Archive for February, 2022

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Stand Up for Peace NOT War!

Friday, February 25th, 2022

Let’s see a strong anti-war turnout at the Friday, Feb. 25th Hilo Peace Vigil 3:30-5 PM at the downtown Hilo Post Office. Please spread the word. See this week’s peace leaflet here https://malu-aina.org/?p=7905

No War with Russia!  No War with Ukraine!
Don’t let the “Fog of War” in Ukraine turn into Global Mushroom clouds of Nuclear War!
Diplomacy and De-escalation NOW!

 
 
Many people turning up for peace vigils in Russia, etc. are paying a much heavier price than to turn up in Hilo. 
Stand in Solidarity for peace.
 
Please spread the word.  Mahalo.
Jim Albertini

Posted in Military, Public Events, Radiation, Social Justice, Take Action!, Vigil leaflets | No Comments »

RIMPAC 2022 Military War Games this summer in and around Hawaii

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2022
The U.S. Navy is fighting against removing its Red hill fuel storage after polluting Hawaii’s groundwater and poisoning countless military families and others, but there are plenty of tax dollars for RIMPACwar-games to threaten China and others.  The military needs to clean up its mess and stop making more messes in Hawaii and around the world.
 

Navy expects 27 countries to attend RIMPAC this summer

As the Navy wrapped up a planning conference Friday for this year’s iteration of the biennial Rim of the Pacific Exercise, or RIMPAC, the service said that it expects sailors, vessels and aircraft from 27 countries to attend this summer.

The weeklong conference was co-hosted with the Royal Canadian Navy at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego. In addition to U.S. and Canadian naval officers, leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea were present.

A Navy news release said 42 ships, five submarines, more than 170 aircraft and nearly 25,000 personnel are expected to participate in RIMPAC in waters off Hawaii and San Diego.

It’s a sizable increase from the 2020 exercise.

On March 6, 2020, U.S. Pacific Fleet leaders announced that at least 26 nations were expected to participate, making it the largest iteration in history of the world’s largest ongoing naval exercise. Five days later the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

Only nine countries ultimately participated in RIMPAC 2020 with 22 ships, a single submarine and approximately 5,300 personnel. Usually a roughly two-month-long exercise, it was also cut down to about two weeks, and amphibious operations were canceled.

Service members also had no shore leave as they’d had during previous years, due to COVID-19 concerns.

 

The Navy said the weeklong planning conference at Point Loma “brought the RIMPAC senior leadership and staffs from seven RIMPAC partner nations together for detailed planning in advance of the world’s largest maritime exercise, scheduled to be held this summer in both Hawaii and San Diego.”

It was the third major planning event for the 2022 iteration and the first time the RIMPAC senior leadership team met face-to-face after remote planning sessions.

“Operating as a team is about trust. …” Royal Canadian Navy Rear Adm. Angus Topshee, deputy commander of RIMPAC 2022 combined task forces, said in a news release. “This week has really strengthened those bonds among the leadership and their staffs. I can’t wait to see this team in action.”

RIMPAC 2022’s final planning conference is scheduled to take place in late March.

The exercise comes at a time when President Joe Biden’s administration is trying to emphasize its commitment to the Indo-­Pacific — and when relations between the Navy and Hawaii are incredibly strained as the response to the contamination of the Navy’s water system that serves 93,000 people continues.

Jet fuel from the serv­ice’s Red Hill storage facility is the source of the contamination, which sparked a water crisis that has lasted since late November. The Navy is under increasing pressure to empty its fuel storage tanks, which sit 100 feet above a critical aquifer that provides most of Hono­lulu’s drinking water.

The Pentagon is fighting a state emergency order to defuel the tanks, but Hawaii’s congressional delegation has introduced legislation that would require the Navy to empty the tanks and permanently shutter the facility by the end of the year.

Though the Navy has resisted the order, it has suspended fueling operations from the facility and is relying on above-ground tanks at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for the time being. The Navy has maintained that the fuel reserve at Red Hill is critical to operations in the Pacific.

