Pentagon Plans Latin America-Wide Intervention Ability for New Military Base in Colombia

Post Date May 18, 2009
Comments 0 Comments
Author
Category American Empire, Global Justice and Peace Movements, International politics & law, War and Peace

Pentagon Plans Latin America-Wide Intervention Ability for New Military Base in Colombia

May 18, 2009, Oakland, CA: The United States is planning to establish a new military facility in Colombia that will give the U.S. increased capacity for military intervention throughout most of Latin America. Given the tense relations of Washington with Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, as well as the Colombian military’s atrocious human rights record, the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) believes the plan should be subjected to vigorous debate.

“This base would feed a failed drug policy, support an abusive army, and reinforce a tragic history of U.S. military intervention in the region,” said John Lindsay-Poland, Latin America Program Co-director for FOR. “It’s wrong and wasteful, and Congress should scrap it.”

The new facility in Palanquero, Colombia would not be limited to counter-narcotics operations, nor even to operations in the Andean region, according to an Airlift Military Command (AMC) planning document <http://www.au.af.mil/awc/africom/documents/GlobalEnRouteStrategy.pdf>. The U.S. Southern Command aims to establish a base with “air mobility reach on the South American continent” in addition to a capacity for counter-narcotics operations, through the year 2025.

With help from the Transportation Command and AMC, the Southern Command identified Palanquero, from which “nearly half of the continent can be covered by a C-17 without refueling.” If fuel is available at its destination, “a C-17 could cover the entire continent, with the exception of the Cape Horn region,” the AMC planners wrote.

President Obama’s Pentagon budget <http://www.defenselink.mil/comptroller/defbudget/fy2010/fy2010_SSJ_Special_Topics.pdf> , submitted May 7, includes $46 million for development of the Palanquero base, and says the Defense Department seeks “an array of access arrangements for contingency operations, logistics, and training in Central/South America.” A U.S. Embassy spokesperson in Bogota told FOR that negotiations were not yet concluded for the base.

The Southern Command is also pursuing access to a site in French Guiana that would permit military aircraft to reach sites in Africa <http://www.au.af.mil/awc/africom/documents/GlobalEnRouteStrategy.pdf> , via the Ascension Islands, according to AMC. SouthCom apparently sought use of facilities in Recife, Brazil for the same purpose, but “the political relationship with Brazil is not conducive to the necessary agreements,” AMC wrote.

The lease for the U.S. “Forward Operating Location” in Manta, Ecuador expires in November 2009, and Ecuador notified Washington last year that it would not renew the lease. The facility in Manta was authorized to conduct only counter-drug operations, but drug traffic in the Pacific, where aircraft from Manta patrolled, has increased in recent years <http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/05/world/fg-ecuadrugs5> , according to military spokesmen. U.S. forces in Manta also carried out operations to arrest undocumented Ecuadorans on boats in Ecuadoran waters. But public documentation of U.S. operations conducted from Manta does not indicate use of C-17 cargo aircraft, so their use in Palanquero apparently would represent an expanded U.S. military capacity in the region.

The “mission creep” in the proposal for continent-wide operations from Colombia is also evident in President Obama’s foreign aid request <http://www.state.gov/f/releases/iab/fy2010/index.htm> for Colombia. While the budget request for $508 million tacitly recognizes the failure of Plan Colombia drug policy by cutting funds for fumigation of coca crops, the White House is asking for an increase in counterinsurgency equipment and training to the Colombian Army.

Colombian and U.S. human rights and political leaders have objected to continued funding <http://www.forcolombia.org/monthlyupdate/march2009#president> of the Colombian army, especially after revelations <http://www.globalpost.com/print/1280781> that the army reportedly murdered more than 1,000 civilians and alleged they were guerrillas killed in combat, in order to increase their body count. The Palanquero base itself, which houses a Colombian Air Force unit, was banned from receiving U.S. aid for five years because of its role in a 1998 attack that killed 17 civilians <http://justiciaypazcolombia.com/Masacre-en-Santo-Domingo-Arauca> , including six children, from the effects of U.S.-made cluster bombs. The United States resumed aid to the unit last year.

Colombian Defense Ministry sources said <http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/justicia/con-traslado-de-base-de-manta-eu-tiene-en-la-mira-varias-pistas-del-suroccidente-del-pais_4877714-1> that Colombia was attempting to obtain increases in U.S. military aid as part of the base negotiations. Palanquero offers the U.S. military a sophisticated infrastructure <http://www.cambio.com.co/portadacambio/779/4234729-pag-2_3.html> – a 10,000-foot runway, hangars that hold more than 100 aircraft, housing for more than 2,000 men, restaurants, casinos, supermarkets, and a radar system installed by the United States itself in the 1990s.

U.S. law caps the number of uniformed U.S. soldiers operating in Colombia at 800, and the number of contractors at 600. Until last year, a significant number of them were intelligence personnel assigned to the effort to rescue three U.S. military contractors kidnapped by the leftist FARC guerrillas. With the rescue last year of the three contractors, many U.S. intelligence staff left Colombia, leaving space for soldiers to run operations in the prospective new U.S. base or bases.

“That the Colombian government asks for a U.S. base now would be a serious error,” says former defense minister and presidential candidate Rafael Pardo <http://www.cambio.com.co/portadacambio/779/4234729-pag-3_3.html> .

FOR believes replacing one military base that was set up for the failed drug war with another base to intervene in South America and to support the abusive Colombian army would be a serious error for the United States as well.

Contact: John Lindsay-Poland, Fellowship of Reconciliation, johnlp@igc.org, 510-282-8983 (cell)

More on Somali 'pirates': Who is the robber?

Post Date April 13, 2009
Comments 0 Comments
Author
Category International politics & law

Johann Hari: You are being lied to about pirates

Some are clearly just gangsters. But others are trying to stop illegal dumping and trawling

Monday, 5 January 2009

Who imagined that in 2009, the world’s governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy – backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China – is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labelling as “one of the great menaces of our times” have an extraordinary story to tell – and some justice on their side.

Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the “golden age of piracy” – from 1650 to 1730 – the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage Bluebeard that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often saved from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can’t? In his book Villains Of All Nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence.

If you became a merchant or navy sailor then – plucked from the docks of London’s East End, young and hungry – you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O’ Nine Tails. If you slacked often, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.

Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied – and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively, without torture. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls “one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century”.

They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed “quite clearly – and subversively – that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal Navy.” This is why they were romantic heroes, despite being unproductive thieves.

The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young British man called William Scott, should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: “What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live.” In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country’s food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it.” Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to “dispose” of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: “Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.”

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: “If nothing is done, there soon won’t be much fish left in our coastal waters.”

This is the context in which the “pirates” have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a “tax” on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence”.

No, this doesn’t make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters – especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: “We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas.” William Scott would understand.

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won’t act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world’s oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.

The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know “what he meant by keeping possession of the sea.” The pirate smiled, and responded: “What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor.” Once again, our great imperial fleets sail – but who is the robber?

j.hari@independent.co.uk

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html

More than meets the eye on the Somali 'pirates' story

Post Date April 09, 2009
Comments 0 Comments
Author
Category Environmental Impacts, International politics & law, War and Peace

‘Pirates’ Strike a U.S. Ship Owned by a Pentagon Contractor, But Is the Media Telling the Whole Story?

By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports

Posted on April 8, 2009, Printed on April 9, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/story/135716/

UPDATE: At least one nuclear-powered U.S. warship is reportedly on its way to the scene of the hijacking off the coast of Somalia of a vessel owned by a major Pentagon contractor. A U.S. official told the Associated Press the destroyer USS Bainbridge is en route while another official said six or seven ships are responding to the takeover of the “Maersk Alabama,” which is part of a fleet of ships owned by Maersk Ltd., a U.S. subsidiary of a Denmark firm, which does about a half-billion dollars in business with the U.S. government a year.

The Somali pirates who took control of the 17,000-ton “Maersk Alabama” cargo-ship in the early hours of Wednesday morning probably were unaware that the ship they were boarding belonged to a U.S. Department of Defense contractor with “top security clearance,” which does a half-billion dollars in annual business with the Pentagon, primarily the Navy. The ship was being operated by an “all-American” crew — there were 20 U.S. nationals on the ship. “Every indication is that this is the first time a U.S.-flagged ship has been successfully seized by pirates,” said Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesperson for for the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet. The last documented pirate attack of a U.S. vessel by African pirates was reported in 1804, off Libya, according to The Los Angeles Times.

