Category: Local Campaigns

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U.S. military reductions in Okinawa adds up to more militarization of Hawai’i

Despite much bellyaching from the Pentagon about having to go on a diet, President Obama himself stated, “Over the next 10 years, the growth in the defense budget will slow, but the fact of the matter is this: It will still grow, because we have global responsibilities that demand our leadership.” The new defense strategy reflects reductions in the rate of growth of the military budget.   The Atlantic published an interesting article “The Real Defense Budget” (February 20, 2012) that reports the Pentagon budget is actually closer to $1 trillion!

Senator Inouye told the media that despite these changes in the military budget and in basing plans in east Asia, Hawai’i will not get relief from militarization. In fact, the military may grow in some areas to absorb some of the Marines being pushed out of Okinawa.  The Honolulu Star Advertiser reported  “Isles hold on to military might” (February 21, 2012):

As military communities around the nation fret about defense cuts, U.S. Sen. Daniel Ino­uye said Hawaii expects to receive about 1,000 more Marines from Oki­nawa, have the same number or more ships based at Pearl Harbor and see a slight increase in shipyard work here.

Inouye confirmed Monday that with continuing problems with a 2006 agreement to relocate some Marines on Oki­nawa and move about 8,000 to Guam, the plan has changed.

About half the total, or 4,000 Marines, will now go to Guam, he said.

“Instead of all (8,000) going to Guam, they’ll go elsewhere — Australia, Hawaii and Guam,” Ino­uye said

[…]

“But the question now arises, Will those troops be rotating-type troops, or will they be stationed here with dependents, which would require schools, etc.? We have not reached that stage (of decision) yet.”

One  disturbing revelation was that Marines could be housed in Kona on Hawai’i island. This follows similar remarks by Governor Abercrombie several months ago:

From a logistics and transportation standpoint, the Army’s Schofield Barracks on Oahu or the Kona side of Hawaii island could be looked at to house more Marines, he said

Inouye also confirmed that Singapore and the Philippines are being targeted for increased militarization:

Inouye said, “It’s serious business — the fact that we will be adding vessels in Singapore, we’ll be setting up a rotating-type of base in Australia, and I don’t know if the people of Hawaii have caught it, but we have now restored discussions with the Filipinos.”

[…]

HIS MAIN POINTS

U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye says:

MARINES

The Pentagon is looking at shifting about 1,000 Marines from Okinawa to Hawaii. The move could be as part of permanent stations or rotational duty through Hawaii. About 500 could be accommodated at the Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps base. Schofield Barracks and the Kona side of Hawaii island are being looked at as possibilities.

SHIPYARD

Pearl Harbor shipyard work will increase slightly.

PEARL HARBOR

The specific surface ships stationed at Pearl Harbor will change, but the base will retain 11 — the number it now has — or even more.

In an earlier article, the Honolulu Star Advertiser reported “$487B in Defense cuts would take 2 cruisers from Pearl Harbor” (February 15, 2012):

The Navy plans to retire two of three cruisers at Pearl Harbor under a leaner defense budget — a move that, along with other cutbacks, is expected to have a negative effect on Hawaii’s economy.

Officials at the Pentagon confirmed that the USS Port Royal — the newest cruiser in the Navy inventory and one with ballistic missile shoot-down capability — is expected to be decommissioned in fiscal year 2013.

The USS Chosin, which is in Pearl Harbor shipyard receiving $112.5 million in repairs and upgrades, would be retired in 2014.

In a statement submitted Tuesday to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the Pentagon is “retiring seven lower-priority Navy cruisers that have not been upgraded with ballistic missile defense capability or that would require significant repairs.”

The Defense Department’s budget request for 2013, released Monday, sets out $487 billion in cuts over the next 10 years. Also affected would be the towering Sea-Based X-Band Radar, a regular visitor to Hawaii’s shores.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency said it plans to sideline the $1 billion one-of-a-kind missile tracker by placing it “in a limited test and contingency operations status” to save $500 million over five years.

As the article mentions, one of the ships to be decommissioned, the USS Port Royal, is the newest cruiser. The ship cost $1 billion to build.  In 2009, the USS Port Royal ran aground on the reef outside of Pearl Harbor, causing extensive damage to the coral as well as to the ship.  The repairs were estimated to cost $25 million to $40 million.  However, shipyard sources reported that the damage to the frame could not be fully repaired.  This probably explains the early retirement of this state of the art missile cruiser.

 

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U.S. military’s Pacific ‘pivot’ and Okinawa drawdown unsettles the region

After several weeks of speculation and anonymous ‘leaks’ about possible changes to the U.S.-Japan plan to relocate the Futenma Marine base to Henoko, Okinawa, government officials announced that the U.S. would begin moving some troops out of Okinawa, independent of the base relocation to Henoko. But the news is having an unsettling effect across the entire region.  Here are a sampling of the articles.

The AP reported “Okinawa Marines going to Guam, Australia, Hawaii and Philippines” (February 7, 2012):

Japan and the United States agreed Wednesday to proceed with plans to transfer thousands of U.S. troops out of the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, leaving behind the stalled discussion about closing a major U.S. Marine base there.

The transfer, a key to U.S. troop restructuring in the Pacific, has been in limbo for years because it was linked to the closure and replacement of the strategically important base that Okinawans fiercely oppose.

The announcement Wednesday follows high-level talks to rework a 2006 agreement for 8,000 Marines to transfer to the U.S. territory of Guam by 2014 if a replacement for Marine Corps Air Station Futenma could be built elsewhere on Okinawa.

That agreement has been effectively scuttled by opposition on Okinawa, where many residents believe the base should simply be closed and moved overseas or elsewhere in Japan. More than half of the 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan, including 18,000 Marines, are stationed on Okinawa, taking up around 10 percent of the island with nearly 40 bases and facilities.

The two governments said in a joint statement that the transfer of thousands of U.S. Marines to Guam would not require the prior closure of Futenma, as the original pact required. Details of the realignment will be discussed further, but about 10,000 troops will remain on Okinawa, as in the original agreement.

The reduced number of troops projected to move to Guam may be encouraging to grassroots groups who have fought against the military expansion in Guam. However the Governor of the U.S. colony, and the many businesses that hoped to cash in on the boom, were disappointed:

Guam, meanwhie, has pushed hard for the troop buildup because of the potential economic boom.

“We are the closest U.S. community to Asia. We are very patriotic citizens. And unlike many foreign countries and even some U.S. communities, we welcome an increased military presence,” Gov. Eddie Calvo said in a statement last week.

