Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

Thai News Agency MCOT
January 3, 2010

The United States plans to fortify Guam, upgrading its military base on the island into a strategic staging post that would allow rapid access to potential flashpoints in the Pacific region.

More troops, including 9,182 Marines, army soldiers and their dependents from Okinawa, Japan, will be relocated to this island, while more than 9,000 transient troops, mainly from the navy’s carrier strike group, will also be based here.

The ”overarching purpose” of beefing up Guam as a military fortress is ”to provide mutual defense, deter aggression, and dissuade coercion in the Western Pacific Region, according to a draft impact report recently released by the U.S. Defense Department.

The proposed buildup would allow U.S. military forces to respond to regional threats and contingencies in a ”flexible” and ”timely manner” as they work to ”defend U.S., Japan and allied interests,” the study says.

”Moving these forces to Guam would place them on the furthest forward element of sovereign U.S. territory in the Pacific, thereby maximizing their freedom of action,” it says.

According to the report, the United States envisions Guam as a ”local command and control structure” manned, equipped, trained, and sustained by a modern logistics infrastructure.

The relocation and buildup cost, including expansion of infrastructure needed to maintain a permanent base for Marines and U.S. Army troops on Guam and Tinian, an island 160 kilometers to the northeast, is pegged at $12 billion.

Japan has agreed to chip in $6.09 billion of the total.

The plan would entail ”increased operational activities,” more frequent berthing by aircraft carriers and other warships, building aviation training ranges and upgrading of harbors, wharves and ports.

The existing Andersen Air Force Base on Guam would be expanded to include the air elements of the Marines. A new Marine base would be built ”right next door,” …

http://enews.mcot.net/view.php?id=13543

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Lew Rockwell
by Rick Rozoff

With senator and once almost vice president Joseph Lieberman’s threat on December 27 that “Yemen will be tomorrow’s war” and former Southern Command chief and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Wesley Clark’s two days later that “Maybe we need to put some boots on the ground there,” [5] it is evident that America’s new war for the new year has already been identified. In fact in mid-December U.S. warplanes participated in the bombing of a village in northern Yemen that cost the lives of 120 civilians as well as wounding 44 more [6] and a week later “A US fighter jet…carried out multiple airstrikes on the home of a senior official in Yemen’s northern rugged province of Sa’ada….”

The pretext for undertaking a war in Yemen in earnest is currently the serio-comic “attempted terrorist attack” by a young Nigerian national on a passenger airliner outside of Detroit on Christmas Day. The deadly U.S. bombing of the Yemeni village mentioned above occurred ten days earlier and moreover was in the north of the nation, although Washington claims al-Qaeda cells are operating in the other end of the country.

Asia, Africa and the Middle East are not the only battlegrounds where the Pentagon is active. On October 30 of 2009 the U.S. signed an agreement with the government of Colombia to acquire the essentially unlimited and unrestricted use of seven new military bases in the South American nation, including sites within immediate striking distance of both Venezuela and Ecuador. [9] American intelligence, special forces and other personnel will be complicit in ongoing counterinsurgency operations against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the nation’s south as well as in rendering assistance to Washington’s Colombian proxy for attacks inside Ecuador and Venezuela that will be portrayed as aimed at FARC forces in the two states.

Targeting two linchpins of and ultimately the entire Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), Washington is laying the groundwork for a potential military conflagration in South and Central America and the Caribbean. After the U.S.-supported coup in Honduras on June 28, that nation has announced it will be the first ALBA member state to ever withdraw from the Alliance and the Pentagon will retain, perhaps expand, its military presence at the Soto Cano Air Base there.

A few days ago “The Colombian government…announced it is building a new military base on its border with Venezuela and has activated six new airborne battalions” [10] and shortly afterward Dutch member of parliament Harry van Bommel “claimed that US spy planes are using an airbase on the Netherlands Antilles island of Curaçao” off the Venezuelan coast.

In October a U.S. armed forces publication revealed that the Pentagon will spend $110 million to modernize and expand seven new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania, across the Black Sea from Russia, where it will station initial contingents of over 4,000 troops.

In early December the U.S. signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Poland, which borders the Russian Kaliningrad territory, that “allows for the United States military to station American troops and military equipment on Polish territory.” The U.S. military forces will operate Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) and Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) batteries as part of the Pentagon’s global interceptor missile system.

At approximately the same time President Obama pressured Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to base missile shield components in his country. “We discussed the continuing role that we can play as NATO allies in strengthening Turkey’s profile within NATO and coordinating more effectively on critical issues like missile defense,” in the American leader’s words.

“Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has hinted his government does not view Tehran [Iran] as a potential missile threat for Turkey at this point. But analysts say if a joint NATO missile shield is developed, such a move could force Ankara to join the mechanism.”

2010 will see the first foreign troops deployed to Poland since the breakup of the Warsaw Pact in 1991 and the installation of the U.S.’s “stronger, swifter and smarter” (also Obama’s words) interceptor missiles and radar facilities in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the South Caucasus …

www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/rozoff4.1.1.html

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The Times
December 31, 2009

The Pentagon is drawing up urgent plans for increased military co-operation with Yemen, including possible retaliatory strikes against al-Qaeda targets, according to US officials engaged in a high-stakes bid to neutralise Islamist militants without enraging the Arab world.

