U.S. Marine arrested on suspicion of raping 14-year-old girl in Okinawa

Glenski> I'm not quite sure what you are implying, but all I am saying is that the girl technically did not break any laws, and therefore is not bears no legal responsibility or guilt for anything. Sure her actions can be frowned upon, but I don't think it can be used in court to exonerate him from any charges.

Glenski said:

Then why did the girl drop the charges, eh? THINK about it.

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and honestly there are plenty of reasons. It is possible she received threats.

It is possible that she heard alot of people, such as those on this forum, insulting the girl in question without knowing who it was. Her parents may not have wanted to have her be ridiculed and insulted for the rest of her life for believing she was responsible for being molested. At any rate it could certainly give her the reputation of having a lesser character, even if she did none of the things suggested here. Of course, they would have been more inclined to do so if our military has assured the family that they will punish the man accordingly without exposing her identity. but even without that assurance it would make sense they might drop it for that reason.

Or it could be that he didn't rape her but still molested her and that she may have made some false accusations against him, which resulted in her parents deciding not to continue with it any farther for a variety of reasons.

Or it could have been one of many other reasons. We don't know, but I hope if anyone hears any updates on what steps our military is taking in addressing the issue that they post it here!

Wow..

Yes, this man should be put in jail for a long time. He has no business playing around with a girl of that age. In america, Consent is usually at a minimum 16 years old. At 14 years old, that is considerd rape.

I would like to direct a question at thouse who feel American Service Members have a free ride. I would like to see evidence of an american service member recently (within the past 20 years) commiting a crime and blatently geting away with it. Show me some links and some proof of this. I bet you will not find it.

Capster78 said:

I would like to see evidence of an american service member recently (within the past 20 years) commiting a crime and blatently geting away with it. Show me some links and some proof of this. I bet you will not find it.

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That's a tough one to supply. The problem finding that info are the service members are usually turned over to the US authorities, and anyone that knows anything about our (the US) judicial system knows that its not worth a thing, since criminals are set free so easily. I personally know of 2 guys that committed crimes overseas, one in Thailand the other in Japan, and neither was punished. The crimes involved soliciting a minor (a mistake in processing allowed drop charges) and the other was about $500 worth of vandalism.

I am 100% against SOFA because it encourages people to misbehave.

FactsGuy said:

That's a tough one to supply. The problem finding that info are the service members are usually turned over to the US authorities, and anyone that knows anything about our (the US) judicial system knows that its not worth a thing, since criminals are set free so easily. I personally know of 2 guys that committed crimes overseas, one in Thailand the other in Japan, and neither was punished. The crimes involved soliciting a minor (a mistake in processing allowed drop charges) and the other was about $500 worth of vandalism.
I am 100% against SOFA because it encourages people to misbehave.

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No, they are not. Actually in most cases, unless it is just a minor offence, the majority are turned over to the host country and tried in their courts as long as it is percieved they will get a fair trial and will not be exposed to torture in captivity or extreem punishment.

I dissagree. I believe we have to have a SOFA agreement due to the fact that the legal system of many other countries are entirely different than ours. Would you subject our troops to a legal system that may be biased or has overly harsh punishments? There are alot of countries out there that will find you guilty just because you are American. Before you even set foot in a court your guilty in their eyes. In alot of countries punishments are extreem such as cuting off a limb for stealing. Other countries do not have free speach laws, so technically if one of our servicemembers expresses any type of free speach against the country their in they could be breaking a host nation law.

The reason why we need a sofa agreement is to protect our soldiers against unfair trials, extreem punishment and laws that we generally do not enforce in america (such as free speech laws and womens rights laws). In some countries it is against the law for a woman to do certain things such as what they should wear in public, who they should marry and other things. Do you want our females in the military subject to this type of law. All of what I have mentioned above is the reason why we have SOFA agreements. Generally if we see that the host countries justice system is fair and the punishments are as well, we have no problem turning over law breakers to the host nation. We do it all the time in Korea, Japan and Europe.

The reason most countries protest the SOFA agreement is because they have the false premise that American soldiers get away with whatever they want. This is propogated usually be the political party or organization in that country which just does not want us there.

The cases you mentioned above are probably oddities. They don't happen very often like that. I can not comment without knowing further detail. I personally have not heard of anyone geting away with anything in the 3 years I have been overseas. Infact, most get punished more severly overseas then they do in the states because they are tried by a militar court. Many military justices like to make examples of people in an overseas enviornment because they want to remind us we are embassadors of our country so many times the punishments are harsher than they would normally be. Not only that, the base populace also gets punished more severly in an overseas location when an event occurs.

And to address your comment about our legal syste.. I think you need to spend some time overseas and see other legal systems and how they compare. Our legal system is lighyears ahead of just about anywhere I have been so far. Be happy you have the legal system you have in the states. You can look at cases where service members did go the host nations court system and get far less severe punishment then the military would have imposed. Several rape cases here in japan and korea only got 5 years in prison vs the 10-20+ years they would have gotten in a military or stateside court.

