PROTECT THE ʻĀINA, PROTECT THE PEOPLE, STOP MILITARY EXPANSION
A 19-year-old Marine stationed at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii Kaneʻohe Bay fell from a Waikiki hotel Saturday morning and died from his injuries. The Honolulu Star Advertiser identified the man as Private 1st Class Luke Monahan, 19, of Palos Verdes, California. The newspaper reports “Monahan joined the Marines at the age of 18 and was sent to Marine Corps Base Hawaii in January.”
Police said there were no signs of foul play.
But could this have been a suicide?
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.”
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.
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.
Distinguished Asia scholar Gavan McCormack has published in the Asia Pacific Journal an excellent analysis of the recent developments in U.S.-Japan relations and the deceptions and subservient posture that lay behind Japan’s decisions. It is important reading to understand the politics of the Okinawa situation:
For the student of contemporary Japan, these are sad times, and it is not just because of the catastrophe that struck the country in March and the Chernobyl-like horrors that have continued since then to spread across the Northeast, though it has been impossible to observe these without shock and grief. But it is sad above all because of the growing sense that Japan lacks a truly responsible democratic government to address these issues, and because its people deserve better.
It seems only yesterday that the Japanese people, tired and disgusted with a half century of corrupt and collusive LDP rule, voted to end it. How quickly since September 2009 their efforts were reversed, renewal and reform blocked, and a compliant US-oriented regime reinstated whose irresponsibility is matched only by its incompetence. This is true whether considering the response to the nuclear crisis, marked by evasion, manipulation and collusion (of bureaucrats, politicians, the media, and the nuclear industry), or of the handling of the Okinawa base issue, which is central to the country’s most important relationship, that with the United States. The argument of my book published in 2006 was that Japan is a US “Client State,” or zokkoku, structurally designed to attach priority to US over Japanese interests.1 Much fresh evidence to support that thesis has come to light since I wrote, exposing the relationship as marked by the sort of humiliation that used to be characteristic of relations between centre and periphery in the old Soviet empire. Between the world’s two most powerful capitalist economies and supposed flag-bearers of democracy it is deeply incongruous.
Especially since the September 2009 advent of the Hatoyama government, which came to office promising a new regional order in the Asia-Pacific, there have been successive revelations of the truncated character of the Japanese state. Created and cultivated under US auspices in the wake of war nearly seven decades ago, that state maintains to this day a submissive orientation towards its distant founding fathers. Here I focus on five recent events or sets of materials that between 2009 and 2011 help illuminate it: the mitsuyaku or secret agreements, the “confession” of Prime Minister Hatoyama, the Wiki-leaks revelations, the “Maher affair,” and something still in train as these words are being written (May 2011) that may, provisionally, be called the “Levin-Webb-McCain shock.” Seen as a whole, they compel the sad conclusion that the notion of democratic responsibility on the part of the Japanese state is illusory. Independence for Japan is not something to be protected, but something still to be won.
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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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.”
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.
Resistance to a military base on the island of Jeju (South Korea) are at a critical stage. One of the leaders of the protest movement Professor Yang was arrested and has been on a hunger strike for 50 days. Another artist and activist Sung Hee Choi was recently arrested for holding a banner at the construction site. She is also on day 7 of her hunger strike. Apologies to Jean Downey of Ten Thousand Things Blog for reposting her entire article on the situation. There are action steps at the bottom of her post. Please send a message of concern and protest to the Korean Embassy. Mahalo:
( Sung-Hee Choi holding a banner challenging the destruction of Gangjeong, Jeju Island. The sea off its coast is the only natural dolphin habitat in South Korea. The banner reads “Do not touch even one stone, even one flower!” Image: No Base Stories of Korea)
Art teacher and peace blogger Sung-Hee Choi has been arrested and detained with seven other people at Jeju Island for nonviolently protesting the South Korean government seizure of property belonging to 1,500 villagers in Gangjeong, Jeju Island, South Korea, and the destruction of this property on the Gangjeong coast to make way for a navy base intended to house destroyers equipped with missile systems.
