CIA seeks new bases for deadly drones
Press TV – February 17, 2014
The US Central Intelligence Agency is seeking new drone bases in unnamed countries in Central Asia, fearing the full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan would affect the targeted killings in neighboring Pakistan.
The spy agency asserts that if the US fails to sign a bilateral security deal with Afghanistan and secure an enduring military presence there, it would not be able to fly drones from its Afghan bases because drone operations are covert and need US military protection.
The security deal, which Washington says “ought to be signed” and is not renegotiable, could allow thousands of US troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
However, despite pressures from the White House and Congress, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has so far refused to sign the deal and the US intelligence community is hoping that the next Afghan president will agree to sign it.
Worried that its drone killings can become a casualty of strained relations between Kabul and Washington, the CIA is reportedly making contingency plans to use bases in other countries.
“There are contingency plans for alternatives in the north,” an unnamed US official briefed on the matter told the Los Angeles Times without specifying the countries.
According to Brian Glyn Williams, a University of Massachusetts professor, the CIA and the Pentagon used to fly drones from an airbase in Uzbekistan until the US was evicted in 2005.
Michael Nagata, commander of US special operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, also traveled last month to Tajikistan, which is Afghanistan’s northern neighbor, to discuss “issues of bilateral security cooperation” and “continued military cooperation.”
Meanwhile, US officials say a new jet-powered drone, called Avenger, which will be able to “get to ‘hot’ targets in Pakistan much faster,” could soon be flying from bases outside Afghanistan.
The CIA is in charge of drone strikes in Pakistan since the country is not officially a war zone and the CIA’s program is covert.
US President Barack Obama has already stated that the responsibility for Washington’s deadly drone attacks could gradually shift from the CIA to the Pentagon. However, the idea of putting the US military in charge of drone attacks is not favored by US lawmakers.
Georgia to join NATO Response Force in 2015
Xinhua News Agency | February 12, 2014
TBILISI: Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Alasania said Wednesday that the country has decided to join the NATO Response Force (NRF) in 2015 with financial support from the United States.
The decision was announced at a joint press conference with Knud Bartels, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, on the second day of the committee’s first ever visit to the South Caucasus country, during which talks with Georgian leaders were also held to discuss security, cooperation and Georgia’s involvement in NATO’s mission in Afghanistan.
“It has already been decided that Georgia will become part of the NATO Response Force in 2015 and a sponsor state has already been selected. The United States will ensure readiness along with the NATO military to provide rapid response in case of crisis,” said Alasania.
Bartels told the assembled press that Georgia has made “solid progress in its defense reforms that will allow cooperation between Georgia and NATO.”
The NRF, initiated in November 2002, has a joint force of around 13,000 high-readiness troops made up of land, air, maritime and special operations components that the Alliance can deploy quickly wherever needed, according to NATO information.
McCain urges Syria military intervention
Press TV – February 16, 2014
Hawkish US Senator John McCain has called on the Obama administration to employ its already-devised plan of military intervention against the Syrian government.
“The only way to achieve success at Geneva is to change the balance of power on the ground,” McCain said in a statement on Saturday, referring to the failure of the so-called Syria peace talks in Geneva.
“There are options far short of an Iraq-style invasion that can, and should, be employed to change the calculation of the Syrian regime, stem the violence, and ultimately achieve a negotiated political solution,” he added.
The second round of negotiations ended on Saturday without any concrete results about the unrest in Syria.
“The second round of Syria peace talks ended today with no progress toward a negotiated political settlement to the conflict and UN Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi recognizing that failure is looming,” McCain said.
“After three weeks of talks, we are moving further and further away from a peaceful political solution,” he argued.
The Arizona Republican senator also criticized President Barack Obama for allowing Russia to put pressure on him.
“Russia has recently prevented the passage of a much-needed UN resolution on bringing aid to desperate Syrian civilians,” he said. “Such actions indicate that the Russian government is simply not a partner for peace in Syria and cannot be relied on to help secure a successful outcome.”
During a press conference on Friday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said there is no military solution for the crisis in Syria.
“The crisis in Syria is a crisis. The circumstances on the ground are horrific that is why we have to bring the parties together to try to compel them towards a negotiated political settlement because there isn’t a military solution here,” Carney said.
