Text Fwd: PYRAMIDS TO THE HEAVENS

http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2011/04/pyramids-to-heavens.html
Monday, April 25, 2011
PYRAMIDS TO THE HEAVENS

The media is abuzz with the human interest story about Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) who will be flying to Cape Canaveral for Friday's scheduled launch of the space shuttle Endeavour which will carry her husband, Mark Kelly, to the International Space Station (ISS).

Rep. Giffords has recovered well enough from the recent tragic shooting of her and others in Arizona to make the trip. This launch will be the second-to-last mission of the space shuttle program before it is shut down in favor of Obama's plan to privatize key portions of the space launch business.

Like so many other things in our society today, the plan to privatize space launches comes after years of taxpayer investment created the basic space technological infrastructure that will now, to a considerable extent, be turned over wealthy investors. Immediate plans call for private industry to boost "space tourism trips" where people, with too much money on their hands, take a joy ride up into the heavens. From there we'll see private space developers begin to contract with the government for launch services. Eventually private corporations will fly missions to, and make land claims on, the moon, asteroids, and other planetary bodies for the purpose of extracting precious resources from those places.

In the meantime massive government investment will continue to create space military technologies to "control and dominate space" so that when the day comes where profit can be made from mining the sky, the Space Command will be able to patrol a military highway, or create a "front gate," to determine which countries or corporations have the ability to travel to and from Earth to space.

This strategy was all clearly spelled out in the 1989 Congressional study called Military Space Forces: The Next 50 Years. Author, and congressional staffer John Collins, wrote:

Military space forces at the bottom of Earth's so-called gravity well are poorly positioned to accomplish offensive/defensive/deterrent missions, because great energy is needed to overcome gravity during launch. Forces at the top, on a space counterpart of "high ground," could initiate action and detect, identify, track, intercept, or otherwise respond more rapidly to attacks. [This would include bases on the moon, armed space stations, and other orbiting battle platforms.] Put simply, it takes less energy to drop objects down a well than to cast them out.... Armed forces might lie in wait at that location to hijack rival shipments on return.

Nuclear reactors thus remain the only known long-lived, compact source able to supply military space forces with electric power..... Larger versions could meet multi megawatt needs of space-based lasers.... Nuclear reactors must support major bases on the moon..... Safety factors, rather than technological feasibility, will remain the principal impediment to nuclear power in space, unless officials convince influential critics that risks are acceptably low.

This is all a very expensive proposition. Some years ago the industry publication, Space News, wrote an editorial admitting they had to come up with a "secure funding source" in order to pay for their industry's plans in space if the U.S. hoped to stay on top of the heap. In the editorial they notified readers that indeed they had identified such a funding source - the "entitlement programs" and were sending their lobbyists to Washington to secure them for their use.

Officially the entitlement programs are: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and what is left of the welfare program. It is these programs that today are under vicious attack by the corporate interests who wish to use those funds in part to build their pyramids to the heavens.

The spectacle of a recovering Rep. Giffords and Obama waving to her husband as he blasts off on the space shuttle will bring tears to many eyes and warm feelings in many hearts. The aerospace industry hopes that more support for "everything" space will also result.

Text Fwd: Bring War Dollars Home by Closing Down Bases

Bring War Dollars Home by Closing Down Bases
http://www.fpif.org/articles/bring_war_dollars_home_by_closing_down_bases
By Christine Ahn and Sukjong Hong
Foreign Policy in Focus
March 31, 2011

On the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, U.S. fighter planes took off to start yet another military action -- this time, in Libya. A recent Gallup poll found that only 47 percent of Americans approved of military action in Libya, the lowest level of support for military intervention in 40 years. At the same time, U.S. President Barack Obama has sent Congress a budget that includes $1.2 trillion dollars for military and security expenditures. Clearly, Americans are weary of war, especially during an economic crisis that has threatened jobs, health plans, and pensions most families need to survive.

The hopeful news is that a grassroots movement of ordinary people across U.S. towns and cities has launched the New Priorities campaign, uniting under the demand to “bring the troops and war dollars home” by cutting defense spending instead of benefits, jobs, and basic government services. Worldwide actions are also being planned for the Global Day of Action on Military Spending on April 12th to shine a light on egregious amounts of military spending by the world’s governments. Central to these efforts must include demands to shut the 1,000-plus U.S. military bases in over 46 countries.

Bases are the most visible structures of the U.S. drive to maintain global military hegemony. Yet for most Americans, bases remain out of sight and outside the national discourse on war. Many don’t know about the enormous footprint of U.S. military installations around the world and how they undermine the lives and aspirations of the people who live directly in their shadow. Ending U.S. wars is essential, but closing down foreign bases is even more critical to dismantling U.S. militarism and global hegemony.

On the island of Cheju off the coast of South Korea, villagers are struggling to prevent the construction of a South Korean naval base intended for U.S. military use. In 2009, one of us traveled there and can still remember the tattered yellow flags lining the fence posts of homes, symbolizing the movement’s determination to stop the project. Walking along the endangered rocky coastline at the edge of this quiet village of farmers and fisherfolk, it was clear that Cheju Island and other sites of U.S. military bases in Korea have borne enormous costs to the people and to the future of peace in the region.

A Huge Financial Cost

Most figures used to estimate the cost of U.S. wars omit the global network of U.S. bases that provides vital resources and infrastructure to existing military conflicts. The Pentagon’s 2010 Base Structure Report, for example, lists 662 overseas bases but fails to include the 411 bases in Afghanistan, the 88 remaining bases in Iraq, or sites in Qatar and other countries where U.S. military personnel are stationed. Maintaining and constructing all U.S. bases cost American taxpayers $41.6 billion in 2010, according to Undersecretary of Defense Dorothy Robyn.

Of these 662 overseas bases, more than 70 military installations and bases and 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea. Ted Galen Carpenter and Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute estimate that the cost of U.S. bases in Korea “probably runs on the order of $15 to $20 billion annually.” Although the United States and South Korea have agreed to reduce and consolidate the number of U.S. military bases in Korea, other bases and training ranges — including Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek — are expanding displacing thousands of villagers and destroying Korea’s productive and limited farmland. ­

The agreements governing the responsibility for U.S. base relocation in Korea illustrate the unequal dynamic prevalent in countries that host U.S. bases. Under the Special Measures and Base Relocation Agreements, the United States and South Korea agreed to share the cost burden of moving U.S. bases, with South Korea obligated to pay more than half that cost. In 2008, South Korea paid $741.4 million, angering South Koreans unhappy over having to foot the majority of the moving bill and pay to clean up 60 years of environmental contamination. At some of the 23 bases ”returned” to South Korea, the levels of contamination are 100 times above the limit set by Korean law. Cleanup at these sites will require years of decontamination at enormous cost to South Korean citizens, not to mention the public health and ecological consequences for generations to come.

Moreover, U.S. bases and troop presence are an extension of U.S. intervention in South Korea. Historically, the U.S. military provided legitimacy, economic aid, and protection to dictatorial regimes that maintained their power with brute force. Today, the U.S. and South Korean governments control and suppress dissent through the infrastructure of bases, particularly Pyeongtaek and Osan, which are now major U.S. military intelligence outposts for the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). While conducting research for his book Spies for Hire on the privatization of U.S. intelligence, Tim Shorrock found unsavory evidence of eavesdropping on Korean civilian activities by U.S. military bases located there. Although the primary target of surveillance activity is North Korea, U.S. intelligence also monitors China and Vietnam from Korean bases. What worries Shorrock is that since 9/11, what is considered a threat has widened to include almost any activity that questions or challenges U.S. interests. His discovery of the U.S. military in Korea colluding with Korean police to monitor anti-base activities is “an amazingly frank assessment that the anti-bases movement is being as closely monitored, and probably more so, than Al Qaeda - and basically puts the movement in the same camp as global terrorists." But it’s not just anti-base movements. Recently protests against the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement were also noted in the log of the U.S. forces in Korea.

