Action Alert to Oppose nomination of Adm. Blair to top Intelligence post

ETAN Action ALERT

Urge Your Senators to Oppose the nomination of former Adm. Dennis Blair

Tell Your Senator: Nation’s Top Intelligence Post Must Go to Someone Who Respects Human Rights – Not Admiral Blair!

Call your Senators and tell them that you oppose the confirmation of Admiral Dennis Blair as President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence. Call today toll free at 800-828-0498/800-473-6711 and e-mail them via the Senate website ( http://senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm).

Talking Points

Adm. Blair has a poor human rights record. As head of the Pacific Command, he demonstrated a disregard for crimes against humanity committed against the East Timorese in 1999 and undermined executive and congressional efforts to support human rights in Indonesian-occupied East Timor.

The Senator should oppose Adm. Blair’s nomination as Director of National Intelligence. The post must go to someone who respects human rights and is committed to justice and accountability.

Please let us know if you acted on this alert and any response you receive. Also contact us with any questions – etan@etan.org.

Write a letter to the editor of you local newspapers. See sample letters at http://www.etan.org/action/2006/29alert.htm#Sample .

Background

The Director of National Intelligence coordinates all U.S. intelligence agencies. The post requires Senate confirmation.

As Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command from February 1999 to May 2002, Admiral Dennis Blair was the highest ranking U.S. military official in the region during the period of East Timor’s independence referendum at the end of Indonesia’s violent occupation. During that time he undermined the Clinton administration’s belated efforts to support human rights and self-determination in the Indonesian-occupied territory and opposed congressional efforts to limit military assistance. Blair’s troubling record on East Timor demonstrates that he puts maintaining a relationship with the worst human rights violators above justice and accountability.

In early April 1999, Blair met in Jakarta with General Wiranto, then the Defense Minister and the commander of Indonesian forces. Dozens of refugees in a Catholic church in Liquica, East Timor, were hacked to death by militia members backed by the Indonesian military (including the notorious Kopassus Special Forces) just two days before in a well-publicized massacre.

Instead of pressuring Wiranto to shut down the militias, Blair promised new military assistance, which the Indonesian military “took as a green light to proceed with the militia operation,” according to Allan Nairn, writing in the Nation magazine. In fact just weeks later on April 17, refugees from the attack in Liquicia were again attacked and killed in the capital Dili. The next day, Blair phoned Wiranto and again failed to tell him to stop the killing and shut the military’s militia proxies down.

According to journalist Nairn, classified cables summarizing the meeting and the call, say that Admiral Blair “told the armed forces chief that he looks forward to the time when [the army will] resume its proper role as a leader in the region. He invited General Wiranto to come to Hawaii as his guest… [Blair] expects that approval will be granted to send a small team to provide technical assistance to… selected TNI [Indonesian military] personnel on crowd control measures.”

The link between the militia and the military was clear to the U.S. at the time. Princeton University’s Bradley Simpson writes, “According to top secret CIA intelligence summary issued after the [Liquica] massacre…. (and recently declassified by the author through a Freedom of Information Act request), ‘Indonesian military had colluded with pro-Jakarta militia forces in events preceding the attack and were present in some numbers at the time of the killings.'”

The Washington Post’s Dana Priest reported that in the bloody aftermath of East Timor’s independence vote, , “Blair and other U.S. military officials took a forgiving view of the violence surrounding the referendum in East Timor. Given the country’s history, they argued, it could have been worse.”

U.S.-trained Indonesian military officers were among those involved in crimes against humanity in East Timor. “But at no point, Blair acknowledges, did he or his subordinates reach out to the Indonesian contacts trained through IMET or JCET [U.S.-funded military training programs] to try to stop the brewing crisis,” wrote Priest. “It is fairly rare that the personal relations made through an IMET course can come into play in resolving a future crisis,” Blair told Priest.

General Wiranto was indicted in February 2003 by a UN-backed court in East Timor for his command role in the 1999 violence. The attack on the Liquica church is among the crimes against humanity cited in the indictment. He is currently a leading candidate for President of Indonesia in elections to take place next year.

Additional background and links can be found at http://etan.org/news/2009/01blair.htm .

