New Law Limits Military use of Open Burn Pits

Doug from Seacoast Anti-Pollution League in Portsmouth, New Hampshire sent a post to the Military Toxics Project listserve about a new law to limit the military use of open burn pits overseas. However, as Doug notes the law “Doesn’t cover domestic bases, nor everything we’d want left unburned, but DoD has to develop a plan to eliminate burning so it’s a start!”

Open Burn/Open Detonation (OB/OD) pits have been a commonly used method for the military to dispose of old munitions and other waste. OB/OD was used in Makua valley as recently as 1994. The Wai’anae community organized with leadership from Malama Makua to oppose the Army’s permit application to the EPA to conduct routine OB/OD disposal in Makua. (Up to that point, unpermitted OB/OD disposal was conducted under the auspices of “training”.) The Army was forced to abandon its OB/OD plans and close the disposal site, which has not been decontaminated.

Here’s the article on the Newsweek blog about this new law:

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/10/28/obama-to-sign-law-protecting-troops-from-toxic-fumes.aspx

Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 11:30 AM

Obama to Sign Law Protecting Troops From Toxic Fumes

Katie Connolly

A few months ago I wrote a short piece about the startling practice of using open-air burn pits to incinerate waste on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. The toxic fumes from these pits have been linked to a host of debilitating illnesses in troops and contractors who worked near them. Here’s an excerpt from my original piece:

Josh Eller, a military contractor stationed in Iraq in 2006, was driving through Balad Air Base when he spotted the wild dog. He wasn’t sure what was in its mouth—but when Eller saw two bones, he knew he was looking at a human arm. The dog had pulled the limb from an open-air “burn pit” on the base used to incinerate waste. Eller says it’s “one of the worst things I have seen.”

Since hearing Eller’s story, lawyer Elizabeth Burke has signed on 190 additional clients with complaints about burn pits at 18 military sites in Iraq and Afghanistan. By now, she says, all pits should have been replaced by pollution-controlled incinerators. She’s filed suits in 17 states against KBR, the company contracted to provide waste-disposal services at these bases, accusing it of negligence and harm. Burke was shocked to learn what her clients saw incinerated: Humvees, batteries, unexploded ordnance, gas cans, mattresses, rocket pods, and plastic and medical waste (including body parts, which may explain the arm). Fumes containing carcinogenic dioxins, heavy metals, and particulates, according to an Army–Air Force risk assessment, waft freely across bases.

Burke’s plaintiffs mostly suffer from chronic or unusual medical complications that they believe were caused by burn-pit exposure. Shawn Sheridan, who served two tours at Balad, says black smoke from the pit was so thick at times he couldn’t see through it with night-vision goggles. Sheridan, 26, was healthy when he enlisted six years ago. Now he has a kidney disease, chronic bronchitis, and a painful skin condition. (Read the full story here.)

Today Eller, Sheridan, and the many others affected by these pits are getting some good news, thanks in part to the work of Rep. Tim Bishop, Democrat of New York, and Rep. Carol Shea Porter, Democrat of New Hampshire, who have championed their cause for months. They successfully lobbied for the inclusion of provisions to limit the use of these toxic pits in the National Defense Authorization Act, which the president will sign into law this afternoon. Under this new law, open-air burning of medical and hazardous waste will be prohibited except where the Defense secretary deems there is no alternative, the DoD must justify the use of burn pits to Congress, and it will develop a plan to eliminate the use of burn pits entirely.

The legislation won’t repair Sheridan’s lungs or kidneys, but it will force the DoD to limit troop exposure to potentially hazardous fumes in the future. That really shouldn’t be so hard. According to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, only about half the incinerators the military purchased four years ago to help eliminate the use of burn pits are currently in operation. The public would never stand for having burn pits operate in a residential area in the U.S. Now, eight years into the war in Afghanistan, U.S. service members might start receiving that same courtesy.

(You can read more about burn pits in Kelly Kennedy’s excellent reports for Military Times.)

November 11, 2009

Gavan McCormack: “Yet Another ‘Battle of Okinawa'”

This Op Ed published in the Japan Times is critical of the “colonial” nature of the so-called Guam Treaty which provides for the relocation of U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam, commits Japan to foot most of the bill, allows the expansion of the military base at Henoko, Okinawa, and overrides many of Japan’s own environmental protection laws. The author misses one big point in his analysis, however. The Guam Treaty is colonial for its treatment of the indigenous Chamoru of Guam as much as its disregard for the native Okinawans.

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http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20091111a2.html

Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009

Yet another ‘Battle of Okinawa’

By GAVAN McCORMACK

Special to The Japan Times

CANBERRA — Elections in August gave Japan a new government, headed by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. In electing him and his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the Japanese people, like the American people less than a year earlier, were opting for change. Remarkably, however, what followed on the part of President Barack Obama’s United States has been a campaign of unrelenting pressure to block any such change.

The core issue has been the disposition of American military presence in Okinawa and the U.S. insistence that Hatoyama honor an agreement known as the Guam Treaty. Under the Guam agreement of February 2009, adopted as a treaty under special legislation in May, 8,000 U.S. Marines were to be relocated from Okinawa to Guam, and the U.S. Marine base at Futenma was to be transferred to Henoko in Nago City in northern Okinawa, where Japan would build a new base. Japan would also pay $6.09 billion toward the Guam transfer cost.

