Video Fwd: FED UP IN IRAQ

Organizing Notes
FED UP IN IRAQ
Feb. 26, 2011

Text Fwd: Okinawans Continue to Resist in Takae

* Image source: Ten Thousand Things
'Okinawans engaged in nonviolent action to protect their beloved, biodiverse Yanbaru Forest from unwanted U.S. military training helipad construction. Photo: The Situation in Takae Higashimura and Yanbaru Forest website.'
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See also Ten Thousand Things
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* Text fwd from Corazon Valdez Fabros on Feb. 26, 2011

Huffington Post
Okinawans Continue to Resist in Takae
John Feffer
Co-director, Foreign Policy in Focus
February 25, 2011


Some animals should be endangered. Consider the V-22 Osprey. The tilt-rotor aircraft, which takes off like a helicopter but flies like a plane, costs more than a $100 million apiece, killed 30 personnel in crashes during its development stage, and survived four attempts by none other than Dick Cheney to deep-six the program. Although it is no longer as crash-prone as it once was, the Osprey's performance in Iraq was still sub-par and it remains a woefully expensive creature. Although canceling the program would save the U.S. government $10-12 billion over the next decade, the Osprey somehow avoided the budget axe in the latest round of cuts on Capitol Hill.

It's bad enough that U.S. taxpayers have to continue to support the care and feeding of this particular Osprey. Worse, we're inflicting the bird on others.

In a small village in the Yanbaru Forest in northern Okinawa, the residents of Takae have been fighting non-stop to prevent the construction of six helipads designed specifically for the V-22. The protests have been going on since the day in 2007 when Japanese construction crews tried to prepare the site for the helipads. "Since that day, over 10,000 locals, mainland Japanese, and foreign nationals have participated in a non-stop sit-in outside the planned helipad sites," writes Jon Mitchell at Foreign Policy In Focus. "So far, they've managed to thwart any further construction attempts. At small marquee tents, the villagers greet visitors with cups of tea and talk them through their campaign, highlighting their message with hand-written leaflets and water-stained maps."

It's all part of the plan that would shut down the aging Futenma air base in Okinawa, relocate some of the Marines to Guam, and build a new facility elsewhere in Okinawa. The overwhelming majority of Okinawans oppose this plan. They want to shut down Futenma, and they don't want any new U.S. military bases.

But the Japanese government has essentially knuckled under to U.S. pressure to move forward with the agreement. Building these helipads in a subtropical forest, with a wide range of unusual wildlife, is all part of the deal.

The recently re-elected Okinawan governor Hirokazu Nakaima opposes the relocation plan. And, according to Pacific Daily News, "Nakaima may actually have the authority to disrupt the plan because of his authority under the Japan Public Water Reclamation Act, which gives the Okinawa governor final authority over reclaimed land."

Washington has said that it won't move forward on the deal without local support.
The Osprey is a budget-busting beast. The Okinawans don't want it. Both Tokyo and Washington are desperate to trim spending.

The V-22 is one animal well worth driving toward extinction.

Text Fwd: Mark Kenney sentence to six months for line crossing at STRTATCOM last Aug 9th

* Text & image fwd from Jerry Ebner and Frank Cordaro on Feb. 25, 2011

Mark Kenney sentence to six months for line crossing at STRTATCOM last Aug 9th

Don't forget that Fr Jack McCaslin returns to Fed Court in Omaha
for the same witness April 12th
http://groups.google.com/group/offitt-list-one/browse_thread/thread/1a67c3ea87cf5162


------

Mark Kenney was sentence to a six month prison term today in Omaha
Fed. Magistrate Judge Thomas D. Thalken. court room. Mark was
represented by "pro bono" attorney & Catholic Deacon Chuck Hannan.
Mark plead guilty.

Mark's prior record of line crossing at Offutt AFB in which Mark has
served a 30 day, 45 day and two six month sentences (the two six
months sentences being given by Judge Thalken) played heavy in the
Judge's sentence. The Judge said he respected Mark's personal
convictions for peace but said Mark has many other option to express
those convictions without 'breaking the law'. Judge Thalken readily
admitted that any prison time given to Mark would not be a deterrent
but only punishment. Yet the Judge sentence Mark to the full six
month maximum jail time because of Mark's prior sentences.