The company, A.P. Moller-Maersk, is a Denmark-based company with a large U.S. subsidiary, Maersk Line, Ltd, that serves U.S. government agencies and contractors. The company, which is based in Norfolk, Virginia, runs the world’s largest fleet of U.S.-flag vessels. The “Alabama” was about 300 miles off the coast of the Puntland region of northern Somalia when it was taken. The U.S. military says the Alabama was not operating on a DoD contract at the time and was said to be delivering food aid.

The closest U.S. warship to the “Alabama” at the time of the seizure was 300 miles away. The U.S. Navy did not say how or if it would respond, but seemed not to rule out intervention. “It’s fair to say we are closely monitoring the situation, but we will not discuss nor speculate on current and future military operations,” said Navy Cmdr. Jane Campbell.

The seizure of the ship seemed to have been short-lived. At the time of this writing, the Pentagon was reporting that the U.S. crew retook the ship and was holding one of the pirates in custody. At this point, it is unclear if the crew acted alone or had assistance from the military or another security force.

Over the past year, there has been a dramatic uptick in media coverage of the “pirates,” particularly in the Gulf of Aden. Pirates reportedly took in upwards of $150 million in ransoms last year alone. In fact, at the moment the Alabama’s seizure, pirates were already holding 14 other vessels with about 200 crew members, according to the International Maritime Bureau. There have been seven hijackings in the past month alone.

Often, the reporting on pirates centers around the gangsterism of the pirates and the seemingly huge ransoms they demand. Indeed, piracy can be a very profitable business, as the following report from Reuters suggests:

A rough back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the operation to hijack the Saudi tanker, the Sirius Star, cost no more than $25,000, assuming that the pirates bought new equipment and weapons ($450 apiece for an AK-47 Kalashnikov, $5,000 for an RPG-7 grenade launcher, $15,000 for a speedboat). That contrasts with an initial ransom demand to the tanker’s owner, Saudi Aramco, of $25 million.

“Piracy is an excellent business model if you operate from an impoverished, lawless place like Somalia,” says Patrick Cullen, a security expert at the London School of Economics who has been researching piracy. “The risk-reward ratio is just huge.”

But this type of coverage of the pirates is similar to the false narrative about “tribalism” being the cause of all of Africa’s problems. Of course, there are straight-up gangsters and criminals engaged in these hijackings. Perhaps the pirates who hijacked the Alabama on Wednesday fall into that category. We do not yet know. But that is hardly the whole “pirate” story. Consider what one pirate told The New York Times after he and his men seized a Ukrainian freighter “loaded with tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition” last year. “We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits,” said Sugule Ali:. “We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard.” Now, that “coast guard” analogy is a stretch, but his point is an important and widely omitted part of this story. Indeed the Times article was titled, “Somali Pirates Tell Their Side: They Want Only Money.” Yet, The New York Times acknowledged, “the piracy industry started about 10 to 15 years ago… as a response to illegal fishing.”

Take this fact: Over $300 million worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are “being stolen every year by illegal trawlers” off Somalia’s coast, forcing the fishing industry there into a state of virtual non-existence.

But it isn’t just the theft of seafood. Nuclear dumping has polluted the environment. “In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed,” wrote Johann Hari in The Independent. “Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since — and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country’s food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.”

According to Hari:

As soon as the [Somali] government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.
…
This is the context in which the “pirates” have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a “tax” on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia — and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence.”

As the media coverage of the pirates has increased, private security companies like Xe/Blackwater have stepped in, seeing profits. A few months ago, Blackwater executives flew to London to meet with shipping company executives about protecting their ships from pirate attacks. In October, the company deployed the MacArthur, its “private sector warship equipped with helicopters” to the Gulf of Aden. “We have been contacted by shipowners who say they need our help in making sure goods get to their destination,” said the company’s executive vice-president, Bill Matthews. “The McArthur can help us accomplish that.”

According to an engineer aboard the MacArthur, the ship, whose crew includes former Navy SEALS, was at one point stationed in an area several hundred miles off the coast of Yemen. “Security teams will escort ships around both horns of Africa, Somalia and Yemen as they head to the Suez Canal… The McArthur will serve as a staging point for the SEALs and their smaller boats.”

All of this is important to keep in context any time you see a short blurb pop up about pirates attacking ships. “Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome?” Hari asked. “We won’t act on those crimes — the only sane solution to this problem — but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.”

***

Just as it seemed that this drama was coming to an end, the story has taken a very bizarre turn. It seems as though the pirates essentially tricked the ship’s “all-American” crew into handing over the Alabama’s captain, Capt. Richard Phillips.

After reports, based on Pentagon sources, emerged that the ship had been retaken by the US crew, word came from the ship that the captain of the “Alabama” had been taken by the pirates onto a lifeboat. The details of how exactly the four pirates managed to get the captain onto a lifeboat are still sketchy, but it seems a little bit like a scene out of a Marx brothers movie. The ship’s second mate Kenn Quinn was interviewed on CNN and described how the crew was essentially tricked into handing the captain over to the pirates. Quinn spoke to CNN’s Kyra Phillips:

Quinn: When they board, they sank their boats so the captain talked them into getting off the ship with the lifeboat. But we took one of their pirates hostage and did an exchange. What? Huh? Okay. I’ve got to go.

Phillips: Ken, can you stay with me for just two more seconds?

Quinn: What?

Phillips: Can you tell me about the negotiations, what you’ve offered these pirates in exchange for your captain?

Quinn: We had one of their hostages. We had a pirate we took and kept him for 12 hours. We tied him up and he was our prisoner.

Phillips: Did you return him?

Quinn: Yeah, we did. But we returned him but they didn’t return the captain. So now we’re just trying to offer them whatever we can. Food. But it’s not working too good.”

As TV Newser pointed out, “Later Phillips gave what may be the understatement of the day: ‘It sounds like the pirates did not keep their end of the deal.'”

Jeremy Scahill, an independent journalist who reports frequently for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!, has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is currently a Puffin Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His writing and reporting is available at RebelReports.com.

© 2009 Rebel Reports All rights reserved.

New security situation in South America

Post Date March 25, 2009
Comments 0 Comments
Author
Category International politics & law

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

South American Security Paradigm

Samuel Logan
International Relations And Security Network

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=98146
Months ahead of the planned closing of Eloy Alfaro airbase at Manta, Ecuador, the US and Colombia continue to negotiate terms that would allow the US military limited access to Colombian airbases. The agreement favors both nations, as the US struggles to maintain surveillance operations in the Pacific, and Colombia maneuvers to remain relevant in regional security matters while Brazil continues to exercise its regional leadership.

The most recent round of talks between Colombian and US officials in mid-March have likely sealed a new era of US Colombian relations, amidst an uncertain long-term future for Plan Colombia.

Yet even while Colombian Defense Minster Juan Manuel Santos last visited Washington for three days at the end of February, the US House of Representatives approved US$545 million for the continuation of Plan Colombia through the 2009 fiscal year, maintaining the same level of funding approved for fiscal year 2008.

This short-term support, however, is likely to dwindle over time as Colombian President Alvaro Uribe no longer enjoys the same level of support in the US Congress. He also faces an opposition growing in strength back home. His own vice president, Francisco Santos, told Colombian daily El Tiempo on 16 March that Plan Colombia had “outlived its usefulness,” according to Agence France Presse. Santos has also publically stated that Plan Colombia had a high political cost at home.

Plan Colombia, for all its faults and perceived failures, has at the very least earned some hard fought interdiction successes, which is in part why Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), have taken center stage in the hemisphere’s black market concerns. Plan Colombia gave Colombian presidents – especially Uribe and his predecessor Andres Pastraña – unprecedented access to the White House and halls of Congress. But these days are over.

The conclusion of Plan Colombia will mark a fundamental paradigm shift in how Washington will engage South American security matters over the next four years and beyond. Brazil is on deck to be the region’s principal partner for Washington.

The recent meeting between Brazilian President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva and President Barak Obama was a breakthrough for both nations. Lula has a US counterpart that he can publically embrace, and Obama has found a partner in Brazil who has enough socialist street credit to help him broker new relationships with Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia – considered three diplomatic sore spots in the region that Obama wants to focus on first.

Regarding matters of security, both Obama and Lula are aware of Washington’s pressing need to focus on Mexico and the border. Given the spectrum of international events, the Obama administration will have less time to spend on managing relationships and effectively policing South America. That job he would like to leave to Lula, with only little oversight from the US State Department.

During their mid-march meeting in the White House, the two men discussed matters of security, among other topics. Lula suggested that the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) create a new Council that would focus solely on drug trafficking and organized crime. UNASUR currently hosts the South American Defense Council, but the members have correctly agreed that drug trafficking and organized crime is not a military, but a police, problem.

If an organized crime council were formed in 2009, it is likely that Brazil would play a strong leadership role, one that would further establish an ongoing working relationship between Washington and Brasilia.