The Guam Treaty was one of the first acts of a popular “reforming” U.S. administration, and one of the last of a Japanese regime in fatal decline. It set in unusually clear relief the relationship between the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 economic powers. It was worthy of close attention because the agreement was unequal, unconstitutional, illegal, redundant, colonial and deceitful.

It was unequal because it obliged the government of Japan to construct one new base and to contribute a substantial sum toward constructing another for the U.S. while the American side merely offered an ambiguous pledge to withdraw a number of troops and reserved the right, under Article 8, to vary the agreement at will.

It was unconstitutional since under Article 95 of the Japanese Constitution any law applicable only to one local public entity requires the consent of the majority of the voters of that district and the Okinawan wishes were clearly ignored in the Guam Treaty. The Diet simply rode roughshod over Okinawa.

Since the treaty took precedence over domestic law, it also had the effect of downgrading, in effect vitiating, the requirements of Japan’s environmental protection laws. Any serious and internationally credible environmental impact assessment (EIA) would surely conclude that a massive military construction project was incompatible with the delicate coral and forest environment of the Oura Bay area, but it was taken for granted that Japan’s EIA would be a mere formality and the treaty further undermined the procedure.

The treaty was also redundant. It simply reiterated major sections of earlier agreements (of 2005 and 2006) on which there had been little or no progress. It merely added compulsive force to those agreements and tied the hands of any successor government.

The agreement/treaty was essentially colonial, with the “natives” (Okinawans) to be guided and exploited, but not consulted. The Guam Treaty showed the Obama administration to be maintaining Bush diplomacy: paternalistic, interventionist, antidemocratic and intolerant of Japan’s search for an independent foreign policy.

Finally, the treaty was characterized by what in Japanese is known as “gomakashi” — trickery and lies dressed in the rhetoric of principle and mutuality. Although reported as a U.S. concession to Japan (“troop withdrawal”), it was plainly designed to increase the Japanese contribution to the alliance by substituting a new, high-tech and greatly expanded base at Henoko for the inconvenient, dangerous and obsolescent Futenma. The figure of 8,000 marines to be withdrawn also turned out, under questions in the Diet, to be also false. The more likely figure was less than 3,000.

While working to tie Japan’s hands by the deals with the collapsing Aso administration, the U.S. knew well that the (then) opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)’s position was clear: No new base should be built within Okinawa, Futenma should simply be returned.

Drumbeats of concern, warning, friendly advice from Washington — that Hatoyama and the DPJ had better not take such pledges seriously, much less actually try to carry them out, and that any attempt to vary the Guam agreement would be seen as anti-American — rose steadily, culminating in the October Tokyo visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who delivered an ultimatum: The Guam agreement had to be implemented.

The intimidation had an effect. Defense Secretary Toshimi Kitazawa suggested that there probably was, after all, no real alternative to construction at Henoko. Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada also began to waver. Weeks after the election victory he had said, “If Japan just follows what the U.S. says, then I think as a sovereign nation that is very pathetic.” And: “The will of the people of Okinawa and the will of the people of Japan was expressed in the elections . . . I don’t think we will act simply by accepting what the U.S tells us. . . .” After the Gates statement, however, he suggested that the Futenma functions might after all be transferred within Okinawa, even though he declined to endorse the Henoko project, proposing instead they be merged with those of the large Kadena U.S. Air Force Base nearby.

The prefecture’s Ryukyu Shimpo newspaper, in a passionate editorial, lamented the incapacity of the new Hatoyama government to counter the “intimidatory diplomacy” of Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and decried the drift back toward “acceptance of the status quo of following the U.S.”

Nearly four decades have passed since Okinawa reverted from the U.S. to Japan, yet U.S. bases still take up one-fifth of the land surface of its main island. Nowhere is more overwhelmed than the city of Ginowan, reluctant host for the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station. The U.S. and Japan agreed in 1996 that Futenma would be returned, but made return conditional on a replacement, which also would have to be built in Okinawa. Thirteen years on, there the matter still stands.

The “Futenma Replacement Facility,” the subject of such intense diplomatic contention today, is one that has grown from a modest “helipad,” as it was referred to in 1996 to a removable, offshore structure with a 2,500-meter runway, and then in 2006 to its current version: dual-1,800 meter runways plus a deep sea naval port and a chain of helipads — a comprehensive air, land and sea base. Time and again, the project was blocked by popular opposition, but time and again the Japanese government renewed and expanded it.

Yet opinion in the prefecture has, if anything, hardened. An October Ryukyu Shimpo/Mainichi Shimbun poll showed that 70 percent of Okinawans opposed relocation within the prefecture and a mere 5 percent favored the Henoko design endorsed by the Guam Treaty and demanded by Washington. In the August national elections, DPJ candidates who promised they would never allow construction of a new base swept the polls in Okinawa, crushing the representatives of the compliant “old regime.”

Both prefectural newspapers, the majority in Okinawa’s Parliament, and 80 percent of Okinawan government mayors are also opposed, believing any Futenma base substitute should be constructed either elsewhere in Japan or overseas.

