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Okinawa Times: Anti-bases actions around the world (Japanese language)

Roughly translated, the last part of the article says that in front of the Japanese Consulate in Honolulu, Hawaii, a group composed of “HOA” (Hawaii, Okinawa Alliance) called an action with more than 30 people. Participants demanded the closure of Futenma airfield without a replacement in Okinawa. The rally participants included Nikkei, Filipinos, South Koreans, Chamorro (Guam’s indigenous people), and Native Hawaiians. The participants wrote messages of peace on yellow ribbons and tied them to the consulate fence. HOA member Pete Shimazaki Doktor said “Each candle is a small light, but together makes a big light.”

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http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/article/2010-04-27_6067/

新 基地ＮＯ　世界に響く　普天間移設

都内に６００人　沖縄と連帯

気勢を上げる県民大会の上京要請団や支援者ら＝２６日夜、東京都千代田区

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２５日、米ワシントンの日本大使館前で、米軍普天間飛行場の沖縄県内移設に反対する集会参加者ら

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【東京】政府への要請行動のため上京している「米軍普天間飛行場の早期閉鎖・返還と、県内移設に反対 し、国外・県外移設を求める県民大会」の要請団は２６日夜、東京の全電通労働会館で集会を開き、東京の支援者への連帯を呼び掛けた。会場には約６００人 （主催者発表）が集まり、沖縄の基地負担軽減、県外・国外移設の実現に向けて気勢を上げた。

県民大会事務局長の新里米吉県議が２５日の県民大会の成功を報告。あいさつに立った伊波洋一宜野湾市 長、稲嶺進名護市長、島袋俊夫うるま市長は「基地返還のために代替基地建設はおかしい」「辺野古の海にも陸にも新基地はつくらせない」と訴え、支援を呼び 掛けた。

東京沖縄県人会の島袋徹事務局長は、２５日の同会の総会で、県外・国外移設を求める県議会の意見書の 趣旨に賛同し、活動を支援することを確認したことを紹介。「皆さんと一緒に行動を支持し、政府に迫りたい」とあいさつし、会場で集まった約２８万円のカン パを大城節子県婦連会長に手渡した。

共同代表の高嶺善伸県議会議長が「沖縄のうねりを全国に広げ、沖縄が歴史をつくろう」と呼び掛けガン バロー三唱で締めくくった。

在京県人会も支持
「故郷の我慢限界」

【東京】東京沖縄県人会（川平朝清会長）は２５日に都内で開いた本年度総会で、同日に沖縄で開かれた 米軍普天間飛行場の早期閉鎖・返還と、県内移設に反対し、国外・県外移設を求める県民大会を支持する「東京沖縄県人会の見解」を全会一致で採択した。

あいさつした川平会長は「本総会の日と同じくして、郷里沖縄では政界、経済界、労働界、教育界を挙げ て米軍普天間飛行場県内移設に反対する県民大会が開かれている。本県人会もこれに賛同し、支持を表明することを理事会で決定した」と強調した。

県人会が採択した「見解」では「故郷沖縄にいる人々は、米軍基地の存在に長年にわたり我慢を強いられ てきており、それも限界に達した今日、ただちに現状から脱却を図らなければならない」とアピールしている。

大統領に民意尊重要求
ワシントン・ハワイで集会

米軍普天間飛行場の県内移設に反対する県民大会に連動し、米国ワシントンやハワイでも２５日（日本時 間２６日）、平和団体やグループの主催による集会やアピール行動が行われ、沖縄の新たな基地建設の反対や基地の閉鎖を訴えた。

【ワシントン・賀数章子通信員】ワシントンの日本大使館前では、北米を拠点に活動する 「ＮＯ」（Ｎｅｔｗｏｒｋ　ｆｏｒ　Ｏｋｉｎａｗａ）が集会を開催。ＩＰＳ（ワシントン国際政略研究所）やグリーンピース、ＶＦＰ（帰還兵の会）関係者、 在住日本人ら約３０人が参加し「これ以上沖縄に基地はいらない」とアピールした。

ＮＯ代表のジョン・フェファー氏は「沖縄の県民大会では９万人以上の人が集まった。オバマ大統領は県 民の民主的な意思を尊重すべきだ」とあいさつ。参加者は、絶滅危（き）惧（ぐ）種ジュゴンのマスクをかぶり、環境保護を訴えた。ニューヨーク在住の写真 家・比嘉良治さんやアーティストの照屋勇賢さんらもプラカードを手に参加した。

また、米民主党のクシニッチ下院議員が集会に寄せた声明で「地元の反対や新たな基地建設から生じる環 境面、経済面の損害を脇に押しやることはできない」と強調。現行計画に対する懸念を下院歳出委員会防衛小委員会の委員長に伝えたことを明らかにした。

黄色の願い　国境越え

【米ハワイ・山城リンダ通信員】ハワイ・ホノルルの日本領事館前では、県系人らで構成する 「ＨＯＡ（ホア）」（ハワイ・沖縄アライアンス）の呼び掛けで３０人余がアピール行動を展開。キャンドルを手に日米両政府へ向けて同飛行場の県内移設断念 と早期閉鎖、返還を求めた。

県系・日系人をはじめ、フィリピン、韓国、チャモロ族（グアムの先住民）、ハワイ先住民らが参加。領 事館近くで街頭アピールをした後、沖縄と同様に黄色のリボンに平和メッセージを書き込み、領事館のフェンスに結びつけた。

「ＨＯＡ」の１人、ピート・ドクター・島崎さんは「一人一人が持つキャンドルの光は小さいが、皆が集 まれば大きな光になる」とアピール。海を越えた団結の重さを語った。

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U.S. Military creating an Environmental Disaster in Afghanistan

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18883

The American Military is Creating an Environmental Disaster in Afghanistan

By Matthew Nasuti
Global Research, April 27, 2010
Kabul Press – 2010-04-25

The American military presence in Afghanistan consists of fleets of aircraft, helicopters, armored vehicles, weapons, equipment, troops and facilities. Since 2001, they have generated millions of kilograms of hazardous, toxic and radioactive wastes. The Kabul Press asks the simple question:

“What have the Americans done with all that waste?”

The answer is chilling in that virtually all of it appears to have been buried, burned or secretly disposed of into the air, soil, groundwater and surface waters of Afghanistan. While the Americans may begin to withdraw next year, the toxic chemicals they leave behind will continue to pollute for centuries. Any abandoned radioactive waste may stain the Afghan countryside for thousands of years. Afghanistan has been described in the past as the graveyard of foreign armies. Today, Afghanistan has a different title:

“Afghanistan is the toxic dumping ground for foreign armies.”

The (U.S.) Air Force Times ran an editorial on March 1, 2010, that read: “Stamp Out Burn Pits” We reprint here the first half of that editorial:

“A growing number of military medical professionals believe burn pits are causing a wave of respiratory and other illnesses among troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Found on almost all U.S. bases in the war zones, these open-air trash sites operate 24 hours a day, incinerating trash of all forms — including plastic bottles, paint, petroleum products, unexploded ordinance, hazardous materials, even amputated limbs and medical waste. Their smoke plumes belch dioxin, carbon monoxide and other toxins skyward, producing a toxic fog that hangs over living and working areas. Yet while the Air Force fact sheet flatly states that burn pits “can be harmful to human health and environment and should only be used until more suitable disposal capabilities are established,” the Pentagon line is that burn pits have “no known long-term health effects.”

