Japan's Counter-Pivot: Abe Waiting Out the Obama Term

Is Abe Starting to Treat the Obama Administration as a Lame Duck? And is Joe Biden the Designated Whipping Boy?

by Peter Lee - China Matters

There has always been an implicit contradiction between Shinzo Abe's declared desire to "bring Japan back" and the US wish to lead "Free Asia". The divergence of aims has been obscured by the eagerness of the US defense establishment to encourage Japan's increasing heft as a "security" "defense" "active pacifist"; well, let's just say "military" power, in order to add to the credibility of US hegemony in the Western Pacific, and Japan's awareness that US military backing - if properly exploited by invoking the US-Japan Security Treaty - can give Japan a significant leg up in its confrontation with the People's Republic of China.

The Abe administration has performed exactly as desired by American military strategists, both in its willingness, nay eagerness to build up its military and endorse the concept of "collective self defense", and on the highly contentious issue of shoving the Futenma airbase relocation down the throats of the resisting Okinawan people by a combination of financial blandishments and crude political pressure.

However, there are signs that the are tensions in the US-Japan romance, largely because the Obama administration is serious about exploiting the potential of its "honest broker" role to carve out a role for itself as the even-handed interlocutor between Japan and China - a role that the PRC is encouraging in order to drive a wedge between Tokyo and Washington - and is therefore not giving Prime Minister Shinzo Abe the full-throated support that he believes he needs and deserves.

Also, the Abe administration may consider the current moderate Asia policy of President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State John Kerry to be a fleeting, transitory dream of an administration entering its lame-duck phase, to be carefully defied in expectation of a more militant and pro-Japanese successor.

One of the less-noted ramifications of US Asia policy has been the marked divergence between US and Japanese responses to the Chinese declaration of its air defense identification zone or ADIZ in the East China Sea. Prime Minister Abe immediately jumped into Churchillian "this shall not stand" rhetoric and declared that no Japanese aircraft - including Japanese civilian carriers that had already declared their intention of complying with the Chinese declaration - would respect the ADIZ.

The United States, perhaps conscious that it maintains a ferociously defended ADIZ over North America, decided to defy the ADIZ only to affirm the right of United States military aircraft to fly anywhere they wanted outside of Chinese airspace, and sent two B-52s lumbering over from Guam into the ADIZ unannounced. The United States, however, did not recommend that US civilian carriers ignore the ADIZ. South Korea took advantage of the ruckus to expand its own ADIZ, which it apparently has been trying to do for a long time, gained the acquiescence of the PRC, and it appears that ROK civilian carriers now respect the zone.

This left Japan pretty much out on a limb by itself, a state of affairs that the Western press tactfully decided to ignore but that seems to have awakened some resentment towards the United States, perhaps by the Abe administration and certainly by its confront-China sympathizers in the US.

Although Prime Minister Abe had failed to summon up a united front against the PRC over the ADIZ, he took another crack at it at the global elite confab in Davos, Switzerland.

International affairs boffin Ian Bremmer and a suspiciously large contingent of think-tank poobahs were primed to love the speech (the text of which was, by Davos practice, not made available to the common herd), and they did.

First, Bremmer:

And Prime Minister Abe just came, he gave a great speech. Folks are optimistic about the economy. The one part of the speech that people were really concerned about was Japan-China. And understandably. He's criticizing the Chinese as being aggressive and militaristic. He compared Japan-China relations explicitly to relations between Germany and the UK in 1914, where the economic relations were good but the security tensions, let's say, were not so good. And we saw what happened there.

I wouldn't say that Abe was directly raising the specter of war, but he was saying that China is acting in a manner that's unacceptable and Japan won't tolerate it. [1]

Bremmer also implied that the PRC was taking advantage of a certain lack of American testicular fortitude on the China question:

So clearly the Chinese want to engage with Americans in a serious way. There are a lot of reasons for that. The US economy is picking up. But also they see a window here because all of the hawks on China are gone from the US administration. Hillary's gone, [former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs] Kurt Campbell's gone, [former Treasury secretary Timothy] Geithner, much more focused on this region, is gone, and [former National Security Advisor Thomas] Donilon's gone. And so they see an opportunity with Biden effectively leading US-China relations right now to build the US-China relationship while really changing the rules on the ground with Japan.

Contemporaneously, two worthies from the Center for a New American Security, a "left of center" security think tank, declared their concern that peace might break out between the US and the PRC, and advocated for heightened tensions instead, with an assist from Japan and other Asian allies:

US officials have been careful to avoid provoking a China that appears increasingly willing to flex its newfound military muscle. Perhaps that's why Biden invoked his father's advice in warning on the eve of his Beijing visit that "the only conflict that is worse than one that is intended is one that is unintended". But an overemphasis on stability can be dangerous.

The point is simply that a country with the power of the USSR or China, unsatisfied with features of the existing order, motivated to do something to change it, and skeptical of the resolve of the United States, could well pursue a policy of coercion and brinkmanship, even under the shadow of nuclear weapons.

[T]he United States needs to inject a healthy degree of risk into Beijing's calculus, even as it searches for ways to cooperate with China. This does not mean abandoning engagement or trying to contain China, let alone fomenting conflict. But it does mean communicating that Beijing has less ability to control escalation than it seems to think. China must understand that attempts to roil the waters could result in precisely the kinds of costs and conflicts it seeks to avoid.

To make this work, the United States should pursue policies that actually elevate the risks - political, economic, or otherwise - to Beijing of acting assertively. ... [T]he US military needs capabilities and plans that not only prepare it for major war, but that also offer plausible, concrete options for responding to Chinese attempts to exploit America's perceived aversion to instability. Leaders throughout Asia will be watching. Too much caution, especially if China is clearly the initiator, may be read as US weakness, thereby perpetuating rather than diminishing China's incentives toward adventurism.

The United States can further raise the stakes by deepening its military ties with Japan ... [2]

Senator John McCain, whose confidant Roy Pflauch handles the Abe administration's careful and extensive informal outreach to the American right wing, also invoked the 1914 analogy during the confirmation hearings for new ambassador to the PRC, Max Baucus, an indication perhaps that Abe's allies in Washington are all determinedly singing from the same hymnal.

Wow, looks like everybody's ready to join Japan and stand up to China except that Chamberlain in VPOTUS clothing, Joe Biden! Well, almost everybody.

President Obama's relations with Prime Minister Abe are considered cool at best.

Abe, it should be pointed out, is an unreconstructed Cheneyite when it comes to admiration and emulation of Dick Cheney's Manichean worldview, especially where it pertains to China. (In passing, it might be noted that Cheney's loyal aide Scooter Libby introduced Abe for his September 2013 speech to the Hudson Institute).

Abe has also been insistent in his quiet outreach to Republican, hawkish, and anti-Obama elements in Washington, most recently in an effort to obtain US acquiescence for his Yasukuni shrine visit, and, as a result, is reportedly no particular friend of the White House, let alone the amiable and often-maligned as "soft on everything" Joe Biden.

Maybe the Obama team did not appreciate the implication that they had to stand beside Japan right now! 1914! (I guess World War II analogies are a bit awkward) - in an anti-PRC alliance, or risk getting tarred with the brush of appeasement, and made its displeasure known.

In any case, Abe quickly backpedaled on the 1914 analogy, lamely blaming the misunderstanding on an interpreter's interpolation and going into full-court spin mode. He didn't mean war was possible if the world didn't stand up to China. He meant war was impossible! Per Japan Times:

The government has repeatedly said that what Abe wanted to convey is that a war between Japan and China is not possible because it would cause devastation not only to the two countries but to the world as a whole.

"We will convey what the prime minister meant through diplomatic channels," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference.

When meeting with journalists at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Abe was asked whether a war between Japan and China is conceivable, and in response he compared the current tensions between the countries to the rivalry between Britain and Germany in the years before World War I.

Abe called it a "similar situation", according to the Financial Times and some other media.

By Friday morning, the government had briefed the BBC about Abe's intention, a Foreign Ministry source said. The British public broadcaster was among the media outlets that were reporting intensely on the prime minister's comments. Tokyo will also brief Reuters soon, the source said.

Many media reports "left the impression that Abe had not denied (the possibility of) a military clash (between Japan and China) and this caused misapprehension," a different government source said. [3]

Then Abe jetted off to the welcoming environs of India, where he served as guest of honor at the Day of the Republic celebrations and concluded a passel of agreements - and there were no dissenting voices when it came to advancing an anti-PRC Japanese-Indian security alliance.

The trip was apparently arranged at the last minute and at the cost of Abe missing the preparations for the opening of the Diet. One is free to speculate that his disappointment at the hands of the Obama administration provoked him to make a statement that Japan was not by any means solely reliant on its US patron to make its way in 21st century Asia.

Abe described the Japan-India relationship as "the greatest potential of any bilateral relationship anywhere in the world". Insert crying bald eagle graphic here, since it's another indication that the Abe administration's rejection of the "victor's justice" of World War II is not just a matter of cheesing off China; it's a rejection of US diplomatic and security tutelage and an announcement that Japan will give priority to pursuing its own interests, instead of sacrificing them as America's loyal ally.

