US sends warships to monitor North Korea missile test

Post Date March 30, 2009
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As North Korea prepares to launch a satellite into space, Japan, South Korea and the U.S. ratchet up the tension by mobilizing anti-missile systems.   Again, the military is using the threat of missiles hitting Hawai’i as the reason for these provocative countermeasures.   What’s more disturbing is some of the chauvanistic comments on this article:

megook wrote:

Replying to SailorDale:

If they really launch a missile, as soon as it clears Communist N. Korean territory, they should not hesitate to shoot it down!!!! The US needs to “stand tall, and carry a great big stick”, telling that little commie pinhead NO You can’t do that!!!!
NO EXCUSES or P.C. garbage!!!! Say what we mean, & SHOW THEM we mean what we say!!!!!

EXACTLY! THEY’RE WRONG FLAG FLAG FLAG FLAG FLAG!!!!!11111 USA USA USA!!!!!111111 FLAG FLAG FLAG FLAG FLAG!!!!!!1111
03/30/2009 7:54:54 p.m.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090330/BREAKING/90330022

Updated at 7:10 p.m., Monday, March 30, 2009

Pearl-based Chafee among warships monitoring North Korea launch

Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea – Japanese, South Korean and U.S. missile-tracking ships – including the Pearl Harbor-based guided missile destroyer USS Chafee – set sail to monitor North Korea’s imminent rocket launch, as Pyongyang stoked tensions today by detaining a South Korean worker for allegedly denouncing the North’s political system.

North Korea says it will send up a communications satellite into orbit sometime between April 4 and 8. The U.S., South Korea and Japan suspect the regime is using the launch to test its long-range missile technology, warning it would face U.N. sanctions under a Security Council resolution banning the country from any ballistic activity.

North Korea has threatened to quit international disarmament talks on its nuclear programs if punished with sanctions. The country’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper reiterated that warning yesterday, saying the talks will “completely collapse” if taken to the Security Council.

Further heightening tensions on the divided peninsula, North Korean authorities detained a South Korean worker at a joint industrial zone in the North for allegedly denouncing Pyongyang’s political system and inciting female northern workers to flee the communist country.

North Korea assured Seoul it would guarantee the man’s safety during an investigation, according to the South Korean Unification Ministry, which handles relations with the North.

The detention comes as two American journalists working for former Vice President Al Gore’s Current TV media venture remain in North Korean custody after allegedly crossing the border illegally from China on March 17.

Late today, the North also threatened to take an unspecified “resolute countermeasure” against South Korea if it joins a U.S.-led international campaign aimed at stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

South Korea has only been an observer to the Proliferation Security Initiative, but Seoul officials recently said they were considering fully joining the program after the North’s rocket launch.

Seoul’s participation would be treated as “a declaration of a war,” Pyongyang’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

In preparation for the rocket launch, Japan deployed Patriot missiles around Tokyo and sent warships armed with interceptors to the waters between Japan and the Korean peninsula as a precaution, defense officials said.

Two U.S. destroyers anchored at a South Korean port after holding military exercises with the South Korean navy also are believed to have departed for waters near North Korea to monitor the rocket launch.

The USS McCain and the USS Chafee left Busan today, a U.S. military spokesman said. He declined to disclose their destination and spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he was not authorized to discuss the ships’ routes.

South Korea also is dispatching its Aegis-equipped destroyer, according to a Seoul military official who asked not to be named, citing department policy.

All of the warships – of South Korea, Japan and the U.S. – are equipped with sophisticated combat systems enabling them to track and/or shoot down enemy missiles. However, leaders of all three countries have indicated it’s unlikely the warships will respond militarily to the North’s launch.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said in an interview with the Financial Times published Monday that his government opposes any military response to the North’s launch, saying that would be unhelpful in talks on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program.

In Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a TV interview aired Sunday that the U.S. has no plans to intercept the North Korean rocket but might consider it if an “aberrant missile” were headed to Hawaii “or something like that.”

Japan had earlier hinted that it might shoot down the rocket, but now says it will only fire interceptors if debris from a failed launch appears likely to hit Japanese territory.

China-US Naval Confrontation in the South China Sea

Post Date March 11, 2009
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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

Ex-Army Officer charged in theft of $400K

Post Date March 11, 2009
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Category Afghanistan

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Man charged in theft of Army cash

Former captain pleads not guilty to stealing $400,000 during 2005

By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

A former U.S. Army captain stationed at Schofield Barracks has been indicted on charges of stealing some $400,000 in Army money while serving in Afghanistan in 2005.

David Silivano Gilliam, 39, was on deployment as a disbursement officer for Alpha Detachment, 125th Finance Battalion, in April 2005 when he “bulk smuggled” Army cash from Kandahar Air Base to Hawai’i, according to the six-count indictment.

Gilliam, who is no longer in the Army, appeared in federal district court in Honolulu yesterday and entered a not-guilty plea to the charges against him, which include theft, smuggling, foreign and interstate transportation of stolen money, money laundering and making false statements to the Internal Revenue Service.

