Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

Press TV
July 10, 2011

Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani says the country’s political parties will have two weeks to make a final decision on the extension of US troop presence in Iraq beyond December 2011.

“All parties have discussed the matter, and we have all agreed that each one will… give its final response within two weeks,” AFP quoted Talabani as saying on Saturday.

He made the remarks in a press conference after a meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as well as top Shia, Sunni and Kurd political officials.

“The issue of the US troop presence has been thoroughly discussed and our brothers (politicians) decided to tackle the issue with their friends, allies and parties to come after two weeks with a decisive result,” Talabani said.

Iraq’s Sadr Movement has rejected the likely presence of US troops beyond 2011, saying it will take up arms against American forces if US military does not withdraw from the war-weary country. …

Read on: www.presstv.com/detail/188411.html

Washington Post
July 8, 2011

Money for the Pentagon and the nation’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is proving largely immune from the budget-cutting that’s slamming other government agencies in the rush to bring down the deficit.

On a 336-87 vote Friday, the Republican-controlled House overwhelmingly backed a $649 billion defense spending bill that boosts the Defense Department budget by $17 billion. The strong bipartisan embrace of the measure came as White House and congressional negotiators face an Aug. 2 deadline on agreeing to trillions of dollars in federal spending cuts and raising the borrowing limit so the U.S. does not default on debt payments.

While House Republican leaders agreed to slash billions from the proposed budgets for other agencies, hitting food aid for low-income women, health research, energy efficiency and much more, the military budget is the only one that would see a double-digit increase in its account beginning Oct. 1

Concerns about undermining national security, cutting military dollars at a time of war and losing defense jobs back home trumped fiscal discipline in the House. Only 12 Republicans and 75 Democrats opposed the overall bill. …

Read on: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-pushes-to-finish-649b-defense-bill-sends-mixed-message-on-libya/2011/07/08/gIQAE0KJ3H_story.html

Stars and Stripes
July 4, 2011

U.S. military leaders are working to replace some of the exiting American conventional forces from Afghanistan with a “mini-surge” of U.S. Special Forces, a measure to soothe commanders’ fears that the withdrawal of troops might put at risk military gains, according to the Times out of Australia.

Military sources told The Times that 16 special operations personnel are considered to be worth the equivalent of 100 conventional troops.

In June, President Obama announced plans to withdraw 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year. The remainder of the surge troops, about 23,000, would be withdrawn in 2012, leaving about 70,000 troops in Afghanistan until 2014. …

www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/afghanistan/mini-surge-of-u-s-special-forces-to-hit-afghanistan-1.148268

Norfolk Eastern Daily Press
By Rebecca Gough
July 2, 2011

They may have the same name – but that’s where the similarities well and truly stop.

One is a sleepy village in Wiltshire – and the other is 170 miles away and the largest US air base in the UK.

But thanks to a mix-up caused by in-car satellite navigation systems, American service personnel are being directed to Mildenhall, near Marlborough, in the west country rather than the massive RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk.

John Desmond, the landlord of the Horseshoe Inn, a popular pub in the Wiltshire village, said personnel arrived roughly 11 or 12 times a year.

“It’s mainly American airforce personnel who end up in the village asking, ‘Where’s the airbase?’,” he said. “Then I have to break the bad news to them. 
“I always let them sit down because you’ve got a feel a bit sorry for them, especially when they’ve been travelling a long way.

“I’ve had a fighter pilot and a major and I had a family of eight in a people carrier. The family stayed for some Sunday lunch. It’s sad really because they’ve come so far.
“With the US major he picked the car up from Heathrow, which is quite close to us, and just typed in Mildenhall and of course it brought him here.

“It’s mostly Americans but we also get German and French lorry drivers. They’re gobsmacked when they find out that the base is in Suffolk.”

RAF Mildenhall is one of the largest US air bases in the UK. It is home to several airborne units and supports 16,000 personnel

Mildenhall, Wiltshire, is a village of thatched cottages with a population of 457 in the 2001 census. The name is pronounced “Minal”.

Despite reports that a USAF navigator, major and fighter pilot are among those who have ended up in the village, the RAF base says it has no records of “lost personnel”. …

Read on: www.edp24.co.uk/news/sat_nav_sends_us_servicemen_round_the_wrong_bend_in_suffolk_1_950847

Stars and Stripes
By Travis J. Tritten
June 28, 2011

Plans to transform Guam into a major military hub will cost the U.S., Japan and Guam at least $23.9 billion over the next decade, according to estimates released this week by the Government Accountability Office.

The money would pay for the relocation of thousands of Marines from Okinawa to Guam, training ranges on nearby Tinian, transient berthing for aircraft carriers, and an Air Force reconnaissance and strike center. But the price tag could climb even higher because the Department of Defense has not yet calculated all the costs of the massive project, including the possibility of putting an anti-ballistic missile defense system on the island, according to the report released Monday.

The Guam buildup and plans to shift U.S. forces in Japan by relocating the Futenma air station on Okinawa have come under fire from the U.S. Senate, which has called the realignment plans expensive and unneeded. Earlier this month, a Senate panel voted to bar any funding from the upcoming defense budget for the realignment until the military better justifies the need. …

Read on: www.stripes.com/news/pacific/guam/guam-buildup-could-cost-23-9-billion-over-next-decade-gao-says-1.147675

Calgary Herald
June 26, 2011

American military engineers are developing a new generation of aerial microdrones, shrinking the unmanned aircraft to the size of insects and birds.