There has never been such a postwar confrontation between the U.S. and Japan. With the last shots of Washington’s diplomatic barrage exploding around him and Obama’s visit imminent, Hatoyama continues to study his options. If he rejects the U.S. demands, a major diplomatic crisis is bound to erupt. If he swallows them, he provokes a domestic political crisis and drives Okinawa to despair. Yet choose he must.

Gavan McCormack is an emeritus professor at Australia National University in Canberra. Japan Focus (japanfocus.org) will post an unabridged version of this article.

November 9, 2009November 9, 2009

Japan government out of touch with Okinawan concerns about U.S. bases

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/features/news/20091109p2a00m0na021000c.html

Gov’t out of touch with the real problems Okinawans over U.S. military presence

The charred Javanese bishopwood trees are a pitiful sight, a lasting reminder of the U.S. military helicopter crash on the campus of Okinawa International University on Aug. 13, 2004, just south of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

Noriyoshi Miyagi, 67, who runs a confectionary company near Futenma, was reminded of a similarly nightmarish incident that took place 45 years earlier when he saw black smoke billowing from the American helicopter, when in 1959, a U.S. jet fighter slammed into Miyamori Elementary School in Uruma City (then Ishikawa City), killing 17 people, including 11 of the school’s students. Miyagi witnessed the destruction first hand.

“If all our politicians saw something like that, they would immediately understand the danger of military bases,” he said.

The relocation of Futenma — which currently occupies one-fourth of Okinawa’s Ginowan City and is called “the world’s most dangerous military base,” due to its location by the city center — has remained at a standstill since the 1996 Japan-U.S. agreement of its reversion to Japan. But since the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) took over the reins of government in September, it has once again become a top-priority issue.

Like most Okinawa residents, Miyagi thinks that relocation out of Okinawa is the best solution, but more than anything, he is simply tired of living under such risky conditions. Asked what he thinks about relocation of Futenma to an offshore location at Camp Schwab in Nago City, he answered, “I guess it can’t be helped. I worry more that nothing will actually happen.”

Seisuke Tamanaha, 77, who owns land inside Futenma air station that he inherited from his parents, is similarly doubtful. “I had faith … but I really don’t want to talk about politics.” He’s a “military landowner,” whose land was forcibly turned over for use by the U.S. military, for which he receives rent from the Japanese government.

U.S. military troops landed on Okinawa Island in April 1945, and grueling ground fighting ensued between Japanese and U.S. troops. Tamanaha was just 12 years old at the time. Upon returning home from a relocation camp after the war ended, he found that the surrounding area had become an aircraft junkyard, which was eventually absorbed into the air station.

Of the 13 people in his family, only he, along with his mother and grandmother, survived. In protest, he never took one of the well-paid jobs on U.S. military bases, but has mixed feelings about having received rent for the family’s land. He remembers feeling a weight lift from his shoulders 13 years ago when a bilateral agreement was reached stating that Futenma would be returned to Japan.

Still, he has misgivings about the fact that other Okinawans will continue to bear the burden. Naturally, he had had high hopes for the DPJ, which called for the relocation of Futenma out of Okinawa and out of the country during its general election campaign. On Sept. 26, however, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa stated that relocating Futenma out of Okinawa would be “extremely difficult.” A change of course by the government not even a month after the general election has made Tamanaha increasingly distrustful.

At a study session by Ginowan City military landowners on Oct. 31, the venue was less than half filled. “Maybe people are too dumbfounded to attend,” suggested Tamanaha with a sigh. “They probably think nothing’s going to happen for a while anyway.”

Approximately 40 kilometers northeast of Ginowan City, an emerald green ocean glimmers off the coast of Henoko, Nago City. In a tent set up next to the fishing port, a sit-in by residents protesting Futenma’s relocation has been going on for more than five years. Meanwhile, 72-year-old Shigemori Shimabukuro, who sees parallels between the Futenma relocation and the establishment of Camp Schwab some 50 years ago, is hopeful that relocation of the air station to the area will help his son find good work. Another man, a construction worker in the area, said with a wry grin, “It would help if the base came here, but we no longer live in an age where the construction industry influences politics.”

On the heels of the statement by Defense Minister Kitazawa, on Oct. 23, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada announced his desire to revive the option of shifting Futenma to Kadena Air Base. “They’re repeating the same discussions that took place over a decade ago,” Shimbakuro muttered. “Considering the number of aircraft at Kadena, even a kid can tell that it’s impossible to incorporate Futenma into Kadena …”

In addition to the various views and interests of local residents, the relocation has given rise to discord within the new government. Ahead of President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to Japan, on Nov. 5, Foreign Minister Okada notified U.S. officials that the Japanese government was postponing its decision on Futenma.

“I will make the final decision (about the Futenma relocation),” Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama declared last month, to which Tamanaha remarks: “It’s always people who don’t know Okinawa who are making the decisions.” (By Toru Watanabe, Tokyo Regional News Department)

November 9, 2009January 11, 2017

Okinawa Governor greeted in Honolulu with anti-bases message while thousands protest bases in Okinawa

Over the weekend there were massive protests in Okinawa against the expansion of a U.S. military base in Henoko, Okinawa. Below are two articles about the demonstrations. But where was Okinawa’s Governor Nakaima?

