Military-industrial-academic complex | DMZ Hawai'i/Aloha 'Aina

Defense appropriations subcommittee led by Inouye increases war funding 20%

Post Date September 09, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Afghanistan, Iraq, Military Appropriations, Earmarks, Military-industrial-academic complex, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands), War and Peace

As reported in the Washington Post, Senator Inouye pushed for more funding for C-17s:

In a separate action Wednesday, the subcommittee joined the House in adding funds to the appropriations bill to purchase an additional 10 C-17 transport airplanes. The Obama administration has said it does not need the planes.

“We expect that in re-examining its airlift fleet the Defense Department will eventually conclude that purchasing additional C-17’s … is the right solution” for meeting the increasing need for airlift, Inouye said.

But according to an article in Politico.com,

Senate appropriators have backed the White House and bucked the House over two major Pentagon programs – a fleet of helicopters for the president and an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The Senate and the House found common ground in supporting the F-22:

There is nothing to resolve regarding the F-22 Raptor. The Senate subcommittee followed the House’s lead, providing over $560 million for maintenance of the fifth-generation fighter jet.

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Updated at 2:38 p.m., Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Senate subcommittee led by Inouye OKs 20% increase in Afghan funding

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post

WASHINGTON – A key Senate subcommittee on Wednesday trimmed $900 million from the amount requested by the Obama administration to support Afghan security forces next year, but the $6.6 billion approved in the funding measure will still permit a 20 percent increase over this fiscal year to help train and equip the army and police in Afghanistan.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has indicated that improving the Afghan security forces is central to defeating the Taliban insurgency, providing security for the country’s population and permitting broader reconstruction to take place.

In announcing details of the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense, said Wednesday: “While we strongly concur with the administration that increased funding is needed to train and equip our Afghan army and police forces, it makes no sense to provide more funding than can be spent when other shortfalls exist.”

Members of the subcommittee said the administration had agreed that the $7.5 billion it originally requested for Afghan security forces could not be spent in the 2010 fiscal year. The committee decided instead to increase by $1.2 billion the amount to be spent on so-called “baby MRAPs,” all-terrain vehicles used to safeguard troops from improvised explosive devices.

In broad terms, the subcommittee’s bill, which provides $636.3 billion for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, is $3.9 billion less than the amount requested by President Obama. Of the amount approved, $128.2 billion is for “overseas contingency operations,” essentially meaning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under the Bush administration, funds for Iraq and Afghanistan were approved in supplemental appropriations bills, a process that critics said obscured the full cost of the fighting.

In a separate action Wednesday, the subcommittee joined the House in adding funds to the appropriations bill to purchase an additional 10 C-17 transport airplanes. The Obama administration has said it does not need the planes.

“We expect that in re-examining its airlift fleet the Defense Department will eventually conclude that purchasing additional C-17’s … is the right solution” for meeting the increasing need for airlift, Inouye said.

Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., who noted that 4,000 Boeing workers in Long Beach will now keep their jobs, hailed the subcommittee’s decision as “good news for our workers and our military service members.”

Inouye said the subcommittee had cut by $300 million from last year the value of earmarks pushed by members, reducing the number overall by “nearly 200 projects.”

He said, “I hope that that our colleagues can support this package with its streamlined approach to earmarking.”

Because Inouye is chairman of the full Senate Appropriation’s committee, his subcommittee’s decisions are expected to easily pass the full panel on Thursday and be sent to the Senate floor.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090909/BREAKING01/90909076/Senate+subcommittee+led+by+Inouye+OKs+20++increase+in+Afghan+funding+

Why the Wars Roll on

Post Date September 06, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Military Appropriations, Earmarks, Military-industrial-academic complex, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands), War and Peace

This article points out that Senator Inouye receives $160,000 from corporations outside his district that have an interest in war expenditures. The map is pretty telling of the powers and interests that influence decisions about war, peace and militarization. Many of these companies are the same ones that benefit from the earmarks for missiles defense, PMRF and the UARC/Project Kai e’e related programs.

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Why the Wars Roll on: Ban Campaign Money From Outside the District

Friday 04 September 2009

by: Ralph Lopez, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

As public opinion tips against the US military presence in Afghanistan, and Congress talks about “doubling down,” as the pullout from Iraq is accompanied by steadily increasing violence, and talk turns to slowing or halting the pull-out, the question the anti-war public must ask itself is: What now? War funding for Iraq continues despite two consecutive Democratic majorities elected expressly to stop it. Obama’s high-stakes 2008 Super Bowl ad blared “Getting Us Out of Iraq,” and it worked. He was elected. But the cold hard fact seems to be emerging that, regardless of public opinion, the wars will roll on.

