Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

Mainichi Daily News
April 2, 2010

Japan is under mounting pressure to foot the expenses of building infrastructure necessary to expand U.S. bases on Guam to accommodate about 8,000 Marines to be relocated out of Okinawa Prefecture, as Washington has failed to shoulder the financial burden.

The Guam territorial government estimates that $3.9 billion, or approximately 370 billion yen, will be necessary to build an additional sewage treatment facility, power station and improve roads and bridges. The amount is eight times the annual budget of the island.

A high-ranking Guam government official expressed grave concern that the island could go broke, pointing out that the federal government has stopped short of pledging to foot the costs. He then asked if Tokyo will shoulder the financial burden.

Military bases cover 30 percent of the land area of Guam, with Andersen Air Force Base situated in its north and Apra Harbor Navy Base on its west coast.

Furthermore, a total of 17 servicemen from the island have died in the war in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, and in a Feb. 15 address Guam Gov. Felix Perez Camacho emphasized that Guam dedicated more lives and land per resident to war than any other state or territory in the United States.

Angered by a federal government that is trying to force the islanders to make further sacrifices, the Guam legislature adopted a resolution on Feb. 11, demanding that the plan to expand bases in Guam be revised, and in his Feb. 15 address Gov. Camacho insisted that the expansion of U.S. bases in Guam be delayed beyond 2014. …

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/column/news/20100403p2a00m0na002000c.html

BBC News
By Jonathan Marcus
March 27, 2010

Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has called for a new missile defence system that would protect the US and its allies, and include Russia as well.

Mr Rasmussen said the threat of missile proliferation was real and growing and, in cases such as Iran, these missiles could threaten Nato territories.

He said missile defence could bring Nato and Russia together. …

The Nato secretary general said he saw a new Euro-Atlantic missile defence system, as he called it, as more than just a means of defending Nato countries against ballistic missile attack.

Mr Rasmussen clearly believes that such a system could re-invigorate not just the European allies’ relationship with the US but also Nato’s whole relationship with Russia.

“It would be an opportunity for Europe to demonstrate again to the United States that the allies are ready and willing to invest in the capabilities we need to defend ourselves,” he said.

‘New dynamic’

But he also argued that such a step would create a new dynamic in European security.

It would be a strong political symbol that Russia is fully part of the Euro-Atlantic family, he said.

It’s a bold proposal. The US has tried to draw Russia into its missile defence plans with very limited success. …

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8591319.stm

Kyiv Post
March 23, 2010

The United States has been refusing to include the missile defense issue in the new strategic offensive arms reduction treaty, said chief of the Russian armed forces’ General Staff, General of the Army Nikolai Makarov.

“The treaty is about 95% prepared, but individual aspects have yet to be negotiated, including the American side’s consent to include the problem of missile defense in the treaty – a matter of crucial importance for us,” Makarov said in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta, published on Tuesday.

Missile defense must be entered on the strategic arms reduction treaty in view of the United States’ plans to deploy elements of its missile defense system in Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, he said.

Makarov said the inclusion of missile defense reflects Russia’s national interests, noting that the Russian delegation to the talks will defend its basic position.

“The possibility and time of signing the new treaty will depend, in the first place, on the sides’ readiness to heed each other’s interests,” Makarov said.

The new strategic arms reduction treaty must seal the nuclear weapons parity between the United States and Russia. But in the absence of a separate agreement on missile defense, the U.S., while further developing this system, could shift the balance of forces in its favor, the general said.

“Even though the missile shield is a defensive system, if further developed it could give a new impulse to the arms race,” Makarov said.

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/russia/detail/62309/

Reuters.com
By Andrea Shalal-Esa
March 23, 2010

Northrop Grumman Corp said on Tuesday it has collected “strong” award fees for its work on two key missile defense programs, and feels it is well-positioned to bid for a $6 billion contract to manage the core U.S. missile defense system.