Le Parisien uncovers French lie on 1960 nuke test
Press TV – February 16, 2014
A report says France covered up the extent of the nuclear fallout from its first atomic bomb test in North Africa.
The report published by the French daily Le Parisien was based on a recently declassified military map regarding the fallout from the detonation of the Gerbouise Bleue bomb in the Algerian desert in 1960.
The map revealed that radioactive particles reached the Italian island of Sicily and the southern Spanish coast on the 13th day after the blast.
Lawyer Fatima Benbraham, who represents dozens of cases in Algeria, said the map shows that Algeria and practically the whole Saharan region was contaminated following the atomic test.
The documents were declassified last year following a ten-year legal battle, in which the French government fought long and hard to prevent the documents from becoming public, according to Bruno Barrillot, a member of the pressure group Observatoire des Armaments.
The pressure group along with others battled through court to have the documents released in a bid to bring compensation to people whose health has been allegedly affected by the radioactive fallout.
Human rights activists say civilians were not warned of the danger of the 17 blasts that took place in North Africa in 1960-66.
France admitted in 2009 that a small-populated area has been affected by the fallout.
Barrillot said he hopes the newly declassified maps would force the administration of French President Francois Hollande to admit that more people could have been affected by the fallout.
“They did not do these tests under the Eiffel Tower,” said Barrillot. “No, they went far away from France and then lied about the true impact.”
France conducted a total of 210 tests in Algeria and then in French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean from 1960 to 1996.
Syria peace talks break off, no new date set: Brahimi
Al-Akhbar | February 15, 2014
A second round of peace talks between Syria’s warring sides broke off Saturday without making any progress and without a date being set for a third round, UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said.
“I think it is better that every side goes back and reflects on their responsibility, (and on whether) they want this process to continue or not,” Lakhdar Brahimi told reporters in Geneva.
Speaking on the final day of a second round of talks that have been mired from the start by blame-trading over the violence ravaging Syria, he apologized to the Syrian people for not making progress.
“I’m very, very sorry,” he said.
Brahimi said that the two sides now at least had reached agreement on an agenda for future talks – if they happen – something they had failed to do throughout the past week.
“At least we have agreed on an agenda. But we also have to agree on how we tackle that agenda,” Brahimi said, adding: “I very much hope there we will be a third round.”
Syria’s warring sides met in a last-ditch effort to save deadlocked peace talks amid fears that they could collapse altogether.
The second round of talks already appeared to fizzle out on Friday, but UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi at the last moment invited the two sides to come back for a final joint meeting Saturday morning.
After days of discussions, the rivals stood further apart than ever, seeming to agree on only one thing: that the negotiations were going nowhere.
“We deeply regret that this round did not make any progress,” Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad said after meeting Brahimi on Friday.
Opposition spokesman Louay Safi agreed: “The negotiations have reached an impasse.”
As the parties in Geneva failed to agree even on an agenda for their talks, the death toll mounted in Syria, where more than 100,000 people have been killed in three years.
A monitoring group this week that more than 5,000 people had been killed since a first round of talks began on January 22.
The United Nations warned Friday that more than 2,700 refugees had poured across the Lebanese border as the Syrian army carries out an offensive in the Qalamun mountains and heads towards the opposition-held town of Yabrud.
Thousands had already fled the town, but as many as 50,000 people were believed to still be inside.
In Geneva, the second round of talks, which began Monday, appeared set to wrap up Saturday with no sign of progress and it was unclear if Brahimi could convince the foes to come back for a third round of negotiations.
Washington, which backs the opposition and initiated the so-called Geneva II talks with regime ally Russia, voiced deep frustration Friday at the stalemate.
“Talks for show make no sense,” a senior US official said Friday.
US President Barack Obama vowed to push the regime harder.
“There will be some intermediate steps that we can take to apply more pressure to the Assad regime,” he said after talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II in California, but did not specify what such steps might be.
In an effort to inject life into the talks, both the United States and Russia sent top envoys to Geneva this week to meet Brahimi and the two sides.
But after a meeting with high-ranking US and Russian diplomats Thursday, the veteran peacemaker admitted that “failure is still staring us in the face”.
