Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

The Gillard Government has confirmed it is considering allowing US military surveillance drones to be based on Australian soil on the Cocos Islands.

From: www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3466086.htm

A sensation of unbearable, sudden heat seems to come out of nowhere — this wave, a strong electromagnetic beam, is the latest non-lethal weapon unveiled by the US military this week.

“You’re not gonna see it, you’re not gonna hear it, you’re not gonna smell it: you’re gonna feel it,” explained US Marine Colonel Tracy Taffola, director the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, Marine Corps Base Quantico, at a demonstration for members of the media.

The effect is so repellant, the immediate instinct is to flee — and quickly…

Read on: www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-military-unveils-non-lethal-ray-weapon.html

Early in the morning on February 25, the United States Air Force test-launched a first-strike, nuclear-capable Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) despite the largest anti-test demonstrations in almost 30 years. The launch took place in the dark fog of night at 2:46 a.m. from Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) on the central California coast, firing the missile to the other end of the Ronald Reagan Missile Range in the Marshall Islands over 4,000 miles away. Despite the military’s ability to follow through with the test, the offensive nature of delivery systems and the threatening message of their test flights is growing in significance in anti-nuclear circles around the globe.

The next test-launch was scheduled for March 1, extremely soon after last Saturday’s test, but was canceled abruptly on Tuesday, just as a media campaign began to cancel the test. March 1 is the anniversary of the tragic “Castle Bravo” test of a hydrogen bomb in the Bikini atoll for which the swimwear received its name. That test dropped radioactive fallout on the people of Rongelap, leading to catastrophic health and genetic problems that continue to this day, necessitating the on-going evacuation of their island. It also sparked the Japanese anti-nuclear movement which had been prevented to exist under the U.S. occupation that followed World War II. …

Read on: http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/03/movement-challenging-u-s-missile-testing-grows/

The guided missile destroyers Ross, Donald Cook and Porter will move from their current home in Norfolk , Virginia to the US base at Rota in Spain, near the famous Rock of Gibraltar.
According to WAVY-TV, the ships are being sent to Spain to help “beef-up” Europe’s Ballistic Missile Defence systems. The news was originally released in October 2011 but it was on Feb.16 that full details of the move were released by the US navy. The first two ships, USS Ross and USS Donald Cook will arrive sometime after October 2013 and the USS Porter will move in 2015. …

Read on: www.digitaljournal.com/article/319823

Some analysts say the US – bogged down in wars and pressed by emerging powers – will have to rethink its role in world affairs. Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, a peace and conflict expert, goes further by predicting the fall of the “US Empire”. “Iraq is not at all turning out the way they hoped, certainly not Afghanistan either. The same will happen in Yemen and Somalia and a number of other countries where they now have undercover operations,” he told RT.

CATHERINE LUTZ is the editor of the book “The Bases of Empire: The Struggle Against U.S. Military Posts,” Lutz said today [Jan 5, 2012]: “Despite alarms sent up by politicians looking only at Pentagon press releases or their military industry backers’ interests, the new proposal for Department of Defense base budget reductions over the next five years represents only a 4 percent decline in real, or inflation-adjusted, terms, according to the Project on Defense Alternatives. And the Pentagon’s budget will remain far larger than it was ten years ago. On top of this, all of these calculations exclude, as they should not, billions in funding for the current wars.” Lutz is a department chair at Brown University and co-director of the “Costs of War” study done there.