By Dahr Jamail
When one thinks of Washington State in the Pacific Northwest,
visions of lush temperate Olympic rainforests or glacial glad mountains of
North Cascades National Park might come to mind.
Instead,
what if you learned Washington State was allocating millions of dollars of its
taxpayers' money to fund an institution set up to do nothing more than lobby
for a larger military presence?
Additionally,
what if you found out that one of your elected representatives, who you were
led to believe was a liberal Democrat, had positioned herself atop said
institution, and had actively sponsored a bill aimed at allowing the
military free reign to do what it wants -- wherever it wants to
do it -- within the state, with little or no recourse for the citizens it could
impact?
In
supposedly "blue" Washington State, this is exactly what is
happening.
The
taxpayer-funded institution set up to lobby for military expansion is the Washington
Military Alliance (WMA). The politician is Washington Rep. Kristine Reeves, a
Democrat who also happens to be the executive director of the WMA. The bill she
sponsored, HB 2341 (SB 6456 in the state senate), would
have essentially handed United States military commanders control of the
state's land use powers.
"Kristine
Reeves is double dipping, although it might be legal, [by] being the executive director
for the Washington Military Alliance while proposing laws that advance the
objectives of the WMA as a Washington State legislator," Glen Milner, a
researcher with the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, told
Truthout.
"In
addition, the Washington Military Alliance gets its grants from the DOD,"
added Milner, who has been tracking the expanding militarism across Washington
State for decades. "I suppose this is just corruption at work."
While
Reeves might be progressive on many issues, she's clearly doing the military's
bidding, according to Milner.
And
while HB 2341 failed, for now, to make it out of committee -- thanks to
committed grassroots efforts by citizens concerned about their state becoming a
wider-scale military training area -- Reeves' efforts run far deeper than just
that bill.
"Washington
State residents should be concerned because the WMA sees at least some parts of
the state as a 'power projection platform' for the military," Milner
warned Truthout.
In
fact, "power projection platform" are not Milner's words, they are
Rep. Reeves' words. The lawmaker used the exact same phrase in an email to
members of Washington State's Department of Commerce. In the January 2016
email obtained by Truthout, Rep. Reeves discussed her efforts to help generate
a graphic for the deputy chief of staff at Joint Base Lewis-McCord (JBLM) in
Washington, a massive military installation south of Tacoma, to show "the
value of the strategic placement of JBLM and its dependence on the 'outside the
fence' infrastructure that creates the designation of power projection
platform."
Her
rough graphic shows four arrows emanating from Washington State and pointing
across the Pacific toward North Korea and other locations.
A "power
projection platform," a term used by both the military and the
WMA, is a hub for the combined elements of national power -- political,
economic, informational and military -- that facilitates a country's ability to
rapidly and effectively deploy and sustain forces around the world.
Please
continue this article here: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43804-washington-state-s-deep-political-and-economic-alliance-with-the-pentagon
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