The visit was marked by an Indian pundit writing in the Nikkei Asia Review and explicitly making the case for an Indian-Japanese alliance to contain China and, in fact, touted security ties as the most stable foundation for economic ties.

As in:

Japan and India, natural allies strategically located on opposite flanks of the continent, have a pivotal role to play in ensuring a regional power equilibrium and safeguarding vital sea lanes in the wider Indo-Pacific region - an essential hub for global trade and energy supply. ... The logic for strategic collaboration is no less compelling. If China, India and Japan constitute Asia's scalene triangle - with China representing the longest Side A, India Side B, and Japan Side C - the sum of B and C will always be greater than A. It is thus little surprise that Japan and India are seeking to add strategic bulk to their quickly deepening relationship.

Indeed, the world's most stable economic partnerships, such as the Atlantic community and the Japan-US partnership, have been built on the bedrock of security collaboration. Economic ties lacking that strategic underpinning tend to be less stable and even volatile, as is apparent from China's economic relations with Japan, India, and the US.

The transformative India-Japan entente promises to positively shape Asia's power dynamics. [4]

Upon Abe's return to Tokyo, it was promptly leaked to the Kyodo news service that Vice President Biden had fruitlessly attempted to persuade Abe not to visit the Yasukuni Shrine in December.

This is an interesting state of affairs, since the previous version of the story was that Prime Minister Abe had received mixed messages from a mixed bag of formal and informal Japanese envoys in Washington on the official US government attitude toward his visit.

A one-hour phone call from VP Biden saying "Please don't go"; on the other is a pretty unambiguous message.

And, I might add, that Prime Minister Abe disregarding Biden's call and going to Yasukuni anyway is also a pretty clear message that he does not want to buy whatever Biden is selling.

As AFP put it: "But the news that personal overtures from Joe Biden, who has enjoyed a good working relationship with senior Japanese figures, were rejected will be an embarrassment to the White House."

It is possible that Abe believed that he deserved to be lobbied on this vital issue personally by President Obama and declined to heed American intentions out of pique; however, it's more likely that he wanted to make it clear that the United States is not going to receive automatic fealty from Japan on matters that Abe believes to be against Japan's interests.

Also, he may wish to send the message that a US administration that does not back Japan's China gambits to the hilt is no real ally - and no real leader of the Asian coalition.

It will be interesting to see whether Abe and his allies regard President Obama as a lame duck, and will concertedly criticize his China strategy - by attacking the convenient cut-out Joe Biden - while waiting for more a more militant administration come 2016, either under pivot architect-helmswoman and China-basher Hillary Clinton or a suitably anti-PRC Republican administration.

Key indicators of the Abe administration's attitude might include a spate of op-eds in the US that the Obama administration is too circumspect in confronting the PRC, and more than the usual sniggering at Vice President Biden as an amiable foreign-policy lightweight (the latter theme has been greatly assisted, in the media at least, by the PRC's high-handedness in refusing to provide visas for two New York Times correspondents assigned to China, despite the earnest presentations of Biden to the Beijing leadership.)

A more significant assertion of an independent Japanese regional policy in the waning years of the Obama administration would be unilateral contacts with North Korea, thereby breaking the PRC-ROK-US united front that is the hallmark of the current negotiations. Abe's chief cabinet secretary has already been called on to deny reports that Japanese envoys met with DPRK representatives in Hanoi.

Also, the Indian embassy in Pyongyang - potentially a eager and supportive cut-out for Prime Minister Abe, since direct Japanese diplomacy is hindered by the demand that the abductee issue be resolved first - and the DPRK regime have been suspiciously fulsome in their expressions of mutual regard. According to North Korean media, the Indian ambassador hosted a reception at the embassy for DPRK worthies and stated:

[I]ndia would value and boost the traditional friendly ties with the DPRK, hoping that the country would prosper and make dynamic progress.

He referred to the fact that the two countries, member nations of the Non-Aligned Movement, have common views on many international issues.

He hoped that tensions would be defused and Korea be reunified peacefully through dialogue, adding that India would send every possible support for this.

He said that the Indian people revere President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il, eternal leaders of the Korean people.

Noting that Marshal Kim Jong Un, supreme leader of the Korean people, is paying deep attention to the development of the bilateral friendly relations, he expressed the belief that thanks to his wise leadership, the cause of building a thriving nation would be successfully accomplished. [5] 

Notes:
1. Ian Bremmer Explains What's REALLY Going On Between China And Japan And The One Issue No One Is Talking About, Business Insider, January 24, 2014.
2. Roiling the Waters, Foreign Policy, January 21, 2014.
3. Abe's remarks on WWI parallels to be clarified, Japan Times, January 24, 2014.
4. Japan and India: a transformative entente, Nikkei Asian Review, January 23, 2014.
5. Indian Ambassador Hosts Reception, KCNA, January 23, 2014.

Advancing from the Rear: Looking at the Back Side of the "Pacific Pivot"

The Pacific Pivot : Why America’s Strategic Rebalance is Really Just Retreat

by John Feffer - TomDispatch

In a future update of The Devil's Dictionary, the famed Ambrose Bierce dissection of the linguistic hypocrisies of modern life, a single word will accompany the entry for "Pacific pivot": retreat.

It might seem a strange way to characterize the Obama administration's energetic attempt to reorient its foreign and military policy toward Asia. After all, the president’s team has insisted that the Pacific pivot will be a forceful reassertion of American power in a strategic part of the world and a deliberate reassurance to our allies that we have their backs vis-à-vis China.

Indeed, sometimes the pivot seems like little less than a panacea for all that ails U.S. foreign policy. Upset about the fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan? Then just light out for more pacific waters. 

Worried that our adversaries are all melting away and the Pentagon has lost its raison d'être? Then how about going toe to toe with China, the only conceivable future superpower on the horizon these days. And if you’re concerned about the state of the U.S. economy, then the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the regional free-trade deal Washington is trying to negotiate, might be just the shot in the arm that U.S. corporations crave.

Tomgram: John Feffer, The Empire's New Asian Clothes

[Note for TomDispatch Readers: It was wonderful to get that January wavelet of contributions for signed, personalized copies of Greg Grandin’s spectacular new book, The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World in response to our Sunday night offer. Glowing reviews of his book continue to come in. Here are two recent ones: NPR and the San Francisco Chronicle. Keep in mind that the offer remains open through this weekend, so check it out at our donation page. Tom]

You want ominous? Then offer a deep bow to conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a man eager to turn the Japanese military into an ever less defensive force, fully breach his country’s “peace constitution,” and assumedly someday end Japan’s “nuclear allergy” when it comes to a future weapons program. In the process, rising tensions with and increasingly belligerent acts by China have proven helpful domestically. And give Abe special credit for the provocative way he’s been using history to push his domestic agenda and increase those regional tensions. In late December, as his first year in office ended, he paid a 30-minute visit to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine for Japan’s war dead, where 14 convicted war criminals from World War II are buried. Both the Chinese and the Koreans, brutally mistreated by Japan in those years, were horrified and angered, though Abe, having purposely stuck the needle in, denied that his visit had anything to do with honoring war criminals.

Then, last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Japanese prime minister reached even deeper into the history of disastrous global wars to up the ante again. In the year of the 100th anniversary of World War I, at an on-the-record briefing, he likened his country’s relations with China to those of Germany and Great Britain on the eve of the Great War; that is, he compared the present situation in Asia to the moment when the two strongest imperial powers of the early twentieth century ignored their deep economic ties (like China’s and Japan’s) and went to war, turning parts of Europe into a charnel house. Happy anniversary!

Asked whether, given his analogy, he would consider deescalating tensions with China at the moment, Abe evidently said no, not as long as that country continues to build up its military. (Japan’s chief cabinet secretary quickly insisted that the prime minister was not predicting a new war.) Given a rising anti-Japanese nationalism in China, a growing regional arms race, and increasingly aggressive Chinese claims to islands near energy-rich deposits in regional seas, this might seem to be a moment to calm the waters, so to speak.

But not for the Obama administration, which recently welcomed Abe’s decision to put more money into new weaponry for the Japanese military. To this world of rising tensions Washington has, in recent years, added a much ballyhooed new focus on Asia, a “pivot” or “rebalancing” to the region. Its emphasis has clearly been on heightening tensions by organizing a string of countries against a rising China, triggering old Cold War-era Chinese fears of encirclement (or “containment,” as it was called in those days). Admittedly, as TomDispatch regular John Feffer, co-director of the website Foreign Policy in Focus, so cannily explains, Obama’s pivot is proving remarkably heavy on the rhetoric and light on new military might. Fans of World War I will, however, remember that enough heated rhetoric, combined with unexpected small “incidents,” can be quite effective in ratcheting up tensions to the breaking point. “Retreat” can sound like “charge” in the right mouths.

