Press Release on U.S. ICBM test-fire from Vandenberg Air Force base in California
further contact: Jim Albertini
Jim Albertini 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 www.malu-aina.
Our organization condemns the ongoing testing of ICBM missiles by anyone and everyone. It only adds to increasing, rather than decreasing, tensions internationally. See article below. But I want to raise additional issues. In recent days 2 ICBM missile tests were fired from Vandenberg Air Force base near Lompoc, California. I spent nearly a year at Lompoc federal prison, located on Vandenberg A.F.B. in the late 1980s for a peaceful protest against a nuclear warship entering Hilo, Hawaii in violation of Hawaii county’s Nuclear-free law. While at Lompoc I experience several such ICBM tests. Rocket fuel rained down on the prison during such tests. Prisoners had no where to go. You could smell and taste the chemicals. I suspect the rocket chemicals included perchlorate which has been linked to serious health issues. In addition, it has been reported in the past that the dummy warheads targeted toward Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands contained Depleted Uranium, used as ballast. Depleted Uranium (DU) has also been linked to serious health concerns, including cancer and birth defects. For the U.S. to send DU to the Marshall Islands, where the U.S. has conducted 67 atomic and hydrogen bomb tests resulting in widespread cancer deaths and contamination of atolls, is to add insult to injury.
Today, DU is used in a wide variety of armor piercing and bunker busting weapons and has been used extensively in war by the U.S. the UK, Israel and possibly others in a number of countries causing widespread and long-lasting radiation contamination. In addition, DU has been used by the U.S. military in training at Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii Island, Schofield Barracks on Oahu and in more than a dozen other states and 3 foreign countries –Japan, South Korea, and Germany.
The U.S. and the world must stop its killing machines making a mess of our planet and endangering the lives of everyone. It’s time for peace and taking care of the earth and cleaning up the mess we have made.
Jim Albertini
U.S. to test-fire ICBM amid strategic tensions with Russia, North Korea –Tests have been conducted at least 15 times since January 2011 – Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work | 26 Feb 2016 | The U.S. military plans to test-fire its second intercontinental ballistic missile in a week overnight on Thursday to demonstrate the reliability of American nuclear arms at a time of rising strategic tensions with countries like Russia and North Korea. The unarmed Minuteman III missile will blast off from a silo at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California late on Thursday or early on Friday, headed toward a target area near Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands of the South Pacific.
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Jim Albertini 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 www.malu-aina.org
