Category: DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina In the News

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Army pre-decides to station Strykers in Hawai’i – again

February 23, 2008

Critics claim politics steers Stryker plans

By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

Opponents of the Army’s plan to base its fifth Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Schofield Barracks disagree with the Pentagon’s conclusion that the move would fill strategic and national security needs.

The Pentagon’s reasoning is outlined in the final version of a court-ordered environmental study that the Army conducted on whether to base the brigade in the islands, Alaska or Colorado. Opponents sued to require the study several years ago, claiming the Army did not adequately weight alternatives to Hawaii.

Bill Aila, one of the plaintiffs in a long-standing legal case against permanently locating the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Schofield, contends that politics and not national defense is the driving force.

Another opponent, Earthjustice attorney David Henkin, questioned the Army’s wisdom in stationing 328 eight-wheeled, 19-ton vehicles in the middle of the Pacific since there would be no place to land if cargo planes transporting the Strykers developed mechanical problems.

In reviewing the two alternates — Alaska and Colorado — that the Army rejected, Henkin said it would be easier for transport aircraft to find places to land if mainland Army bases were used.

Henkin again questioned why the Army keeps rejecting the inclusion of Fort Lewis in Washington state in its deliberations as a federal appeals court ordered it to do two years ago.

He said Hawaii is farther away from “hot spots in Asia” than Washington and Alaska.

The Army estimates that “it would take 300 sorties of C-17s to mobilize this brigade,” Henkin added, “and Hawaii only has six to eight of these jet cargo planes at Hickam Air Force Base.”

“Where are all those planes?” Henkin asked. “They are on the West Coast.”

The 743-page supplemental environmental impact statement was released yesterday by the Army Environmental Command in Maryland. A final decision will be made by Pentagon leaders before the end of March.

The report said Lt. Gen. James Thurman, Army deputy chief of staff, selected Hawaii because keeping the brigade here would give the Army two Pacific outposts from which to deploy the eight-wheeled, heavy-duty vehicles and the soldiers who operate them. The Army already has one Stryker brigade in Alaska.

In October 2006 the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the supplemental environmental study because it believed that a 2004 study did not adequately analyze alternatives to Hawaii.

Last December the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team deployed to Iraq for 15 months after completing its training under a limited court exemption. When fully manned and equipped, the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team will include 4,105 soldiers and 1,000 vehicles, including 328 eight-wheeled, 19-ton combat vehicles.

The entire study is available at www.aec.army.mil.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://archives.starbulletin.com/2008/02/23/news/story07.html

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Conrow: Pumping up PMRF

Pumping up PMRF

Kaua’i is being taken by air, land and sea

by Joan Conrow / 10-31-07

Surrounded by security fences, with armed guards at the gates, the high-tech enclave of Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) stands in sharp contrast to the largely deserted beaches and agricultural fields that surround it on Kaua‘i’s rural westside.

Located nearly at the western end of Kaumuali‘i Highway, one of two roads that hug the coastline, but don’t encircle Kauai, the navy base is largely out of sight, and thus out of the minds, of most island residents and visitors.

But PMRF’s low profile image is juxtaposed with high profile actions-and the navy is looking to ramp them up even more. Right now, PMRF is the place where target missiles are launched, and then shot down over the ocean, in anticipation of a day when such weapons are headed toward the USA.

And before long, if the navy gets its way, PMRF will assume even greater importance in the Pacific as the place where a new breed of weaponry and warfare is conceived, tested and deployed.

Among the projects planned for PMRF are research and development in “advanced hypersonic” and “directed energy” weapons, which could include a high energy laser. Other plans call for testing unmanned boats and aircraft, along with air-breathing hypersonic vehicles that cruise at four times the speed of sound. The navy also wants to operate a portable undersea tracking range and increase its antisubmarine and missile defense activities.

The base would be used as well for testing and training in new weapons systems, including electronic warfare; supporting and rapidly deploying naval units and strike brigades; live fire exercises on land and sea; building and operating an instrumented minefield training area; and expanded international Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises.

Give them an inch, they’ll take 235,000 miles

The “planned enhancements” for PMRF, and the rest of Hawai‘i, are revealed in a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) that outlines the future for the Navy’s Hawai‘i Range Complex (HRC). This is a remarkably broad area that encompasses 235,000 square nautical miles of ocean above and around all 18 Hawaiian Islands, Kaula rock and Johnston Atoll, as well as a 2.1-million nautical mile “temporary operating area” of sea and airspace.

Currently, the Navy conducts some 9,300 training, research, development, testing and evaluation activities in the HRC annually. According to the DEIS, the Navy plans “to increase the tempo and frequency of training exercises” throughout the state, and particularly at PMRF.

As part of that initiative, the Navy will begin hosting “Strike Groups” that would stop by Hawai‘i en route to a final destination for exercises lasting up to 10 days. “The exercise would involve Navy assets engaging in a ‘free play’ battle scenario, with U.S. forces pitted against an opposition force,” the DEIS states. “The exercise provides realistic training on in-theater training operations. Proposed exercise training operations would be similar to current training operations for the RIMPAC and USWEX Exercises.”

The document contends that all the proposed activities listed are “an integral part of [the Navy’s] readiness mandate” and should be carried out in the Islands because ‘the Navy’s presence in Hawai‘i remains of essential strategic and operational importance to U.S. national interests.”

For that reason, the DEIS excluded from consideration any reduction in the current level of training within the range, as well as finding alternative locations for activities now done in the range. The study also did not address the possibility of using computer simulations for training.

Kyle Kajihiro, director of the American Friends Service Committee program in Hawai‘i, is not alone in his belief that the military’s continued buildup is turning the Islands-and especially Kaua‘i-into a target. “It really is counterintuitive, pursuing these kinds of activities in a way that is seen as provocative to other nations,” he says. “It really puts Hawai‘i in the focus because of that.”

The DEIS was drafted, according to the document, as part of a larger Navy directive to make a “comprehensive analysis” of environmental impacts in specific geographic areas.

Kajihiro sees that approach as “skirting the law and getting blanket approval to do things the public may never know about,” including some of the “freakish high tech stuff” that is not fully described in the DEIS. Further, the document does not disclose when the Navy expects to execute many of its plans, using instead such general phrases as “foreseeable future.”

The ocean is their training ground

The DEIS also is intended to address concerns raised over the Navy’s use of underwater high-intensity sonar, which researchers have linked to acoustic trauma that can cause death and strandings among marine animals.

That issue hit center stage in the Islands last year when the Department of Defense granted the Navy a six-month exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), allowing it to use active sonar during the 2006 RIMPAC war games.

Facing litigation in Hawai‘i and Southern California over that exemption, Donald Schregardus, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for the environment, vowed the Navy would no longer attempt to circumvent the law and would instead conduct an EIS for all its ranges where sonar is used before the 2008 exercises.

The DEIS “does not predict any marine mammal mortalities” or serious injuries from the Navy’s sonar activities. “However, given the frequency of naturally occurring marine mammal strandings in Hawai‘i (e.g. natural mortality), it is conceivable that a stranding could co-occur within the timeframe of a Navy exercise, even though the stranding may be unrelated to Navy activities,” the document states.

The National Marine Fisheries Service also advised the Navy to consider “scientific uncertainty and potential for mortality,” the document states, so the Navy is requesting 20 serious injury or mortality “takes” for seven species of marine mammals-including melon-headed whale, bottlenosed dolphin, pygmy killer whale and short-finned pilot whale and three species of beaked whales.

Those findings did not satisfy west Kaua‘i resident Diana LaBedz, of the Surfrider Foundation. “Listen to the world’s citizens … when the oceans die, we die,” she testified in a public hearing on the DEIS.

Much of the sonar activity is centered at PMRF, where the Navy 20 years ago placed acoustic monitoring devices on the ocean floor off the west coast of Kaua‘i to detect and track underwater activity. These acoustic systems “provide a unique evaluative tool that offers specific information in tracking participants’ movements and responses during Naval training exercises,” the DEIS states.

This land is our land

In the two decades since, PMRF has become the world’s largest military test range capable of supporting subsurface, surface, air and space operations and it provides services for “the Navy, other DoD agencies, allies and private industry,” according to the DEIS.

Future plans call for extending military activities well beyond the boundaries of the 1,800-acre base. The Navy also wants to test unmanned boats at Kaua‘i’s Port Allen and Kikiaola Harbor, install a new antenna at Makaha Ridge, enhance its fiber optics infrastructure at Koke‘e State Park and add an underwater training area off Ni‘ihau.”It’s totally inundating Kaua‘i,” Kajihiro says. He dates the current expansion efforts to about 2000, “when there was a rush to deploy missile defense systems and money was being poured into that. It attracted some of the largest defense contractors in the world to set up shop on Kaua‘i.”

That gold rush, coupled with the decline of sugar, has allowed PMRF to emerge as the economic anchor of the rural West side. The base employs about 850 workers, most of them of them civilians, and generates some $112 million annually in paychecks and other spending, endearing itself to business groups, county officials and many West-side residents.

Kajihiro says PMRF’s missile defense program is also driving the University Affiliated Research Center, which creates a controversial partnership between the Navy and University of Hawai‘i for the purpose of military research.

While most Kaua‘i residents are largely unaware of the growth going on behind the security fence, and still have little inkling of the Navy’s plans for PMRF’s future, they are much more attuned to the base’s steady expansion into surrounding lands. When the Navy announced plans to lease “in perpetuity” 5,860 acres of state agricultural land to create a “buffer zone” devoid of development around the base, islanders turned out in large numbers to object.

“The Navy’s request is an aggressive action to restrict the use of the lands by Native Hawaiians,” said Puanani Rogers, who was born and raised on Kaua‘i, in her testimony to the Land Board. “It is the right of the Board to preserve and protect the lands in question and by giving away the lands to the Navy the board is breaching the trust given to them. The buffer zone is a way for the Navy to keep the people of Kaua‘i away from the PMRF as they are a threat to the Navy’s security.”

Many Native Hawaiians were angry that the Navy was encroaching into ceded lands that they felt should be made available first to kanaka maoli.

Still other Kaua‘i residents noted the state had failed to enforce provisions in PMRF’s existing lease, such as allowing access to the shoreline. For several years following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, PMRF closed off public access to the longest stretch of sand in Hawai‘i for “security purposes”-even though only 7.5 miles of the beach actually front the base.

