UPDATED: Rise Up! Roots of Liberation – Youth Camp for Justice and Peace

UPDATE: Thanks to a special gift from the Hawai’i Peoples Fund, we able to offer a $150 stipend to participants who successfully complete the program.

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MARCH 1st, 2010

youth camp for justice and peace

March 15 – 19, 2010

Camp Kokokahi, Kane’ohe

Who: Youth ages 15 – 19 with a passion for peace, justice and aloha ‘aina.

What: Be Real: Liberate the power of our histories, cultures and identities.

Be the Change: Gain knowledge and skills to help grow our movement for peace & justice.

Connect: Meet other youth who also care about making Hawai’i and the world a better place.

Download the application forms here.

Program eligibility

Youth the ages of 15-19 years old.
Must be self-motivated and able to work well in a team towards a common goal.
Must have the desire to work for justice and peace, protect the environment.

How to apply

1) Complete the application form. Download the application forms here. Have a teacher/adviser complete the recommendation form. Applicants under 18 years of age must also fill out and return a signed parent permission form .

2) Mail, fax or email your completed application packet to:

Mail: American Friends Service Committee -Hawai’i Area Program

Rise Up! Roots of Liberation – Youth for Justice and Peace

Attn: Kyle Kajihiro

2426 O’ahu Avenue

Honolulu, HI 96822

Fax: 808-988-4876

Email: kkajihiro@afsc.org

Video: Send us an online video of your response to the application form. You must still submit signed teacher/adviser recommendation form and if you are under 18 years of age, a parent/legal guardian permission form.

3) DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS EXTENDED: MARCH 1, 2010

This program is FREE. Spaces are limited. Applicants will be selected based on your application packets. We may also call to interview finalists. Applicants will be notified by March 5, 2010 whether they are admitted to the program.

Thanks to a special gift from the Hawai’i Peoples Fund, we are able to offer a $150 stipend to youth participants who successfully complete the program.

For more information: Call 808-988-6266. Email: kkajihiro@afsc.org

February 2, 2010

Philippines: U.S. military pollution linked to deaths

There are photos and video at the original site.

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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=67676

Decades later, U.S. military pollution in Philippines linked to deaths

By Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes

Pacific edition, Tuesday, February 2, 2010

CLARK AIR BASE, Philippines – The U. S. military is long gone from bases in the Philippines, but its legacy remains buried here.

Toxic waste was spilled on the ground, pumped into waterways and buried in landfills for decades at two sprawling Cold War-era bases.

Today, ice cream shops, Western-style horse ranches, hotels and public parks have sprung up on land once used by the Air Force and the Navy — a benign facade built on land the Philippine government said is still polluted with asbestos, heavy metals and fuel.

Records of about 500 families who sought refuge on the deserted bases after a 1991 volcanic eruption indicate 76 people died and 68 others were sickened by pollutants on the bases. A study in 2000 for the Philippine Senate also linked the toxins to “unusually high occurrence of skin disease, miscarriages, still births, birth defects, cancers, heart ailments and leukemia.”

The 1991 base closing agreement gave the Philippines billions of dollars in military infrastructure and real estate at the bases and in return cleared the United States of any responsibility for the pollution. The Department of Defense told Stars and Stripes it has no authority to undertake or pay for environmental cleanup at the closed bases.

Philippine government efforts never gained traction. Philippine President Joseph Estrada formed a task force in 2000 to take on the issue, but it fell dormant and unfunded after he left office a year later. Efforts by private groups and environmentalists to force a cleanup have largely fizzled.

After two decades, the base closing agreement has run up a troubling environmental record. Filipinos claim exposure to U.S. pollutants has brought suffering and death.

As the U.S. military works to become greener in the 21st century, the Philippines stand as a dark reminder of how environmental responsibilities can go astray overseas.

Both the Air Force and the Navy polluted haphazardly in the Philippines.

The Navy pumped 3.75 million gallons of untreated sewage each day into local fishing and swimming waters at Subic Bay, according to a 1992 report by what was then known as the General Accounting Office.

The bases poured fuel and chemicals from firefighting exercises directly into the water table and used underground storage tanks without leak detection equipment, the agency found.

At least three sites at the Subic Bay Navy base — two landfills and an ordnance disposal area — are dangerously polluted with materials such as asbestos, metals and fuels, the Philippines government found after an environmental survey there.

Clark Air Base was a staging area during the Vietnam War. Its aviation and vehicle operations contaminated eight sites with oil, petroleum lubricants, pesticides, PCB and lead, according to a 1997 environmental survey by the Philippine government.

Before the U.S. closed the bases, it drew up a rough bill for cleaning the hazardous pollution.

Though they never tested the water or soil, the Air Force and the Navy estimated cleanup at each could cost up to $25 million — the average cost of handling the most polluted sites back in the United States, according to the GAO.

Rose Ann Calma is believed to be one of the warning signs of pollution at Clark Air Base.

Now 13 years old, she weighs just 32 pounds and must wear diapers. Cerebral palsy and severe mental retardation have stolen her ability to speak or walk.

Her mother and about 500 other families who were displaced by a volcanic eruption in 1991 moved onto the base and set up a tent village.

They drilled shallow wells on a former motor pool site and drank the untreated water — despite an oily sheen — until they were moved off the land in the late 1990s.

Records of the families, published by the Philippines Senate, said 144 people were sickened at the camp, 76 of whom died.

It said at least 19 children were born with disabilities, diseases and deformities between 1996 and 1999.

Tests in 1995 by the Philippine Department of Health confirmed wells on Clark were contaminated with oil and grease, a byproduct of decades of military use.

“If it is God’s will, then I accept it,” Rose Ann’s mother, Susan Calma, said recently.

In a village near Subic Bay, Norma Abraham, 58, holds an X-ray showing the lung disease that killed her husband, Guillermo.

Her husband worked through the 1980s and early 1990s sorting the Navy waste that went into local landfills, which are the most polluted sites at Subic Bay.

Many aborigines like Abraham, who are among the poorest in a poor country, were paid about 30 cents per day to hand-sort recyclable metals from Navy waste that included asbestos, paint and batteries, villagers told Stars and Stripes.

No protective equipment other than gloves was ever used, and asbestos dust was often thick in the air, the villagers said. Sometimes, when a truck dumped new waste for sorting, they said the workers would faint from the toxic fumes.

Guillermo Abraham began to cough, feel tightness in his lungs and have trouble breathing while working there, his wife said.