On April 12, 2010, the Richmond Times-Dispatch carried an article by David Zucchino who investigated the American burn pits in Iraq. He interviewed Army Sgt. 1st Class Francis Jaeger who hauled military waste to the Balad burn pit which was being operated by a civilian contractor for the Pentagon. Jaeger told Zucchino:

“We were told to burn everything – electronics, bloody gauze, the medics’ biohazard bags, surgical gloves, cardboard. It all went up in smoke.”

The Pentagon now admits to operating 84 “official” burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. The number of unofficial burn pits is not known. The Pentagon claims that it is phasing out its burn pits in favor of incinerators and that 27 incinerators are currently operating in Iraq and Afghanistan with 82 more to be added in the near future.

According to a website called the “Burn Pits Action Center,” hundreds of American veterans who came in contact with burn pit smoke have been diagnosed with cancer, neurological diseases, cardiovascular disease, breathing and sleeping problems and various skin rashes. In 2009, they filed more than 30 lawsuits in Federal courts across the United States, naming Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), and its former parent company Halliburton. These companies were named because of their involvement in the LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan. Several KBR entities either managed or assisted in the management of the American military’s waste in both countries and allegedly operated some or all of the burn pits. Additional lawsuits were filed in 2010, including one in Federal District Court in New Jersey.

The lawsuits reveal that the Pentagon has ignored American and international environmental laws and the results appear to be the widespread release of hazardous pollutants into the air, soil, surface water and groundwater across Afghanistan. This is a persistent problem that continues today. Unlike Saudi Arabia which insisted that American forces cleanup their pollution after the war to oust Iraq from Kuwait in 1991, or the Government of Canada which likewise insisted on a strict cleanup of American bases on its soil, the Government of Afghanistan has been unable to force the Americans and their allies to repair all the environmental damage that they have caused and continue to cause. Afghanistan does not want to wind up like Vietnam. While American ground combat units withdrew from South Vietnam in 1972, neither Vietnam nor its people have recovered from the long term environmental damage and mutagenic effects that American military operations and their exotic chemicals caused.

This article summarizes the problem of America’s military wastes and examines the types of hazardous wastes that are likely to have been released into Afghanistan.

Part 2 of this series will address the contradictory responses by the Pentagon to this problem and it will explore one of the remedies that the Pentagon is currently implementing, which is to phase out the burn pits, replacing them with incinerators. The article examines the flaws in that strategy and why Afghanistan should carefully consider whether to permit the continued use of military incinerators.

Part 3 of this series will set out the recommendations of the author to the Government of Afghanistan on how to investigate and clean up the pollution of Afghanistan’s countryside caused by the burn pits, landfills and other disposal facilities used by American forces.

The Sources or Means by Which the Various Wastes Are Being Released

The American military hazardous wastes that are believed to have entered the air, soil, groundwater and surface water of Afghanistan did so through the following methods (this list is partial only):

Burn pits
Incinerators
Burying/landfilling of the waste and ash
Intentional dumping
Accidental spills
Surface runoff
Leaking storage tanks, sumps and basins
Latrines

Categories of Amercian Military Waste

The American military’s waste, at this time, cannot be completely characterized. The volume and variety of waste (i.e., thousands of different chemicals) are not known and there are certain to be classified items and materials which have been brought into Afghanistan for which there may be no documentation. Regardless of that, much is known about the materials and chemicals that the military routinely uses and about the waste that it routinely generates. Most American military wastes will falls into one of the following twelve (12) categories:

The Dirty Dozen:

1. Fuel leaks and spills. These include releases of aviation fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel. These releases would range from large releases at American airbases of hundreds or even thousands of liters, to minor spills at Forward Operating Bases and combat outposts as soldiers seek to refill diesel generators. Petroleum residues have the ability to leach rapidly into underground drinking water aquifers and create plumes that will permanently contaminate local wells. There is no known way to completely remediate a groundwater source after it has been contaminated with hydrocarbons.

2. Paints, asbestos, solvents, grease, cleaning solutions (such as perchloethylene) and building materials that contain formaldehyde, copper, arsenic and hydrogen cyanide.

3. Hydraulic fluids, aircraft de-icing fluids, antifreeze and used oil. Used oil is carcinogenic, anti-freeze is poisonous, de-icing fluids can contain hazardous ethylene and propylene glycol, along with toxic additives such as benzotriazoce (which is a corrosion and flame inhibitor). Hydraulic fluids can contain TPP (triphenyl phosphate).

4. Pesticide/poison leaks and spills: Afghanistan apparently has no list of the pesticides, fungicides, termiticides and other poisons that the Americans brought into Afghanistan and used, spilled and released into the countryside in order to control flies, mosquitos, ants, fleas and rodents. The military refers to such practices as “vector control.” It is expected that the list of such neuro-toxins and the quantity sprayed or spilled throughout Afghanistan is staggering.

5. Lead, nickel, zinc and cadmium battery waste and acids (which are toxic and/or corrosive).

6. Electronic waste (or E-waste). This includes computers, printers, faxes, screens, televisions, radios, refrigerators, communications gear, test equipment. They contain cancer-causing chemicals such as the flame retardant PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), PCDD (polychlorinated dioxins), barium, copper, lead, zinc, cadmium oxides and cadmium sulphides and trivalent antimony, which is eco-toxic.

7. Light bulbs. This may not seem important but many military light bulbs are fluorescent and therefore contain toxic levels of mercury. Disposal of these light bulbs in ordinary landfills is prohibited in the United States.

8. Plastics. The U.S. military uses thousands of different types and formulations of plastic. While most are harmless in their present state, such as plastic water bottles and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) piping, the military has been burning its plastic waste in Afghanistan. When burned, many plastics release a deadly mix of chemicals including dioxins, furans, benzene, di 2-ethylhexyl phthalates (DEHP), hydrochloric acid, benzo(a)pyrene (BAP) and various acids and chlorine gas (which is a neurotoxin). Breathing a few seconds of this mixture in a concentrated form would likely be fatal.

9. Medical Waste. Infectious disease waste and biohazard materials, including used syringes, bloody bandages, sheets, gloves, expired drugs, amputated limbs and animal carcasses.

10. Ammunition waste. Lead, brass and other metals from ammunition along with all the constituents of the propellants, including trininitrotoluene, picric acid, diphenylamine, nitrocellulose, nitroglycerin, potassium nitrate, barium nitrate, tetracene, diazodintrophenol, phosphorus, peroxides, thiocarbamate, potassium chlorate, vinyl fluoride, vinyl chloride, sodium fluoride and sodium sulfate.

11. Radioactive waste. When one thinks of radioactive waste, usually one thinks only of atomic weapons, but that is not the case. The American military routinely uses a variety of devices and equipment that contain radioactive elements or radioluminescent elements. These materials are referred to as “Radioactive Commodities” by the American military. The primary radioactive materials are: Uranium, Tritium, Radium 226, Americium 241, Thorium, Cesium 137 and Plutonium 239.