“We don’t trust the Navy or the state, so where do we start?” asked Anahola resident James Torio.

Others objected to the Navy’s use of additional acreage outside the base, noting it has a poor record of caring for public land. Ele‘ele resident Wilma Holi reminded state officials that Hawaiians struggled for 60 years to end the Navy’s claim on Kaho‘olawe. “Do you want our children to fight that same war? Bullshit.”

Despite strong public opposition, the state Land Board approved the request in May 2004, although it didn’t allow the Navy to lease the land in perpetuity. Instead, the terms and conditions will be reviewed every 10 years. The lease agreement allowed the Navy to pick and choose agricultural tenants for the “buffer zone,” including companies growing genetically modified crops.

This further angered activists, who contend that agribusiness companies are allowed to operate in a shroud of secrecy within the Navy-controlled “buffer zone,” thus making it nearly impossible to determine whether experimental genetically modified crops being grown there pose a risk to people or the environment.

Kajihiro agrees that the military has a poor environmental record in Hawai‘i, citing the massive destruction the Navy inflicted on Kaho‘olawe and the presence of some 800 contaminated military sites-a figure that doesn’t include active ranges-throughout the state. Records also show the military dumped toxic chemicals in the ocean, he says, and “Pearl Harbor is a giant Superfund site.”

“They all add up to an unacceptable impact that Hawai‘i has been bearing for over 100 years,” he says.

Culture shock

Past activities at PMRF also have had cultural implications. The rocket launch pad was built on sacred dunes at Nohili-a cultural faux pas that incited protests and arrests, but no change in its location.

The DEIS for the Hawai‘i Range Complex has determined that the Navy’s plans are not expected to have any new cultural impacts, nor would they result in “either short- or long-term impacts to air quality, airspace, geology and soils, hazardous material and hazardous waste, health and safety, land use, noise and utilities.”

“I think that’s ridiculous,” Kajihiro says, noting that the document contains 15 pages of cumulative impacts that must be listed, although not necessarily addressed.

The document does acknowledge that the Navy’s planned activities will have consequences, although in each case it maintains they can be easily dealt with. For example, “PMRF’s requirements for additional electricity demand, potable water consumption, wastewater generated and solid waste disposal would be handled by existing facilities,” the document states, even though the high energy laser alone would require 30 megawatts of power.

As for public safety, “PMRF would develop the necessary standard operating procedures and range safety requirements necessary to provide safe operations associated with future high energy laser tests,” the document states.

The DEIS goes on to assert, “The Navy has appropriate plans in place to manage hazardous materials used and generated. Fragments of expended training materials, e.g. ammunition, bombs and missiles, will be deposited on the ocean floor. The widely dispersed, intermittent, minute size of the material minimizes the impact. Wave energy and currents will further disperse the materials.”

Additionally, it states, “some current flight trajectories could result in missiles such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) flying over portions of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. Preliminary results of debris analysis indicate that debris is not expected to severely harm threatened, endangered, migratory, or other endemic species on or offshore of Nihoa and Necker Islands. Quantities of falling debris will be very low and widely scattered so as not to present a toxicity issue. Falling debris will also have cooled down sufficiently so as not to present a fire hazard for vegetation and habitat. If feasible, consideration will be given to alterations in the missile flight trajectory, to further minimize the potential for debris impacts.”

Kajihiro is disheartened by that sort of language, saying the DEIS for the Hawai‘i Range is “short on particularities for specific programs” and glances over the cumulative impacts. But such an approach is characteristic of how many government agencies respond to the National Environmental Protection Act.

“I don’t believe the EIS process, at least the way it works right now, does work for the communities or resources affected,” he says. “Agencies have become very skilled at predicting the outcome and filling in the pieces to ensure the outcome. That’s why there’s so much litigation.”

However, he said, the EIS process “is one of the only ways people can get involved and get things on the record.”

Still, just three people turned out for the DEIS hearing on O‘ahu, he says. “People feel so jaded and disillusioned because they feel no one is listening.”

While a larger number did testify at the Kaua‘i hearing, others failed to meet the Sept. 17 deadline for comments because they were distracted by the Superferry controversy.

Kajihiro says they won’t really get another chance to voice their views. Although the public will have 45 days to review and comment on the final EIS, “there’s no formal hearing process and they rarely incorporate any of those comments into the final document,” he says.

It appears, then, that the Navy will be allowed to move ahead with its plans for the Hawai‘i Range Complex, barring any legal challenges and provided that Congress keeps appropriating funds.

That’s a big deal in Hawai‘i, where military spending is a major component of the economy. Kajihiro, however, likens such expenditures to an athlete using steroids. For a time, he says, the performance is great.

“But it’s killing your heart, and ultimately your health is going to fail.”

(For more details, visit http://[www.govsupport.us/navynepahawaii/EIS.aspx].)

Source: http://honoluluweekly.com/cover/2007/11/pumping-up-pmrf-2/

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UH-Navy Corruption Flies Under the Radar

Under the Radar

On September 27, 2007, the University of Hawai‘i (UH) Board of Regents approved a new contract for a University Affiliated Research Center (UARC), a classified Navy-sponsored research center at the University of Hawai‘i (UH). The UARC resurfaced two years after a coalition of students, faculty and community allies occupied the UH President’s office for a week in protest of such a plan. Opposition from the major UH constituencies including Native Hawaiians, students and faculty led interim Manoa Chancellor Denise Konan to reject the UARC on the Manoa campus. But UH President David McClain overrode Konan to administer the UARC at the UH system level.

While UARC proponents say the contract is a vehicle that could bring in $50 million over five years, opponents argue that it represents the encroachment of the “military industrial complex” into UH, violates its core values as a Native Hawaiian place of learning and turns the Manoa campus into a U.S. Navy lab.

The Administration has said that the UARC will not accept classified projects in the first three years, yet the base contract assigns “secret” level classification to the entire facility, making the release of any information subject to the Navy’s approval. Among the concerns is that the growth of secret non-bid contracts under the UARC increases the risk of corruption, abuses of power and lack of accountability.

An Illicit Creation:

This article is drawn from the new report The Dirty Secret About UARC that uncovers the hidden origins of the UARC based on a two and a half year investigation involving federal and state freedom of information requests, interviews and attempted interviews with key players, and background research about federal contracting, congressional appropriations and defense technologies. The saga of the scandal began as early as 2001 with two Navy grants to UH that have been embroiled in a Navy criminal investigation and an aborted $50 million Research Corporation of the University of Hawai‘i (RCUH) proposal to the Navy called “Project Kai e‘e” (meaning tsunami or tidal wave in Hawaiian), which was intended to become the UARC. The results of the Navy criminal investigation are not known at this time.

The UARC was born from questionable contract activities involving Navy admirals, Naval research
program managers, UH researchers, military contractors, high ranking UH and RCUH officials and congressionally earmarked programs that have been the subjects of federal investigations. The suspicious circumstances surrounding the termination of the Project Kai e‘e proposal and the UARC’s creation by sole source award of a monopoly contract have raised serious questions about the legality and ethics of the procurement.

Furthermore, government secrecy has denied the public access to contracts and financial information, thereby making it impossible to assess the legality of the UARC process and evaluate the risks and potential impacts of undertaking a UARC. To critics of the UARC, the obstruction of public information and accountability amounts to a de facto cover-up. Ironically, the secrecy masking the UARC’s troubled beginnings illustrates the dangers critics have warned about.

The criminal investigation stems from complaints filed with federal authorities in the summer of 2003 by a UH Facilities Security Officer Jim Wingo, a whistleblower who accused Mun Won Fenton, an Office of Naval Research (ONR) program manager and the Navy’s designated “point of contact” for the creation of the UARC of “1) abuse of authority, 2) significant mismanagement of classified contracts, and 3) potential leaks of classified information, classified information lost, compromised, and unauthorized disclosure.” Fenton oversaw several military sponsored research grants and contracts to UH worth several million dollars. She has not returned repeated telephone calls for an interview.

Wingo’s complaint also implicated three of these Navy-sponsored grants and contracts:

Theater Missile Defense: awarded to UH in July 2001 for sensor integration research related to Theater Missile Defense. Initially valued at $238,000, the grant was increased several times to a total of $645,862. Electrical engineering professor Audra Bullock was the Principal Investigator (PI).

High Frequency Scanned Array: awarded to UH in March 2001 for research related to an advanced radar system (UESA) in the amount of $246,375. The grant was increased to a total of $1,462,759 with a promise of an additional $50,000 future funding. However the project terminated early and $9,547.61 was eventually returned. UH professor Michael DeLisio was the initial PI, until electrical engineering professor Vassilis Syrmos took over after December 2001.

Next Generation Radar: a contract awarded to RCUH in December 2002 related to “Sensor Integration and Testbed Technologies.” The award was valued at $1,163,028 with Vassilis Syrmos as the PI. It involved continuing research on the UESA radar, which was called the “Next Generation Radar”.

On March 2, 2005, the Ka Leo o Hawai‘i newspaper broke the story that the Navy Criminal Investigation Service was investigating Fenton and several Navy grants and contracts with UH. It reported that funds granted to UH by the Navy were allegedly used improperly to prepare another RCUH proposal, which is now known to be “Project Kai e‘e.” While the UH Administration denies any wrong-doing on the part of UH faculty or that the criminal investigation has any connection to the UARC, mounting evidence firmly links the UARC to this corruption scandal.

Early Warning Signs: Modular Command Center and Tactical Component Network

Sometime in 2000, Fenton and Rear Admiral Paul S. Schultz, commander of the Amphibious Group ONE sought to establish a network-centric warfare program on Kaua‘i based on a new and controversial technology called Tactical Component Network (TCN). Because TCN was perceived as a threat to the established Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) system, the Navy may have blocked any contracting related to TCN.

According to John Monacci, the program manager recruited by Fenton to head the TCN project in Hawai‘i, Fenton and Schultz sought to bypass normal procurement channels to establish the TCN system in Hawai‘i, initially using UH research grants as cover to avoid resistance from hostile Navy officials. Monacci says the strategy was to “disguise” the TCN demonstration as “CEC pre-planned product improvements.” The TCN was installed on ships under Schultz’s command to undergo testing and evaluation at the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) on Kaua‘i. Schultz named his particular application of the TCN the “Modular Command Center” (MCC).

