OFF AND RUNNING FOR MORE BASES IN ASIA-PACIFIC

• A Catholic mass was held today for the release of Jesuit priest Lee Young-chan S.J. (arrested on Oct 24) and other prisoners of conscience. About 900 people attended the mass in a Jeju Island, South Korea cathedral. Father Lee was arrested for trying to block the Navy base construction gate in Gangjeong village.
• The Washington Post reported this morning that: "Just days after winning a second term, the Obama administration is intensifying its focus on Asia, with the Pentagon chief, secretary of state and the president himself making visits to the region to underline the White House’s foreign policy priorities for the next four years. Despite the ongoing war in Afghanistan and unresolved flash points in the Middle East and North Africa, President Obama and his senior national security team are pushing ahead with the strategic 'pivot' to the ­Asia-Pacific region that they announced at the start of the year. The second-term effort got underway Monday as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta traveled to Perth, Australia, for two days of talks with the country’s leaders. Joining those talks will be Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific."
•  The Navy base on Jeju will be needed as a port for U.S. warships as Obama's pivot will move 60% of all Pentagon forces into the region.  Thus the U.S. twists the arm of the South Korean government to get them to build the Navy base that will benefit American ambitions in the region.  To hell with the needs and desires of the people of Jeju Island, Okinawa, Guam, or any other place where U.S. bases will be built or expanded.
• Obama isn't wasting any time in pushing his "pivot".....he wants to strike while his supporters still revel in the fantasy that his election will mean a more peaceful administration than the right-winger Mitt Romney would have delivered.  But the truth is that Obama is the wolf in sheep's clothing as he will continue to expand military operations in Central Asia and Africa; continue the surrounding of Russia which is drawing angry responses from the Kremlin; increase the testing of new space technologies for "global strike" missions; and escalate the surrounding of China.  The massive cost of all these military operations will be covered by continued cuts in social spending.  His liberal base isn't really interested in any of these details as they glow in the warm aftermath of their electoral victory which they are convinced means that peace and prosperity will return to the land once again.
• In his new article entitled "Once Again - The Death of the Liberal Class" award-winning journalist Chris Hedges writes, "Liberals have assured us that after the election they will build a movement to hold the president accountable—although how or when or what this movement will look like they cannot say. They didn’t hold him accountable during his first term. They won’t during his second. They have played their appointed roles in the bankrupt political theater that passes for electoral politics."