Gender and US Bases in Asia-Pacific
The power dynamics of militarism in the Asia-Pacific region rely on dominance and subordination. These hierarchical relationships, shaped by gender, can be seen in U.S. military exploitation of host communities, its abuse and contamination of land and water, and the exploitation of women and children through the sex industry, sexual violence, and rape. Women’s bodies, the land, and indigenous communities are all feminized, treated as dispensable and temporary. What is constructed as “civilized, white, male, western, and rational” is held superior to what is defined as “primitive, non-white, female, non-western, and irrational.” Nations and U.S. territories within the Asia-Pacific region are treated as inferiors with limited sovereignty or agency in relation to U.S. foreign policy interests that go hand-in-hand with this racist/sexist ideology.
The imbalance of power in gender relations in and around bases is mirrored at the alliance level as well. The United States controls Hawai’i through statehood; Guam is a colonial territory; and the United States is the dominant partner in alliances with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. The expansion and restructuring of U.S. bases and military operations in the region depend on these imbalances of power, which are rooted in histories of annexation, colonization, exploitation, and war.
The Asia-Pacific region is a major part of the worldwide network of U.S. bases and facilities that support the global war on terror and enables the United States to extend its reach far beyond its own shores. The war on terror is only the latest justification for U.S. military presence in communities that have little say over the activities of armed outsiders. This network in turn depends on a set of interrelated phenomena - violence against women and girls, violation of local people’s self-determination, and abuse and contamination of the environment - that reinforce gender stereotypes.
Military Violence against Women
Violence against women is pervasive at U.S. bases in the region and in prevailing military culture and training. The case of Okinawa is especially shocking. In the past 62 years, there have been 400 reported cases of women who have been attacked, kidnapped, abused, gang-raped, or murdered by U.S. troops. Victims have included a nine-month old baby and girls between six and 15 years old. Most recently, in February 2008, Staff Sgt. Tyrone Luther Hadnott, aged 38, of Camp Courtney in Okinawa, was arrested and charged with raping a 14-year-old girl.
In November 2005, several Marines stood trial for raping a Philippine woman, “Nicole” (a pseudonym) near Olongapo (Philippines). One man, Daniel Smith, a U.S. marine, was convicted of this crime and sentenced to 40 years imprisonment in the Philippines. However, he was transferred to U.S. custody immediately after conviction. Philippine and U.S. organizations contend that this case illuminates the negative impacts of the U.S.-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which undermines Philippines national sovereignty.
Violence against women recurs around U.S. bases in Asia. A particularly brutal rape and murder of a Korean woman in 1992 led to street demonstrations in Seoul and the formation of a new organization, the National Campaign for the Eradication of Crime by U.S. Troops in Korea, to document crimes and help victims claim redress. Activists in Guam are justifiably concerned that such violence will rise in their communities with the proposed increase in U.S. Marines stationed there.
Military personnel are trained to dehumanize “others” as part of their preparation for war. Their aggressiveness, frustration, and fear spill over into local communities, for example in acts of violence against girls and women. Although most U.S. troops do not commit such violations, these incidents happen far too often to be accepted as aberrations. Racist and sexist stereotypes about Asian women - as exotic, accommodating, and sexually compliant - are an integral part of such violence. These crimes inflame local hostility and resistance to U.S. military bases and operations, and have long-lasting effects on victims/survivors. Cases are seriously underreported due to women’s shame and fear or their belief that perpetrators will not be apprehended.
This pattern of sexual violence reveals structural inequalities between Asian communities and the U.S. military, encoded in Status of Forces Agreements and Visiting Forces Agreements. The military sees each crime as an isolated act committed by individual soldiers. Local communities that protest these crimes see gendered violence as a structural issue that is perpetuated by legal, political, economic, and social structures.
Military prostitution continues despite the military’s declared “zero tolerance” policy, affirmed in Department of Defense memoranda and Executive Order 13387 that President George W. Bush signed in October 2005. These days, most women working in clubs near U.S. bases in South Korea and Japan/Okinawa are from the Philippines due to low wages, high unemployment, and the absence of sustainable economic development at home. These governments admit Philippine women on short-term entertainer visas.
