Pacific – Page 5 – DMZ hawaiʻi

September 5, 2011

Message from the International Women’s Network Against Militarism to the peoples movement for No Naval Base on Jeju!

Message from the International Women’s Network Against Militarism to the peoples movement for No Naval Base on Jeju!

September 1, 2011

Dear friends in the struggle against US military expansion at Jeju Island

We women from Okinawa, mainland Japan, the Philippines, Marshall Islands, Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Australia and west-coast USA send our greetings in solidarity with the people of Ganjeong who oppose the construction of a new naval base to house Aegis destroyers.

We understand that 94 percent of the residents do not want this base. We admire and respect your strong opposition by occupying land seized by the government and by blocking roads in an attempt to stop construction. We deplore the fact the South Korean government has ordered police to take further measures against you, especially as you have used every possible democratic means to overturn the decision to construct the base in the pristine waters and land that have been your livelihood for many generations.

We agree that this base and the increased militarization of the island of Jeju will create new security threats in an increasingly tense region.

We also live in communities that experience increased militarization and the effects of enormous military investments that distort our local economies and take resources needed for our communities to thrive. The political and military alliances between our governments and the United States jeopardize our genuine security. Indeed, U.S. military expansion in the Asia-Pacific and the Caribbean relies on these alliances to tie our communities together according to their version of security that is not sustainable.

The plan to relocate U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam includes military construction projects that involve labor from Hawai’i, Micronesia and the Philippines. In addition to the destruction and loss of life caused by continued wars in the Middle East, these wars are also destabilizing our economies. For example, Filipinos who have been recruited to work on military construction projects are laid off during times of crisis and return to the Philippines where they have no jobs. On Guam, local companies cannot compete with larger military contractors and are seldom able to get contracts for base construction projects. The establishment of the U.S. military base at Ke Awa Lau o Pu’uloa, or Pearl Harbor, has transformed Oahu’s food basket into a toxic “Superfund” site where many of Hawai’i’s poorest communities live along its contaminated shores. In Puerto Rico, Governor Luis Fortuño has unleashed brutality against citizens, and suppression of their civil liberties because of protests against budget cuts to public services and education. In the continental United States a new campaign is calling for new priorities in federal spending away from war and toward services to support local communities.

We see your struggle as part of a wider pattern of people’s protest against increasing militarization.

Although we are far away, please know that we stand with you. We thank you for your courage to resist the militarization of your home. Your example inspires and strengthens us.

In solidarity,

Signed, on behalf of the IWNAM:

Kozue Akibayashi, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Japan

Ellen-Rae Cachola, Women for Genuine Security/Women’s Voices Women Speak, U.S. & Hawai’i

Lotlot de la Cruz, KAISAKA, Philippines

Cora Valdez Fabros, Scrap VFA Movement & Philippine Women’s Network for Peace and Security, Philippines

Annie Fukushima, Women for Genuine Security, U.S.

Terri Keko’olani, Women’s Voices Women Speak, Hawai’i

Gwyn Kirk, Women for Genuine Security, U.S.

Rev. Deborah Lee, Women for Genuine Security, U.S.

Bernadette “Gigi” Miranda, Women’s Voices Women Speak, Hawai’i

María Reinat Pumarejo, Colectivo Ilé: Organizadoras para la Conciencia-en-Acción

Aida Santos-Maranan, Women’s Education, Development, Productivity and Research Organization (WEDPRO), Philippines

Dr. Hannah Middleton, Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition, Australia

Suzuyo Takazato, Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, Okinawa

Lisa Natividad, Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice, Guahan (Guam)

Ana Maria R. Nemenzo, WomanHealth Philippines.

Darlene Rodrigues, Women’s Voices Women Speak, Hawai’i

Abacca Anjain-Maddison, Marshall Islands

Brenda Kwon, Women’s Voices Women Speak, Hawai’i

Anjali Puri, Women’s Voices Women Speak, Hawai’i

The International Women’s Network Against Militarism was formed in 1997 when forty women activists, policy-makers, teachers, and students from South Korea, Okinawa, mainland Japan, the Philippines and the continental United States gathered in Okinawa to strategize together about the negative effects of the US military in each of our countries. In 2000, women from Puerto Rico who opposed the US Navy bombing training on the island of Vieques also joined; followed in 2004 by women from Hawai’i and in 2007 women from Guam. The Network is not a membership organization, but a collaboration among women active in our own communities, who share a common mission to demilitarize their lands and communities. For more information, visit HYPERLINK “http://www.genuinesecurity.org/”www.genuinesecurity.org.

September 1, 2011

US PLANS INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILE TEST ON INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE

From Waging Peace:

US Plans Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Test on International Day of Peace

by David Krieger
August 31, 2011

In 1981, the United Nations General Assembly created an annual International Day of Peace to take place on the opening day of the regular sessions of the General Assembly. The purpose of the day is for “commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples.”

Twenty years later, in 2001, the General Assembly, desiring to draw attention to the objectives of the International Day of Peace, gave the day a fixed date on which it would be held each year: September 21st. The General Assembly declared in its Resolution 55/282 that “the International Day of Peace shall henceforth be observed as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence, an invitation to all nations and people to honor a cessation of hostilities for the duration of the Day.”

The Resolution continued by inviting “all Member States, organizations of the United Nations system, regional and non-governmental organizations and individuals to commemorate, in an appropriate manner, the International Day of Peace, including through education and public awareness, and to cooperate with the United Nations in the establishment of the global ceasefire.”