Of course, this is neither 1914 nor 1941, though you might not notice, given the old-fashioned thinking behind Washington’s pivot, Japan’s military growth, and China’s territorial claims. Nonetheless, the thought that, on our present planet, the “capitalist road” version of a Communist Party, precariously balanced over a slowing economic “miracle,” is likely to take China to dominance as a future hyperpower should be viewed with ay jaundiced eye. In fact, Washington should be asking whether, on a planet in a state of incipient environmental breakdown and blowback, the rise of a new empire is even possible. In the meantime, its pivot to Asia reminds us that the leading brains in the Pacific might as well still be in the pre-World War I era. Tom

 

The Pacific Pivot : Why America’s Strategic Rebalance is Really Just Retreat

by John Feffer 

In reality, however, the “strategic rebalancing” the Obama administration has been promoting as a mid-course correction to its foreign policy remains strong on rhetoric and remarkably weak on content. Think of it as a clever fiction for whose promotion many audiences are willing to suspend their disbelief. After all, in the upcoming era of Pentagon belt-tightening and domestic public backlash, Washington is likely to find it difficult to move any significant extra resources into Asia. Even the TPP is an acknowledgment of how much economic ground in the region has been lost to China.

There’s also the longer arc of history to consider. The U.S. retreat from Asia has been underway since the 1970s, although this “strategic movement to the rear” -- as the famous military euphemism goes -- has been neither rapid nor accompanied by “mission accomplished” photo ops.

The administration's much-vaunted pivot looks ever more like a divot -- a swing, a miss, and a hole in the ground rather than anything approaching a hole-in-one.

The Slowly Shrinking Footprint

During the Cold War, the United States fought more battles and shed more blood in Asia than anywhere else on Earth. From 1950 to 1953, under a U.N. flag, U.S. forces struggled for control of the Korean peninsula, ending up without a peace treaty and with a stalemate at roughly the same dividing line where the war began. At one point, as the Vietnam War expanded in the 1960s and 1970s, U.S. troop levels in Asia swelled to more than 800,000.

Since the disastrous end of that war, however, Washington has been very slowly and fitfully retreating from the region. U.S. military personnel there have by now dropped under 100,000. The low point was arguably during the George W. Bush years when the U.S. military sank into the quicksand of Iraq and Afghanistan, and critics began to accuse his administration of “losing Asia” to a rising China.

Looking at the numbers, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that Washington’s attention had indeed drifted from the Pacific. Consider Korea. Peace has hardly broken out on the peninsula. In fact, the North’s nuclear weapons and the South’s extensive military modernization have only had the effect of heightening tensions.

The United States, however, has repeatedly reduced both the size and the significance of its forces in South Korea in a process of punctuated devolution. On three occasions over the last 45 years, Washington has unilaterally withdrawn forces from the peninsula -- each time over the objections of the South Korean government. There were nearly 70,000 U.S. troops in South Korea in the early 1970s when the Nixon administration first recalled an entire division of 20,000 troops. Later, the Carter administration, initially keen to withdraw all U.S. forces, settled for another limited reduction. In 1991, in response to the collapse of Communism in much of the world (but not North Korea), the George H.W. Bush administration unilaterally withdrew tactical nuclear weapons from the peninsula.

In the twenty-first century, the U.S. military footprint shrank yet again from approximately 37,000 troops to the current level of 28,500, this time thanks to negotiations between Washington and Seoul. (A small contingent of 800 troops has just been dispatched to South Korea to send a signal of U.S. "resolve" to the North, but it's only for a nine-month rotation.) In addition, the American troops near the de-militarized zone that separates north from south, long meant as a “tripwire” that would ensure U.S. involvement in any future war between the two countries, are being relocated further south. However, Pentagon officials have recently hinted at leaving behind a residual force. The two countries are still negotiating the transfer of what, six decades after the Korean War ended, is still referred to as “wartime operational control,” a long overdue step. The reduction of forces has been accompanied by the closure and consolidation of U.S. bases, including the massive Yongsan garrison in the middle of the South Korean capital, Seoul. It will revert entirely to Korean control over the next few years.

It’s not just Korea where the U.S. “footprint” is shrinking. A quieter set of redeployments has reduced U.S. ground forces in Japan, too, from approximately 46,000 personnel in 1990 to the 38,000-strong contingent today. Even larger changes are underway.

In 2000, on a visit to Okinawa, Japan’s southern-most prefecture, President Bill Clinton promised to shrink the staggering American military footprint on that island. At the time, Okinawans were furious over a series of murders and rapes committed by U.S. soldiers as well as military-related accidents that had claimed Okinawan lives and health threats from various kinds of pollution generated by more than 30 U.S. bases. Ever since, Washington has been pursuing a plan to close the Futenma Marine Air Force Base -- an old facility dangerously located in the middle of a modern city -- and build a replacement elsewhere on the island. That plan also involves the relocation of 9,000 Marines from the island to U.S. bases elsewhere in the Pacific. If it goes forward, U.S. forces in Japan will be reduced by up to 25%.

Elsewhere in Asia, under pressure from local activists, the United States closed two military bases in the Philippines in 1991, withdrawing nearly 15,000 personnel from the country and replacing a permanent basing arrangement with a more modest “visiting forces agreement.” In recent years, Washington has negotiated “cooperation agreements” with various countries in the region, including its former foe Vietnam, but hasn’t built any significant new bases. Aside from forces in Japan and South Korea, and personnel aboard ships and submarines, the U.S. military presence in the rest of the region is negligible.

Of course, a reduction of personnel and the closure of bases are not necessarily indicators of retreat. After all, the Pentagon has been focusing on a transition to a more flexible fighting posture, deemphasizing fixed positions in favor of lighter rapid-response units. Meanwhile, the modernization of U.S. forces has meant that its firepower has increased even if its Pacific footprint has decreased. In addition, the United States has emphasized Special Operations forces deployments as part of anti-terror operations in places like the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia, while pushing ahead with several tiers of ballistic missile defense in the region. All of these policies preceded the pivot.

Nonetheless, the trend line since the 1970s is clear enough. Even as their capabilities were being upgraded, U.S. forces were also slowly moving to an over-the-horizon posture in Asia, with bases in Guam and Hawaii gaining importance as those in Korea and Japan were quietly downgraded. As it has given up ground, Washington has also pressured its allies to pay more to support its forces based on their territories, buy ever more expensive American weapons systems, and build up their own militaries. As it once sought to “Vietnamize” and “Iraqize” the military forces in countries from which it was withdrawing troops, the United States has been engaged in its own slow-motion “Asianization” of the Pacific.

The Non-Existent Pivot

The Pacific pivot has been billed as a way to halt this drift and reinforce the U.S. position as a player in Asia. So far, however, this highly touted “rebalancing” has essentially been a shell game, involving not a substantial build-up, but a shifting around of American forces in Asia.

This shell game has involved, among other elements, the contingent of 18,000 Marines at that base in Futenma. For more than 15 years, Washington and Tokyo have failed to come to an agreement on closing the decrepit base and building a replacement facility. The vast majority of Okinawans still reject any new base construction, which would damage the area’s fragile ecosystem. In addition, the island already houses more than 70% of all U.S. bases in Japan, and its residents are tired of the collateral damage that U.S. service personnel inflict on host communities.

Sooner or later, about 5,000 of those Marines are to be transferred to an expanded facility on the U.S. island of Guam, a huge construction project underwritten by the Japanese government. Another 2,700 are slated to go to Hawaii. Up to 2,500 will rotate through an expanded Royal Australian Air Force base in Darwin.

About 8,000 to 10,000 Marines are supposed to remain in Okinawa -- or, at least, Washington and Tokyo would like them to remain there. But that depends on the latest round of negotiations. At the end of December, Okinawan Governor Hirokazu Nakaima reversed his position against building a new base, thanks in part to 300 billion yen a year that Tokyo promised to inject into the Okinawan economy over the next eight years.

But it’s far from a done deal. In elections this month in the town of Nago, which has jurisdiction over Henoko where the new base is to be built, Mayor Susumu Inamine won a second term after pledging to continue his opposition to the proposed construction. Turnout was high, and so was Inamine’s victory margin -- despite a promise from the conservative ruling party to provide an additional 50 billion yen to Nago if residents rejected the incumbent. Civic groups, meanwhile, continue to try to tie the project up in court.

Beyond shuffling Marines around the Pacific, what else does the pivot consist of? Not much. Four new Littoral Combat Ships are being sent to Singapore to beef up patrols in the region. A small-scale gesture to begin with, that experimental vessel, which has experienced serious cost overruns, is a clunker. The first ship to reach Singapore had to return to port after a mere eight hours on the water, the latest in a series of problems that have prompted a congressional inquiry into the program’s viability.

The Pentagon has emphasized the importance of a planned readjustment of the balance of the U.S. fleet globally. Currently, the ratio of Pacific to non-Pacific ship deployments is 50-50. In the years to come, that may shift to 60-40 in favor of the Pacific. But ratios don’t mean much if the overall size of the U.S. fleet goes south. The Navy recently submitted a plan to build up fleet size from its current 285 ships to 306 over the next 30 years. But that plan is based on the rosiest of imagined future budget allocations: one-third higher than those the service has received over recent decades. A more likely scenario, in an age of belt-tightening, is a reduction of the fleet to 250 ships or fewer as more are decommissioned than added yearly.