Resistance to U.S. Military Bases in Korea

Given the fierce opposition to U.S. military bases throughout the Asia-Pacific rim, the United States has become savvy at reducing its military footprint in regions where its presence is politically contested. Rather than establish its own base, the U.S. military has sought the cover of the South Korean military in the construction of a new naval base in Cheju, an island located off the southern coast of South Korea.
The people of Cheju Island are known for their fierce resistance to Korea’s division and occupation by U.S. troops over the south during the post-World War II period. For their resistance, the people of Cheju paid dearly. Following the April 3 rebellion of 1948, South Korean government forces killed up to 30,000 people – more than one in ten residents –for opposing separate elections between the north and south and the U.S. occupation of the southern half of Korea. In a long-awaited gesture of apology, in 2005, former President Roh Moo-Hyun named Cheju the “Peace Island.”

Cheju Island is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site and a national protected area by the Korean Cultural Heritage Administration. The Joongduk coastline, adjacent to Gangjeong village, is home to rare sea life, including soft coral, and is the seasonal habitat for dolphins migrating across the Pacific Ocean from Alaska during the summer.

In 2002, Seoul announced plans to build a naval base on Cheju. After two villages resisted, Gangjeong Village became the government’s third target. In 2007, 94 percent of the Gangjeong Village People’s Council voted “no” to the base plans. The government then proceeded to pressure residents. Some 1,500 farmers and fishermen live in Gangjeong village, including the legendary Haenye pearl divers—women in their 50s and older who forage in the sea for their livelihoods. Some of the villagers, including a few elderly Haenye divers, sold their farmland to the military under pressure from the South Korean government. According to Sung-Hee Choi, a South Korean peace activist and blogger, many of the villagers who signed the contract now regret their decision. However, they’ve been told that if they renege, they would have to pay back the money plus interest. Still, dozens of families are resisting the naval base construction.

In May 2009, the South Korean government approved construction of the joint U.S.-South Korean naval base. The military has begun to dredge the Joongduk coastline to accommodate the massive naval warships. If construction proceeds, it will not only destroy the rare coral reefs and surrounding ecosystems, it will kill the area’s fishing industry and displace citrus growers in Gangjeong village whose lands will be confiscated as part of the base expansion.

Gangjeong villagers have filed several lawsuits without much success. On December 15, 2010, a Cheju court ruled that the naval base did not infringe on the rights of the villagers, despite the projected destruction of the tangerine groves and the soft coral habitat where the villagers fish. The Gangjeong villagers have used every possible democratic means to block the base construction, but the South Korean government has been completely unresponsive. On Christmas Day, some 500 supporters joined dozens of villagers to block the cement trucks brought in by the Navy to pour concrete over the coral reefs along the shoreline.

The Cheju facility is ostensibly a South Korean naval base, but for all intents and purposes it will be used by the U.S. military. This was confirmed when Americans made calls to the South Korean embassy urging them to close the base, to which the South Korean embassy responded, “Call your own government, which is pressuring us to build this base.” The villagers are currently occupying the site, stopping the construction cranes from dredging up the shoreline and facing off against riot police.

Not for Korean Security

When most Americans learn how U.S. military bases are infringing on the sovereignty and rights of the Korean people, most agree that it’s high time for troops to be withdrawn. But many ask, what about the threat of nuclear-armed North Korea — who will protect the Korean people?

Although the U.S. military has long stated that it maintains a presence in South Korea to protect the civilian population, South Koreans have experienced the impunity with which U.S. troops behave on their territory. Organizations have documented thousands of crimes committed by soldiers against South Koreans. Between 1988 and 1996, U.S. troops committed an average of two crimes per day, ranging from the mundane to the heinous. The frequency of crimes committed by U.S. military personnel demonstrates the impunity with which U.S. forces act in South Korea — and likely, in many other host countries in which Status of Forces Agreements clearly give the U.S. military the upper hand. Furthermore, contrary to most fear-mongering projections of a nuclear-North Korea, “Most economic and military indicators show that South Korea has an edge over North Korea in almost all measures of power,” writes Jae-Jung Suh.
But perhaps more relevant today than the U.S.-South Korean military alliance is the grander regional alliance the United States has been forming in response to the perception of a growing Chinese military and economic threat. A key indicator of this is how the Mutual Defense alliance of the U.S. and South Korea has been transformed. Under the 2009 “Strategic Flexibility” agreement signed by Presidents Obama and Lee, the defense of South Korea is returned to Seoul, allowing the United States to deploy its forces outside Korea. Under the new arrangement, not only will South Korea be used as a rapid deployment hub for US military objectives elsewhere, South Korean troops will also be deployed for U.S.-led military deployments beyond Korean borders.
The realignment and consolidation of U.S. bases is also revealing. Many of the larger U.S. bases are along Korea’s West Coast and have moved away from the Demilitarized Zone toward more southern locations. This network of bases is part of a new missile defense shield directed as much toward China as toward North Korea. In the region as a whole, U.S. base expansions are taking place in Japan, Okinawa, Guam, Australia, and other key locations in the Asia-Pacific theatre, which effectively form a belt of bases that encircle China and Russia. The United States, South Korea and Japan have strengthened their tri-lateral alliance, which has resulted in more intense and frequent joint war games among all three nations, including the recent Key Resolve Foal Eagle ROK-U.S. joint military exercises involving 13,000 US troops and a nuclear aircraft carrier,

In a 2007 interview, former U.S. Forces in Korea Commander General B.B. Bell explained why South Korea was so vital to the United States by saying, “Twenty-five percent of the world’s trade flows through northeast Asia. Whether it’s Korea, Japan, or China, if you’re trading in the world, one out of every four things you trade, commodity-wise and dollar-wise, is going through that area.” Korea itself is the seventh-largest U.S. trading partner. Bell further explained the need for U.S. military engagement in Northeast Asia “because of the natural resources, lines of communication, and products that we will have to deliver around the world.”

But there’s more than cargo protection driving U.S. base strategy — U.S. bases are there to encircle China. Of all U.S. military bases, South Korea is the closest spot to Beijing, a strategic location to gather intelligence, and a key point for a possible standoff with China. The Project for the New American Century clearly states this: “Raising U.S. military strength in East Asia is the key to coping with the rise of China to great-power status.”

This broader regional strategy also explains U.S. pressure on South Korea to build a naval base in Cheju. Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space explains why villages in Cheju are being destroyed to accommodate the expansion of the U.S. military base: “China imports 80 percent of its oil on ships and a Navy base on Cheju would help give the U.S. ability to ‘control’ this vital shipping lane in the Yellow Sea. While the declining U.S. economy can’t compete with China anymore, the Pentagon is embarking on a strategy that says if we can control access to declining supplies of oil then we will still hold the keys to the global economic engine.” This year, China surpassed the United States in energy consumption. As Michael Klare puts it, “China’s decisions on energy preferences will largely determine whether China and the United States can avoid becoming embroiled in a global struggle over imported oil and whether the world will escape catastrophic climate change.”

