American Diplomat Assaulted With Coffee

[Mulboyne]

[Mike Oxlong]

It's very likely the Starbucks in Barclays Court, which is a shopping center located adjacent to the American Consulate in Urasoe City. Consulate staff are regularly spotted there.

[Mulboyne]

Seems like it from this picture:

[Mike Oxlong]

http://www.otv.co.jp/news/real2009/090406_2h.ram

Video on Okinawa TV.

[Mike Oxlong]

[BO-SENSEI]

thats messed up that this happened at a starbucks, the girls at my local starbuck love it when i stop by and try to speak japanese with them. can't wait for the the dark mocha and berry frappachino.

[xenomorph42]

Holy shit, It's Maher dressed as Mr. Rooney!! I thought there was some sort of angle about this story.

[Mike Oxlong]

the girls at my local starbuck love it when i stop by and try to speak japanese with them. can't wait for the the dark mocha and berry frappachino.

I've heard Maher give speeches in Okinawa. His Japanese is just fine. The girls at Starbucks didn't seem to mind his patronage...

[james]

beat me to it! first thing i thought of when i saw the pic was "bueller, bueller, anyone?"

[Mike Oxlong]

beat me to it! first thing i thought of when i saw the pic was "bueller, bueller, anyone?"

Apparently, transfer to a semi-remote outpost in the position of Consul General is a demotion for a broken high school principal...though to see him rolling in his top-of-the-line black Land Cruiser, you'd think he was doing alright. Yeah, those diplomat plates and red hair do stand out.

[nottu]

[Iraira]

thats messed up that this happened at a starbucks, the girls at my local starbuck love it when i stop by and try to speak japanese with them. can't wait for the the dark mocha and berry frappachino.

Lay off my Starbuck's girls...they are mine, once they turn street legal!;)
I so badly want to hear a girl whisper in my ear, "Give me a double shot of milky foam....vente...oh, yes...vente."

[Behan]

Mmmmm.........nice coffee.

(Actually Mike Oxlong's post in Prized Bull Semen Missing is much better: http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/showthread.php?p=216212#post216212)

[Samurai_Jerk]

Yankee go home! ... but please leave your overpriced chain cafe.

[TennoChinko]

[Mulboyne]

Credit to Maher for "taking control" of Yamamoto until the police arrived.

[Mike Oxlong]

Maher had a bit of a rough ride on Ishigaki...

http://www.rbc-ryukyu.co.jp/wmv/0403-01.asx

This one show him getting pushed around a bit...at about the 1:38 mark onward.

http://www.otv.co.jp/news/real2009/090403_1h.ram

[kurohinge1]

Credit to Maher for "taking control" of Yamamoto until the police arrived.

At least it wasn't a shoe that was thrown.

[Mike Oxlong]

[Mike Oxlong]

[SIZE="4"]U.S. replaces diplomat after comments irk Japan[/SIZE]

The United States has replaced the head of the Japan desk at the State Department, the U.S. embassy in Tokyo said on Thursday, after reported comments by the diplomat had threatened to strain ties between the two close allies.

Japanese media had quoted Kevin Maher, director of the office of Japan affairs at the State Department, as telling U.S. college students that residents of the southern island of Okinawa -- host to about half the U.S. military in Japan -- were masters of "manipulation" and "extortion"...

[matsuki]

LOL, can't wait for the next episode of this comedy.

[Mike Oxlong]

via Foreign Policy Magazine

...What Maher didn't know at the time of his meeting was that this was no ordinary group of American University students. One leader of the group was a Japanese activist who works hard to build opposition to any U.S. basing on Okinawa. That activist, Sayo Saruta, was one of two student leaders for the group of mostly American AU students and participated in the meeting at the State Department. Maher didn't know that the group was led by an anti-base activist until the memo was leaked this week.

The State Department could have known Saruta's agenda had they just done a little research. She is a very public critic of U.S. military bases in Japan. The website for the students' Japan trip identifies her as "the leader of the Network for Okinawa, an organization calling for the closure of bases in Okinawa."

Saruta also works with the website closethebase.org, which is run with help from the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal foreign policy think tank in Washington, DC. John Feffer, who works at IPS and is co-director of their Foreign Policy in Focus project, told The Cable that the purpose of the Network for Okinawa "was to have a U.S. counterpart for the activists in Okinawa."

Feffer said he didn't know if Maher's remarks were reported accurately but he said that if they were, they were an "expression of frustration among U.S. government officials about the consistent opposition by Okinawans to any plan to relocate the Futenma base on Okinawa and frustration with the Japanese government for not moving more quickly."

The original idea to relocate the base was agreed to in 1996 and the plan to do it was signed by both governments in 2006. Since then, the Liberal Democratic Party, which ruled Japan since World War II, fell to a government led by the Democratic Party of Japan, which hasn't been able or willing to confront local Okinawan politicians on the issue.

