Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

The Times of Israel
By Desmond Butler
February 9, 2013

One fix for multi-billion-dollar Europe-based interceptors is technically unfeasible, another could be diplomatically explosive

Secret US Defense Department studies cast doubt on whether a multibillion-dollar missile defense system planned for Europe will ever be able to protect the US from Iranian missiles as intended, congressional investigators said Friday.

Military officials say they believe the problems can be overcome and are moving forward with plans. But proposed fixes could be difficult. One possibility has already been ruled out as technically unfeasible. Another, relocating missile interceptors planned for Poland and possibly Romania to ships on the North Sea, could be diplomatically explosive.

The studies are the latest to highlight serious problems for a plan that has been criticized on several fronts. Republicans claim it was hastily drawn up in an attempt to appease Russia, which had opposed an earlier system. But Russia is also critical of the plan, which it believes is really intended to counter its missiles. A series of governmental and scientific reports has cast doubt on whether it would ever work as planned. …

Read on: www.timesofisrael.com/flaws-found-in-us-missile-shield-against-iran/

New York Times
By David E. Sanger
February 10, 2013

President Obama will use his State of the Union speech on Tuesday to reinvigorate one of his signature national security objectives — drastically reducing nuclear arsenals around the world — after securing agreement in recent months with the United States military that the American nuclear force can be cut in size by roughly a third.

Mr. Obama, administration officials say, is unlikely to discuss specific numbers in the address, but White House officials are looking at a cut that would take the arsenal of deployed weapons to just above 1,000. Currently there are about 1,700, and the new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia that passed the Senate at the end of 2009 calls for a limit of roughly 1,550 by 2018. …

Read on: www.nytimes.com/2013/02/11/us/politics/obama-to-renew-drive-for-cuts-in-nuclear-arms.html

Press TV
February 7, 2013

A new UN report says the US forces in Afghanistan have killed hundreds of children during their military operations in the war-torn country since 2008

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child on Wednesday also expressed deep concern at the arrest and detention of Afghan children by US-led forces.

According to the UN report, some of the children were abused in US detention facilities.

The report also said “those responsible for the killings have not been held to account even as the number of children killed doubled from 2010 to 2011.”

The committee has issued recommendations to Washington regarding US practices during armed conflicts, which are harmful to children.

The committee called on the US to take measures to prevent the killing and maiming of civilians and children.

Read on: www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/02/07/287770/us-has-killed-100s-of-afghan-kids-since-2008/

Washington Post
By Associated Press
February 8, 2013

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam — Fighter jets from the U.S. and two key allies roared into western Pacific skies in the combat phase of annual exercises that have gained importance as the region responds to the rise of China and other potential threats.

The Cope North drills — which could soon swell in participants — are aimed at preparing air forces of the U.S., Japan and Australia to fight together if a military crisis erupts. They also send a vivid reminder to Beijing that America’s regional alliances are strong, though officers leading the maneuvers say they are not looking to bait the Chinese military.

“The training is not against a specific country, like China,” Japan Air Self-Defense Force Lt. Gen. Masayuki Hironaka said. “However, I think (the fact) that our alliance with the U.S. and Australia is healthy is a strong message.”

The three allies began flying sorties together earlier in the week around the U.S. territory of Guam in a humanitarian phase of the exercises, dropping emergency assistance in packages that wafted down under parachutes to jungle airfields. On Thursday, fighter jets were joined by bombers, transport planes and tankers that refuel the fighters in midair. For the first time, Japanese tankers were joining the drills. …

Read on: www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/jets-roar-over-pacific-skies-as-us-military-gathers-allies-in-drills-to-keep-ahead-of-china/2013/02/07/6628192e-7193-11e2-b3f3-b263d708ca37_story.html

The Hankyoreh
By Park Hyun, Park Min-hee and Jeong Nam-ku
Janury 29, 2013

China, Japan and the US expanding missile interceptor technology as tensions rise in Northeast Asia

With North Korea declaring its intention to push ahead with a third nuclear test following the United Nations Security Council resolution on its launch of a long-range rocket, it seems hardly a coincidence that the US, China, and Japan have launched their own interceptor missiles and spy satellites. As the intensity of the North Korean nuclear crisis soars and the strategic competition between the US and China, and between China and Japan, heats up in the Asia-Pacific region, military tensions are on the rise in Northeast Asia.

On Jan. 26 (local time), the US Defense Department announced that it had succeeded in a test of a missile defense system that can intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that are aimed at the continental US while they are still outside the atmosphere. This test is part of a project that is being conducted to defend the continental US from the ICBM threat posed by North Korea and Iran.

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA), a section of the US Defense Department, said, “We were successful in our launch of a three-stage ground-based interceptor (GBI) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.”

The test was conducted as part of the development of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD). A ballistic missile’s trajectory is divided into the launch phase, a middle phase when it is in outer space beyond the atmosphere, and a final phase where it enters the atmosphere once again. GMD refers to intercepting a ballistic missile in this middle phase.

