 basis and campaigns to close them. I'm just proud to be with distinguished guests tonight, Christine Ahn of Women Cross DMZ, David Vine, author, professor, activist, as well as Robert Kiddadara. I'm going to make sure I pronounce that correctly. Hold on. Sorry. Robert Kedwar, excuse me, with the Okinawa Peace Coalition, who will be talking to us about the construction of a new marine base there is if they need another military base, right? A couple of things I wanted to just update us on before we get started, and that is that I'm sure by now many of us have read that Biden has pledged to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by September 11th. It's still not entirely clear to me whether that means military contractors as well because we know there are thousands of US military contractors there, and there are NATO troops as well, about anywhere from 25 to 100 to 1,000 US troops. CodePink did put out a press release applauding the commitment to be out completely by September 11th. So that's that. We were very disappointed to learn that President Biden has proposed a budget increase for the military by 1.6%, $753 billion, and that budget includes new nuclear weapons. I have urged some of the members of Congress to form a bloc and say we're not going to vote for this. You know, the members of the House of Defense spending reduction caucus and when Mary gets a chance she can post that in the chat. I think about 22 members. They could form a bloc and say we're not going to vote for this. We're not going to support this. And that might steer the direction of the budget process, I would think. In addition to that, there's some concerning news about Iran. I'm sure we know that Israel went in. There was an explosion a couple days ago inside a nuclear plant in Iran and a nuclear enrichment plant. The United States said we didn't plan this. We didn't approve this. It's not clear if Biden knew it was going to happen before it happened. Lloyd Austin, our Secretary of Defense, he was in Israel at the time. And the Iranian lawmakers are saying that they should suspend the talks. So this was an effort to sabotage Iran's clear deal. And before I forget, Medea Benchman is not co-hosting tonight and neither is Hania Jodad Barnes. Hania has a birthday in the family, happy birthday. So she's busy with that. And Medea, she went to Ecuador as an observer, an electoral observer, and she was on her way back passing through the airport in Miami and she's being detained there. It's not clear why. She asked why and they told her, if you want to know why, file a Freedom of Information Act request. So if you're on Twitter, check out her feed and please retweet the fact that she's being held. We wish her speedy release. Okay. I believe Mary has posted the agenda in the chat and we're going to get started. It's 5.03. We want plenty of time for our speakers. Please keep your comments to eight minutes or less. And then we'll open it up for Q&A for our three guests tonight. So first I want to introduce Christine On. My pleasure. Christine On is the founder and international coordinator of Women Cross DMZ. That's a global movement of women mobilizing to end the Korean War, to reunite families divided during that war and to ensure women's leadership and peace building. In 2015, on the 70th anniversary of Korea's division by Cold War Power, she led 30 international peacemakers across the demilitarized zone. That's the world's most weaponized border from North Korea to South Korea. Christine On is also the co-founder of the Korea Policy Institute, global campaign to save Jeju Island, the national campaign to end the Korean War, and the Korea Peace Network. Welcome, Christine. Thank you so much, Marcy. And it's a great pleasure to be with everybody, including David and Robert, who I learned from so much. I don't know if I have time at the end of my little thing, but I kind of did a hack job on a little video. I just think it's so important to bring in the images of the people that are resisting U.S. bases. So if there's time, you may have to disable the share function so that I could share at the end. But if I have time, so let's just get to it. We're at historic moment where people are making a connection between our situation at home and our policies abroad. And I think clearly this Code Pink Congress with over 100 people meeting weekly is testament to how we need to correct the endless U.S. wars. And it's so clear that we can no longer forward to invest most of our taxpayer dollars in the Pentagon at a time when we face existential crises that cannot be solved militarily, whether it's COVID, whether it's systemic racism or climate change. And so this is an opportunity for us to fundamentally reorient what makes us secure. And I think this is a very tangible issue that affects people all around the world and the 800 bases around the 800 bases in 80 countries, but also our ability and safety at home. So let me just preface by saying that I've had the fortune of working with communities resisting U.S. bases in South Korea, in Okinawa, in Guam, and here on occupied Hawaiian land. And I've seen firsthand how U.S. bases destroyed local communities and environments. As my great friend Kyle Kajahiro, who is a renowned demilitarization activist here in Hawaii, he says military bases are where the