The lung ailment plagued him through his life and after an X-ray in January showed he was terminally ill with lung disease, he died on May 29, Norma Abraham said.

His disease, which mirrors asbestosis, is the most common ailment and killer among the 70 or so families who worked with the Navy’s waste, according to the villagers.

The aborigines rarely get quality medical treatment and do not keep birth or death records. But they compiled a list for Stars and Stripes of 41 people who they believe died over the years from toxic exposure.

Any real chance for an environmental cleanup was scuttled by the two governments in the agreement that gave the Philippines billions of dollars in base infrastructure and real estate in return for absolving the United States of any responsibility for the pollution.

As a result, the United States has no legal responsibility or authority to conduct a cleanup, and an influential Philippines politician said that government has little interest in the problem.

“It is not one of its priorities,” said Philippine Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr., a former majority leader and Senate president. “If it was, it would have been done a long time ago.”

Dolly Yanan keeps the records and photos of the gray-faced, emaciated and disabled children believed to have been poisoned by U.S. military pollution in the Subic Bay area.

The records count 38 deaths from disease between 2000 and 2003.

But the record-keeping has begun to lapse in recent years as hope for a cleanup and enthusiasm for the cause recedes.

“For the past four or five years, we cannot track the leukemia,” said Yanan, who runs a community center in Olongapo City.

A coalition of citizens known as the People’s Task Force for Bases Cleanup has fought for U.S. accountability for two decades and met with a string of disappointments.

The Philippine Senate inquiry and task force in 2000 led to no action, and a lawsuit designed to force a U.S.-led environmental assessment survey, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco, was thrown out in 2003.

“If only our government was strong enough, I think there would have been a cleanup or at least an initial assessment,” Yanan said. “First, it should be our government who should have a strong will and call for a cleanup.”

February 2, 2010

Vieques: Two daughters with cancer: Is the U.S. to blame?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/01/vieques.illness.part.2/

Two daughters with cancer: Is the U.S. to blame?

By Abbie Boudreau and Scott Bronstein, CNN Special Investigations Unit

February 2, 2010 11:03 a.m. EST

Meet a mother from Vieques and her two daughters who both suffer from cancer on tonight’s Campbell Brown, 8 ET

Vieques, Puerto Rico (CNN) — Each day after work, Nanette Rosa takes her two daughters to feed their horses. It’s their favorite part of the day — a time they don’t think about pain.

“It’s really difficult for my mom to have two daughters with cancer,” said 16-year-old Coral, the older daughter. “Because sometimes she’s got two of us in the hospital at the same time, and we both get sick at the same time. And sometimes she doesn’t have anyone to help her, and it really affects her.”

The Rosas live on Vieques, an American island off Puerto Rico. For nearly 60 years, the U.S. military used much of the island as a bombing range, dropping vast quantities of live bombs and missiles in weapons tests. Now, about three-quarters of the island’s residents — including Coral and her 14-year-old sister Inna — are part of a lawsuit that claims the bombing range made them sick.

“There’s a lot of people here dying of cancer,” Coral said. “I have my little cousin dying of cancer. I have my sister that has cancer. My boyfriend’s mom died of cancer. His dad has cancer of the skin. A lot of people are suffering here of cancer, ’cause what they did here in Vieques.”

As a toddler, Coral was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer that afflicts younger children. Her mother says much of Coral’s stomach and intestines had to be replaced as a result of the cancer.

“Almost everything is plastic,” Nanette Rosa said. “So when she eats certain foods, it produces diarrhea, which has caused dehydration. She gets sick a lot, and certain foods she cannot eat like regular people.”

The operations have left Coral with a six-inch gash across her stomach, along with emotional scars.

“Sometimes I feel sad, ’cause everybody calls me ‘plastic intestines,’ ” she said. “They say, ‘Oh, you have a plastic belly.’ And I tell them, ‘You know what? If you were in this condition, how would you feel?’ ”

And doctors found a large tumor in Inna’s mouth when she was 7.

“It was very swollen, and it looked like there was a big ball of gum in my mouth or a big lollipop,” she said. “I started having pain, and the only thing that would come out was blood.”

Inna was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a bone cancer. John Eaves Jr., who represents Coral, Inna and other islanders in the lawsuit against the federal government, told CNN, “There is suffering throughout this island.”

“You cannot walk down the street on this island without counting every house and knowing two or three people on the street that have cancer, or have had cancer, or have died from cancer,” Eaves said. “But for me, the most disturbing thing is the number of children on this island that have terminal cancer.”

Eaves, of Mississippi, has taken more than 1,300 hair samples from Vieques residents and had them tested for heavy metals. About 80 percent of the hair samples tested positive for heavy metals. Many of the results show levels of toxic elements in people that are literally off the charts — the lines representing substances like lead, mercury, arsenic, aluminum and cadmium extend beyond the “dangerous” area and out of the grid entirely.

“These hair samples, I believe, are the strongest proof that the contaminants — the things that were in the bombs, like the lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum — are now in the people,” Eaves said.

Behind one of those charts is 7-year-old Taishmalee Ramos-Cruz, whose hair was tested when she was 2. Taishmalee’s parents say she had been very sick, and they fear she may get sick again.”

There is suffering throughout this island.

–John Eaves Jr

“She looked like she had chemotherapy. She lost all her hair, and she had these spots on her legs,” her father told CNN. “She also had bad trouble using her fingers properly for a long time.”

Eaves said he was not surprised to learn of the problems Taishmalee has experienced.

“Unfortunately, we have seen many children on Vieques with similar problems,” he said. “And she may still get sick again. We don’t know if she will get cancer later.”

Dr. Carmen Ortiz Roque, a Harvard-trained epidemiologist, has studied the Vieques population for years. She and other scientists have been deposed in the lawsuit.

“The human population of Vieques is by far the sickest human population that I’ve ever worked with,” said Ortiz, who practices in San Juan. “These people are very sick very early, and dying earlier. So something is happening there.”

Ortiz has compiled statistics for the Vieques population that she and other scientists find alarming.

“It’s astonishing,” she said. “They die 30 percent higher of cancer, 45 percent higher of diabetes, 95 percent higher of liver disease, and 381 percent higher of hypertension than the rest of Puerto Ricans.”