Servicemen are still protected from prosecution for many infringements of local laws and customs. The sexual activity of foreign-based troops, including (but not exclusively) through prostitution, has had serious effects on women’s health, boosting rates of HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, drug and alcohol dependency, and mental illness. U.S. Navy ships visit the Philippines for R & R and make stops at Pattaya (Thailand) where the sex-tourism industry flourished during the Vietnam War.
Violation of Local People’s Self-Determination
The expansion of U.S. military bases and operations has had a huge adverse impact on local communities at social, economic, political, and environmental levels. Host governments and local business elites are complicit in this. They equate progress and economic development with U.S. corporate and military interests instead of addressing the effects of U.S. militarism on local communities. The United States uses political and economic control to exert military force in the Pacific region. Allied nations trade sovereignty for militarized “security.” Japan and South Korea both pay for upkeep of U.S. troops and the restructuring or expansion of U.S. bases in their countries.
Guam has yet to attain full self-government through a UN-mandated political process that requires the full cooperation of the United States. The exploitation of Guam’s colonial status has allowed massive military expansion, slated to cost $10 billion, and without consent of the indigenous people. The expansion will transform the island into a forward base with the establishment of a Global Strike Force and ballistic missile defense system. It will also significantly alter the population. The expected transfer of military personnel from Okinawa and other parts of Asia will boost the population by 21%. Although the local business elite welcomes this expansion, many people oppose it. They are also against the resulting economic dependency that is designed and imposed by U.S. foreign policy.
Okinawa is only 0.6% of the land area of Japan, yet houses 75% of U.S. military facilities in that country. There are 37 U.S. bases and installations in Okinawa, with an estimated 23,842 troops and 21,512 family members. The U.S. military proposes to build a heliport in the ocean at Henoko, (northern Okinawa), despite a 10-year campaign against it by Okinawan people and international environmental groups.
Similarly, Korean activists opposed major base expansion at Pyoungtaek, south of Seoul. However, U.S. military officials convinced the Korean government to invest millions of dollars to pay for this expansion as well as a new bombing training site.
Hawai’i is a major tourist destination, but the U.S. military installations occupying 25% of the land area continue to be invisible to most visitors and even to local people. Current examples of the military camouflaging itself in the everyday are the Superferry and the University Affiliated Research Center, both “joint-use” operations for the military and civilians. Rendering the military a normal part of daily life serves U.S. dominance and superiority as truths that cannot be challenged. In tourist brochures Hawai’i is personified as an exotic woman, nearly naked, clad in a hula skirt and lei. Such images make women seem available for exploitation, much as the military treats the land as available for misuse.
Another example of the extension of U.S. military domination is the greater involvement of local armies, such as joint exercises with the armed forces of the Philippines, the New Mexico Guard, and the Guam Army National Guard, as part of the National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program. This allows state National Guards to partner with foreign countries and is expected to expand in the coming years within the Pacific Rim and Southeast Asian countries.
The Asia-Pacific region is part of the worldwide network of U.S. bases, facilities, refueling and R & R stops, and reserves of potential recruits that all support the global war on terror. Bases in Hawai’i, Guam, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan/Okinawa serve as key training grounds for the Iraq War. Moreover, Guam, Diego Garcia, South Korea, and Okinawa are among the transit points for troops and military supplies for the war.
Abuse and Contamination of Environment
The military misuse of the land is part of its dominance over local communities. In many places, military training has caused fires, left the land littered with unexploded bullets and bombs, and pulverized bombing training targets.
In Hawai’i, Guam, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan, the U.S. military has taken no responsibility for cleaning up contamination caused by its operations. This includes heavy metals (mercury and lead), pesticides (dieldrin and malathion), solvents (including benzene and tuolene), PCBs, pesticides, and JP-4 jet fuel. The resulting toxic health effects on local communities are compounded as the years go on without remediation of contaminated land and water.
In Korea, environmentalists are urging National Assembly members to secure U.S. commitment to clean up the pollution on the many bases slated for closure there, or this will be an expense borne by Korean taxpayers. The proposed heliport at Henoko (Okinawa), meanwhile, threatens the dugong, an endangered manatee, as well as the surrounding coral reefs. Kadena Air Base in Okinawa is a hub of U.S. airpower in the Pacific, with Air Force planes training overhead a daily reality. A 1996 Okinawa Prefecture report on babies born to women living near Kadena Air Force Base showed significantly lower birth weights than those born in any other part of Japan, due to severe noise generated by the base.