“We didn’t launch a real missile to serve as a target for the interceptor,” the MDA said. “However, if such a target missile had existed, the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) that was attached to the interceptor rocket would have collided with the target and destroyed it.” …

read on: www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/571778.html

The Ledger
By Eric Schmitt
January 28, 2013

The U.S. military is preparing to establish a drone base in northwest Africa so that it can increase surveillance missions on the local affiliate of al-Qaida and other Islamist extremist groups that U.S. and other Western officials say pose a growing menace to the region.

For now, officials say they envision flying only unarmed surveillance drones from the base, though they have not ruled out conducting missile strikes at some point if the threat worsens.

The move is an indication of the priority Africa has become in U.S. anti-terrorism efforts. The U.S. military has a limited presence in Africa, with only one permanent base, in the country of Djibouti, more than 3,000 miles from Mali, where French and Malian troops are now battling al-Qaida-backed fighters who control the northern part of Mali.

A new drone base in northwest Africa would join a constellation of small air strips in recent years on the continent, including in Ethiopia, for surveillance missions flown by drones or turboprop planes designed to look like civilian aircraft. …

Read on: www.theledger.com/article/20130128/NEWS/130129245/1410?Title=U-S-Military-Preparing-to-Establish-a-New-Drone-Base-in-Africa-Related-to-the-Mali-Mission

CBS News
By Jeremy Hsu
January 21, 2012

Hollywood films often show alien ships or giant monsters rising from the ocean depths to threaten humanity’s existence. The U.S. military envisions a more realistic scenario of hiding robotic drones, sensors or decoys on the ocean floor so that they can rise to the occasion when needed.

The idea of hiding sneaky spy technologies beneath the waves comes from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The agency described its Upward Falling Payloads program as an effort to hide underwater capsules that could be triggered remotely to activate, float to the surface and release their payloads of sensor buoys or even flying drones.

“The concealment of the sea also provides opportunity to surprise maritime targets from below, while its vastness provides opportunity to simultaneously operate across great distances,” DARPA said in a broad agency announcement on Jan. 11.

Earth’s oceans provide plenty of hiding places for robots to engage in some “cheap stealth” — about 50 percent of the oceans reach depths deeper than 2.5 miles. …

Read on: www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57564992/u.s-military-wants-to-hide-drones-under-the-sea/

TruthOut.org
By Sarah L. Blum
January 15, 2013

A culture of fear, intimidation and entitlement allows sexual predators at all levels and branches of the armed services free access to military women (and men), who often have little recourse.

Do sexual predators have free reign in the US Armed Forces? For decades both men and women in our military have been sexually assaulted. Those crimes were usually concealed and have essentially gone unpunished, in large part, because of a long-standing cover up that includes the military police, the military justice system and the leadership in our armed forces. In an interview with Natalie Morales of NBC News on September 27, 2012, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta admitted the military had a habit of “sweeping these issues under the rug.”

Brigadier General Jeffrey A. Sinclair, with two combat tours in Iraq, was and on his second in Afghanistan when he was sent home in May 2012 to face charges of forcible sodomy, multiple counts of adultery and wrongful sexual conduct, according to ABC News. He is scheduled January 22 to be arraigned in military court on those and other charges: engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a major, attempting to engage in an inappropriate relationship with a first lieutenant and having sexual intercourse with a captain, then threatening her if she told anyone. Sinclair was the deputy commander of logistics and support for the 82nd Airborne while in Afghanistan. …

Read on: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13923-a-target-rich-environment-sex-crimes

HeraldNet
December 1, 2012
from The Washington Post

The U.S. Air Force drone, on a classified spy mission over the Indian Ocean, was destined for disaster from the start.

An inexperienced military contractor, operating by remote control in shorts and a T-shirt from a trailer at Seychelles International Airport, committed blunder after blunder during a six-minute span April 4.

The pilot of the unarmed MQ-9 Reaper drone took off without permission from the control tower. One minute later, he yanked the wrong lever at his console, killing the engine without realizing why.

As he tried to make an emergency landing, he forgot to put down the wheels. The $8.9 million aircraft belly-flopped on the runway, bounced and then plunged into the tropical waters at the airport’s edge, according to a previously undisclosed Air Force accident investigation report.

The drone crashed at a civilian airport that serves a half-million passengers a year, most of them sun-seeking tourists. No one was hurt, but it was the second Reaper accident there in five months — under eerily similar circumstances. …

Read on: www.heraldnet.com/article/20121201/NEWS02/712019936

Prensa Latina News Agency

Okinawa residents accused the U.S. government on Friday of responsibility for health problems arising from the presence of Kadena Air Base.
About 140 citizens brought a lawsuit against the White House in Naha District Court on the grounds that the takeoffs and landings of U.S. planes have led to insomnia and hearing problems.

The plaintiffs are demanding a ban on flights at night and early morning hours and also the payment of $2,600,000 dollars to compensate for damages and losses caused by the practices of the U.S. military.

The residents’ spokesman, Shusei Arakawa, wants to bring the U.S. government to justice in order to recognize the burden on Okinawa imposed since the end of World War II.

The aforementioned prefecture returned to Japanese jurisdiction in 1972 after almost 28 years of being occupied and controlled by Washington, although more than 70 percent of the U.S. bases in Japan are located in that southern territory.

From: www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=760431&Itemid=1