Many times in Japan if you commit a crime, as long as you fess up to the crime and make a public appology you are pardoned.

Other countries believe we have so much crime in the US because we have so many people behind bars. Why is that do you think? Could it possibly be because our legal system works? Why else would we have one of the largest crime rates in the world? Is it because we catch more crimes than most other countries do? I think so. Just because we have a lower crime rate on paper does not relate to reality. Our police just catch more criminals while in other countires, criminals get away more often.

hanachan said:

The US Forces stations all over the world. People of other countries have the same problem?
In Japan many rapes committed by GIs in the past. I think that the most of GIs are well trained and keep discipline, and their crime rate is very low. However, once it happens, it seems to be a very brutal crime like murder or rape.
I want to hear from US servicemen, what do you think about this stupid GI? Is he a disgrace to the US Forces?

Is he innocence about the rape and just kissing her?
If it's so, I say he is a stupid man again. this 38-year-old staff sergeant should know that it's a crime to take 14-year-old girl to his home. (Is it same in the US?)

"ﾅ誰ﾅｽqﾅ?ﾃｫ窶堋､窶堋ｫ窶堙俄?ｹﾃ淒?ﾃｱ窶堙ｧ窶堋ｸ" to both side.

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Don't know if anyone has responded to this, yet, but my family is a military family. My brother is serving in Iraq right now. These incidents do happen, and it seems infrequent in Japanese prefectures, but the honest truth is that things like this happen on a monthly basis in Iraq.

War brings out the worst in people. I am hopeful that military service is not the same way.

Get real!

Goldiegirl said:

In the overall picture it doesn't matter as I stated. This man had not even been tried yet, is he not innocent until proven guilty?

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You're kidding, right? A fourteen-year-old girl crying about being raped, & a 38 year-old soldier claiming "I only got on top of her and kissed her"??

Its kinda like the case of the missing cake, with a little boy swearing he didn't eat it. "I only held it in front of my face & made 'eating' faces.."

Yes, try the man, but in my experience, the man is guilty as sin & should be executed.

Jitenchakun said:

You're kidding, right? A fourteen-year-old girl crying about being raped, & a 38 year-old soldier claiming "I only got on top of her and kissed her"??

Its kinda like the case of the missing cake, with a little boy swearing he didn't eat it. "I only held it in front of my face & made 'eating' faces.."

Yes, try the man, but in my experience, the man is guilty as sin & should be executed.

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I think its a bit harsh to call for an execution, but I do think he needs to be punished in some way.

Capster78 said:

I think its a bit harsh to call for an execution, but I do think he needs to be punished in some way.

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You're right, of course, but it burns me up when people make such outrageous lies in order to cover up their bad behavior.

Jitenchakun said:

You're right, of course, but it burns me up when people make such outrageous lies in order to cover up their bad behavior.

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The news about these frequent rapes gets pretty thin once it leaves Okinawa.

If it was a Western rapist the pictures are all over the place for ages. Thus, I assume in this case the attacker was unlikely to be Western.

The Okinawa people say that they want the US troops out now, but if they can't do it immediately then at least remove the non-Western ones. (But they used slightly different verbiage).

Those poor people! So many young men so far from home! It's an accident waiting to happen. Like a slow-motion Nanking.

mael said:

The news about these frequent rapes gets pretty thin once it leaves Okinawa.
If it was a Western rapist the pictures are all over the place for ages. Thus, I assume in this case the attacker was unlikely to be Western.

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Well, you lose because of ASSuming.

What non-western troops are in Okinawa, by the way?[/QUOTE]

Glenski said:

What non-western troops are in Okinawa, by the way?

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Come on Glenski everyone knows the answer to that one....JEITAI

posts deleted, did not find it necessary to make an off topic thread regarding african american, black person, black american, black skinned person.

Let's get back to the topic, I'm watching you . Have fun

On the same month a pinoy girl who WORK in Japan raped by an american in Okinawa too.

If this animal is guilty then he should promptly be taken out and executed. The girl should not have been out so late, and further more she should not have gotten into the car with that pig. Her parents should be given a fine for carelessness. The girl should have time taken off to recover from such an incident. My condolences to her and the family.

hey I understand that everyone is angry at this American man, and if I was there I'd rip his throat out, but let us not misdirect our anger and come of as prejudice. It will make things worst. Besides, it is sort of our faults to there are a lot of perverted things in our country like hentai,tentacle rape, rapelay(a disgusting game), and the purchase of dirty girls' underwear. We also make our women appear weak. So if we were to blame all Americans we'd be hypocrites.

humanityissad said:

hey I understand that everyone is angry at this American man, and if I was there I'd rip his throat out, but let us not misdirect our anger and come of as prejudice. It will make things worst. Besides, it is sort of our faults to there are a lot of perverted things in our country like hentai,tentacle rape, rapelay(a disgusting game), and the purchase of dirty girls' underwear. We also make our women appear weak. So if we were to blame all Americans we'd be hypocrites.

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I agree,There is alot of raping crimes everywhere so we should not focus on the nationality.