Island Breath: DMZ on Oahu Supports Kauai

www.islandbreath.org

SUBJECT: DMZ ANTI-SUPERFERRY ALLY

SOURCE: DAVID DINNER gentlewave@hawaii.rr.com

POSTED: 30 AUGUST 2007 - 10:00pm HST

A Message of Support for Kauai vs HSF

image above:logo of DMZ Hawaii. Click on i to visit website.

[Note from Nani Rogers: Kyle Kajihiro is with DMZ/Aloha `Aina, an anti-military coalition of which I have been a member for a long time. They are our strong allies that demonstrated at Pier 19 to support Kauai. Mahalo a nui.]

by Kyle Kajihiro 30 August 2007

I applaud the people of Kaua‘i whose courageous nonviolent resistance temporarily halted the Hawaii Superferry. Like its invasive cousins, the Stryker Brigade and the UARC, the Superferry is a manifestation of the dangerous military industrial complex that President Eisenhower gravely warned against.

Let’s be clear about the persons and interests that are behind the Hawaii Superferry.

The Board of Directors of the Hawaii Superferry reads like a roster of revolving door ex-military officials. Most notably, the Chair of the Superferry is John F. Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy and founder of the investment firm JF Lehman, a company that specializes in investing in military industries with a controlling interest in the Superferry.

Lehman is associated with the Heritage Foundation, the notorious Right Wing think tank, whose intellectual and political descendants include the anti-Hawaiian Grassroots Institute, Pacific Legal Foundation and Aloha for All. He is also associated with the Project for a New American Century, the folks that cooked up the illegal and catastrophic occupation of Iraq and a blueprint for U.S. Empire (well, they euphemistically called it “Pax Americana”).

Lehman proudly announced that the Hawaii Superferry would partner with the military as a “Westpac Express” to shuttle Strykers and other military personnel and equipment between> islands and beyond. The first Westpac Express was a contract between the U.S. military and the Austal Corporation, makers of the Superferry, to move U.S. military personnel and equipment around Australia and Southeast Asia.

According to testimony from Sean Connaughton, Maritime Administrator of the U.S. Department of Transportation before the House Subcommittee on Seapower and Expeditionary Forces of the Armed Services Committee (March 15, 2007), U.S. taxpayers subsidized $140 million of the $180 million price tag for two Superferries through Title XI loan guarantees.

Connaughton said that “Although the Administration has not requested funding for new loan guarantees since 2001, Congress has periodically appropriated money for this purpose.” He seemed to suggest that the Superferry was another pork barrel earmark project.

Further he stated, “The ferries are also militarily> useful and [Transportation Command] has expressed an interest in them. The Hawaii SuperFerry vessels will be offered for enrollment in the Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement, or VISA,
program.”

Like the Strykers and the UARC, the Superferry is a conspiracy by politicians, the military and corporations to impose their profit and military driven agendas on Hawai‘i over the opposition of affected communities and regardless of the ultimate costs, consequences and impacts. Kaua‘i’s powerful assertion of their right to protect their island from invasive and destructive forces is a gift to Hawai‘i and demonstrates why Kaua‘i was never conquered.

contact:
Kyle Kajihiro
phone: 808-988-6266
email: kkajihiro@afsc.org

DMZ Hawaii Website:
www.dmzhawaii.org

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