Jeju Island: A Pawn in the Imperial Struggle

A truly heroic citizens' struggle continues on the tiny island of Jeju Island where the South Korean government is building a naval base that will serve as yet another outpost in the vast array of U.S. military bases around the world

This particular base is of particular note because it represents the massive shift in focus by the Pentagon to the Asian continent, and of course CHINA!!!  Just 500 miles off the Chinese mainland, a base at Jeju will give the U.S. a new choke point in the East China Sea to control China's strategic access to resources and commerce.

The base being constructed by the South Korean government will directly support U.S. ships - including Aegis missile defense destroyers, aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines.  The Commander,U.S. Naval Forces, Korea has specified design specifications to accommodate U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers.

Art meets protest on Jeju Island

With over 1000 military bases around the world (even the experts differ in the exact number), the last the U.S. needs right now is another one, especially one that will only inevitably ratchet up tensions between the U.S. and China in what could become the newest  clash of superpowers.

But beyond the talk of superpowers and their petty land and resource grabs, this is a story about people struggling to hold onto what is rightfully theirs.  To maintain a way of life.  To be left alone, and not be made pawns in the disinterest of empire. 

To call the struggle of the Jeju Islanders "heroic" is not hyperbole.

Father John Dear sums up the situation on Jeju in a single paragraph:

The base is being built near Gangjeong village. These heroic villagers have maintained an impressive public stand against nuclear weapons, U.S. imperialism, environmental destruction and basic injustice. They’ve been arrested, imprisoned and had their land and civil rights taken from them. Nonetheless, they keep at it. They are demonstrating one of the most brilliant instances of active, engaged nonviolence on the planet, but they have to: South Korea, at the request of the Pentagon, is about to destroy one of the world’s natural wonders.

The struggle to extricate Jeju Island from the jaws of militarism and empire is one that affects not only this small, peaceful island, but the entire world.

  Even as I write this post, President Obama is in Southeast Asia to ensure military and economic dominance thoughout the region.  Secretary of Defense Panetta confirmed last Friday that the U.S. will be increasing the numbers of military exercises in the Pacific in conjunction with Southeast Asian allies, and of course "devoting new funding to this goal."  And guess what huge country lies just North of all those Southeast Asian countries???

There are many ways people can support the people of Jeju Island.  Go to Save Jeju Now to learn more and get involved.  And - Check out the Save Jeju Island Facebook page.

Say NO to Empire!  Say YES to Peace!  Save Jeju Island!!!

Empires Go To Hell: A Poem by Dennis Serdel

For Veterans Day, 2012

By Dennis Serdel, Vietnam 1967-68 (one tour) Light Infantry, Americal Div. 11th Brigade, purple heart, Veterans For Peace 50 Michigan, Vietnam Veterans Against The War, United Auto Workers GM Retiree, in Perry, Michigan

Empires Go To Hell

the heat seeps through the helmet
boils the sheet metal on all the desert
camouflaged trucks and vehicles
the oversized rucksack pulls
on the shoulders
grinds away on the gut
everybody is not fighting the war
only a few considering
all the Soldiers around the world
this long war is taking its toll
like sores eating the brain
the body is beginning to ache
the head the back the legs
grind on but the pain pills
only help but canʼt cure exhaustion
they canʼt give back
the days the months the years
who canʼt count all the steps
nobody can count the miles
and waiting feel the minutes
the hours the days then go on
wasting a life for this battlefield
that goes back to blood on the soil
to every invasion by all sorts
of empires in the past
where only cemeteries
and memorials remain
the world must get rid of empires
all they do is invade and rape
small countries for any type
of gold the little countries have
but the empires may be
brought down within
and work against the empires
of the world until there
are no empires anymore.

A Last Word on the Election!!!

Yes, I've voted for Nader in previous elections (and caught a lot of flack for it).  As much as I understand (and agree with many of) people's reasons for voting for a third party candidate rather than obama this November 6th, I also see the potential (and highly probable) consequences of a Republican victory (and its NOT a pretty picture; even far uglier than the current one).  My peace and justice work, and in particular my work on nuclear weapons, has given me a particularly pragmatic view of our current situation along with the challenges that lie ahead.