Gilliam surrendered to federal authorities last month in South Carolina and voluntarily returned to Hawai’i to face the charges against him, according to the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Clare Connors.

He posted a $5,000 bond before Magistrate Barry Kurren and was released pending trial.

According to the indictment, Gilliam used some of the stolen cash to buy a $254,000 cashier’s check from First Hawaiian Bank on May 10, 2005.

He allegedly told an IRS agent that the cash came from “a dating service he had operated while stationed at Fort Clay, Panama,” when in fact “the funds had come from his theft of United States currency,” the indictment said.

The U.S. attorney’s office said Gilliam smuggled the funds from Afghanistan to Hawai’i, where he used the stolen money “to engage in a number of financial transactions.”

Gilliam moved to South Carolina, taking the money with him, and continued to spend the proceeds, according to federal authorities. Army officials in Hawai’i referred questions to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Trial is set for May 12. If found guilty, Gilliam faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison on the theft, transportation of stolen funds and money laundering charges, and a maximum of five years for the “bulk smuggling” and false statement charges, officials said.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090311/NEWS20/903110381/1001

Google Earth reveals secret history of US base in Pakistan

Post Date February 20, 2009
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Category War and Peace

From The Times

February 19, 2009

Google Earth reveals secret history of US base in Pakistan

The Shamsi airbase in 2006 with three drones apparently visible

A recent image of the same base

Jeremy Page

Exclusive: secret CIA drone base | Graphic: 2006 image | Graphic: recent image

The US was secretly flying unmanned drones from the Shamsi airbase in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan as early as 2006, according to an image of the base from Google Earth.

The image – that is no longer on the site but which was obtained by The News, Pakistan’s English language daily newspaper – shows what appear to be three Predator drones outside a hangar at the end of the runway. The Times also obtained a copy of the image, whose co-ordinates confirm that it is the Shamsi airfield, also known as Bandari, about 200 miles southwest of the Pakistani city of Quetta.

An investigation by The Times yesterday revealed that the CIA was secretly using Shamsi to launch the Predator drones that observe and attack al-Qaeda and Taleban militants around Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

US special forces used the airbase during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but the Pakistani Government said in 2006 that the Americans had left. Both sides have since denied repeatedly that Washington has used, or is using, Pakistani bases to launch drones. Pakistan has also demanded that the US cease drone attacks on its tribal area, which have increased over the last year, allegedly killing several “high-value” targets as well as many civilians.

The Google Earth image now suggests that the US began launching Predators from Shamsi – built by Arab sheiks for falconry trips – at least three years ago.

The advantage of Shamsi is that it provides a discreet launchpad within minutes of Quetta – a known Taleban staging post – as well as Taleban infiltration routes into Afghanistan and potential militant targets farther afield.

Google Earth’s current image of Shamsi – about 100 miles south of the Afghan border and 100 miles east of the Iranian one – undoubtedly shows the same airstrip as the image from 2006.

There are no visible drones, but it does show that several new buildings and other structures have been erected since 2006, including what appears to be a hangar large enough to fit three drones. Perimeter defences – apparently made from the same blast-proof barriers used at US and Nato bases in Afghanistan – have also been set up around the hangar.

A compound on the other side of the runway appears to have sufficient housing for several dozen people, as well as neatly tended lawns. Three military aviation experts shown the image said that the aircraft appeared to be MQ1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicles – the model used by the CIA to observe and strike militants on the Afghan border.

The MQ1 Predator carries two laser-guided Hellfire missiles, and can fly for up to 454 miles, at speed of up to 135mph, and at altitudes of up to 25,000ft, according to the US Air Force website www.af.mil

The News reported that the drones were Global Hawks – which are generally used only for reconnaissance, flying for up to 36 hours, at more than 400mph and an altitude of up to 60,000ft. Damian Kemp, an aviation editor with Jane’s Defence Weekly, said that the three drones in the image appeared to have wingspans of 48-50ft.

“The wingspan of an MQ1 Predator A model is 55ft. On this basis it is possible that these are Predator-As,” he said. “They are certainly not RQ-4A Global Hawks (which have a wingspan of 116ft 2in).”

Pakistan’s only drones are Italian Galileo Falcos, which were delivered in 2007, according to a report in last month’s Jane’s World Air Forces.

A military spokesman at the US Embassy in Islamabad declined to comment on the images – or the revelations in The Times yesterday.

Major-General Athar Abbas, Pakistan’s chief military spokesman, was not immediately available for comment. He admitted on Tuesday that US forces were using Shamsi, but only for logistics.

He also said that the Americans were using another air base in the city of Jacobabad for logistics and military operations. Pakistan gave the US permission to use Shamsi, Jacobabad and two other bases – Pasni and Dalbadin – for the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.

The image of the US drones at Shamsi highlights the extraordinary power – and potential security risks – of Google Earth.

