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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-falk/understanding-the-gaza-ca_b_154777.html

Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe

By Richard Falk

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories
January 2, 2009

For eighteen months the entire 1.5 million people of Gaza experienced a punishing blockade imposed by Israel, and a variety of traumatizing challenges to the normalcy of daily life. A flicker of hope emerged some six months ago when an Egyptian arranged truce produced an effective ceasefire that cut Israeli casualties to zero despite the cross-border periodic firing of homemade rockets that fell harmlessly on nearby Israeli territory, and undoubtedly caused anxiety in the border town of Sderot. During the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in Gaza repeatedly offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year period and claimed a receptivity to a political solution based on acceptance of Israel’s 1967 borders. Israel ignored these diplomatic initiatives, and failed to carry out its side of the ceasefire agreement that involved some easing of the blockade that had been restricting the entry to Gaza of food, medicine, and fuel to a trickle.

Israel also refused exit permits to students with foreign fellowship awards and to Gazan journalists and respected NGO representatives. At the same time, it made it increasingly difficult for journalists to enter, and I was myself expelled from Israel a couple of weeks ago when I tried to enter to carry out my UN job of monitoring respect for human rights in occupied Palestine, that is, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as Gaza. Clearly, prior to the current crisis, Israel used its authority to prevent credible observers from giving accurate and truthful accounts of the dire humanitarian situation that had been already documented as producing severe declines in the physical condition and mental health of the Gazan population, especially noting malnutrition among children and the absence of treatment facilities for those suffering from a variety of diseases. The Israeli attacks were directed against a society already in grave condition after a blockade maintained during the prior 18 months.

As always in relation to the underlying conflict, some facts bearing on this latest crisis are murky and contested, although the American public in particular gets 99% of its information filtered through an exceedingly pro-Israeli media lens. Hamas is blamed for the breakdown of the truce by its supposed unwillingness to renew it, and by the alleged increased incidence of rocket attacks. But the reality is more clouded. There was no substantial rocket fire from Gaza during the ceasefire until Israel launched an attack last November 4th directed at what it claimed were Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing several Palestinians. It was at this point that rocket fire from Gaza intensified. Also, it was Hamas that on numerous public occasions called for extending the truce, with its calls never acknowledged, much less acted upon, by Israeli officialdom. Beyond this, attributing all the rockets to Hamas is not convincing either. A variety of independent militia groups operate in Gaza, some such as the Fatah-backed al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade are anti-Hamas, and may even be sending rockets to provoke or justify Israeli retaliation. It is well confirmed that when US-supported Fatah controlled Gaza’s governing structure it was unable to stop rocket attacks despite a concerted effort to do so.

What this background suggests strongly is that Israel launched its devastating attacks, starting on December 27, not simply to stop the rockets or in retaliation, but also for a series of unacknowledged reasons. It was evident for several weeks prior to the Israeli attacks that the Israeli military and political leaders were preparing the public for large-scale military operations against the Hamas. The timing of the attacks seemed prompted by a series of considerations: most of all, the interest of political contenders, the Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in demonstrating their toughness prior to national elections scheduled for February, but now possibly postponed until military operations cease. Such Israeli shows of force have been a feature of past Israeli election campaigns, and on this occasion especially, the current government was being successfully challenged by Israel’s notoriously militarist politician, Benjamin Netanyahu, for its supposed failures to uphold security. Reinforcing these electoral motivations was the little concealed pressure from the Israeli military commanders to seize the opportunity in Gaza to erase the memories of their failure to destroy Hezbollah in the devastating Lebanon War of 2006 that both tarnished Israel’s reputation as a military power and led to widespread international condemnation of Israel for the heavy bombardment of undefended Lebanese villages, disproportionate force, and extensive use of cluster bombs against heavily populated areas.

Respected and conservative Israeli commentators go further. For instance, the prominent historian, Benny Morris writing in the New York Times a few days ago, relates the campaign in Gaza to a deeper set of forebodings in Israel that he compares to the dark mood of the public that preceded the 1967 War when Israelis felt deeply threatened by Arab mobilizations on their borders. Morris insists that despite Israeli prosperity of recent years, and relative security, several factors have led Israel to act boldly in Gaza: the perceived continuing refusal of the Arab world to accept the existence of Israel as an established reality; the inflammatory threats voiced by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad together with Iran’s supposed push to acquire nuclear weapons, the fading memory of the Holocaust combined with growing sympathy in the West with the Palestinian plight, and the radicalization of political movements on Israel’s borders in the form of Hezbollah and Hamas. In effect, Morris argues that Israel is trying via the crushing of Hamas in Gaza to send a wider message to the region that it will stop at nothing to uphold its claims of sovereignty and security.