Addressing Militarism
Militarism is a system of institutions, investments, and values, which is much wider and more deeply entrenched than any specific war. To create alternate definitions of genuine peace and security, it is important to understand institutionalized gendered relations and other unequal power dynamics including those based on class, colonialism, and racism inherent in U.S. military policy and practice.
Demilitarization requires a de-linking of masculinity and militarism, stopping the glorification of war and warriors, and defining adventure and heroism in nonmilitary terms. It also requires genuinely democratic processes and structures for political and economic decision-making at community, national and transnational levels. In addition, the United States must take responsibility for cleaning up all military contamination in the Asia-Pacific region.
Instead of undermining indigenous control of lands and resources in Guam, for example, the United States and local government agencies should support the self-determination of the Chamorro people. The proposed Marines base for Henoko (Okinawa) should be scrapped and the Japanese government should redirect funds earmarked for it to economic development to benefit Okinawan people.
Since military expansion is a partner in corporate capitalist expansion, economic, political, and social development based on self-sufficiency, self-determination, and ecological restoration of local resources must be encouraged. Communities adjoining U.S. bases in all parts of the region suffer from grossly distorted economies that are overly reliant on the services (legal and illegal) that U.S. soldiers support. This economic dependency affects local men as well as women. Locally directed projects, led by those who understand community concerns, should be supported, together with government reforms to redistribute resources for such initiatives.
In addition, the United States and Asian governments need to revise their legal agreements to protect local communities. Local people need transparency in the implementation of these policies, in interagency involvement (Pentagon, State Department, Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency) and in executive orders that affect U.S. military operations in the region. Such revisions should include the ability for host governments to prosecute perpetrators of military violence so that the U.S. military can be held accountable for the human consequences of its policies.
U.S. military expansion and restructuring in the Asia-Pacific region serve patriarchal U.S. goals of “full spectrum dominance.” Allied governments are bribed, flattered, threatened, or coerced into participating in this project. Even the apparently willing governments are junior partners who must, in an unequal relationship, shoulder the costs of U.S. military policies.
For the U.S. military, land and bodies are so much raw material to use and discard without responsibility or serious consequences to those in power. Regardless of gender, soldiers are trained to dehumanize others so that, if ordered, they can kill them. Sexual abuse and torture committed by U.S. military personnel and contractors against Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison illustrate a grim new twist on militarized violence, where race and nation “trumped” gender. White U.S. women were among the perpetrators, thereby appropriating the masculinized role. The violated Iraqi men, meanwhile, were forced into the feminized role.
Gendered inequalities, which are fundamental to U.S. military operations in the Asia-Pacific region, affect men as well as women. Young men who live near U.S. bases see masculinity defined in military terms. They may work as cooks or bartenders who provide rest and relaxation to visiting servicemen. They may be forced to migrate for work to larger cities or overseas, seeking to fulfill their dreams of giving their families a better future.
U.S. peace movements should not only address U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, but also in other parts of the world. Communities in the Asia-Pacific region have a long history of contesting U.S. militarism and offer eloquent testimonies to the negative impact of U.S. military operations there. These stories provide insights into the gendered dynamics of U.S. foreign and military policy, and the complicity of allied nations in this effort. Many individuals and organizations are crying out for justice, united by threads of hope and visions for a different future. Our job is to listen to them and to act accordingly.
Ellen-Rae Cachola, Lizelle Festejo, Annie Fukushima, Gwyn Kirk, and Sabina Perez are contributors to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) and work with Women for Genuine Security, a Bay Area group that is part of the International Women’s Network Against Militarism.
Copyright © 2008, Institute for Policy Studies
The US military has it’s issues and mistreatment of women is one of those issues. The bigger issues is why the governments of the region allow this mistreatment to happen. They want the money associated with having the military in their mist-that’s why. Until our government and the governments of the nations in which we have bases start valueing the lives of women in general, this mistreatment will always happen. The fact is that women in America are often not treated much better. . .we just have more access to resources to address our grievances with men, assuming we choose to pursue the issue for justice. The fact that a member of the military was court-marshalled for the offenses is a step in the right direction.
Maybe all these American mothers, who raise these “bad” boys, might just take note and start teaching their sons to respect women in general. . I suppose “that will be the day pigs fly!”.
