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Today's Top News
Massive US Military Buildup Planned for Guam
Two Decisions Postponed
HONOLULU - The U.S. military has postponed two key decisions related to its buildup of forces on the Guam to ensure it's complying with environmental and historic preservation laws.
The US military gave final approval to the single biggest part of the buildup: a proposal to move 8,000 Marines and their dependents from Okinawa, Japan to the U.S. territory in the Pacific. (AP Photo/US Air Force, John Schwab, File) But it gave final approval to the single biggest part of the buildup: a proposal to move 8,000 Marines and their dependents from Okinawa, Japan to the U.S. territory in the Pacific. The decision was posted online Tuesday.
The Navy put off deciding where to build a live fire range for the Marines while it consults with preservation authorities on how the training area would affect the ancient village of Pagat. Stone bowls, fishing gear, spear points and other artifacts dating back more than a millennium have been found at the village, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The military acknowledged in a document called a "Record of Decision" that a significant new influx of population would affect the island's indigenous Chamorro population, and vowed to be sensitive to this issue.
At its peak, the buildup is expected to boost Guam's population by 79,000 people, or 45 percent, over its current 180,000 residents.
The Department of Defense "is cognizant of the concerns regarding the degradation of Chamorro culture and respects Chamorro social and cultural traditions and will continue to strive to be good neighbors," the document said.
The Navy also delayed deciding where in Apra Harbor it will place a new aircraft carrier berth so it can study how construction of the dock would affect the harbor's coral reef.
The Environmental Protection Agency in February said the military, in a draft environmental impact statement, had underestimated the effect the berth would have on corals that provide essential habitats for fish and endangered sea turtles.
The EPA told the Navy this month it would need to study the coral matter further before it selected a site within Apra for the carrier.
The Navy wants the new berth to accommodate the military's strategy of having its aircraft carriers spend more time in the western Pacific.
Guam is about 3,700 miles southwest of Hawaii and 1,500 miles south of Tokyo.
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Show Alloh yeah! the SITH EMPIRE does not give up without a FIGHT! next thing you know it will be building a DEATH STAR.
BREAKING NEWS...
Okinowa Free(Occupied)Press release -
"The RAPISTS are leaving... the RAPISTS are leaving!"
Gaum Tribun(al) release -
"Oy vey... we're FUCKED"
Guam - Halfway pitstop for an attack on Iran.
Non Serviam - I will not serve.
I was thinking this is a message to China. Also, the people of Japan are really sick of american military bases and all the negative consequences that go with them, so maybe the military is relocating for that reason.
of course it is.
that goes along with the hoopla about the "north korean attack on south korean ship" incident. and then using THAT as an excuse to have maritime military "excercise" with south korea to basically ensure that south korea is "firmly in the international (USA controlled) defense against threats to FREEDOM"...
to "counter" china's own , and quite traditional military excercises in the northern china sea abutting south korea and china's northeastern coast...all of it quite rational for a nation (china) that has experienced foreign imperial invasions , including that from japan, russia, england, germany , the portuguese and of course the USA.
the BIG question is , as always:
WHAT IS THE UNITED STATES DOING in AREAS of the globe with its "maritime excercises"
THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of miles away from ITS own coasts?
and then demanding that china or others "CONTAIN" themselves?
consider:
OVER 3o years ago - BEFORE china opened itself up to international trade at a greater exposure and consequently accumulated such a financial clout in just about every continent without firing a single shot in these past 30 years -
CHINA ALREADY was VERY capable of going tit-for-tat with the USA in a NUCLEAR shooting spree should it come to that.
consider:
are the smaller asian nations REALLY going to allow themselves to be DRAGGED into such a conflict BY the United States Demanding ALLEGIANCE from them and "against chinese threats to law and order and peace".........
after it is the USA that has the LONGEST RECORD of support for Tyrannous governments IN the Asian region, the colonizations, the ECONOMIC PRESCRIPTIONS that resulted in disasters (such as the "asian economic crisis" of 30 years ago - in which CHINA was the one country that , for refusing to take part in that global American prescribed Scheme , IMF, etc..ESCAPED that debacle) ?
are the asian countries -- which NOW are , for better or worse, but for the MOMENT as developing regions , enjoying a surge economically compared to europe and the USA -and NOT BECAUSE of FOLLOWING the USA prescriptions but inching AWAY from it, (as argentina and brazil did) --
REALLY going to Exchange their recent surge FROM THOSE DECADES of AMERICAN PRESCRIBED DISASTERS -- as it is also tied to CHINA?
as I said a long time ago...regardless of what south korea or taiwan or japan do for APPEARANCES -- to "balance power against china" - in showing themselves as "allies" of the USA
IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS -- they CAN NOT ESCAPE their geographic, cultural, ethnic and historic ties WITH CHINA -- in trade, in economy, in political thinking, in cultural history ...and in the end -- they WILL have to choose:
BE asian of international CLOUT that can not escape China's UNAVOIDABLE rise , OR be "HALF AMERICANS".
