Okinawans surround Futenma Air Base with a 13 km ‘Human Chain’; solidarity demo in Honolulu

Yesterday, tens of thousands of Okinawans surrounded the Futenma Air Base with a Human Chain 13 kilometers long calling for the removal of the U.S. military base. There is video at the Okinawa Times website:

http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/article/2010-05-16_6534/

On Friday, 5/14/2010, the Hawai’i Okinawa Alliance held a demonstration in front of the Federal Building in Honolulu in solidarity with the Okinawa action. Also in support were Fight for Guahan, youth from the Rise Up! Roots of Liberation camp, the American Friends Service Committee, DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina, Hawai’i Puerto Rican scholar/activist Tony Castanha, and professors Mari Matsuda and Vincent Pollard. Also joining the demonstration were TAKAHASHI Masaki and ICHINOSE Emiko, former Peace Boat comrades who were visiting Hawai’i to write a book about the “hidden” history of occupation, militarism, corporate tourism and genetic engineering in Hawai’i.

May 10, 2010

Imperial Footprint: America’s Foreign Military Bases

http://www.worlddialogue.org/content.php?id=450

GLOBAL DIALOGUE Volume 11 ● Winter/Spring 2009—After Georgia

Book Review

Imperial Footprint: America’s Foreign Military Bases

ZOLTAN GROSSMAN

Zoltán Grossman is professor of geography at The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington, US.

The Bases of Empire: The Global Struggle against US Military Posts

edited by Catherine Lutz

London, Pluto Press, 2009. 356 pages

Hardback UK £60.00, US $95.00. Paperback UK £17.99, US $29.95

“Metaphorically,” observes Catherine Lutz, “the military is spoken of as an ‘arm’ of the state, as having ‘posture,’ ‘reach,’ ‘stance,’ and perhaps most tellingly, a ‘footprint’ ” (p. 21). In the twenty-first century, this military “footprint” can be seen in the form of the vast, global network of military bases belonging to the United States. Lutz’s new anthology, The Bases of Empire, asserts that “Bases are the literal and symbolic anchors, and the most visible centerpieces, of the U.S. military presence overseas. To understand where those bases are and how they are being used is essential for understanding the United States’ relationship with the rest of the world, the role of coercion in it, and its political economic complexion” (p. 6).

Lutz, a professor of international studies and anthropology at Brown University, introduces her anthology with a review of the growing military-bases network. As of 2007, the Pentagon officially massed “190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees” within 909 military facilities in forty-six countries and territories. Just one of these military installations—the Balad Air Base in Iraq—covers sixteen square miles with an additional twelve-square-mile “security perimeter”. The base can, in fact, be seen from outer space (and can be viewed on Google Earth by downloading the military-bases datafile at www.tni.org). Lutz observes that “While the bases are literally barracks and weapons depots and staging areas for war-making . . . they are also political claims, spoils of war, arms sales showrooms, toxic industrial sites, laboratories for cultural (mis)communication, and collections of customers for local bars, shops, and prostitution” (p. 4).

Like a good geographer, Lutz ties the global phenomenon of US bases to their local realities:

The environmental, political, and economic impact of these bases is enormous and, despite Pentagon claims that the bases simply provide security to the regions they are in, most of the world’s people feel anything but reassured by this global reach. Some communities pay the highest price: their farmland taken for bases, their children neurologically damaged by military jet fuel in their water supplies, their neighbors imprisoned, tortured, and disappeared by the autocratic regimes that survive on U.S. military and political support given as a form of tacit rent for the bases. (P. 4)

Lutz identifies four major historical periods when the United States has built new military bases, and during which “The presumption was established that bases captured or created during wartime would be permanently retained” (p. 14). The first period was after the United States began expanding into North America, when it annexed Native American and Mexican national territories, and “every Western fort . . . was a foreign military base” (p. 10). The second period was after the 1898 Spanish–American War, and the acquisition of new colonies in the Pacific and Caribbean, which served as “coaling stations” for a globalised US Navy. The third period was after 1945, during the Cold War and the immense extension of US economic power around the world. The fourth period was set in motion after 2001 in the so-called “global war on terror”, which is notable mainly for its similarity to earlier imperial projects, with the same rationales of protecting security and freedom.

It used to be that military bases were built to wage wars, but increasingly it seems that wars are being waged to build bases. After every US military intervention since 1990, the Pentagon has left behind clusters of new bases in areas where it never before had a foothold. The string of new bases stretches from Kosovo and adjacent Balkan states, to Iraq and other Persian Gulf states, into Afghanistan and other Central Asian states. Collectively on a map, the bases appear to form a new US sphere of influence in the strategic “middle ground” between the European Union and East Asia, and may well be intended to counteract the emergence of these global economic competitors.

In his contribution on “US Foreign Military Bases and Military Colonialism”, Joseph Gerson of the American Friends Service Committee analyses the reasons for the Pentagon’s “web of foreign fortresses that surpass those created by Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, or Queen Victoria” (p. 51). Gerson notes that bases do not simply project military force abroad, but have many other functions. These include encircling enemies (such as the Soviet Union or Iran), servicing warships and jets, securing fossil fuels from friend and foe alike, controlling and influencing governments and political dynamics, and serving as training and exercise centres, command-and-control facilities, and more recently as torture centres. In a sense, the bases serve as a “tripwire” to prevent any real changes to the status quo—the United States has to intervene in other world regions in order to protect the bases it has already stationed there.

Gerson recalls activists from Guam displaying two maps that illustrated the effects of US bases on their daily lives. One map showed the island’s “best fishing grounds, its best agricultural land, and its best drinking water. The other showed the locations of the U.S. military bases, installations, and military exercises. The two maps were identical” (p. 53). He also relates the tragedy of Diego Garcia, ostensibly a tiny British island-colony in the Indian Ocean. All of the island’s residents were evicted in the 1960s so that it could be occupied by an enormous US base that has served as a lynchpin in every US Middle East invasion and occupation since that time.

Some may be tempted to blame the administration of George W. Bush for the rapid growth in the number of US military bases around the world. But Gerson observes that “While the reckless unilateralism of the Bush–Cheney administration was widely regarded as a radical departure from more complex and nuanced methods of maintaining the empire, it reflected more continuity than change” (p. 57). During recent Republican and Democratic administrations, the Pentagon has used every crisis as a convenient opportunity to establish a permanent military presence in strategic parts of the world—particularly in the belt stretching from Poland to Pakistan.

The Bases of Empire is invaluable for its documentation of recent changes in US basing strategy. While most critical studies of US military bases seem stuck in Cold War or “post–Cold War” paradigms, this book focuses on the new conditions of the twenty-first century. Uppermost among the new strategies is former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s “lily-pad” scenario, which has seen the proliferation of smaller and more widely scattered bases around the world—including in new regions such as East and West Africa. Because the new bases have fewer personnel (and virtually no military families), they are less visible and socially disruptive to the host nation than earlier sprawling megabases.