Washington blamed the impasse squarely on the Syrian regime, and chastised Moscow for not doing enough to push its ally to engage “seriously” in the process.
Regime representatives have so far refused to discuss anything beyond the “terrorism” it blames on its opponents and their foreign backers, and stubbornly insist President Bashar al-Assad’s position is non-negotiable.
They have declined to discuss the opposition coalition’s 24-point proposal for a political transition, or to consider Brahimi’s suggestion that the parties discuss the two issues in parallel.
Observers said the talks were hanging in the balance.
“We are in a dead end,” said a Western diplomat, warning prospects looked “grim” and that it would be tough for Brahimi to organize a third round.
Spokesman Safi said the opposition was appealing to the international community to “make a difference to push this process forward” but that a “pause” looked likely in the meantime.
Algerian veteran peacemaker Brahimi, who helped broker past deals in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq, has pledged not to “leave one stone unturned if there is a possibility to move forward”.
But the Western diplomat cautioned: “I would not assume he will stay indefinitely,” saying Brahimi might have “concerns about his own credibility” if he allows the process to continue like a broken record.
The ongoing evacuation of civilians from besieged rebel-held areas of Homs – seen as the only tangible result so far of the Geneva II talks – has been hailed as a relative success.
But UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos expressed frustration at the “extremely limited and painstakingly slow” process of getting 1,400 people out, given that 250,000 are under siege across Syria.
Syria’s deputy foreign minister Mikdad had sharp words for Amos, accusing her of an “unacceptable” failure to recognize there was “terrorism” in Syria and that it hindered aid operations.
(AFP, Al-Akhbar)
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Saudis Agree to Provide Gunmen in Syria with Mobile Antiaircraft Missiles
Press TV – February 15, 2014
Saudi Arabia has reportedly agreed to provide foreign-backed militant groups in Syria with more sophisticated weaponry.
Citing Western and Arab diplomats as well as foreign-backed Syrian opposition sources, the Wall Street Journal said on Saturday that the weapons include anti-aircraft shoulder-fired missiles.
“Saudi Arabia has offered to give the opposition for the first time Chinese man-portable air defense systems, or Manpads, and antitank guided missiles from Russia,” the journal said.
A Western diplomat with knowledge of the weapons deliveries told the journal that “new stuff is arriving imminently.”
Saudi Arabia has been the main supplier of weapons and funds to foreign-backed militants inside Syria.
The United States is also said to have stepped up its financial support for the militants.
Militant commanders say Washington has handed them millions of dollars in new aid.
Meanwhile, the Syrian army has reportedly arrested more than 80 foreign officers and soldiers, mostly from Saudi spy services.
The detainees include seven high-ranking Saudi military officers, 14 Qatari officers and 9 Turkish intelligence personnel.
The detainees are said to have entered Syria to carry out terrorist attacks.
French daily Le Figaro recently said that the weapons used by the militants in Syria are initially purchased by Saudi Arabia from black markets in Ukraine and Bulgaria.
The weapons, which include Israeli missiles, are then transferred to a number of cells on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, Le Figaro added in its report.
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NAM urges global nuclear disarmament
Press TV – February 14, 2014
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has renewed its call for the elimination of nuclear weapons across the world.
In a statement on Thursday, NAM labeled nuclear arms as a major threat and expressed deep concern over the destructive repercussions of the use of such weapons on present and future generations as well as the environment.
The statement said that using or threatening to use nuclear weapons was in contravention of international law, urging all countries to fulfill their denuclearization commitments.
It said that global nuclear disarmament is the first step toward creating a world free of nuclear weapons, stressing that the elimination of all such weapons is the only way to guarantee that they will not be used as a threat against countries.
Calling on world countries to respect international law and meet their legal commitments, NAM also urged an immediate conference attended by the leaders of world countries to discuss global disarmament.
It also urged the full implementation of a UN General Assembly resolution on nuclear disarmament, which was passed last year.
In December 2013, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted a nuclear disarmament resolution that includes proposals forwarded by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as the head of NAM.
The resolution, adopted on December 5, 2013, calls on nuclear-power states to make more efforts to scale down and ultimately eliminate all types of nuclear arms.
