"Leaders" from NATO countries around the world will be in Chicago from 20-21 May for their summit meeting. I say "leaders" but apparently they will be requiring as many as 500 troopers from the Illinois State Police to "handle" the thousands of protesters who are also expected to turn up. What sort of leaders need to meet with this kind of "protection"? Where have we seen pictures of other "leaders" requiring a large military presence to counter a growing public opposition? Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain perhaps? But then you would expect it there wouldn't you because the leaders of those countries were/are dictators working against the best interests of their people. 

How could anyone think anything bad about NATO? Well ....

Emergency on Jeju Island – act now!

Jeju is a beautiful World Heritage island off the coast of South Korea - just a few hundred miles from mainland China where the Yellow and East China Seas meet. The South Korean Navy, under pressure from the US, wants to build a naval base at the 450 year old village of Gangjeong on the southern coast of the Island. According to a mutual defence pact and Status of Forces Agreement, the US can use any South Korean ports and airfields and President Obama has declared the Asia-Pacific as a military “pivot” in his projection of power “to protect U.S. interests and investments.” It is quite clear that the US will want to use the base to berth its Aegis missile defence ships and nuclear aircraft carriers.

February 23^rd

Arrived ok on Jeju about 8.30pm – caught the bus to Gangjeong and all was going well – then walking to the meeting place from the bus stop I realised that I had taken the wrong bag from the bus which was now disappearing down the road. Bit of a panic. Luckily the first person I saw at the meeting place was Regina Pyon and I told her what had happened she immediately called over two friends who bundled me into a pickup truck and we shot off down the road after the bus. One of the friends was Mi Kyoung Kang a wonderful director of the Hanbit Women’s Shelter. We caught up with it in Seogwipo City (Mi Kyoung’s home town) not far along the road and bags were exchanged successfully – then went to a nearby coffee shop! So at least I was able to see another part of the Island. An unexpectedly exciting start to the visit to the Island!

Today and tomorrow delegates will be arriving from around the world to learn about the struggle of the people of Gangjeong village. Their part of this beautiful island coastline is being destroyed (rare coral reefs and all) by the building of a huge Korean naval base. The US is keen to use the base when it is built, just a few hundred miles from the Chinese mainland, to berth their Aegis missile defence ships and aircraft carriers. The people of Gangjeong are resisting this military take-over of their lives with every scrap of energy they can muster. We are here to show support for their stand against the repercussions of US nuclear and missile defence policies in the Pacific and around the world. A new cold war arms race is beginning and must be stopped.

February 22^nd

The Militarisation of Hawaii

There are so many huge military installations on the Hawaiian chain of islands that it is easy to overlook some of the smaller ones. I forgot to mention in the previous report that, at the end of the road on our “De-Tour” of Oahu, at the top of the Island, we stopped by Kaena Point Satellite Tracking Station, part of the US Air Force Space Command System responsible for tracking military satellites, receiving and processing their data and relaying commands to them from control centres. The familiar satellite dishes and large white golf ball were perched on the top of an otherwise typically rugged hillside overlooking the blue sea.

Yesterday’s meeting at the Quaker Meeting House in Honolulu went really well. Among the attendees were people from Oahu, Kauai, and the Big Island, all of whom are working against the expanding US military presence on their islands. This military expansionism, part of President Obama’s strategy of developing a “Pacific Pivot”, is taking up more and more of the land area of the Islands as bases expand, new ones spring up and large areas are taken over for military training. For example, the US military is set to take up 7 times more land area than they already have and the US Army has ignored a county council resolution that has called for a halt in the development of the Pohakuloa bombing range.

Dave Webb, Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,  reports on the militarisation of Hawaii home to the world's largest  defense testing facility in the world

A range of volcanic islands and a holiday paradise that is also one of the many military oppressed islands in the Pacific Region. The political and military importance of this region is not escaping the islanders. President Obama’s moves to escalate the US military presence here is threatening even further the lives and livelihoods of the people. It is unlikely that holidaymakers will be aware of the history of the Islands and the past and present domination of the US military industrial complex there – which exercises a cynical and arrogant display of power.