Several governments have asked it to remove or blur images of sensitive locations such as military bases, nuclear reactors and government buildings. Some have also accused the company of helping terrorists, as in 2007, when its images of British military bases were found in the homes of Iraqi insurgents.

Last year India said that the militants who attacked Mumbai in November had used Google Earth to familiarise themselves with their targets. Google Street View, which offers ground-level, 360-degree views, also ran into controversy last year when the Pentagon asked it to remove some online images of military bases in America.

Korean Villagers threatened with Eviction for U.S. Base Expansion

Post Date February 07, 2009
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Category Global Justice and Peace Movements

Friday, February 6, 2009

The Struggle of Ohyunri, South Korea

1, 2, The people of Ohyun-ri, 1st Pan Korean rally against the expansion of Mugeon-ri military training field, Oct. 11, 2008, Seoul, Korea
Link

3. Korea DMZ area(mark added)


4. Kaeseong-Munsan-Paju map (English title added)


5. source from the Committee from P. 15, “Defense Reform 2020 by the SK Ministry of the National defense/ English title added


6. An Alliance For The 21 st Century And Beyond: United States Forces Strategic Digest, October, 2008

“On the basis of an agreement between the ROK and the US, the land was offered to the US military as a training area. It has become an international training ground, used not only by the USFK, but also troops based on Guam, Okinawa, and even the US mainland. This means that this training area was prepared for the purpose of permitting the US to carry out its new military strategy, based on “strategic flexibility”, which allows the USFK to conduct offensive operations outside the boundaries of the ROK.”

Written by Pan-Korean Committee against the Expansion of the Mugun-ri Military Training Fields, http://www.peaceoh.net/

Translation by Agatha Haun http://www.tlaxcala.es/

The Progressive Expansion of the Mugeonri Training Area

1980: In the vicinity of Mugeonri, a village in the Paju township, Kyeonggi Province, 3,500,000 pyeong of land (more than 10.5 million square meters) are cleared, followed by continuous expansion of the area after that.

1986: Up to this year the training area was expanded to 5,500,000 pyeong (more than 16.5 million square meters). All the residents who lived in Mugeonri at that time were evicted, and some of them moved to Ohyeonri. Now it is expected that the training ground will expand into that area.

1996: There are plans for enlarging the training area again, to 10,500,000 pyeong (more than 31.5 million square meters).

2008, September: A rushed announcement is made, afterward evaluation and assessment in Ohyeonri is moved forward.

2009: At present, the great majority of the residents do not accede to the National Defense Ministry’s plan to buy them out, and appeasement and threats are used to win them over.

In September last year, residents protested against the National Defense Ministry’s high-handed evaluation and assessment methods. Because of that, in connection with the illegal arrest of some residents, and the investigations that were set in motion, residents were summoned and compelled to make written apologies. This ran parallel with disgraceful coercion and pressure on residents.

The nature of the Mugeonri training area

As the only joint type of large-scale training area in the north part of Kyeonggi Province, it has been used for practicing the military strategy of an offensive against the North. It is expected that from now on it will seriously hinder the peace and reunification of the Korean peninsula.

On the basis of an agreement between the ROK and the US, the land was offered to the US military as a training area. It has become an international training ground, used not only by the USFK, but also troops based on Guam, Okinawa, and even the US mainland. This means that this training area was prepared for the purpose of permitting the US to carry out its new military strategy, based on “strategic flexibility”, which allows the USFK to conduct offensive operations outside the boundaries of the ROK.

Residents of Ohyeonri living in the area where the enlargement of the training area is planned

Currently there are more than 200 residents, living in more than 100 households. They live mainly by raising livestock and farming. It is a handsome village with beautiful scenery and many natural monuments. During the more than 30 years since the training area was first created, the residents have endured the suffering caused by the noise of tanks and so on during training exercises. In the meantime, the state, far from paying any compensation for the harm suffered by the residents, now is again trying to force their eviction. The majority of residents are outraged by this violence and oppose it.

The residents’ demands

Out of the entire area planned for the expansion of the training ground, more than 9,300,000 pyeong (over 28 million square meters), essentially 8,400,000 pyeong (more than 25.2 million square meters) is now secured by the Ministry of National Defense. In connection with this, on the occasion of the inspection of government offices, some National Assembly members asked the Minister of Defense why the military cannot conduct exercises in the training area in its present condition. Lee Sang Hee, the Minister of Defense explained that the training space had already been sufficiently enlarged, and that the residents were being made to remove simply for the sake of their own safety and security. However, in the middle of the training area where the village is situated, there is a national highway where every day several hundred thousand vehicles pass by. If one looks at it in light of the fact that there were already military units within the training area, this is merely an unconvincing, deceitful answer. The residents have already been living there for several decades already without any problem at all and training has gone on, and since the Minister of Defense himself said that the space needed for training had been enlarged enough, the residents demand that they be allowed to continue to live in their homes. Along with compensation for harm caused by living inside the training area, the residents are demanding the construction of sidewalks, in order to put an end to the danger caused by the careless driving of tanks. (In fact, this is the place where two middle school girls were run down and killed by a US armored vehicle in 2002.)