Moving in the direction of a regional effort to cooperate in the fight against drug trafficking, Colombia and Brazil signed an agreement on 11 March that grants mutual overflight privileges during hot pursuit situations. This agreement will allow the military and police forces of both nations to pursue their quarry up to 48 kilometers inside of each nation.

With this agreement, Brazil has taken a demonstrable step forward towards investing in regional security. Officials in Bogota recognize Brazil’s leadership role, and as the country sheds the mantle of Plan Colombia, Bogota will do well to engage Brazil on its southern flank and Washington to the north, to keep the country relevant as a self-sufficient regional security program evolves.

Nevertheless, Washington still needs Colombia. Of the 822 missions flown from the Manta airfield in 2008, intelligence gathered by these flights resulted in the interdiction of 229 tonnes of cocaine. Officials in Colombia recognize Brazil’s decision to take a leadership role, but they are smart to not abandon Washington, and for that both the US and Brazil will see that Colombia is richly rewarded.

Chinese response to US escalation in South China Sea

Post Date March 13, 2009
Comments 0 Comments
Author
Category International politics & law

China Daily (3/13/09)

Pentagon reaction to row ‘inappropriate’

Naval officers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) yesterday criticized the Pentagon for what they described as an “inappropriate reaction” after a confrontation between a US spy ship and five Chinese vessels in the South China Sea on Sunday.

They were responding to a media report that the US Navy on Wednesday assigned one of the world’s most advanced destroyers to the area to escort the USNS Impeccable, which continues to be in the vicinity.

The Virginian-Pilot report quoted a US defense official as saying that the destroyer Chung-Hoon “is going to keep a close eye on the Impeccable”.

A Chinese naval source, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the PLA has taken note of the US latest move and was watching developments closely.

Another navy source said the deployment of the destroyer reflects the Pentagon’s intention to “keep on pressing” China in the South China Sea.

But “the timing and the extent have gone beyond what you could call proportionate,” he said, without elaborating.

Shi Yinhong, a professor in American studies at Renmin University of China, said the US’ latest move is aimed at “maintaining its ‘right’ to spy in other countries’ exclusive economic zones”.

March 9, 2009: The Pentagon says five Chinese ships, including a naval vessel, harassed USNS Impeccable in international waters off Hainan. China says the US ship was carrying out an illegal survey. [China Daily]

“The Pentagon has been doing this for decades. It will by no means stop in the South China Sea, especially against the backdrop of China’s military modernization drive,” he said.

But he said China will never back off on issues concerning national security.

Fu Mengzi, assistant president of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said the incident should be interpreted separately from US President Barack Obama’s China policy.

“Obama seeks cooperation with China. But some hawkish US military officers don’t like it, which led to the spat over the sea confrontation,” he said.

He urged decision-makers in Washington to be “calm and cautious” when dealing with the incident, as direct confrontation will cast a shadow over the two nations’ joint efforts to combat the global economic downturn.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on Wednesday that Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who is in Washington on a visit, will meet Obama (early today Beijing time), and that US National Security Advisor James Jones will join the meeting. They are expected to discuss the standoff in the South China Sea among other issues.

“I don’t think it (the standoff) will overshadow the meeting,” Jones said.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said after meeting Yang: “The important point of agreement coming out of my discussions with Minister Yang is that we must work hard in the future to avoid such incidents and to avoid this particular incident having consequences that are unforeseen.”

On the same day, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said “from time to time, there are going to be elements that come up that cause some tension”.

“But the most important thing is that the US and China need to work together to solve a whole host of issues that the international community confronts.”

On Capitol Hill, Republican Randy Forbes, who is co-chairman of the Congressional China Caucus, said he expects to introduce a resolution condemning the Chinese “harassment” of US forces.

He added that Congress must send “a clear, loud message” that the United States will protect the “right of its ships to operate in international waters”.

China-US Naval Confrontation in the South China Sea

Post Date March 11, 2009
Comments 1 Comment
Author
Category International politics & law

CNSNews.com

Naval Confrontation: China Pushing U.S. Further Away From Its Territory

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor

(CNSNews.com) – Disputes between the United States and China over naval movements in the South China Sea are not likely to end anytime soon, analysts say, as the two sides are divided over what activities are allowed. International law on the matter is vague.

Beijing said Tuesday that a U.S. naval ship confronted by Chinese ships earlier this month had been carrying out “illegal surveying in China’s special economic zone,” in contravention of Chinese and international laws.

The Pentagon said the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed ocean surveillance vessel, was harassed for several days by five Chinese ships, including a navy ship, in international waters about 75 miles south of China’s southern Hainan Island.

In the most serious incident, Chinese vessels “shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity” to the U.S. ship on Sunday, coming as close as 25 feet away, the Pentagon said. The U.S. has formally protested to the Chinese government, and says its ships “will continue to operate in international waters in accordance with customary international law.”

China’s reference to its economic zone arises from the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which recognizes exclusive economic zones (EEZ) stretching 200 nautical miles (about 230 miles) from a country’s coastline. The U.S. has not ratified UNCLOS.

EEZs aim to balance the desire of coastal states to control and exploit offshore resources beyond their 12 nautical mile territorial limit against other maritime powers’ interests in maintaining freedom of navigation. Experts say ambiguities in UNCLOS language, which is open to differing interpretations by different countries, have given rise to numerous disputes.

Beijing has long sought to prevent other countries from carrying out surveillance or surveying operations within its EEZ, and in 2002 enacted a law outlawing such activities without authorization. (At the same time, however, China frequently sends survey vessels into areas that Japan considers to be within its EEZ; the two countries have clashed for decades over surveying activities in waters both claim.)

Ron Huisken of the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at the Australian National University said Wednesday that “both sides have dug in” and he did not expect that appealing to the “law” would help to resolve the issue.

He said he expected that China, “within the substantial gray areas in international law,” would want to reach informal understandings with the U.S. Navy that “err on the side of China’s interests in pushing the U.S. further away from its territory.”

“Traditionally, however, the U.S. has been fiercely protective of the freedom of the high seas,” he added. “A betting man would anticipate a steady diet of such incidents.”

Is intelligence-gathering a peaceful or threatening activity?

UNCLOS provides for “freedom of navigation and overflight” in EEZs. It says military activities inside a country’s EEZ must be “peaceful” and may not adversely affect the environment or economic resources of the coastal state.

Whether surveillance or surveying activities constitute “peaceful” acts is a matter of dispute, however.
In 2002, officials and scholars from the U.S. and several Asian countries, including China, met on the Indonesian island of Bali for a dialogue on “military and intelligence-gathering activities in EEZs,” co-sponsored by the East West Center in Hawaii and an Indonesian institute.

According to a East West Center report summarizing the dialogue, participants grappled with issues such as at what point a coastal country can reasonably regard intelligence-gathering to be a threatening activity.

One area of consensus was the determination that “no specific rules exist governing military activity in the EEZ except that they be peaceful, that is, non-hostile, non-aggressive, that they refrain from use of force or threat thereof, and that they do not adversely affect economic resources or the environment.”

But the many disagreements included different views of the meaning of terms like “peaceful” and “threat of force.”

China’s view on the matter was spelled out in a paper written in 2005 by two Chinese scholars, one of them a senior colonel in the armed forces, which stated unambiguously that “military and reconnaissance activities in the EEZ … encroach or infringe on the national security interests of the coastal State, and can be considered a use of force or a threat to use force against that State.”

Submarine detection

The USN Impeccable is a twin-hulled ocean surveillance ship designed to detect quiet foreign diesel and nuclear-powered submarines and to map the seabed for future antisubmarine warfare purposes, according to U.S. Navy data.

Towed behind and below the vessel are two sonar systems – an active one that emits a low frequency pulse and a passive one that listens for returning echoes. The system is known as SURTASS (surveillance towed-array sensor system).

“The SURTASS mission is to gather ocean acoustical data for antisubmarine warfare and rapidly transmit the information to the Navy for prompt analysis,” the Military Sealift Command said in a statement when the Impeccable was christened in 2000.

“China certainly would realize what this ship is up to, and would view its presence in those waters as threatening,” Jon Van Dyke, professor of law at the University of Hawaii School of Law – and an expert in maritime disputes and military activities in EEZs – said Wednesday.

“The U.S. anti-submarine low frequency active sonar is deemed vital by the United States in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, because we would then need to be able to find and destroy China’s subs, which are increasing in numbers,” he said.

During Sunday’s confrontation in the South China Sea, the Impeccable’s towed sonar systems appeared to be a particular target.

One of three photographs released by the U.S. Navy of the incident shows a crewmember on one of the Chinese vessels using a grapple hook in what the Navy said was “an apparent attempt to snag the towed acoustic array” of the Impeccable.

