and what ignorance would that be? Did you have something to contribute of any intelligence or merely mindless gainsaying, sarcasm, and snark?
I find it interesting that people like you presume intellectual superiority when you haven't the first idea how to actually form either thoughts or arguments.
1.Your point about fertilizers not contributing to CO2 in plants means that the methane from cows is not a net increase in atmospheric green house gases.
2. As to methane turning into CO2 after it breaks down... yes... but then we're talking about CO2 again and not methane... and the contribution of to atmospheric CO2 from human live stock methane emissions breaking down into CO2 is so tiny as to not be worth talking about.
3. I eat meat. If you don't like that, then populate the world with a different species of sapients. This species... mine... eats meat.
4. As to vegetarians coming from all sides... not in the west. The vegi lobby is progressive hacks in the west. Your defense of them is frankly an amusing bit of evidence in that vein since you don't comment to anything I say unless I poke progressives... then there you are.
Had the USSR stayed within the limitations of that invitation then that would have been fine.
It was when they stormed the presidential palace, killed the the former members of the government, and imposed their own government that it would be hard to claim they were there with the blessing of the government.
Unless the government wanted the Soviets to murder them?
The Soviets enjoyed no parity with the US for conduct. It isn't even close. And the modern Russians are demonstrably not a great deal better.
All powers have histories of invasions. This isn't justification for anything that any other power couldn't claim with equal justification.
Given that Russia is demanding that lots of countries in eastern europe be defenseless because otherwise they feel vulnerable... that is not justifiable. Their vulnerability is as valid as Russias.
Russia says an invasion from XY could reach their borders. Fine. But then Russia has proven they will send invasions into Eastern Europe. While since the end of the Cold War Russia has not been invaded by any of its old Sat states.
Therefore, Russia's concern is at best hypocritical and at worst a deceptive ploy to keep a future target vulnerable for invasion.
As to Russia's population... you're ignoring their massive exodus from Russia. City is full of Russian expats. Half the taxi drivers and plumbers are Russians. The cream of Russia's population LEAVES. If you're smart, educated, talented... why stay in Russia? You'll have a better life, more rights, and a more stable future for your family if you leave.
So they do.
The only thing keeping Russia from imploding is patriotism... misplaced loyalty to a government dominated by oligarchs that see their own people as peasants and slaves.
Break that... and Russia as a concept... much less a nation... dies.
As to dismissing them... no no... they're being watched very closely. What they say means almost nothing to us at this point. Too many lies. Too much betrayal.
We watch them. With the sound off. At this point the only thing of relevance to us out of Russia is actions.
The oil deal with another olive branch from the US.
We made good faith efforts to forgive Russia and help them become a productive, successful, and happy member of the First world.
The Second world died with the fall of the USSR... so... Russia could be First world or Third world.
We helped them keep their space program alive with the ISS. We offered them markets to sell their exports to help their economy. We let them sit in on NATO meetings so they could feel politically and militarily comfortable with what was going on.
And we were in talks about actually adding Russia to NATO. That sounds insane now but it has to be pointed out that the US was trying very very hard to put the cold war relationship behind us.
We shut down the CIA operations in Russia to a large extent. We cut military spending or redirected it to other types of defense spending that are not threatening to nation states like Russia.
Russia has betrayed every trust they were extended and exploited every weakness. The people in the US that were trying to make nice with Russia have been humiliated and have lost all credibility. This is an aspect of American politics that most counties don't understand about it.
We're not one person or one party. Our rivals typically have a unitary political structure where if they make mistakes or circumstances change the same people will be making decisions even if they keep making mistakes.
In the US, the people that make decisions changes all the time. And a lot of the control on who gets to make decisions is based on who has the most credibility. During times of peace you're going to get the more diplomatically minded people making all the plans.
If there is money to be made or trade is important then you're going to have industry and business people influencing the issue.
When the diplomatic efforts blow up in everyone's faces and there isn't any money to be made... the military minds take over.