For additional action ideas or to link to this alert – http://www.etan.org/action/2006/29alert.htm
John M. Miller fbp@igc.org
National Coordinator
East Timor & Indonesia Action Network (ETAN)
PO Box 21873, Brooklyn, NY 11202-1873 USA
Phone: (718)596-7668 Mobile phone: (917)690-4391
Skype: john.m.miller
Web site: http://www.etan.org

Bad economy good for Army re-enlistment

When the working class and poor are deprived of educational and economic opportunities, the military is seen as the only alternative.  This is called the “Poverty Draft”.  As described in the article below from the Honolulu Advertiser, this pressure for the poor to join the military has become worse with the current economic crisis.   Meanwhile, this other article about a Hawai’i based soldier killed in Iraq appeared on the same day.

January 6, 2009

Army re-enlistments high

With tough economy, many soldiers are coming back for more

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

Repeat deployments and a healthier economy made it more difficult in recent years for the Army to retain quality soldiers. The recession may be changing that.

Hawai’i’s Stryker brigade of about 4,300 soldiers is at almost 100 percent re-enlistment for two of its battalions in Iraq, with the other four at between 70 percent and 75 percent, said spokesman Maj. Al Hing.

Hing said re-enlistments are at record rates.

The brigade commander’s goal was 80 percent before the unit returns to Hawai’i in February and March. Hing said there is a “very strong retention rate for the young company grade officers” at 94 percent.

Even as the huge re-enlistment bonuses of years past dwindle, soldiers and officers are finding reason to stay in – or return.

Lindsey Rowland made a deal with her parents: They would approve of her going into the Army – which she wanted to do – if she went to college first.

Rowland went to Hawai’i Pacific University on an ROTC scholarship, was commissioned a second lieutenant in 2005, received an assignment to Germany, and in October returned from 15 months in Kuwait and Iraq.

Now a first lieutenant, Rowland, who is not exactly warriorlike at 5 feet 2 and 120 pounds, has experienced the rigors of combat. But like an increasing number of enlisted soldiers and officers who see what shape the economy is in, she’s pretty much made the decision to re-up for at least three more years after her first four.

The truth is, she doesn’t want to get out – at least not yet.

It doesn’t matter that Rowland probably won’t receive the $35,000 bonus that was offered for her specialty in each of the last two years, but may be gone now.

The huge re-enlistment bonuses that the Army needed to dole out to keep up its numbers now are dropping as the economy worsens and more soldiers are staying in with fewer bonuses.

A reduction of the violence in Iraq and a drawdown of the mission there also have led to optimism that soldiers can spend more time at home between deployments.

Although the 27-year-old Rowland was based in Kuwait, she spent more time in Iraq, providing security escort for convoys in a Humvee gun truck with a transportation company.

The more soldiers are on the road, the more danger they face.

But as a single soldier without kids to worry about back home, she didn’t mind being deployed, misses being in command of four Humvees and 11 other soldiers, and expects to be back in Iraq or Afghanistan in the future.

“We had a really cool mission,” Rowland said by phone from Germany. “For females and for transportation, doing gun truck missions on the road was really cool.”

personal benefits

For reasons that are different for each soldier, Rowland may be representative of a bit of a reversal of fortune for the Army and its retention of soldiers.

Eventually, she said she’d like to be a journalist outside the Army, “but I’m not quite ready to do that yet – especially with the economy.”

The Army has seen the return of nearly 500 Army officers who left the service during the past year, Army Times reported.

Not all were eligible for retention incentives, so career security and military benefits are seen as possible factors.

Recruiting also is up. The Army for fiscal 2008 exceeded its recruiting goal, signing up more than 169,500 men and women, and the Army and the Marines – which do the bulk of the ground fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan – surpassed recruitment goals early in fiscal 2009, which began in October.

The Army has in the past worried about the quality of its recruits and an exodus of midlevel officers.

“I have a really optimistic look about it. I think the Army is changing for real this time, and I think a lot of the officers are staying in and I think leadership is improving,” Rowland said. “The Army has adapted to the idea that they can offer the people that work in the Army the things they want – as in duty locations, money, schools.”

bonuses dropping

However, Army Times said re-enlistment bonuses are dropping sharply in 2009 as retention programs enjoy unprecedented success and fewer specialties are being targeted with the extra payments.

Rowland doesn’t think the $35,000 bonus will be available to her that had been offered in the past to transportation officers being promoted to captain, a rank she soon expects to make.

Rowland figures she spent more time in Iraq than in Kuwait where she was based because of the convoy security missions – the same mission that many Hawai’i National Guard soldiers have now.