Ortiz’ findings are supported by and are now used by the Puerto Rico Department of Health as an indicator of health problems for the people of Vieques. She also found disturbing statistics on mercury levels in the Vieques population — levels that are much higher than the rest of Puerto Rico.

“Twenty-seven percent of the women in Vieques have enough mercury to damage their baby’s brain. That is very significant.” she said. “This is very serious, given that mercury causes permanent damage and mental retardation in children and that the hair samples are a standard way of measuring this exposure in women in the reproductive age.”

She said her sampling of children 5 and under in Vieques had “at least six times higher levels of mercury exposure than children sampled in the United States.”

Dr. John Wargo, a Yale University expert on the effects of toxic exposure on human health, said he believes contamination from the bombing range has caused illnesses among Vieques residents.

“The chemicals released on the island have the capacity to induce cancer, to damage the nervous system, to cause reproductive damage, mutations, genetic damage, and also to harm the immune system,” said Wargo, who is slated to testify as an expert witness in the islanders’ lawsuit.

In 2003, scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded there was no link between the U.S. military activity on Vieques and the health problems suffered by the island’s population. The scientists were from the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry (ATSDR) division, which studies the nation’s toxic superfund sites.

Numerous scientists and federal lawmakers have since publicly criticized the 2003 report on Vieques.

Howard Frumkin, director of the ATSDR, was grilled at a House science and technology subcommittee hearing last year over the effectiveness of the agency and its handling of the Vieques and other questionable sites. In a report released just two days before the March 12 hearing, the subcommittee found that “time and time again ATSDR appears to avoid clearly and directly confronting the most obvious toxic culprits that harm the health of local communities throughout the nation.

“Instead, they deny, delay, minimize, trivialize or ignore legitimate concerns and health considerations of local communities and well-respected scientists and medical professionals.”

And in November, a group of at least seven scientists, including Ortiz and Wargo, called on ATSDR to conduct more research on the Vieques. ATSDR later that month announced it would take a “fresh look” at Vieques and conduct new studies to determine whether the Navy’s contamination at Vieques made people sick.

In January, ATSDR’s Frumkin was reassigned.

In response to the islander’s lawsuit, the U.S. government is invoking sovereign immunity, claiming the islanders do not have the right to sue the government and that there’s no proof that the Navy’s activities caused the widespread illnesses.

For the sick residents of Vieques there is no time to lose.

“What I want is people to get medicine and help here,” said Inna. “I know how people are suffering in this island. I see people in the streets and poor people living like wild things. And there’s kids dying on the street. It’s not good.”

February 2, 2010

Thousands gather in Tokyo for Military-base-free Okinawa

Here’s a great report on the demonstration in Tokyo in solidarity with Okinawa. The event, along with a tandem event was organized by a new group US for Okianwa. The group includes many expatriates from the US and other countries living in Japan:

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http://tenthousandthingsfromkyoto.blogspot.com/2010/01/us-for-okinawa-peace-action-network.html

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Thousands gather over weekend in Tokyo to support a military base-free Okinawa

Attendees at Saturday’s Hibiya Park rally wearing handmade hats symbolizing the kuina, a bird native to Okinawa’s Yanbaru forest that is presently threatened by U.S. military construction

Over 6,000 people attended a rally and march in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park on Saturday to reject plans for construction of U.S. military facilities in the ecologically sensitive areas of Henoko near Oura Bay, and Takae village in the Yanbaru forest. Consisting primarily of labor groups, students, peace organizations, and a collection of other activists and citizens, the crowd also called for various additional anti-military initiatives including the closing down of nuclear power plants, revision of Japan’s policy toward North Korea, and the dismantling of the Japan-US Security Treaty.

Left: “STOP genpatsu (nuclear power)”

National Public Radio in the United States ran a story about the event here.

At the pre-march gathering, an older woman shyly approached me and offered me a small folded origami box containing a collection of origami Totoro figures from the popular environmentally-themed manga “My Neighbor Totoro”, which she explained that she folded to express her hopes for the preservation of nature to triumph over the use of land for military purposes.Although I cannot be sure, I suspect that this gift—as well as the several smiles and thumbs-up that I received from other parade-goers—were given to me because I was one of only a handful of other obvious-looking foreigners who seemed to be in attendance at the rally.

Conscious of this need to show support among foreigners in Japan for Okinawa’s self-determination regarding the military base issue, the recently established US for Okinawa Peace Action Network held its own peace action the next day across town in Yoyogi Park. (“US is pronounced “us”, as in “you, me and everyone.”)
Photo by Meri Joyce

Attended by people from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere, the network’s first-ever event included a photo exhibition and a FAQ sheet including information on social and environmental damage resulting from U.S. military bases in Okinawa, as well as countries such as Vietnam and Iraq where Okinawa-based soldiers have been sent; a live painting station accompanied by didgeridoo music; and a reading aloud of the following message for the assembled crowd:

All of us at the peace action network, US for OKINAWA, have assembled here in the park today to express our concern about the enormous burden that U.S. military bases are placing on Okinawa.

Already, U.S. military facilities occupy nearly 20% of Okinawa Island, and even the U.S. and Japanese governments agree that Futenma Air Base poses a great safety risk to nearby residents and agree it should be closed.

However, we are appalled that closing Futenma is contingent upon constructing new military facilities in Henoko, another part of Okinawa Island.

A majority of local residents in Henoko are strongly opposed to this new construction, and we can understand why. It would simply shift the problems of contamination, noise pollution, and safety hazards from one part of Okinawa to another, and would also destroy much of the fragile ecoystem of Oura Bay. This will likely lead to the extinction of the dugong from Japan, as well as yet again deny Okinawans access to part of their traditional land and water.

We want you all to take a moment to imagine Yoyogi Park being appropriated from the general public in order to construct a new military base here. Imagine this park being surrounded by barbed wire and soldiers who will threaten you if you enter it without permission of the U.S. government. Imagine all the beautiful trees being cut down to create runways, shooting ranges, and weapon stockpiles. This is just an imaginary scenario for us, but this is basically what the people of Okinawa have experienced and are being threatened with yet again.

It’s time for the U.S. to engage with the rest of the world through more diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties rather than primarily military. It’s time for the U.S. to stop adding to its collection of 1,000 military bases around the world. These bases simply provoke more militarization around the world and destroy our natural world. And it’s time for the Japanese government to say loud and clear: “Shut down Futenma” and “No more new military construction in Okinawa.”