A key aspect of the lily-pad strategy is the increasing US use of foreign military installations through basing access agreements, and the prepositioning of weapons and supplies. The foremost example, as Ronald Simbulan observes, is the “Visiting Forces Agreement” (VFA), a controversial measure in the Philippines that offers the United States temporary access to its former bases there, allowing it to mount aggressive and nearly constant training exercises. Another major feature of the lily-pad strategy is the turning over of US military functions to private security contractors, to place a civilian fig leaf over armed occupation. As Lutz notes, Balad Air Base houses not only thirty thousand troops, but also ten thousand private contractors (who call the base “Mortarville” because it has been pounded so often by the shells of Iraqi insurgents). The Obama administration is increasing the use of civilian contractors in Afghanistan as well.

As part of the lily-pad strategy, followed closely by the current US defence secretary, Robert Gates, bases have been located in new host countries in order to substitute for bases that have become unpopular in other host countries. For example, new bases in eastern and central Europe—such as Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo—are substitutes for the unpopular and rapidly downsizing US presence in Germany. Operations in Guam and Hawaii have expanded because of the powerful anti-bases movements in the Philippines and Okinawa. The US bases in Iraq were intended partly to be substitutes for the US bases in Saudi Arabia—whose presence in the Muslim holy land fed the resentment that helped lead to the attacks of 11 September 2001. And since Ecuador has announced that the United States will no longer be allowed to use the air base at Manta, Washington has been planning to set up new military bases in Colombia, the region’s most notorious human-rights abuser. By playing this “shell game” with its bases, the Pentagon may also be trying to play off anti-base movements in different countries against one another.

Another new development in the past two decades has been the Pentagon’s ability to deliver force directly from the US “homeland”. The Air Force has undertaken bombing runs around the world (to Panama, Iraq, etc.) from air bases in the United States, rather than exclusively from foreign bases. A related development is the pronounced military build-up of island garrisons that are under US sovereignty or control so that they become virtual aircraft carriers. John Pike, webmaster of the defence website GlobalSecurity.org, predicts that the US military will “be able to run the planet from Guam and Diego Garcia by 2015, even if the entire Eastern Hemisphere has drop-kicked us” (p. 211).

The global proliferation of US bases might cause one to believe that the US military is an unstoppable steamroller that inevitably prevails over the hapless victims in its path, but The Bases of Empire highlights several case studies of successful popular resistance. As Lutz observes, nationalist revolutions or public campaigns have ejected large US military bases from at least twenty countries or territories—including the Philippines, Panama, Ecuador, and Vieques (Puerto Rico)—and reduced or modified the Pentagon’s presence in dozens of other countries. In certain other countries—such as Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan—even dictatorial regimes have (at least temporarily) scaled back US bases in the face of public dissent.

In 2007, anti-bases activists from around the world met in Ecuador to form the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases, committed to ending the presence of all militaries outside their own borders. They met again in 2009 in a “Security without Empire” conference in Washington, D.C., buoyed by the strengthened citizens’ opposition to US bases in Italy, South Korea, Japan, the Czech Republic, and other countries. The network’s website at www.no-bases.org documents the struggles in each country, and discusses unified strategies and actions to overcome the bases “shell game” played by the Pentagon, and to prevent the growing global movement from becoming segmented and divided.

Lutz does a great service to the global movement by including case studies by anti-bases activists and scholars themselves, who deftly explore the local nuances and complexities unique to their regional situations. The contributors cover Latin America and the Caribbean (John Lindsay-Poland), Europe (David Heller and Hans Lammerant), Iraq (Tom Engelhardt), the Philippines (Roland Simbulan), Diego Garcia (David Vine and Laura Jeffery), Vieques (Katherine McCaffrey), Okinawa (Kozue Akibayashi and Suzuyo Takazato), Turkey (Ayşe Gül Altmay and Amy Holmes), and Hawaii (Kyle Kajihiro).

The authors discuss innovative strategies and tactics of the anti-bases movements, such as the “bombspotting” campaigns that have monitored nuclear weapons in Europe and tracked the caravans transporting such weapons in Britain. Other tactics include the activist occupations of naval bombing ranges on Vieques and Kaho’olawe (Hawaii) that not only stopped the shelling, but restored part of the islands for public use—pending the US Navy’s painfully slow munitions clean-ups. Local opposition has succeeded in preventing the expansion of bases in Okinawa (Japan), and blocked the use of US bases in Turkey as launching-pads for the US invasion of Iraq.

But the book does merely cheer on the anti-bases movements, or present them as a monolithic bloc. The contributors take a more original and innovative approach by describing the difficulties of building and maintaining social-movement alliances against the bases. For example, Diego Garcia activists have followed divergent strategies: to return the island to Mauritius, to return evicted residents to the island, or to return the region to a relatively demilitarised state. These strategies often conflict with one another and by no means entail a common goal—closure of the US base on the island—despite the use of the common yet ambiguous slogan, “Give Us Back Diego!” In contrast, political factions with different stances towards the colonial status of Puerto Rico agreed to frame their Vieques demands primarily around environmental health and safety for residents, as reflected in the slogan, “Not One More Bomb!”, and met with much greater success than did the Diego Garcia activists.

The opposition in Okinawa has similarly coalesced around safety for residents, and against the harassment and rape of local women by US military personnel. In the Philippines, various concerns about militarism, women’s rights, and environmental safety reinforced the Filipino nationalist movement, helping it to throw off decades of American neo-colonial control. In Hawaii, about 17 per cent of the population is part of the US military community, and 19 per cent are Native Hawaiians—many of whom oppose not only the bases (largely for desecrating sacred and natural sites), but also the original illegal US annexation of their islands.

The main hurdle that the anti-bases movement must overcome, however, is the stunning lack of awareness among American citizens of their “empire of bases”. In her foreword, feminist scholar Cynthia Enloe offers useful insights into why the US public and media have a “lack of curiosity” about the bases. Most Americans assume that the bases have been invited in by host countries, that the latter enjoy stability and material benefits as a result, and that contact with the most “civilised” military in the world “can only prove beneficial to the fortunate host society” (p. xi). Catherine Lutz’s book documents that most of these assumptions are untrue, and in fact are the opposite of the real experiences of local residents living near US military bases abroad. The Bases of Empire is a useful source for Americans asking why their foreign policy seems only to diminish national security for other countries, and for their own, and an invaluable handbook for Americans who really seek a new relationship with the rest of the world.

May 9, 2010August 5, 2010

Secretary of the Army statements about Makua insults community

So, the Secretary of the Army stops in Hawai’i, makes some remarks about the Army’s need to train in Makua and the military’s respect for Hawaiian culture and the environment.

He did not dare to have a public audience in Hawai’i. The Army canceled a reception with its hand-picked Native Hawaiian leaders because of the possibility that he would be embarrassed by the opposition to Army activities in Hawai’i.

It is outrageous that the Army is now contemplating using Makua to train unmanned aerial vehicles, the drones that have inflicted so much death and suffering on civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

McHugh says the Army wants to use Makua for “full spectrum training”, presumably to pursue the delusional doctrine of “full spectrum dominance”.

McHugh’s remarks illustrate the arrogance of the military in Hawai’i. It will only anger the community that has been working peacefully and productively for decades to have the land returned to peaceful and sustainable uses. As with many of the military occupied sites in Hawai’i, the Army took Makua valley during WWII with a promise to return the land 6 months after the war. It is long overdue that the military make good on its promise to clean up and return Makua.

