japan | DMZ Hawai'i/Aloha 'Aina

Ann Wright to speak about her recent trips to Gaza, Japan and Guam

Post Date August 20, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Action Alerts and Events, American Empire, Guam / Northern Marianas, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

Ann Wright to speak about her recent trips to Gaza, Japan and Guam

Sunday, August 23 at 3pm.

Revolution Books

2626 S King St # 201, Honolulu, HI 96826-3248

(808) 944-3106)

Ann Wright will be speaking at Revolution Books this Sunday afternoon at 3pm. She was also interviewed for a new show on Voices of Resistance (Olelo 56) that will air on Monday evening at 8pm.

Ann will update us on her trip to Gaza/Israel, but focus on her tour of Guam, Okinawa, and Japan, where she continued to speak out against military expansion and empire. At a time when all too many people are sitting home hoping that Obama’s war policies will somehow be better than Bush’s, and while the evidence is proving otherwise, it is tremendously heartening that Ann Wright is continuing to call people to resist the war. Join us on Sunday in welcoming Ann back. As always, there will be light refreshments after her talk and everyone is invited to stay and talk story informally.

Following are some links to articles about Ann’s recent tour:

Guam Resists Military Colonization: Guam/Common Dreams

Ann Wright Goes to Guam-Takes on Empire: Guam/After Downing

In Hiroshima: Huffington Post

"Secret Japan-US nuclear deal" revealed

Post Date July 30, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Global Justice and Peace Movements

US nuke-weapons have a Free Pass to enter Japan

“Secret Japan-US nuclear deal” revealed

June 1, 2009, a Japanese former Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ryohei Murata, and other 3 former Vice-Ministers admitted the existence of a “Secret Nuclear Deal” between the U.S. and Japan in Japanese news papers.

The long standing agreement has allowed U.S. war vessels and aircraft to bring nuclear weapons into Japan, totally in violation of the 3 Non-Nuclear Principles –to neither possess, manufacture, nor allow nuclear weapons to enter the country.

The Japanese government has denied the existence of such an agreement since 1960, but many citizens and peace activists have maintained outright skepticism. The ex Vice Minister’s revelation is another jolt to government credibility, both for the many years of secrecy, and for the serious violation of nuclear prohibitions.

Source: http://www.jpkenpo.us/News.en.html

Retired Army officer, Japan peace delegation tour Guam

Post Date July 22, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Global Justice and Peace Movements, Guam / Northern Marianas

Retired Army officer, Japan peace delegation tour Guam

A peace delegation from Osaka, Japan is on island to study and tour Guam and to hear from the locals on their thoughts about the Marines’ relocation from Okinawa to Guam. Joining them is a retired U.S. Army colonel who says the move won’t be good for Guam.

By Michele Catahay

During the eve of Liberation Day, a peace delegation from Osaka took a tour around the island today to visit the many sites where Chamorros suffered the atrocities of war. The group toured various locations and memorials, to include here at the Tinta caves, where they paid respect to those Chamorros who died during the Japanese occupation of Guam. Joining them is retired Colonel Anne Wright, who says their mission is to study the impact Guam will have on the move.

In fact, Wright says there will be a negative impact, noting, “I’m very concerned about the militarization of Guam. Of course, it is a dilemma. Where does the U.S. put its military forces, but to put it in such small islands that are going to be negatively impacted by such a large increase in population. Plus, the weapons that are going to be used, the toxic materials that are used as a part of war, fighting and practicing the exercise training areas that will be used here on Guam.”

Wright was once a diplomat in Micronesia and visited Guam in the past. She says Guam’s pristine lands will be greatly impacted by the increase of Marines and their dependents. “I would urge our military to take our military to other places and put it in an area that has the capability of absorbing so many people and so many war-fighting materials,” she said.

Wright will be speaking at several conferences as she joins the peace delegation back to Japan.

Meanwhile, trip organizer Ako Miamoto from Osaka says her group currently promotes peace in a nuclear-free world. She says the trip will give them insight on what happened during World War II and what could happen once the Marines move to Guam. “Today we’re traveling all around Guam to study what our Japanese military did during the Second World War and now the relocation issues,” she said. “They are already so many concerns about it. So that’s why we invited 18 people.” She also said, “It’s our common issue. We’re all against the relocation of U.S. Marines.”

The group also met with native rights groups. They will leave the island tomorrow.

Source: http://www.kuam.com/bm/news/retired-army-officer-japan-peace-delegation-tour-g.shtml?15081

Former diplomat warns against US plan for Guam

Post Date July 21, 2009

Comments 1 Comment

Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Global Justice and Peace Movements, Guam / Northern Marianas

Ex-envoy warns against US plan for Guam

Wednesday, 22 July 2009 00:51 by Jude Lizama | Variety News Staff

A FORMER U.S. diplomat turned peace activist advised Guam residents to be wary of the American government’s military buildup plan for the island.

