Aloha PeacePals,
It was a shock for me to learn of the passing of UCB prof.
Chalmers Johnson on Saturday, Nov. 20. My first academic sparring with
him was back in 1972, when I wrote a critical essay on his book,
Nationalism and the Rise of Communist China. At that time he was a
conservative and a self-admitted "spear-carrier for the U.S. empire."
But since then, his research has turned him into one of the most
presient critic of the US empire. In fact, just made a request to the
Hawaii Library system to bring his latest book, Dismantling the
Empire(just published in August). to get a tast of this great academic
mind, here's a short excerpt from an interview with Amy Goodman of
Democracy Now, conducted in 2007. Your comments & feedback welcome.
Peace & Imua,
Danny
_______
AMY GOODMAN: Chalmers Johnson, you write in your book Nemesis, "Once
upon a time you could trace the spread of Imperialism by counting up
colonies. America’s version of the colony is the military base." Can
you lay out the global picture of American military bases, how many
there are, what does the map look like?
CHALMERS JOHNSON: Americans really wouldn’t believe it, to see it, but
according to the official count- it’s something called the Base
Structure Report, which is an unclassified Pentagon inventory of real
property owned around the world and the cost it would take to replace
it. There are right now, 737 American military bases on every
continent, and well over 130 countries. Some apologists from the
Pentagon like to say, "Well, this is false, that we’re counting Marine
guards at embassies." I guarantee you that is simply stupid. We don’t
have anything like 737 American embassies abroad, and all of these are
genuine military bases with all of the problems that that involves.
In the southernmost prefecture of Japan, Okinawa, site of the Battle
of Okinawa in 1945, there is a small island, smaller than Kauai in the
Hawaiian islands, with over a 1,300,000 Okinawans. There are 37
American military bases there. The revolt against them has been
endemic for 50 years. The governor is always saying to the local
military commander, "You’re living on the side of a volcano that could
explode at any time. It has exploded in the past. What this means is
just an endless, nonstop series of sexually violent crimes, drunken
brawls, hit-and-run accidents, environmental pollution, noise
pollution, helicopters falling out of the air from Futenma Marine
Corps Air Base and falling onto the campus of Okinawa International
University. One thing after another. Back in 1995, we had one of the
most serious incidents, when two Marines and a sailor abducted, beat
and raped a 12-year-old girl. This led to the largest demonstrations
against the United States since we signed the security treaty with
Japan decades ago. It’s this kind of thing. I first went to Okinawa in
1996. I was invited by then Governor Ota in the wake of the rape
incident. I have devoted my life to the study of Japan, but like many
Japanese- many Japanese specialists- I had never been in Okinawa. I
was shocked by what I saw. It was the British raj. It was like Soviet
troops living in East Germany, more comfortable than they would be
back at, say, Oceanside, California, next door to Camp Pendleton. And
it was a scandal in every sense. My first reaction–I’ve not made a
secret of it, that I was, before the collapse of the Soviet Union,
certainly a Cold Warrior. My first explanation was this is simply off
the beaten track, that people don’t come down here and report it. As I
began to study the network of bases around the world and the incidents
that have gone with them and the military coups that have brought
about regime change and governments that we approve of, I began to
realize that Okinawa was not unusual. It was, unfortunately, typical.
--
D.Li(MidPacPeaceActive)
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