Homeland Security Hawai’i style: “above all, protect our visitors”

The Asia Pacific Homeland Security Summit is taking place in Honolulu.   It is one of the venues through which the homeland security-military-industrial complex has tried to exploit emerging markets for military/intelligence/security technologies and services.   Ed Texeira, head of Hawai’i Civil Defense, was quoted in the news report as saying “We’ve never said Hawaii was really a safe place, but in Hawaii we are doing all we can with taxpayer investments and Homeland Security funding to shore up our capabilities to protect Hawaii and, above all, protect our visitors.”

Above all, protect our visitors?!   It figures.  The greatest attention and latest technological gadgetry have always gone to protecting visitors and the military “above all”, meaning above Native Hawaiians, the residents or the ‘aina (land).  But then again, we always knew that Hawai’i was a mohai (sacrifice) for empire.