Hainan Island is home to a strategic Chinese Navy base that reportedly houses ballistic missile submarines.

Last May, the Jane’s group of defense publications released new commercially available satellite images which it said confirmed reports about the existence of an underground submarine base near Sanya, on the island’s southern tip.

It said 11 tunnel openings were visible at the base, as was one of China’s advanced new Type 094 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), known by NATO as the Jin-class and reportedly boasting 12 missile silos.

The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence in 2006 said China would probably aim to build and deploy five Jin-class submarines in order to have “a near-continuous at-sea SSBN presence.”

Resolving differences

Van Dyke, who played a key role in the EEZ dialogue in Bali in 2002, said Wednesday that in the course of those meetings it emerged that the Chinese Navy was behaving towards Japan and other neighbors in the same way as the U.S. Navy behaves towards China, “with regard to coastal surveillance etc.”

In trying to find a way to resolve its differences with China over permitted activities in EEZs, Van Dyke said, “the U.S. will probably try to convince China that it is in China’s interest – as an emerging naval power – to support the [U.S.-held] view that international law permits naval activities in the EEZs of other countries.”

Another factor that could “reduce the urgency of this confrontation” would be improving relations between China and Taiwan, he said.

Hainan island was also the location of an earlier, serious military-related incident involving the U.S. and China, which also raised questions in international law about legitimate activities in EEZs.

In April 2001, a U.S. Navy EP-3 spy plane on a “routine surveillance mission” was involved in a mid-air collision with one of two Chinese F-8 fighter jets which had been deployed to intercept the slow-moving aircraft. The Chinese pilot was killed.

Following the collision, the EP-3 issued a mayday warning and made an emergency landing at a military airfield on Hainan. The 24-person crew was held there for 11 days before being permitted to leave, and China only allowed the plane to be dismantled and airlifted home months later.

Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that the harassment of the Impeccable was the “most serious” military dispute between the U.S. and China since the 2001 mid-air collision.

Source: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=44839

William Blum: "Change (in rhetoric) we can believe in."

Post Date February 04, 2009
Comments 0 Comments
Author
Category American Empire, Asia, International politics & law, War and Peace

http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer66.html

The Anti-Empire Report

February 3rd, 2009

by William Blum

www.killinghope.org

Change (in rhetoric) we can believe in.

I’ve said all along that whatever good changes might occur in regard to non-foreign policy issues, such as what’s already taken place concerning the environment and abortion, the Obama administration will not produce any significantly worthwhile change in US foreign policy; little done in this area will reduce the level of misery that the American Empire regularly brings down upon humanity. And to the extent that Barack Obama is willing to clearly reveal what he believes about anything controversial, he appears to believe in the empire.

The Obamania bubble should already have begun to lose some air with the multiple US bombings of Pakistan within the first few days following the inauguration. The Pentagon briefed the White House of its plans, and the White House had no objection. So bombs away – Barack Obama’s first war crime. The dozens of victims were, of course, all bad people, including all the women and children. As with all these bombings, we’ll never know the names of all the victims – It’s doubtful that even Pakistan knows – or what crimes they had committed to deserve the death penalty. Some poor Pakistani probably earned a nice fee for telling the authorities that so-and-so bad guy lived in that house over there; too bad for all the others who happened to live with the bad guy, assuming of course that the bad guy himself actually lived in that house over there.

The new White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, declined to answer questions about the first airstrikes, saying “I’m not going to get into these matters.”1 Where have we heard that before?

After many of these bombings in recent years, a spokesperson for the United States or NATO has solemnly declared: “We regret the loss of life.” These are the same words used by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on a number of occasions, but their actions were typically called “terrorist”.

I wish I could be an Obamaniac. I envy their enthusiasm. Here, in the form of an open letter to President Obama, are some of the “changes we can believe in” in foreign policy that would have to occur to win over the non-believers like me.

Iran
Just leave them alone. There is no “Iranian problem”. They are a threat to no one. Iran hasn’t invaded any other country in centuries. No, President Ahmadinejad did not threaten Israel with any violence. Stop patrolling the waters surrounding Iran with American warships. Stop halting Iranian ships to check for arms shipments to Hamas. (That’s generally regarded as an act of war.) Stop using Iranian dissident groups to carry out terrorist attacks inside Iran. Stop kidnaping Iranian diplomats. Stop the continual spying and recruiting within Iran. And yet, with all that, you can still bring yourself to say: “If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.”2

Iran has as much right to arm Hamas as the US has to arm Israel. And there is no international law that says that the United States, the UK, Russia, China, Israel, France, Pakistan, and India are entitled to nuclear weapons, but Iran is not. Iran has every reason to feel threatened. Will you continue to provide nuclear technology to India, which has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while threatening Iran, an NPT signatory, with sanctions and warfare?

Russia
Stop surrounding the country with new NATO members. Stop looking to instigate new “color” revolutions in former Soviet republics and satellites. Stop arming and supporting Georgia in its attempts to block the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhasia, the breakaway regions on the border of Russia. And stop the placement of anti-missile systems in Russia’s neighbors, the Czech Republic and Poland, on the absurd grounds that it’s to ward off an Iranian missile attack. It was Czechoslovakia and Poland that the Germans also used to defend their imperialist ambitions – The two countries were being invaded on the grounds that Germans there were being maltreated. The world was told.

“The U.S. government made a big mistake from the breakup of the Soviet Union,” said former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev last year. “At that time the Russian people were really euphoric about America and the U.S. was really number one in the minds of many Russians.” But, he added, the United States moved aggressively to expand NATO and appeared gleeful at Russia’s weakness.3

Cuba
Making it easier to travel there and send remittances is very nice (if, as expected, you do that), but these things are dwarfed by the need to end the US embargo. In 1999, Cuba filed a suit against the United States for $181.1 billion in compensation for economic losses and loss of life during the almost forty years of this aggression. The suit held Washington responsible for the death of 3,478 Cubans and the wounding and disabling of 2,099 others. We can now add ten more years to all three figures. The negative, often crippling, effects of the embargo extend into every aspect of Cuban life.

In addition to closing Guantanamo prison, the adjacent US military base established in 1903 by American military force should be closed and the land returned to Cuba.

The Cuban Five, held prisoner in the United States for over 10 years, guilty only of trying to prevent American-based terrorism against Cuba, should be released. Actually there were 10 Cubans arrested; five knew that they could expect no justice in an American court and pled guilty to get shorter sentences.4

Iraq
Freeing the Iraqi people to death … Nothing short of a complete withdrawal of all US forces, military and contracted, and the closure of all US military bases and detention and torture centers, can promise a genuine end to US involvement and the beginning of meaningful Iraqi sovereignty. To begin immediately. Anything less is just politics and imperialism as usual. In six years of war, the Iraqi people have lost everything of value in their lives. As the Washington Post reported in 2007: “It is a common refrain among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.”5 The good news is that the Iraqi people have 5,000 years experience in crafting a society to live in. They should be given the opportunity.

Saudi Arabia
Demand before the world that this government enter the 21st century (or at least the 20th), or the United States has to stop pretending that it gives a damn about human rights, women, homosexuals, religious liberty, and civil liberties. The Bush family had long-standing financial ties to members of the Saudi ruling class. What will be your explanation if you maintain the status quo?

Haiti
Reinstate the exiled Jean Bertrand Aristide to the presidency, which he lost when the United States overthrew him in 2004. To seek forgiveness for our sins, give the people of Haiti lots and lots of money and assistance.

Colombia
Stop giving major military support to a government that for years has been intimately tied to death squads, torture, and drug trafficking; in no other country in the world have so many progressive candidates for public office, unionists, and human-rights activists been murdered. Are you concerned that this is the closest ally the United States has in all of Latin America?

Venezuela
Hugo Chavez may talk too much but he’s no threat except to the capitalist system of Venezuela and, by inspiration, elsewhere in Latin America. He has every good historical reason to bad-mouth American foreign policy, including Washington’s role in the coup that overthrew him in 2002. If you can’t understand why Chavez is not in love with what the United States does all over the world, I can give you a long reading list.

Put an end to support for Chavez’s opposition by the Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy, and other US government agencies. US diplomats should not be meeting with Venezuelans plotting coups against Chavez, nor should they be interfering in elections.

Send Luis Posada from Florida to Venezuela, which has asked for his extradition for his masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airline in 1976, taking 73 lives. Extradite the man, or try him in the US, or stop talking about the war on terrorism.