The need for international solidarity

As has been mentioned, this place is being used by the US as a training area for the purpose of implementing the aggressive, new military strategy that it intends to follow in Northeast Asia. Even so, although at present the US military has somewhat reduced its training exercises here, because of the residents’ struggle, it is expected that if the residents all are expelled and forced to leave, the US military forces’ training will proceed in earnest. (Due to an agreement between the ROK and the US, it was decided already that the US forces would use more than half the entire number of training days (91 days).) It is clear that this increases tension in Northeast Asia and has become a serious obstacle to reconciliation and cooperation between South and North Korea. Deepening military antagonism on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia has become a major challenge to the peace of the entire world. Accordingly, the struggle to prevent the enlargement of the Mugeonri training area must become an significant concern and a matter of solidarity among the peace-loving people of the entire world.

We hope for your international solidarity and support for the Ohyeonri residents’ hard struggle!

* For more *

Candle light vigil
About Mugeonri training centerLink

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paju

http://activistphoto.net

* For more reference*

Realignment of U.S. Forces in Korea and Changes in US-ROK Military Alliance(Oct 2008)

http://usacrime.or..kr/ (Check English in the top right)

Posted by NO Base Stories of Korea at 6:20 AM
Labels: Mugun-ri/Ohyun-ri, United States Forces of korea(USFK), United States’ Strategic Change in Korea

Kyrgyz government seeks to close U.S. military base

Post Date February 04, 2009
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Category American Empire, Global Justice and Peace Movements

The U.S. may lose a key military base in Central Asia as the Obama Administration prepares to “surge” in Afghanistan.  According to a report by the AP, the government of Kyrgyzstan introduced legislation to close the U.S. military bas at Manas:

Kyrgyzstan’s government submitted a draft bill to parliament Wednesday that would close a U.S. base that is key to the American military campaign in Afghanistan.

Russia opposes the base at its doorstep.   The U.S. Embassy said that it did not receive formal notification of this closure.  The U.S. is seeking to maintain the base despite the Kyrgz government’s bid to close the base.

The report also cited opposition to the base as one of the reasons for the closure:

The Kyrgyz government also cited growing popular discontent with the U.S. military presence among its motivations for the closure. It also criticized U.S. obstruction of the investigation into the fatal shooting in December 2006 of a Kyrgyz truck driver by a U.S. serviceman during a security check at the entrance to the air base.

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

Post Date February 04, 2009
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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.

Time for U.S. and Japan to get out of Okinawa

Post Date February 02, 2009
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Category Social and Economic Impacts

http://snipurl.com/b5af9 [Oped News]

January 31, 2009

Time For U.S. And Japan To Get Out Of Okinawa

By Sherwood Ross

It’s way past time for the U.S. to get the hell out of Okinawa—and, for that matter, to take its Tokyo good buddies with it.

Before Japanese warlords annexed the Ryuku islands in 1879, Okinawans enjoyed more freedom than they do today. Every liberty-loving American ought to be shouting: “Okinawa for the Okinawans!”

Right now, this Los Angeles-sized Pacific gem of 454-sq.-miles is Pentagon Tropical Paradise No. 1. It’s a land of martinis-and-honey where our 25,000 military personnel and their 23,000 dependents can live in high-rise splendor with housing allowances approaching $1,000 or more a month (plus cost-of-living perks), enjoy PX shopping as good as it gets, and tan on the exotic beaches as Kin Red and Kin Blue.

This comes at a price, though—paid for by U.S. taxpayers and 1.3 million long-suffering Okinawans. The Pentagon has studded their island paradise with airfields, barracks, artillery and bombing ranges, ammunition depots, toxic chemical, depleted uranium (and nuclear bomb) storage dumps—everything a demented mind could wish for to threaten modern civilization. These lethal chazzerei take up 20 percent of Okinawa’s acreage, swindled from its hapless owners by Uncle Sam without benefit of cash payment the same way Joe Stalin collectivized Soviet Russia’s farms.

What particularly galls the locals (85% of Okinawans polled want the Yanks o-u-t) is not just the presence of U.S. troops, mostly Marines, occupying their homeland, but the hundreds of ensuing rapes and sexual violations of their daughters, some as young as twelve. These have spurred vast anti-American demonstrations.

The incidence of rape on Okinawa is twice that of the States and the Dayton Daily News reported the military has freed hundreds of U.S. sex offenders despite their court-martial convictions. Last March, Okinawans rallied in a baseball stadium to protest the latest child rape and, according to the Associated Press, “banners demanding the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops ringed the makeshift stage.” The AP noted that “problems with base-related accidents, crowding and crime are endemic.”

Okinawans can do little to stop this lawlessness: “When U.S. servicemen and their families commit crimes, they shall be detained by U.S. authorities until Japanese law enforcement agencies file complaints with the prosecutors’ office,” the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement(SOFA) states—and by then the perps could be back in Hahira, Georgia.