With bases encircling China, the U.S. military has the capacity to stave off a growing Chinese presence and control its growing demand for energy. South Koreans know this reality well. In a recent visit to Pyeongtaek, when Bruce Gagnon asked the Pyongtaek Peace Center, an organization based in South Korea, to whom the United States was directing its aggression, Center representatives replied, “Russia and China. Russia has large supplies of natural gas. It’s about energy wars.”

Close Down U.S. Bases and Cut Military Spending

As grassroots efforts are made in the U.S. to shift funding from the military budget to our communities, we must remember the active struggles of groups overseas that are directly resisting the footprint of U.S. military bases. Whether in Okinawa, Guam, or Korea, residents are on a daily basis fighting to stop the construction or expansion of U.S. military bases. Not only are the massive joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises diverting critically needed public dollars in both countries, they are moving the two Koreas further away from the promise of reconciliation and reunification. U.S. bases in Korea are no longer needed. The real issue is how these bases are serving to keep tensions high on the Korean peninsula and in the region as a whole.

Rather than accept the unending stalemate that continually threatens to erupt into war, in the United States, a broad movement is calling for the end of the Korean War, in solidarity with groups in South Korea that have long campaigned for the same demand. The signing of a peace treaty is the first step to demilitarizing not just the Korean peninsula, but also the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, and paving the way for a self-determined reunification of the two Koreas.

Bringing the war dollars home refers not just to active, hot-wars but also to the network of bases that makes war and U.S. empire-building possible and thwarts democratic advancement and the development of more just, equitable societies.
Perhaps few can express the importance of this struggle better than those who have defended their rights to land and life against US military interests. From 2004 to 2007, for nearly 1000 days, villagers in Pyongtaek, South Korea held candlelight vigils to stop the expansion of the US military base, Camp Humphreys. When asked by the South Korean Defense Ministry for the price for his land, Pyongtaek village leader Kim Ji Tae replied, "The price will be unimaginably high. The price must include every grain of rice grown and harvested here. It must include all of our efforts to grow them, as well as our whole life here, including our sighs, tears, and laughter. The price must include the stars, which have witnessed our grief and joy, and the wind, which has dried our tears. If all of these could be added, I would tell you the price."

We must call for the defunding of U.S. bases and war games, and join this global people’s struggle for peace and sovereignty.

Christine Ahn is the executive director of the Korea Policy Institute and a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus. Sukjong Hong is a member of Nodutdol for Korean Community Development and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)


Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. ~Henry David Thoreau

Video Fwd: HOW DO WE PAY FOR WAR IN LIBYA?

Organizing Notes Monday, March 28, 2011 HOW DO WE PAY FOR WAR IN LIBYA?
Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent and much more is committed to the military mission in Libya. United States president Barack Obama has said it is in the country's national interest to have intervened in the north African state. But the massive cost of yet another military campaign has had some questioning whether it's worth it. Al Jazeera's Kimberly Halkett reports from Washington.

Text Fwd: BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME

Organizing Notes
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME

Last night I attended a public meeting at my city hall that was called by the politicians who represent this area in the state legislature. They wanted public input on how they should react to the governor's proposed cutbacks in the state budget. The cutbacks will largely fall on public education and social programs. The governor wants to give tax cuts for those at the top. About 50 people from surrounding towns turned out.

While in Washington DC I had received an email from one of the legislators inviting the public to the meeting so I forwarded it around to a couple key people. Five members from the Bring Our War $$ Home campaign showed up and each of us stood up during the meeting and made statements. I also passed out flyers to everyone about our upcoming April 4 rally inside the state capital.

As usual the politicians were cold and made no comments about what we had to say about cutting war spending as one way to deal with our fiscal crisis here in Maine. As it turns out Maine's share of war spending since 2001 is now $3.4 billion - the same amount that our state will spend this year. One of our supporters last night told the state officials that our congressional Rep. Chellie Pingree in Washington was trying to bring our war $$ home and that she could use some help. (Last Thursday she voted for the Kucinich resolution in the House of Representatives that called for a withdrawal from Afghanistan. It lost badly.) This did not seem to phase them one bit.

But these politicians were not our real target. The people we were actually trying to reach were the 50 people sitting in the hearing - the taxpaying citizens who are having everything dumped on their shoulders by the corporate oligarchy.

As I was walking out to my car after the meeting was over I joked with an older couple, who I had never seen before, that our latest snow storm was not a good sign of spring. They laughed and then the woman said to me in her strong Maine accent, "We'll see ya in Augusta on April 4."

This was a wonderful gift as this woman was letting us know that she truly heard our appeals in the meeting to connect the dots between endless war spending and fiscal collapse at home.

The superintendent of schools, who I had met with last year to explain the campaign, also shook my hand and thanked me for being there before I left city hall. The former chief of police in Bath, who was there to speak against cutting treatment programs for drug addicts, did the same.

It feels good to know that our message seems to be breaking through the ice. Build it and they will come.

Text Fwd: LATEST RADIO INTERVIEW

_______________________________
See also The 4th Media
NATO’s Inevitable War: The Flood of Lies regarding Libya
통일 뉴스 (위 영문의 번역문)
[번역] NATO의 피할 수 없는 전쟁: 리비아에 관한 거짓정보들
[리비아사태2] 피델 카스트로 <글로벌 리서치> 기고문 -제4언론 제공
March 11, 2011
______________________________
Bruce Gganon's Organizing Notes
LATEST RADIO INTERVIEW
March 11, 2011

SolarTimes editor Sandy LeonVest talks with author and labor, human rights and peace activist Bruce Gagnon about the US warfare state, the economic culture of "endless war" and the prospects and possible ramifications of US military involvement in Libya. They discuss transcending single-issue politics and the importance of coalition building among activists, through finding our commonality and connecting the dots between climate change, social justice and war.

Listen here

Text Fwd: WORKING AT THE STATE LEVEL

Bruce Gagnon's Organizing Notes
Friday, March 04, 2011
WORKING AT THE STATE LEVEL

It's good to see folks making the key connections in the photos above. Hopefully this will keep spreading. Here in Maine we are doing our bit as last Saturday, yesterday, today, and Monday rallies are being held in our capital city, Augusta, to protest the draconian cuts in our state budget by our new Tea Party Republican governor. He has publicly been giving high praise to the Republican governor of Wisconsin for attacking the unions.

We've had people holding Bring Our War $$ Home signs and banners in Augusta each day and yesterday began handing out flyers for a rally we are organizing inside the state capital on April 4.

I too will join the events today in Augusta as I first attend a morning conference on the state budget cuts and then will head over to the capital building where union teachers, who are under attack, will be rallying. I'll hold a sign that reads "Education not Warfare" and hand out flyers as well.

Our campaign in Maine is also now raising funds to purchase full-page signatures ads calling on the public and all elected officials in our state to make the connections between war spending and economic crisis at home. We have also just paid for radio spots on three stations along Maine's populated coastal region with the same message. So we are trying hard to focus people on the pot of taxpayer gold that is being pissed down the rat hole.

It's the states that are now the central organizing focus for the nation and the peace movement needs to be out there contributing this broader vision of cutting military spending and creating more jobs by converting the military industrial complex rather than destroying social progress.




See this video of yesterday's union rally in the cold in Augusta. At 3:07 check out how the camera zooms in on our Bring Our War $$ Home banner. Right there up front and center! That is the kind of bold action we need.

Text Fwd: US Defence Contractors and Egypt

* Text fwd from Agneta Norberg on Feb. 14, 2011

Southern Studies
U.S. defense contractors with the most at stake in Egypt

Egypt -- where a popular uprising that began last week seeks the end to President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule -- is the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid after Israel.