According to Monacci, Fenton lobbied Senator Daniel Inouye to secure funding for these programs. On July 27, 2000, the Senator announced that he had successfully secured Fiscal Year 2001 Defense Appropriations
totaling $150.5 million for PMRF programs. This included $10 million for “CEC improvements,” $11.5 million for “Theater Missile Defense new sensors,” $10 million for “UESA signal processing,” and $10 million for “Tactical Component Network demonstration”.

Irregularities in Hiring and Appropriations:

Only three days into her new job at UH in 2000, electrical engineering professor Audra Bullock met Fenton, who invited her to submit a research proposal to the Navy. Looking back on the fateful meeting, Bullock ruefully joked, “I probably should have stayed home that day.”

According to Bullock, Fenton asked her to write a laser sensors research proposal that was part of a larger Tactical Component Network proposal. Bullock said she was told that the grant was intended to initiate a working relationship between ONR and UH that could lead to an Indefinite Deliverable / Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) capacity contract. IDIQs are a type of non-bid monopoly contract that has become widely abused since 2000, according to a 2004 Report of the House Committee on Government Reform. The UARC is a sole source IDIQ contract.

After Bullock received the initial grant, Fenton added funds to the grant that more than doubled the award. Bullock said that Fenton then directed her to hire John Monacci as the program manager. As the Principal Investigator (PI) for the project, Bullock was supposed to manage the finances and personnel as well as oversee the research work performed.

However, according to Monacci, “Audra Bullock didn’t oversee anything;” she was “a very nice person” who was “naïve to how Fenton was using her.”

Monacci said that he actually worked under Syrmos and was managed by Fenton and Schultz. Monacci’s job was to install a TCN system on several ships and units under Schultz’s command including the USS Essex, USS Blue Ridge, and an AEGIS cruiser along with ground units from the Marine Corps and to test the system at PMRF on Kaua‘i. This project matches the description of the “CEC pre-planned product improvement” in Department of Defense budget justification sheets, which was identified as a Congressional earmark.

Bullock said that several months later, Fenton instructed her to hire two others from the Pacific Missile Range Facility: Debby Gatioan and John Grandfield. At the time, Bullock expressed concerns to Fenton about having to hire additional employees who were unrelated to her research project. Further, Bullock was concerned that she did not have sufficient funds in the grant to pay two more people. According to Bullock, Fenton promised that Gatioan and Grandfield would be moved off the grant as soon as other funding came through. Gatioan’s job as “UESA Administrative Specialist” and Grandfield’s as “UESA Electrical Engineer” were unrelated to Bullock’s laser sensors research.

Bullock said that in her final report to her sponsors she indicated that she only directly oversaw approximately $150,000 out of the total $645,862 grant and she did not supervise the work of the personnel that the Navy directed her to hire.

UH records show that there was a modification to Bullock’s Grant in July 27, 2001 adding $309,862 to the award. On June 25, 2002 there was another modification adding $100,000 and extending the Grant until May 31, 2003. UH has refused to release Bullock’s actual grant contract, reports or finances.

According to Monacci, Fenton and Schultz were assembling a team to run the MCC/TCN integration program and develop a much larger sensor integration proposal, which came to be called “Project Kai e‘e.”

Monacci said that when Admiral Schultz wanted him to hire another Navy associate John Iwaniec on the TCN grant, he refused because he believed the request was improper. Monacci claimed that since he did not cooperate, Fenton pressured Syrmos to terminate him. Monacci was fired in December 2001. Syrmos said that subsequently, Fenton directed him to hire Iwaniec onto the UESA grant.

The Rise and Fall of Project Kai e‘e:

During his employment on Bullock’s grant, Monacci wrote a concept paper for a multifaceted “Pacific Operations Institute” based in Hawai‘i that would integrate research, testing and evaluation and business development. According to Monacci, it was the initial concept that gave rise to the UARC, the Hawaii Engineering and Design Center and the Hawaii Technology Development Venture.

Fenton revised the plan and renamed it the “Pacific Research Laboratory” (PRL). Fenton’s draft insisted, “Contracting… Provide fast/efficient streamlined contracting for DoD customers… THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT CORE COMPETENCE OF PRL!!!”

Once the overall concept for a federal research center was sketched out, Monacci began writing a sensor integration proposal to be submitted by RCUH in response to a Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) solicitation Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) N00421-01-R-0176 for “Sensors Integration and Communications Technologies.”

The RCUH proposal incorporated proposals prepared by seven UH faculty and compiled by Syrmos. Monacci also incorporated proposals from several defense contractors, including Oceanit, ORINCON, Solipsys, Cambridge Research Associates, SAIC, SYS, and WR Systems.

ORINCON (prior to its acquisition by Lockheed Martin) was a local defense contractor that developed network centric warfare technologies, including a proprietary system called “Web-centric warfare.” Larry Cutshaw, the Director of Business Development for ORINCON, is married to Kathy Cutshaw, UH Manoa Vice Chancellor for Administration, Finance, and Operations, who negotiated the first proposed UARC contract.

Cambridge Research Associates (CRA) produced battle-space visualization software called “PowerScene” that was being utilized in sensor integration testing. Both “Web-centric warfare” and “PowerScene” turned up later in a press release from Senator Inouye as programs eligible to compete for UARC funding.

Oceanit was a company involved in the UESA program and other missile defense projects on Kaua‘i. Prior to being hired onto Bullock’s grant, Debby Gatioan worked for Oceanit and was a Navy point of contact for an industry briefing related to the above mentioned “Sensors Integration and Communications Technologies”
solicitation.

RCUH and its Executive Director Harold Masumoto were key players in moving this project along. Masumoto, the consummate political insider, has through several UH administrations worked behind the scenes to shape key UH decisions. At the June 1, 2001 RCUH Board of Directors meeting, he reported “RCUH’s assistance is needed by the Navy for missile program project at PMRF because of the classified nature of the work to be done.”

Then at the October 4, 2001 RCUH Board of Directors meeting, Masumoto reported, “This may become a major project – about $50 million if funding comes through. As more of these types of projects become reality, there may be a need for a separate entity to manage them because of their focused objectives.”

RCUH and Funding Anomalies:

Established by the State legislature in 1965 to support research activities at UH, RCUH was exempted from various state laws governing procurement and personnel in order to provide more flexible and expedient administrative and financial services than a typical state agency could perform. While it fulfilled important and legitimate functions for researchers, RCUH also gained a reputation for lack of transparency and accountability. In a 1993 report the State Auditor found that RCUH “operates with little accountability and oversight by either the university or its Board of Directors.”

Around May 2003, Bullock asked Masumoto to remove Grandfield and Gatioan from the contract payroll, which he agreed to do. But some time later, Bullock received a notice from RCUH for an unauthorized payroll transaction. She complained to RCUH and was told that Brenda Kanno, the RCUH Executive Secretary, authorized the payroll transaction with funds from another, unspecified source. Bullock said this transaction came as a shock to her, who as the principal investigator was supposed to authorize all payroll transactions on her grant.

In fact, RCUH employment records show that Gatioan and Grandfield were employed by RCUH under job descriptions created for Bullock’s grant long after the grant itself had expired, while the funding sources for their payroll changed several times. Both Gatioan and Grandfield were moved off of the College of Engineering funding on September 15, 2002, which corresponds to the timeframe when Project Kai e‘e was abandoned.

The minutes of the March 2002 RCUH Board of Directors meeting stated: “Executive Director Masumoto reported that we should know within a month or so whether this project will be funded for $48 million over a five-year period. The project is related to missile defense and is basically in support of the Pacific Missile Range Facility. This is a direct project (not a UH project) in which RCUH is the applicant for the funds. The intent is that RCUH will “incubate” the project and then later there will be a new home base for it. The long-range objective is to make this a federal research center similar to national labs such as Sandia, etc. There is great potential for this project.”

Five months after Masumoto’s optimistic forecast, Project Kai e‘e was abruptly and inexplicably aborted. The minutes of the September 27, 2002 RCUH Board of Directors meeting contained only a terse and vague statement about its cancellation: “ONR Project – The proposal for Project Kai e‘e was withdrawn due to circumstances beyond our control. RCUH will pursue other avenues of funding for these types of projects.”

“Things began to fall apart,” explains Monacci. He said that Schultz’s superiors at NAVSEA shut down the MCC/TCN program in Hawai‘i. John Grandfield said he believed that the proposal was withdrawn to avoid RCUH being implicated in possible illegal activities.

Monacci said that Schultz was demoted to a desk job. Admiral Schultz’s service transcript indicates that he was reassigned to be Commander, Military Sealift Command (Special Assistant) from April 2002 to June 1, 2003, at which point he retired at the reduced rank of Captain. Thus far, the Navy, RCUH and UH have failed to respond to freedom of information (FOIA) requests to produce documents related to Project Kai e‘e.
Current RCUH Executive Director Mike Hamnett said that the proposal files for Project Kai e‘e were shredded and thrown away.

Masumoto said in an interview, “Project Kai e‘e, project whatever, I don’t know what the hell they are anymore… You got to understand people like me. I don’t speculate in answering questions to people like you. Okay? You can’t quote me because I’m not going to tell you anything that you can quote me on.”

Moving Towards UARC: Secrecy and Deceptions

Once Project Kai e‘e was scrapped, Masumoto shifted gears to directly pursue the UARC designation, preparing the documents for Senator Inouye’s staff and pitching the UARC to then UH President Evan Dobelle and UHM Chancellor Peter Englert.

In a 2005 public meeting on the UARC, Englert denied that there was any connection between the UARC and the investigation of the Navy grants. He also denied having any dealings with Masumoto or Fenton about the UARC. He was not telling the truth. In a December 6, 2002 letter to Cohen, Englert wrote: “Currently we are working with Ms. Mun Won Fenton at ONR… to create a preliminary management plan that will serve as the road map of the University’s core competencies. Furthermore, Mr. Harold Masumoto, Executive Director of the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii, has briefed Mr. John Young, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, on our intention to apply for a UARC at UHM.”

Under Masumoto the UARC plans moved swiftly, but turbulence from the unseen events that had led to the cancellation of Project Kai e‘e continued for months afterwards. By 2003, the relationship between Fenton and Syrmos grew unbearably strained when Syrmos allegedly refused to go along with changes Fenton wanted to make. Gaines said that he believed Fenton classified several projects in order to remove Syrmos from them.
According to Syrmos, in the spring of 2003 several pieces of information were classified on the Next Generation Radar project. Heightened security restrictions in the wake of September 11, 2001, ensured that Syrmos, as a foreign born researcher, would not easily attain security clearance. As a result, he was temporarily forced off the UESA and Next Generation projects. On May 13, 2003, Masumoto hinted to the RCUH Board of Directors that there were problems brewing: “Security Issue – We have a situation where a project started as an unclassified project, but the Navy has now decided to classify it. Issue is safeguarding the appropriate data and allowing access to cleared employees only in a secure facility.”