The pro-base politician was on a trip, dodging a confrontation with the protest movement. Instead of facing his own constituency, Nakaima was in Honolulu to meet with the Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command!

Since, he wasn’t in Okinawa to receive the message, the Hawai’i Okinawa Alliance (HOA) assembled a “welcoming committee” to greet the Governor at the Honolulu International Airport. HOA members greeted a surprised Governor Nakaima with leis, signs and the message that the U.S. bases must go. As Pete Shimazaki Doktor reports:

as soon as he heard us speak about henoko, his smiled dropped and he started to walk away! we walked along w/ him and his crew of advisors, aides and assistants who walked around or behind, not with, the governor as we spoke to him in broken japanese and english. when we said we didn’t want more bases in okinawa, he said, “but there are a lot of bases here!” of which we expressed we didn’t want them and that they were dangerous and problematic too.

While it probably didn’t change Nakaima’s mind, the message was unavoidable. Bases out! Peace for Okinawa! Peace for Hawai’i! Peace for the world!

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Japanese protest over US base before Obama’s visit

Posted: 08 November 2009 1444 hrs

People gather at a rally against the US military base in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture on November 8.

GINOWAN, Japan : Thousands have rallied against a US military base on Japan’s Okinawa island, raising the heat in a simmering row days before President Barack Obama visits Tokyo.

Local opposition has often flared against the large US military presence on the southern island, strategically located within easy reach of China, Taiwan and North Korea and dubbed the United States’ “unsinkable aircraft carrier”.

In a new development Japan’s foreign minister has said that Tokyo’s decision on relocating the US Marine Corps Futenma Air Base could be delayed till next year.

A string of local elections next year on the island could also sway the fate of the controversial military facility, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said.

“I think the end of December can be a point of time by which we should work out a rough plan… but it may be delayed from this,” Okada told a talk show on the private Asahi network.

The government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, which swept to power in September, has said it may want the base, now located in a densely populated area, moved off the island or even out of the country.

The rise of a new centre-left government in Japan, ending decades of conservative rule, has brought the issue of the US military presence in the country back to the centre of national politics and has strained Japan’s most important security alliance.

The Futenma base, located in a densely populated urban area, has emerged as a flashpoint for local opponents who have been angered by aircraft noise, pollution, the risk of accidents and crimes committed by US service personnel.

Okinawans reacted with fury to the 1995 rape of a schoolgirl by three US servicemen, and demands to close the base on safety grounds grew when a US helicopter crashed into the front yard of a local university in 2004.

The government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, which swept to power in a landslide and has vowed a less subservient relationship with Washington, has said it may want the base moved off the island or even out of the country.

The United States has demanded Japan honour a 2006 agreement under which the Futenma base would be closed but its air operations moved to an alternative site to be built on Okinawa by 2014 in the coastal Camp Schwab area.

But activists near Camp Schwab also oppose the planned new base, which would be built on reclaimed land and would include two runways likely to affect a marine habitat home to corals and an endangered sea mammal, the dugong.

On a visit to Japan last month, Defence Secretary Robert Gates bluntly urged Tokyo to “move on” and resolve the issue before Obama’s arrival, stressing that Washington does not want to renegotiate a pact that was years in the making.

Hatoyama has said Japan will need more time to resolve the tricky question as it weighs the demands of Washington and of the people of Okinawa, a heartland of left-leaning and pacifist groups who oppose the bases.

Subtropical Okinawa, located about 1,600 kilometres south of Tokyo, saw some of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

– AFP/ir

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1016762/1/.html

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Japanese town stages anti-US base protest

Posted: 08 November 2009 0515 hrs

People stage a rally against a US military base on Japan’s Okinawa island

KADENA, Japan : Thousands of residents of Japan’s southern island of Okinawa Saturday staged a protest against the presence of the US military on the eve of a major rally against a controversial airbase.

Some 2,500 people living in Kadena town, which already hosts a large US Air Force base that frequently provokes complaints over the noise of jet planes flying day and night, protested a government proposal the city accept another US military installation.

The demonstration came a day before Okinawans were to stage a major rally against a 2006 Japan-US military agreement ahead of US President Barack Obama’s first visit to Tokyo.

Under the pact, Tokyo’s then conservative government agreed with Washington that the US Marine Corps Futenma Air Base, which Okinawa has long demanded be moved out of a residential area, be relocated to the island’s coastal Camp Schwab site.

New Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama — who swept to power in a landslide and has vowed a less subservient relationship with Washington — said during the election campaign he would review the agreement and wanted the base moved off the island or even out of the country.

But under pressure from the United States, which has demanded Japan honour the pact, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada proposed the Futenma operations be merged with the already existing air base in Kadena — a suggestion that has angered Kadena residents.

“No matter what reasons or what explanations are given, I will never accept it,” said Kadena mayor Tokujitsu Miyagi at the rally.

“Let’s get rid of this proposal with our unshaken determination!”