Although the New York Times editorial page claimed “American military behavior in Japan has generally been good since the occupation in 1945,” between 1972 and 1995 U.S. service personnel were implicated in 4,716 crimes. At one point up to a third of the Third Marine Division was infected with venereal disease, prompting author Chalmers Johnson in “Blowback”(Henry Holt) to crack “one has to ask what the New York Times might consider bad behavior.”

What’s more, Newsweek noted that when Okinawa poet Ben Takara surveyed girls at Futenma senior high, one-third to one-half of them said they had “scary experiences with U.S. soldiers on their way to school or back home.”

Approximately 75 percent of all U.S. forces in Japan (why, fellow taxpayers, do we keep any forces in Japan, why?) are concentrated on Okinawa, having less than one percent of Japan’s total land area, which “amounts to a permanent collusion of the United States and Japan against Okinawa,” Chalmers observes.

The answer is found in Tim Weiner’s “Legacy of Ashes”(Anchor Books), who recalls Okinawa was “a crucial staging ground for the bombing of Vietnam and a storehouse of American nuclear weapons.” Weiner notes that when opposition politicians in 1968 “threatened to force the United States off the island” the CIA funneled big bucks into Japan to defeat them at the polls.

In short, Japan can conveniently dump the military burden of its U.S. defense pact on the backs of their captive Okinawans, with 14 military bases jammed onto its 70-mile-long expanse. (Japan itself has just eight U.S. bases.) This saddles Okinawa with the constant hullabaloo of jet warplane noise. (The Futenma base alone has 52,000 takeoffs and landings a year.)

Yoshida Kensei, former professor at Obirin University in Japan, and Asian Studies Lecturer Rumi Sakamoto of Auckland University, New Zealand, write that Okinawa is nothing more than a U.S. “military colony.” They want to rid the island of all “war cooperation” and reallocate its land to “agriculture, fisheries, and trade,” high tech, medicine and tourism.

And they wouldn’t mind seeing Okinawans make some real cash by converting the U.S. bases into remunerative housing areas, commercial and industrial properties, and educational or research parks.

Author Johnson quotes editor Koji Taira of the Ryukyuanist as writing, “the incomes generated directly or indirectly by the bases are only 5 percent of the gross domestic product of Okinawa. This is far too small a contribution for an establishment sitting on 20 percent of Okinawa’s land…In effect, the U.S. and Japan are forcing on Okinawa’s economy a deadweight loss of 15 percent of its GDP every year.”

As Johnson concludes, “Okinawa is still essentially a military colony of the Pentagon’s, a huge safe house where Green Berets and the Defense Intelligence Agency, not to mention the air force and Marine Corps, can do things they would not dare do in the United States.”

World War Two has been over for 60 years: Okinawans need to be free of the Pentagon and free of Japan. Okinawa for the Okinawans! #

(Sherwood Ross formerly reported for the New York Herald-Tribune, The Chicago Daily News, national magazines and wire services. He currently runs a national public relations firm for good causes out of Miami, Florida. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com)

Japanese citizens Open Letter to President Elect Obama

Post Date January 16, 2009
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Category Global Justice and Peace Movements, Guam / Northern Marianas

Concerned Japanese citizens send an open letter to President Obama

“Are you reviewing and changing Bush-Rumsfeld military posture?”

Dear friends of peace in the United States,

January 16, 2009

We, concerned citizens from the Japanese archipelago, are sending an open letter to Mr. Barak Obama on the occasion of his inauguration as President of the United States, asking him to clarify whether and how far he is going to “change” the Bush administration’s military posture and strategy toward East Asia and the Pacific. More than 100 citizens, many from peace and other social movement groups, have signed it. More are signing now. (The open letter is annexed.)

As we state in our letter, we understand that his promise of “change” is a commitment not only to American citizens but also to people all over the world who suffered under the Bush administration’s destructive actions. In concrete, we are eager to know whether Mr. Obama will fundamentally review and retract the Bush-Rumsfeld’s global military strategy, the so-called Defense Transformation Program, particularly its East Asia and Pacific version centering on the Japan-U.S. military alliance.

The U.S. military presence in East Asia and Pacific region has been drastically reinforced and the Japanese remilitarization accelerated to serve the purposes of Bush’s global and permanent “war on terror” and spurring the Japanese rightists’ drive to glorify the imperial Japanese past and revise the pacifist constitution. What has been done in the past eight years in this respect serves only to destabilize this region and lead to new arms race among the countries involved. The U.S.-Japan military buildup program is met by vigorous and sustained protests of citizens, particularly in areas affected by reinforcement of U.S. bases such as Okinawa, Iwakuni, Yokosuka, Zama and Yokota. Time is ripe for the United States to fundamentally review its military posture and presence in East Asia and the Pacific as well as in the rest of the world.

We have great respect to the wisdom of U.S. citizens who opted for change by electing Mr. Obama President. We hope that you will share our concern, endorse this open letter, and circulate it widely among the change-aspiring American people who voted for Mr. Obama. Our hope is to build a bridge of peace and demilitarization across the Pacific so that a real change will come.