According to the resolution, non-nuclear states should be given guarantees that they will not be threatened or attacked by nuclear weapons.
It also calls on the General Assembly to urge all signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to follow up on the implementation of their obligations as agreed in the 1995, 2000 and 2010 Review Conferences.
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US deploys destroyer to Europe amid Russia concerns
Press TV – February 11, 2014
The first of four US missile destroyers has arrived in Europe, an apparent move by Washington to challenge Russia that voiced concerns over the deployment.
The USS Donald Cook arrived in the Spanish port of Rota on Tuesday.
“For the first time, a ship of the United States Navy equipped with the Aegis ballistic missile-defense system is permanently based in Europe,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.
“The arrival of the USS Donald Cook marks a step forward for NATO, for European security, and for transatlantic cooperation,” he added.
Three more American destroyers will also be joined the USS Donald Cook at the base in Rota over the coming two years. Other US destroyers are the USS Ross, the USS Porter, and the USS Carney.
The deployment of the four destroyers is part of Washington’s military policy in Europe that includes land-based Aegis interceptor batteries in Romania and Poland, radar in Turkey and a command center at the US Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany.
The Obama administration’s plans for increasing military presence in Europe have caused a major rift with Russia.
Moscow says the system is major threat to its own security and has threatened to beef up its own nuclear arsenal in response.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has already ordered the deployment of short-range missiles to the country’s western Kaliningrad enclave, which is situated between Poland and Lithuania.
In a speech to the country’s Federal Assembly in December, the Russian president said that his country will not allow any nation to dominate it in military terms.
“We realize clearly that the AMD system is only called defensive, while in fact it is a significant part of the strategic offensive potential,” Putin said.
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Big Media Again Pumps for Mideast Wars
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | February 4, 2014
Journalistically, there’s a problem with this passage from Monday’s New York Times: “Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon of Israel … castigated Iran as being dedicated to a nuclear weapon and acting to deceive, and he repeated Israel’s warning that it would not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.” Can you tell what the flaw is?
If the New York Times were acting in a professional and objective manner, the next line would have read something like: “Of course, Israel itself developed a nuclear bomb in secret decades ago and now has possibly the most sophisticated undeclared nuclear arsenal on earth.” But the Times chose not to remind its readers of Israel’s stunning hypocrisy as a rogue nuclear-armed state condemning Iran for supposedly harboring a desire for a nuke, a weapon that Iran doesn’t have and says it doesn’t want.
That sort of double standard is common in the mainstream U.S. news media when reporting on Israel and its Muslim adversaries. But to let an Israeli official get away with castigating Iran for contemplating something that Israel has already done – without mentioning the hypocrisy – is a clear violation of journalistic standards. Indeed, it is evidence of bias.
Meanwhile, the neocon editors of the Washington Post are continuing their new campaign to pressure President Barack Obama into issuing more military ultimatums to Syria, another Israeli “enemy.” The logic seems to be that if Obama keeps issuing ultimatums eventually Syria won’t comply or won’t be able to comply, thus creating a casus belli, much as when President George W. Bush demanded that Iraq surrender WMD that it didn’t have.
In a double-barreled blast on Tuesday, the Post published a lead editorial and then a separate op-ed by its editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt making essentially the same argument – that Obama’s diplomacy over Syria has failed and that it’s time for more military threats or even a military intervention in Syria’s civil war. That “theme” was quickly picked up by other U.S. news outlets, including “liberal” MSNBC.
Yet, the real problem with Obama’s Syria strategy is that it is still based on his blustering pronouncements during Campaign 2012 when he was trying to sound tough in order to fend off the more hawkish, neocon rhetoric of Republican Mitt Romney.
During that period, Obama was drawing “red lines” regarding Syria and declaring that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “must go.” Obama insisted that the purpose of any peace talks must be to dissolve Assad’s government and replace it with one organized by Assad’s opponents, in other words, Assad’s negotiated surrender.
But that was never realistic, however unsavory Assad and his regime might be. He still represents major segments of Syrian society, including blocs of Alawites (an offshoot of Shiite Islam) and Christians. Plus, the strongest part of the rebel movement, seeking Assad’s ouster, is the contingent of radical jihadists representing extreme Sunni groups, including some affiliated with al-Qaeda and some even more extreme who are vowing to exterminate the Alawites and other “heretics.”
