I just hope that Australians will very soon wake up to the way that this country is becoming locked into being part of Gearge W. Bush's USA "defence" system. I use inverted commas here, because it is getting increasingly clear that, with the USA's missile bases being set up around the world, with the "new generation" of nuclear weapons in the pipeline, with the doctrine of "pre-emptive strike" - well, other countries are getting nervous.
Five new US bases are planned in Australia - that looks awfully like five new targets!
Add to all this the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership - locking Australia into leasing uranium, (so receiving back international wastes) and Australia becomes an attractive target for terrorists, and an object of suspicion and fear to our near neighbours.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

How can Australians become more aware of the dangers implicit in our relationship with the US imperium? Our media consistently ignore any references to the 735 military bases the US maintains in over 130 countries around the world. Chalmers Johnson's latest book Nemesis provides some terrifying insights into the instability unleashed on the world, not just in the last decade but increasingly over the last forty years by US expansionism.

The first two comments are from anti-US ravers looking for any opportunity to have an anti-US rave. The author of the article is primarily appealing for the environment. I hope the comments following this one realise this.

Healthwatcher uses the same old tried and tested, (but obviously false) argument. If you can't logically answer someone's statements - well then - you just ignore the content - and go for the personal attack!
Well done, Healthwatcher - but people are waking up to this old tactic - you'd do better to actually discuss the US military expansion!
Christina Macpherson
www.antinuclearaustralia.com

i quite enjoy healthwatcher, with belly and runner together, i can form an opinion on what ozzies think. discouraging, but better to know.

i don't have much sympathy for you either, chris. 100-1 you voted for a politician in the last election, and called it your "democratic duty".

but the way i look at it, when you vote for a politician, any politician, you are consenting to be ruled by whichever one comes top of the heap. your vote legitimizes howard, even if you despise him. consequently, you're just as guilty as howard at selling out australia.

if you were a citizen, instead of a subject, you would vote for initiatives, referenda, even recalls, as they do in california. they call that their democratic duty. unlike you, they know what democracy is.

You can hardly blame the Yanks for using Australia as a toilet, not when our lickspittle PM wets himself everytime Bush II mumbles his name.

Myself I wonder if former Liberal leader and armaments salesman Andrew Peacock will get a commission on every depleted uranium missile fired into Queensland & NT. Who said theres no money in nuclear waste?

So, this clown has a mind capable of condemning a set of future actions in 2007 based on the activities of one partner's Grandfather between 1945 and 1968?

The most important attribute of SWB for both the Australian and US military is it's very wild, undamaged, nature. The adverse impacts of training operations on an area of that size are minimal. The fact that it is large enough to allow "fallowing" of areas so they can recover is another important value that both countries understand the importance of preserving.

Our own State Labor governments routinely sign off on housing developments that cause the permanent loss of habitat of a character and scale that dwarfs anything that is likely to impact on SWB.

And I can state, first hand, that it has been the essence of good military field craft since at least 1960, if not much earlier, to vacate an occupied site leaving as little evidence of your units presence as possible. Any tiny piece of information about the unit's occupation of a site is useful "intelligence" for an enemy. Even the location and size of a field latrine has been subject to detailed prescriptions as to distance from creeks etc, for more than 50 years. And I can recall, even at school cadet level in 1970, making certain that there was no visible evidence of our unit's occupation of a site before we left it.

I have minor doubts that US units may not follow this doctrine as thoroughly as Australian units but the fundamental training imperative still applies. SWB is not, as the author claims, a designated chemical dump. It is a training area of unrivalled value to not just the Australian and US mailitary, but also our Singaporean and other allies.

So get back to the mud pies, Bozo. There are feral pigs doing more damage to Byfield National Park than a whole Company of soldiers will do to SWB next door.

Perseus bores us with his boys-own fantasies, perhaps he should have read the article first. Bishopric cites the contamination and illness in Guam and Puerto Rico, I think Subic Bay (former USAF base Clark) in the Philipines deserves a mention too http://www.safetyforum.com/mtw/ . But i'll bet Perseus still will see no evil, mindless obedience is like that

perseus, the trees may grow back, but getting further enmeshed in american foreign/military policy doesn't appeal to me. i think that's the point here. are you afraid of indonesia? they haven't invaded anyone lately. i am afraid of the yanks- they have, often.

when the kiwis told the yanks to move on, the sky didn't fall. what is so hard about following their example?

