Reporting after the liberation of Avdeevka

 

 

Moving interviews with Avdeevka/Avdiivka/Avdeyevka residents/refugees and they exposed many war crimes committed by the Ukraine forces during the battle where Russia finally captured the city. 

As these people state, the Ukraine forces used residents as human shields, targeted civilians and even performed mass executions. 

They all said how they have been waiting for Russian forces to come help them.

Patrick Lancaster is an American naval veteran who has been reporting from the front lines of this US-NATO orchestrated war in the Donbass region along the Russian border since 2014.

Macron: King of bedbugs

 

 

Maybe France's brave warrior Emmanuel Macron, after stating that NATO might have to send troops to Ukraine to rescue US-NATO's failing war against Russia, should strap on a helmet and grab a gun and join the fight himself. (Someone please tell him though he will also need to ditch the suit and tie.)

 

 

He's been roundly criticized by opposition parties in France and other (not so brave) EU leaders have shouted 'Whoa, stop this nonsense' after his ill-fated statement.

As one wag has noted, Napoleon at least had been in the military, and still his war on Russia ended badly with Russian troops inside Paris. Macron is essentially a bank teller who is good at taking orders from the corporate elite. He would be best served just staying behind his desk where he belongs.

After all Macron is having his own war now inside France - the battle against bedbugs.

He should stay home and see if he can beat the bedbugs before he tries to take on Russia.

Priorities - the struggle at home should always come first....

Bruce  

Many nations support Palestine at final ICJ hearing

 

  

The International Court of Justice is holding its last day of hearings examining the legality of Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian lands. 50 countries and three international organisations have addressed the court. 

Most called for Israel's occupation to be declared illegal and for it to end. 

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, said that today's legal arguments has demolished the shameless defenses of Israel's illegal occupation.

Korea war bases: U.S. in Pyeongteak tops the charts

 

Pyeongteak Peace Center museum

On Tuesday we drove to  Pyeongteak where the US has two military bases. One is the Army Camp Humphreys (HQ of the United Nations Command left over from the Korean war) and the other is the Osan Air Force Base nearby.

I've made three previous trips to Pyeongteak in 2010, 2015 and 2016.

In June of 2010 I wrote:

Under “Strategic Flexibility” South Korea will be responsible to defend against North Korea (who is never going to initiate an attack on the south anyway) while the U.S. intends to use its expanding military presence throughout the region for its own imperial ambitions.

I asked one of our hosts at the Pyeongteak Peace Center (Yongdong Yang) just whom the U.S. was aiming at in the region if it was not North Korea? His response was straight to the point as he answered, “Russia and China. Russia has large supplies of natural gas [actually the largest in the world]. It’s about energy wars.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

 

On this visit we stopped at the Pyeongteak Peace Center and took a tour of the village with the leader of the community that was established years ago after 71 villages were ousted from their farm land in order to expand US military operations in the area. 

 

Walk thru village where farmers relocated

There were 180 homes in one of the farm villages when they struggled to resist from 2003-2007. Once given some compensation the farm families had to purchase new lands and take loans to build new houses. Forty-four homes were built in this place while the other farmers were cast to the four winds. Many of them were not able to afford to buy new farm lands so as they have aged they face the challenge of surviving with little income or savings.

While at the peace center one person in our group noticed the display below and upon closer inspection found my photo in the lower left corner. What a surprise.

 

Next we moved to get an up close view of Camp Humphreys army base. My first reaction was that much of it looked fairly new and massively bigger than I had seen it on previous visits.

 

Base gate

The numbers vary but it is believed that between 48,000-60,000 US military personnel and their families now live on the base. (When regular war games are held the numbers rise.) This would make Camp Humphreys the largest US base outside of the continental United States.

Much of the base expansion was due to the closing of the Yongsan US Army base in downtown Seoul. That base had become a toxic mess and since closing it is still unavailable for new usage due to the US essentially refusing to fix the damages. They have left it to the ROK government to deal with. That is after the US forced the South Korean government to pay about 90% of the costs to relocate Yongsan to Camp Humphreys.

Of course one reason for the move was the toxic mess at Yongsan. But other reasons I have heard was to move the base about 90 minutes to the south thus making it more difficult for North Korea to damage the base in any war. Plus the ROK didn't like having Seoul as a prime target.

While we were outside Camp Humphreys ROK police approached and told us we could not take any photos of the base. So we could not get a good picture of the eight PAC-3 (Patriot missile launchers) just on the other side of the fence from where we were standing at the time.

Underground bunkers connect the various buildings on the base - it's obvious that the design of the base had war with China-Russia-North Korea in mind.

