| Cetacean lovers are celebrating the recent, brash statement of newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, in her condemnation of Japan’s tradition of dolphin slaughter. Now that she finds herself professionally and geographically smack-dab in the middle of Obama’s “Pacific Pivot” toward Asia, she has the opportunity to bring more to light on the veritable ecological holocaust taking place in the Asia-Pacific.
While the Pentagon describes the Pacific Pivot as a shift of military forces to the Asia-Pacific to counter a rising China, we hear precious little about how this plays out environmentally. The military pivot is reigning terror over cetaceans, coral reefs, migratory seabirds and marine ecosystems throughout the vast, dying Pacific Ocean. Local residents in Okinawa, the Mariana Islands, and Jeju Island (South Korea) are the communities that have been most vocally opposed to the plan to blanket the Asia-Pacific with destructive military bases. The most appalling example is the proposed Mariana Islands Training and Testing region (MITT), which would open up approximately one million square miles of open ocean to full-spectrum, year-round live-fire military practice, over an area larger than the states of Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Montana and New Mexico, combined. It would also include the whole of the supposedly “protected” Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, established by President Bush in 2009. Full-spectrum” live-fire military exercises means year-round amphibious attacks, bombing, torpedos, underwater mines and other detonations from the air, from the sea, and from the ground, as well as sonar training that will result in permanent hearing loss for scores of whales and dolphins. The U.S. military has been conducting such full-spectrum live-fire training for the past three-and-a-half years over a half-million square miles of the open Pacific, and also upon the island of Farallon de Medinilla. Farallon de Medinilla, once teeming with amazing sea life and rare migratory birds, has been bombed and disfigured to unrecognizability. |
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in War opposition still increasing—2003:
| Yet another poll is showing increased opposition to Bush's new war in Iraq. The USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll has opposition at 43 percent, up from 38 percent Jan 10-12. Actual support from the invasion is at 52 percent.
Of course, those numbers could move over to the "support" column if either the US or UK present evidence of Iraqi non-compliance. As of yet, all we're hearing is the same "trust us, we have evidence" bullshit, while all CIA leads to the weapons inspectors have come up empty. There may also be movement in the polls following the president's SOTU address, though it will be interesting to watch how long any such "bounce" will last. And it will also be interesting how the markets react, not just the Wednesday after the speech, but two weeks out. Bush may claim to ignore polls, but it'll be increasingly difficult to ignore his Wall Street supporters. War jitters alone continue to pound the market today. |
Brendan Byrne likes to say that he realized he wasn't governor of NJ anymore when he got in the backseat of his car and it didn't move.— @SteveKornacki
On today's Kagro in the Morning show, Twitter says the news is that Trey Radel is resigning because cocaine. Greg Dworkin says it's the latest ACA polling. SOTU tomorrow, so today's the day to find out why Cathy McMorris Rogers will say it sucked, and why they picked her to do it. The War on Women is over, which
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