I agree completely that our military bases overseas cause far too many problems for locals and should be closed. But they won’t be because they are the front lines of our empire. They are the forward bases of our imperial quest.
Hoa binh
I don’t doubt the US military has a lot to learn in this regard, but I wonder if anyone out there has some statistics that could compare this behavior to that of civilian America?
The US has no real reason to have bases overseas. Let’s say that France wanted to put a base here. What would you say to that? Well, no, probably. That’s what other people need to say to the US. Enough is enough. We need to rethink who we are as people and what it means to be an American. Now we associate our national goal with militarism. The soldiers somehow are defending our freedom by being overseas killing people and basically committing crimes. I say crimes, because can you kill someone in your neighborhood with a machine gun. No. It’s a crime. Can you run around raping women, breaking into their houses, blowing up cars, and such. No. Why not? Well, it’s a crime.
I don’t recall what the end of the case was, but, here in Denmark a girl took a lift from a Brit here on NATO manuvers. To escape from his unwanted advances, she sprang out of the truck — it was one of those monster lorries when the cabin is quite high from the ground — and she was fatally injured when she hit the ground (also, the truck was moving).
But what struck me was the argument from the Brit commander that prosecuting the bloke would “ruin his career as a soldier” — I think that captures it in a nutshell. It always boils down to what is most important.
Hey, Rockerbabe, don’t dis the moms. . . “Women in America are often not treated much better” sez you. How then do they teach their sons to respect women? Where are the FATHERS in all of this?
Excellent article! Having made the acquaintance of a young international student from Okinawa while attending that university, I heard first hand of the regard this woman had of American soldiers and their contempt for her country’s people and environment. She told me that “Americans act like they own everything, they treat us like servants.” She said more too, and none reflected well on Americans, neither the military nor the tourists. I guess, (actually, I know), that is why she chose a Canadian university for her graduate studies. Not to say that Canadian forces or civilians are better, but that it did influence her choice.
The opening sentence of this article entirely supports the thesis I have shared in varied shapes and forms in this forum… that MARS rules.
This article is way beyond America and its military bases, it’s about rape as an act of aggression, as a key factor in the way wars and occupations are conducted; and rape was prevalent in Bosnia as well as currently in conflict zones of Africa. When a person believes they have a right to dominate another person, some form of aggression is at play.
No one has commented on the article’s important analogy between the use and abuse of land and a similar attitude towards disposable people (i.e. women, who usually are not strong enough to fend off military men, or prostitutes who have adapted to poverty by “servicing” the service men). Most refer to nature as MOTHER nature or GAIA, in both cases, it suggests a feminine, maternal entity. The way the mountains are being exploded in W.Va. is not so different from the land being littered with land mines, or bombs. EARTH is being treated like a whore to be used and discarded. Everywhere the military has its foot print life is rendered cheap on all levels, the very sense of the sacred eviscerated.
The US has set the example in modern times as it continues to arm the world. So long as societies feel threatened, and are taught to respect strong military persons (usually male), this homage to Mars will continue, and we are ALL paying the price. After all, war for oil, the oil required to move all the killing machines, are hastening the global warming that puts so many at risk. We are only witnessing the beginning process of the myriad strands in the great web of life coming asunder. “Let no man tear asunder what God hath joined together.” The joining, like the very dance of DNA, is a poem of coitus, the embrace of Yin for Yang and Yang for Yin… when that covenant, and it is love expressed through carnal relations, is broken, ALL HELL breaks loose. Only teaching respect for the masculine side of the great force has weakened its feminine counterpart. I hear the words of Jim Morrison, prophet, ringing, “What have they done to the earth… what have they done to our fair sister, tied her with fences and dragged her down.” When the music’s over… he saw the shadow of darkness before it came into its now full spectrum dominance; but this too shall one day pass.
I am not so sure that full spectrum dominance is a patriarchal happening.
Certainly our corporations and the military leadership are dominated by males.
One could argue though that these mutually benefiting interwoven power relationships between the military and their corporate benefactors are the result of the TINA (There is no alternative to the so called ‘free market’) doctrine that has allot of non guided inertia like America’s penchant for big cars while sensible alternatives like the Zenn electric car are shunned …and how do you get a date on a bike!
