Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima’s decision to approve construction of the planned US Marine air base at Henoko has won its fair share of admirers. Much of the international media has portrayed it as a “breakthrough” that resolves a long political “stalemate” that had plagued US-Japan relations for many years.
It was 39 years ago today that the people of Okinawa finally escaped from the Pacific War, but they still await a more genuine era of self-determination. The 82-day-long Battle of Okinawa in 1945 was a horror. Something like a quarter of the civilian population ― more than 100,000 by most accounts ― were slaughtered in the crossfire between an alien army determined to conquer them and an Imperial Army that had no intention of protecting them.