The Judge is allowing Mark to "Self Surrender", which means Mark got
to go home today and wait until the Federal Bureau of Prisons assigns
him a Fed Prison to do his six month sentence. This process takes
between a month to six weeks. Mark will be notify by mail and or phone
when a site has been assigned and he will have to 'self surrender' at
the assigned prison.

Mark can be contacted at:
402 598 2403
markfpeter@gmail.com

---------------------
Mark read the following statement before being sentence.

Since my time in the military, I have struggled with living out my
Christian witness in a world dominated by weapons of war and mass
destruction. I wish I could say my witness was more consistent.

Like many Americans, the 9/11 bombings in New York, city gave me great
pause. Pope John Paul II had certainly made his feelings known, as to
the lack of validity of our going to war in the light of the Just War
theory.. But the silence of the pulpits of the Catholic church on the
issue seemed deafening to me.

I searched other churches through bible studies and services, and
found the same thing. Most pulpits were treading very lightly around
the message of the Sermon on the Mount. After all, Don't we know
better?. Isn't our military the righteous one here? Isn't our cause
Just? The Old Testament, Davidical idea that we can practice living
out god's message and teachings while engaging our enemies in war, was
back on track. The New Testament, Constantinian idea of making the
world safe for the practice of Christianity, through war and conquest,
was making a great comeback.

Nothing of this reality seemed scriptural to me. After all, didn't
Isaiah and Hosea and Zachariah seem to be sensing their current system
was certainly in want of something? Weren't they dreaming and
prophesying of a new reality to come? Didn't Mathew and Paul and the
early apostles and evangelists seem to be saying that Jesus was the
culmination of this desired prophetic reality sought for so many
generations? Certainly John thought so.

In the end, I have no choice but to accept the revelations of the
early prophets, the early evangelists, and the teachings, and life,
and death, and resurrection of Jesus, whom I willingly proclaim as the
promised messiah. No other power or principality holds a candle to
this.

While I recognize that I am a flawed and sinful man, I can not stand
idly by and watch the powers and principalities that be, butcher the
Good News of Jesus the Christ, through slanted interpretations to
false and violent, church driven theologies of acceptable violence,
militarism, and war.

If I am guilty of anything, it's that I desire to hold onto my faith
in Jesus the Christ more than I wish to hold onto the the manufactured
myth of the American Dream. If I am guilty of anything, it's that I
fear God more than I fear the courts.

For these reasons, I do what I do. For these reasons I will try to
accept as faithfully as I can whatever the courts or society have in
store for me. I have nothing further to say on the matter.

For updates and support for both Mark Kenney and Fr Jack McCalsin contact:
The Omaha Catholic Worker
Jerry Ebner, Mike Brennan
1104 N. 24th St. Omaha, Nebraska USA 68102
www.no-nukes.org/cwomaha
Email:cwomaha@gmail.com
Phone 402- 502- 5887
-----------------------------

8 Minute Youtube clip of statements at the line and the line crossing.
"The four Catholic peace activist in their own words." A MOST SEE!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG8A_V8IeoQ

Flickr Slide Show of Aug 6-9, 2010 STRATCOM Vigil and Line Crossing
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frank_cordaro_and_the_dm_catholic_worker/sets/72157624580510523/

Text Fwd: Libya: Is Washington Pushing for Civil War to Justify a US-NATO Military Intervention?

Global Research
Libya: Is Washington Pushing for Civil War to Justify a US-NATO Military Intervention?
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Feb. 24, 2011

Is Tripoli being set up for a civil war to justify U.S. and NATO military intervention in oil-rich Libya?
Are the talks about sanctions a prelude to an Iraq-like intervention?

Something is Rotten in the so-called “Jamahiriya” of Libya

There is no question that Colonel Muammar Al-Gaddafi (Al-Qaddafi) is a dictator. He has been the dictator and so-called “qaid” of Libya for about 42 years. Yet, it appears that tensions are being ratcheted up and the flames of revolt are being fanned inside Libya. This includes earlier statements by the British Foreign Secretary William Hague that Colonel Qaddafi had fled Libya to Venezuela. [1] This statement served to electrify the revolt against Qaddafi and his regime in Libya.