Some of the equipment containing radioactive elements:

Night Vision Devices
M-16 Front Sight Post Assemblies
M72 Light Antitank Weapons
T-55 Aircraft Engine components
M58 and M59 Light Aiming Posts
M4 Front Sight Post Assemblies
RADIAC Calibrator Sets and Check Sources
Radium Compasses
L4A1 Quadrant Fire Control Devices
Fire Control Azimuths
Level Gauges
M-1 Collimators
M-1 Muzzle Reference Sensors
Soil Moisture Density Testers
TACOM Vehicle Dials and Gauges
Radios, including VRC-46/GRC-106/GRC-19
Chemical Agent Monitors
Testing Instruments
Vehicle Depleted Uranium Plates
Depleted Uranium Ammunition, including 20 millimeter ammunition
Electron Tubes for Communications Equipment
Various types of Laboratory and Hospital Analysis and Testing Machines.

Note: The American military will likely insist that it strictly controls the disposal of radioactive waste, but such assertions are not credible. While there are strict regulations, the time and cost of complying with them in a war zone are such that base commanders in Afghanistan most likely ignored them, opting instead for throwing the waste into burn pits. The evidence for this is contained in Part 3 of this Report, which cites to a Pentagon-funded study of what American field commanders think of the Pentagon’s environmental regulations.

If the American military continues to insist that it did not release radioactive materials in Afghanistan it should document such assertions by releasing its records. The Pentagon should publicly release all data on every radioactive commodity brought into Afghanistan. They should all be listed in HMIRS (the Hazardous Materials Information System). The Pentagon should then detail where each commodity is today.

12. Grey and Black Water. The American military and its contractors in Afghanistan operate human waste facilities. The military refers to these as LSS (Latrine, Shower and Shave) facilities. They generate what is known as grey and black waste-water. Grey water from sinks and showers has as its primary pollutant soap residue (i.e., phosphates and other chemicals that generate what is known as BOD – biological oxygen demand, which means they can absorb all the available oxygen in streams and rivers so fish cannot breathe). Some American soaps contain additives such as MIT (methylisothiazolinone), which is under investigation as a toxin.

Latrines generate black water pollution. While the American military has to adhere to strict rules regarding the discharge of such waste in the United States, it faces no restrictions in Afghanistan. Latrines can be dug near ground water and even upgradient from surface water (so that discharges can flow into them). There are no known maps of all the American latrines. After a latrine pit is filled, it is apparently covered over with dirt and forgotten.

While environmental releases involving categories 1 and 12 above are a certainty, it is feared that millions of kilograms and millions of liters of wastes set out in categories 2 through 11 were all thrown into the hundreds of American burn pits in Afghanistan or dumped into secret landfills. If true, the American legacy to Afghanistan is not freedom, but pollution.

In February 2010, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs began an 18-month study of the burn pits in Afghanistan and their effect on human health. Afghanistan cannot wait eighteen months for the results of this study, it has to act now.

The author is a former U.S. Air Force Captain. He advised on environmental cleanups at Logistics Command regarding the Air Force’s most contaminated bases and depots. He then worked for Bechtel Environmental and was involved in Superfund cleanups across the United States and radiological cleanups at U.S. Department of Energy sites. He later served as a consultant to a group of environmental remediation companies, smelters and waste recyclers.

Sources for Further Reading:

Houston Chronicle – February 7, 2010 – “GIs tell of horror from burn pits”
Los Angeles Times – February 18, 2010 – “Veterans speak out against burn pits”
The New York Times – February 25, 2010 – “Health Panel Begins Probing Impacts of Burn Pits”
Salem-News – March 29, 2010 – “Sick Veterans Sue KBR Over Iraq and Afghanistan Burn Pits”
AFP – November 10, 2009 – “Troops sue KBR over toxic waste in Iraq, Afghanistan”
U.S. Department of the Army Pamphlet 700-48

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Chicago lawmakers call for military to stop crime

http://www.kitv.com/news/23261822/detail.html

Lawmakers: Military May Stop Chicago Crime

Chicago Has Had 113 Homicide Victims This Year

POSTED: 3:46 pm HST April 25, 2010

CHICAGO — Two Illinois lawmakers say violence has become so rampant in Chicago that the National Guard must be called in to help.

Chicago Democratic Reps. John Fritchey and LaShawn Ford made a public plea to Gov. Pat Quinn on Sunday to deploy troops.

The request comes amid a recent surge in violent crime, including a night last week that saw seven people killed and 18 wounded, mostly by gunfire.

Fritchey says Chicago has had 113 homicide victims this year. He says the police department has done a commendable job, but its resources are stretched thin.

Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis says he appreciates the lawmakers’ frustration and willingness to help, but doubts the National Guard is the best answer.

A message left for Quinn wasn’t returned Sunday.

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Islands of Peace: Jeju mayor sends solidarity message to Okinawa,

Solidarity Message to Okinawa

By Kang Dong-Kyun, Mayor of Gangjeong village, Jeju Island, Korea

The Peace of the Okinawa is the Peace of the World.

The Peace of the Jeju is the Peace of the World.

Therefore to keep Okinawa and Jeju is to keep the peace of the world.

Let’s keep Okinawa and Jeju with our hands, even though it is small.

Not with the logic of power but with the logic of dialogue of peace,

Not as the Islands of military base but as the Islands of Peace in the world,

Let’s keep our Islands.

That is the short cut that the world can proceed into peace.

Please keep at it, all of you.

Kang Dong Kyun
Mayor of the Gangjeong village,
Opposing the Jeju naval base construction plan.
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‘Collateral Murder’ veterans apologize to the Iraqi people

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5966/t/9615/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=2491

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 15th, 2010

Contact:
Laura Taylor: 202-510-3711
info@civsol.org

VETERANS OF “WIKILEAKS” INCIDENT ANNOUNCE

“LETTER OF RECONCILIATION” TO IRAQIS INJURED IN ATTACK

Two former soldiers from the Army unit responsible for the Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” incident have written an open-letter of “Reconciliation and Responsibility” to those injured in the July 2007 attack, in which U.S. forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees.

Ethan Mccord and Josh Stieber deployed to Baghdad with Bravo Company 2-16 in 2007. Ethan was on the ground at the scene of the shooting, and is seen on the video rushing one of the injured children to a U.S. Vehicle; “When I saw those kids, all I could picture was my kids back home”. Ethan applied for mental health support following this incident and was denied by his commanding officer.

Josh Stieber was not at the scene of the shooting but says similar incidents happened throughout his 14-month tour; “The acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war.”
 Josh states that these casualties demonstrate the impact of U.S. military policy on both the civilians and the soldiers on the ground.

Ethan and Josh claim that though their unit was following the Rules of Engagement that day, they are taking responsibility for their role in the incident and initiating a dialogue around it; “Though we have acted with cold hearts far too many times, we have not forgotten our actions towards you. Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny.”

The letter, which they hope to get to the family who lost their father and whose children were injured in the attack, states that they “are acknowledging our responsibility for bringing the battle to your neighborhood, and to your family. We did unto you what we would not want done to us.”