 
 

A 2018 Navy news release on Red Hill’s role during RIMPAC said the facility provided over 19 million gallons of fuel to U.S. and foreign ships and aircraft participating during the exercise that year. Twenty-five countries participated in RIMPAC 2018 with 46 surface ships, five submarines, 18 land-fighting contingents, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel overall.

The Chinese navy, which was invited by the Hawaii­-based U.S. Pacific Fleet to attend in 2014 and 2016, was disinvited in 2018 before the exercise began amid souring relations between Washington and Beijing. But the Chinese navy made an appearance anyway with a spy ship in international waters off Hawaii monitoring the exercise.

Many countries expected to participate in RIMPAC have been embroiled in territorial disputes with China. Beijing considers almost the entire South China Sea, a critical waterway route through which at least one-third of all international trade travels, to be its exclusive territory within a maritime border called the “Nine-Dash Line.”

The Nine Dash Line encompasses numerous territories claimed by neighboring countries like Vietnam and the Philippines. The Philippines issued a legal challenge, and in 2016 an international court ruled that most of Beijing’s claims had no legal basis. But the Chinese military has dug in, stationing troops and building bases on disputed land formations, and sometimes attacking vessels from neighboring countries.

The U.S. Pacific Fleet has stepped up “freedom of navigation operations” in the region and sought to strengthen ties with countries that have expressed frustration with China’s claims.

Posted in Hawaii Independence, Military, Pohakuloa, Radiation, Social Justice, Take Action! | No Comments »

Feb. 25, 2022 Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022

Wage Peace

War is NOT the Answer!

 

Biden Putin

      The very dangerous, escalating situation in Ukraine between Russia, the US, and NATO has the potential to spark a global nuclear war, by accident or design. Together, Russia and the US possess 90% of the world’s nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the world many times over.

      The situation in Ukraine is complicated. To use a Hawaiian Ho’oponopono (To Make Right) analogy, there can be many knots in a tangled fish net that need to be untied one at a time. To name just a few of the Ukraine knots: a 2014 coup in Ukraine with direct US involvement to topple a democratically elected pro Russian Ukraine government; NATO expanding by 14 countries and moving eastward toward Russia despite assurance by the US that this would never happen; Ukraine’s failure to honor commitments under the 2015 Minsk accords that provided for regional autonomy as well as a ceasefire; Putin now recognizing two self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine and moving in Russian “Peacekeeper” military troops.

      Now what? Instead of escalating the situation further with crushing Western economic sanctions on Russia, and the two new self-proclaimed republics, there need to be good faith efforts to defuse the growing tensions. Diplomacy, Diplomacy, Diplomacy! Negotiations, Negotiations, Negotiations! Find solutions acceptable to all sides. Begin to untie the knots, not make more knots. An example to look back on is the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 between the Soviet Union and the US when Soviet nuclear missiles were placed in Cuba, only 90 miles from the US. It was a very dangerous time coming very close to nuclear war. The agreement finally reached, after rapidly escalating tensions, involved the Soviet withdrawal of missiles from Cuba, US withdrawal of nuclear missiles from Turkey, and the US pledged not to invade Cuba. Thankfully, the world stepped back from the brink of nuclear war, and possibly the end to civilization as we know it. Today, we need similar action before the crisis further escalates. Then we need global nuclear disarmament and justice, peace, and a living planet.

Love your Enemies!

Don’t Kill or Crush Them with Sanctions!

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, 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 www.malu-aina.org

Feb. 25, 2022, Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet – week 1065– Fridays 3:30-5 PM downtown Post Office 

-- 
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 Visit us on the web at www.malu-aina.org

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Feb. 18, 2022 Hilo Peace Vigil photo

Friday, February 18th, 2022

Feb. 18, 2022 Hilo Peace Vigil photo   

peace vigil

Posted in Climate Change, Hawaii Independence, Military, Social Justice, Vigil leaflets | No Comments »

John Pilger: War in Europe & the Rise of Raw Propaganda

Thursday, February 17th, 2022

John Pilger: War in Europe & the Rise of Raw Propaganda

 
Russia’s security proposals ought to be welcomed in the West, writes John Pilger. But who understands their significance when all the people are told is that Putin is a pariah?  

John Pilger: War in Europe & the Rise of Raw Propaganda

Posted in Military, Social Justice | No Comments »

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