Demonstrations get minimal attention from American news outlets

At the start of April, an unnamed Irish citizen scaled the top of a U.S. C-130 Hercules aircraft stationed at Shannon Airport in County Clare, Ireland, and damaged its wing along with the fuselage by means of an axe, resulting in $75 million worth of harm.

This bold move formed part of ongoing demonstrations at Shannon Airport, which has served since the conclusion of the Cold War as a key transit point for American soldiers along with refueling and stopover locations for CIA and U.S. military aircraft, including those involved in moving detainees to Guantanamo Bay via the controversial rendition initiative.

Edward Hogan regularly joins the actions at Shannon Airport and served as a main presenter during a June 6 online session organized by Global Women for Peace-United Against NATO, intended to highlight expanding resistance to American military sites across Europe and globally.

A past member of the Irish armed forces and UN peacekeeper, Hogan noted he has faced arrest on eight occasions during actions near Shannon Airport, with the events expanding due to widespread frustration over Ireland's role in the Israeli actions in Gaza and the Iran conflict, in addition to earlier unlawful U.S. and NATO operations such as those in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Serbia during the 1990s.

Hogan stressed that permitting U.S. forces to utilize Shannon Airport has breached a neutrality stance enacted into legislation by the Irish authorities in 1939.

From 2002 onward, over three million American troops have transited Shannon Airport, frequently via flights labeled as civilian, even though most troop transports are run by Omni Air International, which the Irish authorities confirm has received clearance to transport arms aboard.

Moreover, the Irish Foreign Minister has approved landings by U.S. Navy and Air Force planes at Shannon, breaching Irish regulations.

Hogan's comments were followed by those of Ilse Terheggen, a Dutch punk rock performer and campaigner, who addressed expanding actions she participates in near the Leeuwarden Air Base in Friesland close to Leiden.

Terheggen explained that Leeuwarden Air Base serves as a primary NATO facility hosting a NATO quick-response unit along with U.S. and Dutch F-35 Lightning stealth aircraft and helicopter squadrons, with American forces integrated into operations there.

Residents near the site have grown weary of the intense sound from military drills and jet operations, which she described as a constant recall of the fatalities and hardship inflicted by the U.S. and NATO through their offensive campaigns.

Some of the public outrage arises from harmful ecological impacts stemming from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a hazardous foam whose components persist in the environment and build up in nearby soil, groundwater, animals and aquatic life.

Terheggen noted that Leeuwarden essentially acts as a sacrifice area for nearby inhabitants whose soil and water face contamination to enable NATO to pursue its offensive and damaging conflicts.

When experts examined a waterway beside the Leeuwarden site in 2024, Terheggen reported PFAS concentrations reached 900 times the permitted threshold. Elevated PFAS amounts have also appeared in additional local waters along with fish and chicken eggs eaten by residents. Since the Netherlands lacks suitable facilities to eliminate the PFAS, the waste must be transported to Belgium.

Terheggen concluded her presentation by covering protest activities at the base and sharing verses from a track she created for demonstrations in June.

The track's refrain states: NATO power is tearing up the peaceful skies, Fighter pilots ready to destroy thousands of lives, American war-heads authorize the threat, More pollution, more weapons, more war, more murder, more profit.

The opening presenter at the session, Sung-Hee Cho, addressed the U.S. militarization of Jeju Island off the southern coast of South Korea, location of a significant U.S.-backed killing just before the Korean War, and how Hanwha Systems, South Korea's top arms firm, has lately constructed a space facility in the center of Jeju Island in Seogwipo.

This facility has drawn protests since it will support creation of space-based satellites launched by rocket to aid U.S. intelligence and military efforts.

Campaigners have pointed out that Hanwha Systems has prior ties with Israeli firms and aided in the killing of Palestinians, while continuing to raise its share value via arms sales abroad.

The new space facility sits roughly a 15-minute drive from the Jeju Naval Base, which operates as a U.S. outpost against China and a sea-based launch site. The closeness of the two sites indicates that a setup merging space industry and military infrastructure is now fully developing on Jeju.

Besides these issues, worries exist over pollution of drinking water from the new space facility along with other negative ecological consequences, providing further grounds for the demonstrations.

The second presenter at the session, Corazon Fabros, co-president of the International Peace Bureau, explained how her nation, the Philippines, now serves as a foreign trip-wire state for the aggressive U.S. military approach aimed at China.