In air power, too, the pivot comes up short, given what the United States already deploys in the region. As the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Auslin testified before Congress this past summer, “The U.S. Air Force already rotates F-22s, B-52s, and B-2s throughout the region, primarily in Guam and Okinawa, and there are few more planes that can be sent on a regular basis.”

It’s true that Washington is pushing its new F-35 jet fighter -- Japan has already promised to buy 28 of them -- but pity our poor allies. The most expensive weapon system in history, the plane has 719 problems, according to a report by the Pentagon’s own inspector general. That’s a lot of problems for a weapons system that costs nearly $200 million a pop (almost $300 million in some versions).

Much of the Pentagon’s future in Asia has been focused on “Air-Sea Battle,” a joint Navy-Air Force integrated plan that made its debut in 2010 with the specific aim of denying adversaries (read: China) access to the seas and skies of the region. The Army, finding itself essentially left out, has put forward its own “Pacific Pathways” initiative, which aims to transform a largely land-based force into a maritime expeditionary force, potentially bringing it into direct competition with the Marines.

However, Washington’s Pacific allies shouldn’t expect much from it. The program is really no more than an effort to stanch the hemorrhaging of Army personnel, already slated for a 10% drop in strength over the next few years -- with signs of more shrinkage ahead. As political scientist Andrew Bacevich writes, “Pacific Pathways envisions relatively small elements milling about the Far East so that whatever happens, whether act of God or act of evil-doers, the service won’t be left out.”

While the pivot may not add up to much, one thing is certain: it will cost money, even with allied contributions factored in. For instance, the expansion of the Guam base is now priced at $8.6 billion (or more), with only about $3 billion of that picked up by Tokyo. The overall cost for the relocation of the Marines, the Pentagon estimates, is likely to be $12 billion. And even that is undoubtedly a lowball figure, according to the Government Accountability Office, which estimates the move to Guam alone at as much as double that sum. No surprise, then, that the Senate -- in a mood of unusual bipartisan agreement -- has balked at the price tag.

The simple truth is that the Pentagon is no longer going to have the same kind of loot to throw around as it did in the go-go days of the last decade. If merely moving forces around the Pacific costs so much, it’s hardly likely that outlays for major new deployments will make it past Congress. And this doesn’t even take into account the inevitable tax revolt of the Japanese, Korean, and Australian publics when the bills for their own “contributions” start coming in.

Why Asia, Why Now?

Even if the Pacific pivot is more smoke than firepower, the United States is hardly a paper tiger in Asia. It remains by far the most powerful military actor in the region. Aircraft carriers, destroyers, fighter jets, and nuclear subs all mean that the United States can throw its weight around when necessary.

But perception means a great deal in geopolitics and right now China is winning the perceptions game. Beijing is flush with money and has been using its considerable foreign exchange surpluses to win favor with countries in the region (even as it undercuts some of that good will with its territorial claims and military actions). In 2010, it teamed up with its Southeast Asian neighbors to form a free-trade zone large enough to compete favorably with Europe and North America.

Although China won’t have power projection capabilities even remotely comparable to the United States in the foreseeable future, double digit military spending over the last decade has closed the gap with Japan and Korea. Tensions in the region have increased -- over disputed islands between Japan and China, around the potentially oil-rich South China Sea, and in airspace as well after China unilaterally established its own “air defense identification zone” in November that covers the contested Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.

China’s muscle flexing is about the only thing that could turn the Pacific pivot into something real. Countries that were once ambivalent about the U.S. military presence -- such as Vietnam or the Philippines -- are eagerly putting out the welcome mat for American forces. Japan is using the “China threat” to further water down its “peace constitution” and ratchet up cooperation with the Pentagon. And the United States is eagerly stitching together its various bilateral relationships -- from India to Australia to Korea -- into a cloak of containment to stifle China’s rise.

Even without much meat on its bones, the Pacific realignment “works” so far because so many disparate actors find it useful to believe in. For China, it provides a convenient rationale for buying or building new weapons systems to deny the United States complete control over air and sea. For U.S. allies, the pivot offers an additional insurance policy that requires them to pay premiums in the form of building up their own militaries. In the United States, hawks rejoice at a Rambo-like return to Asia, while doves bemoan the inherent militarism of the new policy. The Pentagon sees more basing options; arms manufacturers see more lucrative contracts; other U.S. corporations see greater access to overseas markets through the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

However, one major Asian reality has to be taken into account when considering Washington’s increased focus on and interest in the Pacific: not since the end of World War II has the United States been able to impose its will on the region. It had to make do with a stalemate in the Korean War; it lost the Vietnam War; and it hasn’t been able to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. It can’t even stop allies Japan and South Korea from quarrelling over the ownership of a tiny outcropping of rocks that lies midway between the two countries. And the U.S. economic relationship with China -- a codependency grounded in overproduction and overconsumption -- is a brake on U.S. unilateralism in the region.

In an age of economic austerity and policy coordination with China, the Pacific pivot amounts to a complicated dance in which the United States steps backward as we propel our allies forward. It might seem a penny-wise way of sharing the security burden, but the realignment is still woefully expensive. And “Asianizing” the Pacific through arms exports and visiting forces agreements only helps to fuel what has emerged as the most significant arms race in the world today.

The lumbering aircraft carrier known as the United States should be executing a pivot that lives up to its name: a shift from the martial to the pacific. Instead, it’s just roiling the waters and leaving instability in its wake.

John Feffer is the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies and the author of several books, including Crusade 2.0. A TomDispatch regular, he is currently writing a book about Eastern Europe 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. His articles can be read on his website.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook or Tumblr. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Ann Jones’s They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return From America’s Wars -- The Untold Story.

Copyright 2014 John Feffer

Remembering Folk Legend, Seeger

Remembering Folk Legend & Activist Pete Seeger

by TRNN

John Nichols: 94 year-old Pete Seeger's music was stronger than the forces that sought to silence him.

The legendary folk singer and activist Pete Seeger passed away on Monday at the age of 94. Over the course of five decades, Seeger used his musical talents to draw attention to many causes, including the civil rights movement, workers' rights, and environmental conservation. Most remember him for his hits like "Good Night, Irene", "If I Had a Hammer", and, of course, he helped popularize the African-American civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome". A strong opponent of McCarthyism in the '50s, Seeger was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. He refused to cooperate and was convicted of contempt of Congress. In more recent times, Seeger, along with Bruce Springsteen, performed the song "This Land Is Your Land" at President Obama's first inauguration. He participated in and sang at the Occupy Wall Street's New York City camp. And Seeger's passion for folk music and social justice made him a hybrid of both musician and activist, which was quite extraordinary.

John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress. Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.Nichols is the author of The Genius of Impeachment (The New Press); a critically acclaimed analysis of the Florida recount fight of 2000, Jews for Buchanan (The New Press); and a best-selling biography of Vice President Dick Cheney, Dick: The Man Who is President (The New Press), which has recently been published in French and Arabic. He edited Against the Beast: A Documentary History of American Opposition to Empire (Nation Books), of which historian Howard Zinn said: "At exactly the time when we need it most, John Nichols gives us a special gift--a collection of writings, speeches, poems, and songs from throughout American history--that reminds us that our revulsion to war and empire has a long and noble tradition in this country." With Robert W. McChesney, Nichols has co-authored the books It's the Media, Stupid! (Seven Stories), Our Media, Not Theirs (Seven Stories), Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (The New Press) and, most recently, The Death and Life of American Journalism (Nation Books). McChesney and Nichols are the co-founders of Free Press, the nation's media-reform network, which organized the 2003 and 2005 National Conferences on Media Reform. 

So Long Seegers, Been Good to Know You...

So Long, Pete and Toshi Seeger, It's Been Good to Know You...

by Harvey Wasserman

Toshi and Pete Seeger defy description except through the sheer joy and honor it was to know them, however briefly.

Their list of accomplishments will fill many printed pages, which all pale next to the simple core beauty of the lives they led.

They showed us it’s possible to live lives that somehow balance political commitment with joy, humor, family, courage and grace. All of which seemed to come as second nature to them, even as it was wrapped in an astonishing shared talent that will never cease to inspire and entertain.

Pete passed on Monday, at 94, joining Toshi, who left us last year, at 91. They’d been married nearly 70 years.

Somehow the two of them managed to merge an unending optimism with a grounded, realistic sense of life in all its natural travails and glories.

Others who knew them better than I will have more specific to say, and it will be powerful and immense.

But, if it’s ok with you, I’d like to thank them for two tangible things, and then for the intangible but ultimately most warming.



Pete Seeger with Lynne Cherry and Harvey Wasserman. 
Photo credit Connie Hogarth

First: In 1978, we of the Clamshell Alliance were fighting the nuclear reactors being built at Seabrook, NH. An amazing grassroots movement had sprung up. With deep local roots, it helped birth the campaign for a nuke-free/green-powered Earth that still evolves.

