Tag: Movements and Resistance

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Why Egypt’s progressives win

In this op ed piece, “Why Egypt’s progressives win”, Paul Amar an Associate Professor of Global & International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, provides a nuanced analysis of the various forces that created and is shaping the revolution underway in Egypt.   He describes the evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood and emerging contradictions within its ranks.   The youth and women wings of the Brotherhood have broken away from the “new old guard” to align with leftists and liberals.  The Egyptian military also plays a pivotal role due to its own class interests that are not in alignment with the Mubarak regime.  But he gives the most credit to the worker’s movement and the anti-police brutality movement for building the base of the present revolution:

It is crucial to remember that this uprising did not begin with the Muslim Brotherhood or with nationalist businessmen. This revolt began gradually at the convergence of two parallel forces: the movement for workers’ rights in the newly revived factory towns and micro-sweatshops of Egypt – especially during the past two years – and the movement against police brutality and torture that mobilised every community in the country for the past three years. Both movements feature the leadership and mass participation of women of all ages and youth of both genders. There are structural reasons for this.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

The New York Times ran an interesting article about the young, technologically savvy professionals that have played a crucial role as intellectuals, organizers and mobilizers of the movement.   The article discusses some of the modern mobilization tactics being deployed by the activists to outwit the violent and repressive police state.  Also remarkable is the political and ideological diversity of the actors:

They were born roughly around the time that President Hosni Mubarak first came to power, most earned degrees from their country’s top universities and all have spent their adult lives bridling at the restrictions of the Egyptian police state — some undergoing repeated arrests and torture for the cause.

They are the young professionals, mostly doctors and lawyers, who touched off and then guided the revolt shaking Egypt, members of the Facebook generation who have remained mostly faceless — very deliberately so, given the threat of arrest or abduction by the secret police.

Now, however, as the Egyptian government has sought to splinter their movement by claiming that officials were negotiating with some of its leaders, they have stepped forward publicly for the first time to describe their hidden role.

There were only about 15 of them, including Wael Ghonim, a Google executive who was detained for 12 days but emerged this week as the movement’s most potent spokesman.

Yet they brought a sophistication and professionalism to their cause — exploiting the anonymity of the Internet to elude the secret police, planting false rumors to fool police spies, staging “field tests” in Cairo slums before laying out their battle plans, then planning a weekly protest schedule to save their firepower — that helps explain the surprising resilience of the uprising they began.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE


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Remembering the Ehime Maru

Ten years ago, the USS Greeneville nuclear submarine smashed into a Japanese high school fishing training ship the Ehime Maru sending it to the bottom of the sea and killing nine passengers including four students.  The collision was a product of the rampant militarization in Hawai’i, where sub commanders give joy rides to wealthy political donors so that these civilians become advocates for maintaining levels of funding for the Cold War era sub fleet.    The highly charged political incident was smoothed over by hands at the highest levels of government in Tokyo and Washington.   A captain was rather lightly disciplined for the reckless action. Yet he claims to have been made a scapegoat.  The higher ups who arranged for these political joy rides were not brought to justice.  Nor was there significant debate about the dangers of such intensely militarized seas surrounding the Hawaiian islands.

Here’s an opinion piece I wrote about the incident in 2001.  Let us remember the nine who perished in the seas off Maunalua Bay and work to reduce the militarization of our islands to ensure that another Ehime Maru incident will never happen again.

The Honolulu Star Advertiser published a retrospective on the incident:

Ten years ago Wednesday, the USS Greeneville was impressing 16 civilian guests south of Oahu with some of the capabilities of a U.S. nuclear-powered submarine.

On the surface, there was open-air time with the Greeneville’s gregarious, cigar-smoking captain, Cmdr. Scott Waddle, as the sub powered through the waves.

Underwater there were steep ascents and descents — “angles and dangles” in Navy jargon, at one point reaching a classified depth below 800 feet — as well as high-speed turns.

And finally, there was the demonstration of an emergency main ballast tank blow, an action that forces 4,500 pounds per square inch of air into ballast tanks, causing the 6,900-ton submarine to breach the surface like a humpback whale.

On Feb. 9, 2001, the Greeneville, longer than a football field, rocketed upward from a depth of 400 feet, its crew not knowing it was on a collision course with a Japanese high school fishing training vessel, the Ehime Maru.

What came at 1:43 p.m. was unthinkable: The submarine hit the Japanese ship. The Greeneville’s steel rudder — reinforced to punch through Arctic ice — cut through the underbelly of the 190-foot Ehime Maru.

The Japanese vessel sank in five minutes nine miles south of Diamond Head. Twenty-six on board survived, but nine others — including four high school students — perished.

Never in U.S. Navy history had a collision between a nuclear submarine and a civilian vessel killed so many people.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Are We Witnessing the Start of a Global Revolution?

Watching the masses rise up against repressive dictatorships in Egypt, Tunisia and across the Arab world, I wonder if we are witnessing the birth of a global revolution.   Phyllis Bennis of the Insitute for Policy Studies sees a domino effect, the unraveling of the American empire in the Middle East. She provides excellent background on the different uprisings underway in Tunisia and Egypt.

Andrew Gavin Marshall, writing for Global Research, sees the moment as the ‘Global Political Awakening’ predicted (and dreaded) by former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.   But he also cautions that the U.S. and the western powers are also trying to co-opt and control the democratic movements.  He writes that two seemingly contradictory strategies are being “simultaneously imposed in the Arab world: enforcing and supporting state oppression and building ties with civil society organizations.”

In a similar vein, his colleague at Global Research, Michel Chossudovsky reminds us that: “”Dictators” do not dictate, they obey orders.” In other words, dictators are puppets who serve at the pleasure of their imperialist masters; they are replaced when they outlive their usefulness, such as when the U.S. turned on Saddam Hussein.   Chossudovsky sees the United States’ hand in the current situation: “America’s intent is to use the protest movement to install a new regime.”  His advice to the protest movement is to not lose sight of the puppet masters behind the dictators. The ease with which the U.S. turned against the Mubarak regime and sided with the demands of the protesters suggests that the U.S. has an interest in regime change.  A number of articles have documented America’s assistance to the opposition movement.