A soldier in her unit was killed when a shaped charge hit his Humvee, and Rowland separately experienced a small roadside bomb that went off near her Humvee. “It really wasn’t that exciting,” she said. “Blew up smoke. That was it.”

Mostly, the security missions did not encounter enemy fire, she said, and the only time the turret gunner’s .50-caliber machine gun was fired was when an oncoming bus wouldn’t stop. Warning shots were fired near the bus.

Rowland, who is from Ohio, wants to go to an Army language school to learn Turkish. She expects she’ll be deployed several more times to a combat zone if she stays in.

That’s OK with her.

“I would hope I’d get to go to Afghanistan,” she said, “just because I spent 15 months in Iraq, and I already know that.”

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090106/NEWS01/901060345&template=printart

Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Management Plan Finalized – Military Exempted

The management plan for the Papahanaumokuakea (Northwestern Hawaiian Islands) National Marine Monument has just been released.   Although establishing the Monument designation was a major win for the movement, the processes and management structures for the Monument are turning out to be a problem that allows huge loopholes and creates obstructions for meaningful public involvement.  One serious problem in the proclamation by George W. Bush that created the Monument is the exemption of the military from all of its protections. Here’s an excerpt from the website FAQ page:

Military Use

25. How are the Co-Trustees working with the Navy to ensure that Navy activities within the Monument cause no harm?

A. Presidential Proclamation 8031 specifically exempts lawful activities and exercises of the Armed Forces, including the U.S. Coast Guard, from its prohibitions. The Co-Trustees have no authority to regulate such activities. The requirement that the Armed Forces avoid to the extent practicable adverse impacts on Monument resources and qualities is to be addressed by the military agency conducting the operation, not the Monument Co-Trustees. The Navy is the primary DOD agency that periodically conducts activities in the Monument and they have expressed their commitment to support the spirit and intent of the Proclamation.

So the Monument turns out to be another beautiful, secluded, playground for the Navy and Missile Defense Agencies to blast their sonar, crash missiles, and fly air-breathing hypersonic aircraft.

Click here to go to the Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument, where you can download the full management plan.

Also, visit the KAHEA website for their background information and critique of the plan.

War and Peace: The challenges of staging modern-day makahiki celebrations on military lands

WAR AND PEACE

The challenges of staging modern-day makahiki celebrations on military lands

By Lisa Asato

Publications Editor

Twenty-first century makahiki festivals encounter modern-day challenges, such as coordinating with the military for access and trying to stay true to tradition, but festival organizers at a recent panel discussion said they are undeterred and continue to learn as they go.

“The difficulty organizing our makahiki with the Navy is simply one of ship movements, and given the extreme difficulty of moving the submarines we have to pretty much plan ahead,” said Shad Kane, who has helped coordinate the Moku‘ume‘ume(Ford Island) and Kapuaikaula (Hickam

Air Force Base) festival for about seven years. “There’s been some years where we actually had to slow up, pull alongside and let the sub pass.”

Speaking to a group of about 75 people at the Kamakaküokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies on Oct. 9, Kane and five other panelists covered everything from the relevance of makahiki in modern times to what they envision for future festivals. Scenarios included an island-wide event with shared opening and closing ceremonies and games among the winners of each ahupua‘a.

But a recurring theme was one of challenges and deciding how true to stay to tradition. “Can you have a makahiki with the food you grow in your ahupua‘a, or do you have to go to Costco and buy sweet potatoes?” asked Kaio Camvel, whose wife’s uncle, Sam Lono, revived makahiki at Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i in the late ’70s on the basis of freedom of religion.

The Hawaiian culture is a “living culture,” Camvel said, so it’s OK to reinvent at times. What’s important for the Mökapu festival, he said, is ceremony, welcoming diverse groups and sharing food and mana‘o.

Makahiki, traditionally a four-month-long season of peace, sport and honoring the Hawaiian fertility god,

Lono, starts with the rising at sunset of Makali‘i, or the Pleiades constellation. This year the season begins Nov. 17.

William Ailä of Hui Malama o Mäkua, said the challenges of holding a makahiki in Mäkua center around destruction of the valley, which is an Army training ground, as well as more fundamental questions such as: Am I good enough? Is my ho‘okupu good enough? Is my oli in the correct form?

“The answer to those challenges are found in the wind,” he said. At times, he said, 40 mph winds in the valley have stopped for half an hour while an oli was being chanted, and at other times the breeze will surge and “all of a sudden you get that cool wind pushing from behind.