We had staged successful civil disobedience actions in 1976-7 that grew from Ron Rieck solo climbing a weather tower (in January!) to 18 arrests to 180. Then in April, 1977, some 2,000 folks came from all over the U.S. to an occupation whose 1,414 arrests filled the Granite State’s National Guard armories for two media-saturated weeks.

In the summer of 1978 a complex, controversial chain of events led us to shift from a civil disobedience action to a legal rally. It was daring, difficult and divisive. We had no idea what would happen.

But the weekend dawned with bright sunshine … and with Pete! Joined by Jackson Browne and John Hall, their presence helped transform a challenging gathering into something truly transcendent. It was, like Pete himself, an unassuming miracle.



Some of the people who provided their talent and energy at the Seabrook Rally. From top down: Pete Seeger, folksinger, leading the crowd in song; Dick Gregory, comedian and social activist, talking about racism and atomic power; Sarah Nelson from N.O.W. expaining the Silkwood murder mystery; Jackson Browne and John Hall, rock musicians, decrying nuclear power between sets.

Thirty years later our sister Connie Hogarth brought me to Pete and Toshi’s hillside cabin overlooking the Hudson, not far enough from Indian Point. With utter nonchalance Pete had built one of the world’s first electric vehicles by gutting the engine from an old pick-up and filling it with car batteries. It got him to town and back. It did the job.

Like the Clearwater. A boat to sail the Hudson. To do it well while making a point about the Earth and what she needs.

They chopped wood and made preserves and it was all so comfortably grounded. Toshi had a deeply affecting grace, an irresistible combination of firm direction and gentle wisdom. And those sparkling eyes. What a glorious partnership!

But I had an agenda. I wanted a song for Solartopia, a vision of a green-powered Earth. And who was a pischer like me to ask?

Pete’s response was instant, warm, enthusiastic. He whipped out that legendary banjo of his and within five minutes he had a song. A good one.

He asked me to write some verses, then gently informed me that as a songwriter, I should keep my day job (which would’ve been great if I had one!).

So he handed me a set of envelopes carefully addressed to various lyricists. We kicked the thing around for a year or so.

Then his wonderful colleague David Bernz came up with verses Pete liked. Joined by Dar Williams and a chorus of “Rivertown Kids,” they recorded it in a single take, and it found its way on to an album that won a Grammy.

Something only Pete Seeger could have done. Because for all the catalogue of his political battles, his unshakable integrity and his giving nature, this was a guy with an astonishing talent.

Someone who could help conjure a political anthem like “If I Had a Hammer” and then help join it with a gorgeous love song like “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine.”

A man who conspired to give the picket lines of the world “We Shall Overcome” and then took “Turn, Turn, Turn” from the Bible to a rock anthem.

A performer who could sing and sing well deep into his nineties, his innate sense of justice and dignity completely in tact.

So we could go on and on like that, but Pete and Toshi wouldn’t have had the patience for it. Their longevity was a great gift. It gave us all time to appreciate them, to assess what meant the most to so many of us about them, to understand the beauty of their mentoring.

These were people who knew who they were and stayed true to it. They were incredibly talented. They raised their kids, lived on the land, learned as they went along, embraced new things, but stayed true to an abiding faith in compassion and grace.

So now … with tears of gratitude and joy … so long, dear friends.

How good it’s been for all of us to know you.






Visit EcoWatch’s NUCLEAR page

Nanaimo Marks International Day of Action Against the Trans-Pacific Partnership

International Day of Action Against the Trans-Pacific Partnership

by Council of Canadians

The Mid Island chapter of the Council of Canadians is taking part in the Intercontinental Day of Action against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, NAFTA and Corporate Globalization

On January 31, members of the Mid Island chapter of the Council of Canadians will be joining with people in communities across Canada, the United States and Mexico and taking to the streets for an Intercontinental Day of Action against unfair trade deals.

Nanaimo Rally against the Trans Pacific Partnership

4:00P.M Friday January 31, 2014
Maffeo Sutton International Flags – Corner of Terminal Ave. & Comox Rd.

The purpose is to raise awareness about the damaging effects of the now 20-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a deal that not only hurt workers and farmers, but also created new rules for international investment. There are currently $2.5 billion in NAFTA investment lawsuits against the Canadian government for public policies that protect consumers, workers and the environment.

NAFTA paved the way for other deals, including the looming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation free trade and corporate rights deal being pushed by the United States.

The TPP has been called NAFTA on steroids. Only two of twenty-six TPP chapters have anything to do with trade, the rest constrain what governments can regulate, extend copyright and patents and restrict the internet. The Day of Action will focus on these and other so-called "trade" deals that allow corporations to challenge public policies and environmental regulations that infringe on corporate profits.

In Nanaimo people will be bringing signs and banners for a Burma Shave style protest at the corner of Terminal Avenue and Comox Rd. The rally will begin at 4:00 P.M. at the international flags in Maffeo Sutton park at the intersection.

For more information about the Intercontinental day of action against the TPP visit:

http://www.tradejustice.ca/tpp/jan31

(30)

For Immediate Release

For information about the Nanaimo Rally contact:

Jordan Ellis (250) 591-6327

revjellis@shaw.ca

For information about the National Council of Canadians Trade Campaign contact

Stuart Trew - Trade Campaigner, Council of Canadians

116 Spadina Ave., Ste 210, Toronto ON, M5V2K6, Tel: 416/979/0451

www.canadians.org/trade
Twitter @StuJT @CETAWatch


Paul Manly
paul@manlymedia.com
250 729-1254

Passing: Pete Seeger

Passing: Pete Seeger

by DemocracyNow!

Son of NAFTA Grows Up

NAFTA and the Next Phase of North American Integration

by Dana Gabriel - Be Your Own Leader

In preparation for the upcoming North American Leaders Summit which will be held in Toluca, Mexico on February 19, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry recently held a meeting with his Canadian and Mexican counterparts. Over the last number of years, not as much attention has been given to the trilateral relationship.

Instead, the U.S. has essentially pursued a dual-bilateral approach with both Canada and Mexico on key issues including border and continental perimeter security, as well as regulatory and energy cooperation. On the heels of its 20th anniversary, there once again appears to be renewed interest in broadening and deepening the NAFTA partnership as part of the next phase of North American integration.

On January 17, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hosted the North American Ministerial with Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird and Mexican Foreign Secretary Jose Antonio Meade. The discussions centered around topics such as regulatory, energy and trade relations, along with border infrastructure and management.

The meeting was used to lay the groundwork for next month’s North American Leaders Summit which will include the participation of U.S. President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. During a press conference, a reporter asked about reopening NAFTA in order to update it. Secretary Kerry answered, “the TPP, is a very critical component of sort of moving to the next tier, post-NAFTA. So I don’t think you have to open up NAFTA, per se, in order to achieve what we’re trying to achieve.”

Minister Baird added, “we believe that NAFTA’s been an unqualified success, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations, which all three of us are in, offer us the opportunity to strengthen the trilateral partnership.” Secretary Meade also chimed in, “We do not think it is necessary to reopen NAFTA, but we think we have to build on it to construct and revitalize the idea of a dynamic North America.”

In December 2013, the Miami Herald reported that the Obama administration, “is exploring a regional trade plan for the Americas that would be the most ambitious hemispheric initiative in years.” It went on to say that Secretary of State John Kerry, “would like to first seek an agreement to deepen the existing North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada, and to expand it afterward to the rest of Latin America.” According to some of Kerry’s top aides, “the plan to relaunch NAFTA could come as early as February, when President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts at a North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico.”

The recent article, U.S. lays out goals for NAFTA cautioned that, “the shared goal of a NAFTA 2.0 that wins fresh, sustainable gains for Canada, Mexico and the U.S., the Americans warn, is unlikely to come in a single, dramatic and easily digestible sound byte.” It further noted that, “Instead, the Americans are urging a more realistic approach aimed at reviving trilateral momentum, with a dogged diplomatic effort that aggressively fine-tunes, streamlines and expands the trade pact.”

Last year, business leaders from across North America released a set of policy recommendations designed to increase continental economic integration and competitiveness. In a letter issued to President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Enrique Pena Nieto, the Business Roundtable, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Consejo Mexicano de Hombres de Negocios called for greater trilateral government action in the areas of intelligent border systems, regulatory standards and practices, as well as North American energy security and sustainability.

The business organizations explained that, “More can and should be done to promote regulatory cooperation between our three countries, to facilitate the legitimate movement of people, goods and services.” They emphasized that the time to act was now and that their specific proposals would, “help deepen our economic ties, strengthen the international competitiveness of Canadian, Mexican, and U.S. companies and their workers, and realize North American energy self-reliance.” Their goal is to create a seamless North American market.