Remaking the Army’s image to be greener and more friendly to the natives does not solve their problem. Their problem stems from the fact that the mission the U.S. military is training for is illegal and immoral – the invasion and occupation of other countries and the destructive means that pacify resistance as effectively as gasoline douses fire.

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http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20100509_Army_chief_cites_value_of_Makua_for_training.html

Army chief cites value of Makua for training

By Gregg K. Kakesako

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, May 09, 2010

New Army Secretary John McHugh supports the continued use of Makua Valley for military training, emphasizing that closing it would mean the 11,000 soldiers stationed here would have to spend more time away from their families preparing for wartime deployments.

McHugh toured a portion of the 4,000-acre Makua Military Reservation by helicopter and truck Friday morning with Lt. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of all Army troops in the Pacific and former commanding general of the 25th Infantry Division.

McHugh said retention of Makua allows the Army to offer the “full spectrum of training” here without having to send soldiers to southern California. “I think it’s in the interest of the soldiers, the Army and the United States of America to have these forces continuing to be in position to grow, to be fully trained as they are now to go forward to do the nation’s business.”

He added that the Army should continue “making every effort and expending those resources to protect the culture, the heritage and the very unique environmental challenges that exist here.”

McHugh said 25th Division soldiers now spend several months at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert to complete their training for Iraq or Afghan combat missions.

“Coming out of Hawaii, that’s like another deployment,” McHugh added. “It impacts very significantly on the amount of time soldiers have to recover and spend with their families.”

Mixon said the Army plans an environmental study on converting the valley to “a non-live-fire training range” that would focus on programs dealing with the use of drones, helicopter laser and convoy operations and ways to defuse roadside and homemade bombs.

Since 2001 Earthjustice and Malama Makua, a Leeward Oahu group that believes the valley is scared to native Hawaiians, have been fighting the Army over the use of Makua. No live-fire infantry exercises have been held in the area since 2004 because of the court cases.

Both sides agree that more than 50 endangered plant and animal species and more than 100 archaeological features are found in the valley area.

McHugh said at a Friday news conference that the Army has spent $10 million a year to ensure the safety of the endangered plants and animals and provide access to cultural and historical sites. Proponents have argued that is not enough.

Earlier this year Mixon said the Army plans to spend $37 million to convert Makua Valley into a roadside-bomb and counter-insurgency training center.

“It’s obviously an incredible, beautiful part of the island,” McHugh told reporters after his first visit to the islands and Makua Valley. “My first impression visually was that the Army has done a more than credible job in preserving its historic nature and preserving its environmental nature.”

McHugh said he believes the military can share the valley with the community.

Mixon has said that over the next decade much traditional infantry and artillery training can be shifted to the Big Island’s Pohakuloa Training Area.

Makua Valley, with proper funding and support, could become a training center on gathering intelligence, Mixon has said. The center could provide training on homemade bombs used in all parts of the world, especially important given the growing threat in the Philippines, India and the rest of Asia. Soldiers from Pacific basin countries could also be sent here for such training at Makua.

He also said that Makua is a good place to train with unmanned aerial vehicles.

McHugh was in the islands on the last leg of a weeklong visit to Army bases in Japan, South Korea and Hawaii. The former Republican U.S. House member is the Army’s 21st civilian leader. He assumed the post in September.

April 30, 2010

Time to Cancel the Army’s Lease at Pohakuloa over Radiation Contamination

Call from Malu ‘Aina:

Time to Cancel the Army’s Lease at Pohakuloa over Radiation Contamination

1. The Army repeatedly denied the use of Depleted Uranium (DU) in Hawaii.

2. Now it has been confirmed that in the 1960s the U.S. Army used the Pohakuloa Training Area for firing spotting rounds containing DU for the Davy Crockett nuclear weapon system.

3. The DU spotting rounds have created the presence of radiation contamination at Pohakuloa.

4. DU is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

5. DU emits radioactive alpha particles than can cause cancer when inhaled (and poses health concerns for troops, residents and visitors in Hawaii).

6. Due to poor military record keeping, there may be more DU contamination at Pohakuloa than just Davy Crockett spotting rounds.

7. On July 2, 2008 the Hawaii County Council passed Resolution 639-08 by a vote of 8-1.

8. Resolution 639-08 called for “a complete halt to B-2 bombing missions and to all live firing exercises and other activities at the Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) that creates dust until there is an assessment and clean up of the depleted uranium already present.”

9. Live-fire continues at PTA and the DU has not been cleaned up. Live-fire and high winds at Pohakuloa risk spreading the radiation contamination off-base.

10. While major potions (more than 84,000-acres) of Crown lands at PTA were taken (without compensation) by Executive orders, PTA has a State General Lease No. S-3849 by the State of Hawaii, Board of Land and Natural Resources – U.S. Lease, Contract No. DA-94-626-ENG-80 – August 19, 1964 (expiration date 16 Aug. 2029) consisting of 22,988 acres for $1.00 for 65 years.

11. In the 1960s when the Army leased State land in the Waiakea Forest Reserve (Hilo’s watershed) for what was suppose to be weather testing, but in fact was chemical weapons testing including deadly sarin gas, Hawaii County residents spoke up and the State lease to the Army was canceled; now, therefore,

THE PEOPLE OF HAWAII COUNTY NEED TO SPEAK UP AGAIN TO CANCEL THE ARMY’S LEASE AT THE POHAKULOA TRAINING AREA AND REQUIRE CLEAN UP OF DEPLETED URANIUM (DU) RADIATION CONTAMINATION.

Let Your Voice Be Heard!

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, etc.5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.

Contact: Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB Kurtistown, Hawai`i 96760.

Phone (808) 966-7622. Email ja@interpac.net http://www.malu-aina.org

Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (April 30, 2010 – 450th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office

April 30, 2010

NRC to Army: DU monitoring plan won’t work

http://bigislandweekly.com/articles/2010/04/28/read/news/news02.txt

NRC to Army: DU monitoring plan won’t work

By Alan D. McNarie

Wednesday, April 28, 2010 12:04 PM HST

The U.S. Army’s plan to monitor the air over Pohakuloa Training Area for depleted uranium has drawn sharp criticism from some Native Hawaiians, environmentalists, activists and independent experts. Now the Army has gotten an admonishment from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

“We have concluded that the Plan will provide inconclusive results for the U.S. Army as to the potential impact of the dispersal of depleted uranium (DU) while the Pohakuloa Training Area is being utilized for aerial bombardment or other training exercises,” wrote Rebecca Tadesse, Chief of the NRC’s Materials Decommissioning Branch, in a recent letter to Lt. General Rick Lynch, who heads the Army’s Installation Management Command.

Tadesse and her staff reached that conclusion after reviewing the draft plan proposed by the Army and ORISE, the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, which would conduct the monitoring for aerial DU contamination at Pohakuloa and at various other locations around the island. The NRC experts concluded that the plan was inadequate in several areas: the number of air samples planned was “insufficient,” optimum locations for monitoring needed to be determined and established, and “Continuous monitoring should be performed during the testing and also prior to and following testing to determine background conditions,” so that the army would have a basis for comparison with any high readings. The letter also noted that the army proposed to conduct its air monitoring specifically during live firing exercises — even though the Army had told the NRC that it would not “use high explosives and bombs in areas where DU is present.”