A ballistic missile is launched from Barking Sands, Kauai Island

We are staying on Oahu, one of the Hawaii chain and the Island that includes Honolulu and Pearl Harbour and yesterday we had a 10-hour tour (known as the De-Tour) of the militarization of Oahu. Kyle Kajihiro, former director of the American Friends Services Committee peace program, is a long-time and dedicated peace worker who knows just about everything that is happening on this island. It’s strange that the national flag of Hawaii has a Union Jack in the top left corner and yet Hawaii was never a British colony. This apparently dates back to when the Islanders were trying to resist the US empire and wanted to develop friendly relations with Britain, even asking them to intervene. The US did of course eventually colonise the Islands and then encompassed them further as the 50^th state in 1959.

Over 20% of the Island of Oahu is militarized and that figure is continually growing and set to grow exponentially in the near future. The trip was full of stories of how the Islanders have been lied to, tricked and generally downtrodden and abused and their environment polluted and destroyed over the years by the military. We drove past the High School attended by  President Obama, it is a huge, well resourced campus, in direct contrast with conditions that so many indigenous families live in. Forced out of their houses for various reasons (take overs by the military or financial difficulties), many live in makeshift shanty towns on our near the beach. They are being threatened with being moved on yet again further away from the eyes of the well housed and well off US middle classes. They are known locally as the “houseless” rather  than homeless - as the island is their home but they are not allowed or not able to be properly housed there. Their numbers are likely to increase further as Obama’s "pivotal shift" to the Asia-Pacific means that the US Pacific Command (PACOM) headquarters here will  grow and its "area of responsibility" will become increasingly more important - and its mission much more aggressive. This can only be bad news for Hawaii and for the people of the Pacific.

On the tour we visited the Pearl Harbour Memorial (a US National Monument) which is a huge area overlooking the harbour (where a nuclear powered submarine and a nuclear powered aircraft carrier were on proud display  with flags flying). Kyle showed us the little corner of the park that has been given over to the abbreviated and censored story of the indigenous people. It reminded me of the small corner of the Royal Armouries in Leeds given over to the Peace Museum. We also went past the NSA’s Kunia Regional SIGINT Operations Center (KRSOC). This is a secured, bomb-proof, underground installation established in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. It is a sister establishment to Menwith Hill and Kyle told us that the whole thing is due to be moved to the NSA’s Central Security Service's Hawaii Regional Security Operations Center currently being constructed near Whitmore Village not too far away on Oahu, at the former site of the Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station Pacific, or NCTAMS PAC.

At the NCTAMS PAC

The early warning and tracking radar was originally part of the United States nuclear deterrent which was built during the Cold War to detect a missile attack from Russia and enable a full scale nuclear response to be launched. The Russians were doing the same and the idea developed that this “mutually assured destruction” situation would prevent either side from launching a nuclear first strike. The world has just about survived on this knife edge ever since, despite a number of close calls through human or technical errors. It remains the situation that a signal from RAF Fylingdales could be responsible for launching a US or UK nuclear strike that would kill millions of civilians – this is not a passive role.

In addition, RAF Fylingdales now also forms part of the US missile defence system which is causing a huge imbalance to this knife edge. If a missile intercept system were ever to work then this would give the US a huge advantage – they could launch a first strike without having to worry about any retaliation. So now RAF Fylingdales can be seen as possibly being part of a US nuclear strike force which the UK has no control over. Russia are so concerned by this imbalance that they are threatening to pull out of the newly signed treaty to reduce missile numbers and are talking of developing more – the start of a new nuclear arms race looks almost certain.

The idea that ‘terrorist states’ might be targeting Britain is also somewhat misleading – there is no evidence for this whatsoever. Neither Iran nor North Korea possess a missile capable of reaching the UK and anyway, why would they want to? Surely, we should be asking the question - why is our government still wanting to participate in this ridiculously expensive and dangerous game? Instead of forging ahead with plans to replace the UK Trident system at a cost of £75 billion – why not cancel it altogether, help to relieve international tension and spend the money on something much more sensible – like the health service or education?

