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A talk by Ben Griffin of Veterans For Peace UK
October 2015 at the Kingston Quaker Center

Ben Griffin is a former British Special Air Service (SAS) soldier who refused to return to Iraq and left the Army, citing not only the "illegal" tactics of United States troops and the policies of coalition forces but also that the invasion itself was contrary to international law. He is the founder of Veterans for Peace UK.

October 15, 2015 – Joint Memorandum from West Coast Action Alliance (WCAA) and Olympic Forest Coalition sent to U.S. Navy:  

This week the WCAA sent a formal memorandum, along with a letter from UNESCO, to the U.S. Navy senior command and to federal, state and local elected officials in Northern California, Oregon and Washington, and to other interested parties, about the U.S. Navy’s current course of action in issuing a Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Northwest Testing and Training, in an unlawful manner. The area covered in this Final EIS extends from Northern California to Alaska, a huge area of concern.


Specifically, the Final EIS is unlawful and fatally flawed for a number of significant reasons, listed briefly here and explained in detail further in the memorandum:

Failure to provide reasonable notice to the public.

Failure to provide adequate comment process.

Failure to address functionally connected activities and their cumulative impacts.

Failure to adequately consider impacts to Olympic National Park’s World Heritage designation.

Failure to wait until completion of Final EIS and Record of Decision before initiating actions.

Ethical and legal questions about the Navy’s conduct abound: hidden notices, comment periods that have been shortened or wholly eliminated, and last-minute publication of key documents coupled with total disregard for NEPA’s prohibitions on segmentation present a clear and present danger that the Navy is hastily proceeding with plans regardless and in defiance of federally mandated processes.

Reasonable concerns and objections presented by the public and allied organizations continue to be utterly disregarded, and this controversy intensifies by the day. For example, Congressman Derek Kilmer requested several months ago that the Navy undertake a “neutral” sound study on jet noise in Olympic National Park, under the auspices of the Federal Interagency Committee on Aviation Noise (FICAN).  The Navy failed to do so. Instead, it reconstituted an older study using data that applied to Prowler jets, which are no longer being flown, to justify no significant impacts on the soundscapes of Olympic National Park, and inserted that in the Final EIS.

We believe that it is reasonable and right for citizens to ask our federal government to follow its own policies and laws; we also believe that when multiple requests to an agency from federal and state officials, tribes, private organizations and individuals are repeatedly ignored, then it is time for other state, federal, tribal and local organizations as well as private groups and individuals to be apprised of the situation.

General John Campbell, the head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has the world's dirtiest job.  He has to convince us that one of the world's biggest failures, the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, is actually going quite well.  That can't be easy on his soul.

The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reported that as of 2014 we had spent $60 billion on the Afghan security forces of 300,000 people and $3 billion on humanitarian aid (food, clothing, shelter) for the other 30 million Afghans.  That works out to $1,538.00 per year per soldier and $7.70 per year for every other man, woman, and child in Afghanistan.  Sounds like a formula for faiure, doesn't it?

Of course, if our government's goal is to weaken Afghan society, then they are doing a very good job.  Why would they do that?  Probably for the usual U.S. government reason, so they can steal Afghanistan from the Afghans and hand it over to their corporate buddies.  That would be a betrayal of humanity, but we're used to that, aren't we?


Bill Distler
VFP-111
Bellingham, WA

In reference to Ross Baker's column, "Accidents Are Not War Crimes", on Monday, October 6.  Mr. Baker says that to call the airstrike on the hospital in Kunduz a war crime is to equate it to the slaughter of tens of thousands of Jews by the Nazis at Babi Yar during World War II.  He says, "Only someone blinded by moral obtuseness would draw such a comparison."  Since he is the only one drawing that comparison, he must be talking about himself.

If one soldier executes one prisoner, that is a war crime.  If an aircrew knowingly destroys a hospital, that is a war crime.  If a National Security Advisor knowingly lies to the American people to start a war, that is the crime of aggressive war, the ultimate war crime.

Mr. Baker tries to  have it both ways.  He absolves Condoleeza Rice of guilt while telling us that "Some very intellligent members of Congress were duped by bad intelligence supplied by the Bush administration."  Didn't Condoleeza Rice supply some of that bad intelligence?  Do you remember the aluminum tubes, Mr. Baker, the ones that could only be used for centrifuges which could only produce a nuclear weapon which could only lead to "a mushroom cloud" over the United States?  Were Ms. Rice's lies an accident?