Both Humphreys and nearby Osan AFB are also now riddled with massive toxic contamination. The people and environment of South Korea are being sacrificed for US imperial ambitions.

Meeting with community members

We next moved to another part of  the sprawling city to hold a discussion meeting with community members who are organizing around the issues resulting from the two US bases in Pyeongteak.

Peace center staffer Lotus Flower focused on the work of their organization and the many partner groups they work with. Here are the points she made:

• Since 2017 they focus on the direct damages caused by the base.
• Base night lights are causing damage to local farm crops just outside the base gates.
• Radar on the base are impacting local residents use of electronics.
• The stone walls around much of the base blocks the natural flow of rain water and floods often result. 
• An F-16 crashed in 2023. The fire fighting foam used to suppress the fire has toxic agents (PFAS) that get into the groundwater. 
• A special law was passed at the time of base expansion which meant that local government does not have the right to follow laws like pollution standards, etc.
• Government funds increasingly are going toward subsidizing the semiconductor manufacturing industry (Samsung) in the city rather than local needs arising from the impacts due to base expansion.
• Local industry and the two bases have huge electric power needs thus three coal-fired power plants are now in the city causing serious air quality problems for the public.
• GI criminal activity causes problems.
• Many activists who monitor the two bases think that the US is testing hypersonic missiles at Osan AFB.

 

 

I was asked to give a broad overview of the space issue and how this growing US-ROK space militarization collaboration will impact their local community. The US has created a Space Force unit at Osan AFB.

Following supper with some of the local leadership we made the 90 minute drive to Seoul where I will have interviews and one more formal talk over the next two days.

When we arrived in the heart of Seoul our crew in the car pointed out to me the brick wall with barbed wire on top of what used to be the US Yongsan army base. Again, due to the major toxic contamination of the base, large expanses of land are still unavailable to the city for any positive use.

Bruce  

The Deadliest Escalation against China--Painting the Eye of War on the Buddha

 

 

By K. J. Noh

In many traditions, when you paint or sculpt a Buddha, the eyes are the very last to be painted. It's only after the eyes have been completed that the sculpture is fully alive and empowered.  

The US has just approved a $75 million weapons package to Taiwan province involving the sale of the Link 16 communications system.  

The acquisition of Link 16 is analogous to "painting the eyes on the Buddha": it makes Taiwan's military systems and weapons platforms live and seeing. It confers deadly powers, or more prosaically, in the words of the US military, it completes Taiwan as the final deadly link of the multilateral coalition kill chain against China

What exactly is Link 16?  Link 16 is a key system in the US military communications arsenal.  Specifically, it is the jam-resistant tactical data network for coordinating NATO weapons systems for joint operations in war.  If this sale is completed, it signals serious, effective, and single-minded commitment to kinetic war: it would signal that the Biden administration is as serious and unwavering in its desire to provoke and wage large-scale war with China over Taiwan, as it was with Russia over Ukraine, which also saw the implementation of this system.  More important than any single weapons platform, this system allows the Taiwan/ROC military to integrate and coordinate all its warfighting platforms with US, NATO, Japanese & Korean militaries in combined arms warfare.  

It would thus be the most deadly piece of technology yet to be transferred, because it allows sea, air, and land forces to be coordinated with others for maximum lethality.  It allows, for example, strategic nuclear/stealth bombers  (US B-1B Lancers, B-2 Spirits) to coordinate with electronic warfare and surveillance platforms  (EA Growlers, Prowlers, EP-3's), fighters and bombers (F-16,F-22, F-35's) as well as conduct joint arms warfare with US, French, British carrier battle groups, Japanese SDF destroyers, South Korean Hyun Moo destroyers, as well as THAAD and Patriot radars and missile batteries.  It also allows coordination with low earth orbit satellites and other Space Force assets.

In other words, it supplies a brain and nervous system to the various deadly limbs and arms that the Taiwan authorities have been acquiring and preparing on the prompting of the US. It ensures interoperability and US control.

To give a shoe-on-the-other-foot analogy, this would be like China giving separatists in a US territory or state (e.g. Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, Texas), not just arms and training--already a belligerent act of war, which the US is currently doing--but connecting insurgent militaries directly to the PLA's surveillance and command/control systems. It coordinates and completes the final link in a "transnational kill chain" for war.

Currently, at the CFR, CNAS, and other influential fora/think tanks in Washington, the talk is all about "protracted warfare" with China, about prepositioning systems and munitions for war, about ramping up to an industrial war footing for the inescapable necessity of war with China.  This discussion includes preparations for a nuclear first strike on China.