Although all three have dictatorship in common, Qaddafi’s Libya is quite different from Ben Ali’s Tunisia or Mubarak’s Egypt. The Libyan leadership is not outright subservient to the United States and the European Union. Unlike the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, the relationship that exists between Qaddafi and both the U.S. and E.U. is a modus vivendi. Simply put, Qaddafi is an independent Arab dictator and not a “managed dictator” like Ben Ali and Mubarak.

In Tunisia and Egypt the status quo prevails, the military machine and neo-liberalism remain intact; this works for the interests of the United States and the European Union. In Libya, however, upsetting the established order is a U.S. and E.U. objective.

The U.S. and the E.U. now seek to capitalize on the revolt against Qaddafi and his dictatorship with the hopes of building a far stronger position in Libya than ever before. Weapons are also being brought into Libya from its southern borders to promote revolt. The destabilization of Libya would also have significant implications for North Africa, West Africa, and global energy reserves.

Colonel Qaddafi in Brief Summary

Qaddafi’s rise to power started as a Libyan captain amongst a group of military officers who carried out a coup d’état. The 1969 coup was against the young Libyan monarchy of King Idris Al-Sanusi. Under the monarchy Libya was widely seen as being acquiescent to U.S. and Western European interests.

Although he has no official state or government position, Qaddafi has nurtured and deeply rooted a political culture of cronyism, corruption, and privilege in Libya since the 1969 coup. Added to this is the backdrop of the “cult of personality” that he has also enforced in Libya.

Qaddafi has done everything to portray himself as a hero to the masses, specifically the Arabs and Africans. His military adventures in Chad were also tied to leaving his mark in history and creating a client state by carving up Chad. Qaddafi’s so-called “Green Book” has been forcefully portrayed and venerated as being a great feat in political thought and philosophy. Numerous intellectuals have been forced or bribed to praise it.

Over the years, Colonel Qaddafi has tried to cultivate a romantic figure of himself as a simple man of the people. This includes pretending to live in a tent. He has done everything to make himself stand out. His reprimanding of other Arab dictators, such as King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, at Arab League meetings have made headlines and have been welcomed by many Arabs. While on state visits he has deliberately surrounded himself with an entourage of female body guards with the intent of getting heads to turn. Moreover, he has also presented himself as a so-called imam or leader of the Muslims and a man of God, lecturing about Islam in and outside of Libya.

Libya is run by a government under Qaddafi’s edicts. Fear and cronyism have been the keys to keeping so-called “order” in Libya amongst officials and citizens alike. Libyans and foreigners alike have been killed and have gone missing for over four decades. The case of Lebanon’s Musa Al-Sadr, the founder of the Amal Movement, is one of the most famous of these cases and has always been a hindrance to Lebanese-Libyan relations. Qaddafi has had a very negative effect in creating and conditioning an entire hierarchy of corrupt officials in Tripoli. Each one looks out for their own interests at the expense of the Libyan people.

Fractions and Tensions inside the Hierarchy of Qaddafi’s Regime

Because of the nature of Qaddafi’s regime in Tripoli, there are a lot of internal tensions in Libya and within the regime structure itself. One of these sets of tensions is between Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi and his father’s circle of older ministers. Libyan ministers are generally divided amongst those that gather around Saif Al-Islam and those that are part of the “old guard.”

There are even tensions between Qaddafi and his sons. In 1999, Mutassim Al-Qaddafi tried to ouster his father while Colonel Qaddafi was outside of Libya. Mutassim Qaddafi holds a Libyan cabinet portfolio as a national security advisor. He is also famously known amongst Libyans for being a playboy who has spent much of his time in Europe and abroad. There is also Khames Gaddafi who runs his own militia of thugs, which are called the Khames militia. He has always been thought of as possible contender for succession too against his other brothers.

There have always been fears in Libya about the issue of succession after Colonel Qaddafi is gone. Over the years, Qaddafi has thoroughly purged Libya of any form of organized opposition to him or prevented anyone else, outside his family, from amassing enough power to challenge his authority.

READ MORE

[Jeju Update] Peace Pilgrim will be for a week from March 1 in the Jeju Island

* Image source: News Jeju, Feb. 25, 2011

Villagers and citizens protesting against naval base in the past years
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* The below is the summary translation of the three articles and documents : Sisa Jeju, News Jeju and Life and Peace Fellowship. More detail and other updated contents would come later.