It is disturbing and revealing when Elliott Abrams, former staff for the National Security Council under President Reagan who was convicted of unlawfully withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra Affair investigation, publishes an op ed in the Washington Post that claims the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia as vindication of the neoconservative agenda.   He ignores the fact that Mubarak was propped up by the U.S. or that Egypt is the second largest recipient of U.S. foreign military aid after Israel.    Is he simply trying to put a political spin on the meaning of these uprisings, or does he something about America’s covert regime change designs for these Arab states?

Ironically, while the protesters in the Arab world cite inequality as one of the biggest reasons for their fury, social inequality in the U.S. is greater.   Will the fires of revolution spread to Hawai’i and Pacific?  Not unless we organize!

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http://www.fpif.org/articles/tunisias_spark_egypts_flame_the_middle_east_is_rising

Tunisia’s Spark & Egypt’s Flame: the Middle East is Rising

By Phyllis Bennis, January 31, 2011

Is this how empires end, with people flooding the streets, demanding the resignation of their leaders and forcing local dictators out? Maybe not entirely, but the breadth and depth of the spreading protests, the helplessness of the U.S.-backed governments to stop them, and the rapidly diminishing ability of the United States to protect its long-time clients, are certainly resulting in a level of revolutionary fervor not visible in the Middle East in a generation. The legacy of U.S.-dominated governments across the region will never be the same. The U.S. empire’s reach in the resource-rich and strategically vital Middle East has been shaken to its core.

There’s a domino effect underway in the Arab world. Tunisia was the spark, not only because its uprising came first but because the people of Tunisia won and the dictator fled. Egypt remains for the United States the most important strategic Arab ally.

The fall of Hosni Mubarak, the U.S.-backed dictator in power for more than three decades, would mean an end to Washington’s ability to rely on Cairo to stave off Arab nationalism and independence and an end to Egypt’s role as a collaborator in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Whatever happens, what’s likely, though not inevitable, is that never again will Tunisia be used as a transit point or Egypt as a “black site” secret prison for U.S. agents engaged in the “extraordinary rendition” of detainees for interrogation and torture.

Stirrings of popular dissent are already underway in Yemen and Jordan too. All the other U.S.-backed monarchies and pseudo-democracies across the region are feeling the heat. The U.S. empire in the region is crumbling.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22963

Are We Witnessing the Start of a Global Revolution?

North Africa and the Global Political Awakening, Part 1

by Andrew Gavin Marshall

Global Research, January 27, 2011

– 2011-01-26

For the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive… The resulting global political activism is generating a surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and economic opportunity in a world painfully scarred by memories of centuries-long alien colonial or imperial domination… The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening… That awakening is socially massive and politically radicalizing… The nearly universal access to radio, television and increasingly the Internet is creating a community of shared perceptions and envy that can be galvanized and channeled by demagogic political or religious passions. These energies transcend sovereign borders and pose a challenge both to existing states as well as to the existing global hierarchy, on top of which America still perches…

The youth of the Third World are particularly restless and resentful. The demographic revolution they embody is thus a political time-bomb, as well… Their potential revolutionary spearhead is likely to emerge from among the scores of millions of students concentrated in the often intellectually dubious “tertiary level” educational institutions of developing countries. Depending on the definition of the tertiary educational level, there are currently worldwide between 80 and 130 million “college” students. Typically originating from the socially insecure lower middle class and inflamed by a sense of social outrage, these millions of students are revolutionaries-in-waiting, already semi-mobilized in large congregations, connected by the Internet and pre-positioned for a replay on a larger scale of what transpired years earlier in Mexico City or in Tiananmen Square. Their physical energy and emotional frustration is just waiting to be triggered by a cause, or a faith, or a hatred…

[The] major world powers, new and old, also face a novel reality: while the lethality of their military might is greater than ever, their capacity to impose control over the politically awakened masses of the world is at a historic low. To put it bluntly: in earlier times, it was easier to control one million people than to physically kill one million people; today, it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people.[1]

– Zbigniew Brzezinski

Former U.S. National Security Advisor, Co-Founder of the Trilateral Commission, Member, Board of Trustees, Center for Strategic and International Studies

An uprising in Tunisia led to the overthrow of the country’s 23-year long dictatorship of President Ben Ali. A new ‘transitional’ government was formed, but the protests continued demanding a totally new government without the relics of the previous tyranny. Protests in Algeria have continued for weeks, as rage mounts against rising food prices, corruption and state oppression. Protests in Jordan forced the King to call on the military to surround cities with tanks and set up checkpoints. Tens of thousands of protesters marched on Cairo demanding an end to the 30-year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. Thousands of activists, opposition leaders and students rallied in the capitol of Yemen against the corrupt dictatorship of President Saleh, in power since 1978. Saleh has been, with U.S. military assistance, attempting to crush a rebel movement in the north and a massive secessionist movement growing in the south, called the “Southern Movement.” Protests in Bolivia against rising food prices forced the populist government of Evo Morales to backtrack on plans to cut subsidies. Chile erupted in protests as demonstrators railed against rising fuel prices. Anti-government demonstrations broke out in Albania, resulting in the deaths of several protesters.

It seems as if the world is entering the beginnings of a new revolutionary era: the era of the ‘Global Political Awakening.’ While this ‘awakening’ is materializing in different regions, different nations and under different circumstances, it is being largely influenced by global conditions. The global domination by the major Western powers, principally the United States, over the past 65 years, and more broadly, centuries, is reaching a turning point. The people of the world are restless, resentful, and enraged. Change, it seems, is in the air. As the above quotes from Brzezinski indicate, this development on the world scene is the most radical and potentially dangerous threat to global power structures and empire. It is not a threat simply to the nations in which the protests arise or seek change, but perhaps to a greater degree, it is a threat to the imperial Western powers, international institutions, multinational corporations and banks that prop up, arm, support and profit from these oppressive regimes around the world. Thus, America and the West are faced with a monumental strategic challenge: what can be done to stem the Global Political Awakening? Zbigniew Brzezinski is one of the chief architects of American foreign policy, and arguably one of the intellectual pioneers of the system of globalization. Thus, his warnings about the ‘Global Political Awakening’ are directly in reference to its nature as a threat to the prevailing global hierarchy. As such, we must view the ‘Awakening’ as the greatest hope for humanity. Certainly, there will be mainy failures, problems, and regressions; but the ‘Awakening’ has begun, it is underway, and it cannot be so easily co-opted or controlled as many might assume.