violence of U.S. militarism manifests before a war. And that is in the violence and the destruction of coral reefs and forests in farmland, in sacred sites, ancestral sites, and women's bodies around camp towns. And so in 2006, I witnessed one of the most heartbreaking struggles that forever challenged my notion of security. I traveled to Pyeongtaek, South Korea to support Korean farmers. Actually, Medea Benjen was on that delegation. We went to resist the expansion of Camp Humphreys. It's the world's largest military base. It occupies 3,500 acres, just 50 miles south of Seoul, which is the capital of South Korea. These farmers used every tactic to save their rice fields, which had been cultivated for three generations. This included grandmothers tying themselves to the roofs of their home, similar to what people do in Palestine to prevent their homes from being bulldozed. If there's time, again, I want to share this video that I made. But since then, Camp Humphreys has become a little America. It has shopping malls, golf courses, waterslides, and an 8,000-foot runway making it the, quote, busiest airfield in Asia. The threat of North Korea or Chinese aggression is always used, right, to justify more militarization, whether it's now the naval base on Jeju Island or the THAAD missile defense system that has been installed in Seongju, also in South Korea. And almost always, communities are shattered, livelihoods are destroyed, and ecosystems are completely devastated. So as we call for sunsetting U.S. military bases, especially the 300 in the Asia-Pacific region in circling China, I want to make three critical points. Number one, we need to fundamentally challenge the premise that a massive U.S. military presence abroad makes it safer. In South Korea, U.S. bases are the sites where the U.S. conducts provocative war drills, like the ones that took place last month that involve B2 bombers, nuclear aircraft submarines. These are that fly perlessly close to the North Korean border. And a recent study found that the joint war drills actually don't deter North Korea, but instead incites provocative rhetoric and actions. And that's why 400 organizations, many of your organizations, probably signed on to this call, calling for an end to the U.S. ROK war drills in order to restart diplomacy with North Korea. So if we want to avoid a war with North Korea, we must address the root cause of the problem, and that includes officially ending the 70-year Korean War with the peace agreement. In fact, our transnational feminist campaign, Korea Peace Now, released a major report that outlines how a peace-first approach can actually lead to denuclearization and improved human rights. Number two, the U.S. violence in the Asia-Pacific stemming from its 150-year history of gunboat diplomacy, colonization, wars, and now its archipelago of bases around China has had devastating consequences for Asians and Pacific Islanders there, but also here. And this is weird because I am in Hawaii, which is, you know, considered like occupied, a sovereign nation that has been occupied by the U.S. Anyway, this is critical to understand in the wake of rising anti-Asian violence, and I really want to bring in this perspective. Of the 3,800 hate incidents reported against Asian-Americans in the past year, almost 70% were directed at women. And the 20th century wars that the U.S. have has waged against Japan, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos. Those are just the overt wars. We know many covert wars as well, killed and displaced millions, but it's also triggered violence against Asian-Americans at home. During World War II, we know the U.S. government deemed Japanese-Americans a national security threat and forced 120,000 of them into concentration camps, and later dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, incinerating more than 200,000 Japanese lives. When China entered the Korean War in 1950, Chinese-Americans faced anti-communist, McCarthyist attacks that made their communities vulnerable to violence, including many Chinese-American businesses. So today, the anti-China rhetoric is adversely impacting all Asians in the U.S., because frankly, most Americans, most non-Asians, view Asians as a monolithic group. This famous case in 1982, when during the trade wars between the U.S. and Japan, two white Detroit auto workers from Mistook, a guy named Vincent Chin, as Japanese, and beat him to death. As my friend Terry Park who teaches Asian-American studies at the University of Maryland says, quote, we are constantly seen as perpetual foreigners, as never quite belonging to the U.S., as always being suspicious, and that bullseye gets larger when hawkish rhetoric ensues by U.S. administrations, end quote. So if we are to stop anti-Asian hatred here, we must recognize how U.S. foreign policy perpetuates it and end U.S. militarism and wars throughout the Asia-Pacific region. And shutting down U.S. bases in the Asian Pacific will be an important and symbolic first step. So lastly, U.S. bases across Asia and the Pacific are also sites of resistance. And that's what's, I think, really exciting right now is that we need to connect with this global movement and especially this regional movement that is protesting and calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. So Koreans, to