"For the most part the U.S. government hasn't really cared what the politics are in Okinawa. They've worked through Tokyo and expect the Tokyo government to take care of the situation, which hasn't happened," Feffer said.

The Obama administration came in hoping to work with the DPJ on the Futenma issue, but cooperation and top-level relations broke down in late 2009 when then Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama promised the Japanese he would move the base off of Okinawa and then reversed himself.

"There is always some level of opposition to U.S.-Japan proposals for realigning bases on Okinawa. It is much worse now because Hatoyama raised and then dashed expectations in a way that made a difficult problem even harder," said Michael Green, who was the NSC's senior director for Asia during the Bush administration. He defended Maher, who was the head consular official in Okinawa from 2006 to 2009.

"Maher is a veteran Japan hand who knows the politics of Okinawa better than just about anyone. It sounds like this was an ambush and his comments were selectively distorted to suit the agenda of the event organizers, though perhaps he should have seen that coming given the audience," said Green. "In any case, the real fault is with the Japanese press for trying to manufacture a crisis out of an off-the-record discussion with students."

Japan expert Mindy Kotler, who directs the organization Asia Policy Point, said that both sides are to blame. U.S. officials often talk insensitively about the Okinawan objections to the base and Okinawans often blow such comments widely out of proportion.

Nevertheless, the incident illustrates that the small cadre of U.S. government officials and experts who have been dealing with Japan for years is not tuned in to the rising level of frustration in Japan about American policy and the growing momentum of the anti-base movement both in Japan and around the world, she said.

"There's no reason that Maher should have gone into that room thinking this was just another group of average college kids," Kotler said.

"Instead of getting upset of what he did or did not say we should focus on where the frustration comes from. The alliance managers have not done enough to try to understand what's behind the changing politics in Japan and how to adapt."

[Mike Oxlong]

Interview with WSJ Japan 'Real Time'...I wuz framed. Has a few things to say about Japan's future after 3-11 (apparently he worked coordinating some relief from the State Dept.)

http://online.wsj.com/video/exclusive-us-state-department-ex-japan-head/D70468C6-6227-44FA-86B7-7F4EA81E96CA.html

[Mike Oxlong]

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Don't know (or really care) about most of the facts of this case, but the stench of entrapment surrounding Maher's alleged comments (secret activists in the group, teacher stabbing him in the back, etc.) gives them a semblance of credibility in my books...(which probably means sweet FA, but I thought I'd throw my two bob's worth in anyway).

[Greji]

Don't know (or really care) about most of the facts of this case, but the stench of entrapment surrounding Maher's alleged comments (secret activists in the group, teacher stabbing him in the back, etc.) gives them a semblance of credibility in my books...(which probably means sweet FA, but I thought I'd throw my two bob's worth in anyway).

Hair, the anti-US/anti-base movement has been doing this for years. It would appear that it was their real chance to fry a fish of Kevin's position and the media piled in. Shades of Rolling Stone filleting a certain General.

[cstaylor]

You'd think when someone reaches Maher's level, they've mastered the art of politics enough not to get blindsided like this.

I can understand someone like McCrystal getting rolled. Compared to the diplomatic corps, Generals have a history of shooting off their mouths.

[Greji]

You'd think when someone reaches Maher's level, they've mastered the art of politics enough not to get blindsided like this.

I can understand someone like McCrystal getting rolled. Compared to the diplomatic corps, Generals have a history of shooting off their mouths.

BTW CST if you haven't heard. McCrystal was given a clean bill of health by the Pentagon Commission set up to investigate his case. All of the witnesses stated he did not make any of the statements attributed to him by R.Stones and where there were any similarities to what he said, they were taken out of context.

You probably right about Kevin. I know him. He's married to a J-gal and is an old Japan hand. I would guess it was more of a case of sarcastic, or even joking remarks taken out of context, than a willful attack on Japan, or specifically Okinawa. Interesting how after the initial splash, it almost completely disappeared from the media...

[cstaylor]

You probably right about Kevin. I know him. He's married to a J-gal and is an old Japan hand. I would guess it was more of a case of sarcastic, or even joking remarks taken out of context, than a willful attack on Japan, or specifically Okinawa.

Sarcasm, unlike satire, fails on the written page. On the other hand, he could have said nothing at all and the activist in question could have put words in his mouth.

[Greji]

Sarcasm, unlike satire, fails on the written page. On the other hand, he could have said nothing at all and the activist in question could have put words in his mouth.

Well said, and goes back to the crux or Hair's post. First, what were these other people seeded in this type of a seminar for? The whole thing stinks to high heaven of a set up....