America’s standard of living which applies to both genders in the Mc mansion nest building competitive quest has been based on exploiting third world countries and trashing our Gaia for a good long while now.
In terms of forming families and developing values perhaps females have had the upper hand in the past. Now perhaps it is the main stream media that weans us and tells us ‘who we are, what we wish to become, and how to get there’.
Conquest rape and plunder has been the story for a good long while now as powerful families and families of nations have tried to dominate our spaceship home. Now though something less controllable and more sinister seems to be the run away corporate multinationals who have the economic system by the balls and their only plan is profit while they cheer that no one is at the wheel.
I’m not disrespecting anyone’s mother. American women have a lot of power, we just don’t use it. When it comes to raising sons, I can say, as an admirer of men in general, that most do not have the breeding or training (if you prefer) to be gentleman and often, men are not even respectful on a first date! I can remember when you dated for a decent period of time before “putting out” - now everyone seems to think a first date is the standard! Good grief - who told men all women were whores? There is just not the disciple, example or redirection coming from parents; society in general suffers, not just women in particular.
Siouxrose__I don`t know whether to vote for you or propose to you, but guess better not do the latter as am happily married. It is certainly a change of pace to read your interesting posts that make us wonder what we are about and where we are going. There is an excess of ignorant trashing and misinformation lately that accomplishes nothing but depressing thought.
Even though the world has always been a violent and messed up planet, there are still a multitude of things that make life worth while. I am of the opinion that we should continue hoping we can reverse the destruction of our country even though it looks like an insurmountable task. Our children and grandchildren need so badly for us to give them the future many of us were given and did not properly appreciate.
pasty empty headed white women vote for the monster
look at her legislative record….
look at her backers
she is no middle aged yuppie
she is a repiglickin
saturated in ambition
cares for no one but herself
up to her eyeballs in war industry
and big pharma money …
Jesus morons wake up
For insight into the US-in-Okinawa problem, including the with-impunity driven treatment of women, read chapter two of Chalmers Johnson’s _Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire_; indeed, read the entire second edition.
KERNEL: I appreciate your affirmations in the forum. I used to write for top NY magazines but since the conservative takeover of media, my articles almos ONLY appear in Spanish! For 15 years I’ve tried to sell movie scripts to Hollywood that featured esoteric themes woven into otherwise (I thought) interesting plot lines. It is so painful to see what instead sells, the constant bang-bang movies, the love of explosive force, the token sexy female who the good guy gets, etc. A formula that makes me ill.
Mankind is capable of amazing things. The mind is the builder, as mystic Edgar Cayce taught. He also made it clear that people must aim their lives at ideals the way the anciet seafarers used the sextant to navigate by specific “fixed” stars. Because so much of mass media is amplifying messages of lower mind, all about immediate gratification, there are not enough people vibrating to the higher consciousness. Christ taught that miracles would occur if people got together and prayed on a common ideal or spiritual objective. Too many use an abbreviated form of this power for self-gratification alone. Having done hundreds, possibly thousands of charts and analyses for clients over the course of over 30 years, I see evidence that shows how the issues we confront today are the remnant of the lessons we failed to meet yesterday (and by that I mean, in prior incarnations).
The entire Tarot (particularly what’s known as the upper Arcanum) represents the battle in the human psyche (and life) between the lower animal nature (me first, might makes right, force rules), and the higher self. It’s a crime that this nation pollutes the collective airwaves with lies that promote war, when peace and those who act in its interests are rendered equivalent enemies of the state. This alone makes clear the metaphor I so often use in this forum, that Mars rules. Remember, as writ in our very DNA, life requires the interplay of the twin gendered forces, best understood as yin and yang. Mars alone cannot make life, and as the statistics on Iraq plainly show, he takes it. What is left in the wake? DU, battered bodies of children? Widowed women? Soulless men? This travesty for the continuation of use of a resource that’s also burning up Gaia and leaving weather systems out of joint is a crime against all things sacred. In my view yesterday’s tornado AIMED at CNN. They have been the megaphone FOR war… as the Buddhists understand and teach, each will be held to account in part at the level of his awareness. Still, willful stupidity, arrogance and aggression when it means OTHERS become victims, hardly gets by with impunity.
I think Saipan needs a mention in this context. Check out Saipan - controversy on Wikipedia.