More than 30,000 protesters were expected to gather Sunday against the 2006 agreement in a park near the Futenma Air Base in Ginowan city, organisers said.

The Futenma base, located in a densely populated urban area, has emerged as a flashpoint for local opponents who have been angered by aircraft noise, the risk of accidents and crimes committed by US service personnel.

“The Okinawan people are ready to shoulder the burdens of hosting the US military if the rest of Japan does the same,” said Miyagi, whose town gives up about 83 percent of its land for the air base, according to town documents. “But what Okinawa has sacrificed has been just too much.”

Washington and Tokyo have been close security allies in the post-war era, with the United States guaranteeing Japan’s defence and providing nuclear deterrence during and after the Cold War.

Subtropical Okinawa, located about 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) south of Tokyo, is considered to be a strategic site near China, Taiwan and North Korea, hosting more than half of the 47,000 US troops stationed in the country.

– AFP /ls

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1016721/1/.html

November 8, 2009

Dahr Jamail: Mass Shooting Indicates Breakdown of Military

http://www.truthout.org/11050912

Mass Shooting Indicates Breakdown of Military

Thursday 05 November 2009

by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Report

At approximately 1:30 p.m. CST today, a soldier went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, killing 12 people and wounding at least 31 others, according to base commander Lieutenant-General Bob Cone.

Truthout spoke with an Army Specialist who is an active-duty Iraq war veteran currently stationed at the base. The soldier spoke on condition of anonymity since the base is now on “lockdown,” and all “non-authorized” military personnel on the base have been ordered not to speak to the press.

“A soldier entered the ‘Soldier Readiness Center (SRC)’ with two handguns and opened fire,” the soldier, who is currently getting treatment for traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) explained. “That facility is where you go just before you deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan.”

The soldier named the gunman as Major Malik Nadal Hasan, and said he was about 40 years old. According to the soldier, Hasan was a member of the base’s Medical Evaluation Board, and worked there as a counselor.

At a news conference Thursday evening, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said Maj. Hasan, who was shot four times, is alive and in stable condition at a nearby hospital where he is being guarded by military personnel.

“I can confirm Major Hasan was the gunman, and I actually saw him this morning,” the soldier explained. “I was over in the area doing some paperwork, and saw him at the facility. He seemed fine to me, and I spoke with one of my friends who had an appointment with him this morning. They said Major Hasan seemed OK to them too.”

The soldier believes that at least one Killeen Police Department officer was killed before the gunman was shot.

Fort Hood, located in central Texas, is the largest US military base in the world and contains up to 50,000 soldiers. It is one of the most heavily deployed bases to both Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the shooter himself was facing an impending deployment to Iraq.

The soldier says that the mood on the base is “very grim,” and that even before this incident, troop morale has been very low.

“I’d say it’s at an all-time low – mostly because of Afghanistan now,” he explained. “Nobody knows why we are at either place, and I believe the troops need to know why they are there, or we should pull out, and this is a unanimous feeling, even for folks who are pro-war.”

In a strikingly similar incident on May 11, 2009, a US soldier gunned down five fellow soldiers at a stress-counseling center at a US base in Baghdad. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a news conference at the Pentagon that the shootings occurred in a place where “individuals were seeking help.”

“It does speak to me, though, about the need for us to redouble our efforts, the concern in terms of dealing with the stress,” Admiral Mullen said. “It also speaks to the issue of multiple deployments.”

Commenting on the incident in nearly parallel terms, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the Pentagon needs to redouble its efforts to relieve stress caused by repeated deployments in war zones; stress that is further exacerbated by limited time at home in between deployments.

The condition described by Mullen and Gates is what veteran health experts often refer to as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

While soldiers returning home are routinely involved in shootings, suicide and other forms of self-destructive violent behavior as a direct result of their experiences in Iraq, we have yet to see an event of this magnitude take place in Iraq.

Prior to the May incident, the last reported incident of this kind happened in 2005, when an Army captain and lieutenant were killed when an anti-personnel mine detonated in the window of their room at a US base in Tikrit. In that case, National Guard Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez was acquitted.

The shocking story of a soldier killing five of his comrades does not come as a surprise when we consider that the military has, for years now, been sending troops with untreated PTSD back into the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to an Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center analysis, reported in the Denver Post in August 2008, more than “43,000 service members — two-thirds of them in the Army or Army Reserve — were classified as nondeployable for medical reasons three months before they deployed” to Iraq.

Mark Thompson also has reported in Time magazine, “Data contained in the Army’s fifth Mental Health Advisory Team report indicate that, according to an anonymous survey of US troops taken last fall, about 12 percent of combat troops in Iraq and 17 percent of those in Afghanistan are taking prescription antidepressants or sleeping pills to help them cope.”

In April 2008, the RAND Corporation released a stunning report revealing, “Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan – 300,000 in all – report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment.”

President Barack Obama, speaking during an event at the Department of the Interior in Washington, said that the mass shooting at Fort Hood was a “horrific outburst of violence”. He added, “It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army base on American soil.”

Victor Agosto, an Iraq war veteran who was discharged from the military after publicly refusing to deploy to Afghanistan, has had firsthand experience with the SRFC at Fort Hood, where he too was based.