The US senses that the clock is running rapidly down on its power.  If war is inevitable, then it is anxious to start war sooner rather than later.  RAND warned (in 2016) that 2025 was the outside window for the US to prevail in war with China.  The "Minihan window" also hints at 2025.  The "Davidson window" is 2027.   The question in Washington regarding war with China is not if, but when--and how.  Link16 makes "how" easier, and therefore brings "when" closer.

But the US is still engaged in Ukraine.  Can the US wage a two front war?

The current administration has hardline Russophobes who want to continue to bleed Russia out in Ukraine.  It wants protracted war with Russia.  It firmly believes it can wage ambidextrous, multi-front war.

They also believe that war with Ukraine & war with China are connected: Russia and China are a single axis of "revisionist powers" (i.e. official enemies) conspiring against the US to undermine its "rules-based order" (US hegemony).

Furthermore, if the US abandons Ukraine, this could weaken the Taiwan authorities' resolve and willingness to wage war on behalf of the US.

Earlier in the war, when Russian gains in Ukraine were uncertain, Louise Hsiao (current Vice-Preident elect) gloated publicly and prominently that Ukraine's victories were a message to China, as well as proof of concept of an effective doctrine for waging and winning war against China.  As such, the Taiwan authorities were and are a major supporter of the Ukraine proxy war.

But the converse also holds true. Based on the same premise, if the US abandons and loses Ukraine, it sends a clear message to the people on Taiwan island that they will be the next to be used and abandoned: their US-imposed war doctrine (light, distributed, asymmetrical combined arms warfare) for fighting China is a recipe for catastrophic loss.

Since the US plans on using proxies for war (Taiwan, Korea, Japan (JAKUS), Philippines, Australia (AUKUS)) against China, it cannot signal too overtly its perfidious, unreliable, and instrumental mindset.  It has to keep the pretense up.  It cannot be seen to too overtly lose or abandon in Ukraine. It needs a "decent interval" or a plausible pretext to cut and run.

Still, the US is stretched thin.  For example, it is relying on Korean munitions to Ukraine--South Korea has provided more munitions than all of the EU combined.

And the US is currently at war with itself.  The fracturing of its body politic can only be unified with a common war against a common enemy.  Russia is not that enemy for the US.  China is.  The Republicans want war with China now.

Eli Ratner and Elbridge Colby have been fretting for years about the need to husband weaponry, arms, munitions in order to wage war against China.  Since the outbreak of Ukraine, Ratner has been working hard to pull India into the US defense industry's supply chain and claims to have been successful.  South Korea's considerable military industrial complex is being pulled into subcontracting for US war with China. Its major Chaebol corporations got their start as subcontractors for the war in Vietnam (for example, Hyundai got its start as a subcontractor for Halliburton/Brown & Root)--and the Korean economy is reverting back to its roots. South Korea's economy is tanking due to US-forced sanctions on China--major South Korean electronic firms have lost 60-80% of their profits due to US imposed chip sanctions), and military manufacture/subcontracting looks to be the only way forward.  In that way, the US is forcing a war economy onto its vassals.

 

The Business of the US is War

Furthermore, US aid to Ukraine benefits its own US arms industry.  The business of the US is war.  Existing US arms companies benefit, but also the entire tech industry/supply chain benefits and is re-orienting around this. Much of the US tech industry is, or is seeking to suckle from the government teat, now flowing copiously in preparation for war. The US economy is not doing well, with massive layoffs, especially in the retail tech sector. The backstop of military Keynesianism, and the integration of think-tank lobbying groups funded by the arms industry, with close ties to the administration (such as CNAS, West Exec Advisors, CSIS) ensure that war is always the closest ready-to-hand resort for tough economic times. The US is simultaneously trying to decouple supply chains, which creates opportunities for US firms (both domestically and subcontracting with US vassals).  Automated, AI-enabled warfare will be a key part of this development, as will be dispersed, distributed warfare platforms using proxies such as South Korea and Japan.

This fits the existing historical pattern: the history of Western technology shows that technology and machinery have always been developed first for war.  Afterwards, they become tools of entertainment and distraction, and then later productive tools for general industrial use.  

This goes back to the earliest machines and inventions of the West: the crane, the pulley, the lever, were all military technologies--machines of war (used in sieges).  Later they became machines of illusion and distraction (used as stage machinery in Greek theater).  Only much later were they applied for general use in manufacture and production.  

This holds true for the microwave oven (originally radar technology, it was initially marketed as the "Radar-range"), the internet itself (originally to create redundant military communications in case of nuclear strike), GPS (for precision bombing), the integrated circuit computer chip (miniaturization of electronic circuits to fit inside the cone of missile guidance systems), the digital computer itself (conceived by Alan Turing while trying to break military encryption), various analog computers (invented for military calculations), feedback systems (invented for guidance systems).   Nuclear power also derives from nuclear weapons.  AI, too, from its inception was conceived for automated battle management, especially to enable second strike after human life had been destroyed.  An AI war is already in the works, with US sanctions on AI-related chips and computing.