Baiting Obama
In the midst of this complex and dangerous mix, the Post’s neocon editors are baiting Obama to stop being so weak, so “inert,” as Hiatt wrote.
On Sunday, the Post’s editors demanded that Obama issue a new military ultimatum regarding delays in Assad’s delivery of chemical weapons to a UN agency for destruction. On Tuesday, the argument was that Obama must intervene militarily to prevent Syria from becoming a base for al-Qaeda militants to plot attacks against the American “homeland.”
“Once again, terrorists linked to al-Qaeda may be using territory they control to plot attacks against the United States, even as [Secretary of State John] Kerry pursues his long-shot diplomacy and Mr. Obama offers excuses for inaction,” the Post’s editorial read.
“With or without U.N. action, it is time for the Obama administration to reconsider how it can check the regime’s crimes and the growing threat of al-Qaeda. As Mr. Kerry reportedly conceded, for now it has no answers.”
Hiatt reiterated the same points in his companion op-ed: “It is no secret that the Obama administration’s Syria policy, to the extent that one exists, is failing. Now the man with the unenviable task of implementing that policy, Secretary of State John F. Kerry, has acknowledged as much, according to two U.S. senators who spoke with him Sunday, John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).
“Kerry said that the Geneva negotiating process hasn’t delivered, they said, and that new approaches are needed. … Now, though, a new factor has emerged. Last week, in Senate testimony that got less attention than it deserved, Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said Syria ‘is becoming a center of radical extremism and a potential threat to the homeland.’”
Hiatt continued: “Havens in Syria, in other words, could play the same role that Afghan refuges offered al-Qaeda before 9/11. As the West cold-shouldered moderate and secular forces, extremist ranks have swelled in Syria to as many as 26,000, including 7,000 foreigners, Clapper said.”
Not surprisingly, given the always-hawkish views of McCain and Graham, their proposed “new approaches” to this new threat involved military interventions in Syria. Graham wanted to unleash armed drones over the country, while McCain called for establishing “a safe zone in which to train the Free Syrian Army and care for refugees, protected by Patriot missiles based in Turkey,” Hiatt wrote.
Which Side?
Of course, a big part of the Syrian problem is that al-Qaeda-connected extremists are fighting as part of the rebel coalition against Assad’s army. Indeed, the jihadists are considered, by far, the most effective part of the rebel force. To a significant degree, the Sunni jihadists – funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states – are the rebel army.
In other words, the semantic trick that the Post is pulling off is to conflate the existence of al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria with the Syrian government when they are actually on opposite sides, bitterly fighting one another. The Post’s argument is a bit like blaming Fidel Castro for harboring al-Qaeda operatives in Cuba without mentioning that they are locked up at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo and thus outside Castro’s control.
Currently, the Syrian government is engaged in a brutal campaign to root out these “terrorists” – as well as other armed rebels – and is killing lots of civilians in the process. While there may be no easy solution to this catastrophe, the idea of another U.S. military intervention could easily lead to even more death and destruction.
As Hiatt noted, “Obama has doubted that the United States could intervene in such a messy conflict without making things worse. He reportedly worries that even a limited commitment would inexorably suck the nation into something deeper. There certainly is no public clamor to intervene.”
But lack of public support for another Mideast war is no concern to Hiatt and other Post editors who have never really apologized for helping to mislead the American people into the Iraq invasion which resulted in the deaths of nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Indeed, the Iraqi bloodbath — initiated by President Bush and promoted by the neocons — has already been forgotten, as the Post cited the Syrian civil war as the worst humanitarian disaster since the Rwanda genocide in the 1990s, jumping over the Iraqi carnage of the past decade.
Now, Hiatt and the other neocons are promoting “themes” designed to maneuver Obama into another Mideast conflict, pushing the hot button of al-Qaeda “refuges” as if Assad is protecting the extremists, not trying to kill them.
Yet, if preventing al-Qaeda from establishing a safe haven in Syria is now the top U.S. concern – and not just the latest neocon excuse for another U.S. invasion of a Muslim country – then a more logical approach might be to seek a power-sharing arrangement between Assad’s government and the more moderate opposition, creating a united front against the jihadists.