Here is the most recent post at Sung-Hee’s blog, No Base Stories of Korea:
최성희님, 0519불법연행, 0521구속영장청구
이 블로거의 운영자인 최성희님이 지난 5월 19일 제주 강정마을 해군기지 건설예정지에서 평화적인 비폭력 시위 도중 경찰에 의해 체포되었습니다.
당시 최성희님은 ‘돌멩이 하나, 꽃 한송이도 건드리지 마라!’의 메시지가 적힌 현수막을 들고 있었습니다.
5월 21일 구속영장이 청구되었고 현재(23일) 제주 동부 경찰서에 수감 중이십니다.
(English translation)
Sung-Hee Choi, the manager of this blog was arrested on May 19th during the nonviolent opposition demonstration at the site of the planned naval base construction in Gangjeong village. At the time of her arrest, Sung-Hee was holding a banner with the message printed on it:
Do not touch even one stone, even one flower!
On May 21st, a warrant was issued for her arrest and she is, as of May 23rd, detained in jail at the East Police Station on Jeju Island.
Sung-Hee Choi was arrested for simply holding the banner. She did not do anything to obstruct the South Korean government’s destruction of the Gangjeong villagers’ property.
(Sung-Hee Choi in detention for holding a banner expressing concern for flowers and rocks)
On May 19, Sung-Hee joined Prof. Yang’s hunger strike. Today is the 7th day of her fast in prison.
Here are her 3 requests:
1. Cancellation of the annulment of the absolute preservation area by the Jeju Providential Governor’s authority
2. The Ministry of National Defense halt of destruction of Gangjeong to construct a naval base on Jeju.
3. Support in protest of her illegal detention and isolation:1) Ask the commissioner of the Seoguipo Police Agency for an apology
2) Ask for the removal of the chief of the Seogwipo Police Station
Witnesses attest that all that SungHee did was hold a banner that said “Do not touch any stone or any flower” at the protest. One of activists working with her said Sunghee loves Mother Nature very much; that is why she is against the naval base construction.
She will be moved to Jeju prison soon from the detention cell at the police station.This is the second time she has been taken to prison. She will be arraigned this time. Sung-Hee has been taking a very important role communicating the South Korean government’s seizure and destruction of private property at Gangjeong village on Jeju through her blog and international network. We hope she will be released soon.
Meanwhile the movie critic, Prof. Yang, has still been fasting. Many people are worried about his condition and have tried to persuade him to changestop fasting. But his will to stop the naval base construction is strong and clear.
ACTION REQUEST:
WRITE THE KOREAN AMBASSADOR TODAY AT THIS WEBSITE (in the U.S.): http://www.dynamic-korea.com/embassy/meet.php
Here is our sample letter:
Dear Ambassador Han Duk-soo,
I am writing about the arrest of nonviolent environmentalist and property rights activists protesting the South Korean’s planned destruction of the Gangjeong coast to make way for naval base on Jeju Island. I urge you to petition the government of the Republic of Korea to release these people and to stop the construction of the naval base which would devastate one of the most beautiful areas of Jeju Island and the only natural dolphin habitat in the Korean peninsula.
Naval bases have created environmental damage wordwide. Pearl Harbor and Yokosuka ar polluted with toxins, including nuclear radiation. Jeju Island is celebrated for its environmental beauty. Damage resulting from the construction of the naval base on Jeju Island will ruin Jeju’s status as one of the world’s last remaining ecological wonders. The villagers of Gangjeong have never given their approval for this destruction. Ignoring their wishes means trampling on property rights and democratic process.
Please support environmental protection and democracy in Jeju Island: speak against a proposed naval base that could destroy everything that draws tourists to Jeju Island and Korea and call for the release of the Jeju Islanders jailed for protesting confiscation of private property and the destruction of Jeju’s ecological treasures.
Sincerely,
Here is our post on SPARK’s and Pax Christi International’s February, 2010 action request.