The reflex action of the imperial powers is to further arm and support the oppressive regimes, as well as the potential to organize a destabilization through covert operations or open warfare (as is being done in Yemen). The alterantive is to undertake a strategy of “democratization” in which Western NGOs, aid agencies and civil society organizations establish strong contacts and relationships with the domestic civil society in these regions and nations. The objective of this strategy is to organize, fund and help direct the domestic civil society to produce a democratic system made in the image of the West, and thus maintain continuity in the international hierarchy. Essentially, the project of “democratization” implies creating the outward visible constructs of a democratic state (multi-party elections, active civil society, “independent” media, etc) and yet maintain continuity in subservience to the World Bank, IMF, multinational corporations and Western powers.

It appears that both of these strategies are being simultaneously imposed in the Arab world: enforcing and supporting state oppression and building ties with civil society organizations. The problem for the West, however, is that they have not had the ability to yet establish strong and dependent ties with civil society groups in much of the region, as ironically, the oppressive regimes they propped up were and are unsurprisingly resistant to such measures. In this sense, we must not cast aside these protests and uprisings as being instigated by the West, but rather that they emerged organically, and the West is subsequently attempting to co-opt and control the emerging movements.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22993

“Dictators” do not Dictate, They Obey Orders

by Michel Chossudovsky

The Mubarak regime could collapse in the a face of a nationwide protest movement… What prospects for Egypt and the Arab World?

“Dictators” do not dictate, they obey orders. This is true in Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria.

Dictators are invariably political puppets. Dictators do not decide.

President Hosni Mubarak was a faithful servant of Western economic interests and so was Ben Ali.

The national government is the object of the protest movement.

The objective is to unseat the puppet rather than the puppet-master.

The slogans in Egypt are “Down with Mubarak, Down with the Regime”. No anti-American posters have been reported… The overriding and destructive influence of the USA in Egypt and throughout the Middle East remains unheralded.

The foreign powers which operate behind the scenes are shielded from the protest movement.

No significant political change will occur unless the issue of foreign interference is meaningfully addressed by the protest movement.

…

America’s intent is to use the protest movement to install a new regime.

The People’s Movement should redirect its energies: Identify the relationship between America and “the dictator”. Unseat America’s political puppet but do not forget to target the “real dictators”.

Shunt the process of regime change.

Dismantle the neoliberal reforms.

Close down US military bases in the Arab World.

Establish a truly sovereign government.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Coming Soon? V-22 Osprey “extremely noisy with a horrific racket”

Coming soon to Mokapu and Pohakuloa?

Thanks to Satoko Norimatsu of the Peace Philosophy Centre for sharing these articles.

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V-22 Osprey “extremely noisy with a horrific racket”

Link:
http://peacephilosophy.blogspot.com/2011/01/v-22-osprey-extremely-noisy-with.html

Okinawan newspapers on January 27 reported that the residents of Brewton, Alabama complained about the noise caused by the V-22 Osprey used in the US Air Force training mission at their municipal airport, and the Air Force offered apology and told the local airport authority that the squadron will not come back. “Those aircraft are extremely noisy with an horrific racket,” the airport director is quoted in the local news (see below).

It is disturbing news for Okinawa, as USMC is planning to deploy Ospreys in Henoko and Takae, two places in Northern Okinawa where military expansion is planned despite the opposition from local residents. Okinawans are worried, not just about their noise, but about the reported risk of accidents by Ospreys. A recent Pentagon report (below) also indicated the continuing unreliability of the aircraft due to “cracking or prematurely failing hinges and access doors, engine and drive components within the nacelle structure, flight control system failures, wiring and swashplate actuators.” The aircraft killed thirty people during the course of development, and killed four in a crash in Afghanistan in April 2010.

In late December, a US helicopter hovered over and damaged the protesters’ tent in Takae, where US/Japan are planning to build six new helipads (Osprey-capable) surrounding a residential area, but the authorities have not even confirmed that it was a US Marine helicopter
that did it. It is unacceptable that a plan to use noisy and dangerous aircraft like V-22 Osprey is not properly disclosed to local residents and there has been no assessment of risks associated with Ospreys in the environmental assessments on both places.

Satoko Norimatsu
Peace Philosophy Centre, Vancouver http://peacephilosophy.com
Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus http://japanfocus.org
UBC Education/Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness http://www.cshc.ubc.ca/


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http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-01-12/textron-boeing-v-22-still-dogged-by-bad-parts-tester-says.html

Textron-Boeing V-22 Still Dogged By Bad Parts, Tester Says

January 12, 2011, 3:53 PM EST By Tony Capaccio

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) — The V-22 tilt-rotor Osprey, five years after it was cleared for full-production, remains dogged by unreliable parts that reduce its availability for missions, according to the Pentagon’s top tester.