At the third annual North American Competitiveness and Innovation Conference in October 2013, government officials, trade experts and leaders representing the private and academic sectors from all three countries gathered to discuss strategies aimed at boosting NAFTA ties. Among the attendees were U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Canadian Minister of International Trade Edward Fast, and Mexican Secretary of Economy Ildefonso Guajardo. In a joint statement, they agreed to strengthen their trade and economic relationship. The ministers, “committed to crafting a roadmap that both promotes prosperity across the NAFTA region for the next 20 years and maintains our position as the most competitive region in the world.” They also pledged to enhance, “regulatory cooperation, and coordinated efforts to facilitate increased trade through many initiatives, including the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations.” With NAFTA as the foundation, the U.S., Canada and Mexico are working towards taking their trilateral partnership to the next level.

In the report North American Competitiveness: The San Diego Agenda, Laura Dawson, Christopher Sands, and Duncan Wood examine the evolution of the NAFTA and provide a blueprint for deepening trilateral integration. This includes a host of recommendations dealing with harmonized regional trade policy, regulatory alignment, border and infrastructure, as well as human capital and energy. As far as a regulatory strategy goes, the paper called for the U.S.-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council and the U.S.-Mexico High-Level Regulatory Cooperation Council to be coordinated within a trilateral framework. In the area of border security and efficiency, it also recommended that Mexico be included in the U.S.-Canada Beyond the Border initiative.

The report stated that, “North America’s future demands deeper integration of our economies and streamlined cross-border processes. Essential elements in ensuring long-term competitiveness include infrastructure spending, energy cooperation, investing in human capital formation, increasing labor mobility and labor market flexibility, regulatory cooperation and more efficient border management.”

When it comes to further advancing North American integration, the extensive policy paper reinforced the message that, “Trilateralism is about the long game. Bilateralism may move faster but cannot move as far.” It also stressed now that, “NAFTA has been institutionalized, it is sustained by working-level incrementalism, and its benefits are eroding. It is time for a new leap of faith.” With respects to a shared North American Vision, Laura Dawson described how, “A window of opportunity for important policy change is rare and actions involving multiple governments, interests and stakeholders are difficult. I am convinced that it is time for action and that it will be a long while before there is a similar convergence of opportunity and interest.” The report that Dawson helped put together concluded that, “the biggest impediment to progress is a lack of political leadership.” That is why many who are pushing this agenda are hoping that the upcoming North American Leaders Summit will help revive the NAFTA spirit and be used as launching pad for greater trilateral collaboration.

After 20 years of NAFTA, there is a growing sense from proponents of the deal that the time is right to take new steps towards North American economic integration. Beyond all those who view NAFTA as a success, there is a dark side and a legacy of broken promises. When NAFTA was introduced, it represented the architecture for a new international system. It became the template for future trade agreements which have been used to promote even greater corporate control. The TPP negotiations which are currently underway would expand the failed NAFTA model to even more countries. Furthermore, with the U.S., Canada and Mexico all a part of the massive trade talks, it also provides an opportunity to upgrade NAFTA without having to reopen it.

Dana Gabriel is an activist and independent researcher. He writes about trade, globalization, sovereignty, security, as well as other issues. Contact: beyourownleader@hotmail.com Visit his blog at Be Your Own Leader

Related articles by Dana Gabriel:
Beyond NAFTA: Shaping the Future of North American Integration
The North American Leaders Summit and Reviving Trilateral Integration
Using the TPP to Renegotiate and Expand NAFTA
U.S. Economic Hegemony: Consolidation and Deepening of the Pacific Alliance Trade Bloc

BC Appeal Court Backs Voter ID Laws

BCCLA reacts to BC Court of Appeal decision on voter ID laws

by British Columbia Civil Liberties Association

Vancouver  – The BCCLA reacted today to the BC Court of Appeal’s decision upholding voter ID laws in the case of Henry v. Canada (Attorney General). The BCCLA was an intervener in this case.

Changes to federal voting laws require voters to show government-approved ID when voting, or to be vouched for by a voter in the same polling division. From the outset, the BCCLA opposed these changes. The BCCLA argued that the government had not shown that the voter ID laws are necessary, especially in light of the very serious and real risk that some citizens without ID, particularly in marginalized communities, may be denied the right to vote altogether.

The BC Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the BC Supreme Court finding that the changes to the law were a justifiable infringement of the right to vote protected in section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Raji Mangat, Counsel for the BCCLA, stated:

“The right to vote lies at the core of our democracy. It is a sad day for all Canadians when the attempt to remedy a minimal problem results in disenfranchisement of our most vulnerable and marginalized citizens. There was no need for this change in the law. As a society, we should be encouraging more political participation, not making it harder to vote.”

The BCCLA is represented by Dan Burnett, Q.C., of Owen Bird LLP and Mathew Good of Hordo, Bennett, Mounteer LLP.

January 28, 2014

For immediate release

Media Inquiries:
Raji Mangat, BCCLA Counsel

Propaganda's Enduring Appeal

Propaganda: 'The Dominant Grand Narrative of Our Time'

by David Cromwell  - Media Lens

'Propaganda' sounds like an old-fashioned word from a bygone era. It evokes images of the Nazis in WW2, particularly Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, or Soviet leaders in the Cold War and dictators in 'Third World' countries. Propaganda is something spewed out by official enemies of the West, and surely not a vile practice indulged by 'our' politicians and business leaders. This is a convenient illusion that serves powerful Western elites very well indeed.

The Russian-born filmmaker Andre Vltchek, who has travelled the world extensively in making his documentaries, relates his experience of appearing in the media in different countries. He observes that when he speaks in China, he does so uncensored:

'I was on CCTV – their National TV – and for half an hour I was talking about very sensitive issues. And I felt much freer in Beijing than when the BBC interviews me, because the BBC doesn't even let me speak, without demanding a full account of what exactly I am intending to say.' (Noam Chomsky and Andre Vltchek, On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare, Pluto Press, London, 2013, p. 31)

Vltchek continued:

'people in the West are so used to thinking that we are so democratic in terms of the way our media is run and covers the stories. Even if we know it's not the case, we still, subconsciously, expect that it's still somehow better than in other places and it is actually shocking when we realize that a place like China or Turkey or Iran would run more unedited or uncensored pieces than our own mainstream media outlets. Let me put it this way: Chinese television and newspapers are much more critical of their economic and political system than our television stations or newspapers are of ours. Imagine ABC, CBS, or NBC [major US television stations] coming on air and beginning to question the basics of capitalism or the Western parliamentary system.' (Ibid., p. 32)

A vanishingly rare example of the BBC propaganda system being blasted open was the special edition of the Radio 4 Today programme edited by the English musician PJ Harvey on January 2, 2014. In her opening statement, Harvey explained that she wanted to 'do something unusual with the format and content of the programme.' She invited people whom she considers 'to be highly articulate, stimulating and extremely interesting to listen to - people who challenge us and move us to examine our deepest beliefs and feelings.'

Harvey's guests included John Pilger talking about the propaganda role of the corporate media; Denis Halliday, former UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, on the urgent need to democratise the warmongering UN Security Council (here at around 49 mins); Ian Cobain and Phil Shiner on torture committed by UK forces (here at around 2 hrs : 34 mins); and Mark Curtis on how Britain's arms trade fuels oppression around the world.

Harvey wanted her contributors to be unrestricted in what they could say, and she had asked the Today programme to agree to this before accepting the invitation to be a guest editor. She rightly noted that 'a great deal' of her edition of the programme was 'about censorship in one way or another.'

Predictably, reactionary voices bewailed afterwards that the BBC had broadcast 'left-wing tosh' and 'liberal drivel'. Nick Robinson, the BBC's 'impartial' political editor, took particular exception to the contribution by John Pilger, while the pro-war Murdoch employee David Aaronovitch, a Times columnist with a penchant for wagging a warning finger at Glenn Greenwald, objected to being 'lectured at in a news programme'.

By contrast, Paul Mason, a former BBC Newsnight correspondent and now the digital editor at Channel 4 News, better captured the public response:

'Brilliant @PJHarveyUK edition of @BBCr4today demonstrating difference between "truth" and "editorial policy" - amazing how weird it feels'

The veteran Scottish journalist Joyce McMillan astutely summed up the importance of the PJ Harvey-edited Today programme and the dismissive and fearful response to it from elite quarters:

'For the 21st-century British Right, though – used to seeing their sense of what is important go largely unchallenged in day-to-day political broadcasting – the programme was an outrage. [...] Since this year's group of guest editors also included such establishment figures as Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, former head of MI5, and Anthony Jenkins, CEO of Barclays Bank, there are clearly no grounds for complaint from the Right about the overall balance of this year's holiday editions.'

McMillan continued:

'The British boss class, though, increasingly demand not so much balance as total hegemony. Where a generation ago they would have had the wisdom to welcome Harvey as an alternative voice that demonstrated Britain's commitment to diversity and freedom, now they just want her and her kind to shut up, before they put any wild ideas into the heads of the compliant masses.'

Although Harvey's contributors made points that were 'accurate, truthful and based on fact', said McMillan, such voices are marginalised in political debate because:

'they are not part of the dominant grand narrative of our time, which requires constant deference to the priorities of rich so-called "wealth creators", and a rapid refocusing of any popular anger towards other vulnerable groups, such as this New Year's imaginary tidal wave of new migrants from Romania and Bulgaria.'

