I read the March 30 letter "What soldiers' criminal acts convey" with great interest as it was from a Japanese Okinawan. This is what I retain from the statistics offered by the author:
(1) "Twenty-eight crimes" in 13 years. Wow. The hundreds of thousands of U.S. military service members and families who have been stationed in Japan are really barbarians!
(2) Sixteen percent of these 28 crimes are rape, arson or armed robbery. That's 4.5 rapes, incidents of arson or armed robberies in 13 years?! No disrespect intended to the victims, but I would love to live in a town like this. Where I come from in France, we get this just about every month.
(3) Eighty-eight percent of these crimes by U.S. military members were committed on Okinawa. This is regrettable but expected due to the concentration of military forces.
Of course, one crime is one crime too many, but in my view, 28 felons in a group of hundreds of thousands of persons over 13 years are indeed an exception. The author of the letter is, of course, entitled to his opinion and I respect that, but in my opinion, his use of statistics actually demonstrates the exact opposite of his argument.
All he has to do is simply state that, as a Japanese and Okinawan, he wants all U.S. military personnel and their families removed from his island and his country, whether they commit crimes or not. No other explanation is required. It's his country and his right to want people he does not want out of it.
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