Guam, which is being built up to play a greater role in Washington’s Asia-Pacific strategy, could also stand to get far fewer Marines than expected if the new plan goes through. The tiny U.S. territory had been counting on a huge boost from the restructuring plan, and may have to revise its forecasts.

But officials said the revised number could be more manageable.

A smaller contingent of Marines would alleviate concerns on Guam that the swelling military presence would overwhelm the island’s infrastructure and environment.

Mark G. Calvo, the director of Guam’s military buildup office, said the territory has been briefed by the Department of Defense about the talks with Japan and supports the transfer, even if it is smaller than expected. He said the idea of reducing it to about 4,000 Marines had been discussed after an environmental impact assessment two years ago pointed to possible problems.

“There are concerns about a loss of economic benefits, but it puts us in a better position to adjust our infrastructure,” he said.

The AFP reported “US Marines may leave Japan before base closure” (Febraury 8, 2012):

Thousands of US Marines could leave Japan’s Okinawa island before a controversial American base is closed, Washington and Tokyo announced Wednesday, in the latest twist in a long-running saga.

In a densely-worded joint statement, the two sides said they were talking about “delinking” the redeployment of 8,000 Marines from a 2006 agreement to close the base in the crowded urban area of Futenma.

It has been widely reported in Japan that Washington has now set its sights on shifting 4,700 Marines to Guam without waiting for Japan to stop its foot-dragging over the accord, which would see a new facility built in a sparsely populated coastal area.

The original agreement offered the carrot of a Marine drawdown in exchange for Okinawans allowing the construction of an airstrip at Henoko.

The Washington Post headline was “U.S. likely to scale down plans for bases in Japan and Guam” (February 8, 2012):

The U.S. military will probably scale back plans to build key bases in Japan and Guam because of political obstacles and budget pressures, according to U.S. and Japanese officials, complicating the Obama administration’s efforts to strengthen its troop presence in Asia.

Under a deal announced Wednesday with Japanese officials, the U.S. government said it will accelerate plans to withdraw 8,000 Marines from the island of Okinawa. The decision came after several years of stalled talks to find a site for a new Marine base nearby.

Washington’s inability to resolve its basing arrangements on Okinawa, as well as the rising price tag of a related plan for a $23 billion military buildup on Guam, underscore the challenges facing the Obama administration as it seeks to make a strategic “pivot” toward the Pacific after a decade of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Japanese government said it is still committed to a 2006 accord with the United States to find a new base location for other Marines who will remain on Okinawa. But officials in Tokyo acknowledged that they had made little progress in the face of fierce resistance from islanders opposed to the long-standing U.S. military presence there. Bleak public finances in the United States and in Japan have also undermined the effort.

The article also described the proposal to rotate troops to different locations in the Asia-Pacific region, including an expanded U.S. military presence in Singapore:

The administration has moved on a series of fronts to bolster the U.S. military presence in Asia and the Pacific recently. Officials reached a deal with Australia to deploy a small number of Marines to Darwin and are holding talks with the Philippines about expanding military ties.

Those moves, along with an agreement to station Navy ships in Singapore, are part of a broader strategy aimed at countering China’s rising influence in the region. Although the Obama administration wants to retain the bulk of U.S. forces in South Korea and Japan, where they have maintained a heavy presence since World War II and the Korean War, officials said they are looking to expand their presence in Southeast Asia.

An Asia Times article “Okinawans see duplicity in US withdrawal” (February 11, 2012) was more critical and emphasized the Okinawan reaction to the announcement:

With the United States shifting its axis of security toward the Asia-Pacific by expanding its military footprint in Australia, the Philippines and Vietnam, it may be high time for the United States Marine Corps to leave Japan’s Okinawa.

A shifting security dynamic in the region, most notably due to China’s enhanced strike capabilities, will likely marginalize the marines’ presence on the island.

The Asia Times article explored how the U.S. strategy is directed at countering China’s rise, but it tended to overemphasize the military threat from China as the reason for moving troops from Okinawa:

The planned transfer of thousands of marines to Guam without progress on the Futenma relocation is also part of an ongoing US strategy to counter China’s military build-up, especially its growing naval power in the West Pacific.

The Pentagon is closely watching China’s “anti-access/area denial” strategy, which envisions blocking freedom of movement for US ships. By creating two lines of coastal defenses in the region, military analysts believe Beijing aims to nullify the capabilities of US aircraft carriers and air defenses within the zone.

The so-called AirSea battle concept combines US air and naval strengths. It departs from the Cold War-era AirLand Battle doctrine drafted to prepare for an invasion by the former Soviet Union.

The AirSea battle concept meant to combat China’s growing military might doesn’t fit with high troop levels on Okinawa, since the latter cannot be moved swiftly and could be easily targeted by China’s middle-range ballistic missiles such as the DF-21.

The new battle strategy forces the Pentagon to keep key US forces out of China’s strike range.

“It’s better for US Marines to keep at a safe distance from China,” Japanese military analyst Toshiyuki Shikata told Asia Times Online. “I expect the US to fortify Guam as a strong military base from now on.”

The Asia Times also revealed that in addition to shifting troops to Guam, Hawai’i, Australia and the Philippines, there have been talks about moving Marines to South Korea or other parts of Japan:

Japanese media have reported that apart from moving 4,700 marines from Okinawa to Guam, the Pentagon is also considering rotating 3,300 to other overseas bases in the Pacific such as Hawaii, Australia and the Philippines.

Of the 3,300 marines, media have reported that 1,000 will be deployed to Hawaii and 800 to the US mainland. Meanwhile, other media have said 2,300 will go to Darwin in northern Australia and 1,000 to Hawaii.

It’s also been reported that the US has sounded out Tokyo on transferring about 1,500 marines to the Iwakuni marine base in Yamaguchi Prefecture – the only Marine Corps Air Station on mainland Japan – with central and local governments flatly rejecting the idea.

Some US Marines stationed in Okinawa will likely move to South Korea, Chosun Ilbo also has reported. Pentagon spokesperson Leslie Hull-Ryde on Friday denied the South Korean newspaper’s report by saying, “there has been no discussion between the US and the Republic of Korea [South Korea] on this issue”.

Unclear figures on how many US Marines are actually on Okinawa – due to expeditions and rotating shifts – has also aggravated the Japanese public. While both the US and Japanese governments claim 18,000 marines are normally based on Okinawa, the Okinawa prefectural government says only 14,958 marines were based on the island as of September 2009.

Military experts estimate the number at 12,000-14,000 at best in recent years because of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Then Japanese defense minister Toshimi Kitazawa said in February 2010 that there were only 4,000 to 5,000 marines stationed on Okinawa due to Iraqi and Afghanistan deployments.