The United States has announced that its next test of a Minuteman III will occur on September 21, 2011. Rather than considering how it might participate and bring awareness to the International Day of Peace, the United States will be testing one of its nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles that, 20 years after the end of the Cold War, continue to be kept on high-alert in readiness to be fired on a few moments notice.

Of course, the missile test will have a dummy warhead rather than a live one, but its purpose will be to assure that the delivery system for the Minuteman III nuclear warheads has no hitches. As Air Force Colonel David Bliesner has pointed out, “Minuteman III test launches demonstrate our nation’s ICBM capability in a very visible way, deterring potential adversaries while reassuring allies.”

So, on the 2011 International Day of Peace, the United States has chosen not “to honor a cessation of hostilities,” but rather to implement a very visible, $20 million test of a nuclear-capable missile.

Perhaps US officials believe that US missile tests help keep the peace. If so, they have a very different idea about other countries testing missiles. National Security Spokesman Mike Hammer had this to say about Iranian missile tests in 2009: “At a time when the international community has offered Iran opportunities to begin to build trust and confidence, Iran’s missile tests only undermine Iran’s claims of peaceful intentions.”

In 2008, Condoleezza Rice, then Secretary of State, said, “We face with the Iranians, and so do our allies and friends, a growing missile threat that is getting ever longer and ever deeper – and where the Iranian appetite for nuclear technology is, to this point, still unchecked. And it is hard for me to believe that an American president is not going to want to have the capability to defend our territory and the territory of our allies, whether they are in Europe or whether they are in the Middle East against that kind of missile threat.”

The US approach to nuclear-capable missile testing seems to be “do as I say, not as I do.” This is unlikely to hold up in the long run. Rather than testing its nuclear-capable delivery systems, the US should be leading the way, as President Obama pledged, toward a world free of nuclear weapons. To do so, we suggest that he take three actions for the 2011 International Day of Peace. First, announce the cancellation of the scheduled Minuteman III missile test, and use the $20 million saved as a small down payment on alleviating poverty in the US and abroad. Second, announce that the US will take its nuclear weapons off high-alert status and keep them on low alert, as China has done, in order to lower the possibilities of accidental or unauthorized missile launches. Third, declare a ceasefire for the day in each of the wars in which the US is currently engaged. These three actions on the International Day of Peace would not change the world in a day, but they would be steps in the right direction that could be built upon during the other 364 days of the year.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

August 16, 2011

Marshall Islanders worried about hypersonic jet debris

Last week, the U.S. military “lost” one of its Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicles over the Pacific Ocean. Radio Australia featured an interview with Giff Johnson, journalist in the Marshall Islands about the increased level of missile activity over the Pacific, the secrecy and threat of aborted launches to inhabited islands, and the contamination risk of depleted uranium and other toxins in the missiles. Here is a link to the audio file of the interview. Below is the transcript of the interview:

SOURCE: http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacbeat/stories/201108/s3295273.htm

Marshall Islanders worried about hypersonic jet debris

Updated August 17, 2011 09:17:31

We’ve all heard it – “faster than a speeding bullett” – well that concept has now gone beyond superman and comic book/tv fiction to reality.

The US has experimented with an aircraft – Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 – at its top speed it could travel the 17,000 kilometres between London and Sydney in about 49 minutes. Last week the glider went out of control and came down somewhere in the vicinity of Marshall Islands where a Minuteman missile warhead blew it up on re-entry over Marshall Islands. It raises many safety issues for Marshall Islands.

Presenter: Geraldine Coutts
Speaker: Giff Johnson, Marshall Islands correspondent

JOHNSON: People in the Marshall Islands know very little other than what is publicly released by the Defence Department on these aborted tests and interestingly on the Minuteman missile re-entry vehicle. It’s a dummy warhead that they target on Kwajalein Atoll on the Marshall Islands. It said that it was blown up northeast of Kwajalein Atoll. Well the interesting thing if you look at a map northeast of Kwajalein Atoll, there’s a bunch of inhabited islands, so we haven’t heard anything more the defence department, people are asking questions, but it’s a concern as people start to hear about more of these missions being aborted near the Marshall Islands.

COUTTS: Was it actually launched from Kwajalein or Johnson?

JOHNSON: No, these shots are launched from Vandenberg air force base, in California and they’re targeted on Kwajalein, in the Marshall Islands and Kwajalein is a major missile testing facility. These are not missile tests that involve intercepts. The Minuteman was just a test of the Minuteman re-entry vehicle to see if it was working and the glider, of course, is this hypersonic glider is a new weapon system that they’re developing. So they’re targeted out here and sometimes there are launches from Kwajalein trying to intercept incoming missiles.

COUTTS: Alright. Well the safety issues, there are a number of them. How do you see that?

JOHNSON: Well, we need to get more information from these US defence department agencies and if they’re acknowledging that re-entry vehicles are being destroyed within minutes of splashdown in the Marshall Islands and in the vicinity of inhabited islands. It doesn’t do much for peoples confidence to have no information about what’s going on and there’s very little released publicly by the air force or in this case, the Hypersonic glider from Darpa, the defence department research agency. So yeah, the Kwajalein elected senators in the parliament here are raising concern about what islands are in the hazard zone and obviously anything that’s targeted on Kwajalein is coming across inhabited islands and, of course, Kwajalein is inhabited too, not only by Marshall Islanders, but by Americans and so there’s just a lot of questions about where this debris is going. And then with the glider, it stopped communicating with home-base, so as far as we know, nobody knows where it went.