This is one very, very scary Republican party (think Invasion of the Body Snatchers), and should we end up with both a Republican White House and Republican controlled Congress I fear the worst.  All that being said, I am agreement with Daniel Ellsberg (and others) who see Obama as the "lesser of two evils."  The difference this time is the magnitude of the other evil.  Here is Ellsberg's take:

Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers Whistleblower: Obama The Lesser Of Two Evils

It is urgently important to prevent a Republican administration under Romney/Ryan from taking office in January 2013.

The election is now just weeks away, and I want to urge those whose values are generally in line with mine -- progressives, especially activists -- to make this goal one of your priorities during this period.
An activist colleague recently said to me: "I hear you're supporting Obama."

I was startled, and took offense. "Supporting Obama? Me?!"

"I lose no opportunity publicly," I told him angrily, to identify Obama as a tool of Wall Street, a man who's decriminalized torture and is still complicit in it, a drone assassin, someone who's launched an unconstitutional war, supports kidnapping and indefinite detention without trial, and has prosecuted more whistleblowers like myself than all previous presidents put together. "Would you call that support?"

My friend said, "But on Democracy Now you urged people in swing states to vote for him! How could you say that? I don't live in a swing state, but I will not and could not vote for Obama under any circumstances."

My answer was: a Romney/Ryan administration would be no better -- no different -- on any of the serious offenses I just mentioned or anything else, and it would be much worse, even catastrophically worse, on a number of other important issues: attacking Iran, Supreme Court appointments, the economy, women's reproductive rights, health coverage, safety net, climate change, green energy, the environment.

I told him: "I don't 'support Obama.' I oppose the current Republican Party. This is not a contest between Barack Obama and a progressive candidate. The voters in a handful or a dozen close-fought swing states are going to determine whether Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are going to wield great political power for four, maybe eight years, or not."

As Noam Chomsky said recently, "The Republican organization today is extremely dangerous, not just to this country, but to the world. It's worth expending some effort to prevent their rise to power, without sowing illusions about the Democratic alternatives."

Following that logic, he's said to an interviewer what my friend heard me say to Amy Goodman: "If I were a person in a swing state, I'd vote against Romney/Ryan, which means voting for Obama because there is no other choice."

The election is at this moment a toss-up. That means this is one of the uncommon occasions when we progressives -- a small minority of the electorate -- could actually have a significant influence on the outcome of a national election, swinging it one way or the other.

The only way for progressives and Democrats to block Romney from office, at this date, is to persuade enough people in swing states to vote for Obama: not stay home, or vote for someone else. And that has to include, in those states, progressives and disillusioned liberals who are at this moment inclined not to vote at all or to vote for a third-party candidate (because like me they've been not just disappointed but disgusted and enraged by much of what Obama has done in the last four years and will probably keep doing).

They have to be persuaded to vote, and to vote in a battleground state for Obama not anyone else, despite the terrible flaws of the less-bad candidate, the incumbent. That's not easy. As I see it, that's precisely the "effort" Noam is referring to as worth expending right now to prevent the Republicans' rise to power. And it will take progressives -- some of you reading this, I hope -- to make that effort of persuasion effectively.

It will take someone these disheartened progressives and liberals will listen to. Someone manifestly without illusions about the Democrats, someone who sees what they see when they look at the president these days: but who can also see through candidates Romney or Ryan on the split-screen, and keep their real, disastrous policies in focus.

It's true that the differences between the major parties are not nearly as large as they and their candidates claim, let alone what we would want. It's even fair to use Gore Vidal's metaphor that they form two wings ("two right wings," as some have put it) of a single party, the Property or Plutocracy Party, or as Justin Raimondo says, the War Party.

Still, the political reality is that there are two distinguishable wings, and one is reliably even worse than the other, currently much worse overall. To be in denial or to act in neglect of that reality serves only the possibly imminent, yet presently avoidable, victory of the worse.

The traditional third-party mantra, "There's no significant difference between the major parties" amounts to saying: "The Republicans are no worse, overall." And that's absurd. It constitutes shameless apologetics for the Republicans, however unintended. It's crazily divorced from present reality.

And it's not at all harmless to be propagating that absurd falsehood. It has the effect of encouraging progressives even in battleground states to refrain from voting or to vote in a close election for someone other than Obama, and more importantly, to influence others to act likewise.That's an effect that serves no one but the Republicans, and ultimately the 1 percent.