The Pan-Island Committee for Prevention of Military Base and for Realization of Peace Island would stage an opposition movement against naval base along with the Life and Peace Fellowship, through the forms of peace pilgrim and peace culture festival.

On Feb. 25, The Life and Peace Fellowship, issuing its statement, stated that it would step for a peace pilgrim by 100 persons for 100 days, which is for the prayer for life and peace community in the Korean peninsula, concerning about the rapidly hardening situation surrounding inter-Korean relationship after the Cheonan ship and Yonpyeong-do Island incident

The 100 days’ peace pilgrim will start at the Jeju April 3 Peace Park in the Jeju Island that is the first pilgrim course, at 2pm on March 1st and the pilgrim in the Jeju Island will proceed by March 7. The whole pilgrim will end in the Demilitarized zone section after 100 days’ nationwide tour.

Dobub, a Buddhist monk who would lead the ‘pilgrim prayer’ on March 1 was born in the Jeju Island. He has exchanged talks with Fr. Kang Woo-Il, Chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea & the bishop of the Catholic Jeju district, on ‘establishment on the Peace Island, Jeju,’ in 2007.

After the ceremony, the Life and Peace Fellowship will go to the Gangjeong village, have a meeting with Gangjeong villagers and stay the first night in the Gangjeong village.
On the 2nd day, it would start at the Gangjeong port and will walk westward.

Reverend Jeon of the Life & Peace Fellowship said, “Our organization oppose those things related to war. We oppose the naval base [plan] with the thought that the peace in the Korean peninsula and North East Asia will be dangerous once it is set up [in the Jeju Island],” and “We would walk with our praying heart.”

Photos Fwd: South Koreans' anti-government protest

For more photos, see the Tongil News, Feb. 25, 2011 통일 뉴스, 2011년 2월 25일(클릭)
City Hall square, Seoul, 7pm, Feb. 25, 2011

Text Fwd: Stop the Korea Free Trade Agreement!

* Text fwd from Steve Zeltzer on Feb. 25, 2011

Huffingtonpost
Stop the Korea Free Trade Agreement
Ian Fletcher
Jan. 23, 2011

You would think America had learned its lesson from NAFTA, which the Labor Department has estimated cost us 525,000 jobs.

But no. President Obama and the Republican leadership are united in pressing for ratification of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS-FTA). This is an agreement which the Economic Policy Institute estimateswill cost us 159,000 more jobs over the next five years.

Yes, you read that correctly. At a time when even the president admits that his number one economic priority is job creation, and has created an entire new commission for that purpose, they're going ahead with it anyway. It gives the phrase "contradictions of capitalism" a whole new meaning.

Make no mistake: we're in big trouble. The US economy has entirely lost the ability to create jobs in tradable sectors, and the recent downward blip in unemployment was merely the result of more people giving up looking, which causes them to drop out of the statistics.

Even the official U.S. International Trade Commission has admitted that KORUS-FTA will cause significant job losses. And not just in low-end industries. The ITC foresees the electronic equipment manufacturing industry, with average wages of $30.38 in 2008, as a major victim.
The supposed logic of America swapping junk jobs for high-end jobs simply isn't the way the economics really works out. Pace free-market mythology, there are actually well-understood reasons for this, if you dig a little into what economists already know.

Was this the Obama America voted for in 2008?

No. That Obama is at an undisclosed location somewhere. He campaigned against KORUS-FTA during the 2008 campaign. (It was originally negotiated, but not ratified by Congress, by Bush in 2007.) Among other things, that Obama said:

I strongly support the inclusion of meaningful, enforceable labor and environmental standards in all trade agreements. As president, I will work to ensure that the U.S. again leads the world in ensuring that consumer products produced across the world are done in a manner that supports workers, not undermines them.

Nice words, but none of them are reflected in KORUS-FTA, which contains no serious new provisions on these issues. This agreement is essentially a NAFTA clone. It is, in fact, the biggest trade agreement sinceNAFTA, and the first since Canada with an industrialized country.

This agreement, like NAFTA and the dozen or so other free trade agreements America has signed since NAFTA, is fundamentally an offshoring agreement. It is about making it easier for U.S. companies to move work overseas. The provisions to protect workers and consumers are unenforceable window dressing.

