Filed under: The Pacific, War | Tags: china, hatoyama, japan, korea, obama, okinawa, us
World News: President Obama and the Rise of Japan’s Pacifists (Again!)
With the recent election of Japan’s Prime Minister Yuko Hatoyama, President Barack Obama might have received a warmer welcome in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall by claiming to be America’s first Pacifist President, instead of America’s first Pacific President. Prime Minister Hatoyama, after all, has promised to halt its nations naval mission supporting the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. He is also reviewing basing agreements and the stationing of 50,000 U.S. troops, including those in Okinawa. It is obvious, that America’s militarist tradition and imperial presidency-which Barack Obama inherited-is in stark contrast to the rise of Japan’s Pacifists, again! In fact, it might be a more important component to U.S.-Japan relations than that of trade and commerce…
…Could this be the reason President Obama warned Prime Minsiter Yuko Hatoyama, along with pacifists in his Democratic Party of Japan, of serious consequences if it reneges on its military realignment plans? North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, Taiwan’s movement towards autonomy, and the geopolitical importance of the Strait of Taiwan have only added to a strong U.S. military presence in the region. And with uncertainty over military bases in Okinawa-making it improbable for America to contain China and other nations in the area-U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has notified Japan that relations may “fracture” and “lead to a standstill in the nation’s security policy…
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Filed under: China / SE Asia, War | Tags: india, nuclear, obama, pakistan, terror, us
This short article seems to be revealing the parameters of the U.S-Indian relationship; using the “Pakistan issue”, the Mumbai bombing and other recent terrorist events as the fulcrum of the growing relationship which includes intelligence sharing, cooperative military drills, nuclear exchange and more.
Asia Times: US boosts India’s anti-terror efforts
…India has also increased its sharing of information and operational details with US intelligence agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Officials say this cooperation has gone a long way towards boosting domestic expertise. CIA director Leon E Panetta is due to visit India in November.
The close relationship of the US with Pakistan gives the Americans access to classified information that is valuable to India. Activities such as phone calls, meetings, travel, and e-mails by dozens of Pakistan-based LeT operatives are monitored by US agencies, information that that is now accessible to India.
One recent example highlights the benefits of India and the US sharing information…. Continue reading
Filed under: China / SE Asia, The Pacific, War | Tags: asia, dpj, hatoyama, japan, ldp, obama, okinawa, War
The question of U.S/Japan relations becomes an interesting consideration for U.S war designs and power projection in Asia. Will the new Japanese regime reverse it trend towards a U.S “client state” or will this inequitable relationship which forces Japanese to finance U.S operations continue?
Gavan McCormack: Obama vs Hatoyama: The making of an unequal, unconstitutional, illegal, colonial and deceitful US-Japan agreement.
Elections at the end of August gave Japan a new government, headed by Hatoyama Yukio. In electing him and his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the Japanese people, like the American people less than a year earlier, were opting for change – a new relationship with both Asia and the US, including a much more equal one with the latter. Remarkably, however, what followed on the part of the Obama administration has been a campaign of unrelenting pressure to block any such change.
The Obama administration has targeted in particular the Hatoyama desire to re-negotiate the relationship with the United States so as to make it equal instead of dependent. Go back, it seems to be saying, to the golden days of “Sergeant-Major Koizumi” (as George W. Bush reportedly referred to the Japanese Prime Minister) when compliance was assured and annual US policy prescriptions (“yobosho”) were received in Tokyo as holy writ; forget absurd pretensions of independent policies.
The core issue has been the disposition of American military presence in Okinawa and the US insistence that Hatoyama honour an agreement known as the Guam Treaty.
The Guam Treaty
The “Guam International Agreement” is the US-Japan agreement signed by Secretary Hillary Clinton and Japanese Foreign Minister Nakasone Hirofumi in February and adopted as a treaty under special legislation in May 2009, in the first days of the Obama administration. Support for the Aso government in Japan was collapsing and the incoming Obama administration moved urgently to extract formal consent to its plans in such a way as to ensure that any such agreement would bind any subsequent Japanese government.
8,000 Marines and their 9,000 family members were to be relocated from Okinawa to Guam, and the US marine base at Futenma would be transferred to Henoko in Nago City in Northern Okinawa, to a new base to be built by Japan. The Japanese government would also pay $6.09 billion towards the Guam transfer cost ($2.8 billion of it in cash in the current financial year). [1] The effect in Okinawa would be that the US military would vacate some of its larger bases in the densely populated south but concentrate and expand those in the north of the island.