Bruce Gagnon has undertaken and is calling on others to join a solidarity fast on behalf of Professor Yang, a Jeju Island resident heartbroken over the planned military destruction of Gangjeong. The Jeju Island police have detained the renowned film scholar for 2 months in prison where he has been on a hunger strike; now nearing death. Information and more suggestions for action at Organizing Notes: Organizing Notes.
For comprehensive, succinct background, read Anders Riel Müller’s excellent article, “One Island Village’s Struggle for Land, Life,and Peace” published at the Korea Policy Institute website on April 19, 2011. Includes a video of his recent visit to Jeju Island.
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.
Watch the video of several U.S. veterans blowing the whistle on burial of Agent Orange at a base in South Korea in 1978. Hereʻs an excerpt from the transcript:
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“They just told us it was going to be used for disposal,” said House.But it was what House buried that he’s never been able to forget.”Fifty-five gallon drums with bright yellow, some of them bright orange, writing on them,” said House. “And some of the cans said Province of Vietnam, Compound Orange.”
According to Johnson, a 1992 study by the Army Corps of Engineers indicated that a large number of drums containing chemicals, pesticides, herbicides and solvents were buried in the vicinity of the area identified by the former Soldiers in news reports.
Some data from this report was shared with ROK Government officials during a site visit to Camp Carroll on Saturday. The study was a general environment assessment and did not specifically identify Agent Orange. More data will be provided to the ROK Ministry of the Environment representative during a visit to Camp Carroll today.
The study further stated that these materials and 40-60 tons of soil were subsequently removed from the site in 1979-1980 and disposed of offsite. Eighth Army officials are still trying to determine why the materials were buried and how it was disposed after it was excavated.
Subsequent testing in 2004 included using ground-penetrating radar and boring 13 test holes on and around the site. Samples from 12 of the holes had no dioxin present. The thirteenth hole revealed trace amounts of the chemical, but the amount was deemed to be no hazard to human health.
This is becoming a huge issue in Korea. Stay tuned to see what unfolds.
The University of Hawaiʻi had a hand in the development of Agent Orange via agricultural research programs. Two UH employees who worked with the chemicals got cancer, but could not win compensation.
A recent article from the Alabama Press Register describes Austal USAʻs transformation into a military ship-builder. Austal was the ship builder of the controversial Hawaii Superferry. Opponents of the Superferry raised concerns that the project was a “Trojan Horse” military transport ship, but were ridiculed by the mainstream press and the political and business supporters of the Superferry. But as time rolls on, the military-industrial business model of making fast transport and combat ships is materializing as opponents forewarned. Here are a few excerpts from the article:
Austal USA‘s startling transformation from a commercial ferry builder with an uncertain future to a major player in the U.S. military-industrial complex has raised eyebrows in the shipbuilding world but hasn’t quite gotten Austal invited to the grown-ups’ table, according to industry analysts.
For Austal to join the Navy shipbuilding fraternity for the long haul, analysts said, the ships need to prove their value on the water, and the company itself needs to prove that it can build more complex vessels.
[…]
Its most prominent commercial contract was a $190 million deal to build two ships for Hawaii Superferry Inc. That deal turned into a quagmire for the shipbuilder. A judge made the Hawaiian company stop operating the ferry service because of environmental concerns. That caused Superferry to file for bankruptcy, forcing Austal to eat a $23 million loan it made to the company.
Defense contracting
While commercial results were mixed, Austal began seeing success in defense contracting. General Dynamics Corp. hired it to be a subcontractor to build two prototype littoral combat ships for the Navy.
General Dynamics eventually dropped out, and Austal became a prime contractor on the LCS program, winning a $3.6 billion, 10-vessel contract from the Navy in December.
In 2008 Austal won a $1.6 billion deal with the U.S. Army and Navy to build 10 high-speed vessels, which were basically militarized versions of the ferries it built for Hawaii.
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~eherring/hawnprop/ses-tome.htm
Last Updated: Tue, 17 May 2011 12:09:00 +1000
Japan has decided to put on hold $US3 billion in funding it had promised for the military expansion in Guam.