The occasional heroic Congress member or senator will call for a timetable, an exit plan or a halt to war funding, but despite lots of heat generated in the debate, the war bills seem to pass at the end of the day. This is because incumbents’ real constituents are no longer the people who live in the district. The real power, the money which pays for television ad blitzes and the all-important donations to the local Little League, comes from far away.

Very few people know that on average 80 percent of their Congress members’ and senators’ campaign funds come from outside the district, and largely from outside the state. They come from industries like defense, telecommunications and financial services. What do they get for these contributions, even in cases when the Congress member votes against those contributors’ positions on certain bills?

The 1976 US Supreme Court decision, Buckley v. Valeo, which equated money with “free speech,” affirmed your right to buy your own congressman. But it did not explicitly affirm your right to buy mine. Since that decision, the amount of money in politics has skyrocketed and is at all-time highs. Also at record-breaking highs are the pay-offs, like bailouts for the auto and financial services industries.

The savings and loan bailout of the nineties, at $200 billion, was chump change compared to the $700 billion TARP slush fund of today, which rewards financial services companies for the subprime mortgage fiasco. In searching for an answer to how the $3 trillion Iraq war can drag on despite three years of Democratic majorities in Congress elected to end it, follow the money.

The citizen’s watchdog group MAPlight.org has found that congressmen who voted for TARP, the “Troubled Assets Relief Program,” received nearly 50 percent more in campaign contributions from the financial services industry (an average of about $149,000) than congressmen who voted no. Legislators who voted for the automobile industry bailout in 2009 received an average of 40 percent more in “contributions” from that industry (the less politic call them “bribes”) than those who voted against it. And House Energy and Commerce Committee members who voted yes on an amendment in 2009 favored by the forest products industry, to allow heavier cutting of trees, received an average of $25,745 from the forestry and paper products industry. This was ten times as much as was received by each member voting no. This pattern repeats itself over and over.

True, contributions don’t guarantee a particular legislator will vote your way. But neither will he or she filibuster your bill or go on TV to ask rude questions about impacts to taxpayers or consumers. Arguably, that could be called hush money.

What we have arrived at is a system of industries, defense, financial, telecommunications, health insurance, trail lawyers and the rest, looking to appease those who, as Richard Nixon said, can do something for them, or something to them. Take one example: Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who chairs the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. This is the final hurdle for war appropriations bills after they pass the House. No war bill gets to the president’s desk until it gets past Inouye, who can stop it cold, send it into perpetual conference committee loops or change it in a dozen ways. As one might guess, money comes pouring in to Inouye from defense contractors from across the country:

Campaign contributions to Sen. Daniel Inouye from the defense industry, ex-district.

Inouye takes in $160,000 from corporations not in his district that have a financial interest in war. Double Medal of Honor winner Gen. Smedley Butler said after World War I, “war is a racket.”

How do we change this? We can call for reform which forbids money from outside the district. If money from PACs or individuals is to be equated with “free-speech,” then let it be confined to its rightful boundaries. There are now “free speech zones” for anti-war protesters, who welcome some public figures into town. So, the idea of geographically restricting some speech in the public interest is well established.

By halting money from outside districts, connections between business interests and committee members will be by coincidence, not forged as unholy alliances, which may conflict with the interests of real constituents. The influence of the defense industry over key committee members and House and Senate leaders will be diluted. The principle of Buckley v. Valeo, that money equals free speech, remains intact. But congressmen will still answer to constituents, the way they are supposed to. Of course, citizens are always free to work their hearts out for whomever they want.

When two-thirds of the nation’s wealth is owned by just ten percent of the population, as is the case in the United States, that ten percent has a lot more money to give than the other 90 percent: therefore, the interest of society in limiting the corrupting influence of money across geographical boundaries is clear. MAPlight.org found that money travels outward from wealthy zip codes to poorer ones.

If congressmen were not meant to represent geographical constituents, the founders wouldn’t have drawn district maps. Campaign finance is now a frenzy of interests shopping for committee members and chairpersons across the country. The industry determines which committees are targeted. The reason incumbents no longer pay attention to constituents who are overwhelmingly against bailouts, or strongly anti-war, is that their real bosses will always give them enough money to bury any challenger in a blizzard of negative TV ads.

Why should Boeing Aircraft (maker of the Apache helicopter,) which doesn’t even have a shop or an office in my district, be allowed to give money to my congressman in Boston? (It does.) He shouldn’t be worrying about what Boeing thinks. He should be worrying about what I and my neighbors think. Without any extraneous distractions.

If there is one thing congressmen hate, it’s being embarrassed and tongue-tied in public. If he or she won’t go to the mat to end the wars, or for any other issue important to the district, then ask your representative what’s the deal with that contribution from the real estate company in Arizona. Or what have you. If your congressman is using your district’s leather seat (it belongs to the district, not to any one person or set of outside interests) in that historic, marble-filled chamber to represent you, vigorously, then there’s no problem. If not, further questions are in order.