That’s the demonstration that what you’re doing may not be completely right, but your efforts are being appreciated.”

Makahiki events

Moku‘ume‘ume (Ford Island) and Kapuaikaula(Hickam Air Force Base)

Sat., Nov. 10

At 7:30 a.m. Lono enters harbor in a procession including canoe clubs, with 8:30 a.m.

landing at Moku‘ume‘ume and 11 a.m. landing at Hickam Harbor beach, followed by festivities and games. Access is limited and participants must RSVP in advance to Shad Kane at kiha@hawaii.rr.com

Kualoa Regional

Sat., Nov. 17; setup,

Nov. 16 after 12 p.m.

Sunrise procession followed by games and potluck at 9 a.m. Games are limited to men, and

competitors must provide their own game implements. Attendees must provide their own food and drink and RSVP in advance by email to Umi Kai at ulupono1@gmail.com

Makua Military Reservation

Fri.-Sat., Nov. 16-17

Community access at 9 a.m. Saturday. To participate in the entire ceremony, call William

Ailä at 330-0376 for a training schedule or email ailaw001@hawaii.rr.com. RSVP is required.

Mokapu (Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i)

Fri.-Sun., Nov. 23-25

Processions, games and cabanas to accommodate about 200. Access is limited and participants must RSVP to Kaio Camvel at iolekaa@hawaii.rr.com

Kaho‘olawe

Thurs.-Sun., Nov. 15-18

Open to Kaho‘olawe returnees and cultural practitioners, the 2007 event is now closed as it requires paperwork and orientation to be completed a month in advance. For information on next year’s event, contact Kim Ku‘ulei Birnie of Protect Kaho‘olawe ‘Ohana at kkb@kahoolawe.org,808-383-1651 or visit www.kahoolawe.org/home/?page_id=7

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/

6th International Meeting of Women Resisting Militarism

6th International Meeting of Women Resisting Militarism: San Francisco, CA

The International Women’s Network Against Militarism’s 6th international meeting: Women Working for Human Rights, Sustainability and Everyday Security. This meeting brings together 80 women from Korea, Okinawa, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, Philippines, mainland Japan and the U.S. to share information and strategize about the negative effects of US military operations in all our countries.

Visit the Women for Genuine Security website for more information or download the public presentation and performance flyer (2MB PDF). 

NATIVE HAWAIIANS & CHAMORRO (GUAM) WARN AUSTRALIA OVER TALISMAN SABRE 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 22, 2007

NATIVE HAWAIIANS & CHAMORRO (GUAM) WARN AUSTRALIA OVER TALISMAN SABRE 2007

Two indigenous Native Hawaiian activists and a Chamorro (GUAM) activist visiting Central Queensland expressed their shock and outrage at the destruction being inflicted on the local environment by the Talisman Sabre US/Australian joint military exercises.

” We are appalled that there will be live firing, bombing and sonar testing on the Great Barrier reef and in the habitat of endangered dugong, whales and green turtles,” said Terri Keko’olani of DMZ Hawai’i Aloha ‘Aina.

Terri Keko’olani & Leimaile Quitevis from DMZ Hawaii Aloha ‘Aina and Fanai Castro from Guam (GUÅHAN) are in Australia to support the protest against the 30,000 strong US/Australia war games.

“We are also appalled at the complete indifference of the Australian Department of Defense in asserting that the war games will not be interrupted simply because 7 peace activists are occupying the military danger zone,” said Leimaile Quitevis

“The demands of the peace protestors include: stop the war games, no more military exercises, close the Shoalwater Bay base, and return the land to the indigenous people,” said Denis Doherty, national co-ordinator of the Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition, one of the peace protest organizers.

” In 1976 I occupied the island of Kaho’olawe to stop live bombing by the US military, said Terri Keko’olani. ” My heart goes out to June Norman, a 66 year old grandmother who is presently occupying the Shoalwater Bay training area to stop live bombing of an environment considered to be a world heritage treasure. ”

Fanai Castro of the Organization of People for Indigenous Rights (OPI-R) added, “There is no justification for the toxic contamination of our lands and waters, therefore we uphold the actions demonstrated here to protect these precious resources.” She continued, ” This Peace action is significant in that it brings together a diversity of people who believe that, beyond war, another world is possible.”

For further information, please contact:
Denis Doherty on 0418 290 663 or Dr Hannah Middleton on 0418 668 098.
Terri Kekoolani, Leimaile Quitevis and Fanai Castro can be contacted on either of these numbers.