The Textron Inc. and Boeing Co. V-22, in its most recent testing to evaluate upgrades, was available only 57 percent of the time it was required to fly, rather than the specification of 82 percent, according to a new report by Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation. The testing took place between May and July 2009.
“Major contributors to this low mission capable rate included cracking or prematurely failing hinges and access doors, engine and drive components within the nacelle structure, flight control system failures, wiring and swashplate actuators,” which help the main rotors turn, the report said.
“Mission-capable rate” is a standard standard metric for aircraft combat reliability.
Gilmore assessed that when the aircraft was flying it “met or exceeded” all but one reliability and maintenance requirement.
The aircraft “demonstrated effectiveness in a wide range of approved high-altitude scenarios reflecting current Marines Corps operations,” wrote Gilmore, in a section on the V-22 in the annual report from the testing unit issued today.
The Pentagon test office and U.S. Government Accountability Office have consistently highlighted problems with V-22 parts since 2000. The V-22 is a fixed-wing plane with rotors that tilt so it can take off and land like a helicopter.
Bell Helicopter Textron spokesman William Schroeder and Naval Air Systems Command spokesman Victor Chen had no immediate comment on the test report because they had not seen it.
Improvements
Gilmore recommended that the Marines and Air Force, which is buying a version for to fly U.S. commandos, “aggressively continue integrated development and testing” to improve the aircraft’s braking system, engine and drive-train reliability.
The V-22 has been deployed to Iraq and is in Afghanistan, where it transported Defense Secretary Robert Gates during a March 2010 trip.
Congress through fiscal 2010 has approved spending $32 billion on the $52.8 billion program. The Navy plans to spend $20 billion more on upgrades and the purchase of the remaining planes in the 458-aircraft program for the Marine Corps and Air Force Special Operations Command.
The program was approved for full-production in September 2005 after four years of additional development to demonstrate it overcame a host of deficiencies, including problems with its design, safety and reliability uncovered after two crashes in 2000 killed 23 Marines.
Maintenance Problems
The GAO in a June 2009 report that evaluated the V-22’s initial Iraq deployment concluded that, while the aircraft flew its assigned missions successfully, maintenance problems left the planes available for flight at rates “significantly below minimum required levels.”
During three periods studied during the V-22’s deployment from October 2007 through April 2009, the planes were available for combat operations on average 68 percent, 57 percent and 61 percent of the time, “while the minimum requirement” is 82 percent, said the GAO.
These low rates “were not unique to the Iraq deployment” and were on par with other V-22 squadrons in the U.S., the GAO said.

–Editor: Terry Atlas, Steven Komarow

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Capaccio at acapaccio@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net

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http://www.brewtonstandard.com/2011/01/22/military-plane-made-noise-over-brewton/

Military plane made noise over Brewton

Published 11:30am Saturday, January 22, 2011

The crew from “Unsolved Mysteries” won’t be coming to Brewton to investigate strange rumblings heard across the area Wednesday night.

Brewton Municipal Airport Director Earl Lambert said the noises heard throughout the area can be attributed to the massive V22 Osprey — a twin rotor helicopter/airplane owned by the military.

“After hearing the machinery, we began to investigate the source,” Lambert said. “Our investigation lead us to the special ops unit from Hurlburt Field.”

Hurlburt Field, located near Fort  Walton Beach, Fla., is home to the Airforce Special Operations Command.

“I spoke to the commander of the squadron and explained their training would not be good since we have so many citizens that live in the area around the airport,” Lambert said. “Those aircraft are extremely noisy with an horrific racket.”

The Brewton Municipal Airport serves as a training area for units from Whiting Field near Milton, Fla., during the day.

“We have a 50-year agreement with the Navy, and you just can’t mix the two,” Lambert said. “It would be prohibitive for them to use the area during the day when it’s being used by the Navy, and it’s just too noisy at night.”

Lambert said a gentlemen’s agreement was reached between himself and the commander Friday that would bring the training missions to a halt.

“The commander offered an apology for any inconvenience their training may have caused in the community,” Lambert said. “He assured me the squadron would not be back in the area to train.”

The Brewton Municipal Airport is a non-controlled facility, meaning there is no air traffic control tower and no after-hours communications system.

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More on military expansion on Pohakuloa

The full extent of military expansion at Pohakuloa is only becoming more evident.

The Army website for the Pohakuloa Training Areas Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement can be accessed here. Written comments on the proposed action and alternatives will be accepted via e-mail (ptapeis@bah.com) and U.S. mail until February 7, 2011 to:  PTA PEIS, P.O. Box 514, Honolulu, HI 96809. Materials from the scoping meetings will be made available on the “Project Documents” page.

Yesterday, I learned that people witnessed construction activity up on the slopes of Mauna Loa.  The activity was so high on the mountain that the observer thought it surely must be outside the boundary of the Pohakuloa Training Area.    Later, they saw explosions near the site from aircraft and land based artillery fire.

We have confirmed that the construction companies were building ‘targets’.  Julie Taomia, an archaeologist at Pohakuloa said that the activity is most likely related to Marine Corps projects. She said that the Pohakuloa Training Area extends pretty far up Mauna Loa, beyond the old Hilo-Kona Road.   She said that the Marines did an Environmental Assessment (EA) for this range construction work. However, since this was done as an EA, as opposed to a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), it slipped past the notice of most people.  Furthermore, since this is a Marine Corps project, she said that cultural monitors, which are required under the Army Stryker Brigade programmatic agreement, are not required to oversee ground disturbing activity, which is just a way for the Army to avoid responsibility for the impacts on an Army range.  This loophole must be closed.   The Marine Corps expansion contributes tot he cumulative impacts of military activity.  There should be way to conduct cultural and environmental monitoring  for all activity related to the installation regardless of which service branch is doing the project.

In addition to this current Marine Corps expansion activity, the Marines are expanding training in Pohakuloa to accommodate the new aircraft scheduled to be stationed at Mokapu (a.k.a. the Marine Corps Base Kane’ohe).  I missed the following article in the Big Island Weekly when it came out in September.

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http://www.bigislandweekly.com/articles/2010/09/01/read/news/news02.txt

The Marines are landing on the island

New squadrons may be using Pohakuloa for future training and gunnery exercises
By Alan D. Mcnarie
Wednesday, September 1, 2010 9:50 AM HST

The United States military is planning yet another expansion entailing increased use of Pohakuloa Training Area. The Marine Corps wants to move up to three additional squadrons of aircraft to the islands, including 9 UH-1Y Huey and 18 AH-1Z Cobra helicopters and 24 of its controversial MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

The Marines held “scoping meetings” for an Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed expansion last week in Hilo and Kona. The meetings followed an “open house” format: instead of allowing public testimony before an open mic, the meeting’s organizers set up various visual displays manned by experts to answer questions, and allowed members of the public to present written testimony or dictate their input to a court reporter. But a group of protestors led by Malu Aina’s Jim Albertini brought their own microphone system to the Hilo meeting to voice their objections to the plan, including concerns that increased use of PTA’s firing range could stir up depleted uranium dust there and that the Ospreys, which have a less-than-perfect safety record, could present dangers to servicemen and to the community.