There are two conclusions that emerge: the people of Gaza are being severely victimized for reasons remote from the rockets and border security concerns, but seemingly to improve election prospects of current leaders now facing defeat, and to warn others in the region that Israel will use overwhelming force whenever its interests are at stake.

That such a human catastrophe can happen with minimal outside interference also shows the weakness of international law and the United Nations, as well as the geopolitical priorities of the important players. The passive support of the United States government for whatever Israel does is again the critical factor, as it was in 2006 when it launched its aggressive war against Lebanon. What is less evident is that the main Arab neighbors, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, with their extreme hostility toward Hamas that is viewed as backed by Iran, their main regional rival, were also willing to stand aside while Gaza was being so brutally attacked, with some Arab diplomats even blaming the attacks on Palestinian disunity or on the refusal of Hamas to accept the leadership of Mamoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority.

The people of Gaza are victims of geopolitics at its inhumane worst: producing what Israel itself calls a ‘total war’ against an essentially defenseless society that lacks any defensive military capability whatsoever and is completely vulnerable to Israeli attacks mounted by F-16 bombers and Apache helicopters. What this also means is that the flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, as set forth in the Geneva Conventions, is quietly set aside while the carnage continues and the bodies pile up. It additionally means that the UN is once more revealed to be impotent when its main members deprive it of the political will to protect a people subject to unlawful uses of force on a large scale. Finally, this means that the public can shriek and march all over the world, but that the killing will go on as if nothing is happening. The picture being painted day by day in Gaza is one that begs for renewed commitment to international law and the authority of the UN Charter, starting here in the United States, especially with a new leadership that promised its citizens change, including a less militarist approach to diplomatic leadership.

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His most recent book, The Great Terror War (2003), considers the American response to September 11, including its relationship to the patriotic duties of American Citizens. In 2001 he served on a three person Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestine Territories that was appointed by the United Nations, and previously, on the Independent International Commission on Kosovo. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including Religion and Humane Global Governance; Human Rights Horizons; On Humane Governance: Toward a New Global Politics; Explorations at the Edge of Time; Revolutionaries and Functionaries; The Promise of World Order; Indefensible Weapons; Human Rights and State Sovereignty; A Study of Future Worlds; This Endangered Planet; coeditor of Crimes of War. He serves as Chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Board of Directors and as honorary vice president of the American Society of International Law.

The Pentagon recently announced the release of its new Unified Command Plan.  This is the military’s plan for dividing the Earth into combatant command areas of responsibility.  Hawai’i falls under and plays host to the headquarters of the Pacific Command, the oldest and largest of these unified commands.  The new plan includes a newly created Africa Command and reassigns Puerto Rico and some of the other Caribbean islands to the Northern Command area of responsibility.

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U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Release

On the Web: http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12408

Media contact: +1 (703) 697-5131/697-5132

Public contact: http://www.defenselink.mil/faq/comment.html
or +1 (703) 428-0711 +1

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 1036-08

December 23, 2008

DoD Releases Unified Command Plan 2008

The Department of Defense has updated the Unified Command Plan (UCP), a key strategic document that establishes the missions, responsibilities, and geographic areas of responsibility for commanders of combatant commands. Most importantly, UCP 2008, signed by President Bush on Dec. 17, codifies U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM) and assigns several new missions to the combatant commanders.

Every two years, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is required by law to review the missions, responsibilities, and geographical boundaries of each combatant command in the U.S. military and recommend to the President, through the secretary of defense, any changes that may be necessary.

As in past years, the 2008 review process included the combatant commanders, service chiefs, and DoD leadership.

Significant changes made by UCP 2008 include:

– Codifying USAFRICOM as a geographic combatant command through assignment of specific missions, responsibilities, and geographic boundaries; the command became fully operation capable Oct. 1, 2008.

– Codifying influenza.

– Updating “cyberspace operations” responsibilities assigned to U.S. Strategic Command.

– Assigning all combatant commanders responsibility for planning and conducting military support to stability, security, transition, and reconstruction operations, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief.

– Realigning the USNORTHCOM and U.S. Southern Command areas of responsibility (AOR) by placing the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands in the USNORTHCOM AOR.