These matters (save for the detailed financial clauses) had all been resolved by a previous agreement, nearly four years earlier under Koizumi – the October 2005 agreement on “US-Japan Alliance: Transformation and Realignment for the Future” reconfirmed by the May 2006 “United States-Japan Roadmap for realignment Implementation.” [2] Now, to compel compliance, Article 3 of the new Agreement declared that “The Government of Japan intends to complete the Futenma replacement facility as stipulated in the Roadmap [i.e. by 2014]” even though the parties had virtually given up hope that that was possible in the face of entrenched Okinawan opposition. [3]
The Agreement was one of the first acts of a popular, “reforming” US administration and one of the last of a Japanese regime in fatal decline after half a century of LDP rule. It set in unusually clear relief the relationship between the world’s No 1 and No 2 economic powers. The Agreement is worthy of close attention because, as analysed below, it was unequal, unconstitutional, illegal, colonial and deceitful
Asia Times: Space is suddenly on the agenda
United States President Barack Obama is preparing to make his first official trip to Asia this week, and a growing list of important economic and defense-related issues are on his agenda. From the time he touches down in Tokyo on Thursday until the time he flies home from Seoul – stops in Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing are also planned – Obama is going to be watched closely back home.
Obama’s visit to China is going through some last-minute changes due to recent remarks about China’s plans for space by General Xu Qiliang, commander of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Air Force. On November 1, in advance of activities marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PLA Air Force, Xu was interviewed by China’s PLA Daily.
“Only power could protect peace. Superiority in space and in air would mean, to a certain extent, superiority over the land and the oceans,” he said. “As the air force of a peace-loving country, we must forge our swords and shields in order to protect peace.”
According to Xu, “a country without adequate power would have no say when faced with challenges posed by the militarization in the space and air.” [1]
Xu also said that, “military competition has shifted towards space. Such a shift is a major trend now, and such expansion is a historical inevitability.” [2]
A few days later, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) made clear that Xu’s comments were incomplete and had to be taken in context.
“I want to point out China has all along upheld the peaceful use of outer space. We oppose the weaponization of outer space or a space arms race,” said MFA spokesman Ma Zhaoxu. “China has never and will not participate in an outer space arms race in any form. The position of China on this point remains unchanged.” [3]
Filed under: Latin America, War | Tags: air force, chavez, colombia, obama, uribe, venezuela, War
While the media spins this story into another tale of irrational Venezuelan bluster, quietly preparations are beginning for a potential conflict in Latin America. Will this be a limited conflict between Venezuela and Colombia, or will the U.S use its new found presence in the region as “an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America ?” The U.S military considers Palanquerno such an asset for potential military operations that in the Air Force Global en Route Strategy document, it is treated as a vital defense against “security and stability [that] is under constant threat from narcotics funded terrorist insurgencies…and anti-US governments.”
Obama and Uribe look deeply into each others eyes to reveal the appropriate military strategy.
BBC: Chavez steps up Colombia war talk
Eva Golinger: Official US Air Force Document Reveals the True Intentions Behind the US-Colombia Military Agreement
“…It’s not difficult to imagine which governments in South America are considered by Washington to be “anti-US governments”. The constant aggressive declarations and statements emitted by the State and Defense Departments and the US Congress against Venezuela and Bolivia, and even to some extent Ecuador, evidence that the ALBA nations are the ones perceived by Washington as a “constant threat”. To classify a country as “anti-US” is to consider it an enemy of the United States. In this context, it’s obvious that the military agreement with Colombia is a reaction to a region the US now considers full of “enemies”…”
Filed under: Latin America, War | Tags: alba, castro, colombia, obama, south america, us, venezuela, War
Fidel Castro: The Annexation of Colombia to the U.S
Anyone with some information can immediately see that the sweetened ‘Complementation Agreement for Defense and Security Cooperation and Technical Assistance between the Governments of Colombia and the United States’ signed on October 30, and made public in the evening of November 2, amounts to the annexation of Colombia to the United States.
The agreement puts theoreticians and politicians in a predicament. It wouldn’t be honest to keep silence now and speak later on sovereignty, democracy, human rights, freedom of opinion and other delights, when a country is being devoured by the empire as easy as lizards catch flies. This is the Colombian people; a self-sacrificing, industrious and combative people. I looked up in the hefty document for a digestible justification and I found none whatsoever.