Source: http://www.truthout.org/090409A

UH West O'ahu a 'military friendly school'?

Post Date September 02, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Militarization of Society, Military-industrial-academic complex

UH West O’ahu selected for 2010 list of military friendly schools

University of Hawaiʻi-West Oʻahu
Contact:
Ryan Mielke, (808) 454-4750
Executive Director of Public Affairs, Chancellor’s Office
Posted: Aug. 24, 2009

The University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu was recently named among a select group of higher education institutions nationwide for inclusion in the 2010 List of Military Friendly Schools.

The list honors the top 15 percent of colleges, universities and trade schools that are doing the most to embrace America’s veterans as students. Schools on the list range from state universities and private colleges to community colleges and trade schools. The common bond, according to a statement released by G.I. Jobs, is their shared priority of recruiting students with military experience.

UH West O‘ahu’s Pearl City campus, as well as its future campus in Kapolei, is conveniently located for access by Hawai‘i’s many military veterans as well as active duty members and their families located at Schofield Barracks, Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Hickam Air Force Base.

“We place a priority on ensuring all of our students get a first-rate education, and we welcome veterans and others in our military community to include us in their higher education goals,” said Gene Awakuni, UH West Oʻahu chancellor and veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. “While it is great to be recognized as a military friendly school, it does not necessarily come as a surprise to the many veterans, active duty, Guard, Reserves, and military family members who have graduated from our programs. It is great to know that we can be a part of their success, wherever they go from here.”

The tens of billions of dollars in tuition money, now available with the recent passage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, has intensified an already strong desire by colleges to court veterans into their classrooms, according to G.I. Jobs. “This list is especially important now because the recently enacted Post-9/11 GI Bill has given veterans virtually unlimited financial means to go to school,” said Rich McCormack, G.I. Jobs publisher.

The list was compiled through exhaustive research starting last May during which G.I. Jobs polled more than 7,000 schools nationwide. Methodology, criteria and weighting for the list were developed with the assistance of an Academic Advisory Committee (AAC) consisting of educators and administrators from Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Toledo, Duquesne University, Coastline Community College and Lincoln Technical Institute.

A full story and detailed list of Military Friendly Schools will be highlighted in the annual Guide to Military Friendly Schools and on a poster, both of which will be distributed to hundreds of thousands of active and former military personnel in September. A new Web site, found at www.militaryfriendlyschools.com, will launch in September with interactive tools and search functionality to assist military veterans in choosing schools that best meet their educational needs. Criteria for making the Military Friendly Schools list included efforts to recruit and retain military and veteran students, results in recruiting military and veteran students and academic accreditations.

ABOUT G.I. Jobs: G.I. Jobs (www.gijobs.com) is published by Victory Media, a veteran-owned business headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa. The 2010 Military-Friendly School List can be found at www.militaryfriendlyschools.com/mfspr

About UH West O‘ahu

UH West O‘ahu became a four-year, comprehensive university when it served its first class of freshmen in fall 2007. The University offers quality education, small classes and personalized attention at convenient locations. UH West O‘ahu held a ground blessing ceremony in January in anticipation of the start of construction for a state-of-the art, new campus in the City of Kapolei. For more information, visit http://www.uhwo.hawaii.edu, http://www.twitter.com/uhwestoahu, http://www.facebook.com/uhwestoahu or call 454-4700 or toll-free (866) 299-8656.

Source: http://www.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=3050

Inouye hooks Native Hawaiians with military earmarks

Post Date September 01, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Militarization of Society, Military Appropriations, Earmarks, Military-industrial-academic complex, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

Last week, Senator Daniel Inouye was a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA).

He began his speech with a classic Inouye-esque statement, an understated and oblique put down of recent protests of the statehood commemorations:

The shaping of public policy can occur in many different ways. It can be done gently and by consensus. It can come as a result of negotiation and compromise. It can occur violently, amid hostile protest. As it relates to setting the course for a more hopeful policy for the benefit of Native people, of Native Hawaiians, it is important that we know our history.

He seems to imply that those who choose the path of protest don’t know their history and that he will give them the correct history. The problem is that it is he who confuses the history. He states in the speech:

Native Hawaiians are Native Americans.

Hawai’i is not a part of America. It is an archipelago more than 2000 miles away. Native Hawaiians are indigenous people to the Hawaiian islands and the independent nation state that they created, the Hawaiian Kingdom.

He then erroneously equates the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom to the termination of Native nations by the U.S. government:

And, like the Native tribes whose federally recognized status was terminated, Hawaii’s monarchy was also terminated and the Native Hawaiian government illegally overthrown. As such, the Native Hawaiian people never voluntarily gave up or extinguished their sovereignty. The Hawaiian protests on Statehood day dampened the commemoration of our 50th anniversary. There was a sadness, as it bruised our conscience. It made clear to me that reconciliation is long overdue.