Chamorros, to Okinawans, to hear the people of Hawaii are daring us to radically imagine what makes us secure. They don't want to be caught in the crossfire between the U.S. and China, nor do they subscribe to the vision laid out by either superpower. I think they want, we want, our humanity, our dignity, and our sovereignty. So I'm going to close with a quote. The sentiment was captured beautifully. And for those of you that were on the Quincy Institute webinar, I just really love this quote so much because I think it captures the spirit of what we're all trying and striving for. So the village leader of Pyeongtaek, that U.S. military base that was expanded, he was in prison for resisting the U.S. base expansion. And so when he was asked by the South Korean Defense Ministry for the price of his land, he replied, quote, the price will be unimaginably high. The price must include every grain of rice grown and harvested here. It must include all of our efforts to grow them as well as our whole life here, including our size, our tears, and laughter. The price must include the stars which have witnessed our grief and joy and the wind which has dried our tears. If all of these could be added, I would tell you the price, end quote. So I, I don't know, Marcy, do we have a second to show? I don't. Sure. Well, how long is the film? It's like one minute. For sure. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, but I have to, you have to disable, you have to allow me to share. Mary, can we make her a co-host? I'm in. Okay, good. Okay. It's really short, it's a minute and a half, Max. After crossing two checkpoints in South Korea, we arrived at the barn. It was dark and cold, but we were instantly warmed by the candles to villagers held in their palms. They had transformed come tech into a peace village and met there every night for a candlelight vigil to remember why, to save their community, to save their livelihoods, and to save their history. The US was expanding its military base onto their land, and they were resisting. Standing in front of the villagers, I introduced myself in my broken Korean. I told them I was very sorry that their community would be destroyed in the name of a different kind of security. Okay, that's it. Thank you, Kristina, for showing us the film that you made for being an ambassador for peace. It's hard not to cry, right? Hearing these stories, the poetry. Kristina, founder of Women Cross, DMZ, and co-founder of Korea Peace Now. Our next presenter will be David Vine. He's a professor of political anthropology at American University in Washington, DC. David's newest book, The United States of War, a global history of America's endless conflicts from Columbus to the Islamic State, was published by the University of California Press. The United States of War is the third in a trilogy of books about war and peace that David has written. The other books include Base Nation, how US military bases abroad harm America and the world, and Island of Shame, the secret history of the United States military base on Diego Garcia. David Vine is also a board member of the Cost of War Project and a co-founder of the Overseas-Based Realignment and Closure Coalition. It's a great honor to have David with us tonight. Welcome, David. Thank you so much, Marcy, and thank you, everyone, for being here tonight. Thank you, Christine, for the beautiful and moving words, indeed. As always, I feel just so lucky to be here and really want to thank CodePank, Marcy, Medea, Mary, everyone who played a role in organizing tonight. This is a moment, a really unprecedented and historic moment, to close US military bases abroad, and we must seize this moment. So, CodePank has been working on this issue for so many years. Medea has been working on this issue for so many years. Christine has, I've been working on it for a few years, and I don't think any of us have seen a moment like this, and we really need to take advantage of it, and CodePank is leading the way. I want to also just thank members of the Overseas-Based Realignment and Closure Coalition. I'll be talking about that coalition and a letter that we put together to the Biden administration, calling on the Biden administration to close bases abroad, to both save billions of dollars a year, and to improve security in the process in ways that Christine talked about. Let me, I'll actually share my screen to show a few images real quickly. And while you're doing that, I just want to mention that we did post in the chat an article that David Byn recently co-authored with Andrew Basavich of the Quincy Institute, so check it out. I just want to make this a little larger. I had an image queued up, but you saw some beautiful images from Christine's video of the struggle in Pyong Tech. Again, let me just explain a bit why I see this as such an important moment. This is a map depicting the current collection of around 800 U.S. military bases outside the 50 states and Washington, D.C., around 800 bases in around 80 countries and colonies. The Biden administration recently announced that it would be undertaking a global posture review to review the U.S. footprint, as they call it, around the world. This is an encouraging sign, but we have to take advantage of this review to call for and ensure that bases are closed and troops are returned