And please try not to repeat the nonsense about Venezuela being a dictatorship. It’s a freer society than the United States. It has, for example, a genuine opposition daily media, non-existent in the United States. If you doubt that, try naming a single American daily newspaper or TV network that was unequivocally against the US invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Panama, Grenada, and Vietnam. Or even against two of them? How about one? Is there a single one that supports Hamas and/or Hezbollah? A few weeks ago, the New York Times published a story concerning a possible Israeli attack upon Iran, and stated: “Several details of the covert effort have been omitted from this account, at the request of senior United States intelligence and administration officials, to avoid harming continuing operations.”6

Alas, Mr. President, among other disparaging remarks, you’ve already accused Chavez of being “a force that has interrupted progress in the region.”7 This is a statement so contrary to the facts, even to plain common sense, so hypocritical given Washington’s history in Latin America, that I despair of you ever freeing yourself from the ideological shackles that have bound every American president of the past century. It may as well be inscribed in their oath of office – that a president must be antagonistic toward any country that has expressly rejected Washington as the world’s savior. You made this remark in an interview with Univision, Venezuela’s leading, implacable media critic of the Chavez government. What regional progress could you be referring to, the police state of Colombia?

Bolivia
Stop American diplomats, Peace Corps volunteers, Fulbright scholars, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, from spying and fomenting subversion inside Bolivia. As the first black president of the United States, you could try to cultivate empathy toward, and from, the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Congratulate Bolivian president Evo Morales on winning a decisive victory on a recent referendum to approve a new constitution which enshrines the rights of the indigenous people and, for the first time, institutes separation of church and state.

Afghanistan
Perhaps the most miserable people on the planet, with no hope in sight as long as the world’s powers continue to bomb, invade, overthrow, occupy, and slaughter in their land. The US Army is planning on throwing 30,000 more young American bodies into the killing fields and is currently building eight new major bases in southern Afghanistan. Is that not insane? If it makes sense to you I suggest that you start the practice of the president accompanying the military people when they inform American parents that their child has died in a place called Afghanistan.

If you pull out from this nightmare, you could also stop bombing Pakistan. Leave even if it results in the awful Taliban returning to power. They at least offer security to the country’s wretched, and indications are that the current Taliban are not all fundamentalists.

But first, close Bagram prison and other detention camps, which are worse than Guantanamo.

And stop pretending that the United States gives a damn about the Afghan people and not oil and gas pipelines which can bypass Russia and Iran. The US has been endeavoring to fill the power vacuum in Central Asia created by the Soviet Union’s dissolution in order to assert Washington’s domination over a region containing the second largest proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the world. Is Afghanistan going to be your Iraq?

Israel
The most difficult task for you, but the one that would earn for you the most points. To declare that Israel is no longer the 51st state of the union would bring down upon your head the wrath of the most powerful lobby in the world and its many wealthy followers, as well as the Christian-fundamentalist Right and much of the media. But if you really want to see peace between Israel and Palestine you must cut off all military aid to Israel, in any form: hardware, software, personnel, money. And stop telling Hamas it has to recognize Israel and renounce violence until you tell Israel that it has to recognize Hamas and renounce violence.

North Korea
Bush called the country part of “the axis of evil”, and Kim Jong Il a “pygmy” and “a spoiled child at a dinner table.”8 But you might try to understand where Kim Jong Il is coming from. He sees that UN agencies went into Iraq and disarmed it, and then the United States invaded. The logical conclusion is not to disarm, but to go nuclear.

Central America
Stop interfering in the elections of Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, year after year. The Cold War has ended. And though you can’t undo the horror perpetrated by the United States in the region in the 1980s, you can at least be kind to the immigrants in the US who came here trying to escape the long-term consequences of that terrible decade.

Vietnam
In your inauguration speech you spoke proudly of those “who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom … For us, they fought and died, in places like … Khe Sanh.” So it is your studied and sincere opinion that the 58,000 American sevicemembers who died in Vietnam, while helping to kill over a million Vietnamese, gave their life for our prosperity and freedom? Would you care to defend that proposition without resort to any platitudes?

You might also consider this: In all the years since the Vietnam War ended, the three million Vietnamese suffering from diseases and deformities caused by US sprayings of the deadly chemical “Agent Orange” have received from the United States no medical attention, no environmental remediation, no compensation, and no official apology.

Kosovo
Stop supporting the most gangster government in the world, which has specialized in kidnaping, removing human body parts for sale, heavy trafficking in drugs, trafficking in women, various acts of terrorism, and ethnic cleansing of Serbs. This government would not be in power if the Bush administration had not seen them as America’s natural allies. Do you share that view? UN Resolution 1244, adopted in 1999, reaffirmed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to which Serbia is now the recognized successor state, and established that Kosovo was to remain part of Serbia. Why do we have a huge and permanent military base in that tiny self-declared country?

NATO
From protecting Europe against a [mythical] Soviet invasion to becoming an occupation army in Afghanistan. Put an end to this historical anachronism, what Russian leader Vladimir called “the stinking corpse of the cold war.”9. You can accomplish this simply by leaving the organization. Without the United States and its never-ending military actions and officially-designated enemies, the organization would not even have the pretense of a purpose, which is all it has left. Members have had to be bullied, threatened and bribed to send armed forces to Afghanistan.

School of the Americas
Latin American countries almost never engage in war with each other, or any other countries. So for what kind of warfare are its military officers being trained by the United States? To suppress their own people. Close this school (the name has now been changed to protect the guilty) at Ft. Benning, Georgia that the United States has used to prepare two generations of Latin American military officers for careers in overthrowing progressive governments, death squads, torture, holding down dissent, and other charming activities. The British are fond of saying that the Empire was won on the playing fields of Eton. Americans can say that the road to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and Bagram began in the classrooms of the School of the Americas.

Torture
Your executive orders concerning this matter of utmost importance are great to see, but they still leave something to be desired. They state that the new standards ostensibly putting an end to torture apply to any “armed conflict”. But what if your administration chooses to view future counterterrorism and other operations as not part of an “armed conflict”? And no mention is made of “rendition” – kidnaping a man off the street, throwing him in a car, throwing a hood over his head, stripping off his clothes, placing him in a diaper, shackling him from every angle, and flying him to a foreign torture dungeon. Why can’t you just say that this and all other American use of proxy torturers is banned? Forever.

It’s not enough to say that you’re against torture or that the United States “does not torture” or “will not torture”. George W. Bush said the same on a regular basis. To show that you’re not George W. Bush you need to investigate those responsible for the use of torture, even if this means prosecuting a small army of Bush administration war criminals.

You aren’t off to a good start by appointing former CIA official John O. Brennan as your top adviser on counterterrorism. Brennan has called “rendition” a “vital tool” and praised the CIA’s interrogation techniques for providing “lifesaving” intelligence.10 Whatever were you thinking, Barack?

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi
Free this Libyan man from his prison in Scotland, where he is serving a life sentence after being framed by the United States for the bombing of PanAm flight 103 in December 1988, which took the lives of 270 people over Scotland. Iran was actually behind the bombing – as revenge for the US shooting down an Iranian passenger plane in July, killing 290 – not Libya, which the US accused for political reasons.11 Nations do not behave any more cynical than that. Megrahi lies in prison now dying of cancer, but still the US and the UK will not free him. It would be too embarrassing to admit to 20 years of shameless lying.

Mr. President, there’s a lot more to be undone in our foreign policy if you wish to be taken seriously as a moral leader like Martin Luther King, Jr.: banning the use of depleted uranium, cluster bombs, and other dreadful weapons; joining the International Criminal Court instead of trying to sabotage it; making a number of other long-overdue apologies in addition to the one mentioned re Vietnam; and much more. You’ve got your work cut out for you if you really want to bring some happiness to this sad old world, make America credible and beloved again, stop creating armies of anti-American terrorists, and win over people like me.

And do you realize that you can eliminate all state and federal budget deficits in the United States, provide free health care and free university education to every American, pay for an unending array of worthwhile social and cultural programs, all just by ending our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not starting any new ones, and closing down the Pentagon’s 700+ military bases? Think of it as the peace dividend Americans were promised when the Cold War would end some day, but never received. How about you delivering it, Mr. President? It’s not too late.

But you are committed to the empire; and the empire is committed to war. Too bad.