McMillan warned that unless any serious challenge emerges to the 'dominant narrative' of state-corporate elites, we will be 'trapped by an account of reality so far adrift of the truth [...] that a long age of social, moral and intellectual decline seems almost inevitable.'

Accidental Subversion Flying Beneath The BBC Radar

It is therefore important to grasp, as in fact many people already do, that BBC News is a major influence in projecting what McMillan calls the 'dominant grand narrative of our time'. Occasionally, very occasionally, the truth will slip out, and it can actually be comical to observe. Consider a report from Paris by BBC correspondent Allan Little on News at Ten on January 14. Little was talking about the reported marital difficulties of François Hollande, the French president. Why had his alleged affair not stirred up greater controversy in France, in contrast to what would surely have happened in this country if similar revelations had appeared about, say, David Cameron?

In a voiceover of footage of the Sorbonne, Little intoned:

'François Hollande is a graduate of the École Nationale d'Administration, ENA, which like the Sorbonne here in Paris is an elite institution that trains many of France's future leaders.'

Then, strolling along beside the Sorbonne, Little continued:

'It's often argued that the French ruling elite is a pretty homogeneous group of people. That they're drawn from a very narrow sector of society. They went to the same elite universities, like this one [nods to the Sorbonne] where they were groomed for high-status, high-powered lives. And that this is why newspaper editors, senior politicians, civil servants, industry chiefs, are connected to each other through a network of lifelong loyalties and old friendships. And that this explains why the sexual peccadilloes of previous presidents stayed out of the news.'

That Little's comments also apply to the 'very narrow sector of society' that runs Britain, with its leading cohorts largely drawn from the elite institutions of Oxbridge and London, is obvious. When I emailed Little to congratulate him ironically on his piece of subversive reporting that he'd managed to slip below the BBC editorial radar I got no response – not surprising.

On the other hand, nobody could ever accuse BBC political editor Nick Robinson of subversion, intentional or otherwise. A week earlier (BBC News at Ten, January 6, 2014), Robinson had performed his usual role of 'explaining' – or, more accurately, amplifying – government policy; this time on the increasing levels of 'austerity' being imposed on the British public.

He finished his 'balanced' report with these words:

'Whose purse or wallet should be raided next to pay off the deficit? Welcome to one of the main debates between now and election day.'

But how far would Robinson ever extend the 'main debate' beyond the usual narrow parliamentary voices, if at all? Would he be likely to give prominence to informed comment about cutting the massive subsidies granted at public expense to the corporate sector, notably the fossil fuel industry? What about a spectrum of views on proper accountability of major banks, and preventing corporations and rich elites from tax-dodging? Would that ever be a significant part of a 'main debate' presented by Robinson on BBC News?

We put these questions to Robinson via email, adding:

'What about going beyond the skewed parliamentary "consensus" that normally shapes your news reporting, and include progressive voices arguing for taxation to reduce the shameful inequities in British society? What about a critical look at the costs of the UK's militaristic foreign policy, including huge government support for the so-called "defence" industry?

'Will you canvas wider opinion on all of this, or will you merely include brief snatches of token vox pops on the street?

'Surely the British public deserves a reasoned debate beyond the usual establishment perspective?' (Email, January 7, 2014)

Despite several follow-up emails, Robinson ignored us. Perhaps he is too busy propping up the 'dominant grand narrative of our time' to answer questions from marginalised voices like ours. Robinson was, however, happy to seek us out a couple of years ago for the source of a quote by Lord Reith, the founding Director-General of the BBC, to include in his 2012 book, Live From Downing Street. What was the Reith quote that Robinson was so keen to source? This one:

'They [the government] know they can trust us not to be really impartial.' (C. Stuart, ed., The Reith Diaries, 1975)

Life is full of such ironies.

A key element of the elite 'grand narrative' projected by the corporate news media is that the United States is a force for peace in the Middle East. Thus Jeremy Bowen, the BBC Middle East editor, said with a straight face on the BBC Weekend News on January 11 that:

'These days, the Americans are having another go at brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians.'

Why Bowen, who really should know better, sticks to the discredited script of US as 'peace-broker' is an awkward question that only he can answer. Perhaps one day he will do so - after retiring, when he is finally freed from the shackles of BBC 'balance'.


Fracking The Climate System And Defending War

Propaganda was once again in full flow when Huw Edwards introduced BBC News at Ten with this beauty:

'We'll have more on the government's plan to give local authorities financial rewards for allowing development of shale gas.' (January 13, 2014)

'Financial rewards'? That is BBC News echoing government-speak. Although the actual news report mentioned in brief that opponents of fracking use the more accurate term 'bribes', it was the government spin that got top billing.

After the broadcast of the report, Nick Robinson sat in the studio facing Huw Edwards across a big polished round table in the tired news-theatre format of presenter and correspondent exchanges masquerading as genuine 'conversation'. As ever, Robinson's purpose was to 'explain' the government's message. This essentially comprised a series of corporate-friendly, pro-fracking bullet points on the 'potential big gain in terms of jobs', 'potentially cheap energy' and 'security of supply'.

There was not a single direct reference to climate change; only an implicit, blink-and-you'll-miss-it hint in Robinson's brief nod to green campaigners' wish for 'clean energy'. The very real risk of climate chaos under business as usual fossil-fuel consumption was not worth discussing, obviously.

In its report, BBC News gave prominence to David Cameron's claim of 74,000 new jobs linked to fracking. Email correspondence between the government and companies involved in fracking, made public after a Freedom of Information request, has since revealed that Cameron's figure comes from the 'Big Six' energy company Centrica. The '74,000 jobs' assertion has been repeatedly used by Cameron and ministers, even though the government's own study estimated far fewer jobs: a 'peak' of 16,000 to 32,000 jobs.

Moreover, the email correspondence showed that:

'Shale gas executives and government officials collaborated in private to manage the British public's hostility to fracking.'

As Green party MP Caroline Lucas said:

'This is yet more evidence of the creepily cosy relationship between [the government] and big energy. Apparently it's not enough to give fracking companies generous tax breaks, the government also has to help them with their PR. Instead of cheerleading for fracking, the government should be working with community and renewable energy to move us towards a low carbon future.'

Liberal Apologetics: War Crimes as 'Failures'

Of course, it's not just the BBC that deploys its 'serious journalism' credentials to promote the grand narrative that props up elite power. The British flagship of supposedly progressive print journalism, the Guardian, relentlessly plays its part too. A recent editorial on UK 'defence' policy, titled 'Military options: sense about defence', was a prime example of pro-power liberal posturing. The editorial was a response to a question posed by former US defence secretary Robert Gates; namely 'whether the UK now has the ability to act alongside the US in the Middle East or Asia.' The Guardian argued that this was 'not the only or even the main [question] that needs to be answered.'

The editorial asserted that:

'It is high time that Britain, and Europe, had a serious, effective and public strategic examination of defence needs and affordable options for the mid-21st century.'

By contrast, a genuinely progressive editorial would have argued that:

'It is high time that Britain, and Europe, had a serious, effective and public strategic examination of the elite interests that drive foreign policy and instead consider sensible options for the mid-21st century.'

The editorial continued:

'The question that needs answering is how Europe and Britain can best defend ourselves against the threats of today and tomorrow, and how we can play an appropriate military role in the world.'

rather than the more rational:

'The question that needs answering is how Europe and Britain can best reduce the threats we pose to everyone else, and how we can instead play an appropriate peaceful role in the world.'

The Guardian added:

'the public is war-weary from the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan'

and not:

'the public is sick of the West's war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan...'

which we could follow up with:

'...but voters are deprived of any peaceful party political alternative.'

Of course, it is a classic trope of liberal apologetics to describe war crimes by the state as mere 'failures' or 'mistakes'. And so, shamefully, the Guardian was once again showing its true colours as the liberal wing of a voracious power elite. For those with a black sense of humour, it was all summed up by the headline of a satirical piece in the Daily Mash: 'Britain could miss out on crazy, pointless war with China, says important American'.

Today, it is clearer than ever to a growing number of people that there is something seriously wrong with 'the news'. The current system of planet-crushing propaganda relies on a mere façade of overall 'balance', 'reasonableness' and 'range of views'. In the UK, BBC News is the crucial foundation stone of this propaganda system, with the Guardian playing an accompanying role, almost as the print equivalent. In an era of Permanent War and climate chaos, it is time for the public to raise our voices in protest at all parts of the corporate media, and to build a 'grand narrative' that represents reality.

SUGGESTED ACTION

The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.

Write to:

Nick Robinson, BBC political editor
Email: nick.robinson@bbc.co.uk
Twitter: @bbcnickrobinson

Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor
Email: alan.rusbridger@guardian.co.uk
Twitter: @arusbridger

Please blind-copy us in on any exchanges or forward them to us later at:
editor@medialens.org

Site C Credibility Gap Grows: Hydro Now Proposes California Exports

Site C Dam Story Changes Again - Now It's About Powering California

by Damien Gillis - The Common Sense Canadian

The $10 Billion proposed Site C Dam could provide power for export to California, BC Hydro representatives told the Joint Review Panel examining the project on the final day of public hearings, last week in Fort St. John.