Irregularities in the classification procedures prompted UH Facilities Security Officer James Wingo to file complaints with federal authorities in July 2003, which led to the investigations reported in the Ka Leo paper
almost two years later.

Although Iwaniec and Gatioan were still employed under their original job descriptions, the source of their payrolls switched to PICHTR on July 15, 2003. Several days later, on July 22, 2003, Masumoto resigned from RCUH and assumed a full-time role at PICHTR.

But Masumoto maintained a hidden hand in the UARC process. On July 1, 2003, he signed a $60,000 consultancy contract with RCUH to help secure the UARC for UH. After extending the contract to June 30, 2005, and with several months remaining on his contract, Masumoto abruptly terminated the agreement and his security clearance on March 31, 2005 shortly after news of the Navy criminal investigation broke.

Irregularities in UARC Designation for UH

Opponents of the UARC point out that contrary to Federal Acquisition Regulations and Department of Defense guidance requiring competition in the awarding of UARC contracts, NAVSEA awarded the ARL/UH without any competition. In other recently created UARCs, the Army, NASA and the Department of Homeland Security used extensive competition in selecting the recipients of the contracts.

Before a Hawai‘i State Senate committee Syrmos testified that the UARC was competitively procured through a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA), a widely distributed competitive procurement announcement. When an audience member challenged his statement, Syrmos corrected himself and said that there was a Request for Proposals (RFP) issued on September 24, 2004. This wasn’t true either. A presolicitation Notice dated September 24, 2004, stated: “The Naval Sea System Command intends to award a sole source contract for up to 315 work years to establish and further solidify a strategic relationship for essential Engineering, Research, and Development capabilities…”

In the case of the UH UARC, Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) UARC managers were forced to contrive a justification to procure a new UARC that they neither needed nor wanted. Furthermore, despite Freedom of Information requests filed nearly two years ago, NAVSEA has failed to provide the required justification and certification for the sole source procurement of the UARC to the University of Hawai‘i. Fenton and Schultz have not returned repeated phone calls for interviews. Senator Inouye’s office has not responded to requests for information.

Kyle Kajihiro is program director for DMZ Hawaii. For his full investigative report, The Dirty Secret About UARC, go to stopuarc.info. Email: kkajihiro@afsc.org.

October 9, 2007
Kyle Kajihiro

Source: http://www.haleakalatimes.com/2007/10/09/under_the_radar/

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Wahiawa speaks out on Strykers

Posted on: Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Hawaii Stryker plan gets wary welcome

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer

WAHIAWA – An Army proposal to permanently base a $1.5 billion Stryker brigade combat team in Hawai’i received a somewhat warmer reception last night in Wahiawa than
it had in several previous meetings.

Last night’s hearing was the fourth of nine to take place in Hawai’i, Alaska and Colorado regarding a revised environmental impact statement on the Stryker brigade team. The Stryker unit would consist of about 4,000 soldiers, 328 Stryker vehicles and about 600 other vehicles.

Hugh Lowery, a member of the Wahiawa-Whitmore Neighborhood Board’s ad hoc committee that reviewed the EIS proposal, said the committee and community are keeping an open mind.

On the other hand, he said, they would like some reassurances from the military.

“Basically, we said we’ll concur – if,” Lowery said.

“We’d like to see more specifics. When they say ‘significant’ (environmental impacts), what exactly do they mean by that? We live here. And I at least am pro-military and pro-training. The Army is our children, our nieces, our nephews and our grandchildren. But we need to have some controls.”

While most of the 75 people in attendance at Wahiawa District Park spoke against the EIS and the Stryker brigade, numerous residents also spoke in favor of both.

Native Hawaiian Thomas Shirai, a decorated former Coast Guard member, said his grandson is doing his second tour of duty in the Special Forces in Iraq. Shirai said his grandson and other soldiers must have the proper military training, and that projects such as the Stryker brigade are vital to America’s security.

But Kamoa Quitevis, a Native Hawaiian, Navy veteran and Hawaiian cultural monitor, said he strongly opposes the Stryker unit and harshly criticized the revised EIS. He said he has seen the damage done to cultural sites because of the military presence in the Islands.

“We all need to look deeper into this, and really see what is the impact,” Quitevis said. “I don’t seen any information in this draft EIS that is answering any of the questions of how they (the Army) will mitigate the damages to our environment, our health and our culture.”

Native Hawaiian William Prescott, who was raised in Wahiawa and is pro-military, dismissed the cultural arguments as irrelevant. The Hawaiian religion was outlawed by the Hawaiian monarchy in 1819, he said. Consequently, he said all mention of religious cultural sites should either be deleted from the EIS or listed as “formerly considered sacred cultural sites.”

Opponents of the proposal who appeared at earlier meetings in Nanakuli on Monday and in Hilo on Sept. 25 and 26 had been vocal in the condemnation of the Stryker unit and the EIS, citing pollution and limited Island space.

Numerous speakers at those meetings, as well as those last night, criticized the Army’s revised EIS, saying it was incomplete and not objective.

Last October, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the Army’s 2004 EIS failed to comply with federal environmental law because it did not analyze alternative locations outside Hawai’i.

In July, the Army issued its revised EIS that did not mention a preferred location. However, it considered the possibility of bringing the Stryker project to Hawai’i after a future Iraq deployment, or basing it at Fort Richardson in Alaska or Fort Carson in Colorado.

The Army has said that if it should have to move the Stryker unit out of Hawai’i in late 2008 or early 2009, it would be replaced with a smaller airborne or infantry brigade.

Complaints about the EIS focused on the Army’s decision to not conduct site-specific EIS studies at the Alaska or Colorado locations until a decision has been made to exclude Hawai’i from consideration.

Wai’anae activist William Aila, who spoke at the Nanakuli meeting Monday night, said the Army’s approach appears to be aimed at making Hawai’i the predetermined site.

Paul Thies, chief of the Environmental Planning Branch at the U.S. Army Environmental Center in Washington, D.C., last night said the military was conducting the meetings to hear from the community, and to
listen to all its concerns and thoughts. He said all comments will be taken into consideration.

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Source: http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Oct/03/ln/hawaii710030391.html/?print=on

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Anti-UARC coalition delivers scathing report on corrupt origins of the UARC

HONOLULU ADVERTISER
September 26, 2007

Military Research on Hawaii Campus Opposed

By William Cole

Opponents of a U.S. Navy-affiliated research center proposed for the University of Hawai’i yesterday decried the center, which would conduct research for the military, as “rotten to the core” ahead of an expected final vote by the Board of Regents tomorrow in Hilo.

“What is happening is that defense research is being channeled right into the heart of the university,” said Noel Kent, an ethnic studies professor at UH. “The whole way in which the university conducts defense and secret research is being changed dramatically, and this is what we oppose.”

About 40 opponents of the University Affiliated Research Center plan, some carrying green “Save UH, Stop UARC” placards, held a news conference at Bachman Hall, the university’s administrative office.

Some alternately shouted “Hewa!” and “Shame!” when the university wouldn’t open locked doors to allow opponents to drop off copies of an 84-page report titled “The Dirty Secret About UARC” compiled by Kyle Kajihiro.

“We want them (the Board of Regents) to know what they are getting into,” opponent Ikaika Hussey said.

Three UH security guards were posted in the Bachman Hall courtyard where the UARC opponents gathered. A university public affairs representative eventually appeared outside to deliver the report.

Carolyn Tanaka, UH vice president for external affairs and university relations, said the Board of Regents plans to take up the UARC, also called the Applied Research Laboratory, as the first agenda item tomorrow during the 9:30 a.m. meeting at UH-Hilo.

“Anybody who wants to talk will talk,” Tanaka said.

Critics are concerned about weapons research and a shift away from core values, while proponents argue that a University Affiliated Research Center would bring millions in research money and prestige to the university.

Johns Hopkins University makes about $300 million a year as one of four Navy UARCs, said Jim Gaines, UH system vice president for research.

He hopes UH could eventually reach the level of the University of Washington, which does $50 million to $70 million annually in Navy research.

“It is something that could be a major expansion (at UH) in the future,” Gaines said last week, adding that the research would train students to be part of a high-tech workforce.

The Navy-affiliated research center was provisionally approved by the UH Board of Regents in November 2004, but controversy and negotiations with the Navy over a final contract have kept it off the table.

Kajihiro, program director for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker peace and social justice organization, and member of Save UH/Stop UARC, said questionable practices began as early as 2001 with two Navy grants to UH that became embroiled in a Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation. The results are not known.

An aborted $50 million Research Corporation of the University of Hawai’i proposal to the Navy called “Project Kai e’ e” was intended to become the UARC, Kajihiro said.

UH newspaper Ka Leo O Hawai’i reported in 2005 that Navy investigators were looking into allegations that UH’s research corporation diverted funds from one project to write a proposal for another. Kajihiro said that new project was Kai e’ e.

“What we found is that the UARC is rotten to the core,” Kajihiro said. “What’s most disconcerting is that the secrecy surrounding those contracts is preventing the public from understanding what went on and how this UARC was created.”

UH’s Gaines said Kajihiro “has raised this repeatedly. … Our position on this is, there’s nothing there.”

Gaines said he’s aware there was a Navy investigation because the service requested documents on certain research projects, including one managed by UH’s research corporation, which facilitates research for the university.

“They asked for documents and we supplied them everything we were asked for, and that’s it,” Gaines said.

The UARC would be funded for three years, with an option for renewal for an additional two years. It’s estimated that a maximum of $10 million per year in unclassified “task orders” by the Navy and other federal entities would be funded.

Gaines said UH already has 1,600 military and federal research projects worth $400 million. Five are classified.

Gaines estimates the startup costs for the UARC will be about $1 million, and within a year that money will be recovered through fees and charges to the contracts.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.

© COPYRIGHT 2007 The Honolulu Advertiser, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of The Honolulu Advertiser. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.