War and business are intricately related in the west, and war is the first lever pulled when the economy stagnates critically or needs a boost.  

 

Is there any possibility of peace?

The US needs to abandon its neocon fantasies of hegemonic global empire and retreat gently into that good night, for there to be peace.  

It needs to negotiate in good faith with Russia and begin the process of de-escalating its proxies in Ukraine, as well as in Palestine, and the Pacific.
It needs to seek win-win cooperation in a multi-lateral order based on international law and mutual co-existence, not its own top-down "rules-based order".

However, the ruling class is unwilling to do so.  And it has only a few levers left to pull.  The military one is the closest and most ready to hand.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "the US is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world".  

Like a drunk at the bar after the final call--drunk with power--it is determined to go out with a fight.

That fight could involve a nuclear first strike.  Palestine has shown what it will try to get away with: brazen genocide with the whole world watching.

The issue is no longer war or peace in Ukraine.  Kurt Campbell, deputy Secretary of State, sees Ukraine as a "unified field"--in his words-- of war with China.  He revels in the possibility of a "magnificent symphony of death" in Asia.  

The coda, of course, will be a deafening fermata of silence across the entire planet. 

~  K. J. Noh lives on the west coast of the US. He is a former South Korean soldier, lived through three US brutal puppet governments in South Korea and is a member of Veterans For Peace, an academic, writer and much more.

Korea as colony: Building cluster bombs for U.S. in Imhwa

 

Strawberry greenhouses in Imhwa village

 

On Monday we drove an hour from Daejeon to a small strawberry farming village called Imhwa of about 300 residents that is being destroyed by a new factory to build internationally banned cluster bombs for Washington.

The village is ringed by beautiful mountains with a gentle stream flowing thru it. Along side the rocks on the edge of the spring is a Korean version of parsley. 

We first had a packed meeting inside the town hall and I was asked to tell about the space issue - and particularly about Huntsville, Alabama where the Nazi rocket scientists were brought at the end of WW2 under 'Operation Paperclip' to create the US space program.

 

Villagers listened to my talk

 

A media worker from Jeju Island (who had filmed my talks there) joined us in Imhwa and did a live broadcast of my talk and our visit to the area where the new factory has been built at the edge of the mountains. Last I heard he had over 12,000 hits on his broadcast nationwide.

The cluster bomb factory had been in another part of South Korea but caught fire due to the gunpowder inside erupting. The place burned down and started a wildfire in the nearby mountains. So the weapons company was desperate to find a new location as the local population there wanted them gone.

The Imhwa mayor, and a few other leaders, eagerly saw a money making scheme and gave support for their village to be used as the new site. Local residents began gathering petition signatures to oppose the factory and lately the mayor has been calling those who signed it, urging them to withdraw their support. Some people in the village believe that some of the leaders were likely bribed to support the factory.

 

New cluster bomb factory in Imhwa

 

An environmental impact study was being done while the first buildings were being built signaling that the government was not at all serious about damage to the many endangered wildlife that flourish in the area. 

Like the US, the ROK never signed the cluster bomb treaty. The US has been giving cluster bombs to Ukraine and to Israel so local residents speculate that the South Korean government was recruited to help re-stock the US supply of the inhumane weapons.

I was told that 430 kilograms of gunpowder is coming into the village every day. People fear a re-make of the last tragedy where the factory blew up and caused wildfires.

Warheads to deliver the cluster bomblets are also being manufactured in Imhwa at the same site.

A Joint Action Group has been formed of Imhwa villagers and people from other nearby communities. Yongha Bae from the Mennonite Church is one of the leaders and was the person briefing us during our visit.

 

Our host for this visit was Yongha Bae from the Mennonite Church and a member of the Joint Action Group opposing the cluster bomb factory.

 

Bae told us that the ROK government is planing to sue anyone who signed the petition as a way of intimidating opposition. I'd venture to guess that the US military told the ROK government to stop any movement against the new factory. So much for democracy.

I asked if any Imhwa residents were working in the factory. Bae told us that only one security guard and a couple office workers were from the village. The rest of the workers have come from  other places.

 

Our traveling crew at lunch with our host (on left in red)

 

Evening talk in Daejeon 

Thirty-six people attended by talk that evening in Daejeon city. It was held at a Catholic church.