A last-minute change to the story that keeps on changing, the new rationale for the dam confirmed the suspicions of some the hearings’ observers. ”We thought we didn’t need the energy,” said the Peace Valley Environment Association’s Andrea Morison, “but we hadn’t heard from Hydro or any other credible source for a long time that it was for the U.S., and we just found out it was for California.”

 

Site C’s ever-evolving rationale

Over the past 3 decades, British Columbians have been given a bunch of different reasons for flooding 50,000 acres of the beautiful, agriculturally productive Peace River Valley. In the beginning, we were told that Site C was urgently needed to power “450,000 homes” – lest we face brown-outs from a severe energy shortage (we’ve never even come close).

Then, when it became apparent that we now face a domestic power surplus for years to come, we heard on a number of occasions from Premier Christy Clark that Site C was instead required for powering the enormously energy-intensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) process.

Finally, in what came off as a weak, “Hail Mary” attempt to justify the dam before an increasingly skeptical review panel, BC Hydro offered the following explanation:

Our hydro capacity, including the existing capacity we have, and including Site C, is perfectly suited to helping California…We see that as a big opportunity.

California dreamin’

The revelation came as panel chairman Harry Swain raised the issue of California’s increased need for power amid drought conditions affecting the state’s hydro dams.

“Our trading folks are working very hard to try to find a way for us to help,” replied Chris O’Riley, Hydro’s executive vice-president overseeing generation in the province.

And, on one level, this makes perfect sense. Of all the reasons for building Site C, powering BC’s own homes and businesses is not one of them.

We know this because in 2012, BC exported a surplus of 5,800 gigawatt hours of power – roughly 10% of our total provincial demand. That figure more than doubled from the previous year. We’re already awash in private power we didn’t need in the first place but were forced to pay over a billion dollars a year for. On top of that, despite population increases, our demand has flatlined – we use roughly the same amount of electricity today as we did a decade ago.

That’s how you go from allegedly needing this power for 450,000 homes to having such an excess of it that the only possible justification for flooding the Peace Valley is selling power to California!

Rising costs drive conservation

This flatlining consumption undermines Hydro’s oft-repeated assumption that there is a correlation between population and energy demand. The record suggests that’s simply not the case.

And it’s not just true in BC. According to a recent Associated Press story, the same trend can be observed south of the border – ostensibly our new market for power from Site C:

The average amount of electricity consumed in U.S. homes has fallen to levels last seen more than a decade ago, back when the smartest device in people’s pockets was a Palm pilot and anyone talking about a tablet was probably an archaeologist or a preacher.

The combination of increased energy efficiency, conscious conservation efforts like Hydro’s Powersmart program, and higher power bills has kept consumption in check on either side of the 49th parallel.

But this should come as no surprise. Throughout its history, BC Hydro has chronically and significantly overestimated future demand – typically by 10-20% – a proud heritage that continues to this day.

Part of the issue is the way Hydro’s model for future energy demand in BC fails to take into account the effect of skyrocketing power bills for British Columbians – 28% over the next five years. And that’s without Site C, which Hydro pegs at an unbelievably low cost of $8 Billion. According to the World Bank, the average cost overrun for dams around the world is 27%. And this is the BC Liberals we’re talking about here – you know, the gang that can’t build a capital project for less than double the sticker price (see stadium roof, convention centre, Northwest Transmission Line, Port Mann Bridge).

Throw the cost of Site C on top of Hydro’s well over $20 Billion in total debt, plus over $50-plus in high-priced contractual obligations and we can expect those bills to continue their steady climb. Just like high gas prices convince people to trade their SUVs for Corollas, so, apparently, do rate increases incentivize energy conservation. But you won’t hear that kind of common sense from BC Hydro.

Powerex: a $750 million lesson

Before BC spends – let’s call it $10 Billion – of taxpayers’ money to build a dam which likely won’t produce one watt of energy until the middle of the next decade, let us pause for a moment to reflect on the utility’s last big foray into the California market: the scandalous energy crisis of the early 2000′s.

If we were deciding whether or not to build Site C based on typical spot market prices for power south of the border today, it would never happen – they’ve been far too low in recent years to make a profit off Site C’s costly power. In fact, this strategy would prove a big money loser, as our present experience dumping high-priced private power on the market today is teaching us.

Now, if the theory is that persistent drought conditions will mean higher electricity prices in California 10 years from now, well, that’s a $10 Billion gamble – one fraught with risk, which the Powerex debacle reminds us. Earlier this year, British Columbians were hit with a $750 million settlement relating to fraudulent power trading by Hydro’s export arm the last time the California market went into overdrive.

Thus, the dream of big exports to to California does not make for a sound foundation upon which to build Site C.

Hydro’s credibility gap

More than anything, Hydro’s continual flip-flopping on Site C’s need and its inability to accurately predict the future leave it with no credibility in the eyes of the public – and, let’s hope, the panel deciding the project’s future.

It’s time to pull the plug on Site C Dam, once and for all.

Pulling the NSA's Plug: States Threaten Utility Shutdown

Cut Off the NSA’s Juice

by Norman Solomon

The National Security Agency depends on huge computers that guzzle electricity in the service of the surveillance state. For the NSA’s top executives, maintaining a vast flow of juice to keep Big Brother nourished is essential -- and any interference with that flow is unthinkable.

But interference isn’t unthinkable. And in fact, it may be doable.

Grassroots activists have begun to realize the potential to put the NSA on the defensive in nearly a dozen states where the agency is known to be running surveillance facilities, integral to its worldwide snoop operations.

Organizers have begun to push for action by state legislatures to impede the electric, water and other services that sustain the NSA’s secretive outposts.

Those efforts are farthest along in the state of Washington, where a new bill in the legislature -- the Fourth Amendment Protection Act -- is a statutory nightmare for the NSA. The agency has a listening post in Yakima, in the south-central part of the state.

The bill throws down a challenge to the NSA, seeking to block all state support for NSA activities violating the Fourth Amendment. For instance, that could mean a cutoff of electricity or water or other state-government services to the NSA site. And the measure also provides for withholding other forms of support, such as research and partnerships with state universities.

Here’s the crux of the bill:

“It is the policy of this state to refuse material support, participation, or assistance to any federal agency which claims the power, or with any federal law, rule, regulation, or order which purports to authorize, the collection of electronic data or metadata of any person pursuant to any action not based on a warrant that particularly describes the person, place, and thing to be searched or seized.”

If the windup of that long sentence has a familiar ring, it should. The final dozen words are almost identical to key phrases in the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In recent days, more than 15,000 people have signed a petition expressing support for the legislation. Launched by RootsAction.org, the petition is addressed to the bill’s two sponsors in the Washington legislature -- Republican Rep. David Taylor, whose district includes the NSA facility in Yakima, and Democrat Luis Moscoso from the Seattle area.

Meanwhile, a similar bill with the same title has just been introduced in the Tennessee legislature -- taking aim at the NSA’s center based in Oak Ridge, Tenn. That NSA facility is a doozy: with several hundred scientists and computer specialists working to push supercomputers into new realms of mega-surveillance capacities.

A new coalition, OffNow, is sharing information about model legislation. The group also points to known NSA locations in other states including Utah (in Bluffdale), Texas (San Antonio), Georgia (Augusta), Colorado (Aurora), Hawaii (Oahu) and West Virginia (Sugar Grove), along with the NSA’s massive headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland. Grassroots action and legislative measures are also stirring in several of those states.

One of the key organizations in such efforts is the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, where legal fellow Matthew Kellegrew told me that the OffNow coalition “represents the discontent of average people with … business-as-usual failure to rein in out-of-control domestic spying by the NSA and other federal departments like the FBI. It is a direct, unambiguous response to a direct, unambiguous threat to our civil liberties.”

In the process -- working to counter the bipartisan surveillance-state leadership coming from the likes of President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner, the House Intelligence Committee’s chair Mike Rogers and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s chair Dianne Feinstein -- activists urging a halt to state-level support for the NSA include people who disagree on other matters but are determined to undermine the Big Brother hierarchies of both parties.

“By working together to tackle the erosion of the Fourth Amendment presented by bulk data collection,” Kellegrew said, “people from across partisan divides are resurrecting the lost art of collaboration and in the process, rehabilitating the possibility of a functional American political dialogue denied to the people by dysfunction majority partisan hackery.”

From another vantage point, this is an emerging faceoff between reliance on cynical violence and engagement in civic nonviolence.

Serving the warfare state and overall agendas for U.S. global dominance to the benefit of corporate elites, the NSA persists in doing violence to the Constitution’s civil-liberties amendments -- chilling the First, smashing the Fourth and end-running the Fifth.

Meanwhile, a nascent constellation of movements is striving to thwart the surveillance state, the shadowy companion of perpetual war.

This is a struggle for power over what kind of future can be created for humanity.

It’s time to stop giving juice to Big Brother.

Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” Information about the documentary based on the book is at www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org. - www.normansolomon.com