COUTTS: Now, someone, even though it’s moving so fast, you’re not likely to see it, but someone along the coastline is going to see something. So no one’s picked up a piece of debris from it?

JOHNSON: Not as far as I know, but there are people who live on very remote islands with very little technology for communicating and so it’s possible that people could see something and not even know that there was a test happening and we’ve got islands that don’t have telephones, don’t have internet, and don’t even have a radio communication. So people could see something and just not know what it is.

COUTTS: So the whole thing is treated by the military with utmost secrecy, so the civilian contingency get no information whatsoever?

JOHNSON: Well, the defence department releases a statement before and after each test and they acknowledge when it’s successful or when it’s been aborted and they give a few details. But the details in terms of the population in the Marshall Islands, where the whole point of why these missiles are targeted out here is two fold. One is it’s four thousand miles, so it gives them a good flight test from California for a long range missile re-entry vehicle, but also face it, there aren’t very many people out here and the Americans wouldn’t feel too happy if these missiles were targeted on California, so that’s part of the reason they’re doing it, just like the Bikini tests in the 40s and the 50s. There just weren’t very many people out here and the problem though the 60,000 or 50,000 people who are here would probably like to get a little more information about where these bits and pieces are being blown up.

COUTTS: How often would tests like this be conducted?

JOHNSON: There’s been quite a bit of activity at Kwajalein in the last few months. They’ve already had a couple of missile test missions and then this hypersonic glider and in a brief conversation I had with the missile range commander a couple of weeks ago. He said this upcoming year is going to be quite busy. So I think normally, maybe a test every quarter something like that, may be three or four a year. But it seems like they’ve been more this year and the pace has been stepped up at Kwajalein.

COUTTS: Did the commander actually explain to you why it will be busy next year?

JOHNSON: I don’t have details on that, but I do know that what’s been going on with the missile range is that after installation of an underwater fibre optic cable to Kwajalein, the army has been able to remote much of its command and control work on the missile testing to Huntsville, Alabama, and so it’s a lot less expensive for people to run tests missions, because they don’t have to send everybody out to Kwajalein now. They can just sit in the control room in the US and have real time data on all the missile tests and this is a big selling point for getting customers to use the ranges that the cost is reduced. So presumably that has something to do with it.

COUTTS: Well, with testing like the Falcon Hypersonic technology vehicle to the glider that’s capable of moving 17,000 kilometres in about 49 minutes and all the other tests that you’re talking about, presumably a lot of it are nuclear powered. Is there any sort of discussion about what’s happening with the environment, are you noticing the marine environment at all, having any impact on it?

JOHNSON: These are not nuclear powered, but the re-entry vehicles contain what’s known as depleted uranium in order to make them simulate a real nuclear warhead for the purpose of missile defence and radar telemetry discrimination, because the whole issue of missile defence is can they pick a real warhead out of all the junk that an enemy would presumably throw up to confuse the radar. So yes, depleted uranium is in the re-entry vehicles, they land, they hit, explode into the lagoon or into the ocean. I mean there must be some contamination, but there’s never that I’m aware of been any published studies about contamination, although I know that Kwajalein senators have raised the environmental issue from time to time about the depleted uranium and what hazard it causes, but as far as I know, the army has always maintained that there’s no threat from it.

July 28, 2011

Beating the war profiteers

Amy Goodman reports that a Pentagon whistleblower won a legal settlement for the retaliation she endured after challenging contracting abuses:

“War is a racket,” wrote retired U.S. Marine Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, in 1935. That statement, which is also the title of his short book on war profiteering, rings true today. One courageous civil servant just won a battle to hold war profiteers accountable. Her name is Bunnatine “Bunny” Greenhouse. She blew the whistle when her employer, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, gave a no-bid $7 billion contract to the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) as the invasion of Iraq was about to commence. She was doing her job, trying to ensure a competitive bidding process would save the U.S. government money. For that, she was forced out of her senior position, demoted and harassed.

Just this week, after waging a legal battle for more than half a decade, Bunny Greenhouse won. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers settled with Greenhouse for $970,000, representing full restitution for lost wages, compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees.

Her “offense” was to challenge a no-bid, $7 billion-plus contract to KBR. It was weeks before the expected invasion of Iraq, in 2003, and Bush military planners predicted Saddam Hussein would blow up Iraqi oilfields, as happened with the U.S. invasion in 1991. The project, dubbed “Restore Iraqi Oil,” or RIO, was created so that oilfield fires would be extinguished. KBR was owned then by Halliburton, whose CEO until 2000 was none other than then-Vice President Dick Cheney. KBR was the only company invited to bid.

Bunny Greenhouse told her superiors that the process was illegal. She was overridden. She said the decision to grant the contract to KBR came from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, run by VP Cheney’s close friend, Donald Rumsfeld.

As Bunny Greenhouse told a congressional committee, “I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Waste and corruption is endemic to war profiteering. More chaos means more opportunities to defraud tax payers. Federal auditors recently reported that the military has lost $6.6 billion in cash that was intended for the reconstruction of Iraq.

As the U.S. veers towards the fiscal precipice, Sen. Tom Coburn (R, Okla.) has revived proposals to cut the military budget, including:

(reducing) military personnel stationed in Europe and Asia by one-third. It calls for reducing authorized force levels by the same number, therefore not requiring increased U.S. facilities to handle the returnees. The estimated savings would be almost $70 billion over 10 years.

Cutting the Pentagon budget – wouldn’t that be a novel idea?