The US and Japanese governments say there will 10,000 marines in Okinawa even after shifting 8,000 marines around the island. But the claim could be just a pretext to avoid military budget cuts.

Plans for deep US defense cuts are another major likely reason why moving the marines out of Okinawa has been disconnected from the relocation of the Futenma airbase.

The Marine Corps Times published an article “More Marines may deploy to South Korea” (February 14, 2012) expounding on the possible stationing of more Marines in South Korea:

Recent South Korean media reports have highlighted two items of interest. The first was a Jan. 19 meeting in Seoul attended by the commanding generals of Marine Corps Forces-Korea and the Republic of Korea Marine Corps. There, the two sides agreed to expand combined training exercises, including a large joint-landing operation planned for the first half of this year.

The second report is potentially more sensitive. Two articles, one Feb. 8 and another Feb. 10, published in the Chosun Ilbo, a national daily newspaper, indicate that as part of the planned move of U.S. Marines from Okinawa, an undetermined number may end up going to South Korea on a rotational basis.

A Defense Department spokeswoman, Lt. Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde, had no immediate comment on either of the South Korean media reports, saying no decisions have been finalized concerning the scope of planned personnel shifts in the Pacific.

Reuters published an interesting article “Exclusive: U.S. military seeks more access in Philippines” (February 9, 2012) on the proposed expansion of the U.S. military presence and activities in the Philippines. Calling it “access, not bases,” the Philippines government hopes to deflect public protest for violating the 1987 constitutional ban on any permanent foreign military presence. The Philippines has been a laboratory for new types of basing arrangements, where U.S. troops, equipment and supplies are “temporarily” stationed in the country for training missions:

The United States is seeking more access to Philippines ports and airfields to re-fuel and service its warships and planes, diplomatic and military sources said on Thursday, expanding its presence at a time of tension with China in the South China Sea.

But it is not trying to reopen military bases there.

Washington’s growing cooperation in the Philippines, a U.S. ally which voted to remove huge American naval and air bases 20 years ago, follows the U.S. announcement last year of plans to set up a Marine base in northern Australia and possibly station warships in Singapore.

It also coincides with diplomatic and military friction in the South China Sea and its oil-rich Spratly Islands, which are subject to disputed claims by China, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations.

Last month, senior Philippine defense and foreign affairs officials met their U.S. counterparts in Washington to discuss ways to increase the number and frequency of joint exercises, training, ship and aircraft visits and other activities.

“It’s access, not bases,” a foreign affairs department official familiar with the strategic dialogue told Reuters.

“Our talks focus on strengthening cooperation on military and non-military activities, such as disaster response and humanitarian assistance, counter-terrorism, non-proliferation. There were no discussions about new U.S. bases,” he said.

These activities would allow the U.S. military more access in the Philippines, stretching its presence beyond local military facilities and training grounds into central Cebu province or to Batanes island near the northern borders with Taiwan. (Emphasis added)

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported “Admiral Seeks Freer Hand in Deployment of Elite Forces” (February 12, 2012) that the Commander of the Special Operations Command wants more autonomy for special forces, which as Filipino activists point out, is the main branch of the military involved in counterinsurgency operations in Mindanao:

The officer, Adm. William H. McRaven, who leads the Special Operations Command, is pushing for a larger role for his elite units who have traditionally operated in the dark corners of American foreign policy. The plan would give him more autonomy to position his forces and their war-fighting equipment where intelligence and global events indicate they are most needed.

It would also allow the Special Operations forces to expand their presence in regions where they have not operated in large numbers for the past decade, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Filipino reactions to the news has ranged from outrage to sarcasm.  Erick San Juan wrote an opinion piece in the Zamboanga Today Online, “Let’s get our acts together!“ (February 14, 2012), in which he suggested that Senator Inouye’s visit to the Philippines last year was a prospecting mission for expanding the U.S. military presence:

Americans are our friends. But, let us all be wary every time Uncle Sam’s top officials and representatives visit the country. . .

In May of last year, I wrote about the “visit” of US Senators Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and William Thad Cochran (R- Mississippi) to the country for a “possible return of the US naval base in Subic.” Of course, the US embassy here denied this and that the visit was “to see the economic progress in the Subic Freeport area that has been made over the years and to ask how the US can collaborate.”

And, could it be that the said visit of the two elder senators from the US Senate Appropriations committee was to test the water, so to speak of what could be the reaction of the populace?

[…]

US troops never left and they are using our military camps as portable bases via the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). In this way, they are actually saving a lot of dollars because in reality the annual joint military exercises has benefitted them a lot more than our Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

Actually that “smaller base” in the south has been there as the aftermath of Bush’s synthetic war on terror. And now, according to reports, Uncle Sam will send its marines and navy men in Subic Bay on rotation with its other allies.

*Floating Base

Speaking of portable base, Washington has plans of deploying of what they call “floating base”, first in the Middle East this summer. According to news release from the New York Times online dated 1/27/2012 – The conversion of the Ponce, which had been scheduled for retirement, would be an interim step to providing the military with its first afloat staging base.

The Pentagon’s new budget proposals, unveiled Thursday, included money to turn a freighter hull into a full-time floating base that could be moved around the world for military operations or humanitarian missions.

Seriously? That familiar line again – for humanitarian missions?

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Disarray or disinformation? – Shifting U.S. military plans in the Asia Pacific region

Over the past week there have been confusing and contradictory reports about plans to relocate U.S. military bases in Okinawa. Do they reflect the actual state of disarray in the U.S.-Japan alliance or psychological operations to pressure local communities into accepting base relocation plans in Okinawa and Guam?

On February 1, the Kyodo News Service reported that:

The U.S. Defense Department is considering shifting part of some 8,000 Marine troops in Okinawa Prefecture to Hawaii and other Pacific areas instead of Guam, Pentagon sources said Tuesday.

This alarmed the Pacific Daily News in Guam: “BREAKING NEWS: Kyodo reports that 3,000 Marines may move to Hawaii instead of Guam.”  However its concern was that Guam would lose out on the economic “benefits” of the military buildup.  Meanwhile grassroots communities in Guam and Hawai’i brace to fight the latest threats of military expansion.

Then Bloomberg News reported “Obama Said to Curtail $21 Billion Guam Military Expansion”(February 3):

President Barack Obama plans to curtail a plan costing as much as $21.1 billion to expand the U.S. military’s presence in Guam and instead will rotate some of the Marines through the Asia-Pacific region, people familiar with the matter said.