“We need to be looking very carefully at what our federal government does to us,” said Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army colonel who spoke to a small crowd on the implications of the relocation of 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam during a presentation held Monday night at the University of Guam.

“While we all want to be safe and secure in the world, sometimes our federal government uses this issue of national security to do things to us that we normally wouldn’t put up with,” she added.

Wright accompanied members of the Code Pink Japan, a peace activist group, who visited Guam to discuss the impact of the military buildup with local activists. The group left Guam yesterday.

“Our delegation is here in solidarity with the people of Guam in terms of the movement of 8,000 marines from Okinawa. The people of Japan, particularly the people on Okinawa, have been working very hard to remove some of the extensive military forces. Now, they seem to be coming to your lovely island,” said Wright, a native of Arkansas.

“The [Okinawans] certainly understand that whenever the U.S. military lands somewhere, it leaves a very large footprint. You all know it very well, because much of your land is already occupied by the U.S. military,” the former U.S. envoy told the audience.

Anti-war

Wright is a former U.S. deputy ambassador who was assigned in Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Mongolia and Micronesia. She joined the military at the time when the U.S. military was invading Vietnam.

On March 19, 2003, the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Wright cabled a letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell, stating that without the authorization of the UN Security Council, the invasion and occupation of a Muslim, Arab, oil-rich country would be a isaster. Since then, she has been writing and speaking out for peace and is now a resident of Honolulu.

“It has been deeply emotional for all of us. Here we are in war again. The United States has started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” she said. “When you look at the number of civilians who have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guam, it brings home to us all what we should be working on.”

“The history of the United States is not a peaceful history,” said Wright, who added that the U.S. has, “a history of invading other countries.”

Land grabbing

With regard to the local military buildup, Wright told the audience that, “You have been seeing your own lands being taken from you,” adding that, “The federal government builds without your agreement. They build enormous facilities that have disastrous effects on your environment.”

The retired colonel suggested that people weigh the importance of their own lands, and whether or not it is worth it to lose those lands for an increase in short term values such as trade and business.

“Once the federal government gets its hands into something it never gets it out. With the Obama administration I certainly hope that we will all join together to throw out many of the provisions of the Patriot Act that are really curtailing our own civil liberties,” she said.

Threatened

Japanese parliamentarian and Code Pink member Sumi Fujita said that because of the long military presence and all of the rape cases in Okinawa, “women [there] now feel threatened.”

“All of the military promises to help the Okinawan economy have been a big lie,” Fujita said, through interpreter Hisae Ogawa.

As for the rape issue, Wright said, “This is a failure in leadership that is coming to you, that will allow this to continue.”

“Sometimes being an activist leads to things that you’d never thought you’d be doing,” said Wright.

The former U.S. diplomat also stated that we should all be aware of the “isms” created by policy makers. “Our government has been very good, meaning very bad, in using the ‘isms’ like communism, terrorism, and fascism to frighten and scare the American public so that they can do things that normally we would protest,” she said. “It something we should always be very wary of, when there’s another ‘ism’ coming up.”

Source:

http://guam.mvarietynews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7666:ex-envoy-warns-against-us-plan-for-guam&catid=1:guam-local-news&Itemid=2

US sends warships to monitor North Korea missile test

Post Date March 30, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Uncategorized

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.

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

Post Date February 02, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

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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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

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.

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.
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.
Abandon the plan for the construction of new U.S. military bases in Guam.
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)

Japanese missile defense test fails off Hawaii

Post Date November 20, 2008

Comments 2 Comments

Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Uncategorized

Reuters, Thursday November 20 2008

(Recasts, official blames Raytheon missile glitch)

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON, Nov 19 (Reuters) – A Japanese naval destroyer failed to shoot down a ballistic missile target on Wednesday because of a glitch in the final stage of an interceptor missile made by Raytheon Co, a U.S. military official said.

The kinetic warhead’s infrared “seeker” lost track in the last few seconds of the $55 million test, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) above Hawaiian waters, said U.S. Rear Admiral Brad Hicks, program director of the Aegis sea-based leg of an emerging U.S. anti-missile shield.

“This was a failure,” he said in a teleconference with reporters. It brought the tally of Aegis intercepts to 16 in 20 tries.

The problem “hopefully was related just to a single interceptor,” not to a systemic issue with the Standard Missile-3 Block 1A, the same missile used in February to blow apart a crippled U.S. spy satellite, Hicks said.

Military officials from both countries said in a joint statement there was no immediate explanation for the botched intercept of a medium-range missile mimicking a potential North Korean threat. The test was paid for by Japan, Hicks said.