“If that is true, why would there be an expectation that DU might be dispersed during such training exercises?” Tadesse asked.

The Army’s handling of the DU issue at Pohakuloa is also drawing fire from some independent experts, including retired army doctor Lorrin Pang, Los Alamos National Laboratory consultant Dr. Marshall Bland, and Dr. Michael Reimer, a retired geologist with a background in radiation monitoring. And Sierra Club researcher Cory Harden has used recently released Army documents to challenge the Army’s own estimates of how much DU may have been released into the environment at Pohakuloa.

“The NRC review seems to vindicate Dr. Pang and myself for claiming that the monitoring was insufficient,” Reimer told BIW.

According to the NRC’s Greg Pukin, his agency doesn’t generally have jurisdiction over weapons, but does have authority over DU and other radionuclides. The Army has applied to the NRC for a permit to possess DU at Pohakuloa — a permit that, if granted, could allow the recently discovered remains of depleted uranium spotter rounds from the Army’s cold-war-era Davy Crockett nuclear howitzer on site at the training area — spotter rounds whose presence in Hawai’i the army had denied until a citizen’s group unearthed an e-mail about their discovery in 2006. A group of local residents, including Harden, antiwar activist Jim Albertini, and native Hawaiian activist Isaac Harp had filed a challenge to the Army’s application on the grounds that its monitoring and clean-up plans were inadequate, but were recently denied standing by the NRC. Harp has appealed that denial.

Both Pang and Reimer testified as experts on April 14 at an NRC phone conference to consider Harp’s complaint. In addition to noting Tadesse’s criticisms, Reimer observed that the 5-micron filters that the army planned to use to capture possible DU particles for monitoring were a bit on the coarse side.

“Five-micron size [particles] would fall out within a mile,” he said. “Smaller sizes may be carried by the wind.” He recommended .45-micron filters.

Pang also challenged the army’s general credibility by citing a number of former army statements about DU that Pang said simply weren’t true.

“The Army stated to the Dept of Health Environmental Chief that inhaled DU (from exploding weaponry) was not a worry since DU is heavier than air and would not become airborne, therefore not inhaled,” he noted, for example. He testified that Army consultants, when discussing the amount of DU needed to produce radiation readings reported by civilian monitors at Pohakuloa, had held out their hands to indicate chunks the size of basketballs.

Pang also claims that an Army study setting human safety thresholds for DU inhalation was scientifically flawed.

“That study has been widely, publicly debunked by the scientific community,” he said. “The Army investigators did not count effects like tumors (both malignant and benign) in the exposed group.”

“The kind of air monitoring that the Army is using, they’ll never find it,” commented Harden at the conference call.

Harden also challenged an Army estimate that about 700 Davy Crocket spotter rounds may have been fired at Pohakuloa.

“To back up their claim they quoted from a report, which I only managed to obtained after ten months of repeated requests,” testified Harden. Their quote for the lower number does not match my copy of the report…. For soldiers to follow training manual requirements of that time, about 2,000 spotting rounds would have been needed at Pohakuloa. Now the Army didn’t find 2,000 spotting rounds recently at Pohakuloa Training Area, only four fragments. They speculate that range clearance may have been done, but offer no evidence to support this theory.”

Based on the discrepancies, the Army’s critics argued that the NRC simply couldn’t trust what the Army said about DU in Hawaii – nor could the public.

“Since we can’t rely on the military to shine their light on the hazards its left behind, we need help from NRC,” Hardin concluded.

April 27, 2010

Hawai’i vigil in solidarity with Okinawa

Photos: Jamie Oshiro, Hawai’i Okinawa Alliance

Yesterday, in solidarity with the 90,000+ Okinawans who rallied against U.S. military bases in Okinawa, the Hawai’i-Okinawa Alliance (HOA), the American Friends Service Committee – Hawai’i and DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina organized a vigil in front of the Japanese Consulate in Honolulu.

Approximately 40 people held signs and candles in front of the Japanese Consulate. Ukwanshin Kabudan, Nakem Youth, Fight for Guahan, Veterans for Peace and Urban Babaylan were some of the groups represented.

Photos: Darlene Rodrigues

People spoke about the impacts of U.S. military bases in Hawai’i, Guam, Korea, and the Philippines and the need for our peoples to be in solidarity for the removal of these bases of war. Wearing a “Deji-wajiwaji!” HOA tee-shirt, World War II Veteran Don Matsuda called for the bases to get out of Okinawa. Kisha Borja-Kicho’cho’ with a contingent from Fight for Guahan expressed solidarity from the Chamoru community in their struggle to resist the U.S. military base expansion on her home island. Many speakers expressed a desire to remove the oppressive military bases and make the Pacific a zone of peace. Several people came after seeing coverage of the event on the television. For some it was their first demonstration.

Photo: Jeffrey Acido

Norman Kaneshiro sensei and several young Okinawan musicians sang traditional Okinawan songs. We closed the circle with singing “Hana” (Kina Shoukichi’s famous peace anthem).

Photos: Darlene Rodrigues

Then we tied yellow ribbons with messages of peace written on them on the consulate fence.

The event was covered on KITV and KHNL television stations, and there reporters for the Okinawa Times and Ryukyu Shimpo covered the event.

April 26, 2010

Insular Empire “Red Pill Tour”

Vanessa Warheit, director of the film Insular Empire: America in the Mariana Islands just posted a new entry about her visit to Hawai’i and what she has dubbed the “Red Pill Tour”, a reference to the scene in The Matrix when Neo takes the red pill that awakens him to the violent and oppressive reality of his existence as he joins the resistance.

It was surreal standing over the map of the Pacific ocean in the Arizona Memorial visitor’s center, talking with Dr. Hope Cristobal a Chamorro leader from Guam, Lino Olopai, a Refaluwasch (Carolinian) master canoe navigator from Saipan, Terri Keko’olani and Vanessa about the “American Lake”, how the Pacific is depicted in the U.S. imperial imagination. Then Lino struck up a conversation with “cousins” from Kiribati, who happened to be visiting the memorial. In beautiful contrast, it illustrated how peoples of the Pacific see Ka Moana Nui as the medium that unites peoples.

April 24, 2010April 25, 2010

Solidarity Statement from the Members of the Network for Okinawa

http://closethebase.org/2010/04/22/solidarity-statement-from-the-members-of-the-network-for-okinawa/

Solidarity Statement from the Members of the Network for Okinawa

April 25, 2010

Network for Okinawa

We, the members of the Network for Okinawa, represent many hundreds of thousands of Americans and people around the world who support democracy and environmental protection in Okinawa. Our grassroots network draws together representatives from U.S. and international peace groups, environmental organizations, faith-based organizations, academia, and think tanks.

Today we proudly announce our stand with the governor, the mayors, the media, the Henoko village elders, and the one million citizens of Okinawa; the thirty thousand residents of Tokunoshima, and the hundreds of thousands of citizens across Japan who support Okinawa. From across the Pacific Ocean, we support their demand for the closure of the Futenma U.S. Marine Base and opposition to any new military base construction in Okinawa and Tokunoshima Island.