“I knew there would be a confrontation when I was there, because the only reason to do that process is to deploy,” Agosto explained, speaking to Truthout near Fort Hood . “So the shooter clearly intended to stop people from deploying.”

Agosto was court-martialed for refusing an order to go to the SRC to prepare to deploy to Afghanistan.

“I was court-martialed for refusing the order to SRC in that very same building. I didn’t enter the building, but I didn’t go in because I was refusing the process,” Agosto continued. “It’s a pretty important place in my life, so it’s interesting to me that this happened there.”

November 7, 2009

“The Good Soldier” opens Veteran’s Day November 11

The Good Soldier

http://thegoodsoldier.com/index.html

Directed by Lexy Lovell and Michael Uys (DGA, Los Angeles Film Critics, and Peabody Award winners for Riding the Rails)

The Good Soldier follows the journeys of five combat veterans from different generations of American wars as they sign up, go into battle, and eventually change their minds about what it means to be a good soldier.

Here’s what Jason Albert of the Onion has to say:

“It’s hard to imagine watching a more affecting movie than The Good Soldier … because it may be as affecting a movie as I’ve ever seen. It took one seemingly simple question—What makes a good soldier?—and reduced the answer to its essence. That being, the ability to kill other human beings. Using the voices of veterans from WWII, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and Iraq, each gave this exact same answer, and they all spoke not only of their guilt and regret, but also of how at some point during their time in the military they needed to kill. Their reasons were different, but the training that gave them the skills and permission was not. I found it both hard to watch and hard to turn away from, and I know I’ll never look at the words ‘collateral damage’ in the same way again. Really powerful stuff.”

Music by JJ Grey and Mofro, CSNY, Nine Inch Nails, Big Bill Broonzy, Edwin Starr, Carly Comando, Muslimgauze, and Jimmie Lunceford.

November 7, 2009

Report on protest at Hilo Veteran’s Parade

Aloha kakou,

About 40-50 people in total turned out, during the nearly 3 and l/2 hour protest at today’s Hilo Veterans Parade. The protest focus was the U.S. illegal wars of aggression and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the military including vehicles from Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) recently returned from Iraq. Among those present were Kanaka Maoli leaders, Kelii, “Skippy” Ioane, a Vietnam vet, Moanikeala Aka, Moana Tavares, and Noelani Mason, who together with David Schlesinger and others were broadcasting the protest live on Youthbuiltmedia.com <http://www.youthbuiltmedia.com/> . Also joining the protest was 95 year old Don Swergfegger, a retired methodist minister. About l500 leaflets were distributed to people along the parade route and even some parade participants. The leaflet was entitled “Help Protect Veterans & Public Health.” It warned about the dangers of possible DU contamination of the military vehicles in the Hilo parade.

PTA’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Warline Richardson’s words that there would be no mobile weapon systems on military vehicles in todays’ parade turned out to be false Two command Stryker vehicles at the end of the parade (just in front of the ending firetruck) were preceded by several Humvees armed with machine guns. It’s interesting that the Strykers and Humvees were placed at the end of the parade, even though we stated clearly we had no intent of blocking such vehicles. The military obviously did not believe us. They made sure that if we attempted to block the Strykers it would only block them and not the rest of the parade. It should also be noted that members of a right wing citizen group called “The Eagles” were walking as escorts for the Strykers and there were several Hawaii County police on bicycles also acting as a security escort for the Strykers.

The Strykers and Humvees, recently returned from Iraq, are currently training at the PTA in the center of our island home that is officially acknowledged to be contaminated with DU. Hawaii’s Stryker brigade is training for redeployment to either Iraq or Afghanistan. These vehicles participated in the Hilo parade in violation of Army Regulation 700-48 according to Doug Rokke, PH.D. Major, reitred U.S. Army, and Director U.S. Army Depleted Uranium (DU) Project. Rokke says: “Any and all combat vehicles and equipment (everything) returned from Iraq should be prohibited from any civilian area. (including this parade) A standard wash rack is useless for decontamination… Army regulation 700-48, section 2-4 requires isolation from all human contact. Even after extensive depot level cleaning I found DU, and other radiological, chemical and biological contamination in vehicles years later. The gross contamination of equipment, vehicles, terrain, air, water, soil and food is reflected in, and verified by the hundreds of thousands of US casualties with serious medical problems that are unrelated to bullets or bombs, but are directly related to all of these toxic exposures. Hawaii’s isolated and pristine environment should not be exposed to, and consequently placed in danger through, any exposure to any of the contaminants brought back by the US military from war zones.”

All in all, the day of leafleting and protest went very well. There was minimal hostility. The leaflet was crafted to focus on protecting Veterans and Public Health. Who can be against that? We had a very good location for the protest and even many of the vets in the parade gave positive thumbs up signals to many of our signs such as: “No War Surge,” “Protect the Troops from DU,” “Aloha Means Peace,” “Stop the Wars,” and “End Occupations.” Clearly the current wars are not popular even at a veterans parade. And the fact that the Strykers — the modern chariots of empire, had to be placed last in the parade and be under right wind (Eagle) and police escort, was a sign of the military’s unpopular status as occupier of the independent nation of Hawaii.