The Filipino population, she noted, faces treatment as disposable barriers that could be pulled into a conflict and superpower competition they never selected. Billions of dollars flow into war drills in the Philippines while public services face cuts and hardship grows.

Fabros stated that Filipinos achieved removal of U.S. military sites from the Philippines in 1991 but, under a decade later, the U.S. forces returned and now conduct large-scale military drills called Balikatan while operating from Filipino military sites that are expanding under current President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.

CovertAction Magazine earlier covered how the Biden administration supplied $100 million to Marcos Jr.'s administration to upgrade at least nine Filipino military sites the U.S. can access, in addition to four naval locations near disputed waters in the South China Sea.

Those steps prompted demonstrations from Filipino activists who stated they did not want their nation to act as a footstool for American power projection and provocation aimed at China.

Related to these matters, Fabros described how the Philippines has joined a tech partnership between the U.S. and other Southeast Asian nations called Pax Silica coordinated by the U.S. State Department, with the goal of developing supply chains apart from China.

Progressive activists are organizing against Pax Silica since it will justify expansion of the U.S. military footprint in the Philippines, together with increased extraction of the Philippines' natural resources and funding for AI and weapons sectors.

The Philippines ranks as the fifth most mineral-rich nation globally, holding an estimated $1 trillion in undeveloped deposits of copper, gold, nickel, zinc and silver.

The activist Action Network revealed the launch by President Marcos Jr. and U.S. officials of a 1,600-hectare AI center in the Luzon economic corridor in Clark City under Pax Silica, which will run large data facilities and handle critical minerals while further tying the Philippines into the U.S. military-industrial system.

A farmers' organization in the Philippines opposing Pax Silica called it a massive sellout of the Philippines's land, minerals, and sovereignty and war production disguised as so-called development. Fabros noted that she and many other Filipinos reject Pax Silica because they refuse to let their land become a colonial outpost for the U.S. once more.

The third presenter at the session, Liz Remmerswaal, a New Zealander, discussed demonstrations near the Waihopai Station spy facility in the Southland region, utilized by the U.S. National Security Agency as part of the Five Eyes surveillance network, along with actions outside weapons shows halted in 2018.

Peace campaigners are also starting efforts near a rocket lab constructed on Maori land in Mahia Peninsula by a California-based firm (Rocket Lab), backed by the New Zealand government, that holds agreements with the U.S. Space Force.

The Mahia lab launches rockets carrying satellites into orbit for BlackSky Technology, Capella Space and HawkEye 360 that serve various roles for the U.S. and Israeli military intelligence. The satellites feature shortwave infrared scanning enabling imaging at night and through clouds.

A Maori woman, Sonya Smith, from Mahia who presented at the session, said locals referred to the staff at the rocket lab as the men in black.

Smith added that the common view in Mahia holds that the New Zealand government betrayed its citizens by permitting a de facto U.S. military site into New Zealand secretly while marketing it publicly as a commercial rocket lab.

The following presenter, Margie Pestorius from Australia, addressed demonstrations aimed at the military site at Darwin, used by the U.S. Air Force, outside the large military intelligence surveillance hub at Pine Gap, and at Perth, which serves as a center for submarines.

The recent wave of actions stems partly from concern that the U.S. plans to employ Australia as a staging area for potential conflicts in Asia, with the Australian government having consented to host U.S. Marines and missile submarines under the AUKUS pact (Australia, UK, U.S.).

The USS Vermont is a nuclear submarine that docked in Western Australia, whose arrival triggered demonstrations from peace and environmental organizations.

They stated they did not want to spend billions of taxpayers money on nuclear submarines and turning our beautiful Cockburn Sound into a massive new U.S. base and did not want to get dragged into supporting the next illegal war or genocide pushed by the USA.

The next presenter, from Italy, highlighted Italy's hosting of several dozen U.S. thermo-nuclear gravity bombs despite the Italian Constitution rejecting war in a 1975 provision.

The U.S. maintains five major military sites in Italy, which have sparked growing public resentment amid opposition to the Iran conflict and U.S.-Israeli actions in Gaza. In March, two U.S. Navy helicopters landed in the center of a World Heritage Site in Sicily, prompting a response from regional mayors and fresh rounds of protest.

Sophie Bolt from England observed that the rise in military spending backed by the current Labour government under Keir Starmer is highly unpopular, as shown in May elections where the Labor Party performed poorly. Starmer has since resigned. It lost parliamentary seats to new progressive parties promoting anti-militarism and peace, though the far right is also gaining backing, Bolt said, by using public frustration