| Close the Bases Stop the Exercises End the Wars
Up to 30,000* US and Australian troops will be practicing bombing, landing and raiding at Shoalwater Bay in Central Queensland – just north of Rockhampton- in the NT and in WA as part of Australia-US Joint Military Exercises Operation Talisman Sabre 2009 from JULY 6 – 26 this year. When will TS09 be held? Australian and US forces assigned to Talisman Saber 2009 will begin to concentrate from 6 July 2009. The period between the 6 – 12 July will be used to conduct workup and force integration training to allow the armed forces of Australia and the US to act as a single cohesive and coherent force. The live phase of the Exercise will conducted from 13 – 25 July 2009. Approximately 30,000 personnel from the Australian and US forces will be participating in TS09 although this number will fluctuate depending on tasks. This number includes the crews of the naval units and the personnel supporting military aircraft. In the lead up to TS09, a number of planning events and tasks will see an increase in military personnel in some areas around Australia. Where will TS09 be held? TS09 will be held at a number of different locations around Australia, primarily in Queensland, Northern Territory, and the Coral Sea. Key sites include the Australian Defence Force’s Shoalwater Bay Training Area, Townsville Field Training Area, Cowley Beach Training Area, Bradshaw Field Training area, Delamere Range Facility, and RAAF Bases Tindal, Darwin and Townsville. There will also be a number of support sites which will be used for staging and other activities including airports in Queensland and Northern Territory (RAAF Townsville, Rockhampton, Brisbane and RAAF Darwin); Port facilities in Queensland (Brisbane, Gladstone… Some info about TS09 @ http://www.defence.gov.au/opEx/exercises/ts09/index.htm ) What’s on in Brisbane:
Peace Convergence Working Bee and Meeting Date: Weds June 24 , 2009 Brisbane Peace Convergence WORKING BEE and MEETINGs will take place EVERY WEDS from now until the Peace Convergence. More info: 0411 118 737 Brisbane Peace Convergence Banner Launch Date: Thursday 25 June Time: 11am Place: Kangaroo Point A crowd would help. Bring a placard, wear a hat for peace. Bring light refreshments. Tea will be served from the Peacebus.com street cafe afterwards. Weather permitting. Peace Convergence Banner Blessing Date: Sunday 28 June Time: 5pm Place: St Mary’s in Exile at TLC- 16 Peel Street South Brisbane Film Screening and Public Meeting Film: Scarred Lands and Wounded Lives: The Environmental Footprint of War Guest Speakers: Dr. Sue Wareham, OAM & Judith Le Blanc (more info below) Date: July 7, 2009 (Tues) Time: 7pm Place: LHMU Building 27 Peel St South Brisbane (just 2.5 blocks from South Brisbane station) Dr. Sue Wareham, OAM President of Medical Association for the Prevention of War, the Australian affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. Judith Le Blanc: Native American activist & Organising Co-ordinator for the US peace group United for Peace and Justice. Judith will be in Australia to support the campaign to stop US –Australia war games.
What’s on in Shoalwater Region:
July 3-5 Committed 2 Change Festival @ Byfield
Want to come up to Rocky?
Book for Rockhampton camping: Copy and paste the following into an email and send to nuclearfreequeensland@yahoo.com.au If you would like more information contact: For Transport from SEQ (Paul): sillyus@gmail.com Mobile: 0403 666 547 For Transport or info from other regions see contacts list below. Get involved!
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Blockade of Rockhampton Army Depot Servicing Talisman Saber 09
http://indymedia.org.au/2009/07/06/blockade-of-depot-supplying-talisman-sabre-war-games-2009
Guardian – Biggest U.S. Offensive (“Strike of the Sword) in Afghanistan in 5 years underway today
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/02/us-offensive-against-taliban-helmand
First British Commander to be Killed in Combat since the Falklands
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/02/british-regiment-commander-killed-afghanistan
Guardian Interactive Guide to new “Strike of the Sword” offensive
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2009/jul/02/afghanistan
Catholic Workers to Resist Military Excercise & Af/Pak War
Talisman Sabre 09
http://www.defence.gov.au/opEx/exercises/ts09/index.htm
is a biennial exercise that involves 20,000 U.S. & 7,000 Australian troops, fighter jets and warships, it is taking place in July in central Queensland, Australia.