So, Demos, SWB is just a surrogate for your political preferences. The training facility has nothing to do with it. They are our allies, so is Singapore, we share things with our allies. New Zealand only got away with severing links with the USA because they still had backdoor access via Australia. And whether you like it or not, most Australians like to bitch about the US but most also understand the importance of the common ground we share.

And most of us have much more in common with the average American than we do with some of the bombed out blog wonkers that tend to frequent this forum from time to time.

the 'common ground' being queensland. when the exercises are held around canberra, will the pm be even more polite to our great and good friends? if the exercises were held inside canberra, as they are in bagdad now, will you still love them, perseus? unconditional love, is it?

I travelled to Yepoon in early 2006 to interview some of the local people about SWB. The management of the area before and after it was used by the military was a hot topic. One local (Alby Wooler) who worked with Landcare was seriously concerned about the lack of consultation re: the management of the area. Basically He was concerned that the Department of Environment has granted a blanket approval for all future joint training exercises (under the Environmental Protection & Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999) to be conducted by the US & Australian government without any independent Environmental Impact Study.

As Steve said in his article:

"Recently the Australian Government changed the way it administers Environmental Protection Legislation, removing the usual need for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for all ADF and foreign military training and infrastructure development in SWBTA if the ADF deem it unnecessary. The EIS is replaced by a Public Environmental Reports (PER), commissioned by the ADF, paid for by the military, reviewed and released by the military."

I think this a serious issue, regardless of where you sit on the fence politically there are a number of threatened species that live and breed in the area i.e. dugongs, turtles, birds. While the locals have been making alot of noise there has been very little said in the media or in parliament. We need to speak up

Don't try on that crap Misha. Exactly which threatened species are there? And exactly how does a bunch of soldiers on manouvres pose a threat to these species, and what is the recovery rate and period after these impacts, if any?

The major threat to Turtles are Dingos digging up their eggs. Even on manouvres it is generally not good practice for soldiers to hang about on a beach where they are easily detected. Landing Barges are big and slow and pose no threat to Dugong.

Dear Perseus
have a look at the Peace Convergence web site www.peaceconvergence.com for photos of bombs going off in the bay where dugongs whales and other marine life live. NIMBY syndrome for the wildlife rules!!
Also worth looking at are the Youtube contributions from past midnight oil drummer Rob Hirst and film maker David Bradbury under a search of peaceconvergence.
annette

I agree that what is happening at SWB is environmental vandalism as is all military training

but fortunately for locals surrounding SWB the actual impacts are a long way from their homes

at Lancelin DTA in WA the americans are also training doing live ATG bombing just 8km from homes of locals. They fly over homes loaded with bombs and drop them just seconds later

the same lack of environmental assesments applies and despite evidence from Vieques that 8 MILES (14km) is NOT far enough away the govt refuses to admit there is any danger to health at Lancelin

NOTE residents near Lancelin are actually CLOSER that those in Vieques and their are already signs of high rates of cancer in the area

and the environmental damage here in a DTA of only 26000h is horrific .. in an area that is (was) part of one of the top 25 biodiversity hospots in the world

you may have notice that "officially" the US trains only at SWB Bradford and Dalesmere ........

me thinks Lancelin is conveniently forgotten as the govt knows full well we are being sacrificed

Australians are fools if they cooperate in any way with George W. Bush's USA administration. Bush and his administration have shown repeatedly that they don't care about the environment, global warming, or any views of anyone other than their own small group of ideologues. The best way the rest of the world can help us US citizens get rid of this mentally unstable man is by refusing to cooperate in any way with him and his administration .

It's very unfortunate that some people don't realise what a dangerous world we live in and the fact that you cannot wave flowers and give hugs to make hateful people like you. If it weren't for the horrible consequences, I almost wish the U.S would pull it's troops back home and let the world deal with the crazy, hateful people on their own. I understand the environmental concerns posed by such a large military exercise; I don't understand the anti-US people who obviously have no clue what would happen to the free world if the U.S. went and stayed home.