There are sub factions and more factions outside of these three but the point is that the way the US thinks about something shifts very quickly sometimes because the people making the decisions and their backgrounds can change.
And that means the US is prone to very very sudden changes in the way it does things. The Imperial Japanese were very surprised that the attack on Pearl Harbor caused the US to go to TOTAL WAR with them... where nothing was acceptable short of unconditional surrender. For years, the Japanese had been poking the US and the US ignored it or send strong letters asking the Japanese to stop it.
What happened in Pearl Harbor is that it scared Americans and it humiliated the people that said we could have peace with the Japanese. Instantly they lost all credibility and they were replaced with people that had a military mindset. US thinking changed in an instant... completely. Because the people making the decisions were completely different people.
The same thing happened in 9/11. Terrorists had been attacking US embassies and generally causing problems around the world for years. The US mostly ignored it. I think we would occasionally fire some cruise missiles at what was often an abandoned terrorist camp in the middle of the desert somewhere. Ineffective and largely perfunctory responses. It was Osama's theory that if he hit the US hard he would show his allies that the US was a paper tiger. That the US was all talk. That his people could get away with anything with impunity because the US would not respond with anything seriously.
He triggered the same response. The diplomats sat down and shut up... and the people calling the shots shifted to people with a different way of thinking. Osama was completely taken off guard by the sudden and complete shift in US policy.
The Russians have made a similar mistake. They have assumed that the way the US was responding to Russia after the fall of the USSR would be maintained consistently. In attacking Georgia and then Ukraine... in making threatening comments to the US.
As to why we held off on airstrikes on ISIS... what Obama's strategy is in Iraq is extremely nebulous. I don't think anyone really understands with clarity what he's trying to do.
The previous strategists see only incoherence and incompetence... is it incompetence? Really we don't know... we'll not know what Obama is thinking until we get access to his library and his advisers start writing tell all books.
It all could be a carefully crafted master plan... it could all be stupidity... we don't know.
He lacks the honesty to admit he was wrong. Its a common thing and one of the more annoying aspects to the internet.
In real life people get filtered. If you've not had the education you don't get into certain places to even express your opinion. If you don't have a proven track record of integrity there are a lot of discussions you're just not going to be called on to open your mouth. Etc.
And the double edged sword of the internet is that everyone can speak... even idiots and liars.
We are not owned by China. The Chinese owning US bonds does not give them leverage over us. It gives us leverage over them.
US debt is paid in US dollars and only on bond maturity which is a term of the bond we defined. If the US economy suffers the value of the dollar goes down and we pay the chinese LESS without defaulting on our obligations.
What is more, US debt interest rates are so low that the chinese are basically paying us to lend us money. If you look into the capital opportunity costs to say nothing of the inflation rates... the Chinese are not getting back 100 percent of their principle when they buy US bonds.
As to copper... my uncle has a similar set up in the hills. Off grid... He ran a fiber line from his house about a mile from the road to the road. And then had internet/phone/tv installed there... then he moves the entire signal to his house using a media converter through the fiber.
Long story short... he the comforts of a fully wired house while being extremely rural.
Skipping over your fixation on useless statistics.
As to Iran... death to america... destroy israel... the israelis drink baby blood... blah blah blah... sure. Who do you think you're fooling besides yourself? No one, I can assure you is buying that Iran just wants to defend themselves. Why are the Saudis talking about getting nuclear weapons themselves. Do you think you understand the Iranians better than their regional neighbors? Comical. Everyone in the region is talking about going nuclear to deter Iranian nuclear weapons which implies the don't believe that iran only wants them defensively.
As to US alliances to help people... context. During WW2 we allied with the Soviets. Was that a violation of our democratic principles? Should we have allied with Hitler instead? He was democratically elected after all and Stalin was not. The world is more complex than you are appreciating. Someone being elected democratically doesn't mean they're not crazy or monsters or a threat to world peace. You cite the US for example as being out of control even though we elect all our people democratically. Where then are your principles? Shouldn't you support us against dictators if all it takes for you to support or oppose someone is whether or not an election happened?