home. A few other encouraging signs. The chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mike Milley, recently said publicly, I think we have too much infrastructure overseas. I think we have too much infrastructure overseas. Is every one of those bases absolutely, positively necessary for the defense of the United States? He was clearly questioning the need for every single base abroad, and that's the kind of careful review we need, review of every single base abroad, because any base that doesn't need to be there, I think the vast majority of them do not, at very least, is money that is not being spent to improve the security and well-being of people here in the United States and around the world, and is, of course, distracting the United States from actually the U.S. military from actually defending the United States. So the Overseas-Based Relignment Enclosure Coalition itself, I see as another encouraging sign, a sign of growing momentum across the political spectrum. This is a transpartisan group. At times, it's been radically, although increasingly common coalition spanning Code Pink and the Koch Brothers, or the Koch Foundation, Cato Institute, People of the Right, the Left, Libertarians are increasingly questioning the need to have hundreds of military bases and hundreds of thousands of troops outside the United States. This is an 80-year-old plus policy that dates to World War II and the earliest days of the Cold War, a policy that has really gone unquestioned by mainstream foreign policy experts and pundits in the media for far too long. But there are many signs of growing questioning of this status quo. Just to pick up on what Christine described, you know, this map shows how China as well as Russia, North Korea, and Iran are surrounded currently by U.S. bases. And I think we should encourage people to imagine how it would feel if the United States, if people in the 48 states or the 50 states were surrounded by Russian and Chinese bases, which of course these do not exist. David, we can't see your slides anymore. It's still stuck on the first slide. Very frustrating. I'm glad you said that. You could tell that I was advancing. Thank you. Thank you. Now it's better. Now you can. Okay. Thank you for drawing my attention to that. I apologize. I'll come back to, I think it does help to see what some of these bases look like. I'll come back to the global map of the 800 bases in 80 countries and colonies. This is a map that's pretty, excuse me, an image of a base that's pretty representative. The base is a broad range in size from city-sized bases with tens of thousands of troops and family members to lily pad bases, much smaller bases. This is, you might be surprised to know, this is Guantanamo Bay. This is, most people think of the prison. The vast majority of the base that is Guantanamo Bay looks like a small or not so small U.S. American town plopped down in Cuba. And that's indeed what many, many U.S. bases abroad look like. Little Americas, as they're often referred to, complete with suburban housing developments, fast food, playing fields, and much more. Again, 800 bases in 80 countries and colonies. It's important to point out again that this policy dates to World War II and the earliest days of the Cold War, although of course the first U.S. bases abroad were those bases on Native American people's lands. Bases across North America that helped conquer Native American peoples and nations across the continent as part of the colonization and conquest of the continent as the United States expanded in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Got a series of maps that show the expansion of bases abroad and how they have helped enable war. One of the reasons I think it's so important to seize this moment is that along with the importance of dramatically shrinking the size of the U.S. military budget, we need to close bases abroad because they have been such a pillar of war and not just in enabling war, but actually in making war more likely. Sorry, here's the World War II and you'll see the evolution of the collection of bases abroad over time throughout the Cold War. The collection shrunk after the end of the Cold War, but the actual spread of bases expanded. At the end of the Cold War, there were U.S. bases in around 40 countries and colonies today, around 80. So the total number of bases shrunk since the end of the Cold War, but the breadth of those bases has roughly doubled. Let me quickly, in my remaining couple of minutes, explain why members of our coalition are calling for the closure of bases abroad. This comes from, these are nine central reasons that, again, people in our coalition across the political spectrum have agreed upon are reasons we should close bases abroad. First and foremost, the finances. Overseas bases cost around $51.5 billion annually. That's just to maintain and frequently expand the bases. This does not include the cost of the personnel who are stationed on the bases and that would bring the total to around $150 billion a year. That's a larger budget than any government agency with the exception of the Pentagon and maybe the Veterans Administration right now. Second, again, as I mentioned, overseas bases have not just enabled war. They've made it far too easy to go to war. This has been true in the post-911 period, but