The administration now intends to send about 4,500 U.S. Marines stationed in Japan to Guam and to rotate an additional 4,000 through Australia, Subic Bay and perhaps a smaller base in the Philippines and Hawaii, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the plan hasn’t been announced.

Joseph Gerson suggested that these news leaks may have been part of a psychological campaign to pressure Japan and Okinawa into accepting the 2006 “Roadmap” relocating the Futenma base to Henoko and moving 8000 Marines to Guam.    It appears that some elements of the base realignment will proceed, while others are put on hold.  On February 4, the Japan Times reported “Genba, U.S. huddle anew over ’06 base pact”:

“Both Japan and the U.S. remain unchanged in that we think relocating the Futenma base to Henoko is the best plan and that the number of marines who will remain in Okinawa will also be the same — 10,000,” Genba said.

Earlier this week, Kyodo News reported that out of the 8,000 marines that would be redeployed to Guam under the Futenma relocation plan, the U.S. was instead considering deploying some 3,000 of them elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, including Hawaii, because of Guam’s proximity to China.

On Friday, Bloomberg also reported that about half the marines would be rotated around the region, including Australia and Subic Bay in the Philippines, in line with Washington’s new defense strategy to increase the U.S. presence in Asia.

The bilateral 2006 realignment plan entailed shifting 8,000 marines and their dependants to Guam upon completion of the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to the Henoko coast in Nago farther north on Okinawa Island.

But on February 6, a Kyodo/Bloomberg article reported “Marine base to remain in Futenma: U.S.”:

A senior U.S. official told Japanese officials in late January that Futenma Air Station will have to stay in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, for the time being because of the standoff over its relocation plan, sources close to bilateral relations said Sunday.

This suggests that the facility, U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, is staying in the crowded city despite a formal bilateral agreement to return the land to Japanese control once a replacement facility is built for it elsewhere in the prefecture.

On Saturday, Japan and the United States reportedly agreed to move 4,700 marines in Okinawa to Guam instead of 8,000, delinking the transfer plan from the contentious Futenma relocation plan stipulated in the road map for realigning U.S. forces in Japan.

The developments have increased the likelihood that the relocation issue is headed for the back burner, which is likely to upset the already upset Okinawan public, which has been fighting the plan tooth and nail for well over a decade.

Meanwhile, the AP reported “Army reducing number of combat brigades to cut costs.”  Taking into account the Pentagon’s new concentration on the Asia Pacific region, it could mean an increase in the size of Army brigades in Hawai’i:

The Army plans to slash the number of combat brigades from 45 to as low as 32 in a broad restructuring of its fighting force aimed at cutting costs and reducing the service by about 80,000 soldiers, according to U.S. officials familiar with the plans.

Officials said the sweeping changes will likely increase the size of each combat brigade — generally by adding another battalion — in a long-term effort to ensure that those remaining brigades have the fighting capabilities they need when they go to war. A brigade is usually about 3,500 soldiers, but can be as large as 5,000 for the heavily armored units. A battalion is usually between 600-800 soldiers.

It’s time to reduce, not relocate U.S. bases and forces from the Asia Pacific and invest in “Trans Pacific Peace”!

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Okinawa’s win may be Hawai’i’s tragedy

As Okinawans move closer to removing the oppressive presence of U.S. military bases from their island, the repercussions are already being felt across the Pacific. In November, President Obama announced that the U.S. will deploy 2,500  troops to Australia.  Recently, the U.S. and Philippines have engaged in talks about expanding the U.S. military presence in the Philippines twenty years after popular movements forced the U.S. to remove its military bases. The prospect of renewed U.S. military expansion in the Philippines has been met with strong denunciations and protests.

As discussed previously on this site, despite looming Pentagon budget cuts (actually reductions in the rate of increase of the military budget), Hawai’i will continue to be inundated with more troops and military construction with the U.S. strategic pivot to the Asia-Pacific region.  The expansion of Marine Corps aircraft and training areas may have been a fallback plan in the event that the plan to relocate troops in Okinawa and Guam fell through.

William Cole revealed in the Honolulu Star Advertiser “Isle Marine forces could grow by 1000”:

Hawaii’s military future could include another Navy cruiser and at least 1,000 more Marines if some forces are removed from Okinawa, the Star-Advertiser has learned.

The Pentagon outlined plans Thursday to cut $487 billion over the next 10 years, but Hawaii’s location makes it key in a new military strategy that emphasizes the Pacific, Asia and the Middle East. As such, Hawaii’s military forces are expected to grow in certain areas and stay about the same in others, such as Army strength, which will remain constant on Oahu, military officials said.

While the Marine Corps is making plans to drop to a force of 182,000 from 202,000, Hawaii’s Marine contingent could grow by 1,000 troops or more as the Pentagon looks at alternatives to moving Marines from Okinawa to Guam, a source familiar with the plans told the Star-Advertiser. Hawaii could get some of those reshuffled forces, said the source, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the plans.

The sheer cost of the Futenma-Henoko-Guam relocation plan is working to slow, or possibly even derail the plan. The Honolulu Star Advertiser reported:

In May the U.S. Government Accountability Office said the cost estimate to move the 8,000 Marines and 9,000 dependents from Okinawa to Guam, and to relocate other Marines to another location on Okinawa, had ballooned to $29.1 billion from $10.3 billion.

Currently, the Marines maintain approximately 11,000 troops at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii Kaneohe Bay, and another 700 at Camp Smith.  If the Marines were to increase troop numbers by 1000, the total number of Marines in Hawaiʻi would reach 12,700, not counting dependents.   The Army will maintain 23,000 troops in Hawaiʻi. The Navy has six destroyers, two frigates and three cruisers homeported at Pearl Harbor.   However, Cole reported, “As part of the effort to strengthen a Pacific presence, another cruiser also might be moved to Hawaii, the source said.”

The Mainichi Shimbun reported:

The U.S. Defense Department is considering shifting part of some 8,000 Marine troops in Okinawa Prefecture to Hawaii and other Pacific areas instead of Guam, Pentagon sources said Tuesday.

According to the sources, the Pentagon is contemplating transferring about 3,000 of the Okinawa Marines to those locations as Guam, which is geographically close to China, could receive a catastrophic attack by Chinese forces in case of a contingency.

It is very curious that the Pentagon is using the excuse that Marines on Okinawa would be too close and vulnerable to Chinese attack.  Joseph Gerson of the American Friends Service Committee reacted that “It is almost inconceivable to me that the marines are being moved because of safety fears related to China.”  Instead, he interpreted the news as part of a psychological campaign to pressure Okinawans and Japanese to accept the base relocation to Henoko and a response to the lack of infrastructure on Guam and Congress’ refusal to fund upgrades to the military infrastructure on Guam.