The Obama Administration, caught out by the Christmas Day attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines aircraft, is reviewing every possible response and has not ruled out military strikes if targets linked directly to the failed attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab can be identified. …

In line with the terms of a secret military assistance pact agreed last year, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, the Yemeni Foreign Minister, insisted yesterday that any attacks on al-Qaeda targets in Yemen would be by Yemeni government forces. …

The US has never publicly acknowledged the rapid build-up of its military presence in and near Yemen since last year but sources say that attacks already mounted by Yemeni government forces on al-Qaeda training camps would have been impossible without American hardware and knowhow. Future strikes could involve the use of US drones, fighter jets and ship-launched cruise missiles. …

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6972110.ece

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BBC News
December 29, 2009

US plans for a missile defence shield are holding up a new nuclear disarmament treaty, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said.

Russia and the US are yet to find a successor to the Cold War-era Start I treaty, which expired on 5 December.

Analysts say Moscow wants a clause in the new treaty that would limit the scale of any US defence shield.

The US has shelved plans for missile defence stations in Central Europe, but intends to use a sea-based system.

Asked by a reporter what was the biggest problem blocking a new treaty, Mr Putin said: “What is the problem? The problem is that our American partners are building an anti-missile shield and we are not building one.”

“By building such an umbrella over themselves, our [US] partners could feel themselves fully secure and will do whatever they want, which upsets the balance,” the Russian premier added.

He said that “to preserve the balance, we must develop offensive weapons systems”, but did not specify what kinds he had in mind.

Earlier this month, President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia would continue to develop new warheads, delivery vehicles and launchers despite the disarmament talks, describing this as “routine practice”.

Russia and the US are negotiating in Geneva on the details of a new treaty. Last week, the Russian foreign minister said a deal was very close. …

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8433352.stm

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Time Magazine
By Mark Thompson
December 17, 2009

Fake “North Korean” missiles have been hurtling over the Pacific toward the U.S. for years, providing test fodder for the Pentagon’s missile-defense systems. But next month, the fake enemy missiles flying over the same ocean are going to be “Iranian.” The timing of the test, however, has nothing to do with a missile test-fired by Iran on Tuesday. That was a medium-range Sajjil-2 missile capable of targeting Israel or U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf. Next month’s U.S. interceptor test will, instead, be aimed at the as-yet-hypothetical threat of an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), even though such a threat has been deemed by the Obama Administration to be unlikely in the immediate future. …

The U.S. currently has 23 ground-based interceptors based in Alaska and California, and they could be used against missiles launched — for real — from either North Korea or Iran.

Read more: www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1948070,00.html#ixzz0aV8vCTNj

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Capital FM
December 19, 2009

The US Congress on Saturday sent US President Barack Obama a massive annual military spending bill that funds current operations in Afghanistan and pays for the troop withdrawal from Iraq.

In a rare weekend vote, the Senate approved the 636.3-billion-dollar package, which cleared the House of Representatives 395-34 on Wednesday, by an 88-10 margin.

Obama is expected to send Congress an emergency spending measure of at least 30 billion dollars early next year to pay for his recently announced decision to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan.

The bill includes 101.1 billion dollars for operations and maintenance and military personnel requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan and to carry out the planned withdrawal of all US combat forces from Iraq by August 2010.

The package also funds the purchase of 6,600 new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armoured vehicles configured to better resist improvised explosive devices — roadside bombs used to deadly effect by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bill includes 80 million dollars to acquire more unmanned “Predator” drones, a key tool in the US air war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

That campaign deploys unmanned Predator and larger Reaper drones equipped with infrared cameras and armed with precision-guided bombs and Hellfire missiles.

With little public debate in the United States, the pace of the drone bombing raids has steadily increased, starting last year during ex-president George W. Bush’s final months in office and now under Obama’s tenure.

The spending bill upholds Obama’s ban on torture of detainees in US custody, continues a general provision forbidding the establishment of permanent bases in Iraq or Afghanistan, and provides no funds to close the prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.

Read more: http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/International/US-approves-2010-military-budget-6871.html#ixzz0aJMyn2R7
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RIA Novosti
December 16, 2009

Turkey objects to plans of deploying U.S. missile defense elements on its soil because it could worsen relations with Russia and Iran, national media reported Wednesday.

According to Milliyet daily, U.S. President Barack Obama last week proposed placing a “missile shield” on Turkish soil.

“Both Russia and Iran will perceive that [deployment] as a threat,” a Turkish military source was quoted as saying.

U.S. President Barack Obama recently scrapped plans for Poland and the Czech Republic to host missile shield elements to counter possible strikes from Iran.

Due to a re-assessment of the threat for Iran, Washington announced a new scheme for a more flexible system, with a combination of land and sea-based interceptors based on the Standard Missile interceptor, SM-3.

Under the new plan, the U.S. would place ship-based SM-3s in the North and Mediterranean seas in 2011, and mobile land-based SM-3s in Central Europe by 2015.