At the start of each talk I stand and make a brief statement about Israel-US genocide in Palestine. Last night one of the key women (Kim Eun-sil) who helped organize my trip (and has donated her car for our travels) stood by me with a Gaza sign she made. It was even more sad last night as I mentioned the 25 year old American GI Aaron Bushnell who set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC.

 

Daejeon's mayor has publicly stated he wants to turn his city into another 'Huntsville, Alabama' (called the Pentagon of the South). It's where the US sent 100 of the German Nazi scientists/engineers after WW2 to create the US space program. Today Huntsville is a leading research and development center for the militarization of space.

 

After many trips to the ROK since 2009, and seeing this basic story repeated in places like Gangjeong village on Jeju Island or our visit to Kunsan AFB last Saturday, it appears to me that South Korea is being turned into one big colonial US military base to be aimed at China-North Korea-Russia. The evidence is over whelming.

Its much the same in the US today.  America's #1 industrial export product is weapons. And when weapons are your #1 industrial export, what is the global marketing strategy for that product line?

War....and the more the better!

This is a perfect illustration of the spiritual decay of the US and its imperial allies around the globe. They've surrendered their heart and souls to the corrupt and decadent war machine culture.

God forbid....

Bruce  

~ Photos by Sung-Hee, Seon and Sunny

French famers in revolt

 

 

The French President has been confronted by protesting farmers at the annual Paris agriculture show. 

Emmanuel Macron appealed for calm after dozens of protesters scuffled with police at the event, and caused damage to stalls. 

Al Jazeera's Harry Fawcett reports.

The Silence of the Guilty

 

 

By Manlio Dinucci (Grandangolo on Byoblu TV, Italy)

The West in unison accuses Putin of ordering Navalny's assassination. The timing of his death, however, is more than suspicious: Navalny died on February 16, on the same day the Munich Security Conference opened, a week after Putin's successful interview with Tucker Carlson, a month before the presidential elections in Russia where Putin is a candidate. In other words, Putin would have ordered to kill Navalny at the most suitable moment to cause maximum damage to himself.

At the same time, the Western political media mainstream draws a curtain of silence on the fact that Navalny had been trained in a special course at Yale University and that his white supremacist Narod Movement had been financed by the “National Fund for Democracy”, a powerful American “private non-profit foundation” that finances thousands of non-governmental organizations in a hundred countries to “advance democracy”. The Fund is the same one that supported in Ukraine what it defined as "the Maidan Revolution which overthrew a corrupt government that prevented democracy", i.e. the 2014 coup d'état which triggered a succession of events with an anti-Russia function that led to the current war.

While on the Ukrainian front the Kyiv forces, supported by the USA, NATO, and the EU, are retreating chaotically under the Russian counterattack from areas of Donbas that they had conquered, the United States is widening the war front in the Middle East, continuing to support Israel in its strategy of genocide against the Palestinian people.  

The last chapter of the political trial of Julian Assange took place against this background: the London Court has made its decision on the extradition of the Australian journalist to the USA, where he can be sentenced to 175 years in prison for bringing US war crimes to light, but the court has not announced its decision, it will be done next month.  

In this episode of Grandangolo, Berenice Galli reported from London her interviews with Jeremy Corbyn (British Labour Party), Kristinn Hrafnsson (co-director of Wikileaks), Gabriel Shipton (Julian Assange’s brother). 

https://www.perunmondosenzaguerre.eu/2024/02/24/il-silenzio-dei-colpevoli-20240223-pangea-grandangolo/ 

Korea journey: Cultural event outside U.S. war base

 

Shamanic chanting calling for peace. The bird hats are worn in solidarity with birds endangered due to new runway planned to be built on the marshlands surrounding the American air force base. 

 

On Saturday I had the great fortune to be able to join a local cultural event just outside the gates of the US Kunsan Air Force Base. More than 75 people came to attend this wonderful experience.

As we arrived I noticed people flying kites. Then I saw the magnificent 600 year old hackberry tree where those who gathered wrote messages on paper and placed them on the tree. Mine read 'Yankee Go Home'.

 

With my translator Hwang Jeong-Eun from Seoul. Our driver on this leg of the trip (who calls herself my step-mother) made sure to wrap me up for the cold.

 

My new step-mom Seon writing her message to hang on tree.

Korean traditional drumming, chanting and dancing was also happening under the sacred tree as we arrived.

 

 I had great fun pounding rice into a cake that was then filled with red bean paste. Very tasty.

 

This event is held monthly and organized by Father Mun and his supporters who work tirelessly to resist the expansion of the air base that now has a couple hundred war planes stationed there.

