http://www.haleakalatimes.com/news/story2642.aspxI 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.
While there is plenty of blame to go around for the Superferry fiasco, the real source of the problem may lie in the mysterious condition of this loan guarantee that there be no environmental impact statement. Why would the federal government use such coercion of the purse to prevent the state from following its own laws, especially under a program that the Bush administration does not believe in?
Sean Connaughton, Administrator of MARAD testified before Congress (March 15, 2007) that the agency had not requested Title XI loan guarantees since 2001 because it viewed the program as a corporate subsidy.
However through Congressional appropriations (i.e. earmarks) MARAD funded a number of loan guarantees, the most recent of which was the Superferry.
So let’s follow the money. How were the funds for the Superferry loan guarantee appropriated? And what strings were attached to the money in that legislation? What promises or assurances were made to ease its passage?
Could Connaughton’s surprisingly alarmist declaration last week in the Maui court that “the military readiness of the Nation could be diminished if the ALAKAI is precluded from sustaining normal commercial operations” be a clue to the deals made to clinch the Superferry?
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.
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.
Kauai’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.
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