The sovereignty of an independent nation state cannot be terminated in the same way the U.S. government can terminate its recognition of domestic dependent native nations. The U.S. had no legal basis to assume sovereignty over the Hawaiian islands without a proper treaty of annexation between two legitimate sovereign governments.

What I found revealing was the examples he chose to highlight of Native Hawaiian successes. The first two were the Native Hawaiian heads of two military projects:

I was on Maui last Friday for a few events. The first was to celebrate the designation of the Maui Supercomputer as an official resource center of the Department of Defense because of their outstanding performance. What began as an earmark is today a budgeted Pentagon asset. The man in charge – a Native Hawaiian. Gene Bal.

The next Maui event was also to celebrate an earmark – the Joint Information Technology Center – becoming an official $20 million dollar program of the Department of Defense. The President & CEO – a Native Hawaiian. Vaughn Vasconcellos.

So military contracts is one of the selling points for federal recognition. The Maui Supercomputer, which is run by the University of Hawai’i, is a boondoggle that supports the dangerously provocative missile defense programs that are tested over the Pacific. 95% of its work is military related. The Joint Information Technology Center is a military owned system that is managed by Akimeka, a Native Hawaiian owned military technology company. Akimeka is one of the leading companies that have cashed in on special contracting set asides for Native owned companies. Under the normal 8A set asides for minority and women owned companies, the contract amounts are capped and the procurement process is competitive. Under the ‘special’ 8A for Native American, Native Alaskan, and Native Hawaiian owned companies, the contracts are sole source awards (i.e. noncompetitive) and unlimited in amount. This has led to problems with fraud and abuse with some of the Alaska Native owned companies that turned out to be fronts for large defense contractors.

The dope of military earmarks is an powerful temptation. We’ll see who will line up for their fix.

Military expands computing centers on Maui

Post Date September 01, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Militarization of Society, Military Appropriations, Earmarks, Military-industrial-academic complex

Computing center gets fresh Mana

Supersystem in S. Maui blows Jaws out of water with double the power

By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer
POSTED: August 22, 2009

New University of Hawaii President M.R.C. Greenwood, U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye and Mayor Charmaine Tavares celebrate Friday’s dedication of the new computing platform at the Maui High Performance Computing Center.

KIHEI – The Maui High Performance Computing Center got more Mana on Friday – that’s the name of its new platform, a giant parallel processing machine that requires $350,000 worth of electricity a month to keep it humming.

Mana is double the power of its predecessor, Jaws, which in turn was a huge step up when it was installed just three years ago.

Mana is a Dell PowerEdge M610 with 1,152 nodes. Each node contains two 2.8 Ghz Intel Nehalem processors with 24 GB RAM for a total of 9,216 computer cores. That gives it a performance of 103 TeraFLOPS per second.

A FLOP is a floating point operation, and that’s 103,000,000,000,000 every second.

Data flows into a Dual Data Rate Infiniband Data Direct disk storage system than can handle nearly 400 terabytes of data.

U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye spoke at the dedication and shortly afterward at the rededication of Akimeka’s Joint Information Technology Center across the street at Maui Research & Technology Park. Inouye helped find the funds that inaugurated the much-smaller supercomputer that launched the computing center in 1992.

Gene Bal, the director of the center, said about 95 percent of the computer’s time is devoted to military work. Maui is one of six Department of Defense Supercomputing Resource Centers.

The computer is used for research in computing, communications and computational modeling. Users can access the machine from distant locations, but many of them come to Maui because the center itself has graphical capacities that cannot be used remotely, Bal said.

The power-hungry machines will soon get some juice of their own. The computing center will add a photovoltaic research and development component.

The Kihei R&T Park is one of the best places in the world to put a photovoltaic panel. Even before the Maui Research & Technology Center was built, the hillside was used by researchers at the University of California at Davis to test a flexible photovoltaic system, called PV-USA. Engineers were surprised when they turned it on because it put out much more electricity than they had calculated.

It turns out that during most afternoons, the R&T Park gets 1.3 “suns” shining on it the direct sun, plus another three-tenths of a sun from light that falls on the slopes of Haleakala, bouncing up to the afternoon clouds that usually build up and back down on Kihei.

Akimeka also does military research. The Joint Information Technology Center is owned by the government and managed by Akimeka. Matt Granger, vice president for operations, describes it as a largely “virtual” organization, although it has about 66 people working on it here.

Akimeka’s primary contracts with the Department of Defense involve military health systems. It specializes in melding the health information systems of the three military services so that they can be accessed from anywhere.

That capacity is now finding a wider application in helping the military share data among many users. Granger estimates that up to 90 percent of the JITC work is still medical, but it is now turning into a research and development center, “heavy on the development side,” for a wider variety of tasks.