John Clay, vice president for missile systems, told reporters that Northrop has had an excellent track record managing the nation’s arsenal of 450 Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missiles, and has been a key player on many other missile defense programs.

He said the company also has had experience working on performance-based logistic contracts for other military services, which means it understands the Missile Defense Agency’s priorities and goals for the new contract.

Missile Defense Agency Director Army Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly on Monday said he was withholding funding from current missile defense programs due to quality issues, and called on industry to fire people when problems arose. …

Northrop officials said the company is also exploring other possible missile defense work, including bidding to build hundreds of millions of dollar of targets and countermeasures, adapting the company’s high-altitude unmanned Global Hawk plane to monitor enemy missile launches, and building follow-on satellites for tracking.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2323379820100323?type=marketsNews

Bloomberg.com
By John Brinsley and Sachiko Sakamaki
March 3, 2010

Japan’s government will keep a U.S. military base on Okinawa, meeting the demands of the Obama administration, even if that means alienating a coalition partner and local people, a vice defense minister said.

Okinawan residents, who want the Marine base moved off the island, will be offered “compensation” for accepting the government’s decision, Akihisa Nagashima said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday, without elaborating. His remarks are the most definitive by a government member indicating the base will stay on Okinawa.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has set a May deadline for settling a dispute that has overshadowed the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-Japan security treaty. Almost 50,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Japan, more than half on Okinawa, located 950 miles (1,530 kilometers) south of Tokyo. …

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aOPbacK4dqW8

PRESSTV
March 14, 2010

With Israel making apparent efforts to build a case for war on Tehran, the Obama administration reportedly considers denying Tel Aviv the military items needed for an attack on Iranian nuclear sites.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had reportedly required the urgent delivery of a long list of US-made military equipment, including systems needed by the Israeli Air Force, certain types of missiles and advanced electronic war equipment; military sources told DEBKA on conditions of anonymity.

During a recent visit to Washington, Barak had reportedly criticized his hosts for stalling the delivery of the military items for the past three months, during which Israel was making preparations for a strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

It is absolutely essential for these items to reach Israel before a military flare-up occurred in the region, Barak said, to such extent that if they could not be supplied to Israel at short notice, they should at least be held ready in emergency stores in US bases in the Negev desert in Israel. …

www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=120780&sectionid=351020104

RIANOVOSTI
March 9, 2010

A new Russia-U.S. treaty on strategic arms reductions will link offensive and defensive armaments, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 1), the backbone of post-Cold War arms control, expired on December 5, and there is no formal replacement to it yet.

“This link [between missile defense and strategic arms] will of course be reflected,” Lavrov told journalists.

Asked what kind of link it will be, the Russian minister said it will be “legally binding,” recalling that the Russian and U.S. presidents confirmed the link last summer and told the two countries’ negotiators to include it in the document.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said early in March that Russia and the United States are close to completing negotiations on the new treaty, and expressed the hope that the document could be signed soon. The talks were to resume in Geneva on Tuesday after a 10-day break.

Russia and the United States have been negotiating a replacement to START 1 since the two countries’ presidents met in April last year, but finalizing a document has dragged on, with U.S. plans for missile defense in Europe a particular sticking point.

Lavrov has repeatedly made statements suggesting that a new nuclear arms cuts deal should be linked to Washington’s missile plans in Eastern Europe.

Some experts say, however, that the Russian demand will probably not be satisfied as the U.S. Senate is unlikely to ratify any document containing a formal linkage between the arms cuts and the missile shield.

U.S. President Barack Obama scrapped plans last year for interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic pursued by his predecessor as protection against possible Iranian strikes in an apparent move to ease Russian security concerns.

In February, however, Romania and Bulgaria said they were in talks with the Obama administration on deploying elements of the U.S. missile shield on their territories from 2015, triggering an angry reaction from Moscow.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20100309/158138780.html

The Cable
By Josh Rogin
March 11, 2010

President Obama’s nomination of a key White House science advisor is facing strong and mounting opposition from GOP senators, with help from leading conservative Washington think tanks, due to his views on missile defense.