Of 48 pages with 21 lines each, five are used to philosophize on the background of the shameful absorption that turns Colombia into an overseas territory. They are all based on the agreements signed with the United States after the murder of the distinguished progressive leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan on April 9, 1948, and the establishment, on April 30, 1948, of the Organization of American States debated by the foreign ministers of the hemisphere meeting in Bogota, with the US as the boss, during the dramatic days when the Colombian oligarchy cut short the life of that leader thus paving the way to the onset of the armed struggle in that country.
The Agreement on Military Assistance between the Republic of Colombia and the United States of April 1952; the one related to Army, Naval and Air Missions from the US Forces, signed on October 7, 1974; the 1988 UN Convention against the Illegal Trafficking of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances; the 2000 UN Convention against Organized Transnational Delinquency; the 2001 Security Council Resolution 1373 and the Inter-American Democratic Charter; the Democratic Security and Defense Policy resolution and others referred to in the abovementioned document, none of them can justify turning a 713,592.5 square miles country located in the heart of South America into a US military base. Colombia’s territory is 1.6 times that of Texas, the second largest state of the Union taken away from Mexico and later used as a base to conquer with great violence more than half of that country.
On the other hand, over 59 years have passed since Colombian soldiers were sent to distant Asia, in October 1950, to fight alongside the Yankee troops against Chinese and Korean combatants. Now, the empire intends to send them to fight against their brothers in Venezuela,Ecuador and other Bolivarian and ALBA countries, to crush the Venezuelan Revolution as they tried to do with the Cuban Revolution in April 1961.
For more than one and a half year before the invasion of Cuba, the Yankee administration fostered, armed and used counterrevolutionary bandits in the Escambray the same way it is now using the Colombian paramilitary forces against Venezuela.
At the time of the Giron [Bay of Pigs] attack, the Yankee B-26 aircrafts piloted by mercenaries operated from Nicaragua. Their fighter planes were brought to the theater of operations in an aircraft carrier and the invaders of Cuban descent who landed in our territory were escorted by US warships and by the American marines. This time their war equipment and troops will be in Colombia posing a threat not only toVenezuela but to every country in Central and South America.
It is really cynical to claim that the infamous agreement is necessary to fight drug-trafficking and international terrorism. Cuba has shown that there is no need of foreign troops to prevent the cultivation and trafficking of drugs and to preserve domestic order, even though the United States –the mightiest power on Earth—has promoted, financed and armed the terrorists who for decades have attacked the Cuban Revolution.
The preservation of domestic peace is a basic prerogative of every government and the presence of Yankee troops in any Latin American country to do it on their behalf constitutes a blatant foreign interference in their internal affairs that will inevitably elicit the peoples’ rejection.
A simple reading of the document shows that not only the Colombian airbases will be in the Yankees’ hands but also the civilian airports and ultimately any facility that may be useful to their armed forces. The radio space is also available to that country with a different culture and other interests that have nothing in common with those of the Colombian people.
The US Armed Forces will have exceptional prerogatives.
The occupants can commit any crime anywhere in Colombia against Colombian families, property and laws and still be unaccountable to the country’s authorities. Actually, they have taken diseases and scandalous behavior to many places like the Palmerola military base inHonduras. In Cuba, when they came to visit the neo-colony, they sat astride the neck of Jose Marti’s statue, in the capital’s Central Park. The limit set with regards to the total number of soldiers can be modified as requested by the United States, and with no restriction whatsoever. The aircraft carriers and warships visiting the naval bases given to them can take as large a crew as they choose, and this can be thousands in only one of their large aircraft carriers.
The Agreement, which will remain in force for successive 10-year periods, can’t be modified until the end of every period, with a one-year prior notice. What will the United States do if an administration as that of Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush sr. or Bush jr., and others like them, is asked to leave Colombia? The Yankees have ousted scores of governments in our hemisphere. How long would a government last in Colombiaif it announced such intentions?
Now, the politicians in Latin America are faced with a sensitive issue: the fundamental duty of explaining their viewpoints on the annexation document. I am aware that what is happening in Honduras at this decisive moment draws the attention of the media and the foreign ministers of this hemisphere, but the Latin American governments cannot overlook the extremely serious and transcendental events taking place in Colombia.
I have no doubts about the reaction of the peoples; they will be sensitive to the dagger being shoved deep inside them, especially inColombia: They will oppose! They will never cave in to such ignominy!
Today, the world is facing serious and pressing problems. The entire humanity is threatened by climate change. European leaders are almost begging on their knees for some kind of agreement in Copenhagen that will prevent the catastrophe. They practically concede that theSummit will fail to meet the objective of reaching an agreement that can drastically reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and promise to continue struggling to attain it before 2012; however, there is a true risk that an agreement cannot be reached until it is too late.