The move would essentially allow an entire Marine Air-Ground Task Force to operate out of Kaneohe Marine Air Base. Most of the components of such a task force, including command and ground elements and CH-53D “Sea Stallion” heavy-lift helicopters, are already in place here. The proposed move would allow medium-lift and assault helicopters needed by the MAGTF to train alongside the other elements of the force.

Although the new aircraft would be based on O’ahu, their presence would be felt across the island chain. The plan calls for training, including gunnery exercises, at Pohakuloa; for refueling facilities and night exercises at Molokai Training Support Facility and Kalaupapa Airfield, respectively; for additional activities at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, and possibly for target practice on an islet called Kau’ula Rock, near Ni’ihau.

Perhaps the plan’s most controversial element is the Osprey, a hybrid aircraft with stubby wings that end in two giant propellers that can lift the craft like a helicopter, then rotate to pull the machine forward like an airplane. The Marines want Ospreys to replace their aging C-46 “Sea Knight” medium-lift choppers, which have only about half the Ospreys’ range and speed.

“It’s much more capable (than the C-46) and it’s faster – and faster, for the Marines, is safer,” said a Marine spokesperson at the scoping meeting.

But the Osprey has a troubled history. Based on an experimental craft that gained Bell Helicopter and Boeing a joint government contract in 1983, first flown in 1989, Ospreys remained in development for the next 15 years; along the way, it compiled a long record of cost overruns, mechanical failures and crashes, killing 30 people before the first operational Marine squadron began training in 2005.

“The mishaps that we had in the 90s and in 2000 [when two Ospreys crashed, killing 23 people] were tragic,” said Jason Holder, one of the Marines’ authorities at the scoping meeting in Hilo. But he said that since those incidents, the Marines had brought in “outside experts” to fix the problems that no crashes had occurred in over 80,000 flight hours since 2002.

That statement wasn’t entirely accurate. An Osprey went down under combat conditions in Afghanistan in April of 2010. But that accident occurred during a dust storm and may have been influenced by weather, pilot error or even enemy action. Due to an electronic malfunction, another Osprey took off without a pilot and made a rather unsuccessful landing.

The Ospreys have had enough other problems that the U.S. General Accounting Office recommended last year the Secretary of Defense require a new analysis of alternatives to the aircraft, and that the Marines develop “a prioritized strategy to improve system suitability, reduce operational costs, and align future budget requests.”

“Although recently deployed in Iraq and regarded favorably, it has not performed the full range of missions anticipated, and how well it can do so is in question,” the GAO Web site (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-692T) summarized.

At the Hilo meeting, the Sierra Club’s Cory Harden provided a long list of media references about various problems with the Ospreys, including the aircraft’s inability to glide to an unpowered landing, as helicopters can, and a downwash from its rotors that can be so powerful that during a demonstration at Staten Island, New York, it knocked down tree branches and injured 10 spectators.

In light of such problems, Harden asked that the EIS “evaluate the risks of Ospreys harming military personnel and civilians” in Hawai’i.

Another major concern voiced at the meeting was the continued presence of depleted uranium at Pohakuloa and the risk that increased use of the facility’s target range might have of stirring up radioactive dust. The military has maintained that the number of DU shells fired there, and the risk of the dust leaving the area, were both minimal, while critics claim that thousands of uranium spotter rounds may have been fired, that the dust could spread for miles, and that even a few molecules in the lungs could cause cancer. Albertini pointed out that a County Council resolution had called for a moratorium on any live fire exercises at PTA until an independent assessment and cleanup of the DU there had taken place.

The deployment of the new Marine Aircraft would almost certainly mean more use of PTA’s firing range. The Osprey’s notorious downwash could certainly stir up dust. But while it can mount an optional belly or ramp gun, it is primarily a transport, not a gun platform. A much bigger user of the firing range would likely be the Marines’ venerable Cobras, which have been blasting enemy targets with gunfire and Hellfire missiles since the Vietnam era. Jim Isaacs, another Marine expert running one of the information stations at the Hilo meeting, noted that with the Cobras, “sixty percent of events are ordnance related.” He noted, however, that the Marines’ Cobras did not fire any ordnance containing DU.

The new aircraft probably would create some jobs in the islands – especially construction jobs. Ironically, despite the choppers’ and Ospreys’ go-anywhere mission, one big ticket item involved in moving them here could be the construction of new landing pads at Schofield and elsewhere. Marine spokesperson James Sibley told the Weekly that while there were “no plans” currently for new helipads at Pohakuloa, “Right now PTA can barely support the operators of the helicopters that we have here”: that downwash could potentially lift the existing runway’s steel mesh material, causing damage.

Despite their obvious differences, the Marines joined the protestors in an opening pule, or Hawaiian prayer. A court reporter typed continuously during the protestor’s testimony, apparently taking it down.

Members of the public who missed the meetings are encouraged to visit the project’s website, http://www.mcbh.usmc.mil/22h1eis to submit online testimony, or to mail comments to Department of the Navy, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Pacific, Attn: EV21, MV 22/H-1 EIS Manager, Makalapa Drive, Suite 100, Pearl Harbor, HI 96860-3134.

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Ann Wright: Why the War in Afghanistan is Unwinnable

Source: http://www.mauitime.com/Articles-i-2011-01-20-75645.113117-Retired-Colonel-Ann-Wright-Discusses-Why-the-War-in-Afghanistan-is-Unwinnable.html

Retired Colonel Ann Wright Discusses Why the War in Afghanistan is Unwinnable
January 19, 2011 | 02:01 PM

We’ve spoken with Ret. Col. Ann Wright of Oahu before—about her decision to resign from the State Department on the eve of the 2003 Iraq invasion, about the follies of the Bush Administration, about Israel, and about the importance of dissent.

Now, recently returned from a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan, Wright has plenty to say about America’s oft forgotten, decade-old war.