In October the president nominated former lead Pentagon weapons tester Philip Coyle to become the associate director for national security and international affairs at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. There he would lead a team tasked with giving scientific advice to Obama on a range of national-security issues and would report to Director John Holdren.

But Coyle’s nomination is stalled, despite the Senate Commerce Committee reporting his nomination out favorably on Dec. 3. Since that time, a steady and growing drumbeat of conservative opposition has been building, fueled partially by the Heritage Foundation, which has been locked in a decades-long struggle with Coyle over his well-known criticisms of U.S. ballistic missile defense systems.

The pushback against the Coyle nomination first surfaced in this Weekly Standard blog post written by missile-defense supporter John Noonan, who wrote, “If theology has crept into the missile defense debate, Coyle is the high priest of nay saying.” Noonan is linked to the Foreign Policy Initiative, a new right-leaning national security organization that’s acquiring increasing influence in Washington. …

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/11/conservatives_seeking_to_deep_six_nomination_of_missile_defense_critic

JuneauEmpire.com
March 5, 2010
Associated Press

Another interceptor missile has been installed at Fort Greely.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported Thursday that the missile installed last month is the 22nd at the Missile Defense Agency site outside Delta Junction.

The Pentagon plans to install 26 of the missiles at Fort Greely by October.

The missiles are part of the Ballistic Missile Defense System and are designed to shoot down enemy warheads in mid-flight outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

Fort Greely is one of two sites for the missiles, with three installed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the Missile Defense Agency says.

The new missiles are being installed in silos at Missile Fields No. 2 and No. 3 at Fort Greely. Missiles at the original field, which held six interceptors, are being moved to those fields because of plumbing problems and other reliability concerns at the hastily built early silos, the newspaper said.

www.juneauempire.com/stories/030510/sta_571149474.shtml

Stop NATO
March 6, 2010
By Rick Rozoff

Along with plans to base anti-ballistic missile facilities in Poland near Russia’s border (a 35 mile distance) and in Bulgaria and Romania across the Black Sea from Russia, Washington and the self-styled global military bloc it leads, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have arranged a series of military exercises on and near Russia’s borders this year.

While the White House, Pentagon and State Department pro forma identify al-Qaeda, Taliban, Iran, North Korea, climate change, cyber attacks and a host of other threats as those the U.S. is girding itself to combat, Washington is demonstrating its true strategic objectives by deploying interceptor missiles and staging war games along Russia’s western and southern borders. …

The NATO war games included troops from 15 nations, among them – in addition to the U.S. – Britain, Austria, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Austria, Finland and Sweden are Partnership for Peace affiliates of the North Atlantic military bloc. …

American author Edward Herman recently presented a similar perspective in pointing out that since the end of the Cold War “Across the globe…U.S. military bases are expanding, not contracting. The encirclement of Russia and steady stream of war games and exercises in the Baltic, Caspian, Mediterranean and Western Pacific areas continue, the closer engagement with Georgia and effort to bring it into NATO moves ahead, as do plans for the placement of missiles along Russia’s borders and beyond.” …

American and other NATO member states’ troops, warplanes and warships are visiting Russia’s neighborhood more frequently and approaching its borders more precariously. Over the past five years the Pentagon and NATO have secured permanent air, naval and training bases in Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Lithuania and interceptor missile sites in the first three nations. …

As Indian journalist M K Bhadrakumar remarked, NATO’s post-Cold War drive to the east began in the Balkans and has proceeded inexorably to the Black Sea, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Afghanistan. It has also turned the Baltic Sea into a U.S. and Alliance lake, with Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden within the Western military phalanx – all have troops in Afghanistan under NATO command, for example – and Russia left alone in the region.

That trajectory – from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, the Caucasus and Central Asia – places U.S. and NATO military presence along a substantial portion of the land borders of European Russia.

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/