Col. (Ret.) Ann Wright said that the possible expansion of Marines in Hawai’i may increase the danger to the public when seen in the context of two cases of aborted justice involving violent crimes by Marines:

Another military expansion threat to Hawaiʻi is the possible return of high-speed catamaran “superferries” to transport military troops and equipment. In “Isle home possible for past superferry”, William Cole of the Honolulu Star Advertiser reported:

The $35 million sale of the defunct Hawaii Superferries Ala­kai and Hua­kai by the U.S. Maritime Administration to the U.S. Navy, finalized last week, raised the possibility that one of the blue-and-white high-speed vessels could return to Hawaii in battleship gray.

All that’s certain is that one of the former passenger catamarans will not be operating out of Hawaii in the near future.

The Navy’s Military Sealift Command in Washington, D.C,. said one of the superferries will replace the leased 331-foot Westpac Express based out of Okinawa, Japan, a vessel used to transport Marines and equipment around the Western Pacific, sometime before the end of the calendar year.

The Hawaii Superferry was an ill-conceived and controversial venture to supposedly provide a passenger ferry service for the Hawaiian islands. But the project, which enjoyed the support of Governor Lingleʻs administration and many in business and political circles, was fast-tracked without an environmental review process.  Protests by surfers on Kauaʻi blocked the ship from entering Nawiliwili harbor, and legal challenges from Maui environmental groups eventually stopped the project.  The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruled that the ferry was operating illegally and ordered a halt until an environmental review was conducted. The company subsequently went bankrupt, and the two ferries were repossessed by the Maritime Administration which had given a $140 million loan guarantee. The Navy recently acquired the two vessels from the Maritime Administration for use as military transport vessels.

The transfer of the ships to the Navy confirmed what many had suspected, that military interests were the underlying driving force behind the superferry project.  The ships were overbuilt for the small Hawaiʻi market, but were perfect for military transport specifications.  The investment company of John F. Lehman, former Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan, owned Hawaii Superferry.  Austal, the Australian shipbuilder leveraged the Hawaii Superferry contracts to successfully bid for the Joint High Speed Vessel contract and the Littoral Combat Ship contract.   (Only ships in the U.S and under U.S. flag could be eligible for Navy shipbuilding contracts.)

The Honolulu Star Advertiser reported:

Separate from the two former superferries, the Pentagon had plans to build and operate 10 additional Joint High-Speed Vessels, and said in 2010 that it was looking at basing up to three of the speedy cargo and troop carriers at Pearl Harbor.

But new defense budget priorities released Thursday call for reducing that number by eight. Officials with the Sealift Command, which will operate the high-speed vessels, could not be reached for comment about the reduction.

The Army talked for years about the advantages of having one of the big Joint High-Speed Vessels in Hawaii to transport Stryker armored vehicles and troops to Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island.

But the federal budget crises may have trimmed the original plans:

The Army published a notice in the Federal Register in early 2010 saying it would conduct a programmatic environmental impact statement analysis of the potential basing of up to 12 Joint High-Speed Vessels at five locations, including up to three of the ships at Pearl Harbor.

Other locations to be considered in the study were Guam, the Virginia Tidewater area, San Diego and Seattle-Tacoma, Wash.

The Joint High-Speed Vessel program initially had five of the first 10 ships assigned to the Army and five to the Navy, but the Army agreed in May to transfer its ships to the Navy.

The Army subsequently said it would not conduct the basing study. How much the basing examination has changed is unclear.

What is clear is that the situation in the Asia Pacific regarding U.S.  military bases and troops is rapidly evolving.  Resistance to bases in Okinawa, Japan and Korea is forcing the military adjust its basing plans and withdraw more military troops to Guam and Hawai’i, and possibly also to the Philippines and Australia.  As the hub of U.S. military bases and operations in the Asia-Pacific region, Hawai’i will face particularly intense militarization pressures.  Hawai’i can learn from the movements in Asia and use their momentum to push for an overall reduction, rather than relocation of U.S. troops and bases in the Pacific.

 

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ALONG THE AXIS OF PEACE: Global Resistance to U.S. Military Bases and Space-based Weapons

DOWNLOAD PDF OF THE POSTER

 

ALONG THE AXIS OF PEACE:

Global Resistance to U.S. Military Bases and Space-based Weapons

February 18, 2012

7:00 – 9:00 pm

Art Auditorium

UH Manoa

FREE

From Vandenberg, California to Kwajalein Atoll, Kaua’i to Jeju, South Korea, Okinawa to the UK, the U.S. global network of military bases and space-based weapons systems seeks to attain “full-spectrum dominance” over the planet. But grassroots movements are resisting through dynamic local-global networks of solidarity.

An international panel of activists and scholars will discuss the local, regional and global ramifications of the U.S. missile defense programs and expanding U.S. militarism in the Asia-Pacific region, resistance against U.S. military bases in Hawai’i, Okinawa, Korea and the UK and the far-reaching implications of the militarization of space.

  • • Lynda Williams is a physics educator at Santa Rosa Junior College in California and a board member of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.
  • Jamie Oshiro is an activist with the Hawai’i Okinawa Alliance, a group that conducts education and action in solidarity with anti-bases struggles in Okinawa as well as Hawai’i.
  • Dave Webb is the National Chair of the UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, a former space physicist for the UK Ministry of Defence and a recipient of the Pax Christi Award.
  • Bruce Gagnon is the Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, an Air Force Veteran, and member of Veterans for Peace.
  • Kyle Kajihiro (Moderator) is an organizer with Hawai’i Peace and Justice and DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina.

Contact: 808-988-6266 • info@hawaiipeaceandjustice.org • www.dmzhawaii.org

Sponsors: University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Department of English, Department of American Studies, and Department of Political Science, the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, Hawai’i Peace and Justice, and DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina.

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6 Marines from Kaneʻohe base killed in helicopter crash in Afghanistan

News sources have confirmed that the six Marines killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan were from the Marine Corps Base Hawaii Kaneohe Bay:

The helicopter, a CH-53D Sea Stallion from Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay, crashed Thursday in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand. The Marine unit, known as the Lucky Red Lions, deployed in August.