You went to Afghanistan in September 2009, and then again last month. What, if anything, has changed?

The change that I noticed and that was talked about the most by Afghans was the huge increase in U.S. military bases—now over 400. We saw the construction of a huge base just north of Kabul. The high wall on the front side of it stretches over two miles and encloses a large training area. In the shadow of the wall, just across the road in an internal displacement camp, are tens of thousands of Afghans who have fled the fighting in the South and East of the country. They are living in abject misery in small dirt hovels, with no water or sewage and only a few sticks of wood each day to cook a tiny meal. Yet across the road are hundreds of millions—if not billions—of dollars spent on infrastructure for military training and operations. Villas built with the huge profits from the multi-million dollar U.S. logistics contracts to support our military presence are rented back to the international community contractors and non-governmental agencies for $10,000 to $15,000 per month. Yet most Afghans live in poverty.

In travelling outside of Kabul north of the Panjshir Valley, we went past the turn-off to Bagram Air Base, now an American city with over 20,000 U.S. military living and working there, as well as an infamous prison with over 10,000 detainees who are being held without any judicial process, many for years. We observed two new, ‘smaller’ U.S. military bases on the way to the valley—with the standard and expensive bomb-blast protective walls with at least 50 pre-fab buildings in each and an American flag flying above each base.

With its latest $500 million expansion project, the United States Embassy in Afghanistan will be the largest in the world, even bigger than the mammoth U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. Over 1,400 U.S. government employees will reside inside the walls of the compound, which is expanding to take over the Afghan Ministry of Health grounds and part of an Afghan Ministry of Defense area. The U.S. is building two consulates, one in Heart and one in Mazir Sharif. Each will cost $50 million.

The United States’ presence in Afghanistan is so large that it has its own air terminal at the Kabul International Airport, plus the two mega air bases at Bagram and Kandahar, and the air base in Kyrgyzstan.

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Target: Pohakuloa

The graphic in the Honolulu Star Advertiser article “Upgrade in Sight” is fitting: Pohakuloa in the crosshairs of a sniper’s scope.
STAR-ADVERTISER / October 2009

Pohakuloa has become the target of massive military expansion since 2001. First the Stryker brigade expansion led to a 23,000 acre land grab by the Army:

In 2006 the Army bought 23,000 acres from Parker Ranch for military maneuver training for $31.5 million, and it has spent $33.6 million for a Stryker armored vehicle “battle area complex” expected to open in 2012 at a separate spot at Pohakuloa. But that facility is mainly for Stryker gunnery, officials said.

Then the Air Force expanded its aerial bombardment training to use 2000 lb dummy bombs dropped from stealth B-2 bombers. Then the Marine Corps expansion. Now the Army “upgrade”of the range and proposed high altitude helicopter training on the slopes of Mauna Kea.  The recent announcement that the Army is abandoning live-fire training in Makua on O’ahu after more than 60 years is hardly cause for celebration in light of the shift of major military training activity to Lihu’e (Schofield range on O’ahu) and Pohakuloa on Hawai’i island.
Pohakuloa has been subjected to intense military activity:

Pohakuloa has 153 ranges, including the 566-acre housing and base operations area, and numerous firing ranges directed at a central 51,000-acre ordnance impact area.

Army soldiers, Hawaii-based and transiting Marines, and the Hawaii National Guard are among the ground forces that regularly train at Pohakuloa, officials said.

Artillery, mortars, rockets and missiles are fired at Pohakuloa, and Air Force bombers drop dummy bombs on the range.

Army expansion plans include helicopter training on Mauna Kea, outside the military base:

The high-altitude helicopter training plan seeks to standardize and make an annual requirement of similar exercises that were held at Pohakuloa in 2003, 2004 and 2006, a change that reflects new Army doctrine, according to documents.

The 25th Combat Aviation Brigade at Schofield would use the Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa training as it too prepares for deployment to Afghanistan, where operations routinely exceed 10,000 feet.

Six existing landing zones would be used for approach, landings and takeoff at elevations above 8,000 feet under high winds, extreme temperatures and during night operations.

The training was examined in an environmental assessment separate from the infantry plans. A draft finding of “no significant impact” was released in December.

Helicopter training hours at Pohakuloa would be increased by 30 percent to 6,000 total hours based on 300 to 400 aviators receiving the training, the Army said.

People will resist:

The Army faces opposition to the Pohakuloa plan from some Big Island residents, including peace activist Jim Albertini.

Albertini said in a statement following a public meeting held by the Army on the modernization plan that he is concerned about depleted uranium left over from a 1960s weapon system used at Pohakuloa.

“There has been plenty of money over the years for military buildup but very little funding for military cleanup. It’s time to change those priorities,” Albertini said. “The bottom line is this: Hawaii residents don’t want the U.S. military training to do to others what the U.S. has already done to Hawaii — overthrow and occupy its government and nation and contaminate its air, land, water, people, plants and animals with military toxins.”

The destruction of Pohakuloa, Makua, Kaho’olawe is not simply a result of “training”. What is happening to Pohakuloa is symptomatic of the wars that have become permanent fixtures of these islands. It exposes the Big Lie of Empire: “Pax Americana” – the American Peace. From the mountains of Afghanistan to the slopes of Mauna Kea, Empire is endless war.

As Ann Wright recently shared about her trip to Afghanistan, Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers have engaged in several global call-in days. People from around the world having conversations with youth from a remote part of Afghanistan. For those who still justify the war in Afghanistan and the military training in Hawai’i in preparation for that war, listen to these youth: http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/

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Upgrade in sight

By William Cole

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jan 22, 2011

Schofield Barracks soldiers of the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry spent two weeks at the Big Island’s Pohakuloa Training Area preparing for a deployment to Iraq. Army soldiers, Hawaii-based and transiting Marines, and the Hawaii National Guard are among the ground forces that regularly train there.

The Army wants to modernize its vast Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island for the 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops who use it each year, and increase high-altitude helicopter training on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa to meet a shift in emphasis to Afghanistan.

