Malu 'Aina

Celebrate International Peace Day!

EVERYDAY!

Stop Bombing Pohakuloa!

Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022

10:30 – Noon

Pohakuloa Toxic Area (PTA) Main Gate

(Car pools leave Hilo –Komohana and Saddle Rd at 9:30 AM)

Shut Down Pohakuloa!

Clean up the decades of military mess!

Return the land to the Hawaiian people!

All of us on Hawaii island are downhill, downwind, and downstream of PTA’s many toxins from more than 70 years of live-fire! Whatever happens mauka comes makai! PTA is Hawaii Island’s Red Hill!

Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Ola’a (Kurtistown), Hawai’i 96760 Phone (808) 966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org to receive our posts.

For more information http://www.malu-aina.org

Pohakuloa Toxic Area (PTA)

     The Military Pohakuloa Toxic (Training) Area, located in the center of Hawaii Island at 6500 feet elevation totals 133,000 acres, or more than 200 square miles in size. That’s as big as the island of Guam. PTA has been used as a live-fire training area since WWII by all branches of the military – Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and foreign troops too. Much of what goes on up at PTA is secret – the training for nuclear war, assassination drone training, B-2 and B-52 bombing runs, the long list of various munitions used over the years, and even the number of live rounds fired annually. The last figure released nearly 2 decades ago was 14.8 million live rounds are fired annually at PTA.

     The military leases 23,000 acres of Hawaiian crown and government lands from the State DLNR at Pohakuloa for a total cost of ONE DOLLAR for 65 years. The military is now trying to get that lease renewed. The current lease expires in 2029. 84,000 additional acres at PTA were simply seized in 1964 by the presidential executive order of Lyndon B. Johnson at ZERO cost. The military claims that 84,000 acres are “Federally owned land.” That’s like someone stealing your car and claiming they now own it.

     All of us on Hawaii Island, visitors, and residents alike are downhill, downwind, and downstream of the Pohakuloa Toxic Area. In short, PTA is a toxic waste dump. No true inventory has ever been done of all the toxins used at Pohakuloa. But it should be done now. Still, we know enough to be very concerned. Just the amount of lead used in decades of live-fire is enormous. But there is more. Lots more toxins. One of the worst that we know about is Depleted Uranium (DU) radiation. DU is a metal. It is not an external hazard. But when DU metal is hit with high explosives and burned, it turns into small Depleted Uranium oxide particles that can be carried long distances in the wind. When inhaled DU oxide particles can travel to various organs of the body, causing cancers, and genetic damage to future generations. The half-life of DU is 24,000 years.

     When military live-fire causes brush fires at Pohakuloa, military toxins, including DU oxide particles, are likely blowing in the smoke. Still, no federal, state, or county agency is monitoring what’s coming off of PTA. Hawaii’s predominant winds are from the northeast, but winds shift. At night winds often come down off the mountain to the east. Winds that travel through the Saddle area where PTA is located can be very strong. Increasing vehicle traffic traveling the improved Saddle Highway can possibly transport military toxins around the island. Continuous independent air filter monitoring encircling PTA needs to be done for a full year to know what’s coming off the base according to Dr. Lorrin Pang, MD, and 24 years in the Army Medical Corps.

     More than 50,000 acres at PTA are officially considered the “Impact Area,” but maps of PTA say that “ALL of PTA should be considered a Dud Hazard Area.” meaning unexploded ordinance could be present. Actually, the entire island is part of the PTA “Impact area.” We are living in a toxic war zone.

Cancel, don’t renew, PTA State lands Lease!

A new PTA Presidential Executive Order needs to be signed to return Federally seized lands, as was done with Kaho’olawe!

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject violence & war as solutions. 3. Defend civil liberties.
4. Oppose all discrimination: anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, anti-Black, anti-Asian, anti-Russian, etc.
5. Seek peace through peaceful means and work for justice in Hawai`i and around the world.

Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Ola’a (Kurtistown), Hawai’i 96760 Phone (808) 966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org to receive our posts.

For more information http://www.malu-aina.org

September 16, 2022, Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet – week 1094– Fridays 3:30-5 PM downtown Post Office

WAR ON TRUTH

     It’s often been said that truth is the first casualty of war. Given the ongoing US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine and the long list of US wars going back decades, Truth is becoming increasingly difficult to find. Add to that the sophistication of propaganda, including the use of social media, and what we now have is truth standing on its head. Lies are now sold as Truth. Once weapons were manufactured to fight wars, Now wars are manufactured to sell weapons. Now weapons and wars are both sold as the way to peace. It’s all a lie and part of the war on truth.