A petition was also circulated calling for the following:

For more than 60 years, military bases in Okinawa have threatened the safety of local residents, contaminated and destroyed the natural environment, and denied Okinawans access to much of their land, oceans and airways. Futenma, the most dangerous of these bases, should be closed and reverted back to use for civilian purposes. Closure of Futenma should not be contingent on the construction of yet another new U.S. military base in the Henoko District of Okinawa—nor anywhere else in Okinawa. We call upon the U.S. and Japanese governments to listen to the people of Okinawa who have long been protesting the burden of these bases on their island. No more Futenma, no more new bases in Okinawa, no more appropriation of land and water from island peoples for military use!

Okinawa newspaper Ryuku Shimpo ran an article about Sunday’s action here.

Upcoming network actions include sending a letter to President Obama making clear the network’s position on the issue of U.S. military bases in Okinawa, and the organization of a study tour to Okinawa in the spring for Americans and other foreigners who wish to learn more about the issue of U.S. military bases and their impact upon local communities.

For further information and updates, visit the network’s blog.– Post and photos by Kimberly Hughes

February 1, 2010

Vieques: Island residents sue U.S., saying military made them sick

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/02/01/vieques.illness/?hpt=C1&imw=Y

Island residents sue U.S., saying military made them sick

By Abbie Boudreau and Scott Bronstein,

CNN Special Investigations Unit

February 1, 2010 — Updated 2103 GMT (0503 HKT)

Vieques, Puerto Rico (CNN) — Nearly 40 years ago, Hermogenes Marrero was a teenage U.S. Marine, stationed as a security guard on the tiny American island of Vieques, off the coast of Puerto Rico.

Marrero says he’s been sick ever since. At age 57, the former Marine sergeant is nearly blind, needs an oxygen tank, has Lou Gehrig’s disease and crippling back problems, and sometimes needs a wheelchair.

“I’d go out to the firing range, and sometimes I’d start bleeding automatically from my nose,” he said in an interview to air on Monday night’s “Campbell Brown.”

“I said, ‘My God, why am I bleeding?’ So then I’d leave the range, and it stops. I come back, and maybe I’m vomiting now. I used to get diarrhea, pains in my stomach all the time. Headaches — I mean, tremendous headaches. My vision, I used to get blurry.”

The decorated former Marine is now the star witness in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit by more than 7,000 residents of this Caribbean island — about three-quarters of its population — who say that what the U.S. military did on Vieques has made them sick.

For nearly six decades, beginning right after World War II, Vieques was one of the Navy’s largest firing ranges and weapons testing sites.

“Inside the base, you could feel the ground — the ground moving,” Marrero said. “You can hear the concussions. You could feel it. If you’re on the range, you could feel it in your chest. That’s the concussion from the explosion. It would rain, actually rain, bombs. And this would go on seven days a week.”

After years of controversy and protest, the Navy left Vieques in 2003. Today, much of the base is demolished, and what’s left is largely overgrown. But the lawsuit remains, and island residents want help and compensation for numerous illnesses they say they suffer.

“The people need the truth to understand what is happening to their bodies,” said John Eaves Jr., the Mississippi attorney who represents the islanders in the lawsuit.

Because he no longer lives on Vieques, Marrero is not one of the plaintiffs but has given sworn testimony in the case. He said the weapons used on the island included napalm; depleted uranium, a heavy metal used in armor-piercing ammunition; and Agent Orange, the defoliant used on the Vietnamese jungles that was later linked to cancer and other illnesses in veterans.

“We used to store it in the hazardous material area,” Marrero said. It was used in Vieques as a defoliant for the fence line.

The military has never acknowledged a link between Marrero’s ailments and his time at Vieques, so he receives few disability or medical benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Neither the Navy nor the Justice Department, which is handling the government’s defense, would discuss the islanders’ lawsuit with CNN.

But Eaves said his clients don’t believe that the military has fully disclosed the extent of the contamination on Vieques: “Like uranium was denied, then they admitted it.”

Dr. John Wargo, a Yale professor who studies the effects of toxic exposures on human health, says he believes that people on the island are sick because of the Navy’s bombing range.

Vieques … is probably one of the most highly contaminated sites in the world.

–Dr. John Wargo

“Vieques, in my experience of studying toxic substances, is probably one of the most highly contaminated sites in the world,” he said. “This results from the longevity of the chemical release, the bombs, the artillery shells, chemical weapons, biological weapons, fuels, diesel fuels, jet fuels, flame retardants. These have all been released on the island, some at great intensity.”

Wargo is the author of a new book, “Green Intelligence,” on how environments and toxic exposure affect human health. He is also expected to testify as an expert witness in the islanders’ lawsuit.

He said the chemicals released by the munitions dropped on Vieques can be dangerous to human health and may well have sickened residents or veterans who served on the island.

“In my own mind, I think the islanders experienced higher levels of exposure to these substances than would be experienced in any other environment,” Wargo said. “In my own belief, I think the illnesses are related to these exposures.”

The effects of those chemicals could include cancer, damage to the nervous, immune and reproductive systems or birth defects, he said.

“This doesn’t prove that the exposures caused those specific illnesses,” Wargo added. “But it’s a pretty convincing story from my perspective.”

Since the Navy left the island, munitions it left behind “continue to leak, particularly from the east end of the island,” Wargo said.

“My concerns are now predominantly what’s happening in the coastal waters, which provide habitat for an array of fish, many species of which are often consumed by the population on the island,” he said.

Scientists from the University of Georgia have documented the extent of the numerous unexploded ordinance and bombs that continue to litter the former bomb site and the surrounding waters. The leftover bombs continue to corrode, leaching dangerously high levels of carcinogens, according to researcher James Porter, associate dean of the university’s Odum School of Ecology.

The Environmental Protection Agency designated parts of Vieques a Superfund toxic site in 2005, requiring the Navy to begin cleaning up its former bombing range. The service identified many thousands of unexploded munitions and set about blowing them up. But the cleanup effort has further outraged some islanders, who fear that more toxic chemicals will be released.

The U.S. government’s response to their lawsuit is to invoke sovereign immunity, arguing that residents have no right to sue it. The government also disputes that the Navy’s activities on Vieques made islanders ill, citing a 2003 study by scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found no link.

That study, however, has been harshly criticized by numerous scientists, and the CDC is embarking on a new effort to determine whether residents may have been sickened by the contamination from the Navy range.

Asked whether his duty on the island made him sick, Marrero responds, “Of course it did.”