Ethan and Josh are available for interviews. The letter can be seen at: www.lettertoiraq.com

BACKGROUND ON JOSH STIEBER:
Branch of service: United States Army (USA)
Unit: 1st ID
Rank: Spc.
Home: Laytonsville, Maryland
Served in: Baghdad (Rustamiyah) 07-08 Fort Riley, KS 06-07, 08-09

BACKGROUND ON ETHAN MCCORD:
Branch of service: United States Army (USA)
Unit: 1st ID
Rank: Spc.
Home: Wichita, Kansas

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5966/p/dia/action/public/index?action_KEY=2724&start=175

AN OPEN LETTER OF RECONCILIATION & RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE

A newly released Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” video has made international headlines showing a July 2007 shooting incident outside of Baghdad in which U.S. forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees. Two soldiers from Bravo Company 2-16, the company depicted in the video, have written an open letter of apology to the Iraqis who were injured or lost loved ones during the attack that, these former soldiers say, is a regular occurrence in this war. You can view the Wikileaks video here: http://wikileaks.org/ and you can view the Press Release here

AN OPEN LETTER OF RECONCILIATION & RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE

From Current and Former Members of the U.S. Military

Peace be with you.

To all of those who were injured or lost loved ones during the July 2007 Baghdad shootings depicted in the “Collateral Murder” Wikileaks video:

We write to you, your family, and your community with awareness that our words and actions can never restore your losses.

We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. Josh Stieber was in the same company but was not there that day, though he contributed to the your pain, and the pain of your community on many other occasions.

There is no bringing back all that was lost. What we seek is to learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to tell others of our experiences and how the people of the United States need to realize we have done and are doing to you and the people of your country. We humbly ask you what we can do to begin to repair the damage we caused.

We have been speaking to whoever will listen, telling them that what was shown in the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created. From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region.

We acknowledge our part in the deaths and injuries of your loved ones as we tell Americans what we were trained to do and what we carried out in the name of “god and country”. The soldier in the video said that your husband shouldn’t have brought your children to battle, but we are acknowledging our responsibility for bringing the battle to your neighborhood, and to your family. We did unto you what we would not want done to us.

More and more Americans are taking responsibility for what was done in our name. Though we have acted with cold hearts far too many times, we have not forgotten our actions towards you. Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny.

Our government may ignore you, concerned more with its public image. It has also ignored many veterans who have returned physically injured or mentally troubled by what they saw and did in your country. But the time is long overdue that we say that the value of our nation’s leaders no longer represent us. Our secretary of defense may say the U.S. won’t lose its reputation over this, but we stand and say that our reputation’s importance pales in comparison to our common humanity.

We have asked our fellow veterans and service-members, as well as civilians both in the United States and abroad, to sign in support of this letter, and to offer their names as a testimony to our common humanity, to distance ourselves from the destructive policies of our nation’s leaders, and to extend our hands to you.

With such pain, friendship might be too much to ask. Please accept our apology, our sorrow, our care, and our dedication to change from the inside out. We are doing what we can to speak out against the wars and military policies responsible for what happened to you and your loved ones. Our hearts are open to hearing how we can take any steps to support you through the pain that we have caused.

Solemnly and Sincerely,

Josh Stieber, former specialist, U.S. Army

Ethan McCord, former specialist, U.S. Army

The veterans are inviting other vets and U.S. citizens to sign on to their letter.

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In Defense of Public School Teachers in a Time of Crisis

Yesterday, Tax Day, was a day of protest for right wing Tea Party groups, who say they are against taxes and big government.   In parts of the U.S. this right wing populism has taken a nasty turn with racist overtones.  The tea party populism also emboldens neoliberal politicians like Governor Lingle whose actions are crippling Hawai’i’s government including the State Historic Preservation Department, the Department of Human Services and the Department of Education.   Lingle has used the fiscal crisis as the excuse to slash government services and layoff hundreds of public employees.   Naomi Klein’s book the Shock Doctrine describes this playbook.

As the government abandons the poor, social problems like homelessness begin to grow.   Of course, many of the same anti-government protesters are the first to clamor for laws to criminalize the poor and increase police powers of the state.   The City Council recently passed a bill to criminalize the use of tents with sides and shopping carts in public parks.  The Honolulu Advertiser reports that police will begin enforcing these laws.

The furloughs of public school teachers are probably the worst of Governor Lingle’s “shock treatments” for Hawai’i.   Save Our Schools occupied the governor’s office for a week seeking a meeting with her to discuss ending the furloughs. Instead of talking, Lingle had the parents and supporters cited and arrested.   The parents have now released an alternative plan to end the furloughs.   Below is an article from Truthout.com by Henry Giroux about the attacks on public education across the U.S. and the social costs of such policies.    Schools are being turned into factories for reproducing obedient workers and are increasingly militarized to police student behavior and channel poor and working class youth into the military.

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http://www.truthout.org/in-defense-public-school-teachers-a-time-crisis58567

In Defense of Public School Teachers in a Time of Crisis

Wednesday 14 April 2010

by: Henry A. Giroux, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

There has been a long, though declining, tradition in the United States in which public school teaching was embraced as an important public service. It was assumed that teachers provided a crucial foundation for educating young people in the values, skills and knowledge that enabled them to be critical citizens capable of shaping and expanding democratic institutions. Since the 1980s, teachers have been under an unprecedented attack by those forces that view schools less as a public good than as a private right. Seldom accorded the status of intellectuals that they deserved, they remain the most important component in the learning process for students, while serving as a moral compass to gauge how seriously a society invests in its youth and in the future. Yet, teachers are being deskilled, unceremoniously removed from the process of school governance, largely reduced to technicians or subordinated to the authority of security guards. Underlying these transformations are a number of forces eager to privatize schools, substitute vocational training for education and reduce teaching and learning to reductive modes of testing and evaluation.

Indications of the poisonous transformation of both the role of the public school and the nature of teacher work abound. The passage of laws promoting high-stakes testing for students and the use of test scores to measure teacher quality have both limited the autonomy of teacher authority and devalued the possibility of critical teaching and visionary goals for student learning. Teachers are no longer asked to think critically and be creative in the classroom. On the contrary, they are now forced to simply implement predetermined instructional procedures and standardized content, at best; and, at worst, put their imaginative powers on hold while using precious classroom time to teach students how to master the skill of test taking. Subject to what might be labeled as a form of bare or stripped-down pedagogy, teachers are removed from the processes of deliberation and reflection, reduced to implementing lock-step, time-on-task pedagogies that do great violence to students, while promoting a division of labor between conception and execution hatched by bureaucrats and “experts” from mainly conservative foundations. Questions regarding how teachers motivate students, make knowledge meaningful in order to make it critical and transformative, work with parents and the larger community or exercise the authority needed to become a constructive pedagogical force in the classroom and community are now sacrificed to the dictates of an instrumental rationality largely defined through the optic of measurable utility.