GUAM AND HAWAII BRING WARNING ABOUT MILITARY EXERCISES

PEACE CONVERGENCE – MEDIA RELEASE – 20 JUNE 2007
GUAM AND HAWAII BRING WARNING ABOUT MILITARY EXERCISES

Three international guests arrived in Yeppoon – Rockhampton on Wednesday to add their voices to the protest of over 500 Australians concerned about the Australian-US Talisman Sabre 2007 military exercises at Shoalwater Bay Training Area near Yeppoon, central Queensland.

Coming from Guam and Hawaii, the three women carry warnings about the social, political, Indigenous rights, health and environmental price paid by small communities when their homelands become militarised.

A Welcome Ceremony was held at the Rockhampton Airport by the Fitzroy Basin Elders. They were also welcomed by the Peace Convergence which is protesting the military exercises. The Guam and Hawaiian visitors responded with chanting and the giving of gifts.

The guest from Guam is Fanai Castro from the Organisation of Peoples for Indigenous Rights. OPIR campaigns for the Indigenous right to an act of self-determination and opposes the expansion of US militarisation of their small island.

>From Hawaii, Terri Keko’olani and Leimaile Quitevis represent the Demilitarize Zone Hawaii Aloha ‘Aina, a pan-Hawai’ian movement for demilitarisation and Indigenous rights.

All three women are Indigenous rights activists in their respective countries and identify militarisation as one of the manifestations of ongoing colonialism.

“Our guests have firsthand experience of the impact of militarisation on people’s lives. They bring a timely warning about the real price paid by local people when their home communities become militarised,” Dr Zohl de Ishtar from the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Queensland. Dr de Ishtar is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

“It is an honour to receive such a welcoming from the Indigenous elders, since it is with us Indigenous peoples that the atrocities of colonialism first made its mark. In these days it seems that militarisation is the new colonialism,” said Fanai Castro a Chamoru (Indigenous) social justice activist from Guam.

“Shoalwater Bay Training Area is the only facility in the north-western Pacific which provides such extensive air-land-sea live-fire training capacity to the US military. Many of the planes, ships and submarines participating in the exercises come are homebased in or transit through Guam. Hawaii is the headquarters of the Pacific Command under whose jurisdiction the Talisman Sabre exercises fall,” said Dr Zohl de Ishtar.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Dr Zohl de Ishtar, Phone: 0429 422 645
Australia Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Queensland

Hawai’i representatives participate in Demonstrations against Talisman Sabre

June 2007

DMZ Hawai’i/Aloha Aina Head to Australia to Particpate in Solidary Actions Opposing Talisman Sabre 07 – OZ/US Joint Military Exercises

Operation Talisman Sabre is scheduled to taking place over a six week period from the end of May to 2 July 2007. According to the Public Environment Report released October 2006 it will involve approximately 13,700 US personnel and 12,400 Australian personnel. Indigenous Chamoru and Hawaiians arrived in Australia to demonstrate solidarity with Indigenous Darumbal elders and to raise awareness within the Peace Convergence – a week of activities protesting the Australian-US military exercises called Talisman Sabre.

For more information on the actions, visit the following Australia-based websites:

Shoalwater Bay

Peace Convergence

Kauai at odds over missile tests

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U.S. Navy photo
A Vandal, which simulates a supersonic cruise missile, is launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Nohili.

Kauai at odds over missile tests

Officials like the economic contributions,but protesters have a bevy of concerns

By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

BARKING SANDS, Kauai — The sand-swept dunes and vast ocean waters of the Pacific Missile Range Facility are in a crossfire as a new round of hearings begins next week on the Navy’s proposal to test its newest defense against ballistic missiles beginning in 1999.

The battle lines once more are drawn:

  • The Navy maintains that the 42,000-square-mile ocean and aerial test facility northwest of Kauai is best suited for this type of operation. Officials say the new tests will add only a half-dozen launchings to a facility that averages 80 a year.
  • Environmentalists say the proposal “is just continuation of the typical greed of the military, industrial and scientific complex” to invent new enemies to fight. They worry not only about the environment of the Garden Island, but also the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands breeding grounds for the green sea turtle and monk seals.
  • State and county officials view the new phase as not only bringing more civilian jobs to the base, which is the island’s third largest government employer, but also as a key to its survival.
  • Hawaiian activists consider the Nohili dunes — which lie within the area — to be sacred burial grounds. In the past, protests and arrests occurred as groups demanded access to the dunes. The Navy maintains access is forbidden only during a missile launch.