We appeal to Prime Minister Hatoyama to keep his promise to the Okinawan people and honor their rejection of any new construction in Camp Schwab. This includes a proposal to build a runway within the base already rejected in the 1990’s. The mayor of Nago, Inamine Susumu reiterated this rejection this year. We also ask Prime Minister Hatoyama to reject the U.S.-Japan 2006 proposal to construct partially offshore runways. This expansion would destroy the coral reef which is the home to the Okinawan dugong, blue coral, and other species, It would damage beautiful Yanbaru Forest, home of many beautiful animals and plants, including endangered species.

We call upon President Obama, as the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military, to honor the Okinawan democratic decision to remove the U.S. Futenma Marine base out of their prefecture and their call for no further U.S. military base construction.

The U.S. military built its first military bases during the Battle of Okinawa to serve as a platform for an invasion into Japan, then ruled by an imperial militarist wartime regime. Over two hundred thousand Okinawan civilians, American soldiers, and Japanese soldiers died in the crossfire between the U.S. and Japan in that battle. It was the bloodiest in the Pacific War.

But the war’s end did not bring peace to Okinawa. The U.S. never dismantled its military bases and began to use them under its own Cold War military regime with a never-ending succession of enemies: Korea, Vietnam, Laos, China and the Soviet Union. Some U.S. and Japanese officials again imagine China a threat—despite détente and ever-increasing economic integration between China and the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Australia, and other nations that deems war very unlikely.

Former Okinawan governor Masahide Ota stated—that for Okinawans—the war never ended. Many Okinawans still experience anxiety and depression from wartime trauma. The remains of 4,000-5,000 dead Okinawans have yet to be collected. Unexploded bombs remain throughout the island. Over 5,000 Okinawans have been the victims of crimes committed by American soldiers. Mr. Ota, therefore, asks: “Why shall we start preparing for a new war, while the old war is not over yet?”

Network member Peter Galvin, Conservation Director of the Center for Biological Diversity states, “Destroying the environmental and social well-being of an area, even in the name of ‘national or global security,’ is itself like actively waging warfare against nature and human communities.”

The US government has repeatedly promised reform in Okinawa. The 1972 “reversion” of Okinawa from the U.S. to Japan did not result in promised demilitarization. Their latest proposal—first made in 1996 and renegotiated in 2006—does not “lighten a burden.” It instead would move U.S. military pollution, noise, and assaults from Ginowan City to untouched Henoko.

How many elections, resolutions, and mass-scale rallies does the Japanese government and US government need before they hear the message of the Okinawan people?

We, the many people in the U.S. and worldwide, of the Network for Okinawa–hear and support these messages for removal, not relocation of military bases from Okinawa.

To illustrate, we would like to share some individual remarks from our supporters:

Gavan McCormack, Australian National University professor states, “An alliance that treats the opinion of Okinawans with such contempt is not an alliance of or for democracy. The ‘free world’ used to be fiercely critical of Moscow for trampling on the opinions of Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians; now, in the name of ‘freedom,’ it is about to act in precisely the same way. Does freedom mean so little to those who pretend they defend it?”

John Lindsay-Poland, Director of Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Latin America program, states: “Military bases in Japan and other countries are material projections of the will of the U.S. to use war and violent force. War is not only brutal, unjust, and ecologically devastating, but unnecessary to achieve legitimate aims.”

Kyle Kajihiro, Program Director, American Friends Service Committee – Hawai’i Area Office, states: “The powerful Okinawan demand is clear: peace is a human right. The Okinawan people are an inspiration to our own movement. We stand with them in solidarity for peace across the Pacific.”

In a speech she gave in Stockholm, Japanese Canadian author Joy Kogawa paid tribute to Okinawa’s peace-loving traditional culture that honors the sanctity of life:

“There is a certain small island in the east, where the world’s longest living and intensely peaceable people live.

“My brother, a retired Episcopalian priest, was in Okinawa for a few years in the 1990’s. He told me that in 1815, Captain Basil Hall of the British navy steamed into Naha, Okinawa and was amazed at what he found. The story goes, that on his way back to England, he dropped in to the island of St. Helena and had a chat with Napoleon.

“’I have been to an island of peace,’ the captain reported. ‘The island has no soldiers and no weapons.’

“’No weapons? Oh, but there must be a few swords around,’ Napoleon remarked.

“’No. Even the swords have been embargoed by the king.’

“Napoleon, we’re told, was astonished. ‘No soldiers, no weapons, no swords! It must be heaven.’

“A unique culture of peace had developed in one tiny part of our warring planet…

“When Japan, that once warring nation, took over the kingdom, there was an entirely bloodless coup. No soldiers were found to help later with the invasion of Korea. A disobedient people, Japan concluded. A kingdom without soldiers was clearly impossible. Okinawa, with its history of peace, must surely have had a culture as close to heaven as this planet has managed. And perhaps therefore a special target for the forces of hate.”

Today our world stands at a crossroads between survival and self-destruction. We must transform from a world dominated by a culture of war into a world led by cooperation and nonviolent conflict resolution. Instead of forcing more unwanted military violence upon this peaceful island, the U.S. and Japan would be wise to model Okinawa’s democratic culture of life.

http://closethebase.org/

CONTACT: John Feffer, Institute for Policy Studies

johnf@ips-dc.org, 202-234-9382, cell: 510-282-8983

===============================================

連帯声明

２０１０年４月２５日
Network for Okinawa

我々、Network for Okinawa（沖縄のためのネットワーク）のメンバーは、沖縄の民主主義と環境保護を支持する何十万人もの米国人と世界中の人々を代表する。我々の草の根のネットワークは、米国と世界の平和・環境団体、宗教的奉仕活動団体、大学・研究機関やシンクタンクの代表者を結びつける。

我々は今日、沖縄を支持する県知事、市町村長、メディア、辺野古のお年寄りたち、１００万人の沖縄県民、３万人の徳之島住民、そして日本全国何十万人にもおよぶ国民と共にあることを、誇りを持って宣言する。太平洋を経た地より、彼らの米軍普天間基地の閉鎖と沖縄そして徳之島におけるいかなる新たな基地建設への反対の要求を支持する。

我々は鳩山首相に、沖縄県民との約束を果たし、キャンプシュワブの新たな基地建設を拒否する彼らの意志を尊重するよう要請する。これには基地内に滑走路を建設するという、１９９０年代すでに拒否された提案も含まれる。名護市の稲嶺進市長は今年、沖縄県民のこの意志表示を繰り返した。

更に、我々は鳩山首相に、部分的に岸から離れた滑走路を建設するという２００６年の日米提案を拒否することも要請する。このような基地の拡大は沖縄のジュゴンやアオサンゴなどが棲むサンゴ礁を破壊し、絶滅の危機にある動植物を含めた多くの美しい生物が生息するやんばるの森をも破壊することになる。

我々は米軍の最高司令官であるオバマ大統領に対して、沖縄から米軍普天間基地を取り除きたいという県民の民主的決断と、県内における一切の新たな基地建設に反対するという彼らの意志を尊重するよう求める。

米軍は沖縄戦中、当時軍事帝国主義によって統治されていた本土を侵略する足がかりとして沖縄に最初の基地を建設した。２０万人以上の沖縄市民、米軍兵士そして日本軍兵士がこの戦いで命を落とした。これは太平洋戦争の中でも、最も残酷な戦闘であった。