You've made yourself a hypocrite by making the cardinal error of trying to win. Never try to win in a discussion. Instead, try to be right. In being right you win... if you just try to win you'll ultimately be wrong because you'll try to skip to the victory. And you'll therefore lose. I don't try to win these discussions. I try to be right. And in being right... I win.
As to bars being raised by causalities... you can't show that those numbers didn't raise the bar for the US or that they were not considered. You keep citing these arbitrary numbers and assuming to have some notion of our thought process from it. You know damn well we care about causalities. You say "but you went to war anyway"... yes, but that doesn't mean we didn't care. It means rather that we calculated in other things and deemed the price acceptable. No where in your argument can you say something like "Y freedoms is worth X lives" or "Z global security is worth X lives"... there's no translation. All you can say is "because X lives died you shouldn't have done Z thing"... but that's at best an opinion. But you're attempting to make moral and ethical judgments upon it. And you're doing it while ignoring our intents which renders any moral calculation to be meaningless since intent is a core aspect to any moral judgment.
As to word games over ad hominems... I'm not impressed by them or confused by them. They annoy me but they will not be effective.
China putting sanctions on stuff we don't want to import in the first place...
And from this you say we can't put sanctions on stuff to china or from china? We do already... all the time. The US has trade limits on lots of things that can't be exported to china or other places.
As to china getting independence from US trade... not really. Their dependence on the US is extreme. Keep in mind, we can influence trade throughout the first world and that is the majority of the global market. The US is 25 percent of the market all by itself. And for some goods well over 80 percent.
As to walmart, a point you should keep in mind is that china doesn't get all the profits from stuff "made in china"... if a foreign company owns the product line then most of the profit goes to that company... those companies tend to be American. And then if the product being made in china required parts fabricated in other countries then that profit goes to those countries... Japan often as not gets a cut there.
In the end, China tends to get about 30 percent of the profit of things "made in china"... somewhere between 70 to 50 percent goes to the US... and the remainder goes to other places like Japan.
Your standard requires the Russians accepting the deal.
That has no baring on whether the US has offered repeatedly.
We have. Since the start.
Reagan offered. Bush 1 offered. Clinton offered. Bush 2 offered. and now Obama is offering.
We've always offered. And I even went so far as to explain why it is in our interests.
The US has superior conventional forces. In a world where ICBMs are irrelevant the US would be MORE powerful not less powerful. Where as the Russians would be almost irrelevant. The modern Russian military is about as scary as Saddam's military in Gulf war 1 WITHOUT the nuclear weapons.
Which is to say... of no real threat to the US. So would we share the anti missile tech? Sure.
If it seals the deal then we'd be stupid not to do it.
Natural monopolies don't need governments telling you that you can't compete with someone by law.
Last mile is not a natural monopoly. Intel just about has a natural monopoly... its not total but they have a strong big of market dominance because they make a superior product at a price for that quality that competitors have a hard time matching.
And that is how natural monopolies work.
Government backed monopolies however work by the government saying "compete with X and I'll shoot you in the face."
Last mile has the government forbidding people from competing with it. So... its not natural.
Crime statistics between countries are not comparable.
For example, the Japanese classify unsolved murders as accidential deaths or suicides. This is why the japanese claim a homocide conviction rate or something like 98 percent. Where as in the US it is below 50 percent.
Most national statistics are not comparable unless you first understand how they're collected and how the politics of the statistics change from one country to another.
These stats are not collected by impartial robots. And the methodology used for them is not uniform. The stats are mostly applicable to themselves. Trying to compare them to an entirely different country means you need to go through a study, analysis, and then conversion process which to my knowledge no one has bothered to do because it would be time consuming and expensive.
If you'd like another example you can look at infant mortality rates in the US which look higher than most first world countries but this is a similar issue.
In most first world countries they do not count under weight babies as being live births in the first place. They also require the baby be able to breath on its own at birth. They also do not give respiration aid to the babies. Some countries require that babies cry on their own at birth or they are not considered live births in the statistics.