The UCP 2008 continues to support the U.S. defense security commitment around the world while improving military responses to the struggle against violent extremists.

A map of the combatant commanders’ AOR can be found at http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/MAP12-08.pdf.

Source: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-whales2208dec22,0,6938912.story

Published on Monday, December 22, 2008

Would Hunt for Subs Kill Whales?
by Ludmilla Lelis
Orlando Sentinel
The U.S. Navy wants to teach sailors how to hunt submarines off the coast of Jacksonville, but it’s trying to prove its proposed undersea-warfare-training range won’t hurt the world’s most endangered whale.

Concern about harm to the North Atlantic right whale from military sonar, vessels and torpedoes might pose a stumbling block to the proposed $100 million training range, which could be built near the whale’s protected calving area.

The U.S. Navy announced earlier this year that it wants to build the undersea-warfare-training range in a 662-square-mile zone nearly 58 miles off Jacksonville. The proximity to Mayport Naval Station, water depths and the climate make it an ideal location over three alternate sites, according to a draft Navy environmental report.

The military complex would feature a network of 300 sonar sensors buried in the ocean floor that would monitor the fighting scenarios among submarines, ships and helicopters. Nonexplosive torpedoes and sonar would be used during 470 military exercises each year.

Navy officials say the range will be key to preparing its sailors for deployment in shallower waters, such as the Arabian or South China seas, against elusive, extremely quiet diesel submarines. But environmentalists fear whales could die from being run over by ships or becoming disoriented from the sonar.

“Trying to find a submarine is very difficult. The type of training this range will provide is critical,” said retired Navy Cmdr. Jene Nissen, project manager for the range proposal. “This training will enhance their readiness and ensure they will be the most prepared when they are deployed overseas in harm’s way.”

Federal reviews of the project are under way. The Navy analyzed how the range could affect endangered marine wildlife and concluded it wouldn’t be significantly harmed.

“Under federal law, environmental issues have to be placed on par with other national interests, including economic concerns and military training,” said Michelle B. Nowlin, supervising attorney for the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at the Duke University School of Law. “The courts have been very clear there must be a balance of those interests.”

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to lift some restrictions on anti-submarine training off the California coast, allowing the exercises to continue while their environmental effects are reviewed.

Seen off Volusia, Brevard

Off the East Coast, the right whales’ pregnant females migrate south to southern Georgia and northern Florida to birth and nurse calves. The pairs sometimes can be seen from Volusia and Brevard beaches.

Federal officials have protected the right whale by prohibiting vessels from approaching the whales too closely. Several teams of whale watchers fly over the ocean, and a network of beachfront volunteers survey from land to spot whales and warn boaters.

This year, the National Marine Fisheries Service instituted a 10-knot speed limit for vessels in the habitat zone. Ship strikes kill at least one or two right whales a year. Scientists say the species can’t sustain that kind of death toll. Federal reports say the death of even one pregnant female could risk the species’ survival.

That’s why more than a dozen conservation groups have opposed a permanent range for the sonar-based warfare training near the calving grounds. Military sonar, broadcasting an active midfrequency signal at 235 decibels, has a lethal history, with a dozen cases worldwide of mass whale and dolphin strandings and evidence of damage to their hearing after underwater exercises.

But there’s little research on how these large whales might be disturbed by the sound, whether it causes them to avoid feeding areas or disrupts other normal behavior, said Brandon Southall, who runs the ocean-acoustics program for the National Marine Fisheries Services. Southall said the actual effects depend on many factors, including the distance between the sonar source and the animal, water conditions, multiple sources of sound, the duration of the sonar and whether animals are in an area where they can’t easily move away.

“The potential for direct injury in terms of damaging hearing happens when the whales are really close to the source, and the one advantage of right whales is that they’re fairly easy to see,” Southall said.

And there isn’t enough information on how often the whales at the calving grounds might frequent the proposed range. Aerial surveys don’t cover the training area. Nissen said the Navy hopes to fill that gap with consultant studies on how whales, and other endangered animals, use the range.

Navy vows protections

The Navy plans to set up lookouts and monitor the whales. Officials also promise to lower or shut down active sonar as whales get close.

According to the Navy’s environmental analysis, the whales won’t suffer hearing damage. But the study estimated there might be as many as 48 times a year when migrating right whales will be near military exercises and could hear enough sonar to affect their behavior.

What worries conservation groups is how military sonar could disrupt the mothers and newborns.