Such an agreement could be followed by a coordinated strategy to rid Syria of these extremists. Obama also might put the squeeze on the Saudis and other oil-rich sheiks to stop funding the Sunni jihad inside Syria.
But the U.S. insistence that Assad negotiate his own surrender – especially when his forces have gained the upper hand militarily – will simply ensure more fighting and killing, while the neocons ramp up their pressure on Obama for one more “regime change.”
~
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
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Ecuador leaves inter-American defense treaty
Press TV – February 5, 2014
Ecuador has announced its withdrawal from the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, a hemispheric agreement of mutual defense signed in 1947.
On Wednesday, Ecuador Foreign Ministry said President Rafael Correa pulled the country out of the US-led security arrangement on the grounds it is outdated, AFP reported.
The Foreign Ministry said Correa signed a decree on Tuesday, ratifying a decision earlier this month by the National Assembly to withdraw from the treaty.
“Ecuador renounces in all its articles the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance,” the ministry said.
The treaty, commonly known as the Rio Treaty, stipulates that an armed attack against any of the member states is to be considered an attack against all of them.
Ecuador ratified the treaty in 1950.
The move is the latest in a shift away from US-led security arrangements in the region by Ecuador and other leftist Latin American allies.
At the end of an annual meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Bolivia in 2012, the foreign ministers of Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua announced their decision to pull out of the treaty, saying the regional defense treaty is a US initiative and membership is not beneficial to them.
Okinawa: Two Elections
By C. Douglas Lummis | CounterPunch | February 5, 2014
Naha, Okinawa – The 2010 Governor’s election in Okinawa was a game changer. Up to then the pattern of elections here had been, a progressive candidate clearly opposed to the US military bases on the island, vs. a conservative candidate who was not positively in favor of them, but took the attitude, if we can’t get rid of them we might as well make a little money off them.
In 2010 the issue on the table was not all the bases, but what to do with the US Marine Air Station at Futenma, in the middle of densely populated Ginowan City. In 1996 the US and Japanese Governments had announced that they would close it down, but only on the condition that the 1st Marine Air Wing, which it houses, be moved to a new base to be built offshore from the fishing village of Henoko, in the less populated northern part of Okinawa. This construction has been fiercely opposed by Okinawans. Pacifists argue that the base should be abolished altogether; ecologists and fisher-people point out that construction would be devastating to the coral-rich Oura Bay, habitat to the endangered sea-mammal the dugong; Okinawans generally feel that the Government’s insistence that the base stay on their island amounts to discriminatory treatment. Okinawa comprises 0.6% of Japanese territory, but just under 75% of all US bases in Japan are located here. More and more people are using the word “colonialism” to describe this. Thus after the 1996 announcement the Okinawans, by means of rallies, demonstrations, lawsuits, petitions, sit-ins, and direct action civil disobedience, have so far prevented construction from beginning.
In 2010 the incumbent conservative Governor Nakaima Hirokazu [family name first, following East Asian practice], who had been elected on the What the Hell can you do about it? ticket, was advised that the electorate had changed, and that he could not be reelected unless he changed his position. This he did, saying that now he favored moving the Futenma base to mainland Japan. This enabled him to pick up the support of people who were not ready to oppose all the US bases, but who resented the unequal treatment.
The result was an election in which both the progressive and the conservative candidates opposed moving the Futenma base to a different location within Okinawa. There was a third candidate, from the crackpot Happiness Realization Party, who supported the US-Japan plan to move the base to Henoko. The progressive and conservative candidates between them got 97% of the votes; the only party that supported the US-Japan plan got a little over 2%. It’s not often that you see that kind of agreement in a free election. In that election the US-Japan plan was supported only by the crazies. Governor Nakaima, campaigning on the slogan Move the Base to the Mainland, was re-elected.