In the US, we count babies that are underweight as live births even though they are more prone to die. We also provide respiration. We do not require that babies be able to breath on their own. And we do not care if the baby cries or not for our statistics.
This means the US records more sickly babies as being live births than other countries. We also keep alive babies that would have otherwise died in other countries without even being counted... and some of them subsequently die days or weeks later.
This gives the US a higher infant mortality rate. But you can't say our rate is higher than another country without both the US and that other country having the same definition for what is a live birth. Associating the two statistics requires a calibration statistic where we estimate how many babies are underweight, aren't breathing, don't cry, etc that are being added to US statistics... and then then we have to estimate their contribution to the US infant mortality rate which is naturally going to be the majority of it because they're sickly babies. And then we have to subtract those deaths from the US infant mortality rate to a statistic that is consistent with international standards... and THEN we can compare US infant mortality rates with other countries... assuming we've compensated for everything.
Point is... you can't compare Japanese rape stats with American rape stats. You don't know what is going on in either country.
Keep in mind various countries have different definitions of rape. Consider Saudi Arabia where i think they need two male witnesses for a rape accusation to even be made.
I don't know anything about Japanese or more specifically Okinawa rape statistics. But I also am pretty sure that neither do you. And the thing is that if you don't know you can't draw any conclusions from those numbers because you don't know how they were collected or what people define the variables as and thus you don't know what those numbers even mean.
Slashdot Mirror
and what ignorance would that be? Did you have something to contribute of any intelligence or merely mindless gainsaying, sarcasm, and snark?
I find it interesting that people like you presume intellectual superiority when you haven't the first idea how to actually form either thoughts or arguments.
All questions are relative and contextual.
Suggesting absolute standards be held or be taken seriously is impractical.
1.Your point about fertilizers not contributing to CO2 in plants means that the methane from cows is not a net increase in atmospheric green house gases.
2. As to methane turning into CO2 after it breaks down... yes... but then we're talking about CO2 again and not methane... and the contribution of to atmospheric CO2 from human live stock methane emissions breaking down into CO2 is so tiny as to not be worth talking about.
3. I eat meat. If you don't like that, then populate the world with a different species of sapients. This species... mine... eats meat.
4. As to vegetarians coming from all sides... not in the west. The vegi lobby is progressive hacks in the west. Your defense of them is frankly an amusing bit of evidence in that vein since you don't comment to anything I say unless I poke progressives... then there you are.
Hello there. I see you. ;-)
Your position is based on your lack of belief. Mine is based on official statements from the US government.
My position has more basis as yours is mere supposition.
The offer was made. The Russians rejected it.
Case closed.
Next case.
Had the USSR stayed within the limitations of that invitation then that would have been fine.
It was when they stormed the presidential palace, killed the the former members of the government, and imposed their own government that it would be hard to claim they were there with the blessing of the government.
Unless the government wanted the Soviets to murder them?
The Soviets enjoyed no parity with the US for conduct. It isn't even close. And the modern Russians are demonstrably not a great deal better.
Login and we'll discuss this in more detail.
I don't talk about things in detail with AC's... login and we'll talk about it.
All powers have histories of invasions. This isn't justification for anything that any other power couldn't claim with equal justification.
Given that Russia is demanding that lots of countries in eastern europe be defenseless because otherwise they feel vulnerable... that is not justifiable. Their vulnerability is as valid as Russias.
Russia says an invasion from XY could reach their borders. Fine. But then Russia has proven they will send invasions into Eastern Europe. While since the end of the Cold War Russia has not been invaded by any of its old Sat states.
Therefore, Russia's concern is at best hypocritical and at worst a deceptive ploy to keep a future target vulnerable for invasion.
As to Russia's population... you're ignoring their massive exodus from Russia. City is full of Russian expats. Half the taxi drivers and plumbers are Russians. The cream of Russia's population LEAVES. If you're smart, educated, talented... why stay in Russia? You'll have a better life, more rights, and a more stable future for your family if you leave.