The Egyptian government receives about $2 billion a year from the United States, with most of that assistance going to its military. Last year the U.S. sent about $1.3 billion to Egypt's military compared to about $250 million in economic aid, and the Obama administration requested similar amounts for the 2011 fiscal year, as Britain's Telegraph reports.

The U.S. has long made the case that its unconditional funding for Egypt strengthens relations between the countries and provides benefits for the U.S. such as expedited processing for U.S. Navy warships sailing through the Suez Canal.

Indeed, one of the diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks noted that "President Mubarak and military leaders view our military assistance program as the cornerstone of our mil-mil relationship and consider the USD 1.3 billion annual FMS as 'untouchable compensation' for making and maintaining peace with Israel."

Last week White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the Obama administration would be reviewing its assistance to the Egyptian government based on events over the coming days.

Obviously any change in U.S. aid policy would have important ramifications for Egypt. But it could also have implications for the U.S. companies that contract with the Defense Department to provide good and services to the Egyptian military -- and for their workforces and communities.

Facing South reviewed the Department of Defense contract database over the past two years to see what deals are already in place, and discovered many contracts with connections to the South. The following are the 10 biggest contracts involving aid to Egypt in that period.

1. Lockheed Martin -- Fort Worth, Texas and Orlando, Fla. Last March, the aerospace giant won a $213 million Air Force contract to provide Egypt with 20 F-16 fighter jets (pictured above). The following month, its Lockheed Martin Missiles subsidiary in Orlando, Fla. got a $46 million Army contract to provide night vision sensor systems for Apache helicopters.

2. DRS C3 and Aviation -- Horsham, Pa. In December 2010, this subsidiary of the Italian company Finmeccanica received a $46.1 million Army contract to provide vehicles, hardware and services for Egypt's border surveillance program. That same month DRS landed another $19.6 million Army contract to provide surveillance hardware and services for the Egyptian government.

3. L-3 Communication Ocean Systems -- Sylmar, Calif. and Garland, Texas. The company's Sylmar operations completed a $24.7 million deal with the Navy last August to provide a sonar system for the Egyptian Navy. And in April 2009, L-3's EOS Division in Garland, Texas got a $6.6 million Army contract to provide Egypt with military imaging equipment.

4. Deloitte Consulting -- Arlington, Va. The professional services firm won a $28.1 million Navy contract in December 2009 to provide planning and other support for Egyptian aircraft programs.

5. Boeing -- Mesa, Ariz. and St. Louis. Last May, the aerospace firm landed a $22.5 million Army contract to provide Egypt with 10 Apache helicopters. The month before that, the company's St. Louis operations won a $5.8 million Navy contract to provide logistics support for other governments, with $262,530 of that designated for assistance to Egypt.

6. Raytheon -- Tucson, Ariz. and Andover, Mass. The weapons and electronics firm received a $26 million Navy contract in June 2009 to provide 178 Stinger missiles to both Egypt and Turkey. This past December, it finalized a $5.6 million Army contract to provide Hawk missile system technical assistance to the Egyptian government.

7. AgustaWestland -- Reston, Va. In November 2009, the Navy made definite a previously awarded $17.3 million contract for the company -- a subsidiary of Italy's Finmeccanica -- to provide helicopter maintenance for the Egyptian government.

8. US Motor Works -- Cerritos, Calif. and Grand Prairie, Texas. The company got a $14.5 million Army contract in June 2009 to provide engines, components and spare parts for vehicles acquired for the Egyptian Armament Authority, with most of that work to be done in Texas.

9. Goodrich Corp. --- Chelmsford, Mass. In October 2010, Goodrich landed a $10.8 million Air Force deal to procure and deploy reconnaissance systems for use on the F-16 fighter jets purchased by the Egyptian Air Force.

10. Columbia Group -- Washington, D.C. In June 2009, the defense contractor completed a $10.6 million contract with the Navy to provide remotely operated vehicle systems as well as technical support and training to the Egyptian Navy, with most of the work to be performed out of the company's Panama City, Fla. operations.

Many other companies with recent deals related to Egypt have operations in the South as well. They include Michelin Aircraft Tire of Greenville, S.C.; Wyle Laboratories, Camber Corp. and Summa Technology, all of Huntsville, Ala.; WRSystems Ltd. of Fairfax, Va.; TASC of Chantilly, Va.; and Clayton International of Peachtree City, Ga.

For a full listing of Defense Department contracts awarded over the past two years for work related to Egypt, click here.(Photo of F-16 fighter jet by Master Sgt. Andy Dunaway for the U.S. Defense Department via Wikimedia Commons.)

Text Fwd: Obama's Pentagon cuts not what they seem

CNN Money

Obama's Pentagon cuts not what they seem
By Lawrence Korb and Laura Conley,

guest columnists

February 11, 2011: 7:42 AM ET

Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. Conley is a research assistant at the center.

For those of us who believe the U.S. government is spending more on defense than it needs to, President Obama's budget on Monday will bring what sounds like welcome news: The administration is expected to propose a $78 billion reduction in defense spending over the next five years.

Unfortunately, there's a lot more to the story.

First of all, the cuts might prove illusory. The federal government appropriates money one year at a time, and the vast majority of that $78 billion reduction would take place in 2014 and 2015, when there will be a new Secretary of Defense and possibly a new president.

In fact, Obama's expected 2012 request of $553 billion would be 5% higher than what the Defense Department plans to spend this year. In inflation-adjusted dollars, this figure is higher than at any time during the Bush years or during the Cold War.

And that's just the Defense Department part of the budget. There's another $30 billion that agencies outside the defense spend to support the Pentagon. The largest share come from the Department of Energy, which uses the money to operate and maintain the several thousands nuclear weapons in the Pentagon's arsenal.

Furthermore, the Defense Department request excludes at least another $100 billion that will most likely be spent next year on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yes, the government funds the wars separately from the main Pentagon budget.

This year, the Pentagon will spend about $150 billion on these two conflicts. The exact amount it spends in 2012 will depend on how many troops the Pentagon withdraws from Afghanistan and Iraq this year.

Right now, we have about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and 40,000 in Iraq, at a cost of about $1 million per person in Afghanistan and about half that amount in Iraq.

Adding it all up, total defense spending in 2012 will be in the neighborhood of $700 billion -- not just the $553 billion that Obama is likely to request for the Pentagon alone. Here's another way to look at it: That is more than half of the discretionary budget and about 20% of the entire federal budget.

Korb: How to cut $1 trillion from Pentagon

Finally, the proposed Pentagon cuts would be a drop in the bucket compared to those identified by President Obama's fiscal commission. The commission recommended cutting the projected level of defense spending over the 2012 through 2015 period by $282 billion, or almost four times the amount the Pentagon leadership wants.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates called such proposed reductions catastrophic and Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dubbed them massive and dangerous. However, they failed to note that in constant dollars such reductions would still leave the Pentagon budget in 2015 about $100 billion larger than the Bush years and about $50 billion more than the Reagan years.

If Congress opts to make the Pentagon a real partner in tackling the national debt, there are a number of sensible steps it can take to realize further savings from the Defense Department's 2012 and future budget requests. These include reducing or eliminating funding for a number of unnecessary weapons programs, such as V-22 Osprey, rolling back the post-Sept. 11 growth in the ground forces and reducing the number of American forces deployed abroad outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Given the gravity of the economic situation facing the United States right now, these and other defense spending cuts cannot and should not be taken off the table.