Hikaru Kasahara,
For the steering committee of People’s Plan Study Group (PPSG)

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Contacts for your responses and endorsements to the open letter to President Obama
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
People’s Plan Study Group (PPSG), Tokyo
Shinseido Bldg.2F, Sekiguchi 1-44-3,
Bunkyoku, Tokyo 112-0014
Tel: +81-3-6424-5748 Fax:+81-3-6424-5749
Email: ppsg@jca.apc.org
URL: http://www.peoples-plan.org/
English Media: http://www.ppjaponesia.org/
………………………………………

For details of U.S.-Japan military arrangements made under the Bush administration, please refer:

“Japan’s Willing Military Annexation by the United States — ‘Alliance for the Future’ and Grassroots Resistance” (by Muto Ichiyo) http://www.ppjaponesia.org/
“Okinawa Disagree — A Historic Turning Point in the Struggle for Peace and Dignity” (by Yui Akiko) in /Japonesia Review No.2/, December 2006, published by PPSG
“Okinawa’s Resistance Reaches a New Height on Falsification of History and U.S. Bases” (by Yui Akiko) in /Japonesia Review No.4/, March 2008, published by PPSG
“From Okinawa — Breaking the Imposed Myth: Permanence of U.S. Bases in Okinawa” (by Yui Akiko) http://www.ppjaponesia.org/
“People of Yokosuka Resists U.S. Nuclear Carrier” (by Yamaguchi Hibiki) in /Japonesia Review No.5/, October 2008, published by PPSG
“Rural People Resist U.S. Military Encroachment — From Takae, Okinawa” (by Hikaru Kasahara) in /Japonesia Review No.5/, October 2008, published by PPPSG

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
An Open Letter to U.S. President Barack Obama

The “Change” You Promised Should Include the Official Dismantling
of the Bush-Rumsfeld Neoconservative Military Strategy
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington D.C. 20500

January 16, 2009

Dear Mr. President:

First, we would like to extend our congratulations on your election as President of the United States of America.

The Bush administration, by conducting wars forbidden under international law, and by taking other unilateralist actions during its eight years in office, has brought immense suffering to the people of the world. We welcome your election as President, as you clearly promised to change what had been done by your predecessor and his administration. We believe that your call for change won the hearts and minds of the American people, particularly the young, inspired them with hope, and rekindled idealism, undoubtedly a great virtue of the American citizenry, beyond color, gender, class and other differences. We heartily welcome your victory.

We nevertheless feel it urgent, as residents of the Japanese archipelago, to remind you, Mr. President, that your promise of “change” should be a commitment not only to American citizens but also to people all over the world who suffered under the Bush administration’s destructive unilateralist actions. We, as people who long to be liberated from the endless war situation created by the Bush administration, are eager to know how you plan to change the global military strategy that it formulated and implemented. In particular, we are carefully watching whether you will dismantle the Bush-Rumsfeld military strategy, centering on the so-called Defense Transformation Program, which bears the indelible hallmark of neoconservatism, and will introduce instead more modest and decent U.S. foreign and defense policies.

We would like to know whether you intend to embark on a fundamental review of the U.S. military strategy along this line.

Specifically, as peace loving citizens of the Japanese archipelago, we expect and request you to bring a fundamental change to the U.S. military strategy in East Asia and the Pacific region.

Under the Bush administration, Japan has been fully integrated into the U.S. global military strategy which is dedicated to the goal of U.S. global domination and serves exclusively the military, political, and economic interests of the United States as defined by the then neocon rulers. In other words, the strategy that Japan was integrated into has nothing to do with Japan’s defense or peace in Asia. Through a series of bilateral arrangements signed from 2005 through 2006, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, a military force which exists in violation of the Japanese constitution, were placed directly under the U.S. command as auxiliary units to serve Bush’s wars, under the plausible slogan of a “mature alliance.” Under the new agreements, the Japanese and U.S. governments are forcing the construction of new military facilities in Okinawa, and these attempts are being fiercely contested by local people. U.S. military bases are also being reinforced in Japanese mainland cities and towns such as Iwakuni, Yokosuka, Zama and Yokota, but again, local residents are struggling against these moves. By pressing Japan’s rapid militarization and its incorporation into the U.S. global strategy, and thus forcing Japan to revise its pacifist constitution, the U.S. government under President Bush has been blatantly interfering in Japanese domestic affairs. The U.S. has also attempted to turn Guam into a huge U.S. military complex as a cornerstone for the U.S. forces’ global strategic deployment, using Japanese tax money.

The military arrangement thus introduced by the Bush administration is counterproductive, as it not only will fail to bring about peace and security to Asia and the Pacific region, but may lead to an aggravated arms race with China and usher in a new Cold War situation in Asia.

We therefore request that you seriously consider and adopt the concrete proposals articulated below. We believe that the “change” you promised will not be substantiated unless these are met.