The Honolulu Star Advertiser reported that the crash involved the same type of helicopter that crashed in Kaneʻohe bay in March 2011, killing one pilot. These Sea-Stallion helicopters have been involved in a number of other crashes, including a crash into an Okinawan university and a tragic crash in 2005 in Afghanistan:

All the Marine Corps’ Vietnam War-era Sea Stallion helicopters are based at Kaneohe Bay. Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 363 out of Hawaii deployed to Afghanistan in August, replacing another Hawaii unit, Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463.

[…]

The twin-engined CH-53D first flew in 1964 and became operational in 1966, according to the Navy. In the mid-1990s the Marine Corps consolidated all its remaining Sea Stallions at Kaneohe.

It is now used as a medium-lift helicopter. The Marines in Hawaii have started to swap out some of the older two-engine CH-53Ds with the newer CH-53E Super Stallion, a more powerful, three-engine variant that fulfills a heavy-lift role.

At least five of an anticipated squadron complement of 12 Super Stallions are in Hawaii. Other older Sea Stallions are expected to be replaced in Hawaii by MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

The Marine Corps said in May that all of the CH-53Ds in three squadrons at Kaneohe Bay were expected to be retired from service in the next year and a half.

A squadron of 12 MV-22 tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft is tentatively scheduled to arrive in Hawaii in 2014, the Corps said.

[…]

The Marines at Kaneohe Bay in 2005 paid a steep price in life in the crash of a CH-53 Super Stallion — the three-engine variant now in widespread use in the Corps — that went down in a sandstorm in western Iraq.

The crew of the California-based helicopter became disoriented on Jan. 26, 2005, when weather turned bad and mistakenly flew the transport chopper into the ground, investigators determined.

Of 31 killed, 26 Marines and a sailor were from Kaneohe Bay.

But the Osprey is another accident prone and extremely expensive program that many in Washington would like to see cut.   The Okinawans in Takae are vehemently protesting the expansion of Osprey landing areas and training activities in northern Okinawa.

The Marine Corps is now completing an environmental impact statement for the expansion of helicopter and Osprey facilities and activities in Hawaiʻi.

 

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Waikāne munitions cleanup feasibility study comments due 2/13/12

The Marine Corps clean up of unexploded munitions in the Waikāne ahupuaʻa is now at a critical stage where decisions will be made about the extent of clean up.  On January 12, 2012, the Marine Corps released its final draft of the Waikane Feasibility Study report. Comments on the proposed alternatives are being accepted  until February 13, 2012.

The website for minutes of the Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) and other reports and documents can be accessed here.

The full Feasibility Study that is open for review can be downloaded here.

The good news is that the Marine Corps has proposed to clean up the southern area of the site, which consists of the flat lands near the stream and the main farming and ancient taro fields, to a level suitable for unrestricted use.  This would allow the resumption of farming and cultural practices once the land is certified safe.  The safety fence would then be removed from this portion of the land.

The transfer of these lands out of the military is a separate process. The community must continue to press for the return of lands to the Kamaka family heirs.

Based on community feedback, the Marines have also proposed subsurface clearance of munitions in portions of the northern target area in the vicinity of the Kamaka family shrine and the Waikāne spring, which would allow for cultural access to these sites.  However, these sites lie in the most heavily contaminated areas. Subsurface cleanup surrounding the culturally significant sites would be an important objective for the community. The Marine Corps proposal is to clear a very narrow (8-ft wide) path to the cultural sites bounded by a 6-ft high chain link fence, which led one member of the RAB to comment that it would feel like a prison.

RAB member Emil Wolfgramm, a Tongan master story teller and cultural expert said that while he appreciated the Marine Corp’s effort, they were only dealing with the “plumbing”, i.e. the mechanical and practical methods of removing ordnance, while the Kanaka Maoli were concerned with the “water,” the spiritual and cultural content that generates meaning and restores life to the land.  He recommended that the process should begin with the reconsecration of the land so that the land can speak and direct what needs to be done.

The following changes need to be made to the current feasibility study and recommended plan:

1.  All accessible areas (less than 30 degree slope) in the Northern target and non-target areas should be surface swept and cleared of munitions.

2. The proposed fenced access corridors to the cultural sites are too narrow and obtrusive.  The Marine Corps should clear a wider path to the Kamaka family shrine and Waikāne spring to allow for more free access to the sites.

3. Procedurally, in advance of finalizing the maps, the Marines should conduct a site visit/cultural access to the shrine and spring with the Kamaka family and other cultural practitioners to determine what safety border would be appropriate and culturally sensitive.

Please submit comments on the Waikāne Impact Area Feasibility Study to the Marine Corps by February 13, 2012.

Comments may be emailed to:  randall.hu@usmc.mil.

Send a copy of the email to David Henkin, community-co-chair of the Waikāne Impact Range RAB: davidlhenkin@yahoo.com

Or mail comments to:   Commanding Officer, Attn LE (R Hu), Box 63062 Environmental, MCBH Kaneohe Bay, HI 96863-3062.

The next Waikāne Impact Area Restoration Advisory Board meeting will be Wednesday, March 7, starting at 7 p.m. at the Waiāhole Elementary cafeteria.

 

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The new Defense Guidance document: Cuts for the military, but humanity still hangs from a cross of iron.

January 17, 2012 will mark the 51st anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhowerʻs famous farewell speech, in which he presciently warned of the dangers of the military-industrial complex.  Last year on the 50th anniversary of the speech, Andrew Bacevich wrote “The Tyranny of Defense Inc.,” an excellent reflection on the evolution of Eisenhowerʻs thinking and the costs of war and militarism.  Early in his presidency on April 16, 1953, Eisenhower delivered his other famous “Cross of Iron” speech to the Association of Newspaper Editors.  As Bacevich writes:

Separated in time by eight years, the two speeches are complementary: to consider them in combination is to discover their full importance. As bookends to Eisenhower’s presidency, they form a solemn meditation on the implications—economic, social, political, and moral—of militarizing America.

[…]

“Every gun that is made,” Eisenhower told his listeners, “every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Any nation that pours its treasure into the purchase of armaments is spending more than mere money. “It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

Eisenhowerʻs farewell speech sounded a grave warning after two terms witnessing and wrestling with the hyper-militarization of the U.S.:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Recently, the power and corrosive effect of the military-industrial complex has been on display in the political struggle to cut the military budget.

Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was poised to reveal a plan that would change U.S. military doctrine and reduce the size of the military:

In a shift of doctrine driven by fiscal reality and a deal last summer that kept the United States from defaulting on its debts, Mr. Panetta is expected to outline plans for carefully shrinking the military — and in so doing make it clear that the Pentagon will not maintain the ability to fight two sustained ground wars at once.