Source:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070926/NEWS01/709260398/ 1001/NEWS01

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Moku o Keawe blasts Stryker expansion

September 26, 2007

ROD THOMPSON / RTHOMPSON@STARBULLETIN.COM
Former Office of Hawaiian Affairs Trustee Moanikeala Akaka forcefully expressed an opinion to Army public affairs officer Howard Sugai, back to camera, before last night’s hearing on stationing a Stryker brigade in Hawaii.

Opponents dominate forum

By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO » About 60 Big Island residents attended a public hearing last night on whether to base a brigade of Stryker combat vehicles in Hawaii.

Most didn’t want the brigade in the state, and some added that the Army’s nearly 109,000-acre Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island should be closed.

“We told the military four years ago, no Stryker,” peace activist Jim Albertini said.

He was referring to the fact that the Army already did an environmental impact statement on the effects of basing Strykers in Hawaii, but a court decision required a supplemental impact statement to consider basing the brigade elsewhere.

The two alternative sites for the unit, which would have 320 of the multipurpose armored personnel carriers, are Fort Carson, Colo., or Fort Richardson, Alaska. Another option is not deploying the brigade anywhere.

Army public affairs officer Bob DiMichele said almost all of the public comment before the meeting has come from Hawaii. Alaska and Colorado residents have mostly been silent.

If based in Hawaii, the brigade would be stationed at Schofield Barracks.

Hank Fergerstrom, identifying himself as representing the Temple of Lono, told about 15 uniformed and civilian Army representatives that the Hawaiian culture discouraged people from going into the uplands — where Pohakuloa is located — because that was a spiritual realm.

“When I was a child, you didn’t want to go up into the kuahiwi (mountains). It has to do with respect,” he said.

The hearing was structured so that the public was required to comment on the draft environmental document chapter by chapter, coming back several times to make several comments.

That brought criticism from Albertini.

“Today we are being treated like children: Open your books to Chapter One,” he said.

John Ota was among several complaining that “depleted uranium,” a nonexplosive form of the metal, had been used at Pohakuloa. He correctly noted that “a number of years” have passed since the usage, more precisely about 30, but concluded, “The government proved to be untrustworthy.”

The meeting was generally peaceful but a tense moment took place when moderator Annelle Amaral tried to tell speaker Lindafaye Kroll that she had only one minute left to speak. Kroll momentarily refused to shorten her testimony and the audience united behind her, some calling out, “Censorship!”

Despite the anti-Stryker audience, Lt. Col. John Williams said public comments are useful, showing the Army, for instance, that it has to build “wash racks” to clean Strykers of invasive species before shipping the vehicles interisland.

Stryker hearings
Four more Stryker meetings are planned. All are 5:30 to 9:45 p.m.

» Tonight: Waimea (Big Island) Community Center

» Monday: Nanakuli High cafeteria

» Tuesday: Wahiawa District Park

» Oct. 3: Kawananakoa Intermediate cafeteria

Source: http://archives.starbulletin.com/2007/09/26/news/story05.html

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Thanks, But No Tanks

Thanks but no tanks — Stryker draft EIS ready for comment

Public hearings set for September 25 & 26
Wednesday, September 19, 2007 8:44 AM HST

As long as Senator Daniel Inouye has been representing Hawai`i in congress, the islands have received more than their fair share of military pork. With the recent discovery of depleted uranium on Hawai`i Island and O`ahu and a growing awareness about the contamination that results from military operations, public opposition to a greater presence of armed forces is growing.

The United States Army will be holding public hearings on their proposed permanent home stationing of the Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Hawai`i. With a recent environmental impact statement finding that the brigade would cause less damage if based in Alaska or Colorado, and with the controversy surrounding the Stryker’s capability to fire depleted uranium (DU) munitions and possible contamination upon return from the Iraq Occupation, the conclusion could very well be “thanks, but no tanks.”

In 2004, the Army’s top brass decreed that the 2nd Brigade of the 25th Infantry would be transformed into a Stryker unit, and that Hawai`i would be the brigade’s home base.

On the Army’s Stryker Brigade Combat Team website, the Stryker is described as a new force for “strategic dominance across the full spectrum of operations — agile . . . versatile . . . lethal,” one which can be “rapidly deployed anywhere in the world in a few days time.” It includes approximately 4,000 soldiers and 1,000 vehicles, including 320 of the eight-wheeled, light-armor tanks.

Disregarding U.S. law, the Army failed to consider other base locations for the Stryker, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. Three kanaka maoli groups — Kipuka, Na `Imi Pono and `Ilio`ulaokalani Coalition — filed a lawsuit against the Army, which was ruled upon by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last October. The court ordered the Army to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) “to address a full range of alternatives” to permanently stationing the Stryker Brigade in Hawai`i.

The Army’s recently released draft EIS examines “a fuller range of reasonable alternatives” for permanently stationing the 2/25th Stryker Brigade Combat Team. Initially, the Army included alternate locations in Alaska, Washington, Colorado and Kentucky. The draft EIS was then limited to locations that have an infantry brigade that could be moved to Hawai`i to replace the Stryker — either Fort Carson, Colorado, or Fort Richardson, Alaska.

The locations in Alaska and Colorado are both military garrisons with large tracts of land that are far removed from civilian populations. Lt. Col. Jonathan Allen, public affairs officer for U.S. Army Garrison-Alaska, said “there’s a lot of maneuver room available here in Alaska. There’s 1.6 million acres between Fort Wainright, Fort Greely and Fort Richardson. We’re looking at having a lot of forces stationed here in Alaska . . . The community in the area is supportive of the military.”

Pat Everett of the Beauty Shop Post Exchange at Fort Carson, responded to the opportunity of the Stryker Brigade relocating to Colorado by saying “Oooh! You mean some more of the boys gonna come down?” Everett was clearly excited at the prospect of giving more buzzcuts.

Checking news reports in the Fort Carson newspaper for controversy over the possibility of basing Styrker units there seemed unecessary as it is a military publication.

Explaining Senator Dan Inouye’s position on the Stryker Brigade, Communication Director Mike Yuen said the senator is “very hopeful that when the Army concludes this process, it will reaffirm the need for the Stryker’s presence in Hawai`i.” Yuen said Inouye “believes Hawai`i is a prime location for basing the Stryker, given it’s strategic location in the Pacific, and given the political situation in S.E. Asia. With regards to what appears to be a condition for the proposal — that only locations with swapable infantry units would be considered — Yuen said “with 100 percent certainty that the senator was not involved with the Army’s decision making process.”

David Henkin of Earthjustice, the law firm representing the Native Hawaiian groups, said “my concern is that this draft EIS assumes that if the Stryker were to go somewhere else, Hawai`i will necessarily have another brigade come replace it. They limited the scope only to places that have a brigade to swap out.

“In their presumption that another infantry brigade would come to Hawaii,” Henkin added, “the Army hasn’t analyzed the impacts of bringing that brigade in. The one from Alaska is airborne, will need airborne facilities, and different cultural sites will be impacted. The Army needs to put all the facts on the table.”

The draft EIS maintains that the controversial discovery of DU munitions fragments at Pohakuloa Training Area, and the radioactive DU particles found at Schofield Barracks, dates back to weapon tests done in the past, and is not related to the Strykers. The document cites their official policy, Army Regulation 385-63, which “prohibits the use of DU ammunition for training worldwide.”

A bi-product of the nuclear energy industry, DU is a radioactive, heavy metal used by the military for its superior, armor piercing force.

BIW sent the following inquiry to Dave Foster of Army Public Affairs: “The Army assures that no DU ammunition will be used when the Styker Brigade Combat Team trains at the Pohakuloa Anti-Armor Live-Fire Training Range on the Saddle Road. What measures does the Army have in place to assure that the Strykers returning from Iraq, which use DU munitions in combat, will be decontaminated for aerosolized, microscopic DU dust?” As of press time, Foster had not responded.

“The Army says they ‘don’t train with ’em in Hawai`i.’ But there’s no question that they fire DU in Iraq,” said Henkin. “Do they clean the vehicles adequately? Under the National Environmental Protection Act, if there’s a scientific dispute, they have to disclose and discuss.”

According to the draft EIS, it was only after “a prescribed burn of the survey area” at Schofield that the Army found DU munitions fragments and 45 separate locations with “Gamma levels higher then background.”

“One of the biggest fears is from the DU oxides created when the material is fired, exploded or burnt,” said Dr. Lorrin Pang, a former military physician. “When inhaled into the lung, the particles are insoluble, and have a half-life of many decades. They are eventually picked up by the lymphatic system, like miner’s lung, and get into the urine.”

Neither the Army nor the Hawai`i Department of Health is testing soldiers who might be contaminated. The DU issue will continue to emit high levels of controversy, distrust and anger until the Army takes the community’s concerns seriously. If individual veterans want to be tested, Pang said Dr. Chris Busby of the European Committee on Radiation Risk has a clinical lab in the United Kingdom that will analyze urine samples for free, because as Pang puts it, “he believes in the cause.”

Explaining Senator Inouye position on Iraq, Yuen said “the senator thinks that the war is a mistake, and that it has devolved into a civil war. Hopefully, some new way will evolve to bring the troops home. Be that as it may, the Stryker should not be a referendum on the Iraq War. Once troops are committed, they should be provided with the equipment they need.”

While the Stryker Brigade draft EIS makes no other mention of DU other then that it was found in Hawai`i and the Army doesn’t use it for training, the EIS does detail a range of other adverse environmental impacts the Stryker will cause. The document lists a summary of impacts on the “valued environmental components” — the land, water and air of Hawai`i, Alaska and Colorado. Adding up the symbols that indicate “significant impact,” the harm to Hawai`i outnumbers the other two.

“Where they put an X, they should have put a double X,” commented Kai McGuire of Mau Pono, a Hilo-based indigenous/environmental action group. “This EIS doesn’t account for the sacredness of the area.”

William `Aila of Na `Imi Pono said “we found records that actually say the Army disposed of Napalm, disposed of ethyl bromide . . . the method of disposal — get this – they dug trenches and dumped ’em in and set it off with munitions.”

`Aila observed “Native Hawaiians have a disproportionate share of asthma and disproportionate rates of leukemia – that’s supposed to be a rare disease — just by looking around at the people in the neighborhood. Around Wai`anae, downwind of Schofield, there’s firing, jet takeoffs. The tradewinds blow right through Kolekole Pass.”

“Our kuleana in Hawai`i is to protect Hawai`i,” said Henkin. “Groups in Alaska and Colorado need to do the same.”