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. ~Henry David Thoreau

Video Fwd: More videos on people's protests in Egypt

See also Reality Zone
Guardian
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Egypt's Military-Industrial Complex
Pratap Chatterjee

A riot policeman fires tear gas at protesters in front of the al-Istiqama Mosque on 28 January, in Cairo, Egypt. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

In early January 2010, Bob Livingston, a former chairman of the appropriations committee in the US House of Representatives, flew to Cairo accompanied by William Miner, one of his staff. The two men were granted meetings with US Ambassador Margaret Scobey, as well as Major General FC "Pink" Williams, the defence attaché and director of the US Office of Military Cooperation in Egypt. Livingston and Miner were lobbyists employed by the government of Egypt, helping them to open doors to senior officers in the US government. Records of their meetings, required under law, were recently published by the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington, DC watchdog group.

Although the names of those who attended the meetings have to be made public, the details of what was discussed are confidential. I called Miner to ask him about their meetings, but he referred me to Karim Haggag, the spokesman for the Egyptian embassy in Washington, who did not respond. Miner did confirm that he was a retired Navy pilot who had worked for clients like the Egyptian government, as well as several military contractors.

The cozy relationship between the lobbyists, members of the US Congress, Pentagon officials and the Egyptian government is easily explained: much is at stake. Egypt has received over $70bn in economic and military aid approved by the US Congress in the past 60 years, according to numbers compiled by the Congressional Research Service. Maj Gen Williams is the man in charge of the $1.3bn in annual US military aid supplied to the country.

Specifically, the aid money pays for US-designed Abrams tanks assembled in suburban Cairo under contract with General Dynamics. Boeing sells Egypt CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters, Lockheed Martin sells F-16s, Sikorsky Aircraft sells Black Hawk helicopters. Lockheed Martin has taken in $3.8bn from Egypt in the last few years; General Dynamics $2.5bn; Boeing $1.7bn; among many others.

In addition, hundreds of Egyptian military officers come for short training courses to the US each year. Two days after Livingston and Miner met with the US officials in Cairo, the embassy sent a cable to Washington with a list of Egyptian officials approved to take a three-week military training course in the US in February 2010. Under the "Leahy law" – a human rights requirement named after Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont that prohibits US military assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights – the embassy must, as a matter of routine, vouch for the prospective trainees.

One of the training courses listed in the cable made public by WikiLeaks was listed as one in how to handle explosives. The WikiLeaks cables show that numerous officials working for "state security", aged between 30 and 50 with ranks from major to lieutenant colonel, were given clean bills of health to take a variety of such specialised military training programmes.

After the US lobbyists returned to their offices in Washington, DC, Miner kept in touch with "Pink" Williams, corresponding via email. A little over three months later, an Egyptian military delegation led by Major General Mohamed Said Elassar, assistant to Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the Egyptian minister of defence, came to Washington. Livingstone and Miner were on hand once again to take the Egyptian officials to meet with a number of members of Congress, as well to visit the office of the secretary of defence to discuss "US/Egyptian security issues".

So, when protesters in Cairo last week were struck by tear gas canisters fired by Egyptian security officials, it was not surprising that pictures taken by ABC TV would show that the canisters were manufactured in the US. Nor does it seem that surprising that a journalist from the Sydney Morning Herald would find 12-gauge shotgun shells with ''MADE IN USA'' stamped on their brass heads when he visited the wounded in a makeshift casualty ward in a tiny mosque behind Tahrir (Liberation) Square.

The photographs show that the tear gas comes from a company named Combined Systems Inc (CSI), which describes itself as a "tactical weapons company" and is based in Jamestown, Pennsylvania. A similar picture from the protests in Egypt was posted on Twitter of a "Outdoor 52 Series Large Grenade" grenade made by CSI, which is designed to discharge "a high volume of smoke and chemical agent through multiple emission ports". (CSI did not return calls for comment.)

Although CSI markets these products as "less-than-lethal", several incidents indicate that they can cause injury and death. Bassem Abu Rahmah, a Palestinian man, was reportedly killed on 17 April 2009, when a CSI 40mm model 4431 powder barricade penetrating tear gas grenade struck him in the chest, according to a report by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. Nels Cooper Brannan , a US marine deployed to Fallujah, Iraq, unsuccessfully sued CSI for injuries caused by an allegedly defective MK 141 flashbang grenade that caused serious damage to his left hand when it exploded accidently.

While the Egyptian protesters were facing tear gas grenades fired by security forces in Cairo, anotherdelegation of Egyptian senior military officials led by Lieutenant General Sami Hafez Enan, the chief of staff of Egypt's armed forces, was back in Washington to meet with Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (No public records have been filed yet, so it is unclear if Miner and Livingstone were escorting them again.)

Within hours of the news of the huge protests, Enan cut short his trip and dashed back to Cairo last Friday, but his boss, Minister Tantawi, has kept in touch with Washington, making daily phone calls to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates. Both men – together with Egypt's spy chief, Omar Suleiman – are among President Hosni Mubarak's closest allies and enjoy close ties with Washington, according to the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks. And it was these men that Thomas E Donilon, the US national security adviser, was frantically phoning last weekend to try to gauge how to prevent the collapse of the Mubarak regime.

It could days, maybe even weeks, before the future of the Egyptian government is decided, and with it, the relationship with the US. But one thing is clear: the Egyptian protesters are well aware of the close ties between officials in Cairo and Washington and not happy about the US training and tear gas shells supplied to the Egyptian military. Crowds gathered in Liberation Square last week chanted: "Hosni Mubarak, Omar Suleiman, both of you are agents of the Americans." The protesters believe that the billions in military aid that kept Mubarak in power have helped him keep democracy from flowering in Egypt.

Two years after Obama's famous speech in Cairo, in which he called for a "new beginning between the United States and Muslims", it might be a little late for his administration to heed the words of Mostafa Amin, Egypt's most famous columnist and journalist:

Maybe America gains a lot when it exports to us arms and cars or planes, but it loses more when it does not export the best that its civilisation has produced, which is freedom and democracy and human rights. The value of America is that it should defend this product, not only in its country but throughout the world! It may harm some of its interests, but it will make gains that will live hundreds of years, for the friendship of peoples live forever, because the peoples do not die, but governments change like the winter weather.

Text Fwd: MORE HARSH CUTS COMING

Bruce Gagnon's Organizing Notes
Friday, January 21, 2011
MORE HARSH CUTS COMING

The other day I saw a story on the TV news that the city of Camden, New Jersey was laying off a bunch of firemen and police due to their budget crisis. I wonder if any of those being let go thought about war spending? It would have been great if these angry public service workers would have gone on the news and said something like, "If we were not wasting $10 billion a month in Afghanistan I wouldn't be losing my job today."

In yesterday's Washington Post an article called House GOP group proposes deep spending cuts over next decade reported that Republican proposals in the House of Representatives would require cuts of about 15 % at agencies other than the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security. The Republican Study Committee (a Tea Party group) plan, by contrast, would reduce most agency budgets by about 30 %.

If cuts were made on that magnitude the Post said, "The federal prison system would have to fire 5,700 correctional officers, the Agriculture Department would have to cut about 3,000 food safety inspectors, and the Head Start early-childhood education program would be forced to cut about 389,000 children from its rolls."

Here in Maine, the state has a budget shortfall of $800 million and heavy cuts will be made this spring. Public education and social spending will take another huge hit. That means more school closers, teacher lay-offs, cuts in grants to social service delivery groups, and cuts in health care assistance to the poor, elderly, and mentally ill. Wouldn't it be nice to turn on the news and hear the teachers union or social service leaders talking about the need to end war spending so those funds could be shifted to the states that are in fiscal crisis?