who is the LOSER in the end? it will STILL be the USA.
now -- if the USA PROVOKES things to such an extent that china is forced to accede to the line of thinking of ITS military HAWKS who are begging for a shooting war - whether or not it is STARTED by the USA or "allies" or China starts it -- depending on the particulars of an "incident" -
in the end - a shooting war is going to be in China's favor.
why?
there is NO CHANCE in hell that the USA or the "western" alliance (considering the germans, british, french would NOT dare lose their markets AND sources in china AND asia as a result if a war china involves in INEVITABLY DISTURBS the Asian region's PRIORITIES of economic development) will be able to "occupy" , much less "dictate" to china and its ONE BILLION 300 million people to accede to the USA's "open market" , "free market", "democracy" pronouncements known throughout the world, and with PARTICULARLY FAMILIARITY to Asians under the brunt of several AMERICAN BACKED brutal regimes in the past and current.
what are one MILLION US soldiers going to do? 2 million? 3 million? that's LAUGHABLE if that were EVER a "goal" of the ending of any "war" , even one that is maritime based in that ocean.
furthermore - china wilL SURELY use its leverage of being able to launch enough NUCLEAR bombs ON the USA mainland itself -- ENOUGH to have at least a few LAND and explode in american populated areas, at the very least.
and THEN they go back to what Mao Zedong said -- long before China was the Economic powerhouse that it has become --
"WE CAN AFFORD TO LOSE 300 million people --- can the USA afford to lose the same?"
in THAT simple equation -- not to mention all the sophisticated thousand year ways of "war" that china had ceased practicing for a while (SUN TZU) -- such as the methods the chinese can easily deploy now that they have the MEANS, economically, technologically and militarily and certainly manpower-wise to apply it -- quantity for quantity
with near parity in technological capabilities - even if the USA is ahead in technology
Exactly HOW LONG before the USA will LOSE in a war of ATTRITION?
the USA has NO candle to hold here. you can be sure of THAT.
and THAT's not even considering china DUMPING - SACRIFICING its vast Dollar holdings -
EVEN at the cost of momentary economic distress - which WILL be pointed AT the USA by asian nation dollar holders because they KNOW which country is INTERLOPING in a region it doesn't belong IN....For the "prize" : which is to , once and for all, DESTROY the ENTIRE FOUNDATION of the US economy itself.
furthermore -- china has been HOARDING GOLD - while the USA's gold holdings is NOT backed up by its monetary profligacy or its economic clout (the reason of course that the USA has gotten away with highway robbery of the world's gold and other reserves of other countries by forcing them to accede to the USA dominated "dollar reserve policy", as THEY waste their hard =earned "dollar reserves" to SERVICE the dollar in trade, rather than use their MONEY to service THEIR local economies ..but that's another matter)....
what's the USA going to do?
print more money that is WORTHLESS - to buy exactly WHAT? and who's going to back up that DEBT "paid in worthless dollars" PROMISED by the USA that isn't even able to pay interest regularly on its global debt?
how's the USA exactly going to convince "investors" globally to FUND ITS MILITARY MACHINE? ONE of the prime funders BEING CHINA itself ?
the USA is going to THREATEN ITS OWN BANKER? the USA is going to threaten China to "stand down" or ELSE the USA is going to start "economic sanctions?" on china?
with WHAT exactly? WITH WHOM to join the USA? Japan is going to LOSE BUSINESS with china on THAT? South Korea is going to lose competition for its high-tech construction industry in china to architects and engineers and contractors in europe, south america, spain, the rest of asia SALIVATING for earnings to develop THEIR economies?
the USA is going to "threaten" china with WHAT EXACTLY?
it is pure folly to try to threaten china in ANY way ..it works for a while against SMALL, much weaker countries.
CHINA isn't FRIGHTENED . you can bet on that. they must be laughing, if not because they consider this , very likely, an UNNECESSARY interruption in their development!!!
and they know the "BULLY of the WORLD" can't do a DAMN THING about it, or if it's STUPID enough to TRY ....
THEY - not the USA -- have ALL the cards!
that's a LAUGH!!!
"Guam - Halfway pitstop for an attack on Iran."
Our attack on Iran will come from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, which Obama has armed with nearly 400 bunker busters, among other weapons (http://www.zcommunications.org/the-iranian-threat-by-noam-chomsky). I think this is a move to avoid future confrontations with the pesky citizens of Okinawa who are becoming more and more fed up with the Marine rapists among them. The people of Guam will be powerless and voiceless to stop the inevitable Marine inflicted carnage soon descending upon them.