For three years after that, Governor Nakaima put on a pretty convincing performance. Again and again Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers, Defense Ministers came to his office trying to persuade him to accept the Henoko base plan, and again and again he sent them packing, sometimes after only a few minutes. (One of them, I think it was a Foreign Minister – these fellows have been changing like a game of musical chairs in recent years so it’s hard to remember – was caught on TV looking at his watch to see how much time he had got, as the Governor walked out of the room.) During that period not only the governor, but many Okinawan Liberal Democratic Party politicians, defying their Party headquarters in Tokyo, came out against the base plan. People began to talk about an All Okinawa Anti-Base Movement. Increasingly anti-base activists, instead of appealing for sympathy, were calling the plan “impossible”.
Last year the Tokyo Government, after completing a survey of Oura Bay, wrote up an environmental impact report and handed it to the Governor for his approval, without which they cannot legally begin reclamation work in the Bay. He set up a committee, and they fiddled with it for the better part of a year. Many people believed, I among them, that Nakaima would reject it in the end: why would anyone want to put their name on a document that claims that dumping several millions of tons (or whatever the amount is) of dirt and junk into a coral bay will have no detrimental effect on the environment? But at the end of December last year, he approved it, which opened the way for construction to begin. Most people were stunned, though there was also a minor chorus of I Told You So. In exchange the Governor claimed to have gotten some major gifts and concessions from Tokyo, a mess of pottage that turned out to be mostly promises that won’t be kept and aid money that Okinawa Prefecture was entitled to anyway. It continues to amaze me that a person presented with the opportunity to become a hero whose name would be passed on in Okinawan culture for generations, would instead choose to be remembered as a liar and a turncoat. There is a strong movement calling for his resignation or, failing that, his recall.
It seemed that Okinawa was in danger of falling into despondency and resignation. But there was one more test coming up. Just a couple of weeks after Nakaima’s collapse, on January 19, there was the election for Mayor of Nago City, of which Henoko is an administrative part. The incumbent Mayor, Inamine Susumu, had been elected on the public promise that he would oppose new base construction in the city. Two candidates declared against him, both supporting base construction. For the Abe Shinzo Government, this was a must-win election. First they sent down a gang of top Party and Government officials to persuade one of the pro-base candidates to stand down – a very unusual case of interference in local politics (of course, they were successful). Then when campaigning began they sent down Party and Government superstars to join in the electioneering. A lot of dubious money is said to have been passed around. Nago is the home of several of the construction companies which would likely get the reclaiming contracts, and which also have political clout in the city. Presumably a lot of pressure was put by those and other companies on their employees. In the last days of the campaign the Liberal Democraic Party’s Secretary General Ishiba suddenly announced that if the pro-base candidate won Nago would be rewarded with 50 billion yen (about $500 million) in extra aid. It was the town of Nago, population 62000, vs. the state of Japan, and to the last moment no one knew which side would win.
Inamine won, by a healthy margin. Okinawa’s temptation to despondency ended after just a few weeks. This has got to be remembered as one of the great election victories in the history of democracy. Nago would not be bought; the voters took the aid offer as an insult. Immediately after the election, Inamine announced that he would use his powers as Mayor, not to appeal to Tokyo to reconsider their plan, but positively to prevent it from going forward. Concretely, he said he would prohibit any construction-related use of roads, harbors or rivers that are under the City’s administration, and that he would not participate in any negotiations that presuppose base construction. Inamine, incidentally, is not a professional politician or an ex-movement activist. Before he ran for Mayor he was an official in the City’s Board of Education. To this day he goes out every morning to work as a traffic safety volunteer at a corner where kids cross the street on the way to school. There is a good lesson in politics here: You don’t need charisma; all you need is to say “no”. It’s also a lesson in popular sovereignty. The Tokyo Government says, We will decide. The people of Nago reply, No, we have decided. Like they say, it takes a village.
The Abe Shinzo Government has painted itself into a corner. They continue to tell the US Government, and the world, that they will build the new base at Henoko anyway. They say they will “persuade” Inamine, but it looks like that can’t be done. Will they rewrite the law, to take away the Mayor’s powers? Will they send in the Riot Police, or maybe the Self-Defence Forces? Will they revive the method used by the US military to get land for bases right after the Battle of Okinawa, the method known here as “bulldozers and rifles”? Of course all these are possible, but they will be made less possible the more the Nago situation comes to the attention of people around the world. That’s why it’s a good thing that some overseas supporters of the Okinawa anti-base movement, beginning with Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick who visited Okinawa last year, after the election drafted a letter of solidarity that has been signed by over 100 writers, scholars, movie makers and others. This has evolved into a general petition campaign on the internet. I have no illusion that submitting this petition to President Obama and Prime Minister Abe will have any effect on their consciences. What it will do is send a message to the people of Nago that they are not isolated. And by making clear to both heads of state that the whole world is watching it will make it difficult for them to use dirty tricks or violence to get their way in Nago.