When Jaws was installed, much of its predecessor was made available to the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Bal said that since Jaws is only three years old, “this system has a significant remaining nominal useful life.”

“A portion of Jaws will be partitioned for use by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory,” he said. This will support the Maui Space Surveillance System Advanced Image Reconstruction project, helping make use of data gathered by telescopes at Science City on Haleakala’s summit.

“Additionally, the University of Hawaii has expressed an interest in using another partition of Jaws for academic research, which would be sponsored under the Educational Partnership Agreement executed between the Air Force Research Laboratory and the University of Hawaii,” Bal said.

The photovoltaic project is being supported by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds.

* Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.

Source: http://www.mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/522634.html

Austal CEO reveals Hawaii Superferry was part of military contract strategy

Post Date August 27, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Hawaii Superferry Resistance, Military-industrial-academic complex, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

Brad Parsons shared this interview with Austal CEO Bob Browning and some choice excerpts that affirm what anti-Superferry activists have said all along:

Bob Browning: Sure, yeah the Hawaii Super Ferry contract really was quite unusual. We were actually helping that company get started and put $30 million of mezzanine debt into the business which then allowed us to contract to build two large catamaran ferries for them. And strategically was important because it allowed us to build our workforce up in Mobile, Alabama which then allowed us to win the Joint High Speed Vessel program which is a very close derivative to that hull form. So while it was unfortunate that Hawaii Super Ferry filed for Chapter 11, it was an unusual thing that we normally wouldn’t do, but it did position us for a much more lucrative contract with the Navy…

Bob Browning: It really was a conscious decision…

See the video of the interview here: http://www.finnewsnetwork.com/archives/finance_news_network12266.html

Austal (ASX:ASB) Annual Results

TRANSCRIPTION OF FINANCE NEWS NETWORK INTERVIEW WITH AUSTAL LTD (ASX:ASB) CEO, BOB BROWNING

Clive Tompkins: Hello Clive Tompkins reporting for the Finance News Network. Joining me for the first time from ship-builder Austal Ltd (ASX:ASB), is CEO Bob Browning. Bob welcome to FNN. You’ve just released your full year results to June 30 with net profit down 82 per cent to $9.2 million on revenue of $500 million, can you explain the result?

Bob Browning: Sure, and it’s important to realise that the impact in our income statement was really some accounting treatments, non-cash write-downs. Our underlying business would have produced about $38.5 million this year which was ahead of analyst expectations but we had the Hawaii Super Ferry write-down and a derivative instrument that we put in place on a multi-ship program that has locked in a big upside for that program going forward from a commercial basis.

Clive Tompkins: Given the substantial hit you took to your bottom-line on the Hawaii Super Ferry contract, are you going to change the way you get paid for similar deals?

Bob Browning: Sure, yeah the Hawaii Super Ferry contract really was quite unusual. We were actually helping that company get started and put $30 million of mezzanine debt into the business which then allowed us to contract to build two large catamaran ferries for them. And strategically was important because it allowed us to build our workforce up in Mobile, Alabama which then allowed us to win the Joint High Speed Vessel program which is a very close derivative to that hull form. So while it was unfortunate that Hawaii Super Ferry filed for Chapter 11, it was an unusual thing that we normally wouldn’t do, but it did position us for a much more lucrative contract with the Navy.

Clive Tompkins: Austal has built a global dominance producing and selling car and passenger fast ferries, but has also been producing a fair number of military vessels, where do you get the bulk of your work from these days?

Bob Browning: Right now it comes primarily from the commercial side of the industry in large catamaran ferries down to passenger ferries. If we fast forward upwards of two years I would expects about two thirds of our income from multi-ship U.S. Navy awards going forward.

Clive Tompkins: And is this a conscious decision, or have you just followed the work flow?

Bob Browning: It really was a conscious decision. We were actually prevented form operating or selling in the United States through some protectionist legislation called the Jones Act, and so the establishment of our facility in Mobile Alabama was designed to allow us to produce ships for that market. We then saw an opportunity with a vessel we produced for a customer in the Canary Islands that we thought an adaptation of that would fit the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship program and were successful in winning that contract.

Clive Tompkins: The global financial crisis has seen a lot of companies back-peddling, how has Austal been affected?

Bob Browning: It clearly had an impact on our Australian operations with the commercial sales, while the pipeline was quite full, it was taking longer for customers to get the financing that they needed and get to the decision point to actually buy a vessel. So the first half of our fiscal year we had a real trough in the order book. We’re seeing that coming good now, we’ve had three large orders here in calendar year 2009, and clearly the strongest part of our business, the U.S. Navy business, coming forward will take a lot of that volatility out of our business.

Clive Tompkins: So how many months work do you have?