it's been true throughout U.S. history. They enable and make it easier to launch all too easy for elite foreign policymakers to launch offensive interventionist wars. Third, overseas bases are increasingly obsolete thanks to technological advancements. The U.S. military can deploy its forces over large swaths of the planet with incredible speed thanks to the developments in airlift and sea lift capabilities. There's just not the reason to have troops and bases and weaponry stationed around the world as there might have once been, although I would question that assumption as well. Fourth, overseas bases, as Christine talked about this, increased military tensions. How would U.S. policymakers, how would U.S. citizens respond if China or Russia were to build even a single base near U.S. borders? There would be a call for a massive military response. And similarly, we shouldn't be surprised if Russia, China, North Korea, Iran respond to being encircled by U.S. bases by building up their military forces. Fifth, overseas bases support at least 40 dictatorial and other repressive undemocratic regimes. Far from spreading democracy, as sometimes was claimed about U.S. bases abroad, U.S. bases abroad are frequently propping up undemocratic regimes and blocking the spread of democracy. Sixth, overseas bases cause blowback. The presence of U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia, and the Muslim holy lands, one of the central justifications for Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda's attacks of 9-11, and research has shown since then that the presence of U.S. bases and troops in the Middle East in particular has actually increased the recruitment by militant groups. Seventh, overseas bases damage the environment. Military bases are not good for the environment period. Domestic, foreign, but especially bases abroad, the military frequently flaunts U.S. environmental laws or enjoys, so to speak, the ability to host bases in countries where environmental restrictions are less stringent than in the United States and takes advantage of those less stringent regulations. And there's a long track record and documented track record of U.S. bases abroad damaging the environment from South Korea to Okinawa and far, far beyond. Eighth, overseas bases damage the international reputation of the United States and generate protests. Again, Christine referred to the protests in South Korea. This is a phenomenon we see virtually everywhere there are U.S. bases abroad, protest movements pop up. And again, we shouldn't be surprised. How would we feel if we were living next to foreign troops, foreign weaponry, even the weaponry and troops of a close ally as frequently happens? And ninth, overseas bases are bad for families. They separate families. They cause family members to interrupt their schooling, their careers for a whole range of reasons. Deploying troops and families abroad or troops alone is harmful to U.S. military families. Let me just say quick, this is a whole list. I'll make these slides available as well as the letter itself, which is available on the website of the Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition overseasbases.net. It's important to point out that our call, the call of this coalition, is not one for isolationism. Instead, we're calling for building up diplomatic presence, diplomatic tools, diplomatic engagement, other forms of international engagement while we draw down abroad. This is the congressional call that I think Marcy has made available, but I will, I think, leave it there because I've probably exceeded my time already and I don't want to do that. So thank you and I look forward to the conversation discussion that will follow. Thank you so much, David. And we do look forward to accessing that on overseasbases.net. Also, if you want to post anything in the chat, I encourage you to do so. Excellent tools and resources. And yes, we are incorporating your calls to action in our capital calling party section of this Zoom tonight. And we urge everyone to stay with us. We have 154 people on this Zoom and we would love to have all of you join us in taking action and writing and calling our congressmembers and writing in White House and urging base closures. Thank you, David. Our next guest is Robert Casuar. He is both native Okinawan and native Hawaiian. He is the founder and president of the Peace for Okinawa Coalition, headquartered in Okinawa City, Okinawa. The coalition is calling for the US government to immediately halt construction of a new marine base in Hanoko on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Robert is also a musician or writer, a human rights activist who has been a regular speaker at the United Nations. Robert, welcome to Code Pink Congress and Mary if we can, there we go. Robert, maybe we can send to Robert. Hi, I'm Robert Fijo Kajiwara, native Luchuan, also known as Okinawan or Ushinanchu. I'm also native Hawaiian. Thank you so much to Medea, Jody, Marcy, Madison and all of Code Pink for inviting me today. Thank you also to Christine and David, as well as to everyone tuning in. It's an honor to be here. Before we continue, I must say that this video contains images of graphic violence and warfare. Viewer discretion is advised. I am president of Uchina Wadan Nushinka or Peace for Okinawa