しかし終戦は沖縄に平和をもたらさなかった。米国はいっこうに基地を解体しようとせず、朝鮮・ベトナム・ラオス・中国・ソ連など次々と「敵」をつくり出しながら冷戦における軍事政策のもとに沖縄の基地を使い始めたのだ。緊張緩和や日・中・米・韓・豪などの経済統合がかつてないほど進んでいるにも関わらず、日米の政府関係者の中には中国を再び「脅威」と想定する者がいる。

沖縄元県知事の太田昌秀氏は、沖縄の市民にとって戦争は決して終わらなかったと言った。沖縄県民の多くが今でも戦時中のトラウマによる不安とうつに悩まされている。

四千から五千の沖縄人の遺体が未だに回収されていない。沖縄全土に渡り不発弾も残っている。そして五千人以上の沖縄市民が米兵による犯罪の犠牲となっている。「前の戦争がまだ終わっていないのに、なぜ次の戦争を始める準備をしなければならないのか」と太田氏は問う。

Network for Okinawaのメンバーであるピーター・ギャルビンは生物多様性センターの保全所長でもある。彼は「たとえ『国家や世界の安全保障のため』という名目であっても、ある地域の環境や社会福祉を損なうということはそれ自体、自然と人間社会に戦争を仕掛けるようなものだ」と言う。

米国政府は沖縄での改革を繰り返し約束してきた。１９７２年の米国から日本への『復帰』は約束されていた非軍事化にはつながらなかった。１９９６年に作られ、２００６年に再協議された最新の提案は、沖縄の「負担軽減」にはならなかった。むしろ、米軍基地による汚染、騒音、暴力などの問題を宜野湾市から手つかずの辺野古へ移すだけとなった。

沖縄の人々の声が日本と米国政府に届くには、いったい、幾つもの選挙や決議、大規模なデモを行う必要があるのだろうか。

我々Network for Okinawaに所属する多くの米国と世界各地の人々には沖縄の声が聞こえる。我々は単に基地を県内移設させるのでなく、沖縄から取り除きたいという県民のメッセージを支持する。

これを例証するために、我々支持者の声をここにいくつか紹介する：

オーストラリア国立大学教授のギャバン・マコーマック氏は、「沖縄県民の意志をこのような侮辱でもって対処するような同盟は民主的でもなければ民主主義のためでもない。かつて『自由主義陣営』はポーランド人、チェコ人、ハンガリー人の意志を踏みにじったソ連政府に対して極めて批判的であった。ところが今、『自由』の名において全く同じことをしようとしている。自由を守るふりをする者たちにとって、自由はこんなにも少しの意味しか持たないのだろうか。」と話す。

友和会ラテンアメリカ・プログラムの責任者ジョン・リンゼイ・ポーランド氏は「日本やその他の国々にある米軍基地は、戦争を起こし武力を行使するというアメリカの意志を反映している。戦争は非人間的で不正義で環境破壊をするにすぎず、正当な目的を達成するためには不必要である。」と述べている。

米国フレンズ奉仕団ハワイ地域事務局のプログラム・ディレクター、カイル・カジヒロ氏は「沖縄県民の力強い要求は明らだ。平和は人権である。沖縄の人々は私たち自身の運動にインスピレーションを与えてくれる。太平洋をまたがる平和への連帯のもと、私たちは沖縄の人々を支持する。」

日系カナダ人の執筆家ジョイ・コガワはストックホルムでのスピーチで、命の尊厳を大事にするという、沖縄の平和を愛する伝統文化を称えた：

「東方にある小さな島があります。そこには世界一の長寿で、ものすごく穏やかな人々が住んでいるんです。」

「私の兄は退職する前に聖公会の牧師として１９９０年代の何年かを沖縄で過ごしました。その兄が教えてくれたのですが、１８１５年に英国海軍のバジル・ホール艦長が沖縄の那覇に突入していった時、大変驚きの発見をしたのです。イングランドへの帰途、艦長はセント・ヘレナ島に立ち寄り、ナポレオンとおしゃべりをしました。」

「私は平和の島に行ったことがある」と報告する艦長。「その島には兵隊もいなければ武器もないのだ。」

「武器がない？でも剣の２、３本はあったんじゃないのかね」とナポレオン。

「いや。剣でさえ国王が禁止している」

ナポレオンはびっくり仰天。「兵隊も武器も剣もない！そりゃ天国に違いない」

「平和の文化は戦争の絶えないこの地球の、ちっぽけな島で発展したのです・・・」

「かつて戦争中だった日本がこの王国を占領したとき、全く血を見ないクーデターが起こりました。また後々朝鮮半島を侵略するときに手を貸したいという戦士も見つかりませんでした。日本は、この島の人々は反抗的だと結論付けました。兵隊のない王国など明らかに不可能でした。このような平和の歴史を持つ沖縄は、きっと地球上で一番天国に近い文化を持つ場所だったのでしょう。もしかすると、それが故に、この島は憎しみの部隊にとって特別な標的となったのかもしれません」

今日、我々の世界は生き残りか自己破壊の境目にある。我々は戦争の文化に蝕ばまれた世界を、お互いに協力し合い、暴力によらない紛争を解決する世界へと変革しなければならない。この平和的な島に不必要な軍事暴力を押しけるのでなく、米国と日本は沖縄の命を尊ぶ民主的な文化から学ぶべきである。

http://closethebase.org/

CONTACT: John Feffer, Institute for Policy Studies

johnf@ips-dc.org , 202-234-9382, cell: 510-282-8983

March 25, 2010March 25, 2010

Two conflicting visions for Kulani prison: military academy or Native Hawaiian healing center

From the Hawai’i Independent:

http://www.thehawaiiindependent.com/local/read/hawaii/two-visions-for-kulani-prison-lawmakers-consider-a-new-plan-for-the-closed-/

Two visions for Kulani prison: Lawmakers consider a new plan for the closed facility

Mar 24, 2010 – 01:52 PM | by Alan McNarie | Hawaii Island

A robotics club was initiated as a pilot project for the Hawaiʻi National Guard Youth Challenge Academy on Oʻahu.

HILO—When Hawaiʻi Island’s Kulani Correctional Facility closed last year, the site quickly found a new tenant. The United States National Guard plans to open a new branch of its Youth ChalleNGe Academy in 2011, which will provide housing and education to about 100 “at-risk youth” in buildings that once held the State’s sex offender treatment program.

But some Hawaiʻi residents question why the military is involved in public education. And the State Legislature is considering another plan that would use Kulani for a new “puʻuhonua” (place of refuge) where prisoners could undergo a program based on the Hawaiian custom of hoʻoponopono, or reconciliation.

A military vision

According to National Guard spokesperson Lt. Col. Chuck Anthony, the Youth ChalleNGe Academy is designed to give high school dropouts their last best chance of getting a diploma by instilling military discipline.

“They wear uniforms, they march in formation, they get up early, they do calisthenics, they run,” Anthony said. “It’s very similar to what basic trainees might do in the military. … It’s amazing how many of these kids actually thrive better in a highly structured environment.”

But some community members question whether the military is the best branch of government to handle kids.