It's not merely understandable, it's entirely appropriate to be enraged at Barack Obama. As I am. He has often acted outrageously, not merely timidly or "disappointingly." If impeachment were politically imaginable on constitutional grounds, he's earned it (like George W. Bush, and many of his predecessors!) It is entirely human to want to punish him, not to "reward" him with another term or a vote that might be taken to express trust, hope or approval.

But rage is not generally conducive to clear thinking. And it often gets worked out against innocent victims, as would be the case here domestically, if refusals to vote for him resulted in Romney's taking key battleground states that decide the outcome of this election.

To punish Obama in this particular way, on Election Day -- by depriving him of votes in swing states and hence of office in favor of Romney and Ryan -- would punish most of all the poor and marginal in society, and workers and middle class as well: not only in the U.S. but worldwide in terms of the economy (I believe the Republicans could still convert this recession to a Great Depression), the environment and climate change. It could well lead to war with Iran (which Obama has been creditably resisting, against pressure from within his own party). And it would spell, via Supreme Court appointments, the end of Roe v. Wade and of the occasional five to four decisions in favor of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The reelection of Barack Obama, in itself, is not going to bring serious progressive change, end militarism and empire, or restore the Constitution and the rule of law. That's for us and the rest of the people to bring about after this election and in the rest of our lives -- through organizing, building movements and agitating.

In the eight to twelve close-fought states -- especially Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, but also Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin -- for any progressive to encourage fellow progressives and others in those states to vote for a third-party candidate is, I would say, to be complicit in facilitating the election of Romney and Ryan, with all its consequences.

To think of that as urging people in swing states to "vote their conscience" is, I believe, dangerously misleading advice. I would say to a progressive that if your conscience tells you on Election Day to vote for someone other than Obama in a battleground state, you need a second opinion. Your conscience is giving you bad counsel.

I often quote a line by Thoreau that had great impact for me: "Cast your whole vote: not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence." He was referring, in that essay, to civil disobedience, or as he titled it himself, "Resistance to Civil Authority."

It still means that to me. But this is a year when for people who think like me -- and who, unlike me, live in battleground states -- casting a strip of paper is also important. Using your whole influence this month to get others to do that, to best effect, is even more important.

That means for progressives in the next couple of weeks -- in addition to the rallies, demonstrations, petitions, lobbying (largely against policies or prospective policies of President Obama, including austerity budgeting next month), movement-building and civil disobedience that are needed all year round and every year -- using one's voice and one's e-mails and op-eds and social media to encourage citizens in swing states to vote against a Romney victory by voting for the only real alternative, Barack Obama.

Daniel Ellsberg is a former State and Defense Department official who has been arrested for acts of non-violent civil disobedience over eighty times, initially for copying and releasing the top secret Pentagon Papers, for which he faced 115 years in prison. Living in a non-swing state, he does not intend to vote for President Obama. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-ellsberg/obama-swing-states_b_1979321.html

Attack Iran... Violate International Law... NO Kidding!!!

Well, it's about time!!!  AND, it didn't happen in the U.S.  NO, it's a safe bet that the U.S. Attorney General won't be finding that an attack on Iran (or any other country for that matter) just might violate international law.  But that's just what the British Attorney General has done. God Save the Queen!!!  Of course the news has been ringing in the hollowed halls of The White House, yet likely falling on deaf (and morally bankrupt) ears.  At least the UK government has, at last, stood up to the US.  And let us hope this will be just the beginning.

 Here is what Kate Hudson, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament General Secretary, had to say about the news: 

 

"It is good news that the UK Government has both sought legal advice on the status of a pre-emptive military intervention in Iran, and is actually following it through. The Government has recognised that international law prohibits not only direct participation in such a strike, but also support or assistance to any state engaging in such unlawful actions. This is an important and laudable step. Indeed, the Government appears to have learned from the disaster of Iraq.

"The current tensions in the Middle East require diplomatic solutions. This is where the energy of our government must be focused. It must continue to reject developments that make a military conflict more likely, and work to ensure that the diplomatic process can operate and succeed." 

Click here to send an email thanking the United Kingdom's Attorney General for correctly interpreting international law and taking a stand for justice.
 

Here is the full story from The Guardian.