The paper said “such technology will turn Turkey into a legitimate target for Iran’s medium and shorter range missiles.”

http://en.rian.ru/world/20091216/157260838.html

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Christian Science Monitor
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
December 11, 2009

The US, Poland status of forces pact signed Friday allows deployment of a missile defense system to go forward. An earlier proposal for a more robust missile system had drawn the ire of Russia.

The US and Poland have reached an agreement to station an American antimissile defense system on Polish soil two months after plans to install a more robust missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic were scrapped in the face of intense Russian opposition. But the close military cooperation between the US and Poland, including US troops in the country, means the deal is likely to remain a major concern for Russia.

The deployment, under a new Status of Forces Agreement reached between Poland and the US, calls for US troops to install and operate a mobile, land-based set of short- and medium-range missiles to defend against incoming attacks.

The equipment includes SM-3 IA missiles and a MIM-104 Patriot mobile missile battery. Both types of missile are designed to shoot down short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. The missiles could arrive in Poland as soon as the first quarter of 2010.

Though Russia is unhappy about the growing military ties between the US and former Warsaw Pact nations, the current plan is more modest than the earlier one, which included long-range missile interceptors. The missiles to be stationed in Poland will not have the capacity to be used offensively against Russia and aren’t capable of shooting down the long-range missiles in the Russian arsenal. …

www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2009/1211/US-Poland-status-of-forces-pact-deepens-military-cooperation

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Media-Newswire.com

The United States and Russia have agreed to maintain a critical nuclear arms control agreement past its expiration date until a new agreement is reached, saying that strategic stability is very important.

In April, when President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held their first face-to-face meeting in London, the two leaders pledged to work for a world free of nuclear arms, and said every effort would be made before the end of this year to reduce their nuclear arsenals with the long-term goal of reducing global nuclear tensions.

In a joint statement December 4 issued in Washington and Moscow, they said that it’s too important to let the terms of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty ( START ) expire on December 5 while negotiators continue working on a successor treaty. …

At the Moscow Summit in July, Obama and Medvedev agreed to reduce the number of nuclear warheads each possesses to a range of 1,500 to 1,675 over seven years. The treaty would also limit the means of delivery, which include nuclear-powered submarines, long-range bombers, and intercontinental ballistic missiles. The missiles can be used to deliver non-nuclear warheads over the same distance, and that has been one of several highly technical areas of discussion.

START was signed July 31, 1991, by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and President George H.W. Bush; President Ronald Reagan originally proposed the treaty in 1982. It was designed to limit nuclear warheads to about 6,000 in each arsenal.

In 2002, the United States and Russia agreed to the Moscow Treaty that sought to reduce nuclear arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 operationally deployed warheads by 2012.

In Prague earlier this year, Obama called for a nuclear-weapons-free world and pledged to work for greater arms control and nonproliferation goals. It comes at a time when Washington is enlisting Moscow’s support in curbing the nuclear ambitions of both North Korea and Iran. The United States and Russia participate in talks aimed at convincing the two regimes to give up weapons and long-range missile development programs in return for economic and political incentives.

START negotiations are being held in Geneva and are led by Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller and Russian negotiator Anatoly Antonov. They have been working quickly to resolve remaining differences in areas of offensive weapons levels and missile defense issues.

http://media-newswire.com/release_1107449.html

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Chicago Tribune
By Jason Grotto
December 9, 2009

… U.S. air bases in Vietnam remain highly polluted by defoliants, but the U.S. has done little to clean up the sites it contaminated during the war.

When a small Canadian environmental firm started collecting soil samples on a former U.S. air base in a remote Vietnam valley, Thomas Boivin and other scientists were skeptical they’d find evidence proving herbicides used there by the U.S. military decades ago still posed a health threat.

But results showed levels of the cancer-causing poison dioxin were far greater than guidelines set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for residential areas. …

Vancouver-based Hatfield Consultants began tracing the toxin through the food chain, from the soil and sediment of nearby ponds to the fat of ducks and fish to the blood and breast milk of villagers living on the contaminated site.

The breast milk of one woman from the study contained dioxin levels six times higher than what the World Health Organization deems safe. She also had a 2-year-old child with spina bifida, one of the birth defects for which the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs compensates the children of U.S. veterans.

Since then, Hatfield and Vietnamese scientists have taken samples from nearly 3,000 former U.S. military bases scattered throughout South Vietnam and identified 28 “hot spots,” including three highly contaminated sites around populated areas in Da Nang, Bien Hoa and Phu Cat.

Their findings offered a way to recast the legacy of Agent Orange in Vietnam as a solvable — and urgent — issue. Instead of a messy controversy over birth defects and other complex health issues, the discovery of persistent contamination focused attention on a measurable, present-day problem that could be addressed.

Yet since the first Hatfield study was published in 2000, the U.S. government has done little to help clean up the sites it contaminated during the Vietnam War, providing just $6 million to tackle both the serious health issues related to the contamination and the significant environmental damage caused by the defoliants. …

www.chicagotribune.com/health/agentorange/chi-agent-orange4dec09,0,7839395.story

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