Little is said in this discourse about allocating more federal dollars for public schooling, replacing the aging infrastructures of schooling or increasing salaries so as to expand the pool of qualified teachers. Nor are teachers praised for their public service, the trust we in part to them in educating our children or the firewall they provide between a culture saturated in violence and idiocy and the civilizing and radical imaginative possibilities of an educated mind capable of transforming the economic, political and racial injustices that surround and bear down so heavily on public schools. Instead, teachers are stripped of their worth and dignity by being forced to adopt an educational vision and philosophy that has little respect for the empowering possibilities of either knowledge or critical classroom practices. Put bluntly, knowledge that can’t be measured is viewed as irrelevant, and teachers who refuse to implement a standardized curriculum and evaluate young people through objective measures of assessments are judged as incompetent or disrespectful. Any educator who believes that students should learn more than how to obey the rules, take tests, learn a work skill or adopt without question the cruel and harsh market values that dominate society “will meet,” as James Baldwin insists in his “Talk to Teachers,” “the most fantastic, the most brutal and the most determined resistance.”[1] And while the mythic character of education has always been at odds with its reality, as Baldwin noted in talking about the toxic education imposed on poor black children, the assault on public schooling in its current form truly suggests that “we are living through a very dangerous time.”[2]

As the space of public schooling is reduced to a mindless infatuation with the metrics of endless modes of testing and increasingly enforces this deadening experience with disciplinary measures reminiscent of prison culture, teachers are increasingly removed from dealing with children as part of a broader historical, social and cultural context. As the school is militarized, student behavior becomes an issue that either the police or security forces handle. Removed from the normative and pedagogical framing of classroom life, teachers no longer have the option to think outside of the box, to experiment, be poetic or inspire joy in their students. School has become a form of dead time, designed to kill the imagination of both teachers and students. For years, teachers have offered students advice, corrected their behavior, offered help in addressing their personal problems and went out of their way to understand the circumstances surrounding even the most serious of student infractions. Couple this role of teachers as both caretaker and engaging intellectual with the imposition of a stripped-down curriculum that actually disdains creative teacher work while relegating teachers to the status of clerks. Needless to say, the consequences for both teachers and students have been deadly. Great ideas, modes of knowledge, disciplinary traditions and honorable civic ideals are no longer engaged, debated and offered up as a civilizing force for expanding the students’ capacities as critical individuals and social agents. Knowledge is now instrumentalized and the awe, magic and insight it might provide is stripped way as it is redefined through the mindless logic of quantification and measurement that now grips the culture of schooling and drives the larger matrix of efficiency, productivity and consumerism shaping the broader society.

One current example of the unprecedented attack being waged against teachers, meaningful knowledge and critical pedagogy can be found in Senate Bill 6, which is being pushed by Florida legislators. Under this bill, the quality of teaching and the worth of a teacher are solely determined by student test scores on standardized tests. Teacher pay would be dependent upon such test scores, while the previous experience of a teacher would be deemed irrelevant. Moreover, advanced degrees and professional credentials would now become meaningless in determining a teacher’s salary. Professional experience and quality credentials are now made irrelevant next to the hard reality of an empiricism that appears divorced from any semblance of reality. The real point of the bill is to both weaken the autonomy and authority of teachers and to force the Florida teacher’s union to accept merit pay for teachers. But there is more at stake in this bill than a regressive understanding of the role and power of teachers and the desire to eliminate the very conditions, places and spaces that make good teaching possible. The bill also mandates that the power of local school boards be restricted, that new teachers be given probationary contracts for up to five years and then placed on a contract to be renewed annually. Moreover, salaries are now excluded as a subject of collective bargaining. This bill degrades the purpose of schooling, teaching and learning. It is not only harsh and cruel, but educationally reactionary and is designed to turn public schools into political tools for corporate dominated legislators, while depriving students of any viable notion of teaching and learning. This bill is bad for schools, teachers, students and democracy. It lacks any viable ethical and political understanding of how schools work, what role they should play in a democracy and what the myriad forces are that both undermine critical teaching and critical learning. Moreover, it turns the curriculum into a tool box for ignoramuses.

We need a new language for understanding public education as formative for democratic institutions and for the vital role that teachers play in such a project. When I first wrote “Teachers as Intellectuals” in 1988, I argued that education should be viewed as a moral and political practice that always presupposes particular renditions of what constitutes legitimate knowledge, values, citizenship, modes of understanding and views of the future. In other words, teaching was always directive in its attempt to shape students as particular agents and offer them a particular understanding of the present and the future. And while schools have a long history of simply attempting to reproduce the ideological contours of the existing society, they are capable of much more, and therein lay their danger and possibilities. At their worst, teachers have been viewed as merely gatekeepers. At best, they are one of the most valued professions we have in educating future generations in the discourse, values and relations of democratic empowerment. Rather than viewed as disinterested technicians, teachers should be viewed as engaged intellectuals, willing to construct the classroom conditions that provide the knowledge, skills and culture of questioning necessary for students to participate in critical dialogue with the past, question authority, struggle with ongoing relations of power and prepare themselves for what it means to be active and engaged citizens in the interrelated local, national and global public spheres.

Defining teachers as public intellectuals and schools as democratic public spheres is as applicable today as it was when I wrote “Teachers as Intellectuals.” Central to fostering a pedagogy that is open and discerning, fused with a spirit of critical inquiry that fosters rather than mandates modes of individual and social agency is the assumption that teachers should not only be critical intellectuals, but also have some control over the conditions of their own pedagogical labor. Academic labor at its best flourishes when it is open to dialogue, respects the time and conditions teachers need to prepare lessons, research, cooperate with each other and engage valuable community resources. Put differently, teachers are the major resource for what it means to establish the conditions for education to be linked to critical learning rather than training, embrace a vision of democratic possibility rather than a narrow instrumental notion of education and embrace the specificity and diversity of children’s lives rather than treat them as if such differences did not matter. Hence, teachers deserve the respect, autonomy, power and dignity that such a task demands.

The basic premise here is that if public education is a crucial sphere for creating citizens equipped to exercise their freedoms and learn the competencies necessary to question the basic assumptions that govern democratic political life, public school teachers must be allowed to shape the conditions that enable them to assume their responsibility as citizen-scholars, take critical positions, relate their work to larger social issues, offer multiple forms of literacies, debate and dialogue about pressing social problems and provide the conditions for students to conjure up the hope and belief that civic life matters, that they can make a difference in shaping society so as to expand its democratic possibilities for all groups. Of course, this is not merely a matter of changing the consciousness of teachers or the larger public or the ways in which teachers are educated. These are important considerations, but what must be embraced in this recognition of the importance of public schools teachers is that such an investment is an issue of politics, ethics and power, all of which must be viewed as part of a larger struggle to connect the crisis of schooling and teaching to the crisis of democracy itself.

Teachers all over America now labor under the shadow of a number of anti-democratic tendencies extending from a ruthless market fundamentalism that mistakes students for products and equates learning with the practice of conformity and disciplinary mindlessness. On the other side are those anti-intellectual and residual religious and political fundamentalists who view schooling as a threat to orthodoxy and tradition and want to silence critical forms of pedagogy as well as eliminate those teachers who value thinking over conformity, teaching over training and empowerment over deskilling. What all of these anti-democratic tendencies share are a disregard for critical teaching and a disdain for the notion of teachers as critical and public intellectuals. Against these anti-democratic tendencies is the challenge of redefining and reimagining teachers as public intellectuals and the schools as a democratic public sphere, both of which provide an invaluable resource in reminding the larger society, if not teachers and everyone concerned about education, of their responsibility to take ethical and risky positions and engage practices currently at odds with both religious fundamentalism and the market-driven values that dominate schooling.