Coalition, a nonprofit organization founded and led by millennial Luchuans in order to promote Luchuan culture, history, languages and identity. We are based in Uchinashi or Okinawa City and we work with many other groups in Luchu, such as the Luchu Independence Action Network founded by Mr. Shigenori Yamahara, as well as overseas, particularly with native Hawaiians in our shared struggle against U.S. militarism and imperialism. Luchuans are the indigenous peoples of the Luchu Islands as recognized by UNESCO, CERD, the UN Human Rights Committee and many other scholars and organizations. Anthropologists believe we have inhabited the Luchu Islands for at least 32,000 years. We have our own unique history, culture, languages, values and identity. Luchu historically had close, friendly, mutually beneficial relations with China, Korea and Southeast Asia. Luchu was a center of international trade, finance, cross-cultural exchange and diplomacy. During the mid-19th century, the Western nations recognized Luchu as an independent country via the signing of treaties with the United States, France and the Netherlands. In 1879, Japan used its new modern Western-style military to illegally annex Luchu against the will of Luchuans. During World War II, Japan placed an inordinate amount of military presence onto Uchina, or Okinawa Island, the largest island of Luchu, with the deliberate intent of sacrificing Uchinanchu, or indigenous Okinawans, in order to protect Japan. This resulted in the battle of Okinawa in 1945, in which more than one-fourth of the Uchinanchu population was killed during a time span of just around three months. It is said that every Uchinanchu lost someone during the battle. After the war, most of Japan's other colonies regained their independence, except for Luchu, because the United States decided to keep Luchu for itself to use for military bases. The U.S. military forcefully relocated thousands of Uchinanchu from their ancestral homes in order to build military bases. Luchuans strongly opposed living under direct U.S. military rule and had no form of democracy or self-government. So in 1972, the U.S. gave Luchu to Japan without a vote from Luchuans, which is illegal under international law, and to this day Luchu remains under de facto joint occupation by both the U.S. and Japan, both of whom commit numerous human rights violations against Luchuans. There are around 30,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Uchina, plus U.S. civilian employees and their families making for a total of around 80,000. Many of these Americans commit crime, including violent crime against women and children. U.S. military aircraft are frequently having accidents, endangering the lives of civilians as well as the soldiers themselves. The military takes up around 15 percent of Uchina's land and around 30 percent of the arable land. It contributes just around 5 percent to the economy, running at a huge economic deficit. Uchina contains less than 1 percent of Japan's land area. It contains over 70 percent of the military presence. The military causes numerous major environmental problems, including the poisoning of drinking water. Now the U.S. and Japan are destroying this ancient coral reef filled with hundreds of rare and endangered species, including the Okinawa dugong, in order to build a massive new base at a place called Hinoko, located on the northern part of the island. Ms. Fumiko Shimabuku survived the Battle of Okinawa and has dedicated her life to helping ensure that the horrors of the war are never again repeated and that future generations of Uchinanchu can live in peace. At 92 years young, she has literally taken a stand against the military base construction. She and many other Uchinanchu regularly do sit in demonstrations against the military. However, they are forcefully removed by Japanese riot police. The overwhelming majority of Luchuans or Uchinanchu strongly opposed the military presence and are calling for demilitarization. We would like to once again make Luchu a center of peace and prosperity. I'm just about out of time for today, so I'll end here. If you would like more information, please check out our website, peaceforokinawa.org. Thank you again to everyone and I'll see you next time. Thank you, Robert. Don't leave us yet. I really appreciate the slides and learning the history of the island. Right now, I'm going to ask Mary if you can, please put all of the three, our three guests in the gallery so then we can take some questions from the chat. I'm going to encourage people if you have a question to post your question in the chat. We have three guests and Christine is also with us. There we go. Great. I have a question for Robert. Robert, to what extent have you organized opposition to this new marine base on Hinoko? I read about a petition that was delivered as well. Yeah, so the U.S. and Japan have been planning on building this base for around two decades. So it's been going on for a long, long time, even since I was a little kid. But Uchi Nanshu have always strongly protested this. So there's always been a lot of organization. I personally, in December 2018, I started a petition against the construction of this base. It has over 212,000 signatures on it. So there's massive resistance, around 80%, if not more, of the population the military