July 6, 2011

Relief and Recovery in Japan: U.S. Should Decline Monies from Japan’s “Sympathy Budget” and End Military Dependence Globally

http://www.genuinesecurity.org/actions/notosympathybudget.html

Press Statement

Contact: IWNAM Secretariat, genuinesecurity [at] lists.riseup.net

April 11, 2011

Relief and Recovery in Japan: U.S. Should Decline Monies from Japan’s “Sympathy Budget” and End Military Dependence Globally

The International Women’s Network Against Militarism (IWNAM) demands that the U.S. and Japanese governments stop spending U.S. and Japanese taxpayer monies for the upkeep of U.S. military facilities in Japan and other territories. During these times of natural disasters, funds should directly help the needs of victims of the earthquake, tsunami, and radiation poisoning from damaged nuclear power plants in Japan, and also create alternatives for employment world wide that do not rely on militarism, or further interpersonal and ecological violence.

The IWNAM, formerly named East Asia–US-Puerto Rico Women’s Network Against Militarism, has called for reallocation of global military spending in order to achieve genuine security for people. We call for the cancellation of the “sympathy budget,” a part of the host nation support provided by the Japanese government to maintain the U.S. military stationed in Japan (See Final Statement, International Women’s Summit to Redefine Security, June 2000.) The “sympathy budget” has been criticized for covering much more than Japan’s obligation under the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. It covers the salaries of Japanese employees, utilities for U.S. military personnel, and building costs for luxurious leisure facilities on US bases in Japan. In 2010, these expenses totaled 189 billion yen (about $1.6 billion). If the Japanese government kept this money it could be used to help victims of the recent earthquake in the Tohuku region, people near Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants who were forced to evacuate their communities, and farmers and fishers whose products can not be sold because of the risk of radiation contamination. Japan is in need of this money for reconstruction of the vast disaster-stricken areas, and recovery from economic and human losses. It is no longer sustainable for the Japanese government to maintain U.S. military bases in Japan. We believe that if the U.S. government would decline the “sympathy budget,” it could be used to help those people directly and to help create a more sustainable world.

In addition, IWNAM demands that the Japanese government should stop building new military infrastructure at Henoko and Takae in Okinawa, and also in Guam, and use that money for survivors of these natural disasters. Since the earthquake in March, the U.S. military and Japanese Self-Defense Forces have become increasingly visible in Japan. While their rescue efforts are recognized, we should not forget that the primary purpose of the military is not disaster rescue. Their primary training is to destroy the “enemy.” These natural disasters should not be used as opportunities for military forces to justify occupation of a country, as if they are heroes. This obscures current military developments. According to Lisa Natividad of Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice,

“On Guam (Guahan), the Japanese government has incrementally funded roughly $10 billion dollars, totaling 70% of the total cost of the relocation of U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam. The island’s people suffer poor health outcomes largely due to environmental toxicity and degradation from the presence of U.S. military bases and installations since the U.S. assumed colonial rule in 1898. For example, cancer rates are excessively high on the island, with the largest number of cases living near military bases. In addition, the U.S. currently occupies roughly 1/3 of the island, and is in the process of “acquiring” an additional 2,300 acres to construct a live firing range complex on ancient Chamorro sacred ground in the village of Pagat. The acquisition of the additional land will increase U.S. control of the island to nearly 40%, thus leaving only a small portion of the island for its native people.”

Furthermore, after Hurricane Katrina in the Southeast U.S., earthquakes in Haiti, and flooding in the Philippines, corporate and military interests capitalized on these natural disasters to further their own interests in the rebuilding process. Afterward, these places were no longer economically accessible for communities who were previously living there, and they also experienced an increase in military surveillance. We still need disaster troops and recovery plans to help people in times of natural disaster. But, we should also have a critical awareness of the cooperation occurring between militarist and capitalist forces who do not change structures of power when they take advantage of these vulnerable times to advance to geopolitical agendas of neo-liberal interests.

Dependence on militarism occurs when institutions that perpetrate violence provide employment for people. Interpersonal and ecological violence that manifests in military-dependent societies is not often seen as a product of the larger militarized society. A recent case in Ohio, where a former U.S. Air Force member beat his Okinawan-born wife to death, illustrates interpersonal violence in militarized societies. The two met in Nago, Okinawa, while the man was stationed in Okinawa. They were married and moved to Cleveland, Ohio. On March 11, 2011, the wife was severely beaten by the husband and taken to the hospital where she was treated, but died from the injury. The local paper reported that this man had a history of violence with a former partner, but she was able to leave the relationship. This example highlights the recurring pattern of interpersonal violence perpetrated by service members.

In Hawai’i, there is a proposal for an increase in helicopters at Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station (Oahu). A squadron of Ospreys (a hybrid helicopter and plane that transports troops), Cobra attack helicopters, and a squadron of Hueys are planned to be housed on Mokapu, Oahu, and deployed for practice on the Big Island. On March 30, 2011, a helicopter crashed killing one Marine, and injuring 3 others. The push for increased housing and training areas for of military aircraft in Hawai’i is a product of the U.S. military strategy in the Asia-Pacific, moving bases and troops from one island to another. Yet these decisions disregard the impact this has on local communities and environments in Hawai’i, Okinawa, and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region where military developments increase everyday violence and insecurity.