 

Britain rejects US request to use UK bases in nuclear standoff with Iran, By Nick Hopkins, The Guardian, October 25, 2012

 

Britain has rebuffed US pleas to use military bases in the UK to support the build-up of forces in the Gulf, citing secret legal advice which states that any pre-emptive strike on Iran could be in breach of international law.

The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories.

The US approaches are part of contingency planning over the nuclear standoff with Tehran, but British ministers have so far reacted coolly. They have pointed US officials to legal advice drafted by the attorney general's office which has been circulated to Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

This makes clear that Iran, which has consistently denied it has plans to develop a nuclear weapon, does not currently represent "a clear and present threat". Providing assistance to forces that could be involved in a pre-emptive strike would be a clear breach of international law, it states.

"The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans."

Sources said the US had yet to make a formal request to the British government, and that they did not believe an acceleration towards conflict was imminent or more likely. The discussions so far had been to scope out the British position, they said.

"But I think the US has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance," said one source. "They'd expect resistance from senior Liberal Democrats, but it's Tories as well. That has come as a bit of a surprise."

The situation reflects the lack of appetite within Whitehall for the UK to be drawn into any conflict, though the Royal Navy has a large presence in the Gulf in case the ongoing diplomatic efforts fail.

The navy has up to 10 ships in the region, including a nuclear-powered submarine. Its counter-mine vessels are on permanent rotation to help ensure that the strategically important shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz remain open.

The Guardian has been told that a British military delegation with a strong navy contingent flew to US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, earlier this summer to run through a range of contingency plans with US planners.

The UK, however, has assumed that it would only become involved once a conflict had already begun, and has been reluctant to commit overt support to Washington in the buildup to any military action.

"It is quite likely that if the Israelis decided to attack Iran, or the Americans felt they had to do it for the Israelis or in support of them, the UK would not be told beforehand," said the source. "In some respects, the UK government would prefer it that way."

British and US diplomats insisted that the two countries regarded a diplomatic solution as the priority. But this depends on the White House being able to restrain Israel, which is nervous that Iran's underground uranium enrichment plant will soon make its nuclear programme immune to any outside attempts to stop it.

Israel has a less developed strike capability and its window for action against Iran will close much more quickly than that of the US, explained another official. "The key to holding back Israel is Israeli confidence that the US will deal with Iran when the moment is right."

With diplomatic efforts stalled by the US presidential election campaign, a new push to resolve the crisis will begin in late November or December.

Six global powers will spearhead a drive which is likely to involve an offer to lift some of the sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy in return for Tehran limiting its stockpile of enriched uranium.

The countries involved are the US, the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China. Iran will be represented by its chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "As we continue to make clear, the government does not believe military action against Iran is the right course of action at this time, although no option is off the table. We believe that the twin-track approach of pressure through sanctions, which are having an impact, and engagement with Iran is the best way to resolve the nuclear issue. We are not going to speculate about scenarios in which military action would be legal. That would depend on the circumstances at the time."

The Foreign Office said it would not disclose whether the attorney general's advice has been sought on any specific issue.

A US state department official said: "The US and the UK co-ordinate on all kinds of subjects all the time, on a huge range of issues. We never speak on the record about these types of conversations."
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, warned at the UN general assembly last month that Iran's nuclear programme would reach Israel's "red line" by "next spring, at most by next summer", implying that Israel might then take military action in an attempt to destroy nuclear sites and set back the programme.

That red line, which Netanyahu illustrated at the UN with a marker pen on a picture of a bomb, is defined by Iranian progress in making uranium enriched to 20%, which would be much easier than uranium enriched to 5% to turn into weapons-grade material, should Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, take the strategic decision to abandon Iran's observance of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and try to make a weapon. Tehran insists it has no such intention.

In August, the most senior US military officer, General Martin Dempsey, distanced himself from any Israeli plan to bomb Iran. He said such an attack would "clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran's nuclear programme".

He added: "I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it."

###

Postscript

Take Action; Tell President Obama and Congress - Don't Iraq Iran!!!

Backcountry Resisters Infiltrate Vandenberg AFB

Editor's Note:  News release below.  Click here to read an article in the Santa Maria Times announcing the ‘backcountry non-violent resistance action’.  Among those trekking the beautiful Vandenberg backcountry was Fr. Louis Vitale (can't keep a good resister down).  Resistance is NOT futile my Friends; and actions speak louder than words.