There will be a peace meeting on Monday, Nov. 9th 7-9PM at the Keaau Community Center. Among items for discussion will be an evaluation of today’s protest and next steps for justice and peace. Please come and bring friends. We need everyone’s mana’o.

Mahalo.

Jim Albertini

Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action

P.O.Box AB

Kurtistown, Hawai’i 96760

phone: 808-966-7622

email: JA@interpac.net

Visit us on the web at: www.malu-aina.org <http://www.malu-aina.org>

November 7, 2009

ATSDR: Change in Public Policy regarding Vieques

PRESS RELEASE

FROM CASA PUEBLO, Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, via Atlanta, GA, USA, to Vieques, Puerto Rico

ATSDR: Change in Public Policy regarding Vieques

Drs. Arturo Massol Deyá of Casa Pueblo de Adjuntas / UPR Mayagüez, Carmen Ortiz Roque, and Carmen Colón de Jorge participated in extensive discovery meetings about scientific investigations of Vieques in the offices of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) in Atlanta on November 5 and 6, 2009.

The Puerto Rican scientists presented their studies about Vieques and confronted their colleagues from the federal agency about the latter’s public policy of not connecting 60 years of US Navy practices with the environmental and health problems in Vieques. In this meeting it was proved beyond a doubt that there is a connection between military practices and the health and environmental contamination in Vieques. Finally, the ATSDR’s director and his technical advisors accepted the arguments of the the Puerto Rican experts. In light of this development the Puerto Rican scientists asked that the agency officially and publicly express the following:

• Change the agency’s current public policy to recognize the connection between the military practices and the problems of health and contamination in Vieques

• Do not endorse vegetation burning as part of the cleanup process

• Do not permit open air detonation of unexploded bombs

• Initiate a reevaluation of the health situation in Vieques

• Announce publicly that this determination was inspired by a group of Puerto Rican experts

The discussion was based on scientific data presented in five studies by Dr. Arturo Massol Deyá de Casa Pueblo de Adjuntas/UPR Mayagüez in Vieques’ military and civilian zones from 1999 to 2008. The studies examined crabs, vegetation, goats, pigeon peas, marine vegetation and organic cultivation in the civilian zone. The latter showed evidence of the movement of cancer-causing heavy metals from zones of military activity to where viequenses live. In addition, this finding was sustained by powerfully convincing studies by Drs. Carmen Ortiz Roque and Carmen Colón de Jorge. To this they added the resolution from the forum celebrated in Casa Pueblo on October 30, based on additional studies and investigations by Drs. Jorge Colón, University of Puerto Rico–Río Piedras, Carlos J. Rodríguez Sierra, UPR–Medical Sciences Recinto de Ciencias Médicas and Cruz María Nazario, UPR–Medical Sciences.

It is important to note that for years the ATSDR had in its possession the studies of the Puerto Rican scientists, as well as a study by the Puerto Rican Health Department about the higher incidence of cancer in Vieques than in the rest of Puerto Rico, yet both government agencies kept those studies secret. This points to a coverup and racist treatment of 9,000 inhabitants of Vieques, Puerto Rico.

It is also important to recognize the great contribution toward changing the ATSDR’s policy, made by community groups in Vieques, the island’s mayor, and individuals both from Puerto Rico and the United States, in particular Congressman Steven Rothman (D-NJ).

This glorious experience of solidarity came about due to a conversation among Puerto Rican scientists Drs. Cruz María Nazario, Jorge Colón, and Arturo Massol Deyá on Radio Casa Pueblo

WOQI 1020 AM in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, on October 8, 2009. This inspired the all-day Forum in Casa Pueblo on October 30 as a response to an invitation from the ATSDR to participate in meetings on November 5-6, 20009 in Atlanta. The Forum was transmitted live by Radio Casa Pueblo and by www.telecoqui.net <http://www.telecoqui.net/ <http://www.telecoqui.net/> > for the whole world (video available to viewing).

Today we continue in attention and in struggle for our beloved and glorious People of Vieques.

Casa Pueblo Tel/Fax 829-4842

http://www.casapueblo.org <http://www.casapueblo.org>

casapueb@coqui.net <casapueb@coqui.net>

PLEASE SHARE THIS NOTICE WIDELY

November 7, 2009June 27, 2010

Hilo groups will protest Strykers on parade

According to the Honolulu Advertiser article Strykers will be included in the Hilo Veterans parade:

Organizers hoped to keep word of the vehicles a secret from peace activists like Jim Albertini of the Malu Aina Center for Non-Violent Education and Action, in an attempt to ward off conflict.

Albertini found out anyway, and on Sunday wrote an open letter to Lt. Col. Warline Richardson of Pohakuloa Training Area, asking that the vehicles be kept out of the parade.

Albertini says he’s concerned that the presence of the vehicles “glorifies war” under the guise of honoring veterans. He’s also raised concerns that the Strykers, which are involved in training exercises at Pohakuloa, could be contaminated with depleted uranium and may pose a health risk to citizens.

Richardson called Albertini on Monday to confirm that two Strykers would be in the parade, but they would be unarmed command vehicles. There would be numerous other, non-controversial vehicles in the parade, including an ambulance and transport vehicles.