I was speaking metaphorically, not geographically.
Non Serviam - I will not serve.
For you to serve would require camo "Depends" TM.
It's a sickness. We are ruled by people who have no ecological or spiritual consciousness. They are Machine People living in some kind of deranged tunnel-reality.
"Machine People"
It reminds me of Charley Chaplin's speech at the end of his movie: The Great Dictator. If you haven't seen it, go rent a copy or get it from Netflix. Chaplin seems like he could be talking about life in America today.
From youtube, Chaplin's fantastic performance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIjSnaa22oo&feature=fvw
"Machine men with machine minds and machine hearts..."
I just re-watched "why we fight".
It is really amassing to me that MR. Eisenhower was never listened to about the military industrial complex Oh wait this is not a dream I am
living in the dumbest
country in the world.. USA,USA, USA, USA WE are what number 37th or some such.. The crows are coming home..
THE USA IS NUMBER ONE in THREE things:
Exporting Violence and War
Exporting Prescriptions of DISASTROUS economics
and Number one in Hubristic Delusion.
The long slow death of Empire.
Other than Japan/Okinawa, Guam is the closest that the US Empire can keep forces to 'watch' the West Pacific (adversaries du jure - China and N. Korea)
Leaving Okinawa is good.
Slowly, all too slowly, the troops will come homeward.
"…and vowed to be sensitive to this issue."
Sensitivity is just what the Pentagon is famous for.
"Sensitivity is just what the Pentagon is famous for"
Indeed it is, the marine commandant has already ordered the troops to say "please" and "thank you" when they rape the local girls.
As I am reading these posts--with which I could not agree more--I suddenly have a dream: what if the bloggers here (including me) decide to start a new party! Can you imagine what it would be like to deal and work with such people--instead of the subandroids like Cain and Palin and the rest of the political establishment!
And then I awake and realize that unless I go to the Andromeda Galaxy, the dream will never happen. So back to the Grey Life!
No, it's not just a dream. What it will entail is a lot of painstaking work, and the sooner we get started, the better... By the way, I've already come up with a great name for the party we need: The Pitchforks and Torches Party. Can't you just picture the logos and signs?
Why not join the Greens. Take a look at their platform. It's exactly what we want! and Greens already have ballot lines in many states so the work is partially done - a lot of work.
The only thing that's lacking is participation! Democrats infiltrated and brought the party nearly to its death but it's slowly recovering. What it needs is YOU!
The light is Green. Go!
That should give pause to the Axis of Evil (and beyond) Terrorists who may or may not be considering an attack on Guam.
We also gots ‘Gott mit UNs’.
(If you don’t believe me, read your favorite parts of the Bible.)
Does this mean that the Senate solved the problem where the long narrow island might capsize with the extra weight?
It is comforting to know that our Senate is composed of the mental giants who can solve such problems.
More news of Hope and Change from the sitting administration!
"The Department of Defense is cognizant of the concerns regarding the degradation of Chamorro culture and respects Chamorro social and cultural traditions and will continue to strive to be good neighbors,"
The USan imperial enterprise was run out of Okinawa because, philosophically, imperialism is repulsive and because, practically, it was a terrible neighbor.
So now it wants to shift that enterprise from Okinawa to Guam. Along with its lies that it will "continue to strive to be a good neighbor".
I believe it is the liberals in the USA who like to maintain the imperial enterprise on the basis that there's some little silver lining in the cloud. I know that USan liberals pay much more into it than conservatives, per capita.
Right, the liberal thought is that military expansion is good for our economy. Huge foreign bases and troop strengths do so much for our domestic production and infrastructure. Abram tanks and forty knot destroyers have so many peaceful applications. Much better to spend a few bucks on billion dollar bombers than waste them on toys like rapid transit or light rail. Who needs schools or libraries? If we privatize education then we can choose what the truth is. I digress but the frustration with an increasingly less conservative right is thick around here.
Even if they're not coming right out and saying it, I see this as an invasion of Guam (because it will affect the ancient village of Pagat. Stone bowls, fishing gear, spear points and other artifacts dating back more than a millennium have been found at the village, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places) because the US has been ousted (a long time coming) from Okinawa
Katherine Magdangal is on FB
We have our priorities.
Joe
Their priorities are not the same as my priorities!
The US military worries about the dear fishies and birdies while it better places its obscene abilities to kill people amongst them.
What a bloody joke.
Only in the USA could such watery crap have currency. Add it to the list of stupidities like Democracy, Weapons of Mass Destruction, 'killing them to save them' and the result is massively spectacular in its absurdity.
What a tiresome mess. What a juvenile people. What a shameless lot. What a puerile culture. It has come to be that all that is needed to destroy a word is for it to be stated with a US accent.