I was very saddened to see that the local fishing village that was here on this very spot when I visited in 2009 had been torn down at the demand of the Americans.  The only reason we were allowed to enter the area was due to the hackberry tree being named a sacred site.

From the nearby base fence line we could see the weapons storage bunkers and stacks of missiles waiting to be put inside them. It is quite clear the US is preparing for war.

 

Weapons storage bunkers on the base

 

Click on photo to see missiles just over my shoulder

At the end of the cultural event people gathered and several spoke to the crowd. I was invited to say some words and I told the story about living in Wiesbaden, Germany in my youth when my Air Force family was stationed there. One day while walking to school I saw some graffiti that read 'Yankee go home'. This was my first memory of seeing that slogan and it stuck with me over the years as it contrasted with the brainwashing I got from the military-run school on the base. We were taught that the US was the greatest  nation on the planet and that we were defending Germany from the bad Soviets.

Once I figured out the truth, when I joined the Air Force during the Vietnam War, my disillusionment with my country grew by leaps and bounds.

Just as things were wrapping up four US military helicopters took off and did a circle over the area where the cultural event was happening. I heard a murmur in the crowd and was told they were saying the base authorities were trying to intimidate those at this peaceful and spiritual gathering. I was thinking the same thing. 

 Catholic priest and activist Father Mun saying goodbye and asking me to return.

 

As we left I was reminded how much money and lives are being wasted as Washington attempts to hold on as the dominator of the world. But the US currently is $35 trillion in debt and many global governments are dumping the dollar. A rude awakening is coming to the American people as the imperial empire is collapsing.

The soon the better.

Bruce

PS Next stop is Daejeon where a space industrial cluster for research and development is being created.

Sunday song

 

 

Truth be told

 

Solidarity message from Japan

 

Your visit to ROK (South Korea) is also encouraging to us in Japan. I'm following and will spread about Pusan or others.

Yesterday, I went and listened to the talk regarding the rapidly ongoing military buildup not only in Okinawa but also in Kyushu, Hokkaido, Kyoto, and so on.

There were nearly 150 people coming from various places, as the local group in my town asked a big nation-wide pro-Constitution organization consisting of teachers, as well as a labor union, to come here.

Local people here are afraid of our MOD's newly and quickly building their munition depos ― 130 depos in all, 7 to 9 will be in my town ― for storing various missiles.

Long-range (1000 km) missiles  are being deployed in the Japanese SDFs bases in Kyushu and Hokkaido, and some MLRS in Oita.

My fear is that if and when such military collisions happens with China due to Taiwan emergency, then, what will become of South Korea?

Japan has not yet direct military tie with ROK, but still, geographically, South Korea is between China and Japan, so when the two old foes begin a collision, there must be damages to South Korea. Kyushu is very near to Jeju (200 km), and is nearer to Shanhi than to Taipei.

How could the two countries - China and Japan - fire missiles to each other over South Korea without harming it, I wonder?

So what we, local Japanese in Kyushu, should fear is that we might make South Korea, the nearest is Jeju, a battle field again - it's a nightmare.

Do the Korean citizens you are meeting with know about such long and other missiles being deployed in Kyushu? Please ask them about it. They should know.

What a fool of our government to follow such an idea starting with Obama administration of preparing for war with China [and North Korea and Russia].

Makiko Sato

Japan

'People don't understand what occupation means'

 

 

In this short clip, we explore the empowering experiences of an American Israeli woman.

U.S. defends Israel at ICJ

 

 

The US has asked the International Court of Justice not to order Israel's immediate withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories. The top UN court is currently looking into the impact of Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian lands. 

The week-long proceedings are happening against the backdrop of war in Gaza. 

Noura Erakat, a human rights attorney and Associate Professor at Rutgers University, joins Al Jazeera from Philadelphia. 

Korea trip: Meeting Fr. Mun in Gunsan

 

Yesterday we took a train and then a car to arrive in the afternoon to Gunsan. Last night I spoke to a group of about 40 people held at a peace center that was founded to fight against US base expansion in their community.

The base, called Kunsan AFB, served as a Japanese airfield during the time of its colonization of Korea. Gunsan is located along the southwest coast of South Korea, as close to China as one can get.

I've been here before. In October of 2009 Father Mun hosted me for a talk and a field trip to see the base.  At the time I wrote on this blog:

We went to a red-colored marshland yesterday at one end of the 4 kilometer base runway which is located next to the sea. Here fishermen and their wives were drying small fish on netting raised off the ground on saw-horses. Just above our heads roared 4 F-16's and one F-15 as they took off from the base. We had to cover our ears and I could feel the vibrations of the plane inside my body. Think of living with this everyday of your life. Once a year one of the planes crash. 