Educators now face the daunting challenge of creating new discourses, pedagogies and collective strategies that will offer students the hope and tools necessary to revive education as a political and ethical response to the demise of democratic public life. Such a challenge suggests struggling to keep alive those institutional spaces, forums and public spheres that support and defend critical education, help students come to terms with their own power as individual and social agents, exercise civic courage and engage in community projects and research that are socially responsible. None of this will happen unless the American public refuses to allow schools and teachers to surrender what counts as knowledge, values and skills to the highest bidder. In part, this requires pedagogical practices that connect the space of language, culture and identity to their deployment in larger physical and social spaces. Such pedagogical practices are based on the presupposition that it is not enough to teach students how to read the word and knowledge critically. They most also learn how to act on their beliefs, reflect on their role as engaged citizens and intervene in the world as part of the obligation of what it means to be a socially responsible agent. As critical and public intellectuals, teachers must fight for the right to dream, conceptualize and connect their visions to classroom practice. They must also learn to confront directly the threat from fundamentalisms of all varieties that seek to turn democracy into a mall, a sectarian church or an adjunct of the emerging punishing state. What the concept of teachers as public intellectuals references, once again, is that the most important role of teachers is not only to educate students to be critical thinkers, but also prepare them to be activists in the best sense of the term – that is, thoughtful and active citizens willing to fight for the economic, political and social conditions and institutions that make democracy possible. The reason why public education has become so dangerous is that it associates teaching and learning with civic values, civic courage and a respect for the common good – a position decidedly at odds with the unbridled individualism, privatized discourse, excessive competition, hyper militarized masculinity and corporate values that now drive educational policy and practice.

There are those critics who, in tough economic times, insist that providing students with anything other than work skills threatens their future viability on the job market. While I believe that public education should equip students with skills to enter the workplace, it should also educate them to contest workplace inequalities, imagine democratically organized forms of work and identify and challenge those injustices that contradict and undercut the most fundamental principles of freedom, equality and respect for all people who constitute the global public sphere. Moreover, public education should be about more than learning how to take a test, job preparation or even critical consciousness raising; it is also about imagining a more just future, one that does more than replicate the present. In contrast to the cynicism and political withdrawal that screen and mainstream media cultures foster, a critical education demands that its citizens be able to translate the interface of private considerations and public issues; be able to recognize those anti-democratic forces that deny social, economic and political justice; and be willing to give some thought to their experiences as a matter of anticipating and struggling for a better world. In short, democratic rather than commercial values should be the primary concerns of both public education and the university.

If the right-wing educational reforms now being championed by the Obama administration and many state governments continue unchallenged, America will become a society in which a highly trained, largely white elite will continue to command the techno-information revolution, while a vast, low-skilled majority of poor and minority workers will be relegated to filling the McJobs proliferating in the service sector. The children of the rich and privilege will be educated in exclusive private schools and the rest of the population, mostly poor and nonwhite, will be offered bare forms of pedagogy suitable to work in the dead end low skill service sector of society, assuming that these jobs will be available. Teachers will lose most of their rights, protections and dignity and be treated as clerks of the empire. And as more and more young people fail to graduate from high school, they will fill the ranks of those disposable populations now filling up our prisons at a record pace. In contrast to this vision, I strongly believe that genuine, critical education cannot be confused with job training. At the same time, public schools have to be viewed as institutions as crucial to the security and safety of the country as national defense. If educators and others are to prevent this distinction between education and training from becoming blurred, it is crucial to both challenge the ongoing corporatization of public schools, while upholding the promise of the modern social contract in which all youth, guaranteed the necessary protections and opportunities, were a primary source of economic and moral investment, symbolizing the hope for a democratic future. In short, those individuals and groups concerned about the promise of education need to reclaim their commitment to future generations by taking seriously the Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s belief that the ultimate test of morality for any democratic society resides in the condition of its children. If public education is to honor this ethical commitment, it will have to not only re-establish its obligation to young people, but reclaim its role as a democratic public sphere and uphold its support for teachers.

Defending teachers as engaged intellectuals and public schools as democratic public spheres is not a call for any one ideology on the political spectrum to determine the shape of the future direction of public and university education. But at the same time, such a defense reflects a particular vision of the purpose and meaning of public and higher education and their crucial role in educating students to participate in an inclusive democracy. Teachers have a responsibility to engage critical pedagogy as a an ethical referent and a call to action for educators, parents, students and others to reclaim public education as a democratic public sphere, a place where teaching is not reduced to learning how to master either tests or acquire low level jobs skills, but a safe space where reason, understanding, dialogue and critical engagement are available to all faculty and students. Education, if not teaching itself, in this reading, becomes the site of ongoing struggles to preserve and extend the conditions in which autonomy of judgment and freedom of action are informed by the democratic imperatives of equality, liberty and justice, while ratifying and legitimating the role of teachers as critical and public intellectuals. Viewing public schools as laboratories of democracy and teachers as critical intellectuals offers a new generation of educators an opportunity to understand education as a concrete reminder that the struggle for democracy is, in part, an attempt to liberate humanity from the blind obedience to authority and that individual and social agency gain meaning primarily through the freedoms guaranteed by the public sphere, where the autonomy of individuals only becomes meaningful under those conditions that guarantee the workings of an autonomous society. The current vicious assault on public school teachers is a reminder that the educational conditions that make democratic identities, values and politics possible and effective have to be fought for more urgently at a time when democratic public spheres, public goods and public spaces are under attack by market and other ideological fundamentalists who either believe that corporations can solve all human problems or that dissent is comparable to aiding terrorists – positions that share the common dominator of disabling a substantive notion of ethics, politics and democracy. The rhetoric of accountability, privatization and standardization that now dominates both major political parties does more than deskill teachers, weaken teacher unions, dumb down the curriculum and punish students; it also offers up a model for education that undermines it as a public good. Under such circumstances, teacher work and autonomy are not only devalued; learning how to govern and be a critical citizen in a fragile democracy are hijacked.

As Baldwin reminded us, we live in dangerous times, yet as educators, parents, activists and workers, we can address the current assault on democracy by building local and social movements that fight for the rights of teachers and students to teach and learn with the necessary autonomy, resources and dignity. Democratic struggles cannot overemphasize the special responsibility of teachers as intellectuals to shatter the conventional wisdom and myths of those ideologies that would relegate educators to mere technicians, clerks of the empire or mere adjuncts of the corporation. As the late Pierre Bourdieu argued, the “power of the dominant order is not just economic, but intellectual – lying in the realm of beliefs,” and it is precisely within the domain of ideas that a sense of utopian possibility can be restored to the public realm.[3] Teaching in this instance is not simply about critical thinking, but also about social engagement, a crucial element of not just learning and social engagement, but politics itself. Most specifically, democracy necessitates quality teachers and critical pedagogical practices that provide a new ethic of freedom and a reassertion of collective responsibility as central preoccupations of a vibrant democratic culture and society. Such a task, in part, suggests that any movement for social change put education and the rights of students and teachers at the forefront of such a struggle. Teachers are more crucial in the struggle for democracy than security guards and the criminal justice system. Students deserve more that being trained to be ignorant and willing accomplices of the corporation and the empire. Teachers represent a valued resource and are one of the few groups left that can educate students in ways that enable them to resist the collective insanity that now threatens this country. We need to take them seriously by giving them the dignity, labor conditions, salaries, freedom, time and support they deserve. This may be the most important challenge Americans face as we move into the 21st century.

[1]. James Baldwin, “A Talk to Teachers,” The Saturday Review (December 21, 1963). Online: http://richgibson.com/talktoteachers.htm

[2]. Ibid.

[3]. Pierre Bourdieu and Gunter Grass, “The ‘Progressive’ Restoration: A Franco-German Dialogue,” New Left Review 14 (March-April, 2003), p. 66.

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Are Marines in Okinawa dispensable?