Navy says system is needed

Several years ago when the Army’s Strategic Target System, or STARS, missile program, was planned, Kauai protesters unsuccessfully tried to block it through lawsuits, charging that it was illegal and wasteful and improperly used Hawaiian lands. The first launch took place in August 1993. But only four of the planned 40 payloads materialized.

Under the current proposal, the Navy is eyeing Barking Sands to test its primary weapon system against short-range ballistic missiles. The Theater Ballistic Missile Defense, located on Aegis cruisers and destroyers, would provide umbrella protection for a flotilla of amphibious landing ships and accompanying Marine Corps beachhead forces.

The system is needed, Navy planners say, because of the proliferation of short-range missiles capable of nuclear, chemical and biological destruction by more than 30 countries.

The Navy wants to launch and track target drones fired from the air, land and sea, following them them until they are intercepted over the ocean.

Cayetano backs project

Gov. Ben Cayetano supports the plans to enhance Barking Sands testing capabilities.

“The people on Kauai will benefit economically because of the federal money and jobs resulting from this project,” Cayetano said.

Kauai County officials see the range as the largest and most stable economic element on the island. Last year Barking Sands contributed $45 million in wages and salaries, $8.2 million in construction spending, $41 million in contracts, $12 million in purchases and $3.1 million in utility payments. Visits by military and civilian contractors added $4 million.

The base has a labor force of 900, only 113 of whom wear Navy blues.

Bob Mullins, Mayor Maryanne Kusaka’s administrative assistant, said: “The real value also is what goes on outside the fence and outside the gate and the base does so much for people of the island, especially on the west side.”

Mullins said that in 1992 after Hurricane Iniki devastated Kauai, Barking Sands personnel “did a lot to get the west side of the island back up and on its feet.”

missileart

Hawaiians say site sacred

But Raymond Chuan, spokesman for the Kauai Friends of the Environment, said, “It is absolutely ridiculous to think that we are facing such a bigger threat with the demise of the Soviet empire to require the massive new developments of missile systems.

“Like the ultimate chameleon, the military changes color to suit every change in the geopolitical scene to justify its insatiable appetite to continue feeding billions into the military-industrial-scientific complex, while cutting the red meat out of the nation’s defense strength by continually reducing troop strength,” Chuan said.

He added that “the bait as always is jobs.”

“But are a few dozen extra jobs — mainly held by imported technicians — enough to sacrifice the still pristine state of Kauai and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands?”

The Rev. Kaleo Paterson, spokesman for the Hawaii Ecumenical Coalition, pointed out that the STARS missile launch site was “built at the foot of the dunes,” which Hawaiians consider to be a sacred site.

“Hawaiians believe that the northern- and westernmost part of any island was sacred. It was where spirits of a dead person leaped off into the other world. Many Hawaiians buried their dead there.”

Threat of base closure

Mullins said Barking Sands has been lucky to survive the last four base closure commissions, which since 1988 have shut down 97 facilities. It beats its mainland competition because of its expansive ocean and air space that isn’t constricted by airline and shipping traffic.

Mullins, who was commander of the Pacific Missile Range Facility from 1991-94, said: “We always made it known that the future of the base was to market itself for test and evaluation programs” like the one being proposed now.

Because Congress now seems to support the development and testing of a defensive missile designed to knock down missiles with less than a 1,000-mile range, Mullins said, “then you need a place where you can test those weapons systems safely.”

“The perfect test environment is what they have west of Kauai at Barking Sands range and beyond.”

Mullins predicted that if Barking Sands doesn’t get the missile testing program, there will be major cutbacks that could result in closing the range and the base.

“Like any business,” Mullins said, “to stay in business you have to grow and change with the times. That is what Barking Sands is trying to do by bringing in the missile defense business.”

missileb
By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin

JIM BOWLIN:The commanding officer of the Pacific Missile Range Facility says the Navy would like to build a 6,000-foot runway on the southern end of Niihau

Niihau is an important part of Navy’s plans

By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

BARKING SANDS, Kauai — The privately owned island of Niihau would play a crucial role in the proposed test of the Navy’s new missile defense system.

The sparsely inhabited 72-square-mile island, located about 19.5 miles southwest of Kauai, is owned by the Robinson family and houses an unmanned Navy radar site. Visitors are rarely allowed on the island.