“These relationships are so delicate that it wouldn’t take much for a mother and calf to be separated,” said Zak Smith, attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “A temporary hearing loss or any kind of disruption could potentially lead to the calf’s death.”

Conservation groups have asked for changes, but Nissen said limitations could hamper deployments.

The National Marine Fisheries Service will analyze the species risk during the next few months. The public will have a chance to comment.

Nissen said final environmental reports and other federal reviews could be done by May. The range could be in operation as early as 2013.

Tackling the Global Military Industrial Complex

By John Feffer

The headlines coming out of East Asia have been rather positive – compared to the horrors of Iraq and Afghanistan, melting glaciers, and plummeting stock markets. The Six Party Talks have been making progress toward ending the confrontation between the United States and North Korea and denuclearizing the Korean peninsula. Over the summer, North Korea provided a detailed accounting of its nuclear programs and even destroyed the cooling tower of its Yongbyon nuclear reactor. The Bush administration in turn announced that it was taking North Korea off the Trading with the Enemy Act list and the State Sponsor of Terrorism list. After a disagreement over verification, the two sides reached a compromise in October and negotiations are heading toward their third and final stage.

Helped by the other Six Party participants – South Korea, Japan, Russia, and China – the United States and North Korea appear to be only a few steps away from ending the Cold War that has divided them for more than half a century.

However, even if negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang proceed smoothly to the next level, the situation in East Asia is far from peaceful. Beneath the surface, an arms race among the countries in the Six Party Talks continues to heat up. Although a global economic recession is putting pressure on budgets everywhere, military spending will likely continue its upward trajectory without public pressure.

The arms race in Northeast Asia is driving up global military expenditures. Any effort to get a grip on the global military industrial complex will have to begin with these six countries.

Military Budgets on the Rise

The numbers are startling. U.S. military spending, which represents nearly half of all global military expenditures, has increased over 70 percent since 2001. Between 1999 and 2006, South Korea also raised its defense spending by over 70 percent, and the government in Seoul plans to increase this figure by 7-8 percent every year for the next dozen years. Chinese and Russian military spending increases have been even larger over the same period. In its difficult economic straits, North Korea has attempted to keep pace, increasing military spending by 25% (in local currency) between 2004 and 2007. Only Japan has not increased its expenditures over the same period, though an influential group of politicians in the ruling party has been pushing to remove the 1%-of-GDP cap on military spending.

The arms race in East Asia has specific, regional implications. The United States continues to lavish funds on Cold War weapons systems that can only be used in wars against comparable adversaries (in other words, China or Russia). While Beijing and Washington have cooperated on such issues as the Six Party negotiations and counter-terrorism, the Pentagon’s moves to deploy missile defense systems in the Asia Pacific are raising Chinese eyebrows. North Korea has developed weapons that undermine the security of the other members of the Six Party talks. But South Korea, too, is acquiring military capability that can reach beyond the peninsula. China’s rapid increase in military spending is creating jitters among her neighbors in the region. Washington may find comfort in an emerging new political consensus in Japan that favors a strong, offensively arrayed military, but Beijing, Seoul, and Pyongyang are keeping a worried eye on it. With Russia and China moving closer together in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the United States and Japan strengthening their bilateral alliance, a new Cold War divide is emerging in the region. Increased military spending is both a symptom and a driver of this new confrontation.

This is no mere regional issue. In East Asia, the largest militaries in the world – the United States, China, Russia, and Japan – all face one another. The countries participating in the Six-Party Talks are responsible for 65% of global military spending. These developments in East Asia mirror a global trend: world military expenditures increased by 45 percent over the last decade.

Military Freeze

To address this new Cold War, publicize its “hidden” arms race, and press the governments concerned to change their budget priorities, activists from the peace and Asian-American communities have proposed a Pacific Freeze campaign. Modeled after Randall Forsberg’s Nuclear Weapons Freeze campaign of the 1980s, the Pacific Freeze calls on the governments in the Six Party Talks to freeze their military spending and then reduce their budgets on an equitable basis – with the United States leading the way – as a first step in demilitarizing the region. Like Forsberg’s earlier campaign, the initial freeze on military spending would be mutual.

The Freeze includes both the United States and Russia, for they are Pacific powers and spend a great deal of money on their military presence in the region. They are also the top two arms exporters in the world. Any attempt to restrain military spending that does not include the former Cold War adversaries will not likely succeed. The Freeze also applies to the entirety of the military budgets and not just the portions used in the Pacific region. The United States does not spend its entire half-trillion dollar military budget on its military presence in the Pacific. Nor do Russia and China. However, all three countries can redeploy troops and military hardware to the Pacific region in an emergency. And, since all six countries spend far in excess of their legitimate security needs, freezing the overall budget is a necessary first step in establishing reasonable budget priorities.