     US major involvement and escalation in Vietnam was started on a lie: The Gulf of Ton kin false claim of US warships attacked. Don’t forget Nixon’s treasonous sabotaging of peace talks to win the election in 1968. Remember the US Iran/Contra drug dealing and trading arms for hostages? The nonexistent Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq that lead to the US invasion there for oil? And what about Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etc., etc. ? The list continues. “We came, we saw, he died.” Ha Ha Hillary’s arrogance! And please don’t ever forget the lie that – “Hawaii is the 50^th state.”

     Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream.” But Barrack Obama proclaimed “I have a drone,” and it is a Reaper Assassin drone that the US will use anywhere its empire’s economic interests demand. Both Trump and Biden have followed Obama’s Empire drone proclamation. The US Big Lie is far more than Donald Trump falsely claiming he won the 2020 election though that’s a pretty “Big Mac” lie.

     Where are we today? What are we going to do about big lies piled upon big lie? Today’s media, for the most part, is polluted with propaganda. We are living in the midst of a pandemic which adds to the difficulty of meeting and organizing. The world is heading toward climate catastrophe and possibly the end of human civilization as a result of nuclear war.  But are actions being taken to really change course? The answer is NO. Recent US funding to address climate change pails in comparison to the ever-expanding US military budget and war funding that has broad bipartisan support. Shame!

     In this time of unprecedented untruth, we need to question everything! We need to overcome cynicism, and indifference, and avoid depression. The way to do that is through community, solidarity, and being the change we want to see in the world. Action heals! Never give up!

Where’s the Outrage?

Where’s the Action?

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject violence & war as solutions. 3. Defend civil liberties.
4. Oppose all discrimination: anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, anti-Black, anti-Asian, anti-Russian, etc.
5. Seek peace through peaceful means and work for justice in Hawai`i and around the world.

Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Ola’a (Kurtistown), Hawai’i 96760 Phone (808) 966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org to receive our posts.

For more information http://www.malu-aina.org

September 9, 2022, Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet – week 1093– Fridays 3:30-5 PM downtown Post Office

Extremely Dangerous Times!

US Stoking Tensions with Russia, China, North Korea, etc.

Amid Global Climate Catastrophe!

     Weapons, weapons, and more weapons are not the way to world peace. More weapons are the path to global destruction from nuclear war if human civilization is not destroyed first by climate catastrophe.

     The US keeps pumping Billions of dollars of more powerful weapons into Ukraine for its proxy war with Russia. It is taking provocative actions by sailing US warships in the Taiwan strait, and even doing joint US-South Korea “decapitation drills,” to assassinate DPRK (North Korea) leader Kim Jong Un. (thedailybeast.com, Aug. 19). All of these actions are extremely dangerous. The US history of CIA assassinations and more recent hi-tech assassinations by Reaper drones must be making Kim Jong Un and other world leaders very nervous. Reaper assassin drones are now based at the Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station on Oahu, and train at the Pohakuloa military base on Hawaii Island.

US Reaper Assassin Drone

     Humanity is, according to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.” https://popularresistance.org/the-terrifying-research-nuclear-powers-dont-want-you-to-see/

     “It’s beyond lunacy,” say scholars Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg. In their 90s, the two men tirelessly fight to warn people of the need for urgent action to deal with climate change and the threat of nuclear war. https://theanalysis.news/a-warning-from-chomsky-and-ellsberg/?cmid=1f754761-0e69-43de-9174-e1df07052447

    The US mass media, with its military and intelligence community experts, keep beating the drums of war for the US arms merchants, and the war-based economy of the US global empire. This has got to end. The US spends more on the military, $813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined. What is needed is a cooperative transition to a global economy of peace. Specifically in Ukraine, what is needed is not more weapons, but a ceasefire, and diplomatic efforts toward a negotiated settlement agreeable to all parties.

Peace is a Victory for all sides!

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject violence & war as solutions. 3. Defend civil liberties.
4. Oppose all discrimination: anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, anti-Black, anti-Asian, anti-Russian, etc.
5. Seek peace through peaceful means and work for justice in Hawai`i and around the world.

Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Ola’a (Kurtistown), Hawai’i 96760 Phone (808) 966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org to receive our posts.

For more information http://www.malu-aina.org

September 2, 2022, Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet – week 1092– Fridays 3:30-5 PM downtown Post Office