John Patterson, a spokesman at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Arizona, said the company would not comment pending the results of an engineering analysis of what may have gone wrong.
The test involved the Chokai, the second Japanese Kongo-class ship to be outfitted by the United States for missile defense, and a dummy missile fired from a range on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
North Korea’s test-firing of a ballistic missile over Japan in August 1998 spurred Tokyo to become the most active U.S. ally in building a layered shield against missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.

The drill off Kauai featured the ship-borne Aegis ballistic missile defense system made by Lockheed Martin Corp, which apparently worked without a hitch.
The operation of the Aegis system by the Chokai’s crew and the missile’s “flyout” toward the target were successful even though the intercept was not achieved, said Rear Adm. Tomohisa Takei, operations and plans director for the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, and U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, head of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency.
More information will be available after a thorough investigation, they said in the statement.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, which staged the drill in cooperation with Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Forces, called it a “No Notice” test, more challenging than the first of its kind for a Japanese ship in 2007.
To make it more realistic, the time of the target’s launch was not disclosed to any participants, the Pentagon said in a “fact sheet” before the test.
Also, the target warhead separated from its booster rocket, increasing the challenge of picking out the re-entry vehicle, the Pentagon said.
In addition to the Chokai, a similarly equipped U.S. Navy destroyer, the Paul Hamilton, tracked and successfully performed a simulated engagement against the ballistic missile, Hicks said.
In December 2003, Japan decided to equip its four Kongo-class destroyers with Aegis ballistic missile defense systems at a cost of $246.1 million. Each installation was to be followed by a test intercept. The Kongo, the first to be upgraded, completed its flight test in December 2007.

Myoko, the third ship to be upgraded, is to be ready next year and Kirishima, in 2010, according to Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon’s No. 1 supplier by sales.
(Editing by Anthony Boadle and Philip Barbara)

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8044535/print

Missile test off Kaua'i fails at the 'very end'

Post Date November 20, 2008

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Uncategorized

November 20, 2008

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

A missile fired by the Japanese destroyer Chokai yesterday failed to intercept a ballistic missile target off Kaua’i in a second test of Japan’s ship-based Aegis ballistic missile defense system.

The $55 million exercise paid for by Japan was intended to knock down a simulated ballistic missile in which the warhead separated from the booster.

But Rear Adm. Brad Hicks, the Aegis system program manager for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, said an “anomaly” occurred in the fourth stage of flight by the Standard Missile-3 Block 1A seeker missile.

A kinetic warhead released by the missile found and tracked the simulated ballistic missile, but in the last few seconds it “lost track” of the target, Hicks said.

“The missile, until the very end of flight, had excellent performance,” Hicks said.

Hicks said an investigation will determine “if it was just that individual missile, or something that we need to take a look at.”

The Aegis ballistic missile defense system has been successful in 16 of 20 attempts.

Hicks said the same type of missile, fired by the Pearl Harbor cruiser Lake Erie, was used to successfully shoot down a failing U.S. spy satellite in February.

“This system works,” said Hicks, adding the success rate is good compared to other U.S. missiles.

On Dec. 17 off Kaua’i, the Japanese destroyer Kongo shot down a ballistic missile target, marking the first time that an allied naval ship successfully intercepted a target with the sea-based Aegis weapons system.

That target was a nonseparating simulated ballistic missile. Officials said yesterday’s target separated from a booster, making it harder to discriminate.

At 4:21 p.m., the ballistic missile target was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility. The Japanese destroyer Chokai detected and tracked the target using an advanced on-board radar, according to the Missile Defense Agency.

The Pearl Harbor-based destroyer Paul Hamilton also participated in the test.

The Aegis Weapon System developed a fire-control solution, and at 4:24 p.m., a single SM-3 Block IA was launched. The Chokai was about 250 miles off Barking Sands in Kaua’i, and the intercept was to occur about 100 nautical miles above earth in the mid-course phase of the ballistic missile’s trajectory.

Approximately two minutes later, the SM-3 failed to intercept the target. The Chokai crew performance was “excellent” in executing the mission, according to the Missile Defense Agency.

The Japanese ship will stop in Pearl Harbor before returning to Japan with additional SM-3 Block 1A missiles.

Hicks said Aegis ballistic missile defense is a certified and deployed system in the U.S. Navy, and certified and operational in Japan’s navy.

Eighteen U.S. cruisers and destroyers and four Japanese ships are being outfitted with the Aegis ballistic missile defense capability.

On Nov. 1, during the exercise “Pacific Blitz,” the Hawai’i-based destroyers Hamilton and Hopper fired SM-3 missiles at separate targets launched from Kaua’i.

Hamilton scored a direct hit, while the missile fired by the Hopper missed its target, the Navy said.

Hicks yesterday said the missiles fired from the ships were older rounds going out of service, and the Navy took the opportunity to use them as training rounds “knowing that they carried a higher probability of failure.”

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081120/NEWS08/811200342/1001/localnewsfront