presence. Thank you. I really appreciate hearing about all that. We don't get a lot of news about the resistance or the base in general over here, mainstream corporate media. Question for David. Tell us about the coalition you're involved in. Who's involved and have you met with the Biden administration? Where are we at with all that? So we haven't met with the Biden administration yet. We would love to have that opportunity. We do need more friends in Congress. And specifically, as you might have seen on the slide of the congressional calls or asks, we're hoping that Congress will hold hearings investigating the collection of US bases abroad and troops abroad in the interest of closing them. But we believe we have a greater chance of closing bases now than in quite a while. And I should just mention real quickly that bases have been closed, often thanks to local movements like that in Okinawa. The US presence in Okinawa has shrunk in size over the past roughly two decades, thanks to the protest movement. And under the George HW Bush administration, the Clinton administration, and the George W. Bush administration, hundreds of bases were closed in both Europe and Asia. And we have to build on that example to have it happen again. Absolutely. There's precedence. Christine, can you tell us about the impact of US military bases on South Koreans and their desire for peace with North Korea? Where are we at with local grassroots drives for peace between South Korea and North Korea and South Korea? It's a great question. And South Korea is kind of going through a really, I would say, some political complications because of COVID and domestic politics. But during the period of fire and fury, as most Americans remember, when the Trump administration was preparing a bloody no-strike on North Korea, that's when we saw a historic engagement between the North and South Korean leaders, Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in. And Moon Jae-in was, in fact, ushered into power because of a candlelight revolution, which is kind of an Arab spring that sprung up in South Korea to protest the corruption of the previous neo-conservative administration of Kalkunhae. And so there was a historic agreement that was signed, the Panmunjom Declaration. It was a commitment by the Korean leaders representing the interests. Eight out of 10 South Koreans wanted a peace agreement with North Korea. They want an end to the Korean War. And unfortunately, the US has been the obstacle to that progress. The US, which is under the guise of the UN command, which is really the US forces in Korea, for example, blocked the train being linked that had not run in 70 years. And they wanted to link it at the place actually that we crossed the DMZ in 2015. They blocked South Korean businesses from restarting economic cooperation. So that's a really important point, I think, to bring to this audience is, yes, we have to make a push. And I think the pushback we will get from our congresspeople is, well, our bases are needed because of provocative actions like from North Korea or from China. And I think we have to push back and say, actually, that is the will of the Korean people. They want an end to the Korean War. They want an end to this kind of division that has made South Korea, essentially, an island. And that every country that has been involved in the Korean War has almost normalized relations. South Korea has normalized relations with China. And the US has normalized relations with China. And China supports a peace agreement. And so it's actually the US is the lone wolf here in not supporting peace. And I think the division of the DMZ is so symbolic. We're coming upon the sixth year anniversary of our historic crossing of that DMZ. But it's also that Cold War division that is or that division of the DMZ that is further intensifying the Cold War divisions that exist. And I think we have, as the peace movement, as the anti-militarism movement, we really have to be building this archipelago that exists around US bases. We have, I mean, we are doing this now, virtually on this call with Robert and David and all of us. But it's like we really, you know, yes, Biden is agreeing to close down bases in Afghanistan. But that's because there's a long trajectory that started with Obama, with Hillary Clinton, you know, with the pivot to Asia, right? So they want to move most of the bases from the Middle East, and they want to move them to the Asia Pacific region. And that is all because they want to go to war with China. I mean, you know, that's a very blatant and maybe bold thing to say. But that is all the US military economic political apparatus is basically shifting towards that outcome. That Biden was clear about that when he proposed his $753 billion budget that all eyes are on China. That's something we think back on very strongly at CodePink. Totally. Madison Tang, China is not our enemy campaign. Check it out. I think David wants to see something. Yeah. Just real quickly to pick up on what Christine was saying, Catherine Lutz, a fantastic scholar and activist on bases cost of war project director, has said that US bases abroad are foreign policy written into concrete. The base that Christine described before at Pyong Tech is an $11 billion base. What sort of commitment does the United States, does the US government have to peace when we build an $11 billion base on South Korean soil? It suggests that the military has no intention of leaving anytime soon. We have to change that. Absolutely. Here's a question from Rachel Bronke. What outreach has any one of your groups had with US global environmental groups? How can we help with that effort? Who would like to take that first, Robert? Any relationships with US global environmental groups? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, the, you know, the issue of Hinoko has long been drawing alarms from international environmental groups. But unfortunately, the US and Japan, the governments, they just completely ignore it. So America, especially, they love talking about the environment. You got saving the environment that the Democrats love, giving nice lip service about the environment. But that's all it is. It's all lip service. We've personally met with dozens of members of the US Congress multiple times. They've completely ignored the issue. Well, I think as we approach Earth Day, we have to urge our allies in the climate movement to make this a centerpiece of their conversations, right? That military bases pollute our land, our air, our water. I mean, in the United States alone, I looked up on Wikipedia, there are 143 superfund sites related to the military. I can imagine what it is abroad, right? Okay, let's see. David, do you want to add something? I did once already. So we should get to more questions. I can fold it in. Sorry. I'm sorry. I do want to quickly respond because there was, sorry, I'm having a midlife brain problem here. But maybe David or Robert remembers, but there was the International Environmental Conference. I forgot what it's called, but it's like the hugest one. And it was actually taking like five miles away from Kang Jung, which is the base, the naval base that was established. I mean, you know, South Korea says it's theirs. But when I was organizing against it, several of us, including Bruce Gagnan, we had called the South Korean Embassy in Washington, and they said, don't call us, call the State Department, because they're pressuring us to build the base. And so it was incredible to me how the environmental movement was willing to have this base or willing to have this conference five miles away from this place that was the source of the water supply for the southern part of Jeju Island, where they were endangered species, where there was like contiguous lava rock that was basically being blasted to build this massive military base. And I just think we have to engage with the environmental movement, because as we know, the US military is one of the worst climate polluters. And this is the violence that is wreaked on the environment through these bases. Yes. And I just wanted to add, I've been working with a great group of veterans, veterans for peace, and they have a climate working group, check it out on their website. I believe some of them will be meeting with Clive and Envoy John Kerry coming up to talk about centering militarism in the climate talks, but it's not just with the John Kerry, right? We need our allies and the environmental movement to do that as well. One last question, and then we're going to move to our action-oriented segment of the Zoom tonight. And the question is, who are the beneficiaries? What's at stake in maintaining a military security system? Who's profiting from all of this? Who wants to go for that one? Name names, companies? Yeah. Yeah, I can do that and something I've written about. But yeah, then part of the reason the status quo has been the status quo for so long is that there are people benefiting. There are major corporations, military contractors who make money, maintaining bases on a daily basis, building the bases, and the bases entrench themselves in the local political economy. So often while there are large protest movements, there are also people who are effectively bought off by the bases. They have jobs on the bases, local companies get the contracts, not just U.S. corporations. So they do become difficult to uproot. But one more important point about the politics of all this, unlike domestic bases where there is the BRAC process, the base relignment and closure process that involves Congress and base closures, the Biden administration can close bases abroad today or tomorrow. They don't need Congress's approval. Now, Congress can be helpful in putting pressure on the Biden administration to, for example, freeze the construction at Hanoko and freeze all new military construction funding in the next fiscal year budget. But the Biden administration can do it alone. Thank you. That's very important. And we will be sending that message tonight when we send our emails to the White House. We really do have to close because we want to get on the phone and take action. We've heard a lot and I appreciate the guests, all of you being with us tonight, Christine Ahn of Women Cross, DMZ, David Vine, author of Base Nation, and Robert Kajawara, Peace for Okinawa Coalition. And I encourage our guests, if you want people to know anything else or contact information, please post that in the chat. Okay. So now we're going to unmute and I would like everybody to thank our guests and express your gratitude. Thank you very much. It was great, everyone.