The Third World countries are rightly claiming from the richest and most developed nations hundreds of billion dollars a year to pay for the climate battle.
Does it make sense for the United States government to invest time and money in building military bases in Colombia to impose on our peoples their hateful tyranny? Along that path, if a disaster is already threatening the world, a greater and faster disaster is threatening the empire and it would all be the consequence of the same exploiting and plundering system of the planet.
Press TV: Iran ‘not intimidated’ by sanctions
As Washington scrambles to assemble tougher sanctions against Tehran, a senior Iranian lawmaker assures that the country will never be ‘intimidated’ into giving up its nuclear rights.
In a speech commemorating the 30th anniversary of the US embassy takeover in Tehran, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel warned Washington against threatening the Iranians with sanctions.
“[The Islamic Republic] will not negotiate on its legitimate rights,” said the former speaker of the Iranian Parliament (Majlis).
His remarks come after US President Barack Obama urged the Tehran government to “decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity and justice for its people.”
“I have made it clear that the United States of America wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect,” said the US President.
In Iran, Obama’s remarks were seen as a far cry from the oft-stated promises of ‘change’ he made while on the stump.
According to Haddad-Adel, the statements show that Obama’s promises of change were “mere slogans to help him rise to power.”
“What we have seen in the past ten months was just a change of tone in Washington, not a change of US policy,” said Haddad-Adel. “The real change should come in the US approach towards Muslim people and democracy.”
The Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has also said that Washington’s stance on Iran has not changed in the least.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran decided from the very beginning to avoid presumption and instead take into consideration the slogan of ‘change’. But what we have witnessed in practice during this period of time has been in contradiction with the remarks that have been made,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.
Washington and a number of European powers have been trying hard in recent days to get Iran to sign an IAEA-drafted proposal on third-party nuclear fuel supply.
Under the plan, as much as 70 percent of Iran’s low-enriched uranium (LEU) would be sent abroad to be turned into fuel rods for medical use at the Tehran research reactor.
Powered by 20-percent enriched uranium, the Tehran research reactor produces isotopes for cancer care to more than 200 hospitals.
Iranian officials have welcomed foreign cooperation on fuel supply, but have rejected the idea of sending out the bulk of its stock in one batch.
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Filed under: China / SE Asia, War | Tags: afghanistan, india, iran, obama, us
Indo-U.S cooperation in the form of military drills is increasing, and judging by the importance placed on them by U.S commanders, the military/intelligence community is perhaps envisioning a situation in which India could be used as a Asian hedge against the potential of a hostile Chinese regime.
Looks like Hawaii has been moved without my knowledge, but the map remains accurate despite this geographical anomaly.
Telegraph (Calcutta): Trained in India, to fight in Iraq
Filed under: Latin America, Russia / Caucacus, War | Tags: chavez, cia, correa, military, morales, obama, putin, russia, southcom, us
Looks like the increased U.S presence in Colombia is causing South American nations, especially those involved in the ALBA contingency, to continue preparations for a potential U.S proxy-conflict. With Colombia, the U.S now has a visible military presence on every continent, a precedent which is not lost on Morales, Chavez, Correa and others, especially with the recent increase of violence of the northwest border of Venezuela.
Russian F.M Sergei Lavrov and Ecuador President Rafael Correa
Vedomosti: Ecuador Seeks Russian Aid Against U.S. Military Buildup In Colombia
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa will come to Moscow to discuss weapons supplies, but the Kremlin also expects him to speak about the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“We need to restore the might of our army,” Correa said about the goal of his visit to Moscow, which he will make together with Defense Minister Javier Ponce.
Ecuador has been alarmed by the decision of Colombia, with which it severed diplomatic relations in March 2008, to allow U.S. troops to use its bases.
The Ecuadorian officials plan to sign the contract, which was initialed last week, for the delivery of two Mi-17 Hip multirole helicopters for its Defense Ministry’s civilian purposes, said a representative of the Russian state arms exporter, Rosoboronexport.
However, Moscow also expects Ecuador to sign other contracts. A source at Russian Technology said Russia could supply six Su-30MK2 Flanker multirole fighters, several helicopters, and air defense systems to Ecuador, which would increase the value of their military cooperation to over $200 million.
In response, Russia expects Ecuador to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. A source at the Russian Foreign Ministry said Ecuador had unofficially promised to announce its intention during the president’s visit…
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Reuters: Venezuela arrests eight Colombian ‘paramilitaries’
Xinhua News: Venezuela Strengthens Military Presence On Colombian Border
Duty Now For The Future 