Developers at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio have produced dozens of prototypes typical of a James Bond film, based on the flight mechanics of birds, moths and dragonflies.

The Pentagon has rapidly increased its use of drones in the past two years to gather intelligence and launch missiles over Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Supporters claim they have weakened al-Qaeda and reduced the risk of U.S. casualties. …

The next generation will be autonomous, flying themselves and programmed to search out targets, nuclear weapons or even spot survivors of natural disasters. …

Read on: www.calgaryherald.com/news/canada-in-afghanistan/military+developing+drones+size+insect/5007695/story.html

CommonDreams.org
by Lisa Savage

Mayors from around the world met in Baltimore this week to set public policy for the billions of people living in big cities, depending on municipal services to stay safe. While Congress considered allocating another $118 billion to conduct wars next year – and President Obama absurdly maintained that the costly bombing of Libya is not an act of war, and thus not subject to Congressional oversight – mayors listened to the people.

Following a lively debate about adding stronger language supporting troops and their families, and adding President Obama as a recipient, mayors voted in their June 20 plenary session to call on the federal government to stop funding wars, and bring the money home. …

Immense profits by weapons manufacturers – and the jobs that depend upon war funding – are compelling reasons for wars with vague goals and shifting targets to continue indefinitely. Corporations spend millions lobbying Congress while contriving to pay no income taxes. Many citizens are questioning who the federal government really represents.

President Obama said while campaigning that he was not against all wars, just stupid wars. Bankrupting the country to maintain 800+ military bases abroad, and drop bombs costing $1 million apiece – the equivalent of 25 teachers’ annual salaries – could be the definition of stupid in the 21st Century. Fellow Democrat Rep. John Garamedi of California warned this week, “If the president doesn’t move…he will face a revolution in Congress…It’s coming to that.”

If the President has forgotten that Afghanistan is called “the graveyard of empires,” the people have not. Their mayors now join the chorus calling on the federal government to end endless wars, and bring the war dollars home.

Lisa Savage is CODEPINK’s Local Coordinator for Maine, and an active organizer with the Bring Our War $$ Home campaign. For more information www.wardollarshome.org.

Read in full: www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/20-7

AFP
By Shaun Tandon
June 18, 2011

US senators said that they have taken a major step to halt a controversial military base plan on Japan’s Okinawa island and called on the Pentagon to make a fresh assessment.

Just days before top officials from the two nations meet for talks, the Senate Armed Services Committee agreed to bar any funds to move troops from Japan to Guam and ordered a new study on Okinawa’s flashpoint Futenma base.

The language was part of an annual defense funding act approved Thursday. It needs approval from the full Senate and House of Representatives, but senators involved said that their actions on Asian bases enjoyed broad support.

Senator Carl Levin, a member of President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party who heads the committee, said that the base plan in Japan increasingly appeared unfeasible and that the United States needed to control costs. …

Read on: www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=6854537

Aljazeera.net
June 13, 2011

Bill to prohibit funds for US military operations in Libya unlikely to become law, but seen as snub to president.

The US House of Representatives has voted to prohibit the use of funds for US military operations in Libya.

Politicians adopted the amendment to a military appropriations bill by a vote of 248 to 163 late on Monday.

A number of members of Congress have expressed their dissatisfaction at Barack Obama’s, the US president, decision to go ahead with operations in Libya in March and to continue without congressional authorisation.

According to US law, the president must seek congressional authorisation to send US troops into combat and must withdraw the forces within 60 days if Congress has not authorised the military action.

The amendment, introduced by Democratic representative Brad Sherman from California, invokes the War Powers Resolution, a 1973 law that limits presidential powers on sending troops abroad into combat zones without the consent of Congress.

Sherman’s text states that “none of the funds made available by this act may be used in contravention of the War Powers Act.”

Politicians must still approve the appropriations bill as a whole and the measure must still be approved by the Senate.

Al Jazeera Patty Culhane, reporting from New Hampshire, said: “This is going to be a bit of a shock for Obama administration as the vote was so overwhelmingly against allowing him to use the fund in Libya. …

Read on: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/06/20116147535393778.html

By Rick Rozoff
Stop NATO
June 11, 2011

The relentless and intensifying Western air war against Libya will soon enter its fourth month. For the first thirteen days starting on March 19 under the control of U.S. Africa Command and Operation Odyssey Dawn and thereafter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led Operation Unified Protector, the air assaults represent the second longest armed aggression in NATO’s history, already surpassing by a week the 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Only the now nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan exceeds the current campaign in length.

The U.S.-dominated military bloc not only acknowledges but fairly boasts of conducting almost 11,000 air missions and over 4,000 combat sorties since March 31. Preceding that, hundreds of air strikes and over 160 cruise missile attacks were launched by the U.S., Britain, France and other NATO powers.

Altogether, following in the North African footsteps of Napoleon Bonaparte’s France, imperial Britain, Benito Mussolini’s Italy and Adolf Hitler’s Germany, Western nations are engaged in the longest war against an African country in modern times and the most intensive armed aggression against one ever.

At the end of last month a Libyan government spokesman announced that NATO air attacks had killed 718 civilians and wounded 4,067 more between March 19 and May 26. In the interim the North Atlantic military alliance has intensified bombing of the nation’s capital and other parts of the country to an unprecedented level and introduced British and French helicopter gunship and U.S. Hellfire missile-wielding Predator unmanned aerial vehicles operations. …

Read on: http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/natos-afrika-korps-escalates-war-of-attrition-against-libya/