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Military bases

Thirteen Disarmament Activists Blockade Trident Nuclear Submarine Base

March 4, 2020 By Felice & Jack Cohen-Joppa, the Nuclear Resister. , ,
Washington state - Thirteen nuclear abolitionists blocked traffic leading into Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Washington on March 2, as part of a public protest of the United States’ Trident nuclear-missile launching submarines based there. The direct action came at the conclusion of the annual gathering of the Pacific Life Community, a network of spiritually motivated activists from the Pacific Coast and other western states committed to nonviolent action for a nuclear-free future. Washington state police arrested nine people for obstructing traffic after they carried banners that stretched across the roadway just outside the base main gate. Their banners read “Trident Threatens All Life on Earth” and “Abolish Nuclear Weapons”.

US Announces Three New Bases In Iraq After Iraqis Demand Full Withdrawal

February 1, 2020 By Alan Macleod, Mintpressnews.com , ,
The three sites chosen for the news bases, Erbin, Sulimania and Halabja are all extremely close to Iran, with Halabja just eight miles from its border. Less than a week after millions of Iraqis took to the streets demanding the U.S. military leave for good, the United States announced that is planning to build three new military bases in Iraq, according to military news service Breaking Defense. The three sites chosen – Erbin, Sulimania and Halabja...

Winter Is Coming: Castle Black, The Syrian Withdrawal, And The Battle Of The Base

November 6, 2019 Nick Turse, Tomdispatch.com , ,
Grimly enough, 15 years later, as TomDispatch managing editor Nick Turse makes clear today, not a word of what Johnson wrote isn’t applicable to this moment as well. The United States remains, in the phrase of another TomDispatch author, David Vine, a base nation. Millions of Americans have been to or served at one or more of those garrisons scattered in an historically unprecedented way across, as Johnson said, every continent but Antarctica. In recent years, in every size and shape those bases have...

Okinawan People Oppose U.S. Military Base Expansion

November 6, 2019 Kent Wong, Portside.org , ,
Okinawa is an island prefecture of Japan, located about 400 miles south of the rest of Japan. For years, there has been a campaign to stop the construction of the new U.S. military base at Henoko, located in the northern part of Okinawa. In a referendum held February 24, 2019, 72 percent voted against the new military base. Okinawan Governor Denny Tamaki and the Okinawan Assembly have actively opposed the base construction, but the U.S. and Japanese governments continue with the construction plans—in direct disregard for the will of the Okinawan people.

Report Back: Shut Down Creech Fall Action

October 25, 2019 Eleanor Levine and ToBlomé, Shut Down Creech. , ,
In all, 10 Creechers were arrested and ultimately charged with “failure to disperse.”  (Arrestees included Toby Blomé, Norie Clarke, Don Cunning, Maggie Huntington, Michael Kerr, Don Kimball, George Killingsworth, Eleanor Levine, Denny Riley, and Susan Witka) All were released with citations later that day, though 4 women were held 5 hours longer because they refused to be scanned by the newly installed full-body micro-scanner. They were individually interrogated and intimidated, but all held strong to their positions.  As a result, they were isolated together in a separate cell for hours, to eliminate the risk of “contaminating” the other inmates, according to the guards. These four middle-aged white women found creative ways to use up the “punishment time” together, such as dancing, laughing, and good storytelling, and were often greeted with looks of dismay, smiles and laughs from some of the prisoners and guards that passed their cell windows.  

U.S. House Of Representatives Creates Requirement That There Be Some Basis For Any Foreign Bases

July 12, 2019 David Swanson, Worldbeyondwar.org , ,
In this video from Wednesday on C-Span, at 5:21, Rep. Omar makes the case for a need to justify foreign military bases, not just blindly fund unlimited and unknown empire. At 5:25 Rep. Adam Smith makes the case as well. One of their colleagues argues in opposition, but it’s difficult to find coherent meaning in what he says, and it’s hard to imagine what a persuasive case could be for the 210 No votes recorded. What could be the advantage of coating the globe with military bases without bothering to know what each one costs or whether each one plausibly makes you safer or actually endangers you?

Senate Goes Easy On Pentagon Polluters

April 10, 2019 Pat Elder, Civilian Exposure. , , ,
Ms. Maureen Sullivan, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment, testified in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on March 28, 2019. The hearing focused on the DoD’s actions related to carcinogenic perfluorinated chemicals found in fire-fighting foam routinely used in exercises at military bases around the world. The American military is poisoning people and the planet with these chemicals.  My two U.S. Senators from Maryland, Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, failed to subject Sullivan to serious questioning during this important hearing on the military’s response to lethal ground water contamination. Reading her testimony filled me with rage.