The petition can be accessed at http://chn.ge/1ecQPUJ
Douglas Lummis is a political scientist living in Okinawa and the author of Radical Democracy. Lummis can be reached at ideaspeddler@gmail.com
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Karzai sees ‘no good’ with US presence in Afghanistan
Press TV – February 3, 2014
Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he has seen “no good” with the presence of American forces in his country, prompting further speculations of a breakdown of trust between Kabul and Washington.
“This whole 12 years was one of constant pleading with America to treat the lives of our civilians as lives of people,” Karzai said in an interview with The Sunday Times.
Karzai also said that he has not spoken to US President Barack Obama since June last year, which may show the increasing gulf between Afghanistan and the US.
“We met in South Africa but didn’t speak. Letters have been exchanged,” he said, referring to the funeral ceremony for South African anti-Apartheid leader Nelson Mandela.
The differences between the two sides have grown increasingly since Karzai refused to sign a security pact with Washington that would allow thousands of foreign troops to stay in Afghanistan after 2014.
“The money they should have paid to the police they paid to private security firms and creating militias who caused lawlessness, corruption and highway robbery,” Karzai said.
The Afghan president also went on to say that the US-led forces “then began systematically waging psychological warfare on our people, encouraging our money to go out of our country.”
“What they did was create pockets of wealth and a vast countryside of deprivation and anger,” he said.
“In general, the US-led NATO mission in terms of bringing security has not been successful, particularly in Helmand,” Karzai said.
He also dismissed concerns about the cutting of Western financial aid to Afghanistan over his refusal to sign the security deal.
“Money is not everything,” he said, adding, “If you ask me as an individual, I would rather live in poverty than uncertainty.”
On Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel expressed deep frustration with Karzai over the prolongation of the review process for the signing of the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the US.
The Pentagon chief, however, stated that Karzai is the elected president of a sovereign country, and Washington’s ability to influence his decisions is limited.
Karzai says he will not sign the BSA until certain conditions are met, including a guarantee from Washington that there will be no more raids on Afghan houses. He says the demands come from the country’s highest decision-making body, the Loya Jirga.
In his speech at the Loya Jirga on November 24, 2013, Karzai said, “If US military forces conduct military operations on Afghan homes even one more time, then there will be no BSA and we won’t sign it.”
The US and its allies invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but after more than 12 years, the foreign troops have still not been able to establish security in the country.
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UN declares war on ‘dangerous’ conspiracy theories
‘World is not secretly run by elites’
Free West Media | August 5, 2022
UNESCO says it is seriously concerned about the increase in “disinformation” and “conspiracy theories”. And they plan to put an end to it through a network of informants.
“Conspiracy theories can be dangerous,” the UN agency warned. “Often they ignore scientific evidence and polarize society with dire consequences. This has to stop.”
Unesco’s director-general warned that “conspiracy theories” could cause damage to people as well as to their health. “They reinforce misconceptions about the pandemic, reinforcing stereotypes that can fuel violence and violent, extremist ideologies,” said Audrey Azoulay.
The UN agency has launched a campaign to help people identify, debunk and report “conspiracy theories” to prevent them from spreading further.
This campaign is being carried out in collaboration with the European Commission, Twitter and the World Jewish Congress. The UN has created a toolkit to “debunk” such theories and smear anyone who dares to claim that governments are not fair and transparent.
The UN also warned that George Soros, the Rothschilds and Israel should not be linked to “alleged conspiracies”.
World events “are not secretly manipulated behind the scenes by powerful players with malicious intent,” the UN agency maintained.
And if anyone therefore comes across someone who believes that the world elite is plotting to consolidate power or direct events, then that person needs to take action. According to the UN agency, when meeting a “conspiracy theorist”, under no circumstances should one enter into a discussion. … continue
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