In only two out of the 19 categories, the draft EIS said Stryker’s impact on Hawai`i will be “less then significant” on vegetation, and on transportation. Asking a Pohakuloa Training Area botanist about the findings, she replied “‘less then significant?’ What does that mean?”

`Aila concluded, “to everybody on the Big Island, you need to think about this. Analyze it. Ask the hard questions. Make the decision for your kids and grandkids.”

Army Officials will be on Hawai`i Island next week to hear testimony on the Stryker DEIS. The public hearings will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 25 at Aunty Sally’s Lu`au Hale in Hilo, 799 Pi`ilani Street, from 5:30-9:45pm, and on Wednesday, Sept. 26 at the Waimea Community Center, 65-1260 Kawaihae Rd, from 5:30- 9:45pm.

The complete DEIS is available at the Kona, Waimea and Hilo libraries, and online at http://aec.army.mil/usaec/

To request more information or send written testimony, contact Public Affairs Office, U.S. Army

Environmental Command, Building E4460, 5179 Hoadley Road, Attention: IMAE-PA, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21010-5401, telephone: (410) 436-2556, fax: (410) 436-1693, e-mail:

PublicComments@aec.apgea.army.mil

Source: http://www.bigislandweekly.com/articles/2007/09/19/read/news/news03.txt

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Military recruitment in Hawaii public schools

Military recruitment in Hawaii’s public high schools

Kylie Wager, Haleakala
August 14, 2007

When it comes to military recruitment in public schools, no child’s information is left inaccessible.

According to a brief section of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act(NCLB), any school receiving federal funding is required to provide military recruiters with middle and high school students’ names, phone numbers, and addresses upon request. Meanwhile, the Pentagon maintains a Department of Defense (DoD) database known as the Joint Advertising and Market Research Studies Recruiting Database that contains extensive information on approximately 30 million Americansages 16 to 25.

The database is updated daily and includes information such as social security number, grade point average, ethnicity, areas of study, height, weight, email address, selective service registration, and phone number. Individuals may opt out from being included in this database but must repeat this process upon changing address. Many objectors claim that this database violates the Federal Privacy Act.

The military also uses the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery as a means of information gathering. The “most widely used multiple aptitude test in the world,” the DoD develops and maintains the test and more than half of America’s high schools participate. Students’ scores determine which occupations best suit them. Taking the ASVAB is also a requirement for military enlistment.

In order for their tests to be processed, students are required to sign a waiver that allows the military to keep any information provided on the form for various uses. In most cases, military recruiters automatically receive copies of students’ scores, names, grades, sex, addresses, phone numbers, and post-graduation plans unless the school decides against releasing this information.

“Many students will take the ASVAB and not know what it is,” Pitcaithley says. “It gives the military a foot in the door to accessing students.”

One mother says that during her son’s freshmen orientation this summer at Baldwin High School on Maui, a guidance counselor mentioned the ASVAB as a free test offered to students by the military.

“The counselor told us that you don’t have to join the military if you take the test, but didn’t even bring up the fact that the military will have a record of the students’ information and that they may be subject to recruitment, ” the mother says. “I don’t think the schools are trying to be covert but I think they may be misguided.” The mother prefers not to reveal her name because she does not want her son to have problems at school, nor does she want people to think she is unpatriotic. The Baldwin guidance office could not be reached to determine whether the school releases ASVAB information to the military.

Recruitment and Military on Campus

Hawaii ranked fourteenth in the nation in 2006 for the number of active-duty Army recruits per 1,000 youth ages 15 through 24, according to an Army report requested by the National Priorities Project (NPP). The report also ranked Honolulu number 22 out of the top 100 U.S. counties for the number of active-duty Army recruits in 2006.

Combined with the 116,000 retired military personnel living in Hawaii, the military-connected population totals 217,030 (17 percent of Hawaii’s total population). The 2000 U.S. Census found that Hawaii has the largest percentage of its population in the military among the states.”

In addition to military recruiters’ ability to gain access to student information, in many cases they also command a strong presence on high school campuses.

Pete Shimazaki, who has been a teacher on Oahu in various capacities for the past five years, says he witnessed an Army recruiter holding a push-up contest at Farrington High School on Oahu that required students to fill out their name, address, and phone number on a clipboard before competing for an Army T-shirt.

Shimizaki, who is also coordinator for Oahu’s truth in recruiting group, CHOICES, mentions that in some schools recruiters also hold assemblies, give presentations in classrooms, have their own desks at schools, and volunteer to chaperone at school functions.

“You can’t go anywhere without seeing military advertising, ” he says. “There are calendars, lanyards, book covers, and recruiters everywhere.” The DoD’s spending on recruiting stations and advertising surpassed $1.8 billion in 2006. When you include the pay and benefits of 22,000 military recruiters and other related costs the total amount spent is around $4 billion per year, according to the NPP.

A teacher at Hilo High reports that the principal, a former marine, allowed an Air Force jazz band to perform during lunch one day, and while the band was warming up, the students heard the music from their classrooms, got excited, and the classes were disrupted. During the performance, a large banner unraveled before the band revealing a phone number to call to enlist.

“That was nasty. That was not fair,” says the teacher, who chooses not to reveal her identity in order maintain her reputation at the school. “If you’re going to show the military’s side, you have to offer other sides of the story.”

Clare Loprinzi says that when she was substitute teaching at Kealakehe High School on the Big Island two years ago, the career and counselor office walls were covered in military posters with only two posters for colleges. She says she posted two truth-in-recruiting posters that were taken down that same day. Loprinzi says she also aired on the school’s morning announcements and discussed with students some of the realities of military life including the number of women who are raped in the military.

“I was really active at Kealakehe two years ago and then I wasn’t asked back to substitute the following year. Even though teachers told me they wanted me to teach for them, they were told by administration to not ask me to teach for them” Loprinzi says. “If I can’t speak the truth, then I’m not teaching. You’re not going to find other teachers who are willing to speak up like me. They are afraid to lose their jobs.”

Other Hawaii teachers contacted for this article were unwilling to speak out on the subject of military and recruiter presence on campus. Several throughout the state, however, reported witnessing military recruiters approaching special education students.

“We thought this was criminal,” says Diaz, who was contacted by concerned teachers. “The students already have cognitive problems that could affect their decision-making. It’s scary.”

Kajihiro, who hears about military and recruitment abuses through his work with AFSC, says that one teacher reported that his school offered a military recruitment fair without offering any alternative careers or information.

“Schools should not be used for recruiting,” Kajihiro says. “Schools have an obligation to offer a world of possibilities… I think it’s true that some people gain positive experiences from the military, but there are other ways to serve the public without taking a life.”

“The relationship between recruiters and students is an area between adults and kids that people aren’t monitoring,” says Catherine Kennedy, coordinator for Truth2Youth on the Big Island. She mentions several instances she has heard of nationwide in which recruiters have had sexual relations with students. The Associated Press reports that in 2005 more than 80 military recruiters were disciplined for sexual misconduct with potential enlistees and that 722 Army recruiters have been accused of rape and sexual misconduct since 1996.

JROTC

The Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps reports more than 3,200 units nationwide, 501,000 students enrolled, and 700 schools on waiting lists to obtain programs. State education funds and federal DoD funds totaling $600 per JROTC student per year supply instructor salaries, learning materials, uniforms, and equipment. Principals may choose to allocate school funds for additional program needs. Of Hawaii’s 46 public non-charter high schools, 24 have JROTC programs.

“We’re pretty saturated, naturally, as a small state,” says Lt. Col. Antoinette Correia, Hawaii JROTC coordinator. “The JROTC curriculum focuses on civics, physical fitness, and optional extracurricular activities such as rappelling, military skills, marksmanship, obstacle courses, and drill and ceremony.” She reports that six of the state’s JROTC programs offer marksmanship in which cadets fire pellet guns. The JROTC curriculum, a three or four year program for high school students, was developed by the military and is taught by retired military personnel. It emphasizes military service as one of the several ways one can serve and lead the country.

“These recruiters and JROTC instructors are not certified teachers, yet they are given the same access to students as teachers,” Pitcaithley says. “This makes parents and students think they have to trust them.”

West Hawaii Today reported on April 12, 2007, that a male teacher allegedly had sexual relations with a female student in the tenth grade at Kealakehe High School before the school’s Easter break this year. West Hawaii Complex Area Superintendent Art Souza confirms the teacher in question is a JROTC instructor. Souza says the investigation is complete but that a final decision has not yet been made as to what will happen to the instructor, whose name has not yet been released.

“This is a complicated situation,” Souza says. “We have to deal with the teacher’s contract with the DOE, the police investigation and criminal proceedings, and the teacher’s contract with the military.”

Objectors argue that JROTC is yet another way for the military and recruitment to expand its influence in schools. An AFSC executive summary reads: “Public schooling strives to promote respect for other cultures, critical thinking, and basic academic skills in a safe environment. In contrast, JROTC introduces guns into the schools, promotes authoritarian values, uses rote learning methods, and consigns much student time in the program to learning drill, military history and protocol, which have little relevance outside the military.”

Cadets are required to wear JROTC uniforms once a week. At some schools, cadets carry the flag at football games, hold drill meets, and march ahead of the class at graduation ceremonies.

“I’ve seen JRTOC teachers yelling at kids and being really intimidating, ” says Loprinzi of her experiences at Kealakehe High School. She adds that instructors often approach less popular kids to sign up and that students have told her JROTC teachers encourage students to enlist in the military in order to have their college paid for.

“Recruitment is not our goal,” Correia says. “The kids JROTC attracts are often those who can’t find a place in high school. We give them a place where they can belong and where they can feel good about themselves.”

Although the AFSC reports that 45 percent of JROTC cadets join the military after high school, Correia says this figure is around 20 percent for Hawaii programs.

About Face, Forward March, and Community All Stars

The National Guard sponsors three extracurricular programs About Face, Forward March, and Community All Stars that are available to students throughout the nation. In Hawaii, these programs are available in varying degrees on Oahu, Kauai, Molokai, Maui, and the Big Island.

The program pays students $15 per after school session and are available at schools for 12 to 19 year olds, depending on the program. The programs claim to offer work and life skills, critical thinking exercises, supplemental guest speakers, budget and meal planning, among others. Program directors say that these programs are not used for recruiting.

Opting Out

There are options for parents who want to safeguard their children from recruiters and the programs they promote. The NCLB act, states that students or parents can opt out from having their information released to the military. Still, questions remain as to whether people are aware of this option.

