Sarah Stillman wrote an excellent article in the New Yorker about the “invisible army” of foreign workers or “third-country nationals” (TCNs) staffing U.S. military bases in war zones. She reports that “armed security personnel account for only about sixteen per cent of the over-all contracting force. The vast majority—more than sixty per cent of the… Read more »
Agent Orange in Korea
http://www.fpif.org/articles/agent_orange_in_korea Agent Orange in Korea By Christine Ahn and Gwyn Kirk, July 7, 2011 In May, three former U.S. soldiers admitted to dumping hundreds of barrels of chemical substances, including Agent Orange, at Camp Carroll in South Korea in 1978. This explosive news was a harsh reminder to South Koreans of the high costs and… Read more »
“A lot of the guys who had bad discharges from the military just ended up staying here”
The Hawaii Reporter published an article about the challenges of helping Hawai’i’s homeless military population. It is not news that a large percentage of the homeless in any given place are former military personnel. Some of this population suffers from PTSD and/or substance abuse issues. Here are some facts reported in the article: On Oahu,… Read more »
Relief and Recovery in Japan: U.S. Should Decline Monies from Japan’s “Sympathy Budget” and End Military Dependence Globally
http://www.genuinesecurity.org/actions/notosympathybudget.html Press Statement Contact: IWNAM Secretariat, genuinesecurity [at] lists.riseup.net April 11, 2011 Relief and Recovery in Japan: U.S. Should Decline Monies from Japan’s “Sympathy Budget” and End Military Dependence Globally The International Women’s Network Against Militarism (IWNAM) demands that the U.S. and Japanese governments stop spending U.S. and Japanese taxpayer monies for the upkeep of… Read more »
The Politics of Militarization and Corporatization in Higher Education
The military in Hawai’i is a destructive shape-shifting kupua. In The Politics of Militarization and Corporatization in Higher Education, Henry Giroux discusses the creeping militarization of U.S. society and its costs and consequences. In Hawaiʻi we have had a preview of this process with the intense militarization that his everywhere, but hidden in plain… Read more »
Military as jobs program vs base conversion
President Obama recently announced plans for partial troop withdrawals from Afghanistan. But the headlines should have read “Obama continues the wars”, a betrayal of promises to end the wars. The responses from military personnel in Kaneʻohe were surprising: Lance Cpl. Brandon Johnson, who just returned from Afghanistan last Saturday.”This war should be over,” Johnson said.Johnson,… Read more »
Save Jeju Island–No Naval Base Petition
Hawaiʻi Peace and Justice / American Friends Service Committee Hawaiʻi and DMZ-Hawaiʻi / Aloha ʻAina hosted a visit by Ko YouKyoung, a leader in the Korean anti-bases movement. She showed a documentary about the struggle of Pyongtaek villagers to resist eviction and destruction of their town and farm land for the expansion of a U.S…. Read more »
Man with Marine Base address arrested for alleged sex assault of woman in Waikiki
The Honolulu Star Advertiser reports “Officers arrested a 23-year-old man of an address at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe at 2:11 a.m. Friday” for allegedly sexually assaulting a 20-year old woman in Waikiki on June 23. The man arrested and booked on suspicion of first-degree sexual assault and kidnapping was one of two… Read more »
Pimping Pohakuloa
The Hawaii Tribune Herald reports that Governor Abercrombie, once a black-beret-wearing campus radical, is offering up virgin areas of Hawaiʻi to service the military: Abercrombie floated the possibility of building public-private housing in West Hawaii for military families who will relocate from Okinawa when the Marine base there moves sometime in the next few years…. Read more »
How Waikiki was built “on war, racism and human misery”
Militarism and tourism have always been intimately related institutions in Hawai’i. With APEC leaders descending on Waikiki in November, Larry Geller reminds us of the hidden history Waikiki as illustrative of the history of Hawai’i as a whole. In Hawaii’s hidden history—slave labor, profit, and the taking of Waikiki, Larry Geller writes “If you’re a… Read more »
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