So they do.
The only thing keeping Russia from imploding is patriotism... misplaced loyalty to a government dominated by oligarchs that see their own people as peasants and slaves.
Break that... and Russia as a concept... much less a nation... dies.
As to dismissing them... no no... they're being watched very closely. What they say means almost nothing to us at this point. Too many lies. Too much betrayal.
We watch them. With the sound off. At this point the only thing of relevance to us out of Russia is actions.
Login and I'll prove it.
Precisely.
Russia's intentions were tested. They failed. All Putin has accomplished was making our eyes glitter when we look upon them. He made a mistake.
The oil deal with another olive branch from the US.
We made good faith efforts to forgive Russia and help them become a productive, successful, and happy member of the First world.
The Second world died with the fall of the USSR... so... Russia could be First world or Third world.
We helped them keep their space program alive with the ISS. We offered them markets to sell their exports to help their economy. We let them sit in on NATO meetings so they could feel politically and militarily comfortable with what was going on.
And we were in talks about actually adding Russia to NATO. That sounds insane now but it has to be pointed out that the US was trying very very hard to put the cold war relationship behind us.
We shut down the CIA operations in Russia to a large extent. We cut military spending or redirected it to other types of defense spending that are not threatening to nation states like Russia.
Russia has betrayed every trust they were extended and exploited every weakness. The people in the US that were trying to make nice with Russia have been humiliated and have lost all credibility. This is an aspect of American politics that most counties don't understand about it.
We're not one person or one party. Our rivals typically have a unitary political structure where if they make mistakes or circumstances change the same people will be making decisions even if they keep making mistakes.
In the US, the people that make decisions changes all the time. And a lot of the control on who gets to make decisions is based on who has the most credibility. During times of peace you're going to get the more diplomatically minded people making all the plans.
If there is money to be made or trade is important then you're going to have industry and business people influencing the issue.
When the diplomatic efforts blow up in everyone's faces and there isn't any money to be made... the military minds take over.
There are sub factions and more factions outside of these three but the point is that the way the US thinks about something shifts very quickly sometimes because the people making the decisions and their backgrounds can change.
And that means the US is prone to very very sudden changes in the way it does things. The Imperial Japanese were very surprised that the attack on Pearl Harbor caused the US to go to TOTAL WAR with them... where nothing was acceptable short of unconditional surrender. For years, the Japanese had been poking the US and the US ignored it or send strong letters asking the Japanese to stop it.
What happened in Pearl Harbor is that it scared Americans and it humiliated the people that said we could have peace with the Japanese. Instantly they lost all credibility and they were replaced with people that had a military mindset. US thinking changed in an instant... completely. Because the people making the decisions were completely different people.
The same thing happened in 9/11. Terrorists had been attacking US embassies and generally causing problems around the world for years. The US mostly ignored it. I think we would occasionally fire some cruise missiles at what was often an abandoned terrorist camp in the middle of the desert somewhere. Ineffective and largely perfunctory responses. It was Osama's theory that if he hit the US hard he would show his allies that the US was a paper tiger. That the US was all talk. That his people could get away with anything with impunity because the US would not respond with anything seriously.
He triggered the same response. The diplomats sat down and shut up... and the people calling the shots shifted to people with a different way of thinking. Osama was completely taken off guard by the sudden and complete shift in US policy.
The Russians have made a similar mistake. They have assumed that the way the US was responding to Russia after the fall of the USSR would be maintained consistently. In attacking Georgia and then Ukraine... in making threatening comments to the US.
How am I off base?
As to why we held off on airstrikes on ISIS... what Obama's strategy is in Iraq is extremely nebulous. I don't think anyone really understands with clarity what he's trying to do.
The previous strategists see only incoherence and incompetence... is it incompetence? Really we don't know... we'll not know what Obama is thinking until we get access to his library and his advisers start writing tell all books.
It all could be a carefully crafted master plan... it could all be stupidity... we don't know.