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100416f4.html

Friday, April 16, 2010

Okinawa marines said dispensable

Analysts say force levels have been greatly reduced and question their role as a deterrent

By YUTAKA YOSHIDA

Kyodo News

The clock is ticking for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama as he works to decide where to relocate the controversial U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, but there has been little discussion regarding whether it is reasonable to assert that the presence of the marines in Okinawa is indispensable.

Military experts in Japan say the number of marines actually stationed in Okinawa has been much smaller in recent years than the formal tally, prompting some to doubt whether keeping many marines there would act as a deterrent.

In February, a top marine commander came to Tokyo and made a pitch for the importance of the marines’ presence in terms of the fundamental nature of the 1960 bilateral security treaty.

During a U.S. Embassy-organized gathering, Lt. Gen. Keith Stalder, commander of the Marine Corps’ Pacific force, said the current deployment of marines in Okinawa is “the perfect model” to support the bilateral alliance’s objectives of “deterring, defending and defeating potential adversaries.”

“Our service members are prepared to risk their lives in defense of Japan. . . . Japan does not have a reciprocal obligation to defend the United States” under the treaty, Stalder said.

“In return for U.S. defense guarantees, Japan provides bases, opportunities to train and, in more recent times, financial support,” he said.

Stalder said the United States “accepts this asymmetry” but hinted Washington wants Tokyo to always keep this in mind.

But military analyst Shoji Fukuyoshi has his doubts, saying the deployment of marines in Okinawa has been “hollowed out.”

The United States says the full strength of the marines in Okinawa is around 18,000, while the prefectural government says the number is actually about 12,000.

Many ground units do not remain in Okinawa on a regular basis but rotate to the prefecture, local government officials said, adding some of the units have been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Fukuyoshi said the U.S. side claims it has four infantry battalions in Okinawa, but three of them, with a total of around 2,000 members, have been away from the island since 2003.

Under the current bilateral agreement on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, around 8,000 marines in Okinawa will be transferred to Guam and the remaining 10,000 will theoretically remain in the prefecture.

The U.S. Marine Corps has three expeditionary forces and Okinawa is the only location outside of the U.S. mainland that hosts one of them, the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, which manages facilities including the Futenma air station — the base at the center of the controversy between Japan and the United States. Nearly 60 percent of U.S. service personnel stationed in Okinawa are marines.

But there is a view that only the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which has about 2,200 members, could deal with an emergency by boarding four amphibious assault ships in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture.

Security experts say marine units should stay in Okinawa for purposes such as providing ground force presence, rescuing civilians in an emergency on the Korean Peninsula, antiterrorism operations in Asia and disaster relief activities.

But Masaaki Gabe, an expert on international politics, said, “The U.S. Navy and Air Force in Japan could be seen as a deterrent. But I don’t see meaning in keeping the marines.”

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More GIs committed suicide than were killed in combat

http://www.congress.org/news/2009/11/25/rising_military_suicides

Rising military suicides

The pace is faster than combat deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan.

By John Donnelly

More U.S. military personnel have taken their own lives so far in 2009 than have been killed in either the Afghanistan or Iraq wars this year, according to a Congressional Quarterly compilation of the latest statistics from the armed services.

As of Tuesday, at least 334 members of the military services have committed suicide in 2009, compared with 297 killed in Afghanistan and 144 who died in Iraq, the figures show.

Lawmakers in recent years have been increasingly concerned about the growing problem of military suicides, especially in the Army. They have been holding hearings, passing bills and approving billions of dollars more than requested to improve mental health care for military personnel and veterans.

But even those who have been most intensely focused on the issue said they found the new numbers alarming. So far in 2009, the Army has had 211 of the 334 suicides, while the Navy had 47, the Air Force had 34 and the Marine Corps (active duty only) had 42.

“These numbers are just staggering and, tragically, are an indication that we are simply not doing the job of providing adequate mental health care for both our active-duty service people and our veterans, said Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

Armed forces personnel traditionally have had a much lower suicide rate than the population at large. Because the most recently available national suicide statistics from the Centers for Disease Control are from 2006, it is impossible to know whether the current military rate is higher than the current civilian rate. However, the civilian suicide rate for males ages 20-29 hovered around 20 per 100,000 during the first half of this decade. The Army said its suicide rate is now a bit higher than that for the first time.

Moreover, the total number who have killed themselves in 2009 is probably higher than 334, because the figure does not include unavailable suicide statistics for 2009 for Marine Corps reservists or veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who have left the service.

The veterans’ numbers, in particular, could yet swell the totals considerably. The Department of Veterans Affairs said an average of 53 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans committed suicide each year between 2002 and 2006. And that number only includes suicides among the quarter of all veterans who use the VA’s health system.

The rising number of suicides has coincided with U.S. military forces redeploying frequently to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Army leaders say they are unable to conclude that the deployments are the main cause of the suicide increase — one-third of the active-duty soldiers who killed themselves in 2009 have no deployment history, according to Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli.

But many senior members of Congress say they believe there is a connection.

Filner wants to hold hearings soon, saying they would show that the number of casualties in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is much higher than officially acknowledged once psychological wounds are accounted for.

Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam, attributes the rising mental health problems to a lack of time at home between deployments.

“I was shocked to hear there’s more suicides than people lost in Afghanistan” he said, attributing the upward trend to the “stress of a long war where people just don’t have the opportunity to come home to get healed.”

The Army, which accounts for the bulk of the suicides, is taking an aggressive approach to preventing them, through periodic screening and education to get help to those who need it, Chiarelli said at a Nov. 17 press briefing.

“Everyone is distressed at this extremely high rate,” said Gene Taylor, D-Miss., a senior member of House Armed Services. “About the only good thing is that Gen. Chiarelli has focused his efforts on it.”

Congress is aware of the problem and has taken steps to address it, noted Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“In the past two years, Congress passed sweeping legislation to address veterans’ mental health issues — from a far reaching omnibus bill to raise VA mental health standards to a suicide prevention hotline,” he said.

The newly enacted fiscal 2010 defense authorization law, for example, requires significant increases in mental-health providers in all the military services. Chiarelli said the Army needs hundreds more mental-health and substance-abuse counselors than it has.

Filner, meanwhile, has drafted legislation that would require the secretaries of Defense and Veterans Affairs to set up a pilot program to help servicemembers reintegrate in society after they return home from deployments. The program would mandate psychological evaluations and screenings for brain trauma and provide for follow-up care.

Filner is convinced the process of questioning military personnel is not thorough enough and that too much of a stigma is still attached to honestly speaking about emotional problems.

While the gross numbers are of concern, they do not tell the story so much as the rate of increase when compared with suicide rates in the overall population.

The Army and Marine Corps rates used to be lower than the comparable civilian rate. For example, it was 9 per 100,000 among those who had served on active duty in the Army in 2001. But in 2008, by comparison, the Army suicide rate among those who had served on active duty was 20.2 per 100,000 people.

Similarly, the active-duty Marine Corps rate in 2008 was 19.5 per 100,000 or just shy of the most recent civilian rate statistics available. It had been much less of a problem just a few years ago, going as low as 12.5 per 100,000 in 2002, Marine Corps figures show.

The suicide problem is expected to become more prominent as the debate continues over deployments in Afghanistan. As the public grows more restive about continued warfare on two fronts, lawmakers will be under pressure to address those concerns, and the political pressure will grow as next year’s midterm elections get closer.