Imagine the massive lay-offs all over the nation as the federal government cuts social spending and the states do the same thing. Where will these folks find new work? Answer: they won't.

I recognize that the nation has a large budget deficit and something must be done to deal with it. But rather than shut down social progress, wouldn't it be much better to end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and stop the widening war into Pakistan? If those funds were brought home and invested in our society we'd not only see a big change in our debt crisis, we'd also stop the hemorrhaging of jobs.

These are the points that are not being talked about in the mainstream media. It is obvious that the oligarchy is closing the door on any public discussion except for ways to destroy social progress and return us to a feudal society.

What do you think we can do to spur this much needed debate?

Video & Text Fwd: MAKING ART TO END WAR

* Image source: Organizing Notes, Jan. 18, 2011
'These posters were made at the third Draw-a-thon last weekend in Maine. They will soon be on sale for local use. More info on that when I get it. '
_______________________________________

Bruce Gagnon's Organizing Notes
Monday, January 17, 2011
MAKING ART TO END WAR



Draw-a-Thon III, co-sponsored by CODEPINK Maine, The Union of Maine Visual Artists, and the Bring Our War $$ Home campaign in Maine, an opportuntiy for 'thon artists to mass produce images for parade art and posters with BOW$H messaging.

Many cooperated to teach and learn how to produce art all can use in the coming year to help the public connect the dots between war spending and budget cuts at home.

Held in conjunction with Robert Shetterly's show Portraits from Americans Who Tell the Truth at the Portland Public Library Lewis Gallery.

Words above and video by Lisa Savage .

Text Fwd: From Military-Industrial Complex to Permanent War State

* Image source: same as the link
Eisenhower

* Text fwd from Corazon Valdez Fabros on Jan. 18, 2011



Commom Dreams
From Military-Industrial Complex to Permanent War State
Published on Monday, January 17, 2011
by Gareth Porter


Fifty years after Dwight D. Eisenhower's January 17, 1961 speech on the "military-industrial complex", that threat has morphed into a far more powerful and sinister force than Eisenhower could have imagined. It has become a "Permanent War State", with the power to keep the United States at war continuously for the indefinite future.

But despite their seeming invulnerability, the vested interests behind U.S. militarism have been seriously shaken twice in the past four decades by some combination of public revulsion against a major war, opposition to high military spending, serious concern about the budget deficit and a change in perception of the external threat. Today, the Permanent War State faces the first three of those dangers to its power simultaneously -- and in a larger context of the worst economic crisis since the great depression.

When Eisenhower warned in this farewell address of the "potential" for the "disastrous rise of misplaced power", he was referring to the danger that militarist interests would gain control over the country's national security policy. The only reason it didn't happen on Ike's watch is that he stood up to the military and its allies.

The Air Force and the Army were so unhappy with his "New Look" military policy that they each waged political campaigns against it. The Army demanded that Ike reverse his budget cuts and beef up conventional forces. The Air Force twice fabricated intelligence to support its claim that the Soviet Union was rapidly overtaking the United States in strategic striking power -- first in bombers, later in ballistic missiles.

But Ike defied both services, reducing Army manpower by 44 percent from its 1953 level and refusing to order a crash program for bombers or for missiles. He also rejected military recommendations for war in Indochina, bombing attacks on China and an ultimatum to the Soviet Union.

After Eisenhower, it became clear that the alliance of militarist interests included not only the military services and their industrial clients but civilian officials in the Pentagon, the CIA's Directorate of Operations, top officials at the State Department and the White House national security adviser. During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, that militarist alliance succeeded in pushing the White House into a war in Vietnam, despite the reluctance of both presidents, as documented in my book Perils of Dominance .

But just when the power of the militarist alliance seemed unstoppable in the late 1960s, the public turned decisively against the Vietnam War, and a long period of public pressure to reduce military spending began. As a result, military manpower was reduced to below even the Eisenhower era levels.

For more than a decade the alliance of militarist interests was effectively constrained from advocating a more aggressive military posture.


Even during the Reagan era, after a temporary surge in military spending, popular fear of Soviet Union melted away in response to the rise of Gorbachev, just as the burgeoning federal budget deficit was becoming yet another threat to militarist bloc. As it became clear that the Cold War was drawing to a close, the militarist interests faced the likely loss of much of their power and resources.


But in mid-1990 they got an unexpected break when Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait. George H. W. Bush - a key figure in the militarist complex as former CIA Director -- seized the opportunity to launch a war that would end the "Vietnam syndrome". The Bush administration turned a popular clear-cut military victory in the 1991 Gulf War into a rationale for further use of military force in the Middle East. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney's 1992 military strategy for the next decade said, "We must be prepared to act decisively in the Middle East/Persian Gulf region as we did in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm if our vital interests are threatened anew."


The Bush administration pressured the Saudis and other Arab regimes in the Gulf to allow longer-term bases for the U.S. Air Force, and over the next eight years, U.S. planes flew an annual average of 8,000 sorties in the "no fly zones" the United States had declared over most of Iraq, drawing frequent anti-aircraft fire.


The United States was already in a de facto state of war with Iraq well before George W. Bush's presidency.


The 9/11 attacks were the biggest single boon to the militarist alliance. The Bush administration exploited the climate of fear to railroad the country into a war of aggression against Iraq. The underlying strategy, approved by the military leadership after 9/11, was to use Iraq as a base from which to wage a campaign of regime change in a long list of countries.


That fateful decision only spurred recruitment and greater activism by al Qaeda and other jihadist groups, which expanded into Iraq and other countries.


Instead of reversing the ill-considered use of military force, however, the same coalition of officials pushed for an even more militarized approach to jihadism. Over the next few years, it gained unprecedented power over resources and policy at home and further extended its reach abroad:


The Special Operations Forces, which operate in almost complete secrecy, obtained extraordinary authority to track down and kill or capture al Qaeda suspects not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in many more countries.


The CIA sought and obtained virtually unlimited freedom to carry out drone strikes in secrecy and without any meaningful oversight by Congress.


The Pentagon embraced the idea of the "long war" - a twenty-year strategy envisioning deployment of U.S. troops in dozens of countries, and the Army adopted the idea of "the era of persistent warfare" as its rationale for more budgetary resources.


The military budget doubled from 1998 to 2008 in the biggest explosion of military spending since the early 1950s - and now accounts for 56 percent of discretionary federal spending.
The military leadership used its political clout to ensure that U.S. forces would continue to fight in Afghanistan indefinitely, even after the premises of its strategy were shown to have been false.


Those moves have completed the process of creating a "Permanent War State" -- a set of institutions with the authority to wage largely secret wars across a vast expanse of the globe for the indefinite future.


But the power of this new state formation is still subject to the same political dynamics that have threatened militarist interests twice before: popular antipathy to a major war, broad demands for reduced military spending and the necessity to reduce the Federal budget deficit and debt.


The percentage of Americans who believe the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting has now reached 60 percent for the first time. And as the crisis over the federal debt reaches it climax, the swollen defense budget should bear the brunt of deep budget cuts.


As early as 2005, a Pew Research Center survey found that, when respondents were given the opportunity to express a preference for budget cuts by major accounts, they opted to reduce military spending by 31 percent. In another survey by the Pew Center a year ago, 76 percent of respondents, frustrated by the continued failure of the U.S. economy, wanted the United States to put top priority in its domestic problems.