“This is American territory. The people that live here are American,” he said. “You hurt someone, you have to take care of that person. And the government’s just not doing anything about it.”

January 31, 2010

News Update from Jeju anti-bases protest

Below is an email update from Sung-Hee Choi, a South Korean peace activist and blogger for the No Bases Stories Korea about the anti-bases struggle in Jeju, a world peace island. There have been developments indicating that international pressure is having an effect on the South Korean government’s plans to break ground on a new naval base in the town of Gangjeong in Jeju. The base will become another node in the U.S. missile defense network.

* Image source: Seogwipo Daily News paper

* In the photo, the banner says, ‘We oppose the Jeju naval base in the beautiful village, Gangjeong,’
while the yellow flag says, ‘Desperately No Naval base’

>><<

	from	Sung-Hee Choi <armha5156@gmail.com>
reply-to		ap-nobases@lists.riseup.net, Sung-Hee Choi <armha5156@gmail.com>

date		Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 4:10 PM
subject		[ap-nobases] [ No US base] Ceremony for the Jeju naval base has been abruptly delayed to no defined term but we are watching

Dear all,

Sorry for the late notice. And thanks very much for all your support and concern. I am currently collecting all the solidarity messages huge in my email box. It takes some time but I will let you know once it is completed. I wanted to inform this with more updated news but some of you have so gratefully concerned as to join the people’s protest on Feb. 5, I am hurrying to send this.

The South Korean Navy ceremony to start the work on the Jeju naval base construction, planned on Feb. 5, was heard on Feb. 28, 2010 to be delayed, at least within the end of February (desired by the navy). But the Jeju government is more cautious to watch the public opinion.

The Jeju media itself is questioning whether it is for the Prime Minister’s schedule for the provisionary assembly early February (as the navy reasoned) or the Jeju government’s appeal to the central government, to accept people’s demand to delay the ceremony until the result of the people’s lawsuit and to have the time to persuade people for the naval base (as the Jeju government officially says, believe or not)

Has the influence of Bruce Gagnon’s petition affected their decision as the main Jeju media have reported about the process of petition (now closed) and flooding international solidarity messages in the big portions? I personally cautiously guess, yes.

For detail on the news.

http://nobasestorieskorea.blogspot.com/2010/01/text-fwd-ceremony-for-naval-base.html

A Jeju activist says Jeju governor might have decided that political decision regarding the local election in June, that he did not want to make noise on the naval base issue, before it.

He says Catholic fathers’ demand to the Jeju government to delay the ceremony at least until the result of the lawsuit, might have also contributed.

Another Jeju activist says one of the reasons that the ceremony was delayed might be because of the spread news of the taking away of the 47 Gangjeong village people and other people on Jan. 18, made the public opinion to be disadvantageous to the Defense Department and Jeju government.

She says the news of the ceremony delay makes the position of the village people more advantageous because the people’s attorney has said that even if people won on the administrative lawsuit but the ceremony was enforced on Feb. 5, there would be less possibility of the preventing the naval base, from the situation point of view.

Since the ceremony was delayed whatever reason the Jeju people are now talking about how to make the lawsuit success. She says some international solidarity messages would be combined for part of the presentations to the court to strengthen the people’s position. It is all thanks to you and we are so grateful of you!

We should be cautious though for any unexpected chamges. We will watch it and inform to you.

Currently all the news I know is forwarded here. It will alos compensate the other sites later.

http://nobasestorieskorea.blogspot.com/2010/01/news-update-struggle-against-jeju-naval.html

Thanks so much all of you, again.

Sung-Hee Choi

From Korea

Friday, January 29, 2010

Text Fwd: [Jeju] The ceremony for the Naval Base, planned on Feb. 5, was abruptly delayed to no defined term

* According to Seogwipo newspaper on the date of Jan. 28, the Gangjeong village council has set up the tents
[photos here] on Jan. 27, in the planned area of the ceremony on Feb. 5
(as of Jan. 28, it was announced to be postponed) to oppose the naval base construction.
The newspaper says the potential accidents following an enforced ceremony are concerned about
because the village people are protesting through the tent vigil. It also says the ceremony would be held in the
Jeju naval base construction planned area of the empty land which is western side of near the Poonglim Condo.

* It is the translation of part of the Sisa Jeju article on Jan. 28:

‘How do the Gangjeong village people think about
the postponement of the ceremony for the naval base?
Mayor, Kang Dong Kyun showed the skeptical response to the position of Jeju Island that the Island position had been accepted. Mayor Kang saying that, “ It can not be that the ceremony was postponed, hearing Kim Tae-Hwan, the Island governor”, analyzed that, “ There might have been the factors of the Prime Minister Chung Un-Chan’s busy schedule or other stories.” Even though saying that, he told, “If [the governor] delivered to the central government his position that the naval base business should be driven, reflecting up-most of our views that the ceremony should be postponed [at least] after the court decision of the administrative lawsuit. We will watch [him]. Mayor Kang saying,“the ceremony for the naval base was only for a while postponed”, emphasized that, “The view of the Gangjeong village people, [that there should be no naval base] has not changed.”

* Below is the arbitrary translation of the Media Jeju on Jan. 28, 2010.

Media Jeju
The ceremony to start the work on the naval base construction, planned on Feb. 5, this year, was abruptly delayed to no defined term:
The Jeju Island says it “requested to the navy because there remained the problem of the process”
Jan. 28, 2010, Media Jeju, Kim Doo-Young reporter (kdy84 (at) mediajeju.com)

According to the Jeju naval base business committee on Jan. 28, the ceremony to start to work of the so called, civilian-military complex beauty tourism sea port was delayed, by the request of the Jeju Island.

The Jeju Self-Governing Island stated [on Feb. 28] through the separate press release that, [the Island] “delivered the message to the central government, regarding the Jeju naval base business last [Feb.] 22nd, of its position that the change of the ceremony date is unavoidable, because the administrative procedures such as the discussions on the permission of the reclamation on the public sea area and land compensation are still being processed and because the lawsuit for the confirmation on the cancellation of the approval on the executive plan of the defense & military facility, has been submitted”

The Jeju Self-Governing Island explained that [the Island] “ decided such position, for up-most reflecting the claim of the Gangjeong village people, that the ceremony should be delayed at least after the court decision on the administrative lawsuit, for preventing the cause of the villagers’ conflict, and for the decision that the business should be driven with the Jeju Island people’s understanding [of the naval base construction business.”