Notes
Washington Post, January 24, 2009 ↩
Interview with al Arabiya TV, January 27, 2009 ↩
Gorbachev speaking in Florida, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, April 17, 2008 ↩
http://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/polpris.htm ↩
Washington Post, May 5, 2007, p.1 ↩
New York Times, January 11, 2009 ↩
Washington Post, January 19, 2009↩
Newsweek, May 27, 2002 ↩
Press Trust of India (news agency), December 21, 2007 ↩
Washington Post, November 26, 2008 ↩
http://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/panam.htm ↩
–

William Blum is the author of:

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org

Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

Pirates vs. Private Military Firms

Post Date January 13, 2009
Comments 0 Comments
Author
Category International politics & law

The Lawless Fighting the Lawless

By Shaun Randol, 1/2/2009

Pirates are a hot news item these days. Increased ship seizures around the Horn of Africa have renewed interest not just in piracy, but also on how to combat the criminal behavior as well. And now, seeing profits to be had in policing pirate-laden waters, private military firms (PMF) have stepped into the fray. In the Gulf of Aden’s anarchic waters, one of the world’s busiest shipping channels, pirates and PMFs are poised to make millions of dollars plying their respective trades. The lining of their pockets, however, is not the only thing these disparate factions share; international law regarding the treatment of these groups is equally murky. In the choppy waters around Somalia, mixing pirates and PMFs, with sprinklings of NATO, European, Russian, Chinese, Indian (and soon, maybe Japanese) warships as well as possibly some rogue, militant, Islamic terrorist groups, makes for a dangerous, potentially violent, concoction.

As of this writing, there are at least fifteen ships and nearly 250 hostages being held by Somali pirates, including the Sirius Star, a bulk vessel loaded with 300,000 tons of crude oil, and a Ukrainian ship containing 33 military tanks. “Pirates based in Somalia have made the waters off east Africa some of the most dangerous in the world,” reports GlobalSecurity.org (11/24/08). “There were 15 attacks on ships in or near Somali waters from January to July 2007-two of these on World Food Programme (WFP) contracted vessels… compared to 10 such attacks in 2006.” Tellingly, more than thirty vessels were hijacked in 2008; in the weeks preceding the turn of the year, at least ten vessels were seized. Somali pirates engaged in more than one hundred attacks in 2008, more than twice as many as the previous year.

2009 is shaping up to be no different. On January 1, French authorities intercepted to pirate vessels as they were about to seize a Panamanian vessel. Eight Somalis were arrested. Elsewhere in the Gulf of Aden, however, pirates captured the Blue Star, a cargo vessel with 28 Egyptian crew members aboard. The same day, a Malaysian military helicopter thwarted a pirate attack against an Indian tanker.

Acts of piracy on the high seas often occur in ambiguous, international territory. State military warships (from, for example, NATO, the U.S., or Europe) combating piracy do so in uncharted waters, so to speak. (The ink is still wet on a UN Security Council resolution authorizing countries to pursue pirates on land and sea using “all necessary measures”). Private military firms eager to contribute their services provide an attractive alternative for states and shipping companies looking to clear the waters of such pesky riffraff without the risk of sparking international incidents. This does not mean, however, that utilizing PMFs represents a straightforward option.

When it comes to combating piracy, international law lacks both teeth and clarity. The United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defines piracy as “all illegal acts of violence or detention … committed for private ends by the crew or passengers of a private ship.” (Accordingly, if the objective is political-not economic-in nature, the act may be terrorism rather than piracy). Piracy, according to UNCLOS, within territorial waters is a crime against the state and subject to national laws. But what if, as is the case with Somalia, there is a weak local government or no state to speak of? UNCLOS states:

“On the high seas, or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of any State, every State may seize a pirate-ship or aircraft, or a ship or aircraft taken by piracy and under the control of pirates, and arrest the persons and seize the property on board. The courts of the State which carried out the seizure may decide upon the penalties to be imposed, and may also determine the action to be taken with regard to the ships, aircraft or property, subject to the rights of third parties acting in good faith.”

France took advantage of this clause as far back as April 2008; Special Forces captured six pirates who had seized a French passenger vessel, and then sent the captured pirates to Paris for due process.

Unlike France, however, states like Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, and others are (so far) hesitant about using military force against pirates. NATO’s Standing Naval Maritime Group just finished its mission escorting WFP ships (none of its four vessels engaged in decisive, anti-pirate action). A European task force of ten ships-codenamed Atalanta-moved into the region this month, but it is unclear to what extent they will engage or pursue Somali pirates. Meanwhile, the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners (INTERTANKO) has also called for a UN blockade of the dangerous waters. With no such barrier forthcoming, a lack of security in the region as a whole, and with no apparent cessation in acts of piracy, there are economic and diplomatic openings private military firms seek to exploit.

Sensing that pirated waters will remain “uncontrolled,” private shipping companies will increasingly seek alternative means to securing their financial interests. Indeed, such ventures promise to be highly profitable business opportunities for PMFs, some of which are already participating in anti-pirate activity around Somalia. Drum Resources Limited, a British PMF, for example, offers protection services of four guards stationed on a commercial ship at a price of $8100 per day. Secopex, a French PMF, will provide security escorts at a cost of $12,000 per day. For about $30,000, British-based Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions provides vessels with three private guards and a small arsenal of non-lethal weapons (e.g. long range acoustic device, water cannons). By late November, 2008, this PMF had teams on seven ships. “Inquiries are going through the roof,” said principal Nick Davis. With average ransom amounts hovering around $1 million, hiring PMFs becomes a financial no-brainer to shipping entities. Yet while Davis’ company has seen some action, he also acknowledges Anti-Piracy’s exploits “purely displace the threat” to other ships.

Citing “major terrorist implications” of the piracy problem, Blackwater Worldwide-the infamous PMF continuing to make headlines in Iraq-is also offering its corporate services in the waters off Somalia. The firm’s small ship, the McArthur, can hold two helicopters and 35 personnel and would provide a security escort for ships sailing through pirate-waters. Unlike Anti-Piracy, however, Blackwater will deploy lethal force against potential pirates if necessary. In an interview with “Defense News,” Blackwater’s owner Erik Prince addressed the gray areas in maritime rules of engagements by underscoring “…a pretty clear use of force continuum, from warning shots [to] laser dazzlers. But frankly, if guys are in a small boat, in a twenty-foot fishing boat in the middle of the Gulf of Aden, holding an RPG, he’s not out there fishing. So clearly, you know what their intent is.” In short, “the sharpshooters on board the two helicopters on Blackwater’s ship, the McArthur, will do their jobs” (October 26, 2008). At the time of the interview Prince reported Blackwater was in negotiation with thirteen different shipping lines to provide security against pirates. Other PMFs like Hollow Point, Defense Services, ArmorGroup, Secopex, and Asia Risk Solutions, to name a few, are also looking to gain a foothold in this potentially lucrative-and ambiguous-line of work.

An increase in reliance on private military firms to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden will have far-reaching implications. In Iraq alone, where there are more PMF contractors active than coalition forces, PMFs have caused much consternation. Yet, while Iraq’s war is largely contained (geographically speaking) piracy is quite literally a global phenomenon. “The concentration of piracy incidents continues to be located in areas with little or not maritime law enforcement, political and economic stability, and a high volume of commercial activity,” notes GlobalSecurity.org. “Incidents of piracy tend to occur in four regional areas: Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and Central America. Furthermore, most incidents of maritime crime occur in coastal waters with nearly 80 percent of all reported piracy incidents occurring in territorial waters.” This last bit of reality in the pirate trade makes it difficult for foreign militaries to intervene without sparking an international incident. Hence, the use of “politically neutral” private entities like Blackwater to protect commercial vessels becomes an increasingly attractive, security alternative. A dangerous, security precedent is being exacerbated off the coast of Somalia.

If piracy is haphazardly regulated in international law, then PMFs operate in an even grayer area. There is no substantial, international treaty regarding the use of private military firms. A Protocol added to the Geneva Conventions in 1977 (APGC77) comes closest to defining parameters for PMF involvement in the international arena, though it specifically deals with “mercenaries,” a moniker many PMFs find objectionable and outright reject. APGC77 loosely defines mercenaries as foreign nationals motivated by private gain hired to fight in armed conflict and “is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict.” By many accounts, today’s PMFs would fall into this broad definition, especially if they operate in Somalia’s territorial waters (or if, for example, the Iraqi government hires outside PMFs for security tasks). Still, the U.S., where most PMFs originate, is not a party to this Geneva Protocol, leaving firms like Blackwater to operate in legally murky zones. The 1989 UN Resolution 44/34, International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, does nothing to clarify the situation.

The success of Somali pirates will likely encourage copycat actions around the world, which will, in turn, increase the need and/or reliance on private military firms to tackle the problem. (Insurance premiums for shipping companies are already on the rise). If PMFs are hired to clear the waters around Africa (or elsewhere) of pirates, many new questions surrounding these two groups will arise. What plays in the waters off the African coast, for one, may not go over well with countries like, say, China, who has a vital interest in the Straits of Malacca-another pirate-patrolled shipping channel.