Poe's law.
The error is yours. ;-)
I hear people making that comment seriously all the time. You made it, so you got the scripted response.
He lacks the honesty to admit he was wrong. Its a common thing and one of the more annoying aspects to the internet.
In real life people get filtered. If you've not had the education you don't get into certain places to even express your opinion. If you don't have a proven track record of integrity there are a lot of discussions you're just not going to be called on to open your mouth. Etc.
And the double edged sword of the internet is that everyone can speak... even idiots and liars.
Login and we'll see which of us is deluded.
Login and we'll talk about it.
I'm not offering a road. I'm offering a future... without which they have none.
Login and I'll explain.
We are not owned by China. The Chinese owning US bonds does not give them leverage over us. It gives us leverage over them.
US debt is paid in US dollars and only on bond maturity which is a term of the bond we defined. If the US economy suffers the value of the dollar goes down and we pay the chinese LESS without defaulting on our obligations.
What is more, US debt interest rates are so low that the chinese are basically paying us to lend us money. If you look into the capital opportunity costs to say nothing of the inflation rates... the Chinese are not getting back 100 percent of their principle when they buy US bonds.
Clarify the theme of the error.
can you cite your wind mill?
As to copper... my uncle has a similar set up in the hills. Off grid... He ran a fiber line from his house about a mile from the road to the road. And then had internet/phone/tv installed there... then he moves the entire signal to his house using a media converter through the fiber.
Long story short... he the comforts of a fully wired house while being extremely rural.
Fiber is the way to go.
I did... you're complaining about mod points.
Skipping over your fixation on useless statistics.
As to Iran... death to america... destroy israel... the israelis drink baby blood... blah blah blah... sure. Who do you think you're fooling besides yourself? No one, I can assure you is buying that Iran just wants to defend themselves. Why are the Saudis talking about getting nuclear weapons themselves. Do you think you understand the Iranians better than their regional neighbors? Comical. Everyone in the region is talking about going nuclear to deter Iranian nuclear weapons which implies the don't believe that iran only wants them defensively.
As to US alliances to help people... context. During WW2 we allied with the Soviets. Was that a violation of our democratic principles? Should we have allied with Hitler instead? He was democratically elected after all and Stalin was not. The world is more complex than you are appreciating. Someone being elected democratically doesn't mean they're not crazy or monsters or a threat to world peace. You cite the US for example as being out of control even though we elect all our people democratically. Where then are your principles? Shouldn't you support us against dictators if all it takes for you to support or oppose someone is whether or not an election happened?
You've made yourself a hypocrite by making the cardinal error of trying to win. Never try to win in a discussion. Instead, try to be right. In being right you win... if you just try to win you'll ultimately be wrong because you'll try to skip to the victory. And you'll therefore lose. I don't try to win these discussions. I try to be right. And in being right... I win.
As to bars being raised by causalities... you can't show that those numbers didn't raise the bar for the US or that they were not considered. You keep citing these arbitrary numbers and assuming to have some notion of our thought process from it. You know damn well we care about causalities. You say "but you went to war anyway"... yes, but that doesn't mean we didn't care. It means rather that we calculated in other things and deemed the price acceptable. No where in your argument can you say something like "Y freedoms is worth X lives" or "Z global security is worth X lives"... there's no translation. All you can say is "because X lives died you shouldn't have done Z thing"... but that's at best an opinion. But you're attempting to make moral and ethical judgments upon it. And you're doing it while ignoring our intents which renders any moral calculation to be meaningless since intent is a core aspect to any moral judgment.
As to word games over ad hominems... I'm not impressed by them or confused by them. They annoy me but they will not be effective.
... lets unpack this...
China putting sanctions on stuff we don't want to import in the first place...
And from this you say we can't put sanctions on stuff to china or from china? We do already... all the time. The US has trade limits on lots of things that can't be exported to china or other places.
As to china getting independence from US trade... not really. Their dependence on the US is extreme. Keep in mind, we can influence trade throughout the first world and that is the majority of the global market. The US is 25 percent of the market all by itself. And for some goods well over 80 percent.
