Category Archives: War & Peace

Senate regresses to full secrecy on defense budget

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With most news media focused on the controversial bill to roll back or repeal the Affordable Care Act, they’re largely missing the unusual degree of secrecy cloaking consideration of the defense budget.

According to MilitaryTimes.com:

Senate Armed Services Committee members are holding all of their defense budget deliberations behind closed doors this year, a move that outside watchdogs are calling upsetting and against public interest.

For the last two days, the panel’s subcommittees have been marking up portions of the annual defense authorization bill in closed sessions, and will spend the rest of the week as a full committee working out the final details behind closed doors.

A letter sent yesterday to the chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee by 16 watchdog groups blasted the committee, saying “it is unacceptable for the vast majority of senators to have to vote on a bill compiled almost entirely behind closed doors, with very little chance for public input or accountability.”

The groups pointed to the obvious public importance of issues that are part of the more than $600 billion National Defense Authorization Act.

This year SASC could consider amendments that impact to alter military pay and benefit policy, authorize base closures, provide funding for major weapon systems, impact whistleblower protections, and other provisions with significant and direct impacts on American national security. And yet, your Committee does not release the bill it will vote on in advance of markup and then closes the markup of the bill to the public.

It’s time to bring the NDAA into the light of day.

Trump has proved worse than we could have predicted

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A friend forwarded an email with a link to an important article.

Paris Disagreement
Donald Trump’s Triumph of Stupidity

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other G-7 leaders did all they could to convince Trump to remain part of the Paris Agreement. But he didn’t listen.

“Read it and weep. Surreal inside account of world leaders trying to talk sense into Trump….”

And weep you will. The article paints a dismal view of the international political future, with the U.S. increasingly isolated and opposed by a large majority of the world’s countries. Germany has stepped out to challenge Trump. Our alliance with Europe has been torn apart. And do keep in mind the national security implications of climate change. These are things that Trump apparently doesn’t care about, or hasn’t thought about.

Merkel’s verdict following Trump’s visit to Europe could hardly be worse. There has never been an open break with America since the end of World War II; the alienation between Germany and the U.S. has never been so large as it is today. When Merkel’s predecessor, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, refused to provide German backing for George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, his rebuff was limited to just one single issue. It was an extreme test of the trans-Atlantic relationship, to be sure, but in contrast to today, it was not a quarrel that called into question commonly held values like free trade, minority rights, press freedoms, the rule of law — and climate policies.

To truly understand the consequences of Trump’s decision, it is important to remember what climate change means for humanity — what is hidden behind the temperature curves and emission-reduction targets.

Climate change means that millions are threatened with starvation because rain has stopped falling in some regions of the planet. It means that sea levels are rising and islands and coastal zones are flooding. It means the melting of the ice caps, more powerful storms, heatwaves, water shortages and deadly epidemics. All of that leads to conflicts over increasingly limited resources, to flight and to migration.

Remembering the 1968 Kalia Road Sit-in

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Last month marked the 49th anniversary of the 1968 call-up of members of the Army National Guard’s 29th Infantry Brigade.

On May 13, 1968, a group of several dozen peace activists met trucks of the guardsman along Kalia Road in Waikiki as they were approaching the Army induction center at Fort DeRussy. As the trucks approached, about 20 people stepped off the sidewalk and sat down in the street, blocking traffic.

Police armed with tear gas stood by while other officers dragged protesters out of the road. Several days later, ten of them were arrested and charged with loitering.

I prepared new scans of several photos I took that day, one of which is scheduled to appear in a book to be published this fall by a professor at the University of California at San Diego.

Follow this link to see a set of older scans from the Kalia Road sit-in.

Kalia Road Sit-in 1968

Just say “no” to an anti-missile system

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I strayed out of my normal range with my Civil Beat column this week.

I’ve been bothered by the casual talk about installing an anti-missile system in Hawaii, recalling how controversial ABM proposals were back several decades. I guess people today have no reason to recall why the proliferation of these systems was rejected back then, even though the nuclear threat was more immediate.

Anyway, it’s the best I could do on short notice: “Ian Lind: Installing A Missile Defense System Is A Bad Idea.”

Or, as the subhead reads: “Pushing ahead with a missile defense system in Hawaii wouldn’t make us any safer, and could signal to North Korea and others that we aren’t interested in diffusing tensions.”

Anyway, you might want to check it out. And leave a comment at CB if it’s appropriate.