An Infantry Platoon Battle Area at 133,000-acre Pohakuloa that also could be used for companies of about 150 soldiers — and replace past live-fire training at Makua Valley — is a priority for the Army, with the service hoping it can begin construction in 2013.

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Testifiers oppose Pohakuloa training plans

Source: http://www.bigislandweekly.com/articles/2011/01/19/read/news/news01.txt

Residents to Army: NO

Testifiers oppose Pohakuloa training plans
By Alan D. Mcnarie
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 8:21 AM HST

An army has to train if it wants to avoid unnecessary casualties. And American troops stationed in Hawai’i face a narrowing set of options for training. Kaho’olawe has been returned, much the worse for wear, to the native Hawaiians. And last week, the Army bowed to public pressure and announced that it would no longer pursue live-fire training in O’ahu’s Makua Valley.

That leaves Hawai’i Island’s 133,000-acre Pohakuloa Training Area to absorb much of the burden. Last year, the Army announced that it would shift its artillery heavy weapons practice from Makua to Pohakuloa. And last week, island residents got a glimpse of some of the specifics of that plan, as the Army held two “scoping sessions” for its “Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” on the Army’s proposal to modernize PTA’s aged buildings and firing range. But at the two sessions, it appeared that the Army had no more support for training here than it did at Makua Valley.

Compared to some of its recent projects, such as the purchase of several thousand acres of range land for a Stryker vehicle maneuver area, the plans covered by the Programmatic EIS are relatively modest. All of the improvements would fall “within the current footprint. We’re not buying land to expand,” army spokesperson Mike Egami told BIW.

“The cantonment area and the ranges are so old that they’re not up to modern Army standards. The ranges are really fundamental; we have them (troops) training on these Korea-World War II types of facilities,” Egami said.

Plans include a new “shoot house” — an indoor firing range with walls that bullets can’t penetrate — an Infantry Battle Complex for training company-sized groups of foot soldiers, and a Military Operations Urban Terrain (MOUT) site where soldiers can practice dismounted urban warfare, all to be built within the confines of the current firing range.

At this stage, there still appear to be major holes in the Army’s assessment of the new facilities’ impact. Egami couldn’t say, for instance, how much the use of the new facilities would increase the amount of ammunition fired at the base, and when, where and how the unexploded ordnance would be cleaned up. He did tell BIW that all the ammunition used at the new facilities would be from small arms.

At the Tuesday Hilo scoping session, not a single resident spoke in favor of the Army’s plans. The Army got a similar verbal shellacking the next night in Waimea. Most of those who spoke wanted Pohakuloa closed down, not expanded. Several residents suggested that the Army should spend its money on rehabilitating the physical and mental casualties of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, instead of on expanding training facilities.

“I can say that I’m a part of a military family, like it or not,” said veteran Hawaiian activist Moanikeala Akaka, after reciting a long list of relatives who’d served in the military or worked on military bases. “But I can say there are some of us who are sick and tired of the military expansion on the island.”

Relatively few of the speakers, in fact, actually addressed the specifics of the Army proposals contained in the PEIS, though one speaker did suggest that new training sites be moved to a different part of the impact area to get them further away from areas of native vegetation. Several residents wanted to talk about still another army training proposal that was not contained within the PEIS: The Army wants to use existing DLNR helicopter landing sites on Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea to hold high altitude training for the choppers of its 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, which is due to employ to Afghanistan in late spring of this year. The High Altitude Mountainous Environment Terrain Training (HAMET) is being handled in a separate Environmental Assessment; EAs do not require public hearings, though residents can give written input. A Draft Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) was published last month, and the Army is now accepting public comment on it. The draft is available at larger public libraries and online (Search Army + Hawaii + HAMET).

The Army has, in fact, been using those landing sites for years, and not without incident. According to the Draft Finding of No Significant Impact, a helicopter involved in a HAMET exercise in 2003 missed its landing zone and accidentally landed in the Mauna Kea Ice Age Natural Area Reserve. In 2006, another HAMET “incident” occurred when “an aircraft hovered too low over critical habitat.” The “critical habitat” mentioned is home to the palila, an endangered Hawaiian bird found only in the Big Island’s upper-altitude mamane forests, some of which have already been lost to the realignment of the Saddle Road.

Other threatened or endangered species may also be affected by the flights: the ‘io (Hawaiian Hawk); the ope’ape’a (Hawaiian hoary bat); and the nene. One of the helicopter landing sites on Mauna Loa, in fact, lies right on the edge of the Kipuka Ainahou Nene Sanctuary, though a map included in the Draft FONSI shows the border of the actual nene range well to the east of the sanctuary border. The Army plans to mitigate by flying at least 2000 feet over possible habitats, and the FONSI claims that the endangered species are “unlikely to be present at the elevation of any of the LZs [landing zones].”

Paul Neves of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I called the HAMET EA “completely inadequate.” He noted, for instance, that it had “no analysis of people using traditional trails near the landing zones,” and didn’t mention the usage of Mauna Loa Observatory Road by observatory workers, hunters and hikers, even though the military wanted to use landing zones on both sides of that road.

“The helicopters have been landing for seven years now with almost zero public oversight…,” testified the Sierra Club’s Cory Harden. “Helicopters may fly up to 18 hours a day during training, day and night, to within 2,000 vertical feet of the summit. The EA says noise and visual impacts on cultural practices and recreation will not be significant. That’s like saying impacts would not be significant from helicopters at Machu Pichu…. The EA has a cultural overview without one word about the illegal takeover of Hawai’i. That’s like writing a cultural overview of the United States and leaving out the Civil War.”

Harden also brought up another controversy: the furor over depleted uranium ordnance at Pohakuloa and the army’s refusal, so far, to completely remove it, or even to hunt very hard for it. She cited instance after instance of the army documents and spokespeople claiming it was too dangerous to look for DU in Pohakuloa’s impact zone. Yet all of the new battle areas, she noted, were “either in or directly adjacent to the existing impact areas of PTA.”

“Why is it too dangerous to enter the impact area to hunt for DU, but safe to go in and build more military facilities?” she asked.