In Hawaii, the number of students who opted out from having their personal information released to recruiters rose from 1,913 to 21,836, nearly a quarter of the secondary student body, from the 2005/2006 to 2006/2007 school years. “Students can initiate opt out requests by turning in some formal writing,”says Greg Kanudsen, communications director for the Hawaii State Board of Education (BOE). “Parents don’t even have to sign.” He also explains that opt out requests are valid only for the school year in which they are submitted. One must opt out each year in order to keep information private.

Ann Pitcaithley, coordinator for Maui Careers in Peacemaking, notes that in her experience promoting truth in recruiting she has found that a high percentage of parents are unaware that their children may opt out. Many cases, however, have been reported in which recruiters have contacted students regardless of the fact that they had requested otherwise.

“My daughter opted out and was contacted by recruiters at least twice on her cell phone,” explains Ave Diaz, who launched Careers in Peacemaking in 2005. “They finally ceased when she told them her mother was a peace activist.”

Lies and Truth in Recruiting

Former Navy Officer Pablo Paredes, who made headlines in December 2004 when he refused to deploy to serve the war in Iraq and is now a spokesperson against the war, says the two most common recruitment myths are money for college and job training.

According to an article by Sam Diener of Peacework Magazine, 57 percent of veterans who sign up for the Montgomery GI Bill never receive money for college, and the average payout for veterans who do has been $2,151 a year. The maximum one may receive is $9,036 a year for four years, “still less than the in-state tuition room and board at many state universities, and only a fraction of the cost of a private college,” Diener writes.

One must serve a minimum three years of active duty, receive an honorable discharge, and pay $100 per month for the first 12 months they are in the military in order to be eligible for MGIB. Those who are later ruled ineligible receive no refund.

“Military job training is often restricted to military needs and therefore does not transfer well into the civilian world,” Paredes explains. He says he cannot utilize his Navy technical expertise outside of the military, and because of his discharge conditions, he neither received money for college, nor was he refunded the $1,200 he paid.

Shimazaki, who served as a medic in the Army from 1986 to 1989, says he did receive money for college but that “it wasn’t worth it.” He adds that recruiters told him before he enlisted that if he became a medic in the military he would be able to get a job in a hospital afterward. When he was discharged just before the Gulf War, he found it impossible to find such a job because his skills did not transfer.

“I experienced first hand the pressure from recruiters. They don’t operate on full disclosure,” he says. Currently, Shimazaki is working toward obtaining his Hawaii DOE certification and is student teaching this school year. He also volunteers for the GI Rights Hotline.

“I am concerned with the proliferation of militarism in schools. I have the privilege of seeing what’s been happening in public schools and it’s alarming,” Shimazaki says. “The recruiters use scare tactics. They make students think they’ll never survive financially after high school without joining the military.”

Reports and videos of recruiters telling students they won’t have to go to Iraq if they join, they can get out of the military easily if they change their minds, and they can choose where they are based flood the Internet via YouTube, peace websites, and blogs.

Since the advent of the war in Iraq and NCLB, truth in recruiting groups have been sprouting across the nation with a mission to offer students the “other side” and alternatives to joining the military that they say recruiters and educators fail to mention. There are currently four such groups in Hawaii Truth2Youth on the Big Island, CHOICES on Oahu, Careers in Peacemaking on Maui, and Kauai Peace Ohana on Kauai.

“The objective of CHOICES is not to tell people not to join the military, but to inform young people of the realities of war and the alternatives to military service so that they can make a choice,” Shimazaki says. Similar to other truth in recruiting groups, CHOICES aims to show students other ways to finance college and serve their communities.

“We strive toward advocacy versus activism,” Kennedy says. “Average teenagers aren’t going to know that they don’t have to listen to or can be skeptical of what recruiters say. Recruiters only give one side of the story. They’re under enormous pressure to reach their quotas. Being a recruiter is a really good job compared to others in the military. They get regular hours, they won’t be deployed, they get a car and a cell phone, and they can be close to their families. So recruiters have to keep this job by getting more recruits.”

A facts and statistics sheet compiled for truth in recruiting states, among many other things, that all provisions of a military contract are subject to change, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder affects one out of every six soldiers, soldiers who served in Iraq are committing suicide at higher rates than in any other war where such figures were documented, 90 percent of recent female veterans report sexual harassment within the military, a third of which reported being raped, and that alcohol misuse rose form 13 to 22 percent in the year after soldiers returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. This data was compiled from the DoD, the Veteran’s Association, the Army Times Publication, and the GI Rights Association.

Last year Kennedy and Pitcaithly were successful in holding assemblies in several schools on Maui and the Big Island in which Paredes spoke about the realities of the military and war.

“The kids were just stunned,” Kennedy says. “They knew nothing about war. Kids in a history class I spoke to couldn’t even define ‘civilian casualty.'”

Pitcaithley says she also sets up tables at career fairs, holds workshops in classrooms, and gives presentations to youth groups.

“We take an interactive approach with students. We ask them about their presumptions about the military and their experiences with recruiters and then we debunk their ideas and present the realities,” says Pitcaithley, who also conducts an extensive review of the enlistment contract with students.

The Hawaii BOE Controversial Issues Policy states: “Student discussion of issues which generate opposing points of view shall be considered a normal part of the learning process in every area of the school program…Teachers shall refer students to resources reflecting all points of view.”

There is also a federal ninth circuit court ruling mandating that when the military comes to a high school, students have a legal right
to hear diverse views.

“If schools are allowing recruiters into the schools they have the obligation to offer alternative information and opposing viewpoints
about the military and war,” Kajihiro says.

“The kids aren’t getting facts. They’re getting an aggressive military marketing campaign,” Kennedy says.

Despite the policies and rulings in favor of truth in recruitment, these groups often experience difficulties gaining access to schools.First, they must find a teacher who is willing to support them or invite them to speak to the class, and then, they must obtain approval from the principal to enter the school.

“It’s very, very hard work,” Kennedy says. “It’s intense. It’s me versus the six young, good-looking recruiters for each branch of the military. Sometimes teachers don’t return my calls and say they don’t have time for me to do a presentation because they’re focused on passing tests. Sometimes it’s the principal that doesn’t want to let us in.”

She adds that some teachers are afraid to be perceived as unpatriotic and that other newer teachers are afraid to lose their jobs if they are not tenured. “Are they really serving kids by giving us the runaround?” she asks.

“There’s a lot of fear concerning this issue,” Kajihiro says. If you’re working in a school there’s a lot of pressure. If you say anything that the military doesn’t like you’ll be branded as unpatriotic. ”

Source: http://www.haleakalatimes.com/PrintVersion.aspx?id=3192

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Sexual misconduct unbecoming an officer

Sexual misconduct unbecoming an officer

JROTC teacher investigated at Kealakehe High

By Shawn James Leavy
Wednesday, August 8, 2007 9:35 AM HST

A Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) teacher is awaiting disciplinary judgment from the DOE and undergoing investigation by county prosecutors for allegedly having sexual relations with a Kealakehe High School student. The alleged contact was first reported to law enforcement on April 10th. If proven true, the case at Kealakehe will be marked as an extreme incident calling into question the JROTC’s unchecked access and influential presence within U.S. public schools.

The Hawai`i County Office of the Prosecuting Attorney said they are investigating the sexual misconduct case, but have yet to make any charges.

Hawai`i State Department of Education Office of Civil Rights Compliance Director Susan Kitsu said the DOE’s internal investigation of the JROTC teacher has been referred to DOE Complex Area Superintendent Art Souza and Kealakehe High Principal Wil Murakami for disciplinary judgment. “I’m not sure where they’re at,” said Kitsu.

When asked what the status of the case is, Murakami said “the case is closed,” but later clarified that the DOE’s investigation has been completed. When asked what disciplinary action the DOE intends to take, he said that decision will not be publicly released. “In the DOE, any matter that is a personnel issue . . . with regards to the result, that is kept confidential,” said Murakami.

Souza was off-island at a superintendent’s leadership retreat and was unavailable for comment.

A July 25th West Hawai`i Today article on the incident did not specifically mention or disclose that the teacher in question is affiliated with the Army. In the article, Souza said “the circumstances of the case may warrant the involvement of another decision-making party,” alluding that the case would require a disciplinary judgment by the military.

The Kealakehe High School JROTC Department states its mission is “to motivate young people to become better citizens, strengthen character by teaching values associated with service life and develop leadership potential.” JROTC programs, which run through the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, are taught as elective courses at more than three thousand high schools nationwide. There are JROTC units in 25 out of the 42 total Hawai`i Public High Schools. The program is highly regarded by state lawmakers, who fund the program with assistance from the federal Department of Defense. In June 2006, Governor Linda Lingle lauded the program, saying “JROTC cadets are our future leaders. They are role models for their peers and we hope that they will continue to give back to the community.”

In a 2003 funding appropriation by the state legislature for the Kealakehe High JROTC, lawmakers stated “the legislature finds that Congress established the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) program in 1916 with the broad mandate to develop good citizenship and responsibility in young people. JROTC courses are led by active duty and retired military personnel who teach good citizenship, personal responsibility, and service to country. Unlike college-level ROTC programs, JROTC programs do not obligate participating students to join the military. JROTC programs build self-discipline, teamwork, motivation, and confidence in young people, which decreases school-related disciplinary problems for many participating students.

Kyle Kajihiro, director of the Hawai`i American Friend’s Service Committee, has a critical view of the program. He stated “JROTC is a vehicle for grooming recruits and for propagating and normalizing military ideology in our schools and community. It tends to desensitize us to the organized violence that warfare represents.”

Ret. Lt. Colonial Malakie of the Kealakehe High Army JROTC and Ret. Lt. Commander Annette Schlegeimilch of the Waiakea High Navy JROTC both stressed that their JROTC teaching is not a recruiting tool for the military. Congressional records indicate otherwise.

For example, the Senate Armed Services Committee Report on the National Defense Authorization Act for 2000, stated “the committee recognizes that there is a direct relationship between the JROTC program and recruitment. Strong testimony from the Joint Chiefs of Staff this year confirmed this relationship. More than half of the young men and women who voluntarily participate in this high school program affiliate with the military in some fashion after graduation.”

Before the Military Personnel Subcommittee House Committee on Armed Services, commenting on sustaining the U.S.A.’s All-Volunteer Force, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Rudy De Leon made the following direct statements.