November 6, 2009November 6, 2009

Strykers (and DU) on Parade in Hilo?

Mahalo to Joan Conrow and the Hawaii Independent for this article about Hilo residents’ opposition to Strykers and possible Depleted Uranium contamination being in the Veteran’s Day Parade.

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http://thehawaiiindependent.com/page-one/read/veterans-parade-hit-with-du-concerns/

Hilo Veterans’ Day parade hit with depleted uranium concerns

Nov 05, 2009 – 12:35 PM | By Joan Conrow | The Hawaii Independent

HILO—Plans to include vehicles from Hawaii Island’s Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) in Saturday’s Veteran’s Day parade in Hilo have met opposition from those concerned about glorifying war and possible contamination by depleted uranium (DU).

Jim Albertini, director of the Malu Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action, said that after event organizers told him Stryker vehicles would be participating in the parade, he wrote to Lt. Col. Warline S. Richardson, the PTA’s commanding officer, to express his concerns.

“Including Stryker vehicles in the parade is a provocative action that glorifies war disguised as honoring veterans,” Albertini wrote in his October 30 letter. “I urge that Strykers and other combat weapons be kept out of the parade. To parade these killing machines through our peaceful streets desensitizes young and old to the horrors of war.

“As you know, basing Strykers in Hawaii has been a major controversy,” the letter continued. “Their use of Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons in Iraq contaminating that country forever is equally controversial, and likely related to the Gulf War Syndrome that has effected [sic] the health of hundreds of thousands of disabled U.S. veterans and millions of Iraqi citizens. The fact that these Strykers are currently doing live-fire training at Pohakuloa, known to be contaminated with DU, risks spreading that contamination, endangering the health and safety of troops and the citizens of this island. Bringing these Strykers, that may be contaminated with DU, down the streets of Hilo adds insult to injury.”

Albertini said that Richardson contacted him early the next morning and said she was willing to keep mobile weapons out of the parade in order to avoid a protest, and instead would send “command Strykers” that were outfitted with communications equipment rather than weaponry.

But he said Richardson was not receptive when he raised the concern that any vehicles from PTA could be contaminated with DU oxide: “I don’t think she takes that issue very seriously.”

Albertini said that fear about possible DU contamination from the training area was widespread on the Big Island, and had prompted the Hawaii County Council to pass a 2008 resolution “ordering a complete halt to B-2 bombing missions and all live firing exercises and other actions at PTA that create dust until there’s an assessment and clean up of the depleted uranium already present.”

When contacted by The Hawaii Independent, Richardson said: “Those vehicles aren’t contaminated. What would they be contaminated with?” Richardson also denied that she had agreed to let command Strykers participate in the parade. “I don’t control those vehicles,” she said.

“She’s telling two different stories,” Albertini countered.

Loran Doane, media relations chief for the U.S. Army Garrison, said that event organizers had asked the Army to participate in the parade, but “no final determination has been made as to exact form that participation will take.” He said a decision likely would be made by noon Friday.

He also said that the Army has a “process and standards for cleaning military vehicles before entry into the U.S.”

The fact sheet for cleaning vehicles states: “Those identified as contaminated with DU are wrapped in plastic and tarps (encased) to prevent the spread of any removable contamination or residues. They are then shipped through the Port of Charleston, South Carolina, to the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Maryland. Here, the vehicles are assessed for decontamination and repair, or for recovery of parts.”

Richardson also said she could not understand the objection to Styrkers. “It’s just a wheeled type of a piece of equipment. I just don’t understand a little bit of the concern,” she said, likening them to Toyota releasing a new version of the Maxima. ”Part of it is education. That’s why you want to let them participate in parades.”

Meanwhile, Major Doug Rokke (Ret.), the former director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium project, issued a statement in response to the parade plans that read:

“Any and all combat vehicles and equipment (everything) returned from Iraq should be prohibited from any civilian area. A standard wash rack is useless for decontamination. Keep all contaminated equipment isolated to the army post. Army regulation 700-48, section 2-4 requires isolation from all human contact.

“Even after extensive depot level cleaning, I found DU and other radiological, chemical, and biological contamination in vehicles years later.

“The gross contamination of equipment, vehicles, terrain, air, water, soil, and food is reflected in, and verified by, the hundreds of thousands of U.S. casualties with serious medical problems that are unrelated to bullets or bombs, but are directly related to all of these toxic exposures.

“Hawaii’s isolated and pristine environment should not be exposed to, and consequently placed in danger through, any exposure to any of the contaminants brought back by the U.S. military from war zones.”

Dr. Lorrin Pang, a consultant to the Big Island County Council on the issue of DU, also advised caution, noting that Dr. Rosalie Bertell has said the weaponry causes nano-particles to be released, as well as DU oxide.

“There is a newly recognized associated threat called nanotoxicity, especially from small metallic particles,” Pang said in a written statement. “Yet another unknown. With so many unknowns I suggest we adhere to the precautionary principle and honor our veterans by not further exposing them (and the public) to further unknown agents. Remember both Rokke and I are former Army and we are still watching out for the soldiers.”