Professor Dave Webb
Yorkshire CND

It’s quite a time for remotely piloted aircraft or ‘drones’ at the moment. Their illegal use for targeted killings has been condemned by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch with former senior Law Lord Bingham calling them so ‘cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance. Even the MoD acknowledges that there are serious legal and moral issues arising from the growing use of armed drones and a recent Joint Doctrine Note has recognised that the role of humans in deciding if and when missiles are launched is being eroded[1]. By lowering the threshold when attacks might be considered, drones make war more likely and we still don’t know how many civilians are being killed in this way. Questions to David Cameron on whether the 124 people killed by British drone attacks were all ‘insurgents’, as he boasted last December, remain unanswered. The authorities would have us believe that drones only kill combatants but the New America Foundation suggests that 1/3 of casualties in US drone attacks in Pakistan are civilians.[2] The Pakistan Body Count's assessment is even higher - 50 civilians for every combatant killed, with a total of 1245-2420 killed and 263-959 injured by drones since 2004.[3] The military either don’t know or don’t want to know, but a recent report from the Oxford Research Group[4] reminds them that under international law they are required to record and announce the civilian casualties in each attack. So, when will the MoD issue their figures?

US missile defence (missile offence really) has been a cause for concern ever since the idea was put forward in Ronald Reagan’s famous “Star Wars speech” in 1983. Since then it has gone through various forms but always with the same idea of maintaining dominance for the US military on the Earth and in space. Successive presidents have continued with this American dream – turning it into a nightmare for the rest of the world. President Obama is no exception. Despite saying he would “cut investments in unproven missile defense systems” before being elected he has changed and extended the President Bush’s unworkable plans for European bases, got NATO on board and is now planning bases surrounding the Russian border in the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and possible roles for Bulgaria, Ukraine, Turkey and Israel. Little wonder then that Russian President Medvedev has warned of a new arms race and threatened to quit START as a consequence.

And US missile defence is not only causing problems in Europe, the US is selling missile defence systems (Patriot systems) around the world – to Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, India, wherever they can get the customers - irrespective of the consequences it appears. One of those consequences has just become harsh reality to the people of Jeju Island in South Korea.

You might have seen the article in the Guardian a few days ago about the Joint Doctrine Note ‘The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems’ issued by the MoD. It acknowledges that there are serious legal and moral issues arising from the growing use of armed drones or ‘Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems’ (they don’t like the term ‘drones’) and it recognises that the role of humans in deciding if and when missiles are launched from drones is being eroded. A major concern is that by lowering the threshold when attacks might be considered, drones make war more likely.  However, the MoD argues that drone attacks are “morally justified” because of the saving of aircrew lives - straight out of their “humanitarian intervention” dictionary! They dodge the fact that the chances of launching an attack are increased because it is the lives of the aggressors that are protected, at the expense of those of the victims. Last December David Cameron boasted to journalists that more than 124 ‘insurgents’ had been killed in British drone attacks. However, questions by Chris Cole of Drone Wars UK about who these ‘insurgents’ are and if there are any other civilian casualties remain unanswered.

News of the biggest demonstration ever against nuclear power in Germany is coming in as I write. Chancellor Merkel’s reversal of her previous policy of extending the lives of nuclear power stations is seen more as a desperate attempt to appease voters than a change of heart. However, most commentators are not surprised by the move. In the UK the government is remaining issuing the usual vague reassurances and energy minister Chris Huhne has said that “knee-jerk reactions” seen in other countries are “not the right basis for British policy”. He went on to say that the coalition government will continue to “envisage a role for new nuclear” but that they will “have to put an emphasis on safety."

However, assessing safety or the risk of something going wrong is not easy, especially in a complex system composed of many parts and numerous operations subject to uncontrollable external forces. Generally, risk is associated with two factors – the likelihood of an unwanted event and the severity of the outcome. So, even if events are unlikely if the effects are very large then they are risky. However, no specific method exists for estimating the vulnerabilities of nuclear power stations to hardware failures and human faults in design and operation. The Japanese government clearly thought that the risks of building nuclear power stations in an earthquake zone could be managed by good design and adherence to procedures and they accepted the risk. However, the more complex the system the more chances there are of something going wrong and the unlikely or the unforeseeable does happen.