Moreover, accountability becomes a serious issue: if a PMF kills an innocent fisherman or destroys private or state property, for example, who should be punished? The state who hired the firm? The private shipping company that placed the guards on their boats? The private military firm employing the trigger-happy guards? International law is decidedly unclear in this matter, creating a dangerous juridical vacuum.

Right now, the use of PMFs in fighting pirates is a case of the lawless fighting the lawless. It is anarchy on the high seas. Profits to be gained from piracy-and from fighting it-are magnets for an increase in both adventures. What we are witnessing off the African coast is another instance of private enterprise increasingly filling the voids of traditional state functions. If states or international bodies like the UN do not step into this fray to control the situation, beginning with bolstered international treaties on the uses of PMFs, the lawlessness in the waters off Somalia portend more trouble than just inconvenience for international trade.

Shaun Randol is an Associate Fellow at the World Policy Institute. He regularly contributes to the World Policy Journal blog, is a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus, and regularly publishes in academic journals. Mr. Randol is also a research assistant at the India China Institute and an independent research consultant.

Forum at UH to discuss UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Post Date September 17, 2008
Comments 0 Comments
Author
Category Action Alerts and Events, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, International politics & law, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

KAMAKAKUOKALANI CENTER FOR HAWAIIAN STUDIES PROUDLY PRESENTS:

MILILANI TRASK AND OTHER INDIGENOUS EDUCATORS
IN A PANEL DISCUSSION ON THE

UNITED NATIONS DECLARATION OF RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
[PASSED BY 143 NATIONS ON 9/13/07]

WHAT DOES THIS INTERNATIONAL LEGAL INSTRUMENT DO FOR NATIVE HAWAIIANS?
FOR PACIFIC ISLANDERS?
FOR OTHER INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE WORLD?
DATE: SEPTEMBER 25, 2008
TIME: 6:30-9:30 PM
PLACE: HALAU O HAUMEA,
KAMAKAKUOKALANI CENTER FOR HAWAIIAN STUDIES
2645 DOLE STREET [$3 PARKING IN ZONE 7A PARKING STRUCTURE]

PANELISTS INCLUDE:

MILILANI TRASK: HISTORY OF UN DECLARATION OF RIGHTS & UPDATE ON PRESENT LEGAL IMPLICATIONS
JULIAN AGUON: DEMILITARIZATION IN GUAM
KYLE KAJIHIRO: DEMILITARIZATION IN HAWAI’I
JOSHUA COOPER: HUMAN RIGHTS
KEALI’I GORA: SELF DETERMINATION FOR HAWAIIANS
LILIKALA KAME’ELEIHIWA: EDUCATION, LANGUAGE & CULTURE

FOR MORE INFO CONTACT JULIAN AGUON julianaguon@gmail.com

CO-SPONSORED BY KAMAKAKUOKALANI CENTER FOR HAWAIIAN STUDIES, AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE, INDIGENOUS WORLD ASSOCIATION, NA KOA IKAIKA, KUALI’I COUNCIL, HAWAI’INUIAKEA SCHOOL OF HAWAIIAN KNOWLEDGE

Hawaiian Star Wars

Post Date March 07, 2007
Comments 0 Comments
Author
Category DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, International politics & law, Military Appropriations, Earmarks, Military-industrial-academic complex, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

Hawaiian Star Wars

John Lasker / Mar 7, 2007

In January, a Chinese missile snarled and flashed its fangs 500-miles above the earth’s surface. China, in a show of its space war-fighting capabilities, had obliterated one its own weather satellites with a ground-based missile interceptor. Later that month, while still in the fall-out of China’s provocative action, the United State’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) shot down a dummy ballistic missile as it skirted the edge of space, 70-miles above the Pacific and not far from Kaua’i.

The dummy missile had been launched from a mobile platform floating off the coast of Kaua’i. Traveling at more than 10,000 feet per second as it closed in on the dummy, the interceptor missile had been fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) at Barking Sands on Kaua’i’s western shore.

For the MDA and many of its private contractors from the aerospace industry, it was reason to stand up and cheer. This was the first time the Pacific Range had showcased the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system since Missile Defense had moved it from a New Mexico desert in October. THAAD is, in military parlance, a mobile ballistic missile interceptor.

But while the invading MDA unit and their peers at PMRF celebrated, it was more bleak news for island peace activists and those worried about the militarization of Hawai’i.

There is no doubt that missile defense tests or ‘Star Wars’ tests are on the upswing in the Pacific and Hawai’i. Some peace activists and arms control experts believe this is a sign that beginnings of a new arms race, a chess match of space-combat prowess between China and the United States, is brewing in the Pacific.

This potential arms race has far greater implications than which nation can build the more powerful laser or the first to launch a ‘killer satellite’ constellation. It is a race that signals to the international community that a future war between China and the U.S. may be inevitable. A war between an emerging superpower and the current champion that could be sparked by the skyrocketing demand for energy resources. A war fought on traditional battlescapes such as land, water and air, and not-so-traditional-cyberspace and outer space. It is a conflict where the frontlines could easily engulf the Islands.

‘If you think about it,’ says a Naval officer from the Islands who spoke on the condition of anonymity, ‘the threats we’re facing are going to be coming from space.’

In the mean time, some are speculating on what China was trying to accomplish by turning a satellite no bigger than a refrigerator into a 1,000 little floating pieces.

‘The [anti-satellite] test could have been a strategic move by the Chinese to bully the United States into actually discussing (a space weapons) treaty,’ states space-weapons expert Theresa Hitchens. The current White House is telling the world there’s no need for a treaty, says Hitchens, who directs the left-leaning Center for Defense Information, a Washington-based think tank.

‘There certainly are many in U.S. policy and military circles who believe that China is the new threat, and that the United States must ready itself for an eventual military conflict in the Pacific,’ she says.

Son of Star Wars

Maine resident Bruce Gagnon is the coordinator for Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. He has traveled the world warning peace activists and university crowds about the MDA, which he calls the ‘son of Star Wars.’

Since President Ronald Reagan called for a space shield in the early 1980s, the Pentagon and its space hawks have spent more than $100 billion on research. More than 20 years later, former-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld promised to revive missile defense. And though he’s gone, he and others managed to double funding for missile defense and make it the premier research quest of the Pentagon.

All U.S. missile defensive capabilities, however, have an offensive application as well, says Gagnon. That is why he calls Star Wars a ruse, a Trojan horse.

‘It has always been my contention that the Missile Defense Agency is in fact creating an offensive program that includes anti-satellite weapons and other first-strike space weapons programs,’ he says.

Gagnon, a veteran of the Air Force, has kept a close eye on the Pacific. He has traveled to Japan to rally peace activists there as that nation spends more and more on U.S. missile defense. Citing Pentagon documents and major newspaper reports, the Global Network coordinator says the Pentagon is slowly doubling its military presence in the Asian-Pacific region. Pentagon officials say over 50 percent of their ‘forward looking’ war games took place in Asia during the last decade.

Like other observers, Gagnon agrees a Sino-American war could erupt over the global competition for oil. But he also believes this: The U.S. may try to manage China’s development before it even comes to this. ‘China, if left alone, will become a major economic competitor with the U.S.,’ he says. ‘The U.S. wants to control the keys to China’s development.’

To do so, the U.S. will arm the Pacific with a high-tech arsenal, such as space weapons, which can, among other things, knock out satellites and thus blind a modern war force. ‘China imports much of its oil through the Taiwan Strait and thus if the U.S. can militarily dominate that region, then the Pentagon would have the ability to choke off China’s ability to import oil,’ he says. ‘The U.S. could then theoretically hold them hostage to various political demands.’

Some of Gagnon’s peers in the arms-control field have labeled him a chicken little and his theories too far out there. But after what the national office of the ACLU uncovered, he’s being criticized less and less these days. Two years ago, the ACLU discovered that ‘agents’ from NASA and the Air Force were secretly monitoring him and his family.

Full Spectrum Dominance

Just hours after China blew up its own weather satellite, calls were made on Capital Hill to ramp up the U.S. space warfighting arsenal.

Peace activists and arms-control experts could only shake their heads.

They know the Pentagon has quietly been making the case for ‘full-spectrum dominance’ for the last 10 years. Besides rising missile defense budgets, numerous defense papers have called for the U.S. to militarize the ultimate high ground, even the moon.

Why the Pentagon desires to weaponize space while also shifting much of their global warfighting focus and missile-defense research from Europe to Asia-Pacific is the subject of a contentious debate. China does have a small cache of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the U.S. The world’s fastest growing economy has also made overtures to regain its lost province-Taiwan.

But China isn’t the only Asian nation keeping the Pentagon on edge. North Korea has threatened to strike Hawai’i with ballistic missiles and in the late 1990s fired a ballistic missile over Japan. Last year the regime detonated a nuclear weapon underneath a mountain and test-fired several ballistic missiles-on July 4 no less.