  1. Fundamentally review and abolish the bilateral arrangement contained in the “U.S.-Japan Alliance: Transformation and Realignment for the Future” agreed on October 29, 2005 and the related subsequent military arrangements between the U.S. and Japan, and freeze the ongoing construction of military facilities and the transformation of military forces based on the arrangements.
  2. Review and stop the expansion of military facilities in Okinawa and review the presence of U.S. forces in Okinawa with a view to eventually withdrawing them completely.
  3. Abandon the plan for the construction of new U.S. military bases in Guam.
  4. Cease to demand or pressure Japan to revise Article 9 of its constitution. Opt for regional multilateral arrangements for peace in Northeast Asia in the perspective of the withdrawal of the U.S. forces and Japan’s demilitarization and promote a Northeast Asia Nuclear-Free Zone as a first step.

We eagerly await your response to the above proposals.

Sincerely,
signed by:

Hokkaido Peace Network
Kansai District Collective Action Network
Study Group on the United Nation and Japanese Constitution
Forum for Human Rights, Justice and Solidarity for Peace
Solidarity with Anti-War Military Personnel
Buddhists No War Group, Fukuoka
Group to Substantiate the Fukuoka Court Ruling on Unconstitutionality of Prime Ministers’ visits to Yasukuni Shrine
Action Committee against US-Japan Security Pact
No! to Nukes and Missile Defense Campaign
EcPeaceClub
SPACE ALLIES
Asian Pace Alliance (APA) Japan
People’s Plan Study Group (PPSG)

Myoukei Nakata, Kentaro Nakata, Tsuneo Takeichi, Megumi Ishibashi, Kenji Kunitomi, Kitarou Wada, , Kazuhiro Nishii, Hideaki Nishiya, Hidenori Ao, Hideyuki Kuroda, Makoto Sakai, Sachiko Kunimitsu, Shizue Hirota, Teramachi Ayumu, Kolin Kobayashi, Shigeki Konno, Yoshikazu Makishi, Hiroshi Kajino, Mitsumasa Ohta, Naoya Arakawa, Yoko Yamaguchi, Yumi Honda, Takashi Ozawa, Fumitaka Miyahara, Makiko Sato, Kaori Suzuki, Koichi Bessho, Asita mo hare – Seiko Ohki, Sachiko Taba, Yukio Kurihara, Masahide Tsuruta, Shutaro Hosono, Yuuko Nakamura, Akiko Inari, Hiroko Taguti, Kiyokazu Koshida, Yukinobu Aoyagi, Yuko Inoue, Mitsue Sugiyama, Hideaki Kuno, Kenji Ago, Kazumasa Igata, Kazuhiro Katou, Tomoko Miyahara, Takao Watahiki, Yuko Inui, Hisashi Senba, Mutsuo Usami, Setsuko Usami, Yumi Kikuchi, Kamiya Fusako, Takako Morimoto, Hiroshi Yoshikawa, Akemi Ishii, Yasuo Kuwano, Kouitirou Toyosima, Yuuichi Aoki, Kenichi Hanamura, Keiko Tanaka, Marie Nakajima, Kimio Oda, Takashi Sano, Hatuko Sano, Tetsuo Matumura, Morioka shingo, Tosiko Kamakura, Toshimasa Sakakura, Keiko Doi, Yasushi Furuya , Keiko Kimura, Masao Kimura, Rosan Daido, Yuzuru Nakazawa, Mieko Iwasaki, Toshiaki Ikeo, Shiro Saka, Kiyoshi Owa, Isamu Nagano, Junko Yamaguchi, Koji Sugihara, Terumi Terao, Noriko Kyogoku, Yasue Tanaka, Ayako Nakanishi, Shu-ichi Satoh, Hikaru Kanesaki, Seiko Miyake, Junko Okura, Sojun Taira (as of January 13, 2009)

"Our government was one big pimp for the U.S. military"

Post Date January 08, 2009
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Category Uncategorized

January 8, 2009

Ex-Prostitutes Say South Korea and U.S. Enabled Sex Trade Near Bases

By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea has railed for years against the Japanese government’s waffling over how much responsibility it bears for one of the ugliest chapters in its wartime history: the enslavement of women from Korea and elsewhere to work in brothels serving Japan’s imperial army.

Now, a group of former prostitutes in South Korea have accused some of their country’s former leaders of a different kind of abuse: encouraging them to have sex with the American soldiers who protected South Korea from North Korea. They also accuse past South Korean governments, and the United States military, of taking a direct hand in the sex trade from the 1960s through the 1980s, working together to build a testing and treatment system to ensure that prostitutes were disease-free for American troops.

While the women have made no claims that they were coerced into prostitution by South Korean or American officials during those years, they accuse successive Korean governments of hypocrisy in calling for reparations from Japan while refusing to take a hard look at South Korea’s own history.

“Our government was one big pimp for the U.S. military,” one of the women, Kim Ae-ran, 58, said in a recent interview.