“With regard to recruiting, surveys of Junior ROTC cadets indicate that about 35 percent of the graduating high school seniors in School Year 1997-98 with more than two years participation in the JROTC program are interested in some type of military affiliation (active duty enlistment, officer program participation, or service in the Reserve or Guard). Translating this to hard recruiting numbers, in FYs 1996-1999, about 8,000 new recruits per year entered active duty after completing two years of Junior ROTC. The proportion of JROTC graduates who enter the military following completion of high school is roughly five times greater that the proportion of non-JROTC students.”

In November of 2006, the San Francisco School Board voted to eliminate JROTC from its city schools. Critics of the move, including San Francisco’s mayor, said it would cause the city to be identified as disrespectful towards the sacrifices of men and women in uniform.

A credo posted on the Waiakea JROTC classroom wall, says, in part:”This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle without me is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me . . . Before God I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until there is no enemy, but PEACE.”

Kajihiro says that “the spread of military culture in our schools is a big problem if we truly want to reduce violence in schools.”

“Military discipline is based on a rigid hierarchy, an unquestioning obedience to orders, and when this fails, intimidation and force. Military culture is also charged with a highly aggressive masculinity that tends to denigrate women. This feeds the high rates of sex assault and domestic violence in the military.”

Listeners to local radio station Da Beat 95.9 FM, or any other youth-aimed program, often hear military recruitment ads that say, “serve your country, get regular paychecks and earn money for college . . . ”

In addressing the issue of potential sexual misconduct by its teachers, the Marine Corps JROTC instructor’s handbook states, “instructors must, at all times, avoid any and all occasions of fraternization with cadets, especially with the opposite sex. Admiring cadets often idolize instructors as role models, and there may be an occasion when a cadet attempts to be personal and affectionate with an instructor. Any confirmed incident of an improper relationship between an instructor and a cadet will be cause for immediate de-certification from the Marine Corps JROTC program, and may result in legal charges.”

“The alleged sexual encounter between a student and a JROTC instructor represents an abuse of power and is symptomatic of the bigger problem of militarism,” said Kajihiro. “Local school and elected officials need to stop their uncritical deference to the military and become stronger advocates of our youth and our community.”

He continued “while we must hold the individual JROTC instructor accountable . . . let’s not lose sight of the larger systemic and policy issues raised by this case.”

Source: http://www.bigislandweekly.com/articles/2007/08/08/read/news/news03.txt

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Hawaiian Activists Fight US Military Bases

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/hawaiian-activists-fight-us-military-bases/

Hawaiian Activists Fight US Military Bases

June 29 2007

Two Hawaiian land rights activists visited Sydney in June and spoke to The Guardian about their struggles against US militarization of Hawaii and their support for protests against the Talisman Sabre war games in Shoalwater Bay, Queensland.

Terri Keko’olani and Leimaile Quitevis are Indigenous leaders from the island of O’ahu, Hawai’i. They are both long-time activists who have campaigned tirelessly US militarization, environmental destruction and the decimation of their traditional Hawai’ian culture.

The Guardian: Can you tell us about your organisation?

The group that we are representing is DMZ Hawai’i/Aloha Aina — a network of communities and organizations in Hawai’i, which oppose the occupation of Hawai’i and are opposing the expansion of military forces in Hawai’i. It is a network of organizations and individuals working to counter the US military’s negative social, cultural and environmental impacts in Hawai’i.

In 1898 our country was an independent nation. It was called the Kingdom of Hawai’i. In 1898 the United States participated in the overthrow of our government. Since that time we have been under occupation by the US military in our own homeland.

As soon as the takeover took place the military took root and started to grow. One of the first places that was strategic was Pearl Harbor, which we call Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa

It was the hugest fishery, in the island of O’ahu. The US used possession not only as a commercial port but as a military port. They used our islands as a calling station for war.

Once the Spanish were kicked out the Americans then had a war with the Filipinos and they sustained that war from our islands.

World War II came along and their ships are there in Pearl Harbor. The Japanese attacked and then several ships went down, big fires, and today Pearl Harbor is one of the most contaminated naval sites in the world — there are about 800 contaminated sites in the Harbor.

The US military owns about a quarter of the island of O’ahu and it has control over it — the army, the Marine Corps, the navy and the marines.

Since 9/11 there has been the biggest build-up of military expansion. Right now the army has proposed bringing in 300 Striker 20-ton tanks and there is a very big campaign among people to stop the Strikers from being stationed in our islands.

We are really experiencing a lot of pressure and also a lot of money is coming in to expand not only the bases but life on the bases.

The army intends to seize an additional 25,000 acres of land on O’ahu.

The US military in Hawai’i is the largest polluter of our land. In total there are about 1,000 identified contaminated sites.

These are some of the messages we are trying to convey to the people of Australia — if you allow the US military to come into your country, which is a sovereign country, you are allowing this type of experience. It’s no good. It’s going to bring a lot of toxicity, a lot of contamination. You will not be able to access these lands.

We had an experience with the army as well. They don’t tell you the truth. I personally asked the army whether they used depleted uranium. They said no. But just a year ago we found in army communications and memos, a memo which stated that they had used depleted uranium in an army training area.

Our movement in Hawai’i as such, has been non-violent. We have an issue of taking non-violent resistance but we have not gone to the streets.

We are very firm and we are moving forward to reclaim and to reinstate our government that represents our interests as native people.

Hawai’i now is under US occupation. We are a state of the United States. But there is an undercurrent of native people in the midst of nation-building right now. There are people who have already had plans to reinstate the Kingdom of Hawai’i. There are people who are thinking along the lines of creating a new constitution.

The main idea I want to get across is that our people are moving forward in building a nation.

When it comes to the militarization of our lands we are totally opposed to it. There are people in our community who were for it because they believed that it would provide us with income and they became addicted to that kind of money.

The military economy is not sustainable to an environment at all. These are some of the contradictions we are talking to our people about.

We have to get out of a dependency on a military economy.

The Guardian: How has emigration impacted upon Hawai’i?

White people have a lot of land. We had in our history missionaries who came from the east coast of America — they were American missionaries, Calvinists who settled and actually taught our chiefs their economic system and language.

They translated our language into a written form and gave us Bibles.

We have missionary families who actually became capitalists. Their missions were cut off from getting funds and they had to learn how to survive in our country without the mission funding.

So they emigrated, some of them married but they began to actually help put the laws together for land ownership and eventually became the land owners.

So they had a huge part to play in the imbalance that took place in our system — introducing private property, registering private property and holding a lot of that private property such as running sugar and pineapple plantations.’

The Guardian: What is the meaning of Land to the Indigenous population?

We are the land. There is really no separation. When you look at the lot of the places where the bases are — that’s where some of our most secret sacred sites are too.

There is no separation. Our elders, our ancestors are buried in that land which gives us guidance to do the things that we need to do.

A lot of it has been damaged and destroyed. At the same time we have a very strong movement to rebuild things that have been damaged by reclaiming our ancient fish ponds.

The two biggest challenges are the developers and the military. We have a strong will and a lot of people are committed to the land and do the work that is needed in our communities.

The Guardian: Has this been a long struggle?

Before the 1900s, the land Commissioners mostly came from missionary families. Land commissioners held a very important position and were in charge of all the land titles.

So there was much arguing with the titles and the deeds and the land commission awards for each lot of the land.

Missionaries actually introduced the concept of private ownership to our society. Prior to that there was no such concept.

A lot of our culture today is based on a communal idea, not only of the land but of our society.

It’s something similar to the [Indigenous] people here — you cannot own land. It’s part of who you are. There is always a conflict between native land and environment and ideas that were introduced from a Western capitalist point of view.

Even though we have that part of our history where there was conflict, our chiefs in the 1800s knowing that we were getting pushed into a very modern world … began to think about how they were going to use their lands in order to help our people. There were chiefs who put aside their estates for the benefit of our people. For example, there was a Bernise Pourheepship, she put aside her lands for the benefit of education of native Hawai’ian children. Luna Leelo his lands for the elderly; Hono Colondily for orphans; …

Today there is a movement in Hawai’i by right-wing Americans to break the estate saying that we are ALL Americans now and that these estates are based on ethnicity of a people should not be legal.

Hawai’ian homelands are lands that are set aside for the use of our people. In order to qualify you have to have 50 per cent blood, there is a blood content. You have to prove through birth certificates etc that you have 50 per cent — not 49 per cent.

For many of us, we definitely want to keep these estates alive but at the same time we realize that our goals are higher and that is to reclaim our actual government as a nation.

The Guardian: Can you please tell more about your experiences?

When we are going to community meetings and I tell them about the possible contamination of depleted uranium and other toxins, people are appalled. Nobody knew.

In the beginning they don’t really want to hear anything because they have had a long history of association with the military.

Now people are just starting to open their eyes.

In November 2006, some of the military contaminants found in O’ahu, Hawai’i’s largest island included: depleted uranium, phosgene, TNT, lead and trichloroethylene.

Ongoing military expansion in Hawai’i also currently threatens a number of traditional cultural and sacred sites including the birthplace of elders and ancient temples. Fires, toxic chemicals, unexploded ordnances and destruction of endangered species on the islands are a major crisis.

More than 25,000 acres of land is also earmarked to be seized at Phakuloa and Honouliuli. Plans to base hundreds of new troops, cargo planes, marines’ bases, missile launchers and sale of public land to private developers concerns the group.

The DMZ group notes that The US assumes it has control and domination, but the First Peoples do not agree. The unique identities and sovereignties of the world’s peoples are just open spaces for the projection of US military force, to make way for WalMart, McDonalds and MTV.

The experiences of Indigenous peoples vis-à-vis the militarized empire are multiple and unique. We are not singular, but plural; we obtain our life and very existence from specificities of our particular ancestors, our particular gods, our named and worshiped sacred sites.

When Talisman Sabre 07 takes place here in Shoalwater Bay … all of it is really being directed from Hawai’i — from the US Pacific Command (PacCom). PacCom is the oldest and largest of the US unified commands. It was established in Hawai’i in 1947 and its HQ are on an island called Camp Smith. The PacCom area of responsibility stretches over more than 50 per cent of the earth’s surface … from the west coast of North America to the east coast of Africa, from Alaska to Antarctica including Hawai’i.

The two Indigenous leaders concluded their remarks by stating: WE have a right as native people to clean water, clean land, clean ocean and clean air in order to survive.

From The Guardian

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