Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

Korea Times
September 27, 2009
By Jung Sung-ki

A broader joint air operations command of South Korean and U.S. Air Forces is being set up here in tandem with the planned transition of wartime operational control (OPCON) in 2012, a military source said Sunday.

The Hardened Theater of Air Control Center (HTACC), the Korea-U.S. combined air operations command led by a three-star American general at Osan Air Base, has been working to expand its roles and missions after being renamed the Korea Air and Space Operations Center (KAOC), the source said on condition of anonymity.

The Master Control and Reporting Center (MCRC), a computer system to monitor and track aircraft on a real-time basis, at the KAOC is also receiving upgrades, he said.

“KAOC will be developed further to serve as an integrated joint air force command of the two allies on the peninsula by 2012, effectively orchestrating all operations of the two air forces in the case of an emergency,” the source said.

The U.S.-led Combined Forces Command (CFC) is to hand over almost all operations authority on the peninsula to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in 2012 before being deactivated.

But the U.S. military will still lead air operations after the transformation to take advantage of its dominant aerial assets against North Korea in time of war. …

www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/09/205_52552.html

We (Lindis Percy represented CAAB) joined a demonstration at Osan US Air base during the Global Network Against Weapons and Power in Space internattional conference in Seoul (May 2009).

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rssnewsonline.com
(Associated Press)
September 26th, 2009

… at least 769 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. …

Of those, the military reports 589 were killed by hostile action. …

Outside the Afghan region, the Defense Department reports 70 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, three were the result of hostile action. The military lists these other locations as Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba; Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Jordan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Philippines; Seychelles; Sudan; Tajikistan; Turkey; and Yemen. …

www.rssnewsonline.com/rssnews/us-military-deaths-in-afghanistan-region-at-769-ap-2.html

War causes death and injury – there is no estimate of how many civilians have died in this conflict. All life is precious.

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Julian Borger
Guardian.co.uk
September 20, 2009

Pentagon told to map out radical cuts as president prepares to chair UN talks.

Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country’s arsenal …

Obama has rejected the Pentagon’s first draft of the “nuclear posture review” as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials.

Those options include:

• Reconfiguring the US nuclear force to allow for an arsenal measured in hundreds rather than thousands of deployed strategic warheads.

• Redrafting nuclear doctrine to narrow the range of conditions under which the US would use nuclear weapons.

• Exploring ways of guaranteeing the future reliability of nuclear weapons without testing or producing a new generation of warheads.

The review is due to be completed by the end of this year, and European officials say the outcome is not yet clear. But one official said: “Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president’s weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role.” …

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/20/barack-obama-us-nuclear-weapons

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