This is not just an insult. Remember how the British accent lost currency. It was for the same reasons; part embarrassment, part disgust.
The USA has, true to Anglo-Saxon form, become a disgusting embarrassment to humanity. Its blissfully ignorant citizens look as stupid to all they meet as the pom in his pith helmet became. I know. I watch them in the East and how the Orientals look after them to ensure they can get what they want, kindly, and then gratefully send them home wondering why.
Time has moved on since the British Raj. American citizens must come to their senses and help the world to get rid of this ludicrous structure. Given that the remnant Raj Tony Blair assisted the US in this current absurdity it must be stated that the destruction of this arrogant column and plinth is now overdue.
It is the only thing that will save us.
Amazing comments.
as Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. stated--- which is even MORE true today of the USA :
"WE are a nation of Technological Giants and Moral and Intellectual Midgets".
not that the "technological giant" part is guaranteed to last long, for that matter, if it continues this way, except perhaps mostly "technological giants in WAR and DEATH-DEALING< TORTURE , SPYING, INCARCERATION...APPLICATION OF PHYSICAL FORCE, DETENTION, Money Laundering, National ID Fascism TOTAL INFORMATION CONTROL"
yup -- in THOSE the USA is on its merry way to being the "greatest in the Solar System".
BREAKING NEWS: The Pentagon announced today the redeployment of 8,000 U.S. Marines from the Japanese Island of Okinawa. One bit of bad news about the redeployment, when the 8,000 Marines landed on Guam... THE FUCKING ISLAND SANK, killing all 250,000 inhabitants!
Is that considered a win?
The redeployment of US soldiers away from Okinawa is certainly very good news. The people of Okinawa have been protesting peacefully for decades asking for the US forces to move out, so such a move is perfectly consistent with the wishes of the people there.
My only concern is with Guam - do the people there even want the US military in their midst ?
as far as I know (and I have friends from guam) - at least half of them DON"T want military expansion. they are even concerned about not just the space but how it is destroying the environment also.
hi everybody! thanks some great post worth reading! z1, your (gee, i hope you lampoon!) as well as yours, suhail_shafi, remind of a democracy now! broadcast from several months back.
guam is a comparatively small island which therefore requires maintaining a stable population so as "not to sink" to the botom of the deep blue sea. yes! yes! yes! the people of this captive island do fear the consequences from an expanded u.s base there.
don't quite get why. what's to fear? u.s. leadership has made iraq, after all, a shining example of democracy in the middle east!
ps. thanks for the youtube and chomsky urls!
War and the weapons industry is the one stimulus both Republicans and Democrats agree on, and with no questions asked. Unfortunately, it has the same investment return as does burning dollar bills, including borrowed ones.
that explains why the american eagle flies in ever tighter decending circles.
two "right wings"
Is it a build up or just a relocation? Perhaps the Japanese people on Okinawa don't want us there either.
The article makes it sound like there is a massive buildup going on in the Pacific.
If so, what on earth for?
The land developers are going to be at least as upset as the indigenious people.
They are all over the Pacific like fleas on a dog.
Anyone know to what extent this is just skimming the pork barrel and to what extent it might be securing Philippine oil, or perhaps making some symbolic gesture towards that?
The US has little motive to target North Korea, and it makes no sense to amass ground troops (8,000?!) for a conversation with China.
Am I missing something in the Philippines themselves?
Once again lest we forget: “A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice, lest you jeopardise your chances of self-promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts and, before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit. Or as Christ puts it, 'What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?'"- Jimmy Reid
The major reports coming out trumpeting the “go ahead” for the largest military buildup in the world taking place in Guam neglect to report the geometric levels of discussion to conveniently entangle the issues that continue to obscure the information and facts. More importantly, what is ignored and shoved behind locked doors is the awakening of a grass-roots activist movement by the indigenous Chamorro people and concerned island residents to stop the military buildup.
There are however, articles out of Japan Focus (http://www.japanfocus.org/) to offer the Asia-Pacific perspective or through the “military empire” lens in the War Times publication (http://www.war-times.org/).
The issues of the preservation of our four-thousand year-old Chamorro culture and the conservation of our precious land and seas are inspiring and guiding youth on the island to mobilize against the island’s continued colonization, and now this onslaught of more arms, more war.
Please read:
-The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/article/living-tip-spear)
-Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/guam-self-determination-o_b_614688.html )
-Japan Focus (http://www.japanfocus.org/-Gwyn-Kirk/3356 )
These articles provide brief history of colonization and militarization with more up-to-date, on-the-ground stories of how the local government and communities across the island are organizing to confront this many-headed monster.
Also:
-We Are Guåhan:: http://www.weareguahan.com
-We Are Guåhan Public Forum on Facebook
Documents have been signed. Contracts have been drawn. The rhetoric tells one side of this story only.