Bob Browning: In the Australian operations we have an order book that will take us out to 2011. In the Navy, because these are multi-ship programs, we’re going to be building vessels just for these two programs for the next eight or nine years.

Clive Tompkins: And what other metrics does a ship-builder monitor in terms of performance?

Bob Browning: If there’s one thing the ship-building industry has its metrics. We measure everything from our cost performance indices, how are we doing against the planned cost for the ship. Schedule performance indices, are we going to deliver the ship on time. Our EBIT margins obviously are very important, do we have the workforce lined up to handle the order book that’s in place, it’s a constant balancing act.

Clive Tompkins: What about margins, are they coming under pressure as government finances are being strained?

Bob Browning: Not so much because of government finances, in fact that’s actually been a more stable piece of our business. The margins of late have come under a bit of pressure because of the first-in-class Littoral Combat Ship that we built. It was a cost plus contract where we earned a fee, but as the cost of the vessel goes up the EBIT margins get squeezed a bit. That’s unique to that one vessel, the vessel’s we build going forward are on a fixed fee contract and are much more predictable in terms of the earnings.

Clive Tompkins: Turning to your work with the U.S. Navy, you’ve just received funding to purchase equipment another two Joint High Speed Vessels. Without actually receiving the contract to build at this stage, how significant is this?

Bob Browning: It’s very significant. It’s a 10 ship program, and so the Navy allowing us to go out and buy the water jets and diesel engines and reduction gears, the big equipment for vessels two and three, is a very clear signal they intend to award those contracts. And so when you add that program up with Littoral Combat Ship program we could be sitting here a year from now and we’ll have $1.5 billion of ships in the order book.

Clive Tompkins: And is this normal to be awarded funding in advance of receiving a contract?

Bob Browning: It’s somewhat unusual. The Navy saw an opportunity to save some money in the cost of this equipment by ordering a bit sooner, more importantly for us it’s a clear signal you know the Navy is not going to order this kind of equipment if they aren’t going to award the rest of the ship. And so we see it as a very significant event in terms of the surety of the next two vessels coming to us.

Clive Tompkins: And have you done work with other Navies?

Bob Browning: We have. We built 14 Armidale Class Patrol Boats for the Royal Australian Navy. We finished the delivery of the last of those vessels up last fiscal year. We have built patrol boats for the likes of Yemen and Kuwait. We are currently building coast guard vessels for the Maltese Coast Guard, and we’ll deliver six patrol boats to the Trinidad Navy as well later this year. So Austal is creating a global awareness in terms of patrol boats in the international market.

Clive Tompkins: And onto your competition. Who are your main competitors?

Bob Browning: Our competition depends upon the type of vessel we’re building, as you can imagine. With the U.S. Navy the only competitor we have there is with Littoral Combat Ship program in which Lockheed Martin is a team that’s building a very different style of vessel. While it’s a competitor we expect the Navy to split that contract and we’ll build probably 25 to 27 of our version of the LCS and Lockheed will build 25 to 27 of their version. When you get to commercial car passenger ferries probably our most significant competitor would be Damen out of the Scandinavian area and Incat in Tasmania actually. So it really varies depending on the whole form that we’re building.

Clive Tompkins: How difficult is it for other ship builders to enter your key markets?

Bob Browning: I think we’ve got a strong barrier to entry into our business, particularly in the United States, there’s no other builder of aluminium vessels in the U.S. of our size. We are the largest in terms of market share for large catamaran fast ferries in the world. And it’s a unique skill building with aluminium. We think it’s going to continue to be a strength for us because the operating costs on these vessels are far less, being a lighter material it takes less power to move them at the same speed.

Clive Tompkins: Last question. Bob where do you see Austral in 12 to 18 months?

Bob Browning: It will be a rapidly growing business. As I mentioned earlier we will have $1.5 billion worth of ships in the order book within a year. But that number is going to continue to grow because the Navy is accelerating their acquisition schedule, it appears to us, in vessels. And so that’s going to translate to a much more stable order book, and we believe the market then will be able to see out beyond 12 months which then translates hopefully to a re-rating of the stock. So we‘re feeling very, very good that this is a big inflection point for the company into the future.

Clive Tompkins: Bob Browning thanks for introducing Austal.

Bob Browning: My pleasure.

Source: http://www.finnewsnetwork.com/archives/finance_news_network12266.html

Hundreds turn out to demand access to shoreline access in Kona

Post Date August 23, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Military Appropriations, Earmarks, Military-industrial-academic complex

The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai’i Autority (NELHA) is a State of Hawai’i agency under the Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism. It is based at a site on the Kona shoreline, near the Kona airport. The public has had access to prime shoreline recreation and cultural areas via a jeep road that runs near the NELHA site. Recently, NELHA has locked the gates to the beach. Kona residents have mobized to demand access.