Instead, he will say that the military will be large enough to fight and win one major conflict, while also being able to “spoil” a second adversary’s ambitions in another part of the world while conducting a number of other smaller operations, like providing disaster relief or enforcing a no-flight zone.

Pentagon officials, in the meantime, are in final deliberations about potential cuts to virtually every important area of military spending: the nuclear arsenal, warships, combat aircraft, salaries, and retirement and health benefits. With the war in Iraq over and the one in Afghanistan winding down, Mr. Panetta is weighing how significantly to shrink America’s ground forces.

There is broad agreement on the left, right and center that $450 billion in cuts over a decade — the amount that the White House and Pentagon agreed to last summer — is acceptable. That is about 8 percent of the Pentagon’s base budget. But there is intense debate about an additional $500 billion in cuts that may have to be made if Congress follows through with deeper reductions.

Mr. Panetta and defense hawks say a reduction of $1 trillion, about 17 percent of the Pentagon’s base budget, would be ruinous to national security. Democrats and a few Republicans say that it would be painful but manageable; they add that there were steeper military cuts after the Cold War and the wars in Korea and Vietnam.

But government budget and accountability watchdog groups immediately criticized the proposals as being misleading and inadequate to meet the requirements of fiscal responsibility. The Project on Government Oversight and Taxpayers for Common Sense issued a press release that stated “Panetta Ignoring More than $100 Billion in Potential Defense Savings”:

When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reveals his strategy to “rebalance” defense priorities with decreasing funds tomorrow; he will likely miss several opportunities to cut wasteful spending from the bloated Pentagon budget.

That’s because the review only accounts for $450 billion in savings over the next decade as required by last year’s debt ceiling negotiations. But a recent report from the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) and Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) found the federal government could save $586 billion over the same period by cutting unneeded weapons, reining in out-of-control private contracts, moving our nuclear arsenal to a post-Cold War footing, reforming the military health care system, and reducing the number of U.S. troops in Europe.

The report, titled “Spending Less, Spending Smarter,” gives the Department of Defense (DoD) concrete ideas on how to strengthen our national security by cutting wasteful spending. You can find a copy of the report on the POGO and TCS websites.

On Thursday, President Obama released his new military guidance document “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense.”

The Washington Post reported:

President Barack Obama, accompanied by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, left, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, and other officials, announced a strategy shift towards Asia and said budget issues will require more restrained use of military force.

The U.S. military will steadily shrink the Army and Marine Corps, reduce forces in Europe and probably make further cuts to the nation’s nuclear arsenal, the Obama administration said Thursday in a preview of how it intends to reshape the armed forces after a decade of war.The downsizing of the Pentagon, prompted by the country’s dire fiscal problems, means that the military will depend more on coalitions with allies and avoid the large-scale counterinsurgency and nation-building operations that have marked the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead, the Pentagon will invest more heavily in Special Operations forces, which have a smaller footprint and require less money than conventional units, as well as drone aircraft and cybersecurity, defense officials said. The military will also shift its focus to Asia to counter China’s rising influence and North Korea’s unpredictability. Despite the end of the Iraq war, administration officials said they would keep a large presence in the Middle East, where tensions with Iran are worsening.

But these so-called cuts are not really a reduction:

Although Pentagon officials have portrayed those cuts as painful, Obama said the defense budget is still expected to increase slightly — at about the rate of inflation — each year for the next decade.

The cuts may not alleviate the pressures to expand bases in the Asia-Pacific region:

Obama insisted that any cuts to the military will not come at the expense of an expanding U.S. presence in Asia, which he dubbed a “critical region.” To pay for those increases, the strategy suggests a need for significant cuts to the size of U.S. military ground forces in Europe, which has been a major Army operation for decades.

Panetta also delivered a speech in which he underscored the shift in strategy to the Pacific.

The same day as Obamaʻs speech, military, business and political leaders attending the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii Military Partnership Luncheon, celebrated that the U.S. was committed to militarization of the Pacific.  As Chad Blair reported in the Civil Beat:

But Hawaii’s unique position smack in the middle of the Asia-Pacific theater likely guarantees that federal money will continue to flow to the islands. As Obama himself said in announcing the new defense strategy, “As I made clear in Australia, we will be strengthening our presence in the Asia Pacific, and budget reductions will not come at the expense of that critical region.”

The Pacific and its many rim countries cover a vast geographical region. But, as Lt. Gen. Daniel Darnell, deputy commander of the U.S. Pacific Command made clear, there are only three locations for America to “project its power outward” — Japan, the U.S. West Coast and Hawaii.

“You are in a position of advantage and have a very bright future ahead of you,” said Darnell.

Recalling Eisenhowerʻs words from 1953,  “This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

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The Secret Life (and death) of Drones

The Washington Post published an interesting article on the intense secrecy surrounding the U.S. drone wars around the world:

Since September, at least 60 people have died in 14 reported CIA drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal regions. The Obama administration has named only one of the dead, hailing the elimination of Janbaz Zadran, a top official in the Haqqani insurgent network, as a counterterrorism victory.

The identities of the rest remain classified, as does the existence of the drone program itself. Because the names of the dead and the threat they were believed to pose are secret, it is impossible for anyone without access to U.S. intelligence to assess whether the deaths were justified.

The administration has said that its covert, targeted killings with remote-controlled aircraft in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and potentially beyond are proper under both domestic and international law. It has said that the targets are chosen under strict criteria, with rigorous internal oversight.

It has parried reports of collateral damage and the alleged killing of innocents by saying that drones, with their surveillance capabilities and precision missiles, result in far fewer mistakes than less sophisticated weapons.

Yet in carrying out hundreds of strikes over three years — resulting in an estimated 1,350 to 2,250 deaths in Pakistan — it has provided virtually no details to support those assertions.

Citing broad powers and secrecy, the U.S. government has basically adopted a ‘trust me’ concept based on the President’s personal legitimacy:

The drone program is actually three separate initiatives that operate under a complicated web of overlapping legal authorities and approval mechanisms.

The least controversial is the military’s relatively public use of armed drones in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and more recently in Libya. The other two programs — the CIA’s use of drones in Pakistan, and counterterrorism operations by the CIA and the military in Yemen, Somalia and conceivably beyond — are the secret parts.

Under domestic law, the administration considers all three to be covered by the Authorization for Use of Military Force that Congress passed days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In two key sentences that have no expiration date, the AUMF gives the president sole power to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against nations, groups or persons who committed or aided the attacks, and to prevent future attacks.