The ultimate goal of the campaign is to draw down military budgets and transfer a portion of the savings to a regional Green Energy fund. But the intermediary goal, as with the Nuclear Freeze campaign of the 1980s, is to get people talking about the issue. Right now, military spending is a sacred cow in all six countries. Every government insists that military “modernization” is imperative. Few civic groups have been able to raise the issue in a unilateral context in the sense of urging their government to unilaterally reduce military spending. So, both governments, and to a certain extent civic groups too, are trapped in a security dilemma. Yet this narrow security dilemma is itself inset in a much larger human security dilemma. At a time when we urgently need funds for the food crisis, the energy crisis, the climate crisis, the AIDS crisis, and other looming crises – all of which threaten human security – military spending is nowhere near the top of the global agenda.

The Six Party Talks provide a strategic opening for this kind of campaign. The participating governments have all been talking peace but preparing for war. With the Freeze, we call on the governments to put their money where the mouths are. Any progress in the nuclear talks is commendable. But the runaway military budgets exacerbate the many challenges to regional security. Despite booming trade relations, the region faces many threats to stability. A regional security mechanism, one of the working groups within the Six Party framework, could begin to address these threats. But unless such a mechanism deals with the arms race in the region, it will address only surface issues and fail to grapple with a driving force behind insecurity.

Obama’s Dilemma

The current financial crisis – which has finally kicked in globally – may do what peace activists have been unable to do: impose austerity measures on military spending. The prospects for this, however, are not good. First of all, during past recessions and depressions, governments have used arms spending to maintain employment and stimulate the economy. Second, in the United States, the Democratic Party has continually feared being perceived as “soft on the military.” Although he has urged an end to the war in Iraq, Obama also called for redeploying troops to Afghanistan, increasing the size of the military by 92,000 troops, and staying “on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar.” The Pentagon wants an increase in military spending of $450 billion over the next five years (that’s over and above the already-scheduled increases for next two years).

Obama, however, is pushing for a large economic stimulus and universal health care. At a time when tax increases are largely off the table, where will the new president get the money for these ambitious plans? The peace movement has to push hard for Obama to choose butter over guns.

Peace activists have tried for years to clip the wings of the Pentagon. We’ve pushed for military reductions domestically and watched the Pentagon expand like the Blob. We’ve tried to work at an international level to restrain military spending only to witness the creation of a global military industrial complex. It’s time to try something new. Let’s leverage the negative impact of the financial crisis and the positive developments of the Six Party Talks to get the issue of military spending on table. The global military industrial complex is eating our planet. A freeze is the first step in chaining this monster and turning to the real problems that confront us.

For more information and to sign the Pacific Freeze Call to Action, please visit: http://www.pacificfreeze.ips-dc.org/

John Feffer is the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus – www.fpif.org – at the Institute for Policy Studies.

You can sign on to War Times/Tiempo de Guerras e-mail Announcement List at http://www.war-times.org.

Another military ship backed by Sen. Inouye. “This summer, Navatek delivered to the U.S. Navy two 11-meter USVs worth $3.7 million, with pending orders for two more. The unmanned vessels will be used on the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships that are now in testing.”
HonoluluAdvertiser.com

December 9, 2008

Navatek builds $2.2M research ship

By William Cole
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawai’i ship design company Navatek Ltd. yesterday showed off some of the unmanned vessel technology it is developing for the U.S. and Singapore navies, as well as special operations warfare boat designs, as it continues to expand in the military market.

U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai’i, donned a welder’s jacket, hat, glove and mask, meanwhile, to assist in laying the first joining weld on the keel of a 65-foot research vessel, the Kuapa Ray.

The $2.2 million vessel, being built by Navatek, will serve as a research platform for the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Navy in Florida to improve port and harbor security.

The Kuapa Ray is expected to be completed in about a year.

Inouye said Navatek President Steven Loui “has demonstrated that you can conceive an idea in Hawai’i, you can design an idea in Hawai’i, you can produce an idea in Hawai’i, and come out with something that is so superior that Singapore says, ‘This is what we want.’ ”

The company, which operates at Pier 41, said it is completing construction on a 9-meter (29.5-foot) “unmanned surface vessel,” or USV, for Singapore worth $350,000.