Niihau is being eyed as one of three sites that would launch drone target missiles to be intercepted by Aegis cruisers or destroyers sitting offshore.

The other two launch sites would be the Pacific Missile Range Facility and Kure Atoll, located 1,350 miles northwest of Honolulu in the Northwestern Hawaiian chain. Future launch sites could be built on Johnston Atoll, Tern Island in the French Frigate Shoals, Wake Island and Midway Island.

More than one launch site is needed to test the capability of a Navy warship to shoot down missiles coming from all directions at different altitudes and at different times.

On the southern end of Niihau, the Navy also would like to build a 6,000-foot runway that would be used to bring materials needed for a missile launch, said Capt. Jim Bowlin, Pacific Missile Range Facility commanding officer.

The Navy also is proposing to:

Build two new ordnance storage magazines at Kamokala Caves located three miles east of Barking Sands.

Refurbish an existing radar site on Makaha Ridge overlooking the test range.

Construct an additional radar site on Kokee.

On Kure Atoll, the Navy wants to build a launch site on 321-acre Green Island, one of three in the group, located 56 miles southeast of Midway Island.

Averiet Soto, operations officer for the range, said future missile tests may not involve Johnston Atoll, Tern Island, Midway Island and Wake Island if the Navy can come up with suitable substitute mobile air and sea launching systems.

Soto does not believe that the Kauai missile intercepts will be “visible to the naked eye” since he estimates that the ships firing the interceptor missiles would be at least 100 miles off the island.

Bowlin said no financial arrangements have been worked out with the owner of Niihau, Bruce Robinson, although Bowlin believes it would be “a mutually beneficial relationship.”

Eight potential launch sites — five on the northern portion of Niihau and three on the southern end — are being contemplated, Soto said.

The Navy would like to have one or two sites, each sitting on a concrete pad measuring 150 feet by 150 feet.

Bowlin said Robinson has told the Navy any facility on Niihau must have some “economic benefit and cannot disrupt the lifestyle” of the more than 200 native Hawaiians living there, the majority of whom speak only Hawaiian.

There are no utility systems on the island. Each household has water catchment and septic systems and portable generators.

The Navy has been paying Robinson $1 a year since 1984 to lease the land where the radar unit is now located and $275,000 for logistic and other maintenance services.

Four hearings on Kauai, Oahu

The Navy will conduct four informational sessions on Pacific Missile Range Facility for testing of the Navy’s Theater Ballistic Missile Defense program.

The Navy wants feedback on issues that should be addressed in the environmental impact statement on the project.

Three hearings will be held on Kauai:

Tuesday, at Waimea Neighborhood Center beginning at 4 p.m.
Thursday at Kilauea Neighborhood Center at 4 p.m.
June 21 at 1 p.m. in the Wilcox Elementary School cafeteria.
The last hearing will be held at 4 p.m. June 23 at the U.S. Army Reserve Center in Fort Shafter Flats.

Navy took over in 1964

World’s largest instrumented and multidimensional testing and training range

  • 1921: Acquired by Kekaha Sugar Co. from the Knudsen family. Private planes used the grassy field as a landing strip.
  • 1932: Australian Kingsford Smith made a historic flight from Barking Sands to Australia in a Ford Trimotor.
  • 1940: First acquired by the Army, 549 acres including the grassy landing field through executive order. The installation became known as Mana Airport and the Army paved the runway.
  • 1954: Named changed to Bonham Air Force Base
  • 1962: Pacific Missile Range Facility officially commissioned
  • 1964: Barking Sands and 1,885 acres transferred to Navy

Barking Sands: Hawaiian legend

BARKING SANDS, Kauai — The legend of Barking Sands deals with an old Hawaiian fisherman who lived in a hut near the beach with his nine dogs. When he went fishing, the man would stake his dogs in the sand, three to a stake.

After one exhausting fishing expedition involving a bad storm, the fisherman forgot to untie the dogs after returning to the beach.

When he awoke the next morning, the dogs were gone. In their place were three small mounds of sand. As he stepped on a mound, he heard a low bark.

Believing that the dogs had been buried in the sand because of the storm, the fisherman began to dig.

The digging was futile. Each shovelful just meant more sand. The fisherman finally gave up and every day after that when he crossed the beach, he could hear the low barking.

To this day the sands of Mana have been known as Barking Sands.

Source: http://archives.starbulletin.com/97/06/13/news/story1.html