Don't be fooled by the fact that some unions, like the United Auto Workers (UAW), have endorsed the agreement. This is part of a cynical ploy by the White House to split the trade union movement in order to keep the AFL-CIO neutral. The UAW's out-of-touch leadership is so punch-drunk from the 2008 collapse of the U.S. auto industry that it has lost touch not only with what is good for the American economy as a whole, but with what is good for rank-and-file auto workers. Don't take my word for it: in the words of Al Benchich, retired president of UAW Local 909:

The UAW Administration Caucus is the one-party state that controls the UAW at the International level. Every International officer is a member of the Caucus, and they surround themselves with appointed international reps that unquestioningly do their bidding.

No wonder other, more democratic and more intelligent, unions, like Leo Gerard's United Steelworkers, are criticizing the UAW for its decision to support KORUS-FTA. Interestingly, the UAW's past record of criticizing KORUS-FTA is more honest than anything they're doing in a desperate bid to help keep Obama in the White House. For example, here's what they originally said about this agreement:

KORUS-FTA has inadequate protections and enforcement mechanisms to enforce either the spirit or the letter of the law.

Precisely. And changes made since then are, as noted, minimal. As an example of how one-sided the treaty is, consider that it now allows -- to great rejoicing -- America to export 75,000 cars a year to Korea. This translates to a measly 800 jobs. Korea's exports of cars to the U.S. in 2009, on the other hand?

Try 476,833.

Furthermore, even if the U.S. does get to sell more cars in Korea, American companies will mostly not be making the steel, tires, and other components that go into them, because the agreement allows cars with 65 percent foreign content to count as "American."

This is just one example of how KORUS-FTA isn't even as good as the deal the EU just signed with Korea. (The EU got a 55 percent standard on this item.) And remember that the EU and most of its member states, of course, don't really practice free trade anyway: they practice a covertly managed trade that has kept the EU's trade balance within pocket change of zero over the last two decades, while America has been running deficits around the $500 billion mark.
"Free trade agreement," in American English, means "free trade agreement." In other languages, it means "politely codified agreement for managed trade at a low tariff." The Europeans invented this game -- called mercantilism -- back when international trade was conducted with sailing ships. South Korea learned it from the Japanese. Uncle Sam (and maybe John Bull and a few others) are the only naïfs who still don't get it.

Despite what the White House and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are saying, this agreement makes no sense as a strategy to reduce our horrendous trade deficit. America's trade deficits have a long record of going up, not down, when we sign trade agreements with other nations.
Paradoxically, trade agreements even seem to sabotage our own trade with foreign nations: according to an analysis by the group Public Citizen, in recent years our exports to nations we have free-trade agreements with have actually grown at less than half the pace of our exports to nations we don't have these agreements with. So these agreements don't hold water as trade-expanding measures.

Even leaving aside trade-balance issues, this agreement is a disaster, thanks to something called "investor-state arbitration." Like NAFTA, it compromises American sovereignty and subjects American democracy to having its own laws overruled by foreign judges as interfering with trade. Under NAFTA to date, over $326 million in damages has been paid out by governments as a result of challenges to natural resource policies, environmental protection, and health and safety measures. There about 80 Korean corporations, with about 270 facilities around the U.S., that would acquire the right to challenge our laws under KORUS-FTA.

What kind of problems could this cause? The U.S. was forced in 1996 to weaken Clean Air Act rules on gasoline contaminants in response to a challenge by Venezuela and Brazil. In 1998, we were forced to weaken Endangered Species Act protections for sea turtles thanks to a challenge by India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Thailand concerning the shrimp industry. The EU today endures trade sanctions by the U.S. for not relaxing its ban on hormone-treated beef. In 1996, the WTO ruled against the EU's Lome Convention, a preferential trading scheme for 71 former European colonies in the Third World. In 2003, the Bush administration sued the EU over its moratorium on genetically modified foods.

It gets worse. KORUS-FTA also signs away our right (and Korea's, too, not that this makes it any better) to a wide range of financial regulations of the kind that might have helped avoid the crisis of 2008. For example, it forfeits our right to limit the size of financial institutions. It forfeits our right to place firewalls between different kinds of financial activities in order to prevent volatility in one market from collapsing another. It prevents us from limiting what financial services financial institutions may offer -- Enron Savings & Mortgage, here we come... It bans regulation of derivatives. It ban limits on capital flows designed to tame volatile "hot money."

Why is the U.S. flirting with making such an appalling mistake yet again? Because a) multinational corporations have bought our political system and b) because our government would rather play power politics than keep its own (declining) economic house in order.
It is remarkable how stuck we are in the 1950's, with an invincible economy at home and a Cold War abroad. As a report by the Senate Finance Committee once put it:

Throughout most of the postwar era, U.S. trade policy has been the orphan of U.S. foreign policy. Too often the Executive has granted trade concessions to accomplish political objectives. Rather than conducting U.S. international economic relations on sound economic and commercial principles, the executive has set trade and monetary policy in a foreign aid context. An example has been the Executive's unwillingness to enforce U.S. trade statutes in response to foreign unfair trade practices.

Ironically, it may eventually be our own decline that solves our trade problems, by rescuing us from our own arrogance and stupidity. When we finally realize we can't take our economy for granted, we may finally stop giving away the store in international trade.

P.S. There have been huge demonstrations against KORUS-FTA in Seoul, South Korea. If you live in the Bay Area, there'll be a protest outside Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco mansion on January 29. Click herefor more details.

Text Fwd: South to inform NK people of Mideast protests

* While the Key Resolve US-SK joint military exercise against NK will be from Feb. 28 to March 10 (Foal Eagle is from Feb. 28 to April 30), this kind of South Korean right wing Lee Myung-Bak government's activity will more freeze the inter-Korean relationship.

Korea Times
South to inform NK people of Mideast protests
By Kim Young-jin
02-25-2011 16:56

The Lee Myung-bak administration has been dropping pamphlets into North Korea about popular uprisings sweeping the Middle East along with food and other items as part of a stepped-up psychological warfare campaign, a minor opposition lawmaker said Friday.

Rep. Song Young-sun of the Future Hope Alliance, who received the information from a Defense Ministry report, said the campaign intends to encourage North Koreans to think about change and shed critical light on the power succession underway from leader Kim Jong-il to his youngest son. The ministry has yet to confirm the move.

If confirmed, it would mark the first time the military has dropped goods into the North since the practice was discontinued in 2000.

Food and everyday items such as toothpaste, warm clothes and cold medication are being sent in balloons with baskets timed to open over target areas, the lawmaker said in a statement.

The food comes with a message that reads: “We are the military of the Republic of Korea. This food is safe to eat. If in doubt, feel free to try feeding this to your livestock before eating it yourself.”

The military has stepped up psychological tactics in the wake of the North’s Nov. 24 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, Song said.

But the campaign hit high gear amid the Mideast turmoil, dropping 2.4 million leaflets carrying news of the revolts in Egypt and Libya since early February.

The leaflets associate leader Kim and heir apparent Kim Jong-un with the dictatorships of Egypt and Libya, saying such regimes are doomed to fail.

Radio Free Asia reported that the regime is beefing up surveillance in a bid to prevent news of the Mideast uprisings from seeping in.

Citing North Korean sources, the report said landlines and mobile phones of non-elite citizens are being jammed, while additional forces have been deployed to markets to prevent the news from spreading by word-of-mouth. Monitoring of university campuses has been bolstered as well.

Tensions between the two Koreas soared to their worst point in decades last year after the North sank a South Korean warship in March and shelled Yeonpyeong eight months later. Both sides have expressed desire to ease tensions but their first talks since the incidents collapsed without any agreement.

Korea Times intern Joy J. Han contributed to this article

_______________________________
See also Yonhap News
(Yonhap Interview) N. Korea will try to block Mideast influence: S. Korean minister
2011/02/23 07:41 KST
By Sam Kim

Text Fwd: Chung calls for redeployment of nukes in South

Korea Times
Chung calls for redeployment of nukes in South
Feb. 25, 2011
By Kang Hyun-kyung

A senior lawmaker called on the United States, Friday, to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea _ which were withdrawn in 1991 _ to thwart any nuclear threat from North Korea.

The remarks made by Rep. Chung Mong-joon of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) were expected to cause a stir as a nuclear-free Korea has been a core U.S. policy toward the peninsula.
During a parliamentary session, Chung told Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin that South Korea had no other cards to play to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.

“Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said North Korea has six nuclear bombs,” he said.

Chung went on to say that he overheard that former Secretary Condoleezza Rice told former U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill that “Don’t try to solve it (North Korea’s nuclear weapons program). Try to manage it.”