The only thing missing from this picture is a grassroots political movement organized specifically to demand an end to the Permanent War State. Such a movement could establish firm legal restraints on the institutions that threaten American Democratic institutions through a massive educational and lobbying effort. This is the right historical moment to harness the latent anti-militarist sentiment in the country to a conscious strategy for political change.


Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on U.S. national security policy who has been independent since a brief period of university teaching in the 1980s. Dr. Porter is the author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2005). He has written regularly for Inter Press Service on U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran since 2005.

Text Fwd: [Organizing Notes] IN THE CROSS HAIRS

Bruce Gagnon's Organizing Notes
Saturday, January 08, 2011
IN THE CROSS HAIRS

You can click on this picture for a better view. It is from Sarah Palin's political action committee web site during the recent election where she "targeted" Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) for being taken out. Palin urged followers to "reload" and "aim" for Democrats. Notice the gun site cross-hairs for each candidate on the list. Apparently since the shooting in Tucson, Arizona today of 18 people, including Rep. Giffords, Palin has taken this graphic down from her web site.

Palin, and much of the right-wing in the U.S., has recently been celebrating the joys of guns and routinely used shooting metaphors and violent images when they talk about their political opposition. There can be no doubt that the right-wing in this country is fostering a violent political culture. Thus it is sadly no surprise today when this killer goes on the rampage and kills six people, including a nine-year-old girl.

At one campaign event held by Rep. Giffords in August 2009 the threat of violence led her aides to call the police after one attendee dropped a gun. In last November's election she was hounded constantly by Tea Party members, some of whom were photographed firing rifles at a shooting range while wearing her Republican opponents campaign T-shirt. The Republican governor of Arizona has encouraged armed vigilantes to "patrol" the border between Mexico and Arizona as part of her anti-immigrant policies.

Pima County sheriff, Clarence W. Dupnik offered an emotional indictment of the state of political discourse. “The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, I think Arizona has become sort of the capital, we have beome the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry,” he said. “There’s reason to believe that this individual might have a mental issue, and I think that people who are unbalanced might be especially susceptible to vitriol.”

Any self respecting politician should be calling for a scaling down of the aggressive violent talk in U.S. politics today.

We don't yet know much about the killer except that he has had some "anti-government" ideas on the Internet and that he had been rejected for military service.

I am indeed worried that we are going to see more of this as the economy continues to collapse and more "angry" people turn to violence. The worst part is that politicians like many on the right, including Palin, are making a living encouraging this political violence.

The public must speak out loudly against this violent culture that is deep in America's core.

Below is a video from 2010 where Rep. Giffords was interviewed after her office was attacked because of her vote on health care.

[Site Fwd: Ten Thousand Things] Okinawan Assembly wants Marines on Guam or Tinian 오키나와 현의회, 미 해병대를 괌 또는 티니안에 원함, 괌 연설자는 괌이 이미 계획된 군사 증강을 감당할 수 없다 함

* Image source: same as the link
'Judith Won Pat'

* Text informed by J.D. on Nov. 11 as well.

Ten Thousand Things
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Okinawan Assembly wants Marines on Guam or Tinian;
: Guam Speaker Judi Won Pat says Guam can't handle already planned military build-up

Nick Delgado reports at Kuam.com that the Okinawan Assembly wants the 4,000 U.S. Marines stationed at Futenma to be stationed at Guam or Tinian instead of stationed at a planned new mega-military base at Henoko.

But Guam Legislature Speaker Dr. Judith Won Pat says Guam can't handle the already planned U.S. military mega-buildup of the tiny island (half the size of Okinawa):

Representatives are on island and spent time with lawmakers today to express their concerns about the abundance of armed forces currently in Okinawa.

Member of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly Tetuji Shingaki says they recently sent a resolution to the Japan National Government to make changes to the 2006 U.S.-Japan agreement so that it can include relocating the troops from Futenma. The group will bring back the results of their visit to the Japan diet for possible consideration, as they say about 80 percent of the Okinawan community want the Futenma base gone.

"The base is burdensome to Okinawa, we Okinawans have talked about this move of 4,000, but it is not U.S. Government that has told us," he said.

In the meantime, Speaker Judi Won Pat warned the assembly that Guam is not ready to handle the already planned 8,000 Marines set to move from Okinawa to Guam and the territory cannot take the additional 4,000 they've requested.

READ MORE

_____________________________________________

* See also (* text thankfully informed by J. D. on Dec. 11, 2010)
Common Dreams
Untellable Truths Published on Friday, December 10, 2010
by George Lakoff

'This is similar to what I learned in rhetoric and communications, esp. the narrative paradigm by Walter Fisher at USC - that we're storytelling creatures and respond at the emotional, moral level more readily than the rational level. It's amazing that peace activists, environmentalists, democracy activists haven't built a communications system, network that can vie with opponents in reaching ordinary, less politically aware people. You all know all of this -- but had to share. It's essential to be pro-active instead of reactive; to avoid repeating the opponent's message by using it with a "no" or in negative form, and to reframe our agenda in positive, constructive, upbeat, empowered communications while addressing unpleasant truths.' (J.D.)

[국문 번역] Text Fwd: [M. S.] Japan is not to lift the ban on weapon export, at least for a while [일본 활동가들의 작은 승리]일본은 적어도 잠깐동안은 무기 수출 금지 조항을 해제하지 않을 것입니다.

* Image source: Click HERE 여기 클릭
( Images with captions sent from M. S. on Jan. 17, 2010. Korean translations were added)
(위의 이미지들과 캡션들은 2010년 1월 17일 M. S. 가 보낸 것으로 국문 번역이 추가된 것입니다.)

Click the images for larger views 이미지를 클릭하시면 확대됩니다.

* Image source 이미지 소스: click HERE 여기 클릭

_____________________________________________

See also Bruce Gagnon's Organizing Notes blog, 'JAPANESE PEACE GROUPS ORGANIZING TO STOP "MISSILE OFFENSE" (Dec. 7, 2010)'
브루스 개그논의 '조직 노트 블로그', '일본 평화 그룹, "미사일 공격"을 멈추기 위해 조직' 또한 보시길(2010년 12월 7일)
_____________________________________________
* A great message under the title of 'Japan is not to lift the ban on weapon export, at least for a while' (below) arrived just hours ago from M. S., Japan on the date of Dec. 7, 2010! M. S. has sent an urgent email for action request against the Kan Naoto diet's attempt to lift the ban on arms export on Dec. 3 ( SEE HERE). We thank the Japanese peace activists for all their hard works!

*12월 7일 날자로 바로 몇 시간 전에 '일본은 적어도 잠깐동안은 무기 수출 금지 조항을 해제하지 않을 것입니다. ' 란 제목으로 일본의 M. S. 로부터 메시지(아래)가 도착했읍니다! M. S. 는 12월 3일 간 나오토 내각의 무기 수출 금지 해제 시도에 반대하는 긴급 행동 요청 이메일을 보낸 바 있읍니다 (여기 클릭). 일본의 평화 활동가들의 모든 성심의 활동에 감사합니다!

* 한국인들의 축하를 포함한 연대 서명은 계속 될 것이며 모아진 서명은 일본에 전해질 것입니다.
_____________________________________________

'Friends,

친구 여러분,

This afternoon(Dec. 7), our prime minister made up his mind that he was not going to include the revision of the ban on weapon exports in the Basic Defense Plan to be issued on 17th, in order to tide over next Diet session with the help of the Social Democratic Party again.

