The People Who Harvest The Flowers

So I'm sitting here in my office enjoying a deliciously refreshing scallop beer while reading my RSS feeds when I stumbled across a post with the above image. Any idea what you're looking at? Large scale art installation? Photoshop magic? Nope, what you see is a time-lapse photo showing the paths of multiple impact re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) deployed by a 2005 test firing of a US Peacekeeper missile. One ill-named "Peacekeeper" can hold up to 10 nuclear warheads, each independently targeted. Were the warheads in the above image armed with a nuclear payload, each would carry with it the explosive power of twenty-five Hiroshima-sized weapons.

Overkill doesn't fully capture the notion of a rain of nuclear hell of this magnitude falling from the sky. But I guess my limited imagination is what has kept me from a lucrative career at Raytheon or the Department of Defense.

And where was this test carried out? Kwajalein Atoll in the former US territory but now Republic of the Marshall Islands. The image accompanied a story about how U.S. Air Force bombers will use the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll today for target practice. "The air-to-surface weapons are nothing more than steel casings filled with concrete and contain no hazardous material,” an Air Force statement said about today's exercise at Kwajalein. The target practice is “designed to give the aircrew valuable feedback on procedures and function of their delivery systems,” the Air Force said. The Air Force said its bombers are targeting the ocean area near two uninhabited islands in the boomerang shaped atoll.

Kwajalein (a Marshallese name meaning the people who harvest the flowers, a reminder that the islet was the site of an abundant flowering tree from which great bounty flowed) is one of the world's largest coral atolls as measured by area of enclosed water. Comprising 97 islets, it has a land area of approximately 16.4 km², and surrounds one of the largest lagoons in the world, with an area of 2174 km². Like many small Pacific island nations, Kwajalein suffered mutiple occupations over the years. Prior to World War II, the Japanese military, seeking to solidify its Micronesian presence, conscripted Korean and Japanese laborers together with resident Marshallese to build fortifications throughout the atoll. Many resident Marshallese underwent forced repatriation under Japanese occupation. Eventually, Kwajalein islanders were forcibly moved to live on some of the smaller islets in the atoll.

Following an intense and bloody battle in 1944, Kwajalein was claimed by the United States and "liberated" from Japanese rule. While some Americans mistakenly claim that Kwajalein was "taken back" by the United States, the Marshall Islands had never been a United States territory prior to the initiation of the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands that followed World War II. Though the Marshall Islands became an independent republic in 1986, Kwajalein Atoll is still used by the United States for missile testing and various other military operations. Today, the population of Kwajalein island is approximately 2,600, mostly Americans and a small number of Marshall Islanders and other nationals, all of whom have express permission from the U.S. Army to live there.

Because of the Military Use and Operating Rights Agreement (MUORA) signed between the United States Army and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the US military can conduct weapons testing in predetermined areas of Kwajalein Atoll until 2016, with the option to use Kwajalein through 2066, renewable through 2086. For all this "use," the US agrees to pay traditional landowners $15 million annually. Practically all land in the Marshall Islands is private and inherited through one's mother's bloodline and clan. But like so many areas where traditional land rights are observed, clear recognition of ownership is rare. As a result, ownership disputes are common. Until ownership can be resolved, the US deposits land use payments (nearly $4 million each year) into an escrow account.

And here's the catch. A consensus appears to be building among the Marshallese people to put an end to the kind of US military dominion that exists today in Kwajalein Atoll and other islands. However the escrow balance is being used as a leverage point to pressure Kwajalein and other Marshall Island residents into signing off on the 2086 military use extension date. If they do not agree by the end of 2008, the escrow balance will be returned to the US Treasury. Dirty pool. The US military doesn't appear to have any intentions of leaving Kwajalein anytime soon. Stay tuned to see how this develops.