Australian complicity in the U.S. war on the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan includes the present deployment of 600 Australian (SAS, Special Ops and infantry) troops in Afghanistan, detention in Australia of Afghani refugees fleeing the war and daily targeting information for U.S. bombardment coming from the U.S. N.S.A Pine Gap near outback Alice Springs.
Long time Australian Catholic Worker peace activists Jim Dowling and Ciaron O’Reilly are preparing to travel to the Talisman Sabre exercises in central Queensland, Australia to carry out nonviolent resistance to the war machine they see killing again in Afghanistan.
O’Reilly and Dowling first met in custody in 1978 during the anti-nuclear/ civil liberties struggles under the corrupt and authoritarian Joh Bjelkle Petersen Queensland government. By 1982 they were living and working at the Catholic Worker community in West End Brisbane and have since carried out nonviolent resistance together to nuclear war preparations, the war on East Timor and in the opening days of the war on Afghanistan.
Jim Dowling presently works and lives outside of Brisbane on the Peter Maurin Catholic Worker farm with his wife Anne and their seven children. He was one of the Christian Against All Terrorism group that broke into the secretive U.S. N.S.A. Pine Gap base near Alice Springs http://www.pinegap6.org/blog2. html to carry out a citizen’s inspection during the recent war on Iraq.
Ciaron O’Reilly spent a year in U.S. prisons as one of the ANZUS Ploughshares convicted of damaging a B52 Bomber in New York on the eve of George Bush Sr.’s war in 1991. O’Reilly was also part of the Pitstop Ploughshares arrested in Ireland in 2003 and charged with $2 1/2 million damage to another U.S. war plane en route to George Bush Jr.’s invasion of Iraq. The group was acquitted of all charges unanimously by an Irish jury in 2006.
O’Reilly stated, “Talisman Sabre is a $250 million exercise in futility. Talisman Sabre is not a game or an exercise it is a fantasy – a war theatre with no civilians! Most of those being killed by American, Australian and Pakistan militaries are innocent civilians, most fatalities have been women and children. The Af/Pak War is presently escalating and expanding. These Talisman Sabre exercises are siginificant preparations for more killing.
The Australian involvement in the war on Afghanistan is now eight years old. U.S. and Pakistani military involvement stretches back over 30 years, from arming and funding the Taliban to now attempting to destroy their own creation with an expanded war against the Pushtun people of northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan. Ten Australian troops, hundreds of British and U.S. soldiers and thousands of Afghani civilians have been killed, millions of Afghanis and Pakistanis have been made homeless or forced to flee into exile.
Talisman Sabre occurs at a time of major escalation in the war under the Obama and Rudd administrations. The Australian military has a long history of running off to American wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan that have nothing to do with the defense of Australia. By killing more civilians, with the hi tech war machine on display at Talisman Sabre, we will be creating more terrorism and terrorists. It is important to put our bodies on the line in nonviolent resistance to this deadly cycle”
*Grana, 12, is the sole survivor of a coalition bombing in southern Helmand province that took her arm and her leg, and killed nine members of her family
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/jun/25/afghanistan
*Background on Jim Dowling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Dowling
*Background on Ciaron O’Reilly
-Enough Rope interview with Andrew Denton http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1666150.htm
-wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciaron_O‘ Reilly
Ciaron O’Reilly
Blog http://ciaron.wordpress.com/
“The poor tell us who we are,
The prophets tell us who we could be,
So we hide the poor,
And kill the prophets.”
Phil Berrigan
Dear Friends
Operation Talisman Sabre begins in days!!!
Click on a detailed Program of events for the Peace Convergence
Some photos of the Riverside Tourist Park at Rockhampton can be seen at http://www.caravanparkphotos.com.au/rockhampton_riverside/
[See http://www.caravanparkphotos.com.au]