In 2009, global military spending was estimated at $1,531 billion, an increase of 6% from 2008 and 49% from 2000. On April 12, 2011, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) will release its calculations of global military spending for 2010. We estimate that this figure could reach $1.6 trillion. We join peace groups, budget priority activists, arms control advocates, and concerned citizens the world over in public demonstrations, solidarity actions and awareness raising events to call attention to the disparity between bountiful global investments in war-making and the worldwide neglect of social priorities. Please visit the website for Global Day of Action on Military Spending at http://demilitarize.org/.

The IWNAM demands that U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration

1) Decline the Japanese “Sympathy Budget.”

2) End the military build up in Okinawa, Guam, Hawaii and other territories.

3) Stop the justification of militarism in times of natural disasters

4) Fund alternative jobs that end dependence on militarism

Signed, on behalf of the IWNAM:

Kozue Akibayashi, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Japan

Ellen-Rae Cachola, Women for Genuine Security/Women’s Voices Women Speak, U.S. & Hawai’i

Lotlot de la Cruz, KAISAKA, Philippines

Cora Valdez Fabros, SCRAP VFA Movement, Philippines

Terri Keko’olani, DMZ-Hawaii/Aloha ‘Aina/Women’s Voices Women Speak, Hawai’i

Gwyn Kirk, Women for Genuine Security, U.S.

María Reinat Pumarejo, Ilé Conciencia-en-Acción, Puerto Rico

Aida Santos-Maranan, Women’s Education, Development, Productivity and Research Organization (WEDPRO), Philippines

Kim Tae-jung, SAFE Korea, South Korea

Suzuyo Takazato, Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, Okinawa

Lisa Natividad, Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice, Guahan (Guam)

June 29, 2011June 30, 2011

Pimping Pohakuloa

The Hawaii Tribune Herald reports that Governor Abercrombie, once a black-beret-wearing campus radical, is offering up virgin areas of Hawaiʻi to service the military:

Abercrombie floated the possibility of building public-private housing in West Hawaii for military families who will relocate from Okinawa when the Marine base there moves sometime in the next few years. That base was scheduled to relocate in 2014 but it has been delayed.

Abercrombie said he had similar military housing in his former house district on Oahu, which helped lead to the lowest unemployment rate in the country — he said it was 2 percent at one point.

Another possibility could be off-base housing for troops preparing for deployment at the increasingly strategic Pohakuloa Training Area.

“PTA will be the center for training in the Pacific in the 21st century,” Abercrombie said.

“It’s an interesting concept,” said Lt. Col. Rolland Niles, the Pohakuloa Training Area Garrison Commander. Niles said an off-base area with a military exchange and other amenities would be welcome.

“It could be a tremendous opportunity,” he said.

According to the article “Abercrombie: Pohakuloa vs. Guam” in the Hawaii Business blog, the Governor is talking smack and muscling in on Guam’s action:

The big news – oddly missing from media reports – was Gov. Abercrombie’s pronouncements about current plans (now largely underway) to move tens of thousands of Marines from Okinawa. “The idea was to take the Marines out of Okinawa and move them to Guam,” Abercrombie said. “But there’s no way that’s going to work.”

According to the Governor, Guam’s all wrong. “They don’t have the infrastructure; they don’t have the capacity; they don’t have the space to train; and they don’t have the EIS. It’s not going to work.”

And, of course, he has an alternative in mind: Pohakuloa on the Big Island. After all, he points out, Pohakuloa is already a major training facility; it’s near the Pacific Command and the resources of Pearl Harbor and Schofield Barracks; and, most importantly, it’s in Hawaii. That’s particularly important in today’s all volunteer military, where retention is as important as recruitment. The Governor wryly considered the preferences of young soldiers: “You ask them where they want to end up, on Guam, or on the Kona Coast?”

Of course, Abercrombie’s remarks – especially before this audience – were strategic. First, he pointed out that the current arrangement of U.S. military resources – in a crescent that runs up the West Coast, through Alaska and the Aleutians, and down through Japan and Korea – is an artifact of the Cold War, when our focus was on the Soviet Union. “Today, we need to think of it as bowl,” he said, gesturing with his fingers to indicate an arc running from California, through Hawaii, and reaching all the way to the Indian Ocean. Not coincidentally, that’s pretty much the jurisdiction of the Pacific Command.

It sounds like a turf war between rival pimps. But the affected people of Hawai’i and Guam whose land, culture and environment will be taken and destroyed are never asked nor listened to when they object.

Under the leadership of William Aila, the Department of Land and Natural Resources is at least following the law by requiring the Army to complete an environmental assessment of proposed helicopter high altitude training in the protected areas of the sacred mountain Mauna Kea. The Honolulu Star Advertiser headline should have been “State requires Army to conduct environmental review”, but instead it revealed its pro-military bias with the headline “State hobbles Army training”. The article suggests that Abercrombie may be helping to facilitate the approval of the military training on the mountain. Native Hawaiians and environmentalists are livid about the prospect of military helicopters using Mauna Kea. In the past the hot-dogging pilots violated protected areas and landed in the Mauna Kea Ice Age Preserve.

As reported earlier on this site, an investigation of a crash at the Colorado helicopter training site was critical of this type of training:

The article cites an investigation of the crash that says “The investigation was also critical of the training program, designed to prepare Army pilots for Afghanistan… the program “focuses almost exclusively” on landing at high elevations even though helicopters have little need to do that in Afghanistan.”

