Looking at the Tip of the Spear
Looking at the ‘tip of the spear’ How U.S. Military policy in Guam, a proposed “mega build-up” and population displacement are destroying the island and its people. by Craig Santos Perez June 6, 2014 The Hawaii Independent GuÃ¥han (Guam), an unincorporated territory of the United States, is the largest and most populated island in Micronesia. For a local comparison, GuÃ¥han is larger than LanaÊ»i yet smaller than MolokaÊ»i. Similar to OÊ»ahu, U.S.military bases occupy a third of GuÃ¥han’s landmass. Kanaka Maoli activist and scholar Kaleikoa KaÊ»eo once described the U.S. military as a monstrous heÊ»e (octopus). Imagine Pacific Command headquarters as its head, the mountaintop telescopes as its eyes, and the supercomputers and fiber optic networks as its brain and nerve system. Now imagine one of its weaponized tentacles strangling GuÃ¥han: “The Tip of the Spear.” In 2009, details of a military “ mega-buildup ” on GuÃ¥han were released in a dra