The US also has central control over its territory, but it left Vieques (in Puerto Rico) after years of sustained pressure (Puerto Rico is part of the US). There are also some serious problems brewing on Guam, and as tourism becomes a greater source of income, the military may seem more and more like a less desirable thing (especially considering there are land issues involved).

My point is that it would be very unwise for the US to pull out of an established base unless they had to. Pulling out of Korea could have something of a domino effect in terms of organized anti-American sentiment among local communities elsewhere in Asia-Pacific, and that could in turn affect politics.

but afterall it is the central government to decide. and the japanese government will never ever let usfj out of japan, not to mention okinawa, whereas the roh administration may have different idea.

Getting the USFK out of Korea in order to bomb North Korea would just make Japan a more logical target for an attacked North Korea.
agree on this point.

And even if the US is out of Korea, wouldn’t North Korea have “justification” to attack Japan? Even without missiles, there’s a country with a very long coastline. It must not be that easy to keep it secure, given the number of Japanese who were kidnapped right off its beaches.

Getting the USFK out of Korea in order to bomb North Korea would just make Japan a more logical target for an attacked North Korea.

And since a disproportionately high number of USFJ troops are on the tiny island of Okinawa, moving them could be a serious blow to efforts to use Japan as a strong base. It would be back to Guam and Hawaii, putting things farther and farther away from where they might be needed.

Vocal locals don’t want us in Korea, Okinawa, parts of mainland Japan, and even the US’s home turf of Puerto Rico (we closed Vieques Island over this) and Guam.

At some point the US should realize that closing up shop in area when it doesn’t have to, just because of some vocal locals, is not the wisest path. Give Roh a few verbal whacks to the head to knock some sense into him, and in the meantime keep quiet counsel with the Hannara people and the moderates in Roh’s party, and just wait it out until 2007.

It has to be played out this way. When the U.S. troops are gone, NK will have no justification to attack SK even after their cities are hit.

However, no U.S. troops in the SK will bring about a shock to the people of Korea. The commies will blatantly call for unification in any means, even undr KJI. And, the right-wingers will plan for a military coup.

Would we see people fighting in the street?

there are anti-us military sentiment in okinawa, but i think it is mixed with anti-tokyo sentiment. not just hate america thing as in rok.
okinawa was not even a part of japan until 1871. before that it was an independent ryukyu-kindom having the first king around 12th century. then after WW2 until 1972, okinawa was a part of the u.s. so it is quite different from japanese in other part of japan.

I have no way of telling if this is true or not.

However, over the years, I have not gotten the impression the freqency of sharp outbursts of hate in even Okinawa is anywhere close to what it is in South Korea.

I have also got the general impression that the Japanese are better at keeping their emtions guided by national interests, which I frankly think even Koreans know they are not so good at.

But, even if a USFK pull out spurs Okinawa to push very hard for the same thing on their island, I believe the rest of Japan would push hard to relocate the bases elsewhere in country. I remember reading not too long ago that Japan was already in the process of moving some of the bases.

I think the finally fact is what I mentioned above — Japan seems better at reading its national interests and putting those first. I’m not saying Japan doesn’t make mistakes or puts its head up its butt sometimes. But in general, I think they are too pragmatic to push the US military out if the US doesn’t want to take them out.

Though I understand that in the bigger picture, maybe a full pullout might not be in the best interests of either, at least not yet, anyway. That being said, I say start moving in that direction and see what reactions come up.