Egami told BIW that the new live fire training facilities were not in the impact area, but adjacent to it. But one of the displays the army had put up at the scoping session said that the Infantry Platoon Battle Area would be “located at one of three (3) potential locations within the existing impact area”; an adjacent map showed not only the Infantry Platoon Battle area, but the shoot house and MOUT facility all within the impact zone. Army munitions expert Vic Garo explained that there were actually two zones of risk within the impact area. Within the impact area was the Improved Munitions Area, which held unexploded heavy ordnance including Vietnam-era bomblets. The outer zone, where the new facilities would be located, may contain mostly unexploded small arms munitions.

“We had to send our explosive ordnance disposal people in to clear that area [where the new facilities would be]” he said; cultural and natural survey teams could enter the outer zone if accompanied by explosives ordnance demolition teams.

“When projects come up, we go within the impact zone,” confirmed PTA archeologist Julie Toombs. “I keep telling people we haven’t blown any archeologists up yet.”

Toombs said that there had, indeed, been archeological sites found within the Impact Area: “There are platforms, lava tube systems, excavated pits….” Toombs said no one knew for certain what the pits were for, but they may have been carved into the lava to attract nesting sea birds: “Nineteenth Century accounts speak of huge flocks of sea birds in that area.”

Many native Hawaiians, from veteran activists such as Neves to several students who testified in Hawaiian, saw the Army’s plans as a strengthening of an illegal military occupation.

“Pretty soon the Big Island will no longer be the Big Island, because it will be called the United States Military,” predicted Neves.

Others dwelt on the sacredness of the mountain.

“I don’t know how many of you have seen Avatar, but Mauna Kea is like our home tree,” said another. “Your training of our youth is appreciated, but not here on Mauna Kea, not at Pohakuloa.”

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Tomgram: Nick Turse, The Pentagon’s Planet of Bases

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175338/tomgram:_nick_turse,_the_pentagon

Tomgram: Nick Turse, The Pentagon’s Planet of Bases

Posted by Nick Turse at 5:13pm, January 9, 2011.

[TomDispatch recommendations: If you have a chance, check out “The Tyranny of Defense Inc.,” the latest piece by Andrew Bacevich, author of the bestselling Washington Rules, at the Atlantic.  It was written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (in which he coined the phrase “the military-industrial complex”), but you also find out about an Eisenhower speech you never knew existed.  Don’t miss it.  In addition, let me recommend the Coen brothers’s new film, True Grit.  Having grown up on Westerns, I’m with the between-the-coasts crowd on this one, and thematically I think it fits in perfectly with TomDispatch: a drunken lout of a U.S. Marshall/nation ready to pull a gun on and shoot anyone, and hard to distinguish from the worst of rogues, could nonetheless still be capable of truly heroic acts.  I find that moving and apt.  Tom]

India, a rising power, almost had one (but the Tajiks said no).  China, which last year became the world’s second largest economy as well as the planet’s leading energy consumer, and is expanding abroad like mad (largely via trade and the power of the purse), still has none.  The Russians have a few (in Central Asia where “the great game” is ongoing), as do those former colonial powers Great Britain and France, as do certain NATO countries in Afghanistan.  Sooner or later, Japan may even have one.

All of them together — and maybe you’ve already guessed that I’m talking about military bases not on one’s own territory — add up to a relatively modest (if unknown) total.  The U.S., on the other hand, has enough bases abroad to sink the world.  You almost have the feeling that a single American mega-base like Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan could swallow them all up.  It’s so large that a special Air Force “team” has to be assigned to it just to deal with the mail arriving every day, 360,000 pounds of it in November 2010 alone.  At the same base, the U.S. has just spent $130 million building “a better gas station for aircraft… [a] new refueling system, which features a pair of 1.1-million gallon tanks and two miles of pipes.”  Imagine that: two miles of pipes, thousands of miles from home — and that’s just to scratch the surface of Bagram’s enormity.

Spencer Ackerman of Wired’s Danger Room blog visited the base last August, found that construction was underway everywhere (think hundreds of millions of dollars more from the pockets of U.S. taxpayers), and wrote: “More notable than the overstuffed runways is the over-driven road. [The Western part of] Disney Drive, the main thoroughfare that rings the eight-square-mile base,[…] is a two-lane parking lot of Humvees, flamboyant cargo big-rigs from Pakistan known as jingle trucks, yellow DHL shipping vans, contractor vehicles, and mud-caked flatbeds. If the Navy could figure out a way to bring a littoral-combat ship to a landlocked country, it would idle on Disney.”

Serving 20,000 or more U.S. troops, and with the usual assortment of Burger Kings and Popeyes, the place is nothing short of a U.S. town, bustling in a way increasingly rare for actual American towns these days, part of a planetary military deployment of a sort never before seen in history.  Yet, as various authors at this site have long noted, the staggering size, scope, and strangeness of all this is seldom considered, analyzed, or debated in the American mainstream.  It’s a given, like the sun rising in the east.  And yet, what exactly is that given?  As Nick Turse, who has been following American basing plans for this site over the years, points out, it’s not as easy to answer that question as you might imagine.  (To catch Timothy MacBain’s latest TomCast audio interview in which Turse discusses how to count up America’s empire of bases, click here or, to download it to your iPod, here.) Tom

Empire of Bases 2.0

Does the Pentagon Really Have 1,180 Foreign Bases?

By Nick Turse

The United States has 460 bases overseas! It has 507 permanent bases! What is the U.S doing with more than 560 foreign bases? Why does it have 662 bases abroad? Does the United States really have more than 1,000 military bases across the globe?

In a world of statistics and precision, a world in which “accountability” is now a Washington buzzword, a world where all information is available at the click of a mouse, there’s one number no American knows. Not the president. Not the Pentagon. Not the experts. No one.

The man who wrote the definitive book on it didn’t know for sure. The Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist didn’t even come close. Yours truly has written numerous articles on U.S. military bases and even part of a book on the subject, but failed like the rest.

There are more than 1,000 U.S. military bases dotting the globe. To be specific, the most accurate count is 1,077. Unless it’s 1,088. Or, if you count differently, 1,169. Or even 1,180. Actually, the number might even be higher. Nobody knows for sure.

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