This comes at a time when a new law goes into effect creating a Public Land Development Corporation to promote “public-private investments” to exploit public lands, most of which are the stolen lands of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The other large portion of the Hawaiian national lands are occupied by the U.S. military (approximately 56% of the military controlled lands in Hawai’i are so-called “ceded lands”). As Arnie Saiki writes in the Statehood Hawai’i blog:

SB 1555–DLNR’s Public Land Optimization Plan: PLOP, Colonialism 4.0 Sneak-Attack

Next week, on July 1st, 2011, Act 55 goes into effect in Hawaii, an act that gives the State of Hawaii, through the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), a new for-profit entity directed by DLNR, the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT), and the Department of Budget and Finance (DBF), headed by William Aila, Richard Lim, and Kalbert K. Young, respectively, called the PUBLIC LAND DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION to establish a PUBLIC LAND OPTIMIZATION PLAN that will create public-private investment opportunities to develop all public lands currently under the authority of DLNR, which could include the controversial “ceded” lands, the roughly 1.8 million acres of Crown Lands that were “ceded” to the Territory during the fraudulent transfer to the U.S by the Republic of Hawaii, and transferred to the administration of the State of Hawaii during statehood.

June 14, 2011

Around the Globe, US Military Bases Generate Resentment, Not Security

Writing on the Nation blog, Katrina vanden Heuvel zeroes in on the social and financial costs of U.S. foreign military bases:

As we debate an exit from Afghanistan, it’s critical that we focus not only on the costs of deploying the current force of more than 100,000 troops, but also on the costs of maintaining permanent bases long after those troops leave.

This is an issue that demands a hard look not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but around the globe—where the US has a veritable empire of bases.

According to the Pentagon, there are approximately 865 US military bases abroad—over 1,000 if new bases in Iraq and Afghanistan are included. The cost? $102 billion annually—and that doesn’t include the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan bases.

In a must-read article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences, anthropologist Hugh Gusterson points out that these bases “constitute 95 percent of all the military bases any country in the world maintains on any other country’s territory.” He notes a “bloated and anachronistic” Cold War-tilt toward Europe, including 227 bases in Germany.

She describes the global anti-bases movement:

Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) fellow Phyllis Bennis says that the Pentagon and military have been brilliant at spreading military production across virtually every Congressional district so that even the most anti-war members of Congress are reluctant to challenge big Defense projects.

“But there’s really no significant constituency for overseas bases because they don’t bring much money in a concentrated way,” says Bennis. “So in theory it should be easier to mobilize to close them.” What is new and heartening, according to Bennis, is that “there are now people in countries everywhere that are challenging the US bases and that’s a huge development.”

[…}

IPS has worked diligently not only with allies abroad but also in the US to promote a more rational military posture with regard to bases. Other active groups include the American Friends Service Committee and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the latter focusing on bases in Latin America.

In 2010, IPS mobilized congressional opposition to the building of a new base in Okinawa by working with groups in the US and in Japan. This campaign included the creation of a grassroots coalition of peace, environmental and Asian American groups called the Network for Okinawa, a full-page ad in the Washington Post, articles in various progressive media, and a series of congressional visits. (The East Asia-US-Puerto Rico Women’s Network Against Militarism also played a key role, linking anti-base movements in Okinawa, Guam, Puerto Rico and Hawaii.)

Yes, that’s right. U.S. bases in Hawai’i are foreign bases in an occupied country. As Thomas Naylor writes in Counterpunch “Why Hawai’i is Not a Legitimate State – What the Birthers Missed” (There’s a typo in the title of the original article.):

Notwithstanding a series of clever illegal moves by the U.S. government, Hawaii cannot be considered a legally bona fide state of the United States. In 1898 the United States unilaterally abrogated all of Hawaii’s existing treaties and purported to annex it on the basis of a Congressional resolution. Two years later the U.S. illegally established the so-called Territory of Hawaii on the basis of the spurious Organic Act. After a period of prolonged belligerent occupation by the U.S., Hawaii was placed under United Nations Charter, Article 73, as a “non-self-governing territory” under the administrative authority of the United States. Then in 1959 the U.S. falsely informed the U.N. that Hawaii had become the 50th state of the United States after an illegal plebiscite. Among those allowed to vote in this invalid election were members of the U.S. military and their dependents stationed in Hawaii. In other words, Hawaii’s occupiers were permitted to vote on its future.

[…}

Hawaii became an alleged state of the United States as a result of a foreign policy based on full spectrum dominance and imperial overstretch – the same foreign policy employed by Obama over a century later in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, and Palestine.

May 27, 2011

“I walked out of the back door of the Navy and into the front door of the newspaper”

The recent disclosure of a military emails discussing how the military can buy local support for proposed military activities in the Pågat have caused an uproar in Guåhan (Guam). Kaua’i writer and film maker Koohan Paik pointed out another facet to the the Marianas Variety article. The article referred to an earlier incident involving racist comments made by officials overseeing the military expansion in Guam:

The Speaker said she was reminded of a past incident when We Are Guåhan member Cara Flores Mays was having lunch at a local restaurant and overheard a conversation between military personnel and Guam residents, one of them, Lee Webber.

“They treat us like we are the enemy and we’re not. We want this to work for our people too. Is that too much to ask. I’m very upset about this,” said Won Pat.

Won Pat was referring to a November 2010 conversation that Mays overheard, which included then-Joint Guam Program Office Director of Communications for Washington D.C. and Guam Paula Conhain, Lee Webber, a former Marine, and Lt. Col. Aisha Bakkar of the Marine Force Pacific Public Affairs Office. Conhain has since been removed from this position.