The US Navy says the suspension of funding means the bidding process for the contract, which involved establishing new headquarters for the naval base, has been suspended indefinitely.
The Managing Editor of the Marianas Business Journal, Mar-Vic Cagurangan, has told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat the US Navy says it has not received enough bids for the contract, which has confused people in Guam.
“They were saying there were not enough companies that have bidded for the projects,” Ms Cagurangan said.
“But the local companies here say otherwise, because they have been actually very impatient over the progress of this project.”
The Japan Dispatch blog has very interesting analysis about the possibility of shifts in U.S. policy about the military bases in Okinawa, and a larger shift in foreign policy toward an emphasis on Asia. He points to the APEC summit in Honolulu and the Trans Pacific Partnership as indicators that the Obama administration is pushing for a shift to an Asia focus. Here are some excerpts:
Pressure is growing on the Obama Administration to significantly alter plans for US Marine basing arrangements on Okinawa, but chances seem slim for a policy shift at least until Defense Secretary Robert Gates departs office late next month.
Several factors have converged to give the issue new urgency. Opposition remains strong on Okinawa to construction of a new facility in the Henoko Bay area, to replace the US Marine Air Station Futenma, which has been slated for closure since 1995. There is simply no momentum in Japan to move forward with the project, a situation made more stark by the Great Eastern Earthquake of March 11. Tokyo is intensely focused on reconstruction efforts; neither the financial nor political capital is available to push the Henoko project through.
Meanwhile, construction delays and cost overruns continue to bedevil a critical, related portion of the plan: the relocation of over 8,000 Marines and 9,000 family members from Okinawa to Guam.
And in Washington, an increasingly debt-weary Congress is asking whether it is worth the cost of building the new Henoko facility and the new Marine housing and related facilities on Guam, when cheaper force configurations more conducive to strategic needs in Asia might be found.
[…]
ASIA POLICY SHIFT: Evidence continues to grow that President Obama and his top aides would like to see a major US strategic shift toward greater emphasis on Asia, which should be particularly evident when the President hosts the APEC summit in Hawaii next November.
It’s notable that in a recent New Yorker analysis of Obama’s foreign policy, NSC director Tom Donilon, deputy director Ben Rhodes (Obama’s long-time chief foreign policy speechwriter), and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Campbell were all quoted outlining just such a strategic “rebalancing” of American foreign policy. The Pentagon’s top policy chief, Michelle Flournoy, outlined a similar policy in a recent talk at Johns Hopkins.
The administration is looking to energize America’s role in East Asia by fomenting a system of open and transparent economic and security cooperation in the region, defining the terms of engagement to which China has to respond. The economic component, for now, is the Trans-Pacific Partnership regional trade initiative. And the security component involves building on America’s traditional bilateral security alliances in the region to include a network of overlapping bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral security relationships from India, through Vietnam and Indonesia, to Australia, and up to Korea and Japan.
[…]
WORKING WITH CONGRESS: But the White House continues to send signals that it is serious about a shift in strategy toward Asia. A restructured US force posture would not be seen as retreat, but rather an effective region-wide “hedge” in the event China tries to throw its growing weight around in the region. And sources close to Kurt Campbell say that he is convinced that continued US and Japanese wrangling over Futenma will threaten the whole “shift” strategy, because it can’t work without a vibrant US-Japan alliance.
Campbell is prepared to work with Webb and others in Congress on a new basing arrangement for the Marines in the Pacific. Once Panetta takes over as defense secretary, and assuming Lippert becomes his top deputy for Asia, the White House would have in place an administration-wide team to pursue an expanded role in the region.
![The US Navy says the suspension of funding means the bidding process for the contract, which involved establishing new headquarters for the naval base, has been suspended indefinitely. [Reuters/US Navy]](http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201103/r732650_5919609.jpg "The US Navy says the suspension of funding means the bidding process for the contract, which involved establishing new headquarters for the naval base, has been suspended indefinitely. [Reuters/US Navy]")