 

Standing by drying fish while visiting in 2009

 

Prior to the meeting last night we took a tour of the marshlands surrounding the base. The ROK government has been draining the marshlands for years which has disrupted the natural habitat for the bountiful wildlife in the area. Endangered birds are heavily impacted. And now the US wants a second runway built at the base (being sold to the public as a civilian airport) in order to serve Washington's 'pivot to the Asia-Pacific' in preparation for war with China. 

In simple words, the Pentagon needs more airfields, naval ports and barracks for the troops as this aggressive pivot is underway.

Our marshland tour was led by the devoted naturalist Oh Dong-pil who has been fighting to preserve the natural state of the marshlands for most of his life. A recent documentary was made about his work. For some strange reason I can't post the YouTube trailer but you can watch it by clicking here. It is worth the look.

 

Oh Dong-pil (on right) showing us the map of the huge area of the marshland that has been damaged over the years. A new second runway at the base will destroy even more of the marshlands. Imagine the toxic aircraft fuel runoff that will harm the wildlife. The US does not give a damn about the ecological destruction from its bases. And since the ROK is essentially a colony, the people have no real power in these matters.

 

Base fence

 

I'm having lunch with Father Mun later today and then joining a cultural event he regularly organizes to help shine a light on the dangerous and provocative expansion of Kunsan AFB.

 

It was great to meet the legendary Father Mun again last night. He is a role model for all of us. Age is not a ticket out of the struggle. Fighting for peace, justice and environmental sanity is a life long journey. Mixed in with the frustration and deep sadness is the joy and beauty of working with the special people engaged in this battle against insanity and evil.

May we all keep on and prevail!

Bruce 

Who actually was Navalny?

 

 

 

Redacted

Was Alexei Navalny really Putin’s main opponent? 

The Russian Communist Party is actually the chief second tier political party.

Was he poisoned by the Russian government who then killed him in prison? 

Was he even popular in Russia? 

Well, no to all of those things and we show you what the West will not tell you while they mourn their favorite media darling.

 

 

We are 'Free' to be mind-washed

 

We hear a lot about 'Freedom' across the west.

Freedom though means free to consume endlessly and to have our minds cleansed of truth by ever mounting corporate propaganda.

Legions of people swallow the garbage from these so-called 'media' outlets who appear so sincere and knowledgeable but in fact are nothing more than actors reading lines prepared by the agents working inside the CIA, Wall Street and Hollywood.

Believe it at your own peril.

Bruce

Korea tour: U.S. Navy base in Busan

 

     Navy aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan is anchored at U.S. Navy base in Busan, South Korea, September 23, 2022.

 

Today we drove about an hour from our hotel to the other side of Busan to see a beautiful spot where the ROK government is planning to build a runway on top of the bay. They plan to take half of a nearby mountain to use it as fill dirt in the water. It's a crazy plan that will cost more than 13 trillion Korean won.

A woman who is one one of the activists organizing to stop the project gave us a tour of the site on a very cold and windy day. There would be severe environmental implications from this airport project but both major political parties are supporting it - likely because the construction industry in the ROK is very strong and they stand to make big money.

 

 Banners like the yellow one hanging here are all over the road approaching the spot where the proposed runway would be built on top of this beautiful place. They proclaim the local villages opposition to the plan.

 

Following lunch at a busy local Korean restaurant we were taken to see the U.S. Navy base in Busan. Two men from a local organization that tracks the base came to drive us around the perimeter and to explain what goes on there.

They told us:

• U.S. Nuclear aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines port in Busan
• Navy Aegis destroyers don't port here but go to the new Navy base in Gangjeong village on Jeju Island.
• The U.S. also has a bio-warfare lab at Busan that works on several types of bio-weapons. The US biological war program for the Asia-Pacific is headquartered in Busan. (The US is surrounding China and Russia with bio-logical war installations. Many have been found inside Ukraine by Russia since that war began. To learn more about the history of U.S. bio-warfare read this important book. A Plague upon Humanity: The Secret Genocide of Axis Japan's Germ Warfare Operation)
• The Pentagon ships supplies and equipment for U.S. bases in the ROK to Busan and then puts the cargo on trains and sends it across South Korea to re-supply its many military bases around the country.
• Busan (and all American bases in the ROK) are being upgraded and expanded to prepare for war with China-North Korea-Russia.
• The U.S. war fighting alliance is also expanding across the Asia-Pacific region with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Guam, Philippines, and Okinawa being prepped for battle.  

 

             The walls surrounding the Busan naval base look like a medieval fortress. In a sense that is just what it is.