The Commander, Park Sung-Soo, of the Jeju naval base business committee announced the reason of the postponement of the [construction] of the naval base that, “ Because the visit by the Prime Minister [on Feb. 5] seemed difficult so there was the need to adjust the schedule and because there was the request by the Jeju Island to reflect the position and emotion of the Jeju Island people, the postponement [of the ceremony] was decided.”

Following that decision, the ceremony to start the work on the Jeju naval base construction is expected to be realized after the court decision on the administrative lawsuit against the Minister of the National Defense department, which is mooring in the Seoul Administrative Court.

* According to a Jeju activist, the above lawsuit was applied in April, last year, and is expected to be brought with the court decision around the end of the February. The lawsuit is different from the mentioned yesterday, which was raised on Feb. 25, 2010.

# Mayor, Kang says, he was “embarrassed by the abrupt postponement [of the ceremony] but thought it was fortunate.”

Kang Dong Kyun, Gangjeong village mayor, said by phone with the Media Jeju that, “ [I was] embarrassed by the abrupt postponement of the ceremony but think it is fortunate now, in the first place.”

Mayor Kang saying, “Because the administrative lawsuit is on process, [I hope] that the ceremony to start to work on the naval base construction would be dated as possible as after the court decision of the administrative lawsuit’, told that, “ Only after the administrative lawsuit is finished, we will decide the program ahead, following the result [of the court decision] whether we will win or lose.”

While the conflicts are being intensified as the Gangjeong village people who have protested against the naval base construction ceremony, have been taken away to the police stations, the result ahead whether the postponement of the ceremony which was for partly accepting the demand of the Gangjeong village people, would be the beginning of the resolution of the conflict around the naval base or not, is to be noticed.

January 31, 2010

U.S. expands missile sites in Persian Gulf

Very disturbing movement by the U.S. to deploy missile launch sites throughout the middle east and eastern Europe.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100131/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_gulf_defenses

US upgrades defense of Persian Gulf allies

By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer Robert Burns, Ap National Security Writer – Sun Jan 31, 7:31 am ET

WASHINGTON – The United States has begun beefing up its approach to defending its Persian Gulf allies against potential Iranian missile strikes, officials say. The defenses are being stepped up in advance of possible increased sanctions against Iran.

The Obama administration has quietly increased the capability of land-based Patriot defensive missiles in several Gulf Arab nations, and one military official said the Navy is increasing the presence of ships capable of knocking out hostile missiles in flight.

The officials discussed aspects of the defensive strategy Saturday on condition of anonymity because some elements are classified.

The moves, part of a broader adjustment in the U.S. approach to missile defense, including in Europe and Asia have been in the works for months. Details have not been publicly announced, in part because of diplomatic sensitivities in Gulf countries which worry about Iranian military capabilities but are cautious about acknowledging U.S. protection.

The White House will send a review of ballistic missile strategy to Congress on Monday that frames the larger shifts. Attention to defense of the Persian Gulf region, a focus on diffuse networks of sensors and weapons and cooperation with Russia are major elements of the study, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Russia opposed Bush administration plans for a land-based missile defense site in Eastern Europe, and President Barack Obama’s decision to walk away from that plan last year was partly in pursuit of new capabilities that might hold greater promise and partly in deference to Russia.

One military official said the adjustments in the Gulf should be seen as prudent defensive measures designed to deter Iran from taking aggressive action in the region, more than as a signal that Washington expects Iran to retaliate for any additional sanctions.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton consulted with numerous allies during a visit to London this week. She told reporters that the evident failure of U.S. offers to engage Iran in negotiations over its nuclear program means the U.S. will now press for additional sanctions against the Iranian government.

Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. Central Command chief who is responsible for U.S. military operations across the Middle East, mentioned in several recent public speeches one element of the defensive strategy in the Gulf: upgrading Patriot missile systems, which originally were deployed in the region to shoot down aircraft but now can hit missiles in flight.

In remarks at Georgetown Law School on Jan. 21, Petraeus said the U.S. now has eight Patriot missile batteries stationed in the Gulf region — two each in four countries. He did not name the countries, but Kuwait has long been known to have Patriots on its territory.

A military official said Saturday that the three other countries are the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain — which also hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters — and Qatar, home to a modernized U.S. air operations center that has played a key role in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

___

Associated Press writers Anne Flaherty and Anne Gearan contributed to this report.

January 31, 2010

Russia warns U.S. about “reckless” missile deployment in Poland

http://www.thenews.pl/international/artykul124661_russia-will-not-just-watch-patriot-missiles-deployed.html

Russia will not just watch Patriot missiles deployed

Friday, January 29, 2010

Russia’s ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin, warned on Friday that his country will not passively watch the deployment of a U.S. Patriot missile battery in Poland.

The US will supply the Patriots and 100 troops in Poland this year, to be stationed not far from the Russian Kaliningrad border.

“Do they really think that we will calmly watch the location of a rocket system, at a distance of 60 km from Kaliningrad?”, the Russian diplomat said Friday.

Rogozin refused to clarify what the response of the Russian side would be to the deployment. “It is a matter for the military,” is all he would say.

According to the ambassador, the decision to deploy Patriots in Poland is “reckless”.

Rogozin said that Moscow is consulting with Warsaw and Washington on the matter, using both diplomatic and military channels. “We hope that the decision will be reviewed,” he stressed.

Last Friday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that he did not understand the plan to deploy Patriot missiles in Poland. “Why create the impression that Poland is strengthened [its defences] against Russia?”

Earlier, a Russian Navy spokesperson announced that Russia’s Baltic Fleet would be strengthened although this was not confirmed by the Kremlin.

January 31, 2010

U.S. Moves missiles and troops to the Russian Border

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/with-nuclear-conventional-arms-pacts-stalled-u-s-moves-missiles-and-troops-to-russian-border/

January 22, 2010

With Nuclear, Conventional Arms Pacts Stalled, U.S. Moves Missiles And Troops To Russian Border

Rick Rozoff

2010 is proceeding in a manner more befitting the third month of the year, named after the Roman god of war, than the first whose name is derived from a pacific deity.

On January 13 the Associated Press reported that the White House will submit its Quadrennial Defense Review to Congress on February 1 and request a record-high $708 billion for the Pentagon. That figure is the highest in absolute and in inflation-adjusted, constant (for any year) dollars since 1946, the year after the Second World War ended. Adding non-Pentagon defense-related spending, the total may exceed $1 trillion.