As to walmart, a point you should keep in mind is that china doesn't get all the profits from stuff "made in china"... if a foreign company owns the product line then most of the profit goes to that company... those companies tend to be American. And then if the product being made in china required parts fabricated in other countries then that profit goes to those countries... Japan often as not gets a cut there.
In the end, China tends to get about 30 percent of the profit of things "made in china"... somewhere between 70 to 50 percent goes to the US... and the remainder goes to other places like Japan.
The deal is quite good for the US.
Your standard requires the Russians accepting the deal.
That has no baring on whether the US has offered repeatedly.
We have. Since the start.
Reagan offered.
Bush 1 offered.
Clinton offered.
Bush 2 offered.
and now Obama is offering.
We've always offered. And I even went so far as to explain why it is in our interests.
The US has superior conventional forces. In a world where ICBMs are irrelevant the US would be MORE powerful not less powerful. Where as the Russians would be almost irrelevant. The modern Russian military is about as scary as Saddam's military in Gulf war 1 WITHOUT the nuclear weapons.
Which is to say... of no real threat to the US. So would we share the anti missile tech? Sure.
If it seals the deal then we'd be stupid not to do it.
Natural monopolies don't need governments telling you that you can't compete with someone by law.
Last mile is not a natural monopoly. Intel just about has a natural monopoly... its not total but they have a strong big of market dominance because they make a superior product at a price for that quality that competitors have a hard time matching.
And that is how natural monopolies work.
Government backed monopolies however work by the government saying "compete with X and I'll shoot you in the face."
Last mile has the government forbidding people from competing with it. So... its not natural.
Crime statistics between countries are not comparable.
For example, the Japanese classify unsolved murders as accidential deaths or suicides. This is why the japanese claim a homocide conviction rate or something like 98 percent. Where as in the US it is below 50 percent.
Most national statistics are not comparable unless you first understand how they're collected and how the politics of the statistics change from one country to another.
These stats are not collected by impartial robots. And the methodology used for them is not uniform. The stats are mostly applicable to themselves. Trying to compare them to an entirely different country means you need to go through a study, analysis, and then conversion process which to my knowledge no one has bothered to do because it would be time consuming and expensive.
If you'd like another example you can look at infant mortality rates in the US which look higher than most first world countries but this is a similar issue.
In most first world countries they do not count under weight babies as being live births in the first place. They also require the baby be able to breath on its own at birth. They also do not give respiration aid to the babies. Some countries require that babies cry on their own at birth or they are not considered live births in the statistics.
In the US, we count babies that are underweight as live births even though they are more prone to die. We also provide respiration. We do not require that babies be able to breath on their own. And we do not care if the baby cries or not for our statistics.
This means the US records more sickly babies as being live births than other countries. We also keep alive babies that would have otherwise died in other countries without even being counted... and some of them subsequently die days or weeks later.
This gives the US a higher infant mortality rate. But you can't say our rate is higher than another country without both the US and that other country having the same definition for what is a live birth. Associating the two statistics requires a calibration statistic where we estimate how many babies are underweight, aren't breathing, don't cry, etc that are being added to US statistics... and then then we have to estimate their contribution to the US infant mortality rate which is naturally going to be the majority of it because they're sickly babies. And then we have to subtract those deaths from the US infant mortality rate to a statistic that is consistent with international standards... and THEN we can compare US infant mortality rates with other countries... assuming we've compensated for everything.
Point is... you can't compare Japanese rape stats with American rape stats. You don't know what is going on in either country.
Keep in mind various countries have different definitions of rape. Consider Saudi Arabia where i think they need two male witnesses for a rape accusation to even be made.
I don't know anything about Japanese or more specifically Okinawa rape statistics. But I also am pretty sure that neither do you. And the thing is that if you don't know you can't draw any conclusions from those numbers because you don't know how they were collected or what people define the variables as and thus you don't know what those numbers even mean.