Okinawa Rally Urges Japan, US Gov’ts To Scrap Base Relocation Plan

March 18, 2019 Staff, Mainichi.jp , , ,
NAHA (Kyodo) -- A rally of thousands of Okinawa residents on Saturday urged the Japanese and U.S. governments to scrap a plan to relocate a controversial U.S. air base within the southern prefecture. Following a local referendum last month that showed over 70 percent opposed the transfer plan, some 10,000 people gathered at a park in the prefectural capital of Naha, according to the organizer of the rally. The protesters adopted a resolution demanding the two governments abolish the plan to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a crowded residential area of Ginowan to the less densely populated coastal area of Henoko in Nago.

America’s Most Contaminated Military Bases

March 9, 2019 Pat Elder, Militarypoisons.org ,
I drove across the country with my daughter Holly last week to draw attention to the reckless behavior of the military as it continues to poison the waters in communities across the country. We billed our trip, “The Million Parts per Trillion Tour” because we stopped at eight extremely contaminated bases, all with more than a million parts per trillion (ppt) of deadly Per and Poly Fluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in the groundwater.  We worked with The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom-U.S. and Civilian Exposure from Camp Lejeune, NC.

Okinawan People Vote By 72% To Oppose US Military Base, But Abe Moves Ahead Anyway

February 26, 2019 Staff, Asahi.com , ,
NAHA--Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki proclaimed that the decisive 72 percent opposed to the relocation of a U.S. military base within Okinawa Prefecture in a referendum on Feb. 24 shows the "firm will" of the people. Tamaki told reporters before dawn on Feb. 25 that the people of Okinawa will never allow the land reclamation work off Henoko for the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. “The central government should reconsider its policy that Henoko is the only candidate site for relocation, and suspend the (ongoing land reclamation) work,” Tamaki said.

Top Iraqi Scholar Rejects Trump’s Plan For ‘US base’ In Iraq

February 9, 2019 Staff, Aljazeera.com , ,
Iraq's most senior Shia religious scholar on Wednesday joined a chorus of criticism aimed at President Donald Trump who said US troops should stay in the country to keep an eye on neighbouring Iran. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said Iraq aspires to have "good and balanced relations" with all of its neighbours "based on mutual interests and without intervention in internal affairs". Iraq "rejects being a launching pad for harming any other country", he said during a meeting with UN Iraq envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert at the Muslim leader's base in Najaf.

US Will Retain A Military Base In Syria Despite Withdrawal

January 22, 2019 By Nauman Sadiq, Globalresearch.ca , ,
The revelation hardly comes as a surprise, though, as John Bolton alluded to maintaining long-term US military presence at the al-Tanf base during his visit to Jerusalem on January 6. The al-Tanf military base is strategically located in southeastern Syria on the border between Syria, Iraq and Jordan, and it sits on a critically important Damascus-Baghdad highway, which serves as a lifeline for Damascus. Washington has illegally occupied 55-kilometer area around al-Tanf since 2016, and several hundred US Marines have trained Syrian militant groups, including Maghawir al-Thawra, there.

Okinawa Activists Petition White House To Stop Military Base Construction

January 14, 2019 By John Zangas, Dcmediagroup.us , , ,
Washington, DC — Peace activists are calling for the U.S. government to call off plans for a massive military construction project on the Japanese island of Okinawa. On January 7, a fourth generation Okinawan-American and local peace groups staged a demonstration and delivered a petition with 190,000 signatures to the White House. The petition calls for a halt of construction of a U.S. airbase at Ourawan Bay until a referendum can be held on February 24. The airbase would build an airstrip by filling in Ourawan Bay with boulders and dirt. Two 5,000-foot runways are planned which will eventually house the ultra-advanced U.S. F-35 fighter jets and V-22 tiltrotor aircraft.

Smithsonian: US Is At Global War

January 13, 2019 By Stephanie Savell and 5W Infographics, Smithsonian Magazine , ,
More than 17 years later, the Global War on Terrorism initiated by President George W. Bush is truly global, with Americans actively engaged in countering terrorism in 80 nations on six continents. This map is the most comprehensive depiction in civilian circles of U.S. military and government anti-terrorist actions overseas in the past two years. To develop it, my colleagues and I at Brown University’s Costs of War Project at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, along with Smithsonian magazine...

Bases, Bases, Everywhere…Except In The Pentagon’s Report

January 11, 2019 By Nick Turse, Countercurrents.org , ,
The U.S. military is finally withdrawing (or not) from its base at al-Tanf. You know, the place that the Syrian government long claimed was a training ground for Islamic State (ISIS) fighters; the land corridor just inside Syria, near both the Iraqi and Jordanian borders, that Russia has called a terrorist hotbed (while floating the idea of jointly administering it with the United States); the location of a camp where hundreds of U.S. Marines joined Special Operations forces last year; an outpost that U.S. officials claimed was the key not only to defeating ISIS, but also, according to General Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East...
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