 

 

My talk in Busan was organized by this smiling 21 year old bundle of joy named Won Sehyun who leads the Green Party in ROK's second largest city (after Seoul). She told us that earlier in the day she stood alone in the cold on the street with a sign for 4 1/2 hours in protest against the plan to build the runway over the water.

 

She said she knew nothing about the space issue and was afraid no one would show up for the talks. But 23 people came and it was wonderful.

 

 

My last PowerPoint slide shows a protest organized by Choi Sung-Hee who lead the organizing for this speaking tour. It was held at the spot where the ROK's second military satellite was recently  launched from an oil rig type platform just off the Jeju Island coast.

 

 

Sung-Hee then did a spell binding talk about her involvement in the space issue and why it is so crucial for South Korean activists to begin to understand and help articulate the links between the space issue and the environment as each launch releases tons of toxic exhaust that helps punch a bigger hole in the ozone layer. And as space keeps getting increasingly crowded the orbits around our tiny spinning Earth are being filled with dangerous space junk. At some point, if we keep heading in this same direction, the 'Kessler Syndrome' will kick in with cascading collisions in orbit creating a virtual mine field around Earth.

 

After the talks were over we took a group photo. One man came up to me and said he could 'feel my heart'. Another man said he had heard me speak in this country 20 years ago when I was on another tour.

 

 

 

A woman asked during the Q & A what our strategy was. I replied that it is like gardening - you have to prepare the soil, plant and nurture the seeds before the fruits on the vine can be picked. I said we need others to help plant these seeds about the space issue if we hope to build a global consciousness to make the necessary changes.

 

Our next stop on this journey will be on the other side of the country in Gunsan where the first US Space Forces troops stationed in the ROK were sworn into the newly created command. My visit there is being hosted by the notorious (in only the best sense of the word) Catholic activist priest Father Mun. He's long been involved in the big struggles for peace and social justice all across South Korea. 

 

Bruce

First space issues talk: Jeju City, South Korea

 

Morning breakfast at the peace center with friends from my previous trips to Jeju. (Click on photos for better view)

 

Vigil at front gate of Navy base

 

Lunch at the community kitchen in Gangjeong village after the Navy base vigil

 

My two translators Joyak-gol and Sung-Hee. Soon-jeong at the podium was the moderator

After my talk was over people posed for photos and held up the programs

With friend Koh Gilchun, a renowned artist on Jeju Island

 

After a very long 15 hour flight from Boston to Seoul I was escorted by long-time Global Network member Choi Sung-Hee to the domestic airport via train and we then flew to Jeju Island.

We were picked up at the very busy Jeju airport by Green Party activist Soon-jeong who ran for governor in the last island election. She got about 5% of the vote and has lately been getting engaged in the space issue on Jeju where the aerospace industry has big plans for satellite production and rocket launching.

It was another hour of travel to Gangjeong village from the Jeju airport where I spent the night in the Catholic peace center. So after about 20-some hours of travel I got a chance to get some sleep.

The next morning I had breakfast with a group of Gangjeong 'No Navy Base' leaders who I had met on previous visits to the beleaguered village. I had come in the past to show solidarity as the US forced the South Korean (ROK) government to build the Navy base to port US warships as part of Washington's 'pivot' to the Asia-Pacific to prepare for war with North Korea-China-Russia.

At noon I participated in the daily peace vigil at the front gate of the Navy base followed by dancing to three songs that the Gangjeong campaign became famous for.

Next was lunch in the community kitchen that has been serving meals to activists since the campaign to stop the Navy base began many years ago.

Then in the afternoon I was taken to witness two locations on Jeju where space tech facilities are being either upgraded or newly constructed as part of the ROK's major integration into the US space war fighting program now well underway here.

Next was dinner with 10 activists from Jeju who led the organizing for my speaking tour. Then finally to the trade federation union hall back in Jeju City for my first talk on this trip that was attended by just over 60 people from throughout the island.

The next day a news conference was held to express strong opposition to these space infrastructure developments on Jeju Island. Surprisingly there was good attendance by media representatives. This video below already has over 6,000 views and good comments I am told.

In my bit during the news conference I told a couple short stories about other rocket launch facilities where the local communities were promised it would be used only for civilian purposes but they were betrayed. Rocket Lab in New Zealand and Kodiak Island, Alaska have turned out to be dominated by military launches.

 

 

And then an hour long meeting with Catholic Bishop Kang of Jeju Island (now retired) who has been a long time advocate against the construction of the Navy base and the on-going militarization of the island.

I gave the Bishop a broad overview of the space militarization program and we talked about what needs to be done to break the domination of the military industrial complex in South Korea and the United States.

 

Right now time for some more sleep.

Bruce