“The military’s becoming the family for kids,” says Catherine Kennedy, who gives presentations in Hawaiʻi Island schools to counterbalance the efforts of military recruiters. “It’s the strict mom and dad. It’s the tough love for kids. That’s one of the problems that I have with the military. It’s not a caring, understanding family. It’s a disciplinary family, it’s an authoritarian family, it’s a sexist family.”

So why is the National Guard is in the education business?

“Because we’ve been doing it for a long time now,” Anthony answers.

The program, he says, started in ten other states in 1993. The Hawaiʻi National Guard opened a Youth ChalleNGe Academy in a former Navy barracks at Kalailoa on Oʻahu in 1994. That program has been operating ever since, working with about 100 to 150 students at a time.

The majority of the academy’s funding comes from the federal government. Most of its classroom instructors, Anthony says, come from the Department of Education; National Guard personnel do administration and handle the disciplinary training.

“When you’re designing a program to help instill discipline in teens, who better than the National Guard cadre to help do that?” Anthony said.

Some critics note the National Guard has a conflict of interest: It needs young bodies to fill out its ranks. And “youth at risk,” especially minorities and kids from lower-class homes, could be especially vulnerable to military recruitment.

“The way that the military has capitalized on the economic downturn is to cast itself as the only alternative for education and a career,” said Kyle Kajehiro of the American Friends Service Committee. “We call that the ‘poverty draft.’”

Academy opponents can point to examples such as that of Wilson Algrim, an orphan from Colombia who was adopted by a Michigan couple. He’d never attended school in Colombia, and had difficulty in American public schools, but he graduated from Michigan’s Youth ChalleNGe Academy and then enlisted in the Michigan National Guard. In 2006, two days before Christmas, he was killed by an improvised explosive device in Iraq.

At least two Hawaiʻi Youth ChalleNGe graduates, Marine Lance Corporal Kristen K. Marino and Marine Private Lewis T.D. Calapini, also have died in Iraq.

“The National Guard certainly doesn’t want to look at the Youth ChalleNGe Academy as a recruiting tool,” Anthony maintains. “We really try to discourage [academy graduates from immediately joining the Guard] because in a lot of cases they may not have come from an environment that was conducive to keeping them on the right path. … We’d really be interested in their going away from Hawaiʻi for a while to gain some maturity.”

The National Guard’s adjutant general, Maj. Gen. Robert G. F. Lee, is more explicit about how graduates could “go away.”

“We offer them as an option joining the Guard,” he said, adding, “We feel that probably active duty [is a better method of] just getting away from the islands and continuing to be successful.”

Lee says about 20 percent of the academy’s graduates join some branch of the armed services after graduating. A Department of Education survey of the state’s high school seniors, in contrast, found that only eight percent of them planned to join the military.

“Recruiters can talk to cadets, but the amount of access they can have to cadets is really less than they have at a regular high school,” Anthony maintains.

But if students in the current program want to see a recruiter, they don’t have far to go. An online memo, dated September 3, 2009, announced a “New Hawaii Recruiting Location!” serving both the Army and Air National Guards, in Kalaeloa, “adjacent to the Hawaiʻi Youth ChalleNGe facility.”

Lee says Hawaiʻi National Guard headquarters is also in Kalaeloa. The new recruiting station, he said, is “really to serve us.”

“We won’t have a recruiting office up at Kulani,” he added.

According to Lee, most of the academy’s 2,700 graduates have left with the equivalents of a high school diplomas and with significant increases in reading and math skills.Youth Challenge websites nationwide carry dozens of glowing testimonials from graduates.

But the future isn’t always bright for academy graduates. In 2004, the Honolulu Advertiser reported on a Youth Challenge commencement in which the guest speaker, an Academy graduate, warned new graduates against going back to their old habits. He said he didn’t turn his own life around until he joined the military, and that when he’d tried to look up his four closest friends from his academy days, he learned that one was in prison and three were dead.

Hale line the beach at a puʻuhonua once used for refugees or those who broke kapu located at Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park.

A Hawaiian vision

Ron Fujioshi, a Hilo minister involved in a Hilo restorative justice group Ohana Hoʻopakele, has a different vision for Kulani.

“We are hoping that the plan from the Department of Defense is not going to go through, and so we can use the Kulani place as the site for a puʻuhonua,” he said.

A puʻuhonua, in Hawaiian tradition, is a refuge for criminals and for those fleeing war. According to Ohana Hoʻopakele’s president, Sam Kaleleiki, Jr, criminals staying at the puʻuhonua can undergo hoʻoponopono, or “making right the wrong,” a traditional process in which members of both the offender’s and the victim’s extended families participate to remedy the injury so the offender can go home.

“If they did wrong, they go and rehabilitate,” Kaleleiki said, “but [they are] not punished.”

Puna State Rep. Faye Hanohano, a former Kulani corrections officer, has introduced House Bill 2567, calling for the Department of Public Safety to establish a puʻuhonua, preferably at Kulani.

Public Safety Director Clayton Frank submitted written testimony against the bill, citing his department’s memorandum of agreement with the State Department of Defense about Youth ChalleNGe, the danger of co-mingling youth and adult prisoners, budget concerns and possible liabilities for alleged ethnic discrimination.

“As written, HB 2657, HD1 could be seen as prejudicial or discriminatory as other ethics (sic) groups would not be provided with the same and/or similar programs,” Frank wrote.

Fujioshi calls that argument “crazy.” And at continental U.S. prisons with Hawaii prisoners, he points out, ceremonies marking the beginning and end of makahiki are already held, and both non-Hawaiians and Hawaiians participate. The puʻuhonua would be open to prisoners of all ethnicities, he said.

The current correctional system could already be charged with ethnic bias—in favor of European-American values—he added.

“The Western system is so individualistic that they put all the emphasis on the individual to go straight,” Fujioshi said.

Lee and Anthony as well as Fujioshi and Kalaleiki all see links between social environment and crime. But while the National Guardsmen talk about getting kids away from Hawaii, the Hawaiians say the criminal and the community must be healed together.

“Right now they’re taking about 2000 of our men out to Saguaro (a private prison in Arizona),” says Fujioshi. “There’s no healing in that. You’re building alienation instead of healing. … We need to bring them back to the extended families of their communities and get the healthiest members of those communities involved in the healing process.”

Kaleleiki sees another cultural trait in the current penal system.

“This boils down to money. This is the American way of doing things,” he said.

The state would have to find money for the puʻuhonua, while the Guard expects to have a $1.2 million federal grant for its new campus—although Hanohano notes that it doesn’t have that grant yet. Even if the grant happens, the State will still need to come up with another $400,000.

But if money becomes available, Hawaiʻi may not have to choose between the two visions. Hanohano believes that even if the Youth Challenge program goes into the old prison, a pu‘uhonua still could be built on pastureland from the prison’s farm. Fujioshi says his group is also looking at another tract a few miles makai of the prison complex.

Bill 2657 has crossed over from the State House of Representatives to the Senate, where it passed the Public Safety and Military Affairs Committee and is currently scheduled to be heard by the Ways and Means Committee.

March 24, 2010

Atlantic Free Press Review of ‘Bases of Empire’ book

http://atlanticfreepress.com/reviews/12902-the-bases-of-empire-the-global-struggle-against-us-military-posts-book-review-by-jim-miles.html

The Bases of Empire – The Global Struggle against U.S. Military Posts – Book Review by Jim Miles

Written by Jim Miles Contributor, Atlantic Free Press.