The U.S. government has fought the release of information sought by human rights and civil liberties groups and does not even acknowledge the existence of its targeted assassination programs:

Some critics of the use of drones are discomfited by the relatively risk-free, long-distance killing via video screen and joystick. But the question of whether such killings are legal “has little to do with the choice of the weapon,” Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said this year in one of several think tank conferences where the subject was debated. “The question is about who can be killed, whether using this weapon or any other.” In a letter to Obama Monday, Human Rights Watch called the administration’s claims of compliance with international law “unsupported” and “wholly inadequate.”

Civil and human rights groups have been unsuccessful in persuading U.S. courts to force the administration to reveal details of the program. In September, a federal judge found for the CIA in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit alleging that the agency’s refusal to release information about drone killings was illegal.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, the ACLU asked for documents related to “the legal basis in domestic, foreign, and international law for the use of drones to conduct targeted killings,” as well as information about target selection, the number of people killed, civilian casualties, and “geographic or territorial limits” to the program.

When the CIA replied that even the “fact of the existence or nonexistence” of such a program was classified, the ACLU sued, saying that then-CIA Director Leon E. Panetta had made the classification argument moot with repeated public comments about the killings to the media and Congress.

Another aspect of the drone wars that has been kept hidden is its history of defects, malfunctions and accidents.   The apparent capture of a secret U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel drone by Iran has shined a spotlight on the technological weaknesses of even this most secret and technologically advanced weapon system.  In “The Drone That Fell From the Sky,” Nick Turse writing in Tom Dispatch exposed the flaws and dangers of the U.S. reliance of these new weapons:

A document detailing a U.S. Air Force investigation of that Predator crash, examined by TomDispatch, sheds light on the lifecycle and flaws of drones — just what can go wrong in unmanned air operations — as well as the shadowy system of bases and units scattered across the globe that keep those drones constantly in the skies as the U.S. becomes ever more reliant on remote-controlled warfare.

That report and striking new statistics obtained from the military offer insights into underexamined flaws in drone technology.  They are also a reminder of the failure of journalists to move beyond awe when it comes to high-tech warfare and America’s latest wonder weapons — their curious inability to examine the stark limitations of man and machine that can send even the most advanced military technology hurtling to Earth.

Turse also explains how the technological weaknesses, human errors and accelerated tempo of this seemingly low risk form of warfare are having profound negative impacts on U.S. interests, another case of tactical superiority and success resulting in strategic failure:

Remotely piloted aircraft have regularly been touted, in the press and the military, as wonder weapons, the way, not so long ago, counterinsurgency tactics were being promoted as an elixir for military failure.  Like the airplane, the tank, and nuclear weapons before it, the drone has been touted as a game-changer, destined to alter the very essence of warfare.

Instead, like the others, it has increasingly proven to be a non-game-changer of a weapon with ordinary vulnerabilities.  Its technology is fallible and its efforts have often been counterproductive in these last years.  For example, the inability of pilots watching computer monitors on the other side of the planet to discriminate between armed combatants and innocent civilians has proven a continuing problem for the military’s drone operations, while the CIA’s judge-jury-executioner assassination program is widely considered to have run afoul of international law — and, in the case of Pakistan, to be alienating an entire population.  The drone increasingly looks less like a winning weapon than a machine for generating opposition and enemies.

[…]

The recent losses of the Pentagon’s robot Sentinel in Iran, the Reaper in the Seychelles, and the Predator in Kandahar, however, offer a window into a future in which the global skies will be filled with drones that may prove far less wondrous than Americans have been led to believe.  The United States could turn out to be relying on a fleet of robots with wings of clay.

 

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How the military contributes to Hawai’i’s high cost of housing

Despite the best efforts of City officials to sweep the homeless out of sight, the APEC summit in Honolulu in November shined a spotlight on Hawai’i’s cruel inequalities and vast homelessness problem.  A recent Honolulu Star Advertiser article gives one of the main reasons for it:  Honolulu has some of the highest housing costs in the U.S.:

Honolulu is tied for being the least affordable city for renters nationwide, with only 8 percent of middle-class jobs paying enough to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

The city also is tied for second with nearly two dozen others as least affordable for homeownership, behind only San Francisco, with just 1 of 74 service positions earning enough to afford a median-price home, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Housing Policy, which released a report today on the housing market in 200 metropolitan areas.

“Hawaii faces a lot of unique challenges because it’s an island (state), it’s a tourism-driven economy and a lot of those jobs tend to be service jobs that don’t necessarily pay very well,” said Laura Williams, author of the report. “There’s just not space to develop further so that creates a lot of demand for a small supply of housing.”

The article reports that “Despite Honolulu’s median home price falling to $425,000 in the third quarter from $450,000 at the end of 2009, it still is the fourth most expensive market for homeownership.”

But local blogger/activist Doug Matsuoka, who knows the real estate market in Hawai’i, says that “it’s even worse than they say in the article. They use a figure of $450k for a house at the end of ’09. It is currently $580k.”

Instead of criminalizing the meager survival materials and possessions of the homeless left on public property, as the City Council has just done with Bill 54, why is the City not controlling rents and developing more truly affordable housing?

Yesterday, the Pacific Business News reported that military housing allowances will increase by an average of 2% in 2012:

In Hawaii, a typical E-6 with dependents based at one of the military installations on Oahu will see the BAH rise by $102 to $2,487, from the 2011 rate of $2,385.

However, many other members in Hawaii will see their rates decrease, particularly for E-1s through E-4s based on Oahu, whose BAH will drop by $156 per month to $1,860 from $2,016.

The decrease will apply only to service members who are new to locations in 2012, the Defense Department said. Service members already stationed in the area won’t see a decrease, and they will get any increases they are entitled to, the Defense Department said.

An E6 is the equivalent of a Staff Sergeant.  The military housing allowance tables can be found here.   According to these tables, an O1 with dependents, the equivalent of a Second Lieutenant, can get $1965/month, while an O7 with dependents, the equivalent of a one-star general, can get $3423/month.   This is sufficient to pay for a mortgage.   Many military personnel use their housing allowance to invest in homes while they are stationed in Hawai’i.  They can sell these for a profit when they are relocated.

In this way Military housing allowances can exert inflationary pressure on the cost of housing.  But where are the economic studies on the military’s impact on the cost of housing and its effects on average local families?

Just look to the line of tents on King St. near the Old Stadium Park and the ‘blue tarp cities’ in Kea’au and Ohikilolo in Wai’anae.

Meanwhile the construction and renovation of military housing has been booming.  If some of these bases were reduced due to budget cuts, these homes, many of them fitted with energy efficient technologies, could become available for affordable housing.  Wouldn’t that be a stimulus for local families?

 

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