolittle_paper.pdf on July 1 2010

According to geographer Joni Seager, “anywhere in the world, a military presence is virtually the single most reliable predictor of environmental damage.” Since the end of

the Cold War, many plans to convert military bases to civilian use have been cancelled because the sites are contaminated beyond any hope of restoration. And military pollution isn’t limited to bases, it does significant damage to the environment at large. In the US – the world's most oil-thirsty country – the largest single consumer of oil is the Pentagon. Together, the world’s militaries consume as much petroleum as Japan – the world's second largest economy – and produce an estimated 6-10% of global air pollution. As Seager concludes: “Militaries…that have little else in common share a distinctive environmental sensibility – namely, one of disregard.”

Militaries are exempt from environmental regulation.

Simon Doolittle 2003. (graduate student at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism) “Ten Reasons Why Militarism is Bad for the Environment” March 2003 Accessed from http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/s_doolittle_paper.pdf on July 1 2010

Militaries are routinely exempted from environmental regulations in the name of “national security”. In the US, many major environmental laws give the military dramatic regulatory loopholes, including the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Occupational Safety and Health Act, all laws governing nuclear activity and waste, and many more. As the Military Toxics Project and the Environmental Health Coaltion observe, “These exemptions have serious consequences when … the Department of Defense and Energy are the nation’s leading polluters.” Internationally, a treaty banning plastic dumping at sea explicitly exempts militaries – despite the fact that the US Navy alone dumps over 5 tons of plastic overboard daily – and agreements governing foreign military bases almost never include provisions for environmental protection. Although the Pentagon tries to put a green spin on its activities with initiatives such as “green bullets,” which pollute soil less than conventional lead bullets, it fiercely resists regulation and aggressively covers up information about its pollution. One person fired from a military facility for voicing concerns over environmental health likened the intimidation directed at him to the work of the KGB and the Gestapo, calling it a “police state”. An EPA official once described the Department of Energy’s attitude about regulation of their nuclear activities as: “Look, Buster, don’t bug me with your crap about permits. I’m building atomic weapons.”

Feminism – Rape

Thousands of rights violations take place at Okinawa


During the 60-year post-war period, little has changed in Okinawa. The continued control of the island’s local economy by Japan and the United States still prevents its sound growth, and has jeopardized any Okinawan attempt to become economically independent from the U.S. base-related industries (Maedomari 1996).

In addition, crimes and accidents involving U.S. soldiers and dependants have caused fatalities in Okinawa. There were 4,790 criminal charges brought against U.S. military personnel between 1972 and 1995. Among them are 12 cases of murder, 355 of robbery, and 111 of rape (Arasaki 2000). It needs to be noted that there were many more unreported cases, and there are no official statistics available before the reversion. During the period of U.S. occupation, local authority did not have the right to arrest or investigate. After the reversion, the U.S. military was given jurisdiction in cases where crimes were committed by U.S. military personnel; thus many who have committed crimes have not been brought to justice under the Japanese judicial system.

Feminism – Rape

Militarism leads to Military Prostitution and Violence Against Women and Children


In the past, as many as one in thirty Okinawan women were employed as prostituted women for the U.S. military in “A sign” bars. Entertainment districts were built close to military bases immediately after the war. In some cases U.S. military authorities returned land taken for bases to Okinawan planners for purposes of building entertainment areas. In 1969, at the height of the U.S. War against Vietnam, the Okinawan police estimated that 7,362 Okinawan women were working in prostitution though others estimated this number to be 10,000 or more. Before reversion in1972, the discussion of an anti-prostitution law was brought up in the Okinawan government assembly on two separate occasions, but nothing was done because of the large economic benefit contributed by these women—larger than the agricultural industry (pineapple and sugarcane combined). The women were coerced into prostitution through economic hardship, given the lack of meaningful alternatives. Although counted as part of the underground economy, their wages made a significant contribution to the Okinawan economy. Today, some 7,000 Filipinas (and the number may be much higher), whose home economy is far weaker than that of Japan, are the prostituted women—on entertainment visas—for U.S. military personnel in Okinawa, even though prostitution is illegal in Japan. On September 4, 1995, a 12-year-old girl was returning home at 8:30pm after shopping in a neighborhood store near a U.S. military base. Abducted by three U.S. servicemen in a car, her hands, eyes, and mouth bound with duct tape, she was raped, dumped out of the car, and left by the side of a road. Her assailants—two Marines and a sailor—had rented the car inside the base, purchased duct tape and condoms, and left the base with the purpose of abducting a woman and raping her. This incident was one more in a long history of violence against women that has continued in Okinawa throughout the postwar period. However, there were several things different about this case that resulted in a massive outpouring of grief and anger by Okinawan citizens: 1) The victim pressed charges; 2) The rape occurred during the Fourth UN Conference on Women in Beijing where violence against women was declared a human rights violation—this inspired confidence in Okinawan women, especially the large contingent that attended the UN Conference; 3) The rape occurred during the 50th anniversary year of the end of World War II, a time of reflection on 50 years of U.S. military presence in Okinawa; and 4) The age of the victim made it very clear that such violence claims victims without distinction. The rape of this girl was reported worldwide, but most crimes by U.S. troops (including rape, assault, and murder) are not. Official reports estimate more than 5,394 military crimes against Okinawan people from 1972 to 2005, with 533 of them heinous crimes (1972-2004). Arrested military personnel suspected of committing these crimes numbered 678. These crime figures are a conservative estimate as many crimes are not reported, perhaps especially violence against women. The bases are also associated with drug use and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Mixed-race Amerasian children fathered by U.S. troops have often been abandoned by their fathers an dexperience discrimination from local people.

Feminism – Violence Up

Violence is increasing over the past few years


OWAAMV established the first private rape crisis center in Okinawa in October 1995, culminating a long-time dream of those who had worked closely with survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in Okinawa. The center, Rape Emergency Intervention Counseling Center Okinawa, offers counseling to victims and supports them in their efforts to pursue lawsuits and to gain independence and autonomy. Through the activities of REICO, more and more cases of military violence, most of which had gone unreported to the police, were brought to the attention of OWAAMV women. The September 11 attacks, too, brought direct changes to the military violence against women in Okinawa. As training and base security intensified, there is a widespread sense that crimes committed by U.S. soldiers have increased or become more brutal, as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have clearly affected transfer plans and training. For example, in an August 2003 rape and assault case, the perpetrator might have returned to the United States had there been no war; however, his tour of duty was extended by 6 months, during which he committed the crime.

Environment – Bases Link

Military activities and construction in Okinawa destroy biodiversity

Deborah MANTLE, 6 Lecturer, College of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan Ritsumeikan Annual Review of International Studies, 2006. "Defending the Dugong: Redefining ‘Security’ in Okinawa and Japan". Vol.5, pp. 85-105

Next to the base economy, ‘development’ is the other sharp stake that keeps Okinawan dependence in place. In order to compensate the Okinawans for hosting the U.S. bases and to increase their standard of living, which had been far below the mainland at the time of reversion, the central government has invested huge sums of public money in the area10. The massive injection of funds has had its benefits, including much-needed infrastructural improvements and the establishment of five universities. Nevertheless, Okinawa remains the poorest prefecture (70% of national average per capita) with the highest unemployment (7.9% in 2000, compared to a national average of 4.7%)

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