Paik noted a new revelation: also present at the lunch conversation overhead by Ms. Mays was Lee Webber, the publisher of the Pacific Daily News in Guam. In 2007, Webber also became the publisher of the Honolulu Advertiser, Hawai’i’s largest news daily prior to its acquisition by the Honolulu Star Bulletin. Here’s a bit of Webber’s biography from an earlier Honolulu Advertiser article:

Webber, 60, has worked at the Pacific Daily News for 37 years and had been publisher since 1983.

He was raised in a Pennsylvania town that was so small Webber said no one would recognize it.

His father was a master machinist at a tool and die company and his mother worked for a semi-conductor parts manufacturer.

“She told me that when I was small, I said that I wanted to live in the Pacific some day,” Webber said. “I’ve done that. I’ve stayed in the Pacific the entire time.”

During the Vietnam War, Webber served as a Navy corpsman attached to a Marine unit with Delta Co., 3rd Recon Battalion, 3rd Marine Division in Khe Sanh, during the Tet Offensive of 1968, considered by historians to be a major turning point in the war.

He then served his final two years at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Guam when, in 1970, “I walked out of the back door of the Navy and into the front door of the newspaper,” Webber said.

Stephen Nygard worked for Webber at the Pacific Daily News as a reporter, business editor and managing editor before leaving to start a rival monthly business magazine.

He called Webber “an extremely effective operations manager. I remember him coming up through the circulation and marketing side of the newspaper. Lee projected a good image and established it (the Pacific Daily News) as a good reflection of the community. He leaves it in good shape for his successor.”

Webber and his wife, June, will celebrate their 38th wedding anniversary this year. They have a son, Lee II, 29, and will bring their 15-year-old daughter, Marilyn, who will enter a new school as a 10th-grader. Another son, Robert, died at the age of 8.

Webber also will bring his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a love for archery, pistol, rifle and shotgun shooting, and scuba diving as an NAUI-certified instructor/trainer.

“I’m looking forward to diving in Hawai’i,” he said.

Webber, 60, has worked at the Pacific Daily News for 37 years and had been publisher since 1983.

He was raised in a Pennsylvania town that was so small Webber said no one would recognize it.

His father was a master machinist at a tool and die company and his mother worked for a semi-conductor parts manufacturer.

“She told me that when I was small, I said that I wanted to live in the Pacific some day,” Webber said. “I’ve done that. I’ve stayed in the Pacific the entire time.”

He then served his final two years at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Guam when, in 1970, “I walked out of the back door of the Navy and into the front door of the newspaper,” Webber said.

Stephen Nygard worked for Webber at the Pacific Daily News as a reporter, business editor and managing editor before leaving to start a rival monthly business magazine.

Webber also will bring his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a love for archery, pistol, rifle and shotgun shooting, and scuba diving as an NAUI-certified instructor/trainer.

“I’m looking forward to diving in Hawai’i,” he said.

And:

LEE P. WEBBER

Title: President and publisher, The Honolulu Advertiser

Age: 60

Family: Wife, June Portusach; children Lee II, 29; Marilyn, 15; Robert, 8 (deceased)

Military experience: U.S. Navy corpsman, 1966-1970

Military awards: Presidential Unit Commendation (two awards); Navy Unit Commendation Medal (two awards); Vietnam Service and Vietnam Campaign Medals; National Defense Service Medal; Meritorious Unit Commendation Medal

Professional awards (partial list): Gannett Chairman’s Ring for Fifth President’s Ring (2003); Gannett Award for Sixth President’s Ring (2004); Gannett Top Ten Publishers (1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 2002, 2004)

Past president: Pacific Area Jaycees; Guam USO Advisory Council; Rotary Club of Tumon Bay; Air Force Association, Arc Light Chapter (twice); Navy League of the United States (twice); Guam Running club; Archery Association of Guam

Board memberships (partial list): Civil Defense Advisory Council/Guam Homeland Security; Guam Chamber of Commerce Board, chairman (also chairman of chamber’s Armed Forces Committee); Guam Visitors Bureau; Make-A-Wish Foundation; Micronesian Divers Association; Robert Michael Webber Dyslexia Foundation; University of Guam Board of Regents; American Red Cross, Guam Chapter; Boy Scouts of America, Chamorro Council, district chairman; Guam Special Olympics Committee; Harvest Baptist Church; Juvenile Justice Board, Guam

Work history: Circulation manager, Guam Publications Inc. (1970-1976); director of community relations, Guam Publications Inc. (1976-1979); marketing director, Guam Publications Inc. (1979-1983); president and publisher, Guam Publications Inc. (1983-2007)

Hobbies: Archery, shooting, motorcycles, scuba diving, underwater photography

This is another example of how entrenched military-corporate interests in colonized islands like Guam and Hawai’i continue to discolor and distort the narrative.

May 25, 2011July 19, 2011

Pågat ‘sweeteners’ leave a bitter taste

The Navy has displayed its arrogance and hostility towards the people Guahan (Guam) once again with a leaked email that basically calls for bribing the local residents in order to “isolate” opponents of military expansion plans in the Pågat cultural area. See the article below from the Marianas Variety and the incriminating email.

Here’s a copy of the email:

In March, I wrote about contract anthropologists JKA Group who wrote several op ed pieces in favor of the military build up in Guam and the Pacific. This same outfit was hired by the Marines in 1997 to counter community opposition to Marine Corps training in Makua valley in Hawai’i.