The Pentagon has already refused a request from Congress to release the cockpit recordings of the crew that strafed the Doctors Without Borders hospital.  Is that to cover up an "accident"?

Mr. Baker, your column is filled with false comparisons and contradictions.  You should be ashamed of yourself.


Bill Distler
VFP-111
Bellingham, WA

Concerning the strafing of the MSF hospital  in Afghanistan, is the U.S. military going to care for the wounded people it caused?  

Is the U.S. military going to move several field hospitals into Kunduz to replace the destroyed hospital so that wounded Afghan children, sometimes referred to as "collateral damage", will have some relief from their suffering?  

Since the U.S. military causes some of the civilian casualties, do they bring in medics to treat the lightly wounded and helicopters to evacuate the seriously wounded, or are they just left to suffer and die?

The UN mission in Afghanistan reports that the Taliban causes about 80% of civilian casualties.  Even if that's true, do we leave those people to die?  Do we even spend enough to help our own wounded veterans?  Judging by the suicide rate, the answer seems to be no.

We are spending trillions for destruction but not nearly enough billions to repair the damage.

If our military forces destroy more than they heal, then by any sane definition, we are losing the war in Afghanistan.


Bill Distler
VFP-111
Bellingham, WA

West Coast Action Alliance, September 19, 2015 (with added update),

Although the Navy has made changes to its website since the West Coast Action Alliance (WCAA) Open Letter to the U.S. Navy was written on August 20, none of those changes reflect any public requests to improve communications with the public. How hard can it be, in an age of mass surveillance, for the government to actually listen to the citizens it is supposed to serve?

Much is happening, the pattern being a doubling down of military encroachment on western Washington’s lands, waters and airspace, along with rapidly growing public opposition. The Navy wants the Olympic Peninsula and the Olympic National Marine Sanctuary. The Army wants the Cascades, southwest Washington, and south Puget Sound.  They want to bomb, fire rockets, land attack helicopters, install 720 sonobuoys, conduct electronic warfare over our heads, and use sonar that is orders of magnitude louder than the loudest Navy jets. They have confused the public with multiple separate processes for geographically and functionally related actions. At risk are a World Heritage site, a marine sanctuary rich in marine life, Wilderness areas, a piece of the Pacific Crest Trail, the most important nesting habitat for threatened marbled murrelets, and the peace and quiet of a region famous for it. The military already owns hundreds of thousands of square miles to practice in (see this map file). Why is that not enough?

Much is happening to feel encouraged about, too. The West Coast Action Alliance is in contact with senior officials at UNESCO who are concerned about the threat to Olympic National Park’s World Heritage status. A briefing paper prepared by a committee of concerned citizens is being circulated through multiple channels at UNESCO. It is the public’s intent to raise awareness in not just our own region, but the entire world.

The US Forest Service is due to publish its final Notice of Decision in late September or early October, on whether to issue the permit to the Navy to drive mobile emitters around Olympic National Forest roads so they can practice electronic warfare. We should probably brace ourselves, because the Forest Service has not indicated it is going to deny that permit. When the notice comes out, we will have a 30-day comment period to object, but here’s the hitch: in order to have your comments accepted, you have to be one of the 4,000 people who wrote comments to the Forest Service back in autumn 2014, about the same issue. Back then it was all draft; this time it’ll be their final decision. Comment again and you will have the standing to participate in legal remedies. We will announce this.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service’s latest Biological Opinion, a document evaluating impacts to threatened and endangered species posed by the Navy’s proposed actions, is due in October. The Navy cannot legally proceed without it; therefore, it deserves our utmost attention and scrutiny. We will post it on this web site.

The Army’s comment period on landing combat helicopters in pristine wilderness beloved by many has been extended to November 3, 2015. If you haven’t written them a letter, feel free to borrow language from these talking points or this joint comment letter from 25 organizations.

To keep up with media coverage of events, it’s a good idea to periodically check this web site’s News Stories page.

UPDATE (October 8):

• A final Navy Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) endorsing Northwest Testing and Training (NWTT) is due out this month (replacing an earlier controversial EA); essentially an end around NEPA reporting requirements - with no comment period.
  
• West Coast Action Alliance is connecting with Congressional senior leadership this week to protest the Navy's segmentation notification processes, all side-stepping NEPA reporting requirements, in addition to multiple Endangered Species Act violations.
  
• The US Forest Service plans to issue the necessary permit for testing and training and war games over the Olympic Peninsula next month (November).