Tuesday, 23 March 2010 06:46

Corporations

One of the underlying themes arising from Lutz’s introduction and inclusive within the various essays is that “corporations and the military itself as an organization have profited from bases’ continued existence, regardless of their strategic value.” Military liaisons with other countries usually are “linked with trade and other kinds of agreements, such as access to oil and other raw materials and investment opportunities.”

The idea of corporate ‘investment’ via the military is reiterated throughout the essays. The introduction by John Lindsay-Poland to “U.S. Military Bases in Latin America and the Caribbean” says the bases there “have served explicitly to project and protect U.S. government and commercial interests in the region,” and are “tangible commitments to U.S. policy priorities such as ensuring access to strategic resources, especially oil and natural gas.” Further , the bases serve “to control Latin populations and resources.” In “Iraq as a Construction Site” Tom Engelhardt argues that “American [U.S.] officials are girding for an open-ended commitment to protect the country’s oil industry.”

The obverse of this is recognized in Roland Simbulan’s essay on “…U.S. Military Activities in the Philippines” where opposition to the bases “articulate…the possibility and desire for human security and genuine development through their common opposition to neoliberal globalization.” He notes that those opposed to the U.S. military bases also “consider themselves part of the anti-corporate globalization movement as well.”

More specifically, David Vine and Laura Jeffery highlight the power of trade in conjunction with the military in their essay “Give us Back Diego Garcia.” The Chagossians exiled from Diego Garcia ended up in Mauritius, where the U.S. and the U.K have used corporate-government threats “against Mauritian sugar and textile export quotas” to sideline the Mauritian agenda at the UN. They add more generally that former colonies are constrained by political and economic power that must “confront the power of governments like the [U.S.] and the ]U.K.]” The smaller the nation the more constraints apply “given their deep dependence on economic agreements with the major powers for their economic survival.” And again, the powerful can change laws to their liking and buy off opposition “with what for them are relatively small trade benefits.”

Larger nations are affected as well. Turkey’s decision to not participate in the invasion of Iraq brought forth concerns that the “price of non-cooperation was regarded as an impossible political and economic bargain for a country that relied heavily on IMF funding.” While debating the issue one of the main reference points was the “science of economics” showing that “acting alongside the USA would c certainly be in the benefit of Turkey in regard to the wealth of its population.” Economics is of course far from being a science, more in the realm of mythology, and the significant factor that most arguments for the military miss have little if anything to do with global/national economics as presented by the Washington consensus. And as exemplified in the case of “Okinawa,” by Kozue Akibayashi and Suzuyo Takazato, the situation becomes one in which the occupied territory provides “a considerable amount of financial aid…a cost born by host nations to maintain the U.S. military.”

Much of the devolves from the involvement of a local elite who would lose much of their power and personal wealth if the trade arrangements were abrogated. As argued within the text as a whole, a return to the indigenous populations original patterns of economy would benefit the population in areas much broader than just in monetary terms. Another example of this is Hawaii. Kyle Kajihiro writes that “the militarization of [Hawaii] involved collaboration by different sets of local elites.” The “haole elite, the descendents of missionaries and business owners, leveraged the [U.S.] desire for a navel base in [Hawaii] to their advantage.”

Corporations are an underlying theme, not the main theme, yet it is an issue that arises in each of the essays examining a particular base or set of bases in a country. There can be little doubt that U.S. “free trade capitalism” operates from the strength not of U.S. economic might, but that the economic might has been gained through the use of a militarized empire to promote corporate interests.

Resistance

Having made my connections to the work above, the subtitle of the text defines the greater thrust of the essayists in the book. The military bases around the world are not welcomed by the indigenous populations except for a few select elite who benefit with the financial and political power that arises from liaising with the U.S. For the majority, there is a resistance to the ongoing utilization of their land by the U.S. military. Apart from the globalization/economic arguments of the larger scale, there are many other common causes between the different protesting groups.

The losses are many in regions occupied by the U.S. military. Democracy, freedom, and equality, the main rhetorical features of U.S. arguments are all denied by the occupation forces and by the local elites that benefit from their association with them. In all cases presented, democracy has been limited, from the desires of the Okinawan people, the native Hawaiians, the citizens of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Latin America, Diego Garcia, to Turkey.

For one thing, the bases themselves create artificial divisions that would not exist if they were not there in the first place. Certainly small elements of the native population may do well, but the wealth generally stays with the elites. As in the case of Hawaii, Okinawa, and Diego Garcia, racism becomes a factor as the indigenous population is denied any credence in the face of the corporate power of the military and the local power structures.

Damages

There are other damages to people, societal structures, and the cultural and natural environments of the occupied areas. In all of the cases, the presence of the U.S. military has created social problems ranging from the abuse of women and children, through the denial of social services and a true legal system, to the overall restructuring or destruction of a society. The environment, the native lands and oceans so important to indigenous survival anywhere, suffers from toxic pollutants ranging from standard industrial and agricultural chemicals to the unique chemicals and biological weapons of the military. The focus in these essays is on ‘traditional’ weapons used in firing ranges on land and sea but also includes nuclear weapons in storage or transit and the use of depleted uranium.

The people who protest against these bases suffer from the lack of legal rights, the tendency for frontier justice in many places in Latin America and the Philippines, and the verbal and physical attacks perpetrated by the occupying forces. Since 2001, the role of terrorism has had a great impact on many of the protesters as terrorism becomes the new communism – the overall threat that is used to justify many new laws of control and the creation of outlaws – extra-judicial murder by declaring anyone opposed to the government as a terrorist. The Philippines is proposing to enact a National Identification System and an Anti Terrorism Bill “in which draconian measures are to be introduced to clamp down on critical and dissenting voices and curtail civil liberties and democratic rights.” In Hawaii, terrorism in the form of “Homeland security” names an amorphous threat and simultaneously unleashes fantasies about assault and vulnerability. Within its terms, opposition is rendered unintelligible; to oppose the security of the homeland is unthinkable….Hawaii pays a high price.”

International law obviously takes a definite hit under these conditions. Occupation of territory, environmental laws, laws about humane treatment of prisoners of war (Diego Garcia is considered to be a particular spot to which people are ‘rendered’), laws and actions of the International Criminal Court are all abrogated or avoided by the U.S. For the indigenous peoples of the Philippines, Hawaii, Diego Garcia, Latin America – for that matter all areas with U.S. military bases including the current occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan – all are subject to the UN declaration of indigenous rights, and are “aware of the rights to self-determination accorded to indigenous peoples under international law.” Except for the U.S. who have not signed the declaration, for obvious reasons.

Be informed

One of the first steps in protesting and resisting U.S. occupation – at least for those not directly in the line of fire, literally or figuratively – is to become educated about the nature and principles that rule the world of the U.S. military occupations of foreign lands. The Bases of Empire is a well crafted study and an important contribution to the general understanding of the militarization of the globe and to specific problems as faced by individual groups. Collectively they represent a majority of the people within their regions and will need the support of as many outside voices as can understand their problems and concerns. This book contains a powerful set of ideas and well referenced information to help inform the world of the reality of U.S. militarization of the global community.

Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles’ work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news publications.