The $708 billion includes for the first time monies for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which in prior years were in part funded by periodic supplemental requests, but excludes what the above-mentioned report adds is the first in the new administration’s emergency requests for the same purpose: A purported $33 billion.

Already this month several NATO nations have pledged more troops, even before the January 28 London conference on Afghanistan when several thousand additional forces may be assigned for the war there, in addition to over 150,000 already serving or soon to serve under U.S. and NATO command.

Washington has increased lethal drone missile attacks in Pakistan, and calls for that model to be replicated in Yemen have been made recently, most notably by Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who on January 13 also advocated air strikes and special forces operations in the country. [1]

The Pentagon will begin the deployment of 1,400 personnel to Colombia to man seven new bases under a 10-year military agreement signed last October 30. [2]

This year the U.S. will also complete the $110 million dollar construction of new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania to house at least 4,000 American troops. [3]

The Pentagon’s newest regional command, Africa Command, will expand its activities on and off the coasts of that continent beyond current counterinsurgency operations in Somalia, Mali and Uganda and drone flights from a newly acquired site in Seychelles. [4]

But this month has brought even more dramatic and dangerous news. The Pentagon has authorized the completion of a $6.5 billion arms deal with Taiwan with an agreement to deliver 200 Patriot Advanced Capability anti-ballistic missiles. The People’s Republic of China is infuriated, as Washington would be if the situation were reversed and Beijing provided a comparable arsenal of weapons to, for example, an independent Puerto Rico. [5]

As though that action was not provocative enough however, on January 20 the Polish Defense Ministry announced that a U.S. Patriot missile battery, and the 100 American soldiers who will operate it, would not be based on the outskirts of the capital of Warsaw as previously announced but in the Baltic Sea city of Morag, 35 miles [6] from Poland’s border with Russia.

The missile battery and troops are scheduled to arrive in March or April. As part of the Obama administration’s new missile shield project, one which will be integrated with NATO to take in all of Europe and extend into the Middle East and the Caucasus, the Patriots will be followed by Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor deployments on warships in the Baltic Sea and, for the first time ever, a land-based version of the same. “The Pentagon will deploy command posts of SM-3 missiles, which can intercept both short- and mid-range missiles….” [7] An SM-3 was used by the Pentagon to shoot a satellite out of orbit in February of 2008 to give an indication of its range.

Further deployments will follow.

The new, post-George W. Bush administration, interceptor missile system will employ “existing missile systems based on land and at sea….Deployment of the revised missile defense would extend through 2020. The first step is to put existing sea-based weapons systems on Aegis-class destroyers and cruisers. [8]

“Subsequently, a mobile radar system would be deployed in a European nation….More advanced, mobile systems would be put in place later elsewhere in Europe. Their centerpiece would be…Lockheed’s Terminal High Altitude Defense interceptor missiles and improved Standard Missile-3 IB missiles made by…Raytheon.” [9]

Last December Washington signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that formalizes plans for “the United States military to station American troops and military equipment on Polish territory” and “opens the way for the promised Patriot missiles and US troops to be stationed in Poland…as part of an upgrading of NATO air defences in Europe.” [10]

In October, shortly after U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden visited Warsaw to finalize the plan, Polish Deputy Defense Minister Stanislaw Komorowski met with his opposite number from the U.S., Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Alexander Vershbow, and announced that the American missiles “will be combat-ready, not dummy varieties as Washington earlier suggested.” The same report added that “Earlier, Ukrainian and American officials stated that Ukrainian territory may be used in some way in the new antimissile shield.” [11] Poland borders Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave, but Ukraine has a 1,576 kilometer (979 mile) border with Russia.

The State Department issued a press release on the agreement to deploy American troops to Poland, the first foreign forces to be based there since the end of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, which stated “The agreement will facilitate a range of mutually agreed activities including joint training and exercises, deployments of U.S. military personnel, and prospective Ballistic Missile Defense deployments.” [12]

A Pentagon spokesperson said “U.S. Army Europe will help the Polish Armed Forces develop their air and missile defense capabilities. Considering the cooperative training we already do with the Polish Armed Forces, this Patriot training program is just another extension of that effort.” [13]

If earlier plans to deploy ground-based midcourse missiles to Poland evoked, however implausibly, an alleged Iranian missile threat, the Patriots can only be meant for Russia.

Russian Lieutenant-General Aitech Bizhev, former commander of the United Air Defense System of the Commonwealth of Independent States, told one of his nation’s main news agencies:

“It’s completely unclear why the air defense group of the northern flank of NATO needed strengthening – NATO has manifold superiority over Russian conventional armaments as it is.

“It can’t be ruled out that the stationing of the Patriots in Poland may be followed by other actions in building up the American military infrastructure in Eastern Europe….” [14]

The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms expired on December 5 and has been extended, but no agreement has been reached on a new pact, 48 days later.

At the end of last year Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was asked about the delay and identified the main impediment to resolving it: “What is the problem? The problem is that our American partners are building an anti-missile shield and we are not building one.”

He further defined the problem: “If we are not developing an anti-missile shield, then there is a danger that our partners, by creating such ‘an umbrella,’ will feel completely secure and thus can allow themselves to do what they want, disrupting the balance, and aggressiveness will rise immediately.”

In respect to how prospects for the reduction, much less elimination, of nuclear arms in Europe and North America were faring, Putin added, “In order to preserve balance…we need to develop offensive weapons systems,” [15] reiterating a statement by his nation’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, a week before. The timing of the announcement that the Pentagon will soon station Patriot missiles so close to Russian territory will not help matters. Nor was the State Department’s contention that “the START follow-on agreement is not the appropriate vehicle for addressing” the issue of “missile offense and defense.” [16]

A month before, Russian news media revealed that “Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces (SMF), the land-based component of the nuclear triad, will put on combat duty a second regiment equipped with Topol-M mobile missile systems by the end of 2009.

“The Topol-M missile, with a range of about 7,000 miles (11,000 km), is said to be immune to any current and future U.S. ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] defense. It is capable of making evasive maneuvers to avoid a kill using terminal phase interceptors [for example Patriot missiles], and carries targeting countermeasures and decoys.” [17]

Just as supplying Taiwan with Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) theater anti-ballistic missiles led China to conduct a ground-based, midcourse missile interception on January 11, so moving U.S. military hardware and troops nearer Russia bodes poorly for a nuclear arms reduction agreement.