Scholars on the issue say that the South Korean government was motivated in part by fears that the American military would leave, and that it wanted to do whatever it could to prevent that.

But the women suggest that the government also viewed them as commodities to be used to shore up the country’s struggling economy in the decades after the Korean War. They say the government not only sponsored classes for them in basic English and etiquette – meant to help them sell themselves more effectively – but also sent bureaucrats to praise them for earning dollars when South Korea was desperate for foreign currency.

“They urged us to sell as much as possible to the G.I.’s, praising us as ‘dollar-earning patriots,’ ” Ms. Kim said.

The United States military, the scholars say, became involved in attempts to regulate the trade in so-called camp towns surrounding the bases because of worries about sexually transmitted diseases.

In one of the most incendiary claims, some women say that the American military police and South Korean officials regularly raided clubs from the 1960s through the 1980s looking for women who were thought to be spreading the diseases. They picked out the women using the number tags the women say the brothels forced them to wear so the soldiers could more easily identify their sex partners.

The Korean police would then detain the prostitutes who were thought to be ill, the women said, locking them up under guard in so-called monkey houses, where the windows had bars. There, the prostitutes were forced to take medications until they were well.

The women, who are seeking compensation and an apology, have compared themselves to the so-called comfort women who have won widespread public sympathy for being forced into prostitution by the Japanese during World War II. Whether prostitutes by choice, need or coercion, the women say, they were all victims of government policies.

“If the question is, was there active government complicity, support of such camp town prostitution, yes, by both the Korean governments and the U.S. military,” said Katharine H. S. Moon, a scholar who wrote about the women in her 1997 book, “Sex Among Allies.”

The South Korean Ministry of Gender Equality, which handles women’s issues, declined to comment on the former prostitutes’ accusations. So did the American military command in Seoul, which responded with a general statement saying that the military “does not condone or support the illegal activities of human trafficking and prostitution.”

The New York Times interviewed eight women who worked in brothels near American bases, and it reviewed South Korean and American documents. The documents do provide some support for many of the women’s claims, though most are snapshots in time. The women maintain that the practices occurred over decades.

In some sense, the women’s allegations are not surprising. It has been clear for decades that South Korea and the United States military tolerated prostitution near bases, even though selling sex is illegal in South Korea. Bars and brothels have long lined the streets of the neighborhoods surrounding American bases in South Korea, as is the case in the areas around military bases around the world.

But the women say few of their fellow citizens know how deeply their government was involved in the trade in the camp towns.

The women received some support for their claims in 2006, from a former government official. In a television interview, the official, Kim Kee-joe, who was identified as having been a high-level liaison to the United States military, said, “Although we did not actively urge them to engage in prostitution, we, especially those from the county offices, did often tell them that it was not something bad for the country either.”

Transcripts of parliamentary hearings also suggest that at least some South Korean leaders viewed prostitution as something of a necessity. In one exchange in 1960, two lawmakers urged the government to train a supply of prostitutes to meet what one called the “natural needs” of allied soldiers and prevent them from spending their dollars in Japan instead of South Korea. The deputy home minister at the time, Lee Sung-woo, replied that the government had made some improvements in the “supply of prostitutes” and the “recreational system” for American troops.

Both Mr. Kim and Ms. Moon back the women’s assertions that the control of venereal disease was a driving factor for the two governments. They say the governments’ coordination became especially pronounced as Korean fears about an American pullout increased after President Richard M. Nixon announced plans in 1969 to reduce the number of American troops in South Korea.

“The idea was to create an environment where the guests were treated well in the camp towns to discourage them from leaving,” Mr. Kim said in the television interview.

Ms. Moon, a Wellesley College professor, said that the minutes of meetings between American military officials and Korean bureaucrats in the 1970s showed the lengths the two countries went to prevent epidemics. The minutes included recommendations to “isolate” women who were sick and ensure that they received treatment, government efforts to register prostitutes and require them to carry medical certification and a 1976 report about joint raids to apprehend prostitutes who were unregistered or failed to attend medical checkups.

These days, camp towns still exist, but as the Korean economy took off, women from the Philippines began replacing them.

Many former prostitutes live in the camp towns, isolated from mainstream society, which shuns them. Most are poor. Some are haunted by the memories of the mixed-race children they put up for adoption overseas.

Jeon, 71, who agreed to talk only if she was identified by just her surname, said she was an 18-year-old war orphan in 1956 when hunger drove her to Dongduchon, a camp town near the border with North Korea. She had a son in the 1960s, but she became convinced that he would have a better future in the United States and gave him up for adoption when he was 13.

About 10 years ago, her son, now an American soldier, returned to visit. She told him to forget her.

“I failed as a mother,” said Ms. Jeon, who lives on welfare checks and the little cash she earns selling items she picks from other people’s trash. “I have no right to depend on him now.”

“The more I think about my life, the more I think women like me were the biggest sacrifice for my country’s alliance with the Americans,” she said. “Looking back, I think my body was not mine, but the government’s and the U.S. military’s.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/world/asia/08korea.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

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