What’s not been discussed much is the role of NELHA in supporting military research via the National Defense Center of Excellence for Research in Ocean Sciences (CEROS), a state-run, federally funded program housed at NELHA. CEROS is a program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) which conducts many secret research programs in Hawai’i.

Is the beach access closure related to any security measures required by CEROS/DARPA?

Here’s a report on the recent meeting by Kona activist Shannon Rudolph:

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Hundreds Turn Out For NELHA Gate Closure Meeting

August 22, 2009

By Shannon Rudolph

A polite but agitated crowd, an estimated 500 to 600 people, filled the Kealakehe High School Cafeteria Friday night and spoke unanimously; open the gate at Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) to O’oma / Kohanaiki – now.

Many members of the Kohanaiki ‘Ohana community public access group and other residents gave testimony to open the gate immediately, including former council member Angel Pilago, along with representatives of the Kapena, Ka’aaina, and Freitas families. Kaimanu Freitas told the audience he had the original deed to the NELHA property proving his family ownership.

The community talk story sponsored by Sen. Josh Green and Rep. Denny Coffman included representatives from the state Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT). (Click here and here to see previous references to the community meeting.)

Many testifying called for NELHA chief executive officer (CEO) Ron Baird to be fired immediately, not only for locking the shoreline gate, but also for putting the community in danger with the unfinished and unacceptable access further south on the highway. Rep. Coffman and the DOT representative also called the secondary highway access unsafe.

Hawaii County Councilman Kelly Greenwell told the crowd that he held the “key” to to the NELHA gate and that community members held that key also – namely, civil disobedience – and invited everyone to come down on Saturday morning to help remove the gate.

Puna’s Kale Gumapac and other community activists from around the island also attended and spoke of the need to stand up and protect public access in all areas of the island for future generations.

Sen. Green urged the audience to call NELHA’s CEO Ron Baird at (808) 329-7341, along with his boss, Ted Liu, director of DBEDT at 808-586-2355, email tliu@dbedt.hawaii.gov and urge them to open the gate. On Hawai’i island, call 808-947-4000 ext. 52423. Ron Baird was invited, but did not attend the meeting or send a NELHA representative.

(Shannon Rudolph is a Kona resident concerned about shoreline access amongst other community issues.)

Source: http://www.bigislandchronicle.com/?p=8208

Prototype mini-sub shelved

Post Date July 25, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Ke Awalau o Pu'uloa / Pearl Harbor, Military-industrial-academic complex

Posted on: Saturday, July 25, 2009

Prototype mini-sub shelved

Repairing fire damage would cost more than entire program’s budget

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

A one-of-a-kind SEAL mini-sub based at Pearl City Peninsula that has been plagued by years of development problems and cost overruns won’t be repaired after a November fire because the work would cost $237 million and take nearly three years, U.S. Special Operations Command said yesterday.

The decision could be a final blow to a program that once envisioned a fleet of the 65-foot mini subs, designed to ride piggyback on much larger attack submarines and deliver SEALs dry and rested to an insertion point.

The Advanced SEAL Delivery System, or ASDS, originally was expected to cost about $80 million per sub. But the Northrop Grumman program spiraled to more than $885 million, with only one sub built, according to a 2007 U.S. Government Accountability Office report. Delivery of ASDS-1 was accepted in 2003.

One of Special Operations Command’s biggest investments was beset by battery, noise and propulsion problems, and in April 2006, the Defense Department canceled plans for follow-on ASDS boats and directed the Navy and Special Operations Command to set up an ASDS-1 improvement program.

The $237 million repair estimate from the Nov. 9 fire is $180 million more than the entire budget for the ASDS program, according to Special Operations Command, based at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.

The command said “competing funding priorities” for current and projected special operations budgets prevent it from repairing ASDS-1.

The fire broke out while the submersible’s batteries were recharging at its Pearl City home port. The 8:30 p.m. fire occurred during routine maintenance, which included the battery recharging, the Navy said in a news release.

The fire damaged the ASDS’ operations compartment, which affected all the boat’s operating systems, Special Operations Command said.

The battery system, sonar, motors and controllers, anchor assembly and hull were also damaged.

The “root cause analysis” – being done to determine the fire’s origin – is not complete, the command said.

new sub emerging

Lt. Cmdr. Fred Kuebler, a Special Operations Command spokesman, yesterday said the final disposition of ASDS-1 has not been determined. He did not rule out the possibility of repair.

Kuebler had no information about possible manning changes at the Pearl City facility.

The command also has requested funding for the Joint Multi-Mission Submersible program to develop an alternative SEAL insertion craft.

The online publication Inside the Navy reported in June that $43.4 million was being sought for pre-design work on the mini-sub that would provide “improved performance” over the ASDS.

The ASDS was heralded as a “transformational leap ahead” design and was intended to deliver commandos dry and rested to a point of departure. The current SEAL Delivery Vehicles are open to bone-chilling cold water and require the use of scuba gear.

