I was planning a trip to Japan recently and remember seeing warnings of "be careful where you go in Okinawa, especially if you're an alone woman, because the American base is where all the rape happens". I see I was right not to go to that area.
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
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It's always exactly who you most expect
Fucking marines...
Yup. Sounds like something American soldiers would do. Just look at every war where everyday stationed soldiers did terrible things. As the Republican mom would say, "oh that's just boys being boys". Good old American values!! After they killed those school girls, I know they'll do anything.
It feels like given the number of incidents Okinawa somehow has a particularly bad problem with US soldiers committing heinous crimes against the host population. But that doesn't make sense, it would involve somehow promoting crime at that base or intentionally concentrating the bad apples there. Which means other bases are probably doing similar things, they just don't get talked about as much.
US exports bad behavior while providing military security. Hooah!!
Japanese Century of Humiliation
I'm not going to apologize for American imperialism, but will point out that its benevolent compared to Japanese empire.
In Korea, the Japanese imposed a factory-farm system for rape. Unit 731 did things in China that would make an IDF officer puke in his boots.
Unit 731 did things in China that would make an IDF officer puke in his boots.
The IDF took notes.
Regardless, the Japanese of imperial era have been dead and buried for over 80 years. I'm not sure what the continuous US occupation of is southern most island does to rectify century old crimes.
I’m not going to apologize for American imperialism, but will point out that its benevolent compared to Japanese empire.
You do realize that this is literally American Imperialism apologetics?
Formally, the "But X was worse" apologetic argument is called the Fallacy of relative privation, less formally its called the "not as bad as argument" or "appeal to worse problems", and informally (but most popularly) its known as whataboutism.
And its a very well known apologetic tactic.
Saying that you aren't going to apologize for something, then using whataboutism is roughly akin to saying "im not a christian, but Jesus Christ is God"
It may not be your intent to apologize for American Imperialism, but that is more or less exactly what you are doing here.
If your goal is really to not apologize for American Imperialism, you need to learn and avoid the most common apologetics tactics because saying "I dont wanna do X" followed immediately by doing X just makes you sound either disingenuous or ignorant.
(Yes, the Japanese terrorism campaign in WWII was awful, but whataboutism isnt the way to bring it up).