The deployments to Afghanistan will probably only grow in the months ahead. President Obama is expected to announce next week that the U.S. force of about 68,000 in Afghanistan will swell next year, perhaps by 50 percent. Meanwhile, the approximately 115,000 U.S. forces in Iraq will go down to 50,000, but not until August 2010.

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A Dirty Little Secret of Capitalism: The U.S. Military Is One of the World’s Largest Polluters

http://revcom.us/a/199/military-en.html

A Dirty Little Secret of Capitalism: The U.S. Military Is One of the World’s Largest Polluters

The U.S. military is not only the main enforcer of the system that is plundering the earth’s environment and its people—it is also the single largest institutional consumer of oil in the world. And the U.S. military and its global operations are a major source of carbon dioxide emissions contributing to global climate change.

Estimates are that as of 2004, the U.S. military consumed 144 million barrels of oil a year—or 395,000 barrels per day. Fifty percent of the Pentagon’s energy consumption is accounted for by jet fuel—one of the single most carbon polluting fuels in existence. Many of its vehicles consume so much fuel their consumption is measured in gallons burned per minute instead of miles per hour. The B1-B Lancer bomber, for example, burns 59 gallons a minute. The Abrams tank meanwhile goes ½ mile on a gallon of fuel. The U.S. soldier is the most gas guzzling, carbon polluting, environment destroying combatant in the history of warfare. A report from Oil Change International found that the carbon emissions produced by the military from the war in Iraq alone “equals the emissions from putting 25 million more cars on the road in the U.S. this year… If the war was ranked as a country in terms of emissions, it would emit more carbon dioxide each year than 139 of the world’s nations do annually.”

But now the military has been announcing how they are “going green”. And the reality is that the defense department is developing and using some renewable power. The twist is what this renewable power is used for. One sharp example—the U.S. Navy base torture center in Guantánamo is powered by a wind/diesel plant. So while prisoners are locked away indefinitely without charge and tortured, the military carrying out the torture is using “green technology.”

The military motivation for “going green” is to cut dependency on “foreign oil” and to prepare for the danger of dwindling oil reserves in the future. At the same time, because biofuels haven’t proved practical for powering its war fighting machines, the military is moving to rely more on synfuels—that is, synthetic fuels made from coal, oil shale and biomass. These are dirty fuels, producing more carbon than regular oil and gas. Claiming to “go green” (to defend U.S. interests), the U.S. military is a major source of climate change while warring on the planet—in part fueled by the drive to dominate and exploit the world’s fossil fuel energy reserves.

In addition to carbon emissions, the U.S. military is also one of the world’s major sources of other kinds of pollution and toxic waste. U.S. military bases, in the U.S. and especially worldwide, have spilled, dumped and left a toxic mess of petroleum products, solvents, chemical defoliants and heavy metals contaminating the soil, groundwater and waterways. In the U.S. as of 2004, 10% of “superfund” sites (the most polluted sites needing clean-up) were created by the military.

U.S. wars, invasions, and weapons testing sites have wreaked much worse havoc. They have caused untold devastation to people and the environment over decades. This includes the results from America dropping two atomic bombing on Japan—bombs which poisoned the people and countryside with radiation, in addition to killing over 100,000 people. During its war against Vietnam, they sprayed “agent orange” on the trees in the countryside to remove “the cover” of the guerrilla soldiers—this resulted in 400,000 [!] deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects. More recently, U.S. use of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques for target practice contaminated the soils and seas, and its illegal use of depleted uranium weapons in both wars against Iraq caused cancer rates and birth defects to skyrocket there.

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As Kyrgyz victims mourn, U.S. military flights resume, but fate of Manas air base is uncertain

http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/04/09/kyrgyz-victims-mourned-us-base-fate-on-hold-4/

Kyrgyz victims mourned, US base fate on hold Kyrgyz victims mourned, interim leader says US air base fate not a top priority for new govt

YURAS KARMANAU

AP News

Apr 09, 2010 13:40 EDT

Thousands of grieving, angry mourners flooded the capital’s main square Friday to honor victims of Kyrgyzstan’s revolt — with many blaming the country’s absent president for ordering security forces to fire on those protesting his government.

At least 76 people died in the violence and more than 1,400 were injured, the Health Ministry reported Friday. That figure included 67 people injured overnight in clashes between looters and security forces.

Flights, meanwhile, resumed at the U.S. Manas air base in this Central Asian nation after being halted Wednesday during the uprising. Manas is a key support center for the international military campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Covering their eyes and folding their hands in prayer, families and friends sobbed for the lives that were lost in the sprawling Ala-Too Square, where protesters were shot dead at an opposition rally as some stormed the main government building in Bishkek, the capital.

President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who fled Bishkek to seek support in his clan’s southern power base, was often a focus of their anger.

“We grieve over our heroes. They are real heroes who have sacrificed their lives for the future of Kyrgyzstan,” said Khatima Immamaliyeva, a 44-year-old office worker holding a red carnation and crying. “Bakiyev must bear responsibility for the deaths.”

Another mourner, 26-year-old Azimbek Sariyev, said “my friend Talas perished. I hope he hasn’t died for nothing. We have ousted Bakiyev, and won’t allow the rulers to mock us.”

U.S. Central Command spokesman Maj. John Redfield said normal flights had restarted at Manas as of Friday afternoon, according to a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. Around 1,100 troops are stationed there, including contingents from Spain and France, in support of NATO operations in Afghanistan.

Kyrgyzstan also hosts a Russian military base and is the only nation where both Cold War foes have bases.

Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the opposition’s self-declared interim government, said the base agreement will be continued at least for the near future. Opposition figures in the past have said they wanted to close the U.S. base, located at the international airport serving the capital.

The status of the base has been a significant strategic question since the uprising Wednesday.

“We have no intentions whatsoever to deal with the American base now. Our priority is the lives of the people who suffered. A top priority is to normalize the situation, to secure peace and stability,” Otunbayeva said as she visited a hospital in Bishkek that had treated many wounded.

She also said the interim government would not negotiate with Bakiyev, whose regime the opposition has accused of corruption.

Since coming to power in 2005 amid street protests known as the Tulip Revolution, Bakiyev had ensured a measure of stability. But the opposition said it came at the expense of democratic standards and accused Bakiyev of enriching himself and his family, just like Askar Akayev, the ruler he overthrew.

Akayev, who now teaches mathematics at Moscow State University, said this week’s revolt was a natural outcome of the policies followed by Bakiyev’s government.

“For the last five years, he has ruled without heed to the constitution, has reinforced his own power and put in place an authoritarian and repressive regime,” he told The Associated Press in Moscow.

“I think that a very sorrowful fate awaits him because in having given the command to open fire on the population he has signed his own death warrant,” Akayev said.

Bakiyev told a Russian radio station on Thursday that “I don’t admit defeat in any way.” But he also said he recognized that “even though I am president, I don’t have any real levers of power.”

“What has taken place is a veritable orgy carried out by armed groups and I do not believe this is a defeat for me,” Bakiyev said.

He spoke from the southern Jalal-Abad region, where Bakiyev’s popularity is said to remain high — raising concerns he might try to secure his survival by exploiting the split between the more urban north and rural south.

Otunbayeva, the interim leader, said the new leadership would do everything possible to prevent a civil war.

“We are controlling the situation here, we are mobilized, alert,” she said. “We have the means, the resources and the possibilities. We have people’s support.”

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