Big plans faltered

Designed to ride piggyback on the Los Angeles-class submarines Greeneville and Charlotte, both based at Pearl Harbor, as well as on new Virginia-class submarines and former ballistic missile subs converted to carry conventional missiles and commandos, the boxy, 8-foot-diameter ASDS was designed to sneak up close to shore with two crew and up to 16 SEALs.

Its skin is the material used on stealth fighters, it could take and transmit pictures almost in real time, and its design allowed for long-range operations.

The Navy in 2004 celebrated the completion of a $47 million waterfront home for SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1 on 22 acres at Pearl City Peninsula that included a 326,000-gallon freshwater test tank.

At the time, the team had 45 officers and 230 enlisted personnel – 93 of them SEALs.

The GAO said in 2007 that the ASDS had “encountered a difficult, long and costly development since the initial contract was awarded in 1994.”

Despite those problems, the Navy in July 2003 took delivery of the first ASDS.

The craft rode piggyback on the submarine Greeneville during a deployment to the Persian Gulf by Expeditionary Strike Group 1.

The ASDS was supposed to deploy with the USS Michigan, a former ballistic missile submarine converted to carry conventional missiles and commandos, shortly after the fire.

The entire program, including six mini-subs and facilities in Hawai’i and Little Creek, Va., originally was to cost $527 million.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090725/NEWS08/907250321/Prototype+mini-sub+shelved

How the Senate voted on cancelling the F-22 funding

Post Date July 23, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Military-industrial-academic complex, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

The New York Times had good coverage of the vote to remove $1,750,000,000 for the F-22 stealth fighter jet from the Defense Authorization Bill. Here’s a link to the roll call. http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/111/senate/1/235

Hawai’i’s Senator’s Inouye and Akaka voted to keep the $1.75 billion in the budget for the exotic fighter jet. It’s not clear if the F-22’s that were supposed to be stationed in Hawai’i would be affected by the cut.

Senate votes down funds for F-22 jets

Post Date July 21, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Military-industrial-academic complex

Senate Votes Down Funds for F-22 Jets

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 21, 2009; 12:53 PM

The Senate voted Tuesday to kill the nation’s premier fighter jet program, embracing by a 58-40 vote margin the argument of President Obama and his top military advisers that the F22 is no longer needed for the nation’s defense and a costly drag on the Pentagon’s budget in an era of small wars and growing counter-insurgency efforts.

The decision was a key policy victory for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who has been campaigning against the plane since April as a centerpiece of his effort to “fundamentally reshape the priorities of America’s defense establishment and reform the way the Pentagon does business — in particular, the weapons we buy, and how we buy them,” as he put it in a Chicago speech last Thursday.

Gates had depicted the F22, which was conceived in the 1980’s, as a “silver bullet solution” to a high-technology aerial warfare threat that has not materialized. He said other warplanes will adequately defend the country for decades to come, and won support from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Air Force’s two senior leaders. But his view was strongly opposed by others in the Air Force and by military contractors and unions that have benefitted from the $65 billion program.

Although lawmakers debated over several days, as they have for many decades, whether the fighters are needed to counter a military threat from Russia or China, the nation’s current economic travails may have played a larger role than military strategy in the vote. Although the plane’s supporters worried that its cancellation would eliminate thousands of jobs at a time of economic hardship, its critics argued just as passionately that the plane deserved no additional funds at a time of pressing social needs.

The debate crossed party lines and was punctuated by a promise by Obama that he would veto any defense bill that included funds for more than four additional F22’s, which cost an average of $350 million a copy. The Senate Armed Services committee by a two vote margin had supported spending an additional $1.79 billion to buy at least 12 more planes than the administration sought, while the House of Representatives had supported spending $369 million for extra planes.

While the decision today formally leaves the two chambers at odds, lawmakers on both sides of the issue had predicted the Senate position will prevail when the defense bills are reconciled in a conference committee. If it does, the program would be halted at 187 planes, which is kess than half what the Air Force had once sought.
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The chief critics of the F22 were armed services committee chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and the top Republican, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) McCain, who has long attacked pork barrel spending for weapons that he says the military does not need, said the vote was a bellweather of congressional willingness to abandon “business as usual.”

The current weapons procurement system, he said in a floor speech Tuesday morning, “is out of control,” and went on to recall President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning of excessive influence in Washington by the military-industrial complex, suggesting a tweak to “military-industrial-congressional” complex.

The plane’s proponents were led by Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R.-Ga.) and included lawmakers from many of the more than 40 states where F22 components have been manufactured. Democrats such as Patty Murray (Wash.) and Chris Dodd (Conn.) argued passionately that killing the program would undermine the nation’s defense by idling highly trained engineers and mechanics.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/21/AR2009072100135.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR