WWIII or Peace

SUBHEAD: There is no such thing as a surgical strike with a cruise missile - anymore than you can perform heart surgery with an axe.

By Juan Wilson on 4 September 2013 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2013/09/wwwiii-or-peace.html)

[Author's note: At the bottom of the article are the names and contact information of our for federal representatives. Please contact them in the next 24 hours about not going to war with Syria. 8:45am 9/8/13.]


Image above: Detail of cover of issue #1 of World War III comic book on March 3rd 1952. From (http://www.comicvine.com/world-war-iii/4050-34590/).

US President Obama, the Nobel Peace Laureate, and constitutional scholar has made a play to avoid impeachment and personal responsibility for Armageddon by passing the ball to the US Congress to authorize an attack on Syria that the world (other than Israel and Al Qaeda) doesn't want. An attack that Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, called illegal.

American engagement with the civil war in Syria will most likely lead to a regional war in the Middle East that will quickly spiral out of control. The civil war has degenerated into a Shia vs Sunni battle. US involvement will only inflame the Shia vs Sunni tensions throughout the region.

There are stateless terrorist organizations in the Syrian upheaval - Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. Hezbollah is supported by Iran and is committed to fight Israel. Al Qaeda supports the Syrian rebels and has an agenda to make Syria an Islamic state.

In the Syrian civil war Al Qaeda is, ironically, America's ally - as it was in overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. If America attacks Syria expect Hezbollah and Al Qaeda to engage fully across all the unstable Middle East nations.

Also, if America attacks Syria there will be an immediate state of war between us and Iran - Syria's neighbor and strategic partner in the region. Needless to say Israel will be involved in any such battle - and that will drag in all the Arab states still on the sidelines.

Within hours after a US military strike against Syria, it is likely that we will have most of the Middle East states embroiled in a regional all-out war.

Only worse will follow. Russia is fully committed to defending the sovereignty of Assad's government with equipment and boots on the ground. Syria's missile defense and attack capability is sophisticated Russian technology. They will not watch their investment be destroyed without consequences.

Last, but not least: there's China. China stands behind Russia in its outrage concerning any attack by the US on Syria.

If the US sends just one Tomahawk missile into Damascus, it won't be a shot across the bow, as Obama suggested last week. It will be a shot into the bow. There are no such things as surgical strikes with a cruise missile - anymore than than you can perform heart surgery with an axe.

If you don't think this is enough to lead us into World War Three, then we're doomed. I imagine a strike against Syria will have to wait until after the G-20 conference in Russia. That's so Obama and his henchmen can get back to the US and the nuclear shelter war room under Denver International Airport to watch all hell break loose on the big screen.

Obama is relying on the loyalty of the Democrat leadership to drag along party members while allying himself with the neo-conservative war mongers (McCain, Graham, Lieberman, Gingrich) in hopes of winning over enough GOP representatives to get a war authorization.

Is he out of his mind?

What to do?
IF YOU LIVE IN HAWAII CONTACT YOUR US REPRESENTATIVES.
TELL THEM WHAT YOU THINK NOW!

---

Hawaiian congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa said this week:

“As it stands now, U.S. military involvement in Syria lacks a solid legal basis, a clear long-term strategy, and vital international and domestic approval. Though intelligence has been presented by the Obama Administration, I am not convinced that it serves the purpose of justifying military force or other intervention in Syria."

Hawaiian congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard said this week:

“The importance of this debate and the process of seeking Congressional approval for a military intervention is critical. It is an opportunity for the American people and their representatives to review the facts and evidence, and understand what the endgame and next steps would be for any type of U.S. military intervention. This is a very big decision with tremendous impacts here at home, in Syria, and the Middle East region.”

These to women seem to have open minds and an interest in avoiding war. We need to support them and make it clear that the people of Hawaii condemn attacking Syrian people.  We need Gabbard, in particular, as crucial a voice of peace. She is a Buddhist and currently active as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Hawaii Army National Guard, and a veteran with two tours of duty since 2004 in the Middle East.

Our two Hawaiian US Senators more likely to support Obama, with respect to Syria.

US Senator Brian Schatz was a political strategist in Hawaii for Obama in his run for president. He was Abercrombie's Lt Governor, and was appointed Senator when Daniel Inouye passed away. He's a hack of whoever is in power. Let's hope he can display an independent will.

Senator Brian Schatz said this week:

"We must send a clear message that the use of chemical weapons is abhorrent and will not be tolerated by the United States or the international community.  It is important that whatever actions the United States takes in Syria are consistent with America’s long-term strategic interests and are done with as broad an international coalition as possible"

Senator Maize Hirono has not yet made a public statement on Syria intervention that we know of. We can only hope she sees the danger of a wider war in the Middle East and beyond.

Contact Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa
1st Congressional District (Honolulu)
https://hanabusa.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
Washington D.C. Office
238 Cannon Huse Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2726

Hawaii Office
300 Ala Moana Boulevard
Prince Kuhio Building Room 4-104
Honolulu, HI 96850
Phone: (808) 541-2570

Contact Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
2nd Congressional District (rural Oahu and outer islands)
https://gabbard.house.gov/contact/email-me

Washington D.C. Office
502 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-1102Phone 202-225-4906

Hawaii Office

300 Ala Moana Boulevard

Prince Kuhio Building Room 5-104

Honolulu, HI 96850

Phone: (808) 541-1986 

Contact Senator Brian Schaz
casework@schatz.senate.gov 
Washington D.C. Office
722 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-1105
Phone: (202)-224-3934

Hawaiian Office
300 Ala Moana Boulevard
Prince Kuhio Building Room 7-212
Honolulu, HI 96850 
Contact Senator Maize Hirono 
http://www.hirono.senate.gov/contact/email

Washington D.C. Office

330 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

Phone: (202) 224-6361

Hawaii Office

300 Ala Moana Boulevard

Prince Kuhio Building Room 3-106

Honolulu, HI 96850

Phone: (808) 522-8970


Video above: "The Road to World War Three". From (http://youtu.be/HP7L8bw5QF4)

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Smoke Break in the War Room 9/4/13

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Smoke Break in the War Room

SUBHEAD: "Everyone will lose control of the situation when the powder keg explodes. Chaos and extremism will spread." - Syrian Pres. Bashar Assad.

By William Pfaff on 3 September  2013 for TruthDig -
(http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/assad_baits_obama_as_the_world_waits_20130903/)


Image above: George C. Scott as the gum chewing General Buck Turgidson in "Dr. Strangelove" (1964) who wishes to sucker-punch the Russians with a full nuclear attack. Notably, in the movie the America President Merkin Mufly, played by Peter Sellers, is reluctant to go to war, and the generals are gung-ho.  Today that seems reversed. Interestingly, Sellers also plays the maniacal Dr. Strangelove, the ex-Nazi who offers the elites in the War Room a way to survive WWIII.  From (http://thebestpictureproject.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/dr-strangelove/).

It would seem a piece of wisdom picked up on the school playground not to start a fight that you don’t know how to finish.

President Barack Obama may have missed this lesson during his primary school experience in Indonesia. But perhaps the U.S. Congress will spare him military folly with its vote next week on intervention in Syria.

France then might have to go to war alone against Syria or recruit a new coalition of its own. The last thing President Francois Hollande expected was for an American president to “go wobbly” about attacking another country (as Margaret Thatcher warned the first George Bush, when he seemed hesitant to intervene in Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990). It was shock enough for Mr. Hollande to discover last week that the majority of the British House of Commons are beer-drinking surrender monkeys. What if next week he should find the U.S. House of Representatives a passel of timid tea-sippers?

The confusion surrounding this current show of Western disunity and pacific intention has taken on a comic air (were the subject not tragedy and the butchery of war), not only in Paris and London but in Washington, in the White House and Pentagon, and in congressional circles.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, has in the recent past made clear his own doubts about the merits and consequences of an attack on Syria, although his duty now is to follow orders.

There are other observers of the Pentagon and of the history of American foreign policy who point out that the U.S. military doesn’t really “do” limited and tailored military operations that deliver “a shot across the bow,” which is what President Obama said on public television last week he wants delivered to President Assad, to warn him off future uses of chemical weapons.

Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, both hawkish on attack, talked with President Obama on Monday and emerged saying that the foreseen attack would “essentially be to degrade” the military capacity of Syria. Sen. Graham said he left the meeting “feeling better.” That assignment, however, is not a minor military operation, at least as the U.S. Air Force and Navy do it.

There is the problem as well that the victim may shoot back, as happens in wars. Should Syria’s ally Iran become involved in reaction to a Franco-American attack, it possesses a system of attack on warships, using anti-ship-missile-armed speedboat flotillas, taken by the U.S. Navy to be a serious threat. And everywhere generous supplies exist of long- and mid-range missiles.

President Assad, in an interview with Paris’s Le Figaro newspaper, said: “The Middle East is a powder keg and the fuse is getting shorter. We shouldn’t just talk about a Syrian response, but what will happen after the first strike. Everyone will lose control of the situation when the powder keg explodes. Chaos and extremism will spread. The risk of a regional war exists.”

The interviewer asks, “Would Syria attack Israel?” The president replies, “You surely don’t expect me to tell you what our riposte would be?”

The question remains what the U.S. should do. Vali Masr, head of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, says in a New York Times op-ed that America’s strategic interest is to “mortally wound” the Assad regime, and then immediately “take decisive action” to assure that Syria does not “become a haven for Al Qaeda.” Unless he knows forms of decisive action the rest of us do not, that means occupation with ground troops and those military measures that have in the past decade proven so successful in pacifying and eliminating terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He says, though: “That is what the world needs.” Another commentator at the Times, Ross Douthat, joins the multitude of American and foreign analysts who tell us that American military power must be used to create and sustain “a stable, rule-based, multilateral world order.” Thank you, Mr. Douthat.

Such recommendations all assume that international stability and order, which is the avowed goal of the U.S. and its allies, can be obtained and sustained by Western military intervention, war, occupation and “democratization”—meaning to effect a fundamental change of political and moral culture in societies remote from our own, who do not see the changes we wish to impose as necessarily desirable. They will undoubtedly change eventually at their own, and history’s, pace.

Let us all then pray that the Republican majority in the American House of Representatives, in conformity with their party’s long and honorable traditions of reaction and isolationism, will be joined by a handful of chastened Democrats in defeating next week the president’s proposal for creating another and enlarged Middle Eastern war. If such a vote accomplishes nothing else, it will at least spare the suffering people of Syria still more horror, inflicted by their American and French well-wishers.


 Video above: In "Dr, Strangelove" the real reason for WWIII. "Loss of special bodily fluids". Those in charge can't get it up anymore. (http://youtu.be/N1KvgtEnABY)


Video above: General Turgidson makes his case to the President for a full-on nuclear attack on the Russians. From (http://youtu.be/vuP6KbIsNK4).


Video above: Dr. Strangelove explains the details of the Doomsday Machine. From (http://youtu.be/-mUCLHzWiJo).





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US stumbling into Syrian War

SUBHEAD: John Kerry stumbles before Congress in not really ruling out 'Boots On The Ground' in Syria.

By Luke Johnson on 3 September 2013 for Huffington Post -
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/03/john-kerry-boots-on-the-ground_n_3861860.html)


Image above: Five World Heritage Site damaged already in Syria. How will US bombs help? From (http://unescoheritagesites.blogspot.com/2012/10/civil-war-in-syria-damaged-world.html).

[IB Publisher's note: President Obama has had to ally himself with the Republican House leaders (Boehner and Cantor) as well as the neo-con war mongers McCain, Lindsey and Lieberman. What epic self destructive fools. Where are the liberals and progressive Democrats hiding?]

Secretary of State John Kerry at first refused to rule out the possibility of "boots on the ground" in Syria in a response to a question from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) in a congressional hearing Tuesday -- only to shut the door minutes later in a follow-up question.

In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing over proposed U.S. intervention in Syria's civil war, Kerry pointed to the possibility that a cache of chemical weapons could fall into the hands of a terrorist group to make the case for military action.

"I don't want to take off the table an option that might or might not be available to a president of the United States to secure our country," he said.

Menendez asked whether that meant the U.S. could send combat troops, and Kerry stumbled for an answer. "Well, assuming in going to protect those weapons, whether or not they had to answer a shot in order to be secure, I don't want to speak to that," he said.

Trying to recover, Kerry gave the "bottom line": "I'm absolutely confident, Mr. Chairman, that it is easy, not that complicated, to work out language that will satisfy the Congress and the American people that there's no door open here through which someone can march in ways that the Congress doesn't want it to while still protecting the national security interests of the country."

The meandering answer instantly gave fodder to critics who charged that the proposal to strike Syria in response to its use of chemical weapons is merely a ruse for a more protracted war. Kerry is known for his waffling answers, and he did not help himself in Tuesday's hearing.

President Barack Obama has flatly said that the Syrian conflict is not like Iraq or Afghanistan. "We're not considering any boots-on-the-ground approach," he said Tuesday.

But many Americans don't trust that U.S. intervention will be limited. A recent HuffPost/YouGov poll found that 47 percent think that airstrikes would lead to sending U.S. troops, and just 25 percent think such strikes would be limited.

Kerry's response did not sit well with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the committee's ranking member.

"I didn't find that a very appropriate response," he said.

"Let's shut that door now as tight as we can," said Kerry. "There will not be American boots on the ground with respect to the civil war."

But minutes later, Kerry again raised the specter of U.S. military action against the regime of Bashir al-Assad, before backing off.

"If [Assad is] foolish enough to respond to the world's enforcement against his criminal activity, if he does, he will invite something far worse and I believe something absolutely unsustainable for him," Kerry said. "Now, that doesn't mean the United States of America is going to war."

Kerry later circled back to further explain that statement. "I don't want anybody misinterpreting this from earlier," he said. "This authorization does not contemplate and should not have any allowance for troops on the ground."

But his clarification -- that an authorization of airstrikes would not allow for ground troops -- also underscored the potential damage of his first answer.

"What I was doing was hypothesizing about a potential -- it might occur at some point in time. But not in this authorization, in no way, be crystal clear," he said. "There is no problem in our having the language that has zero capacity for American troops on the ground within the authorization the president is asking for."

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: More on Obama's Retreat 8/31/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Obama backs down 8/31/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Obama's useless blow 8/29/13


.

Navy to conquer Marianas again

SOURCE: Koohan Paik (koohanpaik@gmail.com)
SUBHEAD: Two-thirds of Tinian, and the entire islands of Farallon de Medinilla and Pagan will be for  U.S. Department of Defense.

By Leevin Camacjo & Daniel Broudy on 8 July 2013 for Asia-Pacific Journal -
(http://www.japanfocus.org/-Leevin-Camacho/3963)


Image above: Shoreline along eastern Pagan Island in the Marianas to be used by US military for target prectice.  From (http://www.flickr.com/photos/weedmandan/4821191166/). Click to enlarge.

'Sweetening' the Pentagon's Deal in the Marianas: From Guam to Pagan

One of the most tested and effective means of maintaining order in society is controlling the meanings of keywords and concepts. In his book, Living in the Number One Country: Reflections of a Critic on American Empire, Herbert Schiller observes that ‘definitional control’ serves “to bulwark, or at least minimize, threats to the prevailing order.”¹ In the context of contemporary Guam, control over concepts of patriotism toward the United States have hardly needed any coercion from the top of the political order as gratitude toward the U.S. military for ending the brutal wartime Japanese occupation of Guam, decades ago, has largely remained fixed in the memory of the indigenous Chamorro people.²

Nevertheless, these long-lived and largely uncontested concepts of gratitude are presently undergoing a reassessment in Guam generally and expressly among indigenous people. The present public battle over control of indigenous land rights has created another battle over the very words that might best represent the intentions of those in the U.S. military who seek to assert claims over sacred indigenous land.

The memory of (Ret.) General David Bice characterizing political leaders of Guam as targets for enticement in 2010 also remains fresh in the minds of people struggling to protect land, particularly sacred land, from what is widely felt to be unwarranted military expansion. The military’s push to maintain control took the form of an email [full text] from Bice to concerned military organizations stating that the local community and its leaders must be divided in order for the Navy to get its way in securing sacred spaces for a new military firing range complex. In striking a tone of concern tempered by calm reassurance, Bice observed that;

[g]roups opposing Marine relocation [from Okinawa] are successfully seizing on Pågat as  a means to gain legitimacy with public [sic]—need to take the issue off the table to isolate them. We can get all of the land eventually, including a [surface danger zone] over Pågat; we need to be patient and build trust with the community first.

Evident in Bice’s characterization of the issue are at least two flaws.

The first comes from what seems to be a profound and troubling ignorance of the significance surrounding the Pågat “issue.” The historical and cultural importance of Pågat Village dates back 900 years or more and provides a concrete way for any visitor to Guam to see first-hand the remnants of a complex Chamorro narrative that developed before, during, and after contact with the Spanish.

Archaeologists and historians have uncovered evidence that supports the local belief that Pågat Village is the resting place for the bodies and spirits of their ancestors. Bound to indigenous beliefs and stories about life and death were routes of access to fresh water, a principal and pragmatic reason why ancient Chamorros were able to settle in the area. Pågat Village is located over Guam’s aquifer, which provides drinking water for 85% of Guam’s population.

The proposed location of a firing range complex overan indigenous village and burial site in addition to the potential adverse impacts on the island’s largest water resource were ample reasons to oppose Department of Defense (DoD) plans. But the community opposition was also rooted in a deeper, shared belief that DoD had simply sunk into greed.

Most Chamorro families on Guam have personally witnessed DoD taking their land and converting these stolen tracts into airfields, roadways, and ammunition storage facilities. Stories also still abound about taking indigenous lands and turning them into beach resorts, golf courses, and McDonald’s restaurants.

Shortly after the close of WWII, DoD annexed Fena Lake, another major ancient Chamorro settlement and source of fresh water in order to secure its own water source for military personnel. As a distressing spectacle of irony, DoD now sells the water from Fena Lake back to the government of Guam. Whereas Bice and his cohort have attempted to cast the “Pågat issue” as solely being about access to a tiny area it called “Pågat Village,” the community has viewed this as a blatant DoD attempt to take more land and externalize the negative impacts to the local populace outside the boundaries of the barbed-wire fence.

Notwithstanding the cultural significance of the natural environment with its priceless resource of fresh water, the location of Pågat itself and the artifacts unearthed there in earlier excavations suggest that the area was at one time awash with trading activity and part of a large network of cultural exchange. To historians, the site represents extremely fertile ground for continued studies in Western colonial activities and the mark these leave on the cultures and landscapes they subsume.


Image above: Partial map of the Marianas showing from Guam to Pagan islands. Click for enlarged full map.  From (http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/pibhmc/pibhmc_cnmi.htm).

The second flaw is really the subtext of Bice’s sketch of the growing opposition that Navy officials are now facing. By casting local lawmakers in Guam as mere children who could be deftly bought off with some lucrative political deals, the content of the email typifies a remarkable underestimation of the reasoning power of common citizens.

Much of the control over ideas about, and definitions of, key people whose consent was, and still is, necessary for the Navy’s expansion plans, slipped away when Bice’s email message was leaked to the wider public. His suggestion that the DoD would need to offer local leaders (i.e. Guam’s legislature) “sweeteners”³ so as to gain their support has hardly been sweet for the wider populace of Guam—where the community already contends with military forces occupying nearly 30% of the surface areas.⁴

On Guam, and throughout the Mariana Islands, DoD has hitherto largely avoided criticism for the vast areas of land, ocean, and air it has long appropriated for military training exercises. This is in no small part because, in many tight-knit communities across the region, DoD has had its own provincial champions—the local businesspeople and politicians who directly profit from military construction projects and environmental “mitigation” measures.

This privileged group of local collaborators represents one front of DoD’s two-pronged campaign to expand the scope of the military in the face of resistance from civil society. The second front, in the face of warnings of environmental destruction, is the strong media insistence that failure to give DoD carte blanche control will spell economic ruin for the region.

Despite the widespread opposition of historic preservation organizations, both local and national, the DoD campaign won approval of a key document known as a “Programmatic Agreement.” This enabled DoD to conjure up the illusion that the controversy surrounding “Pågat Village” was actually “off the table” and would no longer be part of its plans for a vast firing range complex.

Local media, in turn, have avoided challenging DoD’s attempt to redistrict indigenous lands, choosing, rather, to focus on the millions of dollars that could be generated from leases and the potential benefits of swapping ancestral lands for “valuable” properties ready for commercial development.

As stories of “sweet” deals for local people flood various media, the real prospect of economic ruin and its close connection to widespread environmental degradation has not been lost on the larger population. Some members of the local community have maintained deep skepticism about DoD attempts to present the issue as one of simple access to Pågat Village, while various grassroots organizations have tried to keep the public focused on the broader issues associated with the attempted land grab.

Recently, the unwarranted expansion of military ownership of indigenous lands is threatening to spread to the Northern Mariana Islands. Again, as Bice had intimated in his original email, taking the issue of Pågat “off the table” will “isolate” those trying to save this culturally valuable ancient site even while it appears that the size of DoD’s appetite is growing and it seeks to extend its reach from Guam to other parts of the Marianas.

In March 2013, the DoD announced expanded plans that will effectively convert two-thirds of Tinian into a large-scale military training complex. DoD has maintained a lease on these lands for decades, but has let the lands sit abandoned, much to the chagrin of the local community. Officials also revealed their intentions to transform the entire island of Pagan into a sprawling military training complex.

If these plans are allowed to unfold, one-third of Guam, two-thirds of Tinian, and the entire islands of Farallon de Medinilla and Pagan (pictured below) would fall under the control of the U.S. Department of Defense.

The present plans to annex Pagan would result in the permanent displacement of hundreds of indigenous families who were evacuated after a volcano on the island erupted in 1983. These families have been waiting for three decades for the local government to allow them to return to their homeland. Of course, none of these people could have imagined that their inability to return home would create such a golden opportunity for DoD officials to portray Pagan as having “no permanent inhabitants.”

As David Vine observes in his study of Diego Garcia, DoD efforts to control the definition of a people’s status is part and parcel of a much larger U.S. effort to exercise “control over other nations and peoples not primarily through colonies but through its base network and a range of other military, economic, and political tools.”⁵ Correspondingly, Pagan’s present lack of “permanent inhabitants,” in such a remote and, thus, invisible region ⁶, has been a critical component of DoD’s conclusion that Pagan was the only suitable site for combined-level training, replete with enough practice space for coordinated amphibious and aerial assaults. In an attempt to pitch the plans to the local community, DoD has attempted to recast the indigenous people of Pagan as permanent transients—inhabitants with no habitat.

Some have compared these designs for Pagan with those drawn up in Vieques, Puerto Rico in the 1940’s. The comparison underscores the wider practice and history of making military designs and imposing them upon civil societies that had no hand in their creation. Observers of this trend note that it’s no coincidence that Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands are all U.S. “possessions,” with no voting representation in the U.S. Congress and no means of participating in other cherished hallmarks of representative democracy. When people feel entirely possessed by distant centers of power, as in Guam, they may feel all the more motivated to challenge the legal and moral bases that purport to justify possessions of this magnitude.

Kajihiro pointedly observes that, at times, “the large countries have cooperated to impose imperial (dis)order, drowning local and indigenous cultures and economies under a rising tide of ‘progress.’”⁷ When land, water, and air all become objects of the military’s sense of progress, what will be left to protect? Furthermore, who in society should be most engaged in working out the meanings of the most significant terms and concepts? The military or the populace? The authors of Under Occupation: Resistance and Struggle in a Militarised Asia-Pacificere seek and entertain various answers to questions like these.

Recommended Citation: Leevin Camacho and Daniel Broudy, "‘Sweetening’ the Pentagon’s Deal in the Marianas: From Guam to Pagan," Vol. 11, Issue 27, No. 1, July 8, 2013.

Notes
¹ Herbert Schiller, Living in the Number One Country: Reflections of a Critic on American Empire (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2000), 152.
² Miyume Tanji, “Japanese Wartime Occupation, War Reparation and Guam’s Chamorro Self-Determination,” in Under Occupation: Resistance and Struggle in a Militarised Asia-Pacific, eds. Daniel Broudy, Peter Simpson, and Makoto Arakaki. (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), 161.
³ Read the full email from David Bice here
⁴ Catherine Lutz, “US Military Bases on Guam in Global Perspective,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, 30-3-10, July 26, 2010.
⁵ David Vine, Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia, (Princeton University Press, 2011), 190.
⁶ Engseng Ho, “Empire through Diasporic Eyes: A View from the Other Boat,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2004, 46(2) 210-246,  232
⁷ Kyle Kajihiro, “Moananuiākea or ‘American Lake’? Contested Histories of the US ‘Pacific Pivot’,” in Under Occupation: Resistance and Struggle in a Militarised Asia-Pacific, eds. Daniel Broudy, Peter Simpson, and Makoto Arakaki. (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), 127.

See also:
Island Breath: Navy Plans for the Pacific 9/3/07

Ea O Ka Aina: Guam Land Grab 11/30/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Guam - Another Strategic Island 11/9/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Diego Garcia - Another stolen island 11/6/09
Ea O Ka Aina: DARPA & Super-Cavitation on Kauai 3/24/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Sleepwalking through destruction 7/16/12
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC 2012 war games 6/20/12
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC 2010 returning 5/2/10
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2008 - Navy fired up in Hawaii 7/2/08
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2006 - Impact on oceani 5/23/06
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2004 - Whale strandings on Kauai 9/2/04

• Leevin Camacho is a practicing attorney in Guam and active member of WeAreGuåhan—a collective of concerned individuals engaged in the preservation of native Chamorro culture, environment and resources. His research and work are focused on social and domestic issues.

• Daniel Broudy is Professor of Rhetoric and Applied Linguistics at Okinawa Christian University. He has taught in the United States, Korea, and Japan. His research includes the critical analysis of media discourse, signs, and symbols. He is co-author of Rhetorical Rape: The Verbal Violations of the Punditocracy (2010), serves as a managing editor for Synaesthesia communications journal, and writes about current discourse practices that shape the public mind.
 

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X-Men like Ice Wall for Fukushima

SOURCE: Russ Pascatore (russ.pascatore@titanx.com)
SUBHEAD: Japanese government proposes freezing ground around nuke site to save Pacific Ocean... until the lights go out again.

By AP Staff on 3 September 2013 in RYOT -
(http://www.ryot.org/japan-building-x-men-like-ice-wall-around-fukushima/350741)


Image above: This, obviously, is a job for Marvel Comic's superhero Ice Man. From (http://www.comicvine.com/x-men/4060-3173/forums/take-a-point-add-a-point-x-men-characters-647423/?page=16).

The Japanese government announced Tuesday that it will spend $470 million on a subterranean ice wall and other steps in a desperate bid to stop leaks of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear station after repeated failures by the plant’s operator.

The decision is widely seen as an attempt to show that the nuclear accident won’t be a safety concern just days before the International Olympic Committee chooses between Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid as the host of the 2020 Olympics.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has been leaking hundreds of tons of contaminated underground water into the sea since shortly after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami damaged the complex. Several leaks from tanks storing tainted water in recent weeks have heightened the sense of crisis that the plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., isn’t able to contain the problem.

“Instead of leaving this up to TEPCO, the government will step forward and take charge,” said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after adopting the outline. “The world is watching if we can properly handle the contaminated water but also the entire decommissioning of the plant.”

The government plans to spend an estimated 47 billion yen ($470 million) through the end of March 2015 on two projects – 32 billion yen ($320 million) on the ice wall and 15 billion yen ($150 million) on upgraded water treatment units that is supposed to remove all radioactive elements but water-soluble tritium – according to energy agency official Tatsuya Shinkawa.

The government, however, is not paying for urgently needed water tanks and other equipment that TEPCO is using to stop leaks. Shinkawa said the funding is limited to “technologically challenging projects” but the government will open to additional help when needed.

The ice wall would freeze the ground to a depth of up to 30 meters (100 feet) through an electrical system of thin pipes carrying a coolant as cold as minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit). That would block contaminated water from escaping the facility’s immediate surroundings, as well as keep underground water from entering the reactor and turbine buildings, where much of the radioactive water has collected.

The project, which TEPCO and the government proposed in May, is being tested for feasibility by a Japanese construction giant Kajima Corp. and set for completion by March 2015.

Similar methods have been used to block water from parts of tunnels and subways, but building a 1.4 kilometer (2-mile) wall that surrounds four reactor buildings and their related facilities is unprecedented.

An underground ice wall has been used to isolate radioactive waste at the U.S. Department of Energy’s former site of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee that produced plutonium, but only for six years, according to the MIT Technology Review magazine.

Some experts are still skeptical about the technology and say the running costs would be a huge burden.

Atsunao Marui, an underground water expert at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, said a frozen wall could be water-tight but is normally intended for use for a couple of years and is not proven for long-term use as planned in the outline. The decommissioning process is expected to take about 40 years.

“We still need a few layers of safety backups in case it fails,” Marui told the Associated Press. “Plus the frozen wall won’t be ready for another two years, which means contaminated water would continue to leak out.”

Marui said additional measures should be taken to stop contaminated water from keep traveling under the seabed during that time and leak further out in the sea.

TEPCO has been pumping water into the wrecked reactors to keep cool nuclear fuel that melted when the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant’s power and cooling system. The utility has built more than 1,000 tanks holding 335,000 tons of contaminated water at the plant, and the amount grows by 400 tons daily. Some tanks have sprung leaks, spilling contaminated water onto the ground.

After spending on the ice wall, the remainder of the public funding – 15 billion yen until March 2015 – will go to the development and production of a water treatment unit that can treat the contaminated water more thoroughly and by a larger volume than an existing machine, which is under repair after corrosion was found during a test run.

Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka has repeatedly said that the contaminated water cannot be stored in tanks forever and eventually has to be released into the sea after fully processed and diluted, but only with local consent.

Other measures include replacing rubber-seamed storage tanks with more durable welded tanks as quickly as possible, and pumping out untainted underground water further inland for release into the sea to reduce the total amount flowing into the plant site. About 1,000 tons of underground water runs into the complex every day.

TEPCO is also constructing an offshore wall of steel panels along the coast to keep contaminants from spreading further into the sea. The utility says radioactive elements have mostly remained near the embankment inside the bay, but experts have reported offshore “hot spots” of sediments contaminated with high levels of cesium.

The leaks came at a worst time as Tokyo headed into the final days of the contest to host the 2020 Summer Olympics. With anti-government demonstrations plaguing Istanbul, Turkey’s bid and a recession and high Spanish unemployment hanging over Madrid’s candidacy, Tokyo is pushing its bid as the safe choice in uncertain times.

The IOC will select the 2020 host on September 7th in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

[RYOT Note: Radioactive leaks are extremely harmful not only to human life, but to all life on our planet. The Ian Somerhalder Foundation views the environment as an interconnected organism of which we are not separate but a part of. They work to empower, educate and collaborate with people and projects to positively impact the planet and its creatures. Click here to learn more, donate and Become the News!]

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Fukushima out of control

SUBHEAD: Radiation levels soaring past danger levels. Japanese to dump radioactive water into ocean.

By Staff on 1 September 2013 for RTE News -
(http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0901/471498-fukushima-radiation/)


Image above: Japan's nuclear inspectors at water tanks early this month where radiation levels have rocketed in 'deplorable' situation. From original article.

Radiation near a tank holding highly contaminated water at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has spiked 18-fold, the plant's operator says.

Radiation of 1,800 millisieverts per hour - enough to kill an exposed person in four hours - was detected near the bottom of one storage tank yesterday according to the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).

Readings on Aug 22 measured radiation of 100 millisieverts per hour at the same tank.

Japan's legal limits for nuclear plant workers' exposure during normal hours is just 50 millisieverts

Last month, Tepco revealed that water from the tank was leaking. Japan's chief cabinet secretary has described as the situation as "deplorable".

The Japanese nuclear regulator has raised the leak from a level 1 "anomaly" to a level 3 "serious incident" on the international scale for radiation releases.

The Fukushima plant was devastated by a tsunami on 11 March 2011 causing meltdowns at three reactors, radioactive contamination of the air, sea and food and the evacuation of 160,000 people.

It sparked the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in Ukraine in the former USSR in 1986.

While there were no new leaks found at the tank, a Tepco spokesman said another leak had been detected from a pipe connecting two other tanks nearby.

"We have not confirmed fresh leakage from the tank and water levels inside the tank have not changed," the Tepco spokesman said. "We are investigating the cause."

Tepco said the radiation measured was beta rays, which would be easier to protect against than gamma rays.

The Tepco spokesman also said the higher level of radiation from the latest reading was partly because investigators had used a measuring instrument capable of registering greater amounts of radiation.

Instruments used previously had only been capable of measuring radiation up to 100 millisieverts, but the new instruments were able to measure up to 10,000 millisieverts.

With no one seeming to know how to bring the crisis to an end, Tepco said last week it would invite foreign decommissioning experts to advise it on how to deal with the highly radioactive water leaking from the site.

---

Water to be dumped in Pacific

By Kim-Kyung on 1 September 2013 for Australian Broadcast Company -
(http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-02/radioactive-water-from-the-fukushima-nuclear-plant-to-be-dumped/4930084)

The head of Japan's nuclear watchdog has flagged dumping radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific, but says the level of contamination in the water would be well within legal limits.

Speaking to foreign reporters in Tokyo, the head of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, Shinichi Tanaka, said there may be no choice but to pump radioactive water from Fukushima into the sea.

"I'm afraid that it is unavoidable to dump or release the water into the sea," he said.

But Mr Tanaka says most of the contamination would be removed first, meaning the radiation level in the water would be well below the legal limit.

There is more than 300,000 tonnes of contaminated water being stored at the Fukushima plant, with hundreds of tonnes being added to that every day.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has long struggled to deal with the massive amounts of water used to cool reactors that went into meltdown after being struck by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

Key points:

• Water from the ruined Fukushima nuclear plant will be released into the Pacific Ocean.
• The level of contamination in the water would be well within legal limits.
• TEPCO has struggled to deal with the massive amounts of water used to cool reactors.
• Media reports suggest prosecutors decided to drop charges against former prime minister.

Neighbouring countries and local fishermen have expressed concern at the mooted release from the plant, where contaminated water was already believed to have escaped into sea.

Mr Tanaka says he would try to gain the international community's understanding before dumping any treated water into the Pacific.

"The situation at Fukushima is changing everyday," Mr Tanaka said.

"Fukushima Daiichi has various risks. The accident has yet to be settled down."

The clean-up at the plant has been hit by a series of mishaps that have cast doubt on the utility's ability to contain the world's worst atomic disaster.

On Sunday the company said it had found highly radioactive water dripping from a pipe connecting two coolant tanks at one of four radiation hotspots.

Denouncing the firm's "careless management" of contaminated water, Mr Tanaka said: "We need to give them very strict instructions."

Charges against former PM dropped
Newspaper Sankei Shimbun reported on Monday that prosecutors had decided to drop criminal charges against former prime minister Naoto Kan, government officials and TEPCO executives over their roles in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.

Prosecutors had examined the case after local residents filed criminal complaints, but could not find enough evidence to show negligence of duty, the daily said, adding that the decision may be announced later this week.

Meanwhile, workers began switching off one of Japan's two working reactors on Monday, with the other set for shutdown later this month and no restarts in sight.

Kansai Electric Power had started reducing generating power at its Unit Number 3 at the Oi plant in the western prefecture of Fukui, a company spokesman said.

He said the reactor will be fully shut down by early Tuesday in readiness for inspections legally mandated within 13 months of the start of commercial operations.

The reactor is one of the only two still generating power in Japan. The other one, Unit Number 4 at Oi, is to be switched off on September 15, 2013.

Japan has turned to pricey fossil-fuel alternatives to fill the gap left by the shutdown of atomic plants, which had supplied about one-third of the resource-poor nation's electricity before the disaster.

---

Radioactive plume in US by 2014

By Jeremy Hsu on 1 September 2013 for Huffington Post - 
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/01/fukushima-radioactive-plume_n_3853604.html)

A radioactive plume of water in the Pacific Ocean from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, which was crippled in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, will likely reach U.S. coastal waters starting in 2014, according to a new study. The long journey of the radioactive particles could help researchers better understand how the ocean’s currents circulate around the world.

Ocean simulations showed that the plume of radioactive cesium-137 released by the Fukushima disaster in 2011 could begin flowing into U.S. coastal waters starting in early 2014 and peak in 2016. Luckily, two ocean currents off the eastern coast of Japan — the Kuroshio Current and the Kuroshio Extension — would have diluted the radioactive material so that its concentration fell well below the World Health Organization’s safety levels within four months of the Fukushima incident. But it could have been a different story if nuclear disaster struck on the other side of Japan.

“The environmental impact could have been worse if the contaminated water would have been released in another oceanic environment in which the circulation was less energetic and turbulent,” said Vincent Rossi, an oceanographer and postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems in Spain.

Fukushima’s radioactive water release has taken its time journeying across the Pacific. By comparison, atmospheric radiation from the Fukushima plant began reaching the U.S. West Coast within just days of the disaster back in 2011. [Fukushima Radiation Leak: 5 Things You Should Know]

Tracking radioactivity’s path
The radioactive plume has three different sources: radioactive particles falling out from the atmosphere into the ocean, contaminated water directly released from the plant, and water that became contaminated by leaching radioactive particles from tainted soil.

The release of cesium-137 from Fukushima in Japan’s more turbulent eastern currents means the radioactive material is diluted to the point of posing little threat to humans by the time it leaves Japan’s coastal waters. Rossi worked with former colleagues at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Australia to simulate the spread of Fukushima’s radioactivity in the oceans — a study detailed in the October issue of the journal Deep-Sea Research Part 1.

Researchers averaged 27 experimental runs of their model — each run starting in a different year — to ensure that the simulated spread of the cesium-137 as a "tracer" was not unusually affected by initial ocean conditions. Many oceanographers studying the ocean’s currents prefer using cesium-137 to track the ocean currents because it acts as a passive tracer in seawater, meaning it doesn't interact much with other things, and decays slowly with a long half-life of 30 years.

“One advantage of this tracer is its long half-life and our ability to measure it quite accurately, so that it can be used in the future to test our models of ocean circulation and see how well they represent reality over time,” Rossi told LiveScience. “In 20 years' time, we could go out, grab measurements everywhere in the Pacific and compare them to our model.”

Journey across the Pacific Rim
The team focused on predicting the path of the radioactivity until it reached the continental shelf waters stretching from the U.S. coastline to about 180 miles (300 kilometers) offshore. About 10 to 30 becquerels (units of radioactivity representing decay per second) per cubic meter of cesium-137 could reach U.S. and Canadian coastal waters north of Oregon between 2014 and 2020. (Such levels are far below the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s limits for drinking water.)

By comparison, California’s coast may receive just 10 to 20 becquerels per cubic meter from 2016 to 2025. That slower, lesser impact comes from Pacific currents taking part of the radioactive plume down below the ocean surface on a slower journey toward the Californian coast, Rossi explained.

A large proportion of the radioactive plume from the initial Fukushima release won't even reach U.S. coastal waters anytime soon. Instead, the majority of the cesium-137 will remain in the North Pacific gyre — a region of ocean that circulates slowly clockwise and has trapped debris in its center to form the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” — and continue to be diluted for approximately a decade following the initial Fukushima release in 2011. (The water from the current power plant leak would be expected to take a similar long-term path to the initial plume released, Rossi said.)

But the plume will eventually begin to escape the North Pacific gyre in an even more diluted form. About 25 percent of the radioactivity initially released will travel to the Indian Ocean and South Pacific over two to three decades after the Fukushima disaster, the model showed.
.

Events supporting Bill 2491

SOURCE: Linda Harmon (4lindaharmon@gmail.com)
SUBHEAD: A week filled with several events supporting Kauai County Council Bill to regulate restricted use pesticides and GMOs.

By Andrea Brower on 2 September 2013 in Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2013/09/events-supporting-bill-2491.html)


Image above: On Saturday, March 9, 2013, thousands of activists on Kauai marched in the rain against GMOs. From (http://occupy-monsanto.com/tag/kauai/).

Thousand of doctors, nurses, farmers, beekeepers, labor unions, parents, teachers, environmentalists, surfers, local business owners and concerned community members will march through Lihue, Kauai beginning at noon Sunday Sept. 8 at Vidinha Stadium in a show of solidarity and support for Kauai County Council Bill 2491 related to pesticides and GMOs. The “Mana March” is expected to be the largest public march in Kauai history.

The march will take place one day before the Kauai County Council reconvenes to discuss the bill, which would require disclosure by the five agricultural companies that use 98% of Restricted-Use Pesticides on the island.

The event will begin with a pule at 11:30 a.m. Marchers will walk down Hoolako Street, turning right on Rice Street, continuing to the Historic Kauai County Building. A rally, including music by Makana, John Cruz, Kepa Kruse and Shilo Pa will follow from 2 to 6 p.m. on the County Building lawn.

A media tent will be available at Vidinha Stadium from 11 to 11:45am, and starting at 1:30pm at the County Building lawn, following the march.

Four of the world’s largest chemical corporations currently use some of Kauai’s best agricultural lands to test their new pesticide and GMO technologies. Kauai residents are concerned about the impacts of this industry on the island, and through “Right to Know” Bill 2491 are seeking basic information to ensure that the community is protected.

Bill 2491 would also establish buffer zones between pesticide application and schools, hospitals, residential areas and waterways, mandate that a health and environmental study be conducted to better understand the impacts of the agro-chemical/GMO industry on the island, and put a temporary halt on expansion of the industry while the study is being conducted.

Public Testimony

Westside taro farmer and retired fire captain John Aana says he and other concerned residents are marching because, “Our residents are suffering from health problems, our land and waters are being contaminated, leaving a wasted environment for our grandchildren.”

The medical community has expressed overwhelming support for Bill 2491, with many doctors and nurses coming forward with concerns about illnesses that appear noticeably higher in communities living near agro-chemical/GMO operations.

Dr. Lee Evslin, a pediatrician and retired CEO of Wilcox Memorial Hospital and Kauai Medical Clinic, says that “Research shows pesticide links to delays in neurological development, endocrine abnormalities, behavioral issues and an increase in childhood cancers such as leukemia. Why wouldn’t you have buffers around schools? Why wouldn’t you have knowledge about what’s being sprayed?”

Felicia Villalobos, Hawaii State Teachers Association (HSTA) Kauai Chapter Vice-President says that, “Teachers believe that it is critical that students learn in schools that are free from the effects of proven biological hazards that cause harm to children and adults. This is a collective policy that has been abetted by both the National Educational Association (NEA) and the Hawaii State Teachers Association members.”

Dr. Carl Berg of Surfrider Foundation expresses concern that, "Atrazine, other pesticides and surfactants have been found in streams and nearshore waters even though best management practices were supposedly used. No more should contaminate our waters. We need full disclosure to study the impacts these chemicals are having on our soil, water and wildlife."

Hoku Cabebe says, “I am marching because as a mother I’m concerned about the safety of my child, and as a Hawaiian I’m concerned about the safety of the `aina.”

Local farmers and beekeepers also strongly support Bill 2491. Louisa Wooton of Kauai Kunana Dairy says that, “As farmers, we know how important healthy soil is to our island’s long-term food security and economic well-being. We are also very concerned that bees, which are critical to the food supply, are being affected by these pesticides. As an organic farm inspector, I have seen first-hand beekeepers in the State lose their ability to sell certified organic honey because their forage areas have been compromised by neighboring GMO fields.”

Stephanie Krieger, owner of Nani Moon Meadery, says, "As a small business that relies on both local fruit and honey products and a strong visitor economy, I will be marching with other business owners in strong support of Bill 2491. Visitors who come in to my store are in disbelief about pesticide use on the island, and many people have continued to email me about their concerns even after leaving the island."

The Hawaii Nurses Association, Local 5 Hawaii, the HSTA and the Hawaii Farmers Union have all endorsed Bill 2491. Local 5 said in a statement, “As a labor organization, we understand the importance of protecting good jobs for our local people. We also recognize that we need to take control of our health and the long-term economic sustainability of our communities. Hawaii is our home, and it can be a place for us to continue to work, play and raise our families.”

Dustin Barca, pro-surfer, pro-fighter and director of `Ohana o Kauai said, “We are marching because the time is now to make positive changes for the future health of our children and natural resources.” 

Mom's meet and Greet Potluck
WHAT:
Moms gathering to talk about risks and solutions for their Ohana

WHEN:
Tuesday, September 3rd 2013, at 5pm.

WHERE:
Poipu Big Beach Pavilion
Poipu, Kauai

Sign Making Party with DJ
WHAT:
Make banners for the March or road signs for the bill.
Donovan Cabebe from KKCR will DJ for us while we paint!

WHEN:

Wednesday, September 4th, 2013 at 5pm.

WHERE:

Lydgate State Park at the Big Pavilion
Wailua, Kauai

Mana March!
WHAT:
This is the MAIN EVENT, now is the time to step up and show your support for the bill. March from Vidinha Stadium to the Historic County Building.

WHEN:
Sunday, September 8th 11:30am - 6:00pm

WHERE:
Vidinha Stadium
Hoolako Street, Lihue, Kauai

SCHEDULE:
Pule starts at 11:30am at Vidinha Stadium
March to County Building down Rice street at 12:00pm. 
Music from 2pm to 6pm on the County Building lawn.
Presenting Makana, John Cruz, Kepa Kruse and Shilo Pa

DETAIL:
Bring everyone you know that you can get to go!  Never was a more important time for this movement to show up, so please come. Full press release below with more important details.   

County Council Vote
WHAT:
Taking a vote! Kauai County Council Committee hearing on Bill 2491 to regulate Restricted Use Pesicides and experimental GMO's on Kauai.

WHEN:
Monday, September 9th starting at 9:00am 
If you are hardcore and want a seat inside, consider arriving at 7:00am, yikes!

WHERE:
Kauai Council Chamber
Historic Kauai County Building
4396 Rice Street, Lihue, Kauai

Failed Promises, Flawed Science
Presentations of:
"RoundUp - The Silent Killer"
by Dr Don Huber, Soil Pathologist, Professor Emeritus Purdue University.

"Poisoned Soil - New Methods of Soil Remediation"
by Robert Streit, Agronomy Consultant

WHEN & WHERE:
Tuesday, September 10th, starting at 6:30pm
Performing Arts Center at KCC
Puhi, Kauai

and also on:

Wednesday, September 11th, starting at 6:30pm
Waimea Canyon Middle School
Waimea, Kauai

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Bill 2491 into the Home Stretch 9/2/13






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Bill 2491 into the home stretch

SUBHEAD: With 2 YES votes, 2 NO votes and 3 "How to get through this without killing my political career?"

By Andy Parx on 1 September 2013 for Parx News Daily -
(http://parxnewsdaily.blogspot.com/2013/09/around-turn-and-down-stretchthey-come.html)


Image above: Ad slogan from chemical company; "DDT - It's good for Me-e-e!" Truck sprays children with DDT in Waco, Texas, in 1950's. From (http://kootation.com/malick-s-the-tree-of-life-life56-film-stage/thefilmstage.com*wp-content*uploads*2010*12*Tree-of-Life56.png/). See also (http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/06/27/ddt-is-good-for-me-e-e/).

It's crunch time for Bill 2491 as a series of events this week lead up to the big Kaua`i County Council committee meeting on Monday September 9, including the Mana March and Rally on Sunday September 8th when thousands are expected to gather at Vidhina Stadium in Lihue at 11:30 a.m. and and at noon march up Rice Street to the County Building where music and fun are promised.

But before that on Thursday September 5th the Council will be holding a executive session meeting on the bill that would require disclosure of restricted pesticide use, buffer zones around schools and homes and a moratorium on new experimental Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) tests pending an environmental assessment.

Closed door meeting or not, organizers are urging people to make a showing in their red shirts to show support for the bill. Even though public testimony will be taken (by law), since most everything that can be said to the council has been said, it would seem counterproductive to make it into a repetitive public yak-fest.

So what is The State of The Bill this week? And what are both the white hats (Gary Hooser and Tim Bynum) and the black hats (Mel Rapozo and Ross Kagawa) planning?

Near as we can tell despite the fact that the 'chemical-biotech/just-plain-simple-farmers' massive million dollar PR campaign has put bullet after bullet into their own feet with counter-intuitive shmaltz and "did he really say that" common-sense-defying, expert blathering, there are still at least 17 people left on the island, with the exception of employees and vendors, who actually oppose the intent of the bill.

But for the other 60,742 of us the important numbers are 2-2-3: two yes votes, two no votes and three "how am I going to get through this without killing my political career and/or legacy" votes.

On the September 9th it's expected that the NOs, Mel and Ross, will put up a fight on a few fronts to give cover to councilmembers Nadine Nakamura and Jay Furfaro to vote to kill the bill entirely and JoAnn Yukimura to water it down with amendments that could allow it to pass but make it all but totally ineffective.

On the legal front all indications are that neither the County Attorney nor Attorney General is going to say there is any type of state law "preempting" the county's constitutional right to regulate the health and environmental safety of it's citizens. There is no question of preemption at the federal level as even the chemical companies' lawyers have agreed, there being strong US Supreme Court rulings saying that the county has those rights.

It is expected that some other big gun attorneys will show up to support the legality of the bill and it's looking like there's not much the "other five" will have on this front.

Then there are the "medical" issues... for lack of a better term.

JoAnn Yukimura has been making a lot of noise at a pitch only a lawyer can hear, trying to look for the definitive link to an actual proven medical epidemic of pesticide-related disease. This of course is NOT what is required as medical review, unlike law, is a very long meticulous process where "proof" of harm is concerned. But all that is needed legally here is the strong POTENTIAL for harm.

And there's no one but those Roundup-guzzling salesmen denying a pervasive potential for harm.

First there is the American Council on Pediatrics strong disdain of child exposure to any pesticides and the growing undeniable exposure of Waimea children at their schools and residences and other areas exposed to the wind drift. There's the sheer number of days and types of restricted use pesticides (RUPs), which are used in open air experiments 240 days a year, with each day having the potential for use of multiple RUPs. And there's the testimony of apparently all the pediatricians and almost every doctor and other health care provider on the island, all warning of the harm they are actually seeing.

To pooh-pooh this as being "only anecdotal" and not real potential harm is to misunderstand the nature of medical inquiry. It's painfully obvious why there are no "25-year studies" and as a matter of fact a law that requires disclosure is the first step in setting up these studies.

That kind of study is something that our state Department of Agriculture (DOA) seems to be working as hard as they can to prevent, ignoring and even misrepresenting the incidents of poisonings and looking more and more like shills for "Big Chemical" than the state level protector of the health of the people.

Wanna see something really scarey? One of our researches who has seen the DOA's inspection logs says that they made only 175 total inspections of all pesticide users in Kauai county over the past two year period. Of these inspections they have redacted 45% as "ongoing investigations" of "open cases" where violations could supposedly lead to enforcement actions, although enforcement of regulations in government circles is usually more a case of "seeking compliance" instead... sometimes years after the violation.

In these ongoing cases all the information is blank so no one in the public has any idea what the violation even is (or was). Of the unredacted inspections there were only 29 during a two year period that were done on the operations of the four agrochemical companies or 3.625 inspections per company per year... about one every hundred days. And they tell them when they are coming.

Don't forget about those 240 spraying days a year, according to information revealed though the current federal court lawsuit against Pioneer filed by 100 west-side people who say they've been harmed by the chemical companies pesticide practices.

Additionally, the Kauai DOA representative said in an open council session that it takes up to 3 years to resolve and close a case. They also said they don't even publicly notify the community when violations occur but only when they are resolved and then only if a member of the public requests the information.

And just ask anyone who has ever requested information from a state agency how easy that is. And that's for agencies that don't have anything they want to hide.

Which brings us to what will probably prove to be bill supporters' biggest challenge next week- one that people need to be fully aware of and fight like hell to stop it from happening.

Ross and Mel are determined to find a way to stop this bill - all of it. Killing it entirely most likely won't happen although remember what we said about JoAnn (Nadine too in past posts) and amendments. The disclosure and buffer zones look strong unless someone wants to throw away their political career or, in Jay's case, legacy.

The only way to stop it is to kick it upstairs.

We were discussing this with a long time observer and political operative on Kauai and, not surprisingly, we saw our own thoughts reflected in the email: It read:

What needs debunking is the laughable notion that "the state or federal government will take care of this for us if only we put pressure on them." It's the old "I'm going to write a letter and we can all sign it" strategy...just plain stupid.

"This is not our job and we will demand that the governor, the state legislature and the EPA and congress (in between voting to go to war)... make them do their jobs."

I can see it now. Kouchi and Tokioka will agree to "draft a Bill". The DOH and the DOA will agree to "look into updating the rules" and maybe the governor will even "establish a task force"...and see, there...it is all handled and several council members will say "whew...it is all handled...look what we did mom...plus we will write that letter... and we will all sign it...demanding that they do something...and then we'll get really tough... we will schedule a follow up meeting to make sure it happens."

As you and I know...nothing will happen except the process will drag for another 2 or 3 years...the industry hacks and attorneys will do their thing at the legislature during the long drawn out rule making process...and at the end of the day there will be bupkis, nada, nothing.

Plus...a quick scan of the campaign spending reports shows several of our legislative people are clearly taking piles of money from the biotech and GMO industries. And...the Chair of the Senate Ag committee (where any legislation will have to pass through) has also taken plenty...including donations from pharmaceutical companies (now why would a pharm company give to an Ag Chair?). I only skimmed very quickly the reports and found the obvious direct contributions and have not yet googled individuals or looked at the lobbyists numbers to see who the lobbyist who was giving money had as clients. I can't imagine what that will show...

All snark aside you get the picture. This little dance is a tried and true way for these snakes to slither out of dealing with political grenades once they've failed to table them with 14 "Star Chamber" executive sessions where they come out and say "We can't tell you what it is but there's a very good reason we're killing this."

To put a fresh spin on an old canard:

"We could tell you why but then we wouldn't be able to kill you"

This is really what we have to prevent. Mel is a master of this kind of "it's someone else's fault/responsibility" fake outrage. When you're watching him do it remember what you're watching. This is going to be a week when everyone needs to play the part they've taken and play it like their life depends on it. It just might.

Other events this week include:

Tuesday September 3rd from 5-8pm. An informational meeting "fun event" for south-side people in large pavilion at Poipu Beach Park. Nurses and friends of Kauai will answer questions based on new information from the American Pediatric Association about pesticides.

Wednesday September 4th at 5th pm. Sign making and planning for Sunday's March and Rally- pot luck; dance with DJ at Lydgate State Park big pavilion.

.

Syria and world oil supplies

SUBHEAD: Not a big producer of oil itself, Syria is near its center of Middle east oil production and embroiled in the schism between Shia and Sunni.

By Kurt Cobb on 1 September 2013 for Resource Insights -
(http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-syria-tells-us-about-world-oil.html)


Image above: Syrian President Bashar Hafez al-Assad meets with Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2011. From (http://iaafrica.com/2012/02/28/syrian-government-tries-to-recoup-legitimacy-amid-military-onslaught/).

I've been watching old episodes of The West Wing, the acclaimed television series about life and work in the West Wing of the White House. In one sequence of shows, bombers kill two U.S. congressmen and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who are on a fact-finding mission to Gaza. Pressure mounts from both political parties in Congress, from the public and even from the president's own staff for a retaliatory military strike.

But the president doesn't like his options, and he delays. Violence will just beget more violence. Is there a way to bring the bombers to justice without killing innocent civilians and entangling the United States directly in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as a combatant rather than a broker for peace?

Today, the real president of the United States has the opposite problem. He is getting pressure from many in Congress and the public NOT to make a military assault on Syria. Even the British Parliament rejected a call from Prime Minister David Cameron to join any U.S. military action in Syria. For obvious reasons, Americans are leery of involvement in yet another war in the Middle East. So, why is this president--the same one who opposed the Iraq war when he was a state senator in Illinois--drawing up plans for a military strike?

The ostensible reason is the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian military. President Obama called this heinous act a violation of "international norms." But in a war that has already taken 100,000 lives would "international norms" have been better observed if Syrian soldiers had simply gunned down everyone instead?

I believe that the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons is merely a pretext for American intervention despite all the hoopla about the president's rather vaguely worded "red line" warning about chemical weapons to Syria last year. (Need I recount the simmering conflicts and resulting tragedies around the world in which the United States chose NOT to intervene?) One always suspects that oil is the real issue when it comes to the Middle East. So, let's see if that's the case here.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in 2010 before the civil war drove down oil production, Syria was the 34th largest oil producer in the world--behind Thailand, but just ahead of Vietnam. Syria's oil production of 367,100 barrels per day (bpd) represented about one half of one percent of world oil production--small in the overall picture. But it is more instructive to see what Syria's neighbors produce. (All oil production and ranking numbers are based on EIA figures for crude including lease condensate which is the definition oil.)

Oil producers in Syria's neighborhood ranked against all other countries in the world as of 2012 are as follows: Saudi Arabia (2nd, behind Russia), Iran (5th), Iraq (7th), Kuwait (8th), Egypt (25th), Turkey (54th), Israel (95th), and Jordan (96th). (In the age of jet warfare I am tempted to include the United Arab Emirates (8th) and Qatar (19th).) Turkey is more important than it seems because two major oil pipelines run through the country, one originating in Azerbiajan and the other originating in Iraq, that country's largest crude oil export line.

The general idea that Syria's neighbors hold the keys to a lot of oil certainly comes as little surprise to anyone with a cursory knowledge of the Middle East. But, the salient fact about the Syrian conflict is that it is a civil war. So, why is an American president so concerned about a war within the country?

That question leads to a second and even more salient fact. This civil war has now become a proxy for the Shia-Sunni split in the Muslim faith. Don't think: Catholics and Protestants in the United States. Rather think: Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland where a wide range of nonreligious issues sparked violence between the two groups for decades.

The split isn't just between countries that are predominantly Shia and predominately Sunni. It is, as Syria is showing, a split within many Arab nations which have citizens of both sects. So, there is not only the potential for conflict between nations in the Middle East, but also for the spread of civil unrest and civil war to other nations in the region. Iraq continues to demonstrate that this fear is not just hypothetical as bombings perpetrated in the name of minority Sunnis continue to vex a country which has experienced a long civil conflict between Shia and Sunni after the U.S. invasion.

The spread of that kind of chaos would be very bad for oil supplies. Witness what has happened to Syrian oil production. It has fallen from 367,100 bpd in 2010 to just 157,200 bpd as of the end of last year. That's a decline of 57 percent in two years. That kind of decline in Middle East oil production would have catastrophic effects on an already iffy world economy, one absolutely dependent on oil for its smooth functioning.

The United States, as it turns out, has already been aiding the rebels for some time. The idea behind the aid may have been that the current regime might fall quickly, and the United States and its allies would have a solid relationship with those who take over.

With the stalemate continuing it's not obvious what strategy will work best to achieve America's number one goal in the region: stable oil production. One think tank academic even suggested that an ongoing stalemate was in America's best interests. Clearly, he doesn't believe the Shia-Sunni split will lead to conflict between or within other countries, at least on a scale that would prove troublesome.

But, there is one final consideration. After all we've been hearing about American energy independence, about growing domestic oil production, and about America being able to disengage from oil-exporting dictatorial regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere, the president seems as engaged as ever in the region.

There are three reasons for this: First, right now the United States imports just under half its oil needs. We produce a little over 7 million bpd and consume about 14 million bpd. Second, no realistic nonindustry assessment of future U.S. oil production suggests we'll stop needing substantial imports. Third, oil is traded in a world market, and its price is determined by world supply and demand. Any disruption in Middle Eastern oil supplies would lead to much higher prices which would ripple through the U.S. economy no matter how much we produce domestically.

The worldwide concern over Syria tells us that oil supplies remain tight and consuming nations remain very concerned about disruptions to supply. The oil price continues to hover near all-time highs when compared to the average daily price in 2011 and 2012, both record years. As the United States prepares plans for intervening militarily, there is not only much at stake in human terms, but also most assuredly in terms of critical oil supplies.

[IB Publisher's note: Let's add that the real target of US interests in the region is Syria's strategic partner and ally, Iran - a prodigious producer of oil and a country not in favor of using US dollars as a means of trading oil. Syria's large military Russia and anti-Isreali paramilitary groups , like Hezbollah that further endanger US dominance in the region. Moreover, Iran has helped Syria sell oil  China.]

• Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

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More on Obama's Rereat

SUBHEAD: Obama was set on striking Syria until Friday, after a long walk around the White House grounds.

By David Espo on 31 August 2013 for Huffington Post -
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/01/obama-syria-congress_n_3850848.html)


Image above: President Barack Obama walks with Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on the South Grounds of the White House. From (http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/photo/2013/08/president-walks-chief-staff-denis-mcdonough).

Short on support at home and allies abroad, President Barack Obama unexpectedly stepped back from a missile attack against Syria on Saturday and instead asked Congress to support a strike punishing Bashar Assad's regime for the alleged use of chemical weapons.

With Navy ships on standby in the Mediterranean Sea ready to launch their cruise missiles, Obama said he had decided the United States should take military action and that he believes that as commander in chief, he has "the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization."

At the same time, he said, "I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course and our actions will be even more effective." His remarks were televised live in the United States as well as on Syrian state television with translation.

Congress is scheduled to return from a summer vacation on Sept. 9, and in anticipation of the coming debate, Obama challenged lawmakers to consider "what message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price."

The president didn't say so, but his strategy carries enormous risks to his and the nation's credibility, which the administration has argued forcefully is on the line in Syria. Obama long ago said the use of chemical weapons was a "red line" that Assad would not be allowed to cross with impunity.

Nor would the White House say what options would still be open to the president if he fails to win the backing of the House and Senate for the military measures he has threatened.

Only this week, British Prime Minister David Cameron suffered a humiliating defeat when the House of Commons refused to support his call for military action against Syria.

Halfway around the world, Syrians awoke Saturday to state television broadcasts of tanks, planes and other weapons of war, and troops training, all to a soundtrack of martial music. Assad's government blames rebels in the Aug. 21 attack, and has threatened retaliation if it is attacked.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he was appealing to a Nobel Peace laureate rather than to a president, urged Obama to reconsider. A group that monitors casualties in the long Syrian civil war challenged the United States to substantiate its claim that 1,429 died in a chemical weapons attack, including more than 400 children.


By accident or design, the new timetable gives time for U.N. inspectors to receive lab results from the samples they took during four days in Damascus, and to compile a final report. After leaving Syria overnight, the inspection team arrived in Rotterdam a few hours before Obama spoke.

The group's leader was expected to brief Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday.

Administration officials said Obama appeared set on ordering a strike until Friday evening. After a long walk in near 90-degree temperatures around the White House grounds with Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, the president told his aide he had changed his mind.

These officials said Obama initially drew pushback in a two-hour session attended by Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Director of National Intelligence James Klapper, CIA Director John Brennan, national security adviser Susan Rice and homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco. They declined to say which of the participants had argued against Obama's proposal.

Whatever Congress ultimately decides, the developments marked a stunning turn.

France is Obama's only major foreign ally to date for a strike, public polling shows support is lukewarm in the United States, and dozens of lawmakers in both parties have signed a letter urging Obama not to act without their backing. Outside the gates of the White House, the chants of protesters could be heard as the president stepped to a podium set up in the Rose Garden.

Had he gone ahead with a military strike, Obama would have become the first U.S. leader in three decades to attack a foreign nation without mustering broad international support or acting in direct defense of Americans. Not since 1983, when President Ronald Reagan ordered an invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada, has the U.S. been so alone in pursuing major lethal military action beyond a few attacks responding to strikes or threats against its citizens.

By day's end Saturday, the White House had sent Congress a draft of a resolution, crafted by the White House, to authorize Obama to use military force.

The draft does not lay out a specific timeline or course of military action, instead giving Obama approval to use the military as he determines "necessary and appropriate" to meet the objective of preventing future chemical weapons use. But in an overture to the limited scope of the strike Obama has said he's considering, the draft affirms the administration's view that ultimately, only a political solution can resolve the crisis in Syria.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he expected the House to consider the measure the week of Sept. 9. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he, too, will hold a vote no later than the week of Sept. 9. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will conduct a hearing on the authorization on Tuesday, said its chairman, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.

Republicans generally expressed satisfaction at Obama's decision to seek congressional support, and challenged him to make his case to the public and lawmakers alike that American power should be used to punish Assad.

"We are glad the president is seeking authorization for any military action in Syria in response to serious, substantive questions being raised," Boehner and other House Republican leaders said in a joint statement.

New York Republican Rep. Peter King was among the dissenters, strongly so. "President Obama is abdicating his responsibility as commander in chief and undermining the authority of future presidents," he said. "The president doesn't need 535 members of Congress to enforce his own red line."

For now, it appeared that the administration's effort at persuasion was already well underway.

The administration plunged into a series of weekend briefings for lawmakers, both classified and unclassified, and Obama challenged lawmakers to consider "what message will we send to a dictator" if he is allowed to kill hundreds of children with chemical weapons without suffering any retaliation.

At the same time, a senior State Department official said Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Syrian Opposition Coalition President Ahmed Assi al-Jarba to underscore Obama's commitment to holding the Assad government accountable for the Aug. 21 attack.

Obama said Friday he was considering "limited and narrow" steps to punish Assad, adding that U.S. national security interests were at stake. He pledged no U.S. combat troops on the ground in Syria, where a civil war has claimed more than 100,000 civilian lives.

In Syria, some rebels expressed unhappiness with the president, one rebel commander said he did not consider Obama's decision to be a retreat. "On the contrary, he will get the approval for congress and then the military action will have additional credibility," said Qassem Saadeddine.

"Just because the strike was delayed by few days doesn't mean it's not going to happen," he said.

With Obama struggling to gain international backing for a strike, Putin urged him to reconsider his plans. "We have to remember what has happened in the last decades, how many times the United States has been the initiator of armed conflict in different regions of the world, said Putin, a strong Assad ally. "Did this resolve even one problem?"

Even the administration's casualty estimate was grist for controversy.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an organization that monitors casualties in the country, said it has confirmed 502 deaths, nearly 1,000 fewer than the American intelligence assessment claimed.

Rami Abdel-Rahman, the head of the organization, said he was not contacted by U.S. officials about his efforts to collect information about the death toll in the Aug. 21 attacks.

"America works only with one part of the opposition that is deep in propaganda," he said, and urged the Obama administration to release the information its estimate is based on.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Today Obama backs down 8/31/13
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