오늘 오후(12월 7일) , 우리 수상은 사회 민주당의 도움으로 다시 차기 내각 회기를 순조롭게 할 목적으로 17일 발표될 기본 방어 계획 (Basic Defense Plan)에 무기 수출 금지 조항을 개정하는 것을 포함하지 않기로 했읍니다.

So this is small victory.

그러므로 이는 작은 승리입니다.

The Basic Defense Plan, which is to be renewed every five years, was to be issued for the next renewal on 10th this month, but has been delayed because of this very agenda of the ban on weapon exports. Citizens have been sending opposition voices to Diet members, and even today some Tokyo activists gathered in a Diet building room.

매 5년 마다 갱신되는 기본 방어 계획은 이 달 10일 경 다음 갱신이 발표될 예정이었으나 무기 수출 금지라는 바로 그 안건 때문에 연기되었읍니다. 시민들은 내각 회원들에게 반대의 목소리들을 보내고 있었으며 오늘 몇 도쿄 활동가들은 내각 건물실에 모이기 조차 하였읍니다.

The U.S. has for some years urged Japan to lift the ban as it allegedly wants Japan's sophisticated technology in optics and robotics as well as engineering for new MD missiles.

미국은 주장된 바에 의하면 몇 년동안 새로운 미사일 방어 [시스템의] 미사일들을 엔지니어링하는 것과 함께 광학과 로봇학에서 일본의 정교한 기술을 원함에 따라 일본에게 금지를 해제하길 몇 년동안 청해왔읍니다.

The U.S. really wants the optical technology for its control of earth from space, and may want the robotics technology for its new wars for energy hunting. According to the TV news I saw, the U.S. is to deploy heavy, awkward robotic gadgets in real warfare beginning in 2015, so if Japan is to lift the ban, it would horribly change the scene of future warfare, with its skillful humanoid and animal robot technology.

미국은 우주로부터 지구를 통제하기 위해 광학 기술을 정말 원하며 자신의 에너지 사냥을 위해 새로운 전쟁들을 위한 로봇 기술들을 원할 지 모릅니다. 제가 오늘 본 TV 뉴스에 의하면, 미국은 2015년 진짜 전쟁에 무겁고 어색하나 로봇 장치들을 배치하기 시작할 것이므로 일본이 금지를 들어올리면 인간에 가까운 로봇및 동물 로봇등 일본의 숙련된 기술로 미래 전쟁의 장면들을 무시무시하게 변형시킬 것입니다.

This time it has been avoided, but soon the U.S. and Japanese industry-military complexes will employ next approach. This must be just a lull. But we can breathe and relax a little.

이번에는 그것이 피해졌으나 미국과 일본의 몇 군산 복합체들은 다음 단계 접근을 쓸 것입니다. 이번엔 그냥 속여서 안심시키는 것일 것입니다. 그러나 우리는 숨을 쉴 수 있으며 잠시나마 긴장을 풀수 있게 되었읍니다.

Thank you for your concern and support.

관심과 지지에 감사합니다.

M. S.

M. S.

(* Advisory board member of Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, Japan)

(* 우주의 무기와 핵을 반대하는 글로벌 넷워크 일본 자문 위원)


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* Related blog 관련 블로그

Saturday, December 4, 2010
[국문 번역] [Petition Fwd] Urgent request for action: Japan is to lift the ban on weapons export
[일본으로부터] 긴급 행동 요청: 일본이 무기 수출을 금지하는 조항을 해제하는 것을 막는 행동 부탁
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* See also

Ten Thousand Things
Monday, December 6, 2010
Global Day of Action on Military Spending: Cut Military Spending Now [on April 12, 2011]
군사 지출비 삭감을 위한 전세계 행동의 날: 2011년 4월 11일

Text Fwd: The Beginning of the End of the American Empire 미 제국의 종말의 시작

Michel Chossudovsky, and Andrew G. Marshall (editors)

Global Research
The Beginning of the End of the American Empire
Excerpt from "The Global Economic Crisis"
by Tanya Cariina Hsu
December 4, 2010

The following is a sneak peak of Tanya Cariina Hsu's chapter in the new book from Global Research, "The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century." Order now from Global Research.

"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."–U.S. President Thomas Jefferson; Letter to John Taylor, May 1816

America is dying. It is self-destructing and bringing the rest of the world down with it.Often referred to as a sub-prime mortgage collapse, this obfuscates the real reason. By associating tangible useless failed mortgages, at least something ‘real’ can be blamed for the carnage. The banking industry renamed insurance betting guarantees as "credit default swaps" and risky gambling wagers were called "derivatives". Financial managers and banking executives were selling the ultimate con to the entire world, akin to the snake-oil salesmen from the 18th century but this time in suits and ties. And by October 2008, it was a quadrillion-dollar (that’s 1 000 trillion dollar) industry that few could understand.[1] Propped up by false hope, America is now falling like a house of cards.

The Beginning of the End

It all began in the early part of the 20th century. In 1907, J.P. Morgan, a private New York banker, published a rumor that a competing unnamed large bank was about to fail. It was a false charge but customers nonetheless raced to their banks to withdraw their money, in case it was their bank. As they pulled out their funds, the banks lost their cash deposits and were forced to call in their loans. People therefore had to pay back their mortgages to fill the banks with income, going bankrupt in the process. The 1907 panic resulted in a crash that prompted the creation of the Federal Reserve, a private banking cartel with the veneer of an independent government organization. Effectively, it was a coup by elite bankers in order to control the industry.

When signed into law in 1913, the Federal Reserve would loan and supply the nation’s money, but with interest. The more money it was able to print, the more "income" it generated for itself. By its very nature, the Federal Reserve would forever keep producing debt to stay alive. It was able to print America’s monetary supply at will, regulating its value. To control valuation, however, inflation had to be kept in check.

The Federal Reserve then doubled America’s money supply within five years, and in 1920, it called in a mass percentage of loans. Over five thousand banks collapsed overnight. One year later, the Federal Reserve again increased the money supply by 62 percent, but in 1929, it again called the loans back in, en masse.[2] This time, the crash of 1929 caused over sixteen thousand banks to fail and an 89 percent plunge on the stock market.[3] The private and well-protected banks within the Federal Reserve system were able to snap up the failed banks at pennies on the dollar.

The nation fell into the Great Depression and in April 1933, President Roosevelt issued an executive order that confiscated all gold bullion from the public. Those who refused to turn in their gold would be imprisoned for ten years, and by the end of the year the gold standard was abolished.[4] What had been redeemable for gold became paper "legal tender", and gold could no longer be exchanged for cash as it had once been.

Later, in 1971, President Nixon removed the dollar from the gold standard altogether, therefore no longer trading at the internationally fixed price of 35 dollars. The U.S. dollar was now worth whatever the U.S. decided it was worth because it was "as good as gold". It had no standard of measure and became the universal currency. Treasury bills (short-term notes) and bonds (long-term notes) replaced gold as value, promissory notes of the U.S. government and paid for by the taxpayer. Additionally, gold could not be traced because it was exempt from currency reporting requirements, unlike the fiduciary (i.e. that based upon trust) monetary systems of the West. That was not in America’s best interest.

After the Great Depression, private banks remained afraid to make home loans, so Roosevelt created Fannie Mae. A state-supported mortgage bank, it provided federal funding to finance home mortgages for affordable housing. In 1968, President Johnson privatized Fannie Mae, and in 1970, Freddie Mac was created to compete with Fannie Mae. Both of them bought mortgages from banks and other lenders and sold them on to new investors.