On the non-strategic front, the 1990 Treaty On Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) limiting the amount and expansion of major armaments on the continent is also seriously jeopardized by U.S. and NATO missile shield plans. The adapted CFE (Agreement on Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe) of 1999 has not been ratified by any member of NATO, which has linked it with so-called frozen conflicts in the former Soviet Union. The August 2008 Georgia-Russia war was a consequence of that obstructionist and belligerent policy. The establishment of permanent U.S. and NATO military bases in Kosovo, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania and now Poland is a gross violation of and may prove the death knell for the CFE.

Russia suspended the observance of its treaty obligations under the CFE on July 14, 2007 because of “extraordinary circumstances…which affect the security of the Russian Federation and require immediate measures.” [18]

The circumstances alluded to were the U.S. project of establishing missile interception facilities in Eastern Europe and the general movement of NATO bases and forces to the Baltic and Black Sea regions.

On November 29 of last year Russia “released a draft of a proposal for a new European security agreement the Kremlin says should replace outdated institutions such as NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).” [19]

Chinese analysts Yu Maofeng and Lu Jingli contend that Moscow was motivated by its concerns over U.S. and NATO missile plans, NATO’s eastward expansion to its borders, the 1999 war against Yugoslavia, Western-sponsored “color revolutions” in other former Soviet states and NATO members’ non-ratification of the Treaty On Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. [20]

For the past thirty years each successive American president has unveiled an ostensible plan to eliminate nuclear weapons, if none before now has received the Nobel Peace Prize while in office [21]. Each in turn then escalated reckless arms buildups and armed aggression abroad in an effort to achieve global military dominance. The current U.S. commander-in-chief with his foreign policy entourage of Robert Gates, James Jones and Hillary Clinton is no exception. [22]

1) Yemen: Pentagon’s War On The Arabian Peninsula, Stop NATO, December 15, 2009 <http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/yemen-pentagons-war-on-the-arabian-peninsula>

2) Rumors Of Coups And War: U.S., NATO Target Latin America, Stop NATO, November 18, 2009 <http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/rumors-of-coups-and-war-u-s-nato-target-latin-america>

3) Bulgaria, Romania: U.S., NATO Bases For War In The East, Stop NATO, October 24, 2009 <http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/bulgaria-romania-u-s-nato-bases-for-war-in-the-east>

4) AFRICOM Year Two: Seizing The Helm Of The Entire World, Stop NATO, October 22, 2009 <http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/africom-year-two-taking-the-helm-of-the-entire-world>

5) U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow, Stop NATO, January 19, 2010 <http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/u-s-china-military-tensions-grow>

6) New York Times, January 21, 2010

7) Voice of Russia, December 14, 2009

8) U.S. Missile Shield System Deployments: Larger, Sooner, Broader, Stop NATO, September 27, 2009 <http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/u-s-missile-shield-system-deployments-larger-sooner-broader>

Black Sea, Caucasus: U.S. Moves Missile Shield South And East, Stop NATO,September 19, 2009 <http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/283>

U.S. Expands Global Missile Shield Into Middle East, Balkans, Stop NATO, September 11, 2009 <http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/u-s-expands-global-missile-shield-into-middle-east-balkans>

9) Bloomberg News, January 14, 2010

10) Polish Radio, December 11, 2009

11) Russia Today, October 16, 2009

12) Stars and Stripes, December 21, 2009

13) Ibid

14) Interfax Ukraine, January 20, 2010

15) Reuters, December 29, 2009

16) Ibid

17) Russian Information Agency Novosti, November 18, 2009

18) Time, July 14, 2007

19) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, November 30, 2009

20) Strategic considerations behind Russian proposal for new European security treaty, Xinhua News Agency, December 1, 2009 <http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/02/content_12571639.htm>

21) Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect Mankind, Stop NATO, December 10, 2009 <http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/obama-doctrine-eternal-war-for-imperfect-mankind>

22) White House And Pentagon: Change, Continuity And Escalation, Stop NATO, March 19, 2009 <http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/white-house-and-pentagon-change-continuity-and-escalation>

January 31, 2010

U.S. ambassador stresses need for troops in Okinawa

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=67634

U.S. ambassador stresses need for troops on Okinawa

By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes

Pacific edition, Sunday, January 31, 2010

TOKYO — The Marines stationed on Okinawa might be the least understood of the nearly 50,000 U.S. troops serving throughout Japan, according to the United States’ top diplomat here in a Friday speech to explain to Japanese the importance of the military alliance.

“But in reality, it’s among the most critical of the forces we deploy in both peacetime and in the unlikely event of conflict,” Ambassador John Roos asserted Friday in a speech before students and faculty at Waseda University in Tokyo.

Those Marines are the region’s first responders by air and ground, Roos continued as he made his case for U.S. troops in Japan.

As China’s military spending grows and as North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs continue, Roos said, it’s up to the United States and Japan to maintain security in the area.

“Make no mistake about it — the stakes are high,” Roos said before the packed auditorium in the school’s International Conference Center. “Our alliance is the critical stabilizing force in this area of the world.”

His speech came a day after U.S. Forces Japan Lt. Gen. Edward Rice appeared on a two-hour Japanese TV program to talk about and field questions from viewers about the alliance.

Roos, since arriving in Japan last summer, has faced a new Japanese government less comfortable with the U.S. military presence than the former, more conservative ruling party.

Now the two countries are struggling to implement a 4-year-old security agreement that includes moving a U.S. Marine Corps air base from an urban part of Okinawa to a rural one.

The Marines and their helicopters on Okinawa can rapidly put troops and rescuers on the ground in the region, Roos said, which they’ve done a dozen times in the past five years for humanitarian crises. If there were no Marines on Okinawa, that response would then come from Hawaii, he added.

But it’s those helicopters at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, coupled with decades of heavy U.S. military presence on the poor, often-ignored prefecture, that have become a rallying cry for some against a current military realignment plan.

Now, the helicopters take off and land in densely populated Ginowan. Nago, a rural town selected as the new air station home, doesn’t want the air traffic. The town just narrowly elected a mayor who campaigned against the Marines’ move.

Roos, however, asked those concerned about the move to look beyond Okinawa.

“North Korea obviously remains the most immediate concern,” Roos said, because of both its military and a possible regime collapse.