At the time they described their assignment on their website:

Prior to JKA’s involvement, the NEPA process was being “captured” by organized militants from the urban zones of Hawaii. The strategy of the militants was to disrupt NEPA by advocating for the importance of Makua as a sacred beach. As community workers identified elders in the local communities, the elders did not support the notion of a sacred beach-”What, you think we didn’t walk on our beaches?” They pointed to specific sites on the beach that were culturally important and could not be disturbed by any civilian or military activity. As this level of detail was injected into the EA process, the militants were less able to dominate the process and to bring forward their ideological agenda. They had to be more responsible or lose standing in the informal community because the latter understood: “how the training activity, through enhancements to the culture, can directly benefit community members. Therefore, the training becomes a mutual benefit, with the community networks standing between the military and the activists.

Now compare that passage to this excerpt from the Navy email regarding Guam:

Groups opposing Marine relocation are successfully seizing on Pågat as a means to gain legitimacy with the public – need to take the issue off the table to isolate them. “Sweeteners” will be needed to garner GovGuam/Legislature support to remove firing range restrictions on Rt. 15 properties and to obtain Legislature approval of Chamorro Land Trust lease of properties below the cliff-line. Some members of the Legislature will attempt to block all land acquisition until other issues with Fed Govt are resolved – need to give Legislature a deal they can’t refuse.

These disclosures come on the heels of the derogatory statements about Okinawans by State Department official Kevin Maher. Maher’s statements caused an uproar in Japan and Okinawa and forced his resignation.

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http://mvguam.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18256:pagat-sweeteners-discussed&catid=59:frontpagenews

Pågat ‘sweeteners’ discussed

Thursday, 26 May 2011 04:16 by Therese Hart | Variety News Staff

LOCAL activists and many island residents continue to question the sincerity of military and federal officials who speak of the buildup, even after officials assured them that discussions and plans on the Pågat issue are aboveboard and transparent.

A September 2010 email correspondence obtained by Variety among former Joint Guam Program Office Executive Director David Bice, Joe Ludovici, who has since taken over Bice’s position, and Capt. John Scorby, executive assistant to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Energy Installations & Environment, gives a glimpse of the strategies and mindset of the military with regard to the Pågat issue.

Scorby emailed Ludovici on Sept. 27, requesting that Ludovici provide a brief of Pågat to include “sweeteners” the Undersecretary needed for a briefing.

“At the DON staff meeting today with the Under, he asked that JGPO develop a brief on possible ‘sweeteners’ to get us over the Pågat issue. He indicated that this was going to be briefed at the next GOC, currently scheduled for Oct. 21. I don’t have a due date, but he indicated he was looking for the brief ‘soon.’ I’ll get more fidelity on that one.”

Bice responded, stating he had a discussion with “Ms. P last week,” and believed a “successful Route 15 acquisition strategy will require elimination all impacts to Pågat historic village in the near term, and finding mutual accommodations with race track until expiration of land use license; ‘book end’ COA.”

Bice further wrote, “We can get all of the land eventually, including an SDZ (surface danger zone) over Pågat; we have to be patient and build trust with the community first.

“Groups opposing Marine relocation are successfully seizing on Pågat as a means to gain legitimacy with the public – need to take the issue off the table to isolate them.

“Sweeteners will be needed to garner GovGuam/Legislature support to remove firing range restrictions on Rt. 15 properties and to obtain Legislature approval of Chamorro Land Trust lease of properties below the cliff-line. Some members of the Legislature will attempt to block all land acquisition until other issues with Fed Govt are resolved – need to give Legislature a deal they can’t refuse.”

Speaker’s reaction

When Variety shared the email with Speaker Judi Won Pat, her reaction was quick, pointed, heated and then, resigned:

“This shows how disingenuous they are, and it seems they are engaging in some type of covert activity. … They say they are being honest and upfront with us, yet, here’s proof that they are conniving behind our backs.

“We respond to the DEIS and FEIS, because they asked us to. We play by their rules and this is what they do to us. It’s very hurtful. We’ve been very trusting. They tell us that they’re listening to us. Perhaps this is the problem. We’re so trusting, we’re so welcoming; and yet, this is what we get from them.”

“They treat us like we are the enemy and we’re not. We want this to work for our people too. Is that too much to ask. I’m very upset about this,” said Won Pat.

May 23, 2011

Revision of base realignment in Asia could affect Hawai’i troop numbers

Senator Jim Webb, D-Va, suggested that the military revise its plans to relocate marines from Okinawa to Guam. But this could mean a military expansion for Hawai’i:

An influential U.S. senator is questioning a plan to relocate 8,000 Marines and their families from Okinawa to Guam and says an alternative would be to rotate combat forces to Guam from a home base such as Hawaii or Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., raised the question as he and two other senators said the planned reorganization of American forces in East Asia, including closing bases on Okinawa, is unworkable and unaffordable.

The suggestion by Webb, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee for East Asia and the Pacific, does not make clear whether such a plan would mean basing more Marines in Hawaii or using the Marines already here on rotations to Guam.

[…]

U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye said the recommendations proposed by the senators “merit further review.”

“However, it is important to note that these are recommendations, and any assumptions that the proposed changes to the Guam realignment will result in more Marines stationed in Hawaii requires careful analysis,” Inouye said in a statement. “The governments of Japan and the U.S. will continue to work together to resolve the outstanding realignment issues in a manner that is both equitable and mindful of the current fiscal challenges both our countries face.”

The Marine Corps should consider revising its plan for Guam to a “stripped-down presence” with a permanently assigned (family- accompanied) headquarters element bolstered by deployed, rotating combat units that are based elsewhere, Webb said.