‘Our stance is the increasing missile defense tests are a destabilizing factor. The tests are provoking an arms race in the region between nuclear powers’

-Kyle Kajihiro
local peace activist,
DMZ Hawai’i

Kyle Kajihiro is one of Hawai’i’s most notable peace activists. He directs the Honolulu-based DMZ Hawai’i and believes there may be a simpler reason as to why missile defense research is on the rise around the Islands.

As if mirroring the resurgence of Star Wars, the increasing militarization of Hawai’i has coincided with two significant events, the National Missile Defense Act of 1999 and the election of President Bush in 2001. What’s too easy, Kajihiro adds, is targeting the current wave of Republican leadership in Washington for allowing defense funding to pour into the islands. You also have to blame the gatekeeper who has the keys to the federal safe that houses the Pentagon’s money, the peace activist says.

‘Sen. Daniel Inouye wants the money to pour in. They (Inouye and allies) want defense contractors to set up shop here,’ Kajihiro says. ‘The Congressional earmarks are not necessary. That’s my gut feeling. The North Korean threat has been completely exaggerated.’

There’s no debate that Sen. Inouye is a war hero and his contribution during World War II a story of legendary proportions. Sixty years later, however, Inouye’s influence and power as one of Washington’s veteran senators has allowed Hawai’i to become a ‘destabilizing’ factor in the Pacific, Kajihiro says.

Fifteen years ago the Navy’s Pacific Missile facility at Barking Sands was on the Pentagon’s list for downsizing and possible closure. In 1999, Kajihiro claims that Inouye sought to rejuvenate the facility by co-sponsoring the National Missile Defense Act.

The Clinton administration, which significantly cut missile defense funding during the 1990s, criticized the bill. But it passed anyway and Inouye secured nearly $50 million to upgrade the missile range. ‘It was the beginning of the flood gates opening for a lot of these missile defense projects around Hawai’i,’ says Kajihiro.

Sen. Inouye is the third most senior senator. He also chairs the Senate Defense Appropriations Committee and has declared many times his position has helped Hawai’i economically. Indeed, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan think tank, 60 to 65 percent of all military-related earmarks during the last several years went to the states of senators who sit on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

As Christmas neared in 2001, a time Congress worked furiously in the wake of 9/11 to beef up 2002’s defense budget, Sen. Inouye’s committee quietly doubled Hawai’i’s defense budget for that year. The Islands would receive a total of $850 million, which doesn’t include payroll or day-to-day expenses.

Of the $400-million plus in new 2002 appropriations, $75 million was allocated for cleaning up unexploded ordinance at Kaho’olawe. But $150 million went to missile defense research. Other funds were added to ambiguous projects that peace activists claim could someday contribute to space weapons.

For instance, $6 million was given to the Silicon Thick Film Mirror Coating program, an ongoing research project on Kaua’i. Peace activists say the coating will someday be applied to space-based mirrors that will relay ground-based or space-based lasers around the globe.

Twenty million also went to the Air Force’s Maui Space Surveillance System, located on the summit of Haleakala Mountain. There, the U.S. military operates its largest telescope-the Advanced Electro-Optical System. One of its responsibilities is to monitor asteroids that may strike earth.

‘I’m not buying any of it,’ says Kajihiro, who believes he telescope will be used for missile defense and space combat. The military says the telescope can also track satellites; it also admits that laser-beam research continues at the site.

During this decade, Hawai’i has annually ranked in the top five for states receiving defense funding. According to Kajihiro, the militarization of Hawai’i ‘is really driven by the appropriations.’ He adds, ‘Sen. Inouye says it’s about defending Hawai’i. Our stance is the increasing missile defense tests are a destabilizing factor. The tests are provoking an arms race in the region between nuclear powers.’

The millions of dollars that are being spent on missile defense research around Hawai’i do not entirely go to military personnel. Take for example the THAAD system, which was moved from New Mexico to Kaua’i. THAAD is managed by the MDA, but its primary contractor and researcher is aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.

Between the years 2001 and 2006, five of Inouye’s 20 top campaign finance contributors were defense contractors, says Kajihiro, citing information received from [Opensecrets.org]. Inouye’s biggest contributor from defense contractors was Lockheed Martin.

‘Sen. Inouye has said he’s anti-war, but at the same time he’s pro-military build-up, pro-military pork. It’s kind of weird. It’s hypocritical,’ says Kajihiro.

Sen. Inouye’s office failed to return phone calls for this story.

Terminal Fury

When asked about the Joint Space Control Operations-Negation program and their field tests during classified ‘Terminal Fury’ exercises, Major David Griesmer, a public information officer for U.S. Pacific Command, said, ‘I don’t know anything about it.’

Griesmer’s statement is revealing when trying to gauge the entire picture of missile defense research ongoing around the Islands. Millions of unclassified military funding is being pumped into the Islands to test missile defense. But what about classified or secret missile defense research?

Terminal Fury is a ‘command post exercise,’ says Griesmer, ‘involving multiple bases, a naval component, air component and army component.’

‘Some involved don’t even come to Hawai’i,’ he adds.

Yet for the last three Terminal Fury’s, reports the civilian-owned CS4ISR Journal, the Joint Space Control Operations-Negation (JSCON) conducted field tests. The tests would be the first known anti-satellite tests conducted by the U.S. military since 1985 when a F-15 destroyed a satellite with a missile. ‘[The JSCON] program will help the Pentagon figure out which satellite-killers to buy,’ states the C4ISR Journal.

The journal would not say what satellite killer technology was used, but suggested it was probably the Counter Communications System or CounterCom. The $75 million ground-based device is classified, but it was declared operational by the Pentagon several years back. While not an actual killer, the device allegedly can make a satellite go dead.

Here’s a partial list of missile defense and space weapons research ongoing around the Islands and in the Pacific.

Sea-based X-Band Radar

At the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kaua’i, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is testing THAAD, a ground-based missile-to-space interceptor system. But at sea and at Pearl Harbor, the MDA is testing the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. Named after the shield of Zeus, the Aegis technology fires an interceptor missile that simply slams into a ballistic missile and destroys it. The technology has been applied to only a handful of ships, including Pearl Harbor’s USS Lake Erie, but many other ships from the Pacific fleet are slated to acquire it. Since the late 1990s, the Erie has shot down nearly a dozen dummy missiles, some of which were 200 miles above the earth’s surface.

The floating Sea-based X-Band Radar platform is perhaps the strangest looking craft to have ever sailed the Pacific. Built on a modified oil-drilling platform, the X-Band’s gigantic white dome could easily be mistaken for some alien craft. The distance from the water to the top of the radar dome is roughly 250 feet. The MDA has said the radar has enough detection and target resolution power that it can distinguish a warhead from a decoy or a piece of space debris. The X-band arrived in Pearl Harbor early in 2006, took part in several ballistic missile tests and then headed to its current home in Alaska. The X-band cost between $900 million and $1 billion to build.

Maui Space Surveillance System

Since calling for Star Wars, the U.S. military envisioned high-powered lasers or directed-energy weapons shooting down ballistic missiles in the earth’s atmosphere or in space. But since then, the Pentagon is leaning more toward a missile-to-missile strategy not only because the technology is more feasible but because it is also cheaper. Nevertheless, the U.S. has spent hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars on combat energy beam weapons. Again, just days after the Chinese satellite incident, the U.S. Air Force launched its ‘ABL’ or Air Borne Laser aircraft from Vanderberg Air Force Base north of Los Angeles. For the first time the aircraft test fired in flight. The aircraft is a Boeing 747-sized airplane that has been gutted and turned into a flying laser canon. On the Islands, the Air Force is researching space-related lasers at Maui Space Surveillance System (MSSS) on Haleakala mountain. Two laser beam director/trackers are in use at MSSS but experts say they are not powerful enough to be deemed weapons. These same experts say nearly all astronomical sites across the U.S. don’t project lasers into space.

While they have no connection to Hawai’i as of yet, the most controversial missile defense tests on the horizon are the Space-based test bed maneuvers, activists claim. Space-based test beds are killer satellites that are loaded with missiles or high-powered lasers. When such a satellite constellation may launch is unknown; the U.S. military has targeted the middle of next decade. What is certain is the money the MDA wants for the space-based test bed: The agency as submitted to Congress a request or $675 million to develop this experimental constellation for the years 2008 through 2011, according to Space News.

Newer Entries »

 OpenCUNY » login | join | terms | activity 

 Supported by the CUNY Doctoral Students Council.  

OpenCUNY.ORGLike @OpenCUNYLike OpenCUNY

false