***********

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 21, 2012

Contact: tierralinda@live.com

Nonviolent Backcountry Resisters Cause Disruptive Breach

of Vandenberg Air Force Base Security Zones



Vandenberg has lots of backcountry!!!

For the first time in nearly a decade, nonviolent civil resisters caused a disruptive breach of the backcountry security zones at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), coinciding with the 50^th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. VAFB enforces a sweeping global pattern of violent high-tech military abuse. Three participants were arrested for federal trespass and others eluded base security patrols. One participant [Theo Kayser] was hand-cuffed face down on the ground with an M-16 automatic rifle trained on his back during his 2 a.m. arrest, while search lights swept the surrounding hills. He was then held under armed guard for nine hours at a special security command post which VAFB had set up to deal with the backcountry occupation. Vandenberg security stated that they believed at least 15 individuals were spotted in base security zones between 0ctober 20^th and 21^st. 

Action participants hope that others will follow their example in the months ahead. They entered the huge US Strategic Command facility at widely dispersed points and hiked miles into the base, crossing fences and rough terrain under cover of night, hanging banners on nuclear first-strike missile silos deep inside Vandenberg. They also conducted an unauthorized Christian prayer liturgy and exorcism of evil inside VAFB boundaries. Multiple sources, including contacts within VAFB, confirmed that the announced plans and the backcountry security zone occupation caused days of disruptive base alerts, interrupting Vandenberg’s business as usual to prepare for and deal with the security zone breaches.

Backcountry action participants and their supporters say that “Vandenberg, built on land stolen from the Chumash nation, launches and controls key satellites which run worldwide drone strikes that kill civilians, and are positioning US forces for a catastrophic peak-oil war with Iran. VAFB is making nuclear world war more likely by its first-strike Minuteman III flight tests, which seriously contaminate stolen indigenous territory at the Earth’s largest coral atoll, Kwajalein.”

Arrested action participants include Franciscan Priest Louie Vitale and Los Angeles Catholic Worker community members Theo Kayser and Rebecca Casas.

Ellsberg and the Vandenberg 15: Still Speaking Out!

(Editor's Note: This piece originally posted October 20, 2012 at MacGregor Eddy's Vandenberg Protest Blog: http://vandenbergprotest-macgregor.blogspot.com/)

Prosecution drops all charges against Vandenberg 15

By Robert Bernstein

Daniel Ellsberg was a military analyst during the US war in Vietnam and very much believed in the cause. But the more he learned, the more he realized those in power were lying to the American people. The result: He risked going to prison for life in order to smuggle out the Pentagon Papers.

He was the Bradley Manning and the Julian Assange of his day.

 

Ellsberg's life would never be the same. In the decades since (he is now 81), he has been arrested numerous times to draw attention to illegal and unethical activities by the US government, mostly on military matters.

 

Back in February, he was part of the "Vandenberg 15" who were arrested on their way to protest a missile launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

 

This Tuesday, October 16, he and most of the rest of the Vandenberg 15 explained why they were there.

 

Ellsberg explained that the US is in violation of numerous laws because of its continued testing and development of nuclear weapons and missiles. For decades, the US has been obligated by treaty to eliminate all nuclear weapons and nuclear missiles. It has failed to do so.

As John Amadon of Albany, NY explained, this was not civil disobedience. It was "civil resistance" to highlight the illegality of US nuclear weapons policies.

 

Also speaking at the event was David Krieger of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, sponsor of the event. And Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in the US war in Iraq.

 

During Q&A an audience member described how Ellsberg had given him the courage to speak up quietly with a sign to protest another violation of law. The occasion was a speech by John Yoo at the Reagan Center. Yoo had signed off to torture captured prisoners of war during the Bush Administration, in violation of both US and international law.

 

Ellsberg was honored that he had helped inspire such courage. Ellsberg went on to say that he himself had been inspired to his courage by those who had come before him.

 

The Vandenberg 15 had gathered in anticipation of their trial. They had been warned by the judge that they would not be allowed to introduce any substantive evidence or issues regarding nuclear weapons or policy and the relevant violations of law by the US government. It would only be treated as a trespassing case.

 

But, at the last minute, the government asked the case to be dropped. As in the Pentagon Papers case, the government itself had apparently violated the law in its zeal to go after the protestors and it wanted the case to end before it started.