The lawmaker took these remarks made by the two U.S. officials as meaning that the U.S. government may accept the North as a nuclear state.

Chung said Seoul cannot accept Pyongyang as a nuclear state under any circumstances.

“But the problem is our hands are tied. We have no options to frustrate the North’s nuclear ambitions,” he said. “That explains why some people here say that South Korea needs to be armed with nuclear weapons. This reflects that we have few other options to tackle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.”

Last November, then Defense Minister Kim Tae-young told a parliamentary committee that South Korea would consider asking the United States to redeploy nuclear weapons. The defense chief’s remarks sparked debate.

Hours after this, an official from the presidential office tried to control the damage. He told reporters on condition of anonymity that there had been no discussion about the redeployment of nuclear weapons to the South and it would never be an agenda item between Seoul and Washington.

Rep. Chung, a presidential hopeful, reignited the controversy months after the former defense minister started it. The lawmaker also questioned China’s motives over the dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program.

“China looks as if it opposes a nuclear-armed North. But this may not be its real intention,” he said. “Even though the North has one or two nuclear bombs, China would not feel threatened by this because it also has two other nuclear-armed neighbors in India and Pakistan,” Chung said.

“Some pundits say having a nuclear-armed North Korea as its neighbor is not so bad for China because it will pose a joint threat to the United States and Japan.”

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Kim Sung-hwan disagreed. Mentioning his recent talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Kim stressed that there was no question that Beijing stood firm on the dismantlement of Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

Video Fwd: UNDERSTANDING LIBYA'S POWER STRUCTURE

Organizing Notes
Thursday, February 24, 2011
UNDERSTANDING LIBYA'S POWER STRUCTURE

[Site Fwd:Ten Thousand Things] Solidarity Appeal against the Illegal Arrest Of 2 Okinawan anti-war Activists

Ten Thousand Things
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Solidarity Appeal against the Illegal Arrest Of 2 Okinawan anti-war Activists


Peaceful Feb 20 protest at U.S. Embassy, Tokyo. Footage of the violent arrest at 4:00.

Two activists have been arrested during a demonstration in front of the US embassy in Tokyo on February 20th. Despite pre-arrangements to hold talks with the embassy, the activists were arrested with no explanation. The footage above shows a police officers using unnecessary force in arresting a submissive activist, one officer grabbing the activist by the hair while lifting him from the protest area to a police vehicle.

An appeal against the injustices on 2.20 by the "Rescue Committee for the Feb. 20 repression in front of the US Embassy in Japan" follows:

We strongly condemn these arbitrary and illegal arrests and demand the immediate release of the 2 activists. This demonstration was against the construction of a heliport that is part of the US military base in Takae, Okinawa. This construction is carried out despite the opposition by the people of Takae town. We had asked for talks with the US embassy which they granted us to be held at 16:00 on Feb.20. The police of Akasaka district agreed to stand nearby the embassy.

When we arrived at the rendez-vous place, the police wouldn't let us go near the embassy, [and] resorted to violence against 2 activists and arrested them. When another activist asked the police on what grounds, the reason for the arrests,they said that" the reason would be given later, after the arrests." This answer is a total denial of rights. A protest is a legitimate and legal right of citizens that the police cannot deny through violence.

After the arrests, the police refused us the request to hold talks at the embassy by asking us threateningly if we wanted to be arrested like the others. The police prevented lawyers to see the arrested activists on the first day. All these acts by the police are illegal. The response of the US embassy is that they had commissioned the talks with the citizens at the Akasaka police district.

It is clear that these arrests are a message from the Japanese and US governments that any opposition to US military bases will be suppressed by force. We condemn the illegal arrests and demand the immediate release of the arrested activists.

February 22nd protests against the arrest and violation of human rights by the Akasaka police department at Kasumigaseki Public Prosecutor's Offices

Information in French： http://d.hatena.ne.jp/ametaiQ/20110224/1298557024

Information in Japanese:　http://d.hatena.ne.jp/ametaiQ/20110220

Demand the release of the activists by calling:

The Akasaka Police Station +81-3475-0110
The US Embassy in Japan +81-3224-5000
The Japan Embassy of your country of resident.
*Send solidarity messages to: ametaiq@gmail.com

- Posted by Jen Teeter