What is going on in Okinawa?

In case you haven't been keeping up with events, things in Okinawa are taking a strange twist.  Check this out from the Japanese Times...

In an appearance on a Japanese rightist TV network last month, a senior official with the U.S. military branded anti-base demonstrations in Okinawa as “hate speech.”
Robert Eldridge, deputy assistant chief of staff of government and external affairs for the U.S. Marine Corps, made the comments in Japanese during a show on the Okinawa branch of Channel Sakura on Jan. 8. While discussing what he called the unpleasant experiences encountered by some Americans in Okinawa, he explained to the presenter, “As you know, near Futenma there are people (committing) many kinds of hate speech.”
Eldridge’s comments were apparently aimed at residents engaged in demonstrations against the unpopular Futenma Marine Corps base in the city of Ginowan.

Eldridge speaks perfect Japanese and has the customs and courtesies down pat so I don't understand the labeling of protests that have been happening for ... well decades .... hate speech.

But wait it gets worse.  Check this out (same paper, later date)...

On Jan. 22, Capt. Caleb D. Eames, deputy public affairs officer for the Marine Corps Installations Pacific, likened demonstrators to play-acting professional soccer players: “The attempt to appear injured is laughable when you see it in person,” he said.
Eames singled out for criticism demonstrators “lying on the road, holding onto a moving vehicle, and being dragged by their own choice, then claiming that they were scraped while in a peace protest.”

Long story short?  The Okinawans are outraged, and even if the Captain is right there are some things that are best left unsaid.  The move to the Pacific is going to become much more difficult if the basing issue isn't properly sorted out.

This is the ugly side of "forward presence".  When you're using bases on foreign soil, the people where those bases are held DO get a vote. 

All this has led to the inevitable.  Editorials calling for the USMC to leave... (this was a hot issue in the 90's...I thought it was dead with the rise of China)....

U.S. Marine Corps officials have frequently made insulting remarks against Okinawan people opposing U.S. base construction. Their remarks are not just personal opinions, but reflect an entrenched attitude. We cannot help but say prejudice is deeply ingrained in the Marine Corps organization .

Yeah.  This needs to be defused with a quickness before it because a "popular", "media" driven issue taken up by celebrities and sports figures.