An award is pending for the delivery of another 9-meter USV to Singapore for $450,000, officials said.

This summer, Navatek delivered to the U.S. Navy two 11-meter USVs worth $3.7 million, with pending orders for two more. The unmanned vessels will be used on the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships that are now in testing.

“The value of unmanned and semi-autonomous vehicles to the military is immense,” Loui said. “Outfitted with sensors and weapons, they can perform dangerous missions without risking human lives.”

All of the unmanned boats have Navatek’s proprietary “entrapment tunnel monohull” design that the company says provides a stable ride and allows for high payloads.

In the last two years, the firm has landed four contracts worth $6.7 million.

Eric Schiff, vice president for special projects with Navatek, said a big project may add to that worth – a $6 million possible deal to build a 160-foot ship for the Navy with “bow lifting” technology also utilized on the Kuapa Ray.

The technology improves seakeeping and fuel efficiency, Navatek said. Officials said the ship would be built in partnership with a Mainland shipyard, but some of the technology would be added in Hawai’i.

Schiff said Navatek is unique in the United States.

“There’s not another company in the country that does the applied marine science that we do,” Schiff said. A lot of companies do marine engineering and marine analysis, but “we actually do applied science – we build our technologies.”

Navatek also is applying its bow and stern wing-like lifting-body technology to smooth out the ride of high-speed boats used by Navy SEAL commandos.

Navatek has built commercial vessels in Hawai’i in the past. The company is a privately owned subsidiary of Pacific Marine, which also owns Pacific Shipyards International.

November 22, 2008

Critics fault Inouye’s stay-the-course approach

By DENNIS CAMIRE
Advertiser Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, the incoming chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, doesn’t plan to make any major changes in its operations, quashing hopes of watchdog groups seeking more openness in the way tax dollars are spent.

Two groups, Taxpayers for Common Sense and Citizens Against Government Waste, have long sought greater transparency in committee practices such as holding open hearings and making appropriations bills quickly available on the Internet.

Inouye said he would not make major changes in committee operations, including the handling of earmark requests and the way approved earmarks are disclosed.

“It will be the same,” he said this week.

Inouye, D-Hawai’i, said he looked at earmarks as congressional initiatives “unless you interpret the Constitution to mean that the budget is established by the president and we’re a bunch of rubber stamps.

“I’m not,” he said.

The appropriations committee decides how hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are spent annually to keep the federal government operating. One part of appropriations is earmarking, usually direct federal funding of projects in lawmakers’ home states that are popular with constituents.

The practice has come under greater scrutiny after high-profile corruption scandals.

Opponents also argue that earmarks are based on clout rather than merit, but supporters, including the Hawai’i delegation, maintain that earmarks are vital for getting federal money to states.

Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said he had some hope that with Inouye becoming chairman of the full committee, he would undertake a new direction.

“But it sounds like the senator is promising more of the same rather than opening up and making the budgeting process more democratic and transparent to the public,” Ellis said.

Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, said he believes changes to give the appropriations process greater openness will have to come from President-elect Barack Obama and the Senate leadership.

Obama has come out strongly for reforming the earmark process, a position at odds with Inouye’s.

In March, Obama backed legislation – ultimately unsuccessful – that would have imposed a one-year moratorium on all congressional earmarks. In a statement, Obama said he has “championed greater disclosure requirements for earmarks to ensure that the public knows which member of Congress is sponsoring the spending.

“I have come to believe the system is broken,” Obama said in the statement. “The entire earmarks process needs to be re-examined and reformed.”

During the presidential campaign, Obama favored cutting earmark spending to less than $7.8 billion, the amount spent in 1994 on earmarks. The 2008 level was $17.2 billion.

“If he (Obama) comes in and seriously pushes that proposal, then we have a chance of making more progress in terms of earmark reform and limiting spending,” Schatz said.

But Schatz said past presidents haven’t had much luck in persuading Congress to change.

“All the well-intentioned presidents on this subject run into comments and views such as those held by Senator Inouye,” he said.

Inouye and the other three members of the Hawai’i delegation have steered hundreds of millions of dollars in special project funding to the state over the years.

Inouye, who serves as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee in the current Congress, has often been singled out as one of the top lawmakers for securing special project funding.

Last year, for example, Inouye’s earmarks for Hawai’i totaled almost $230 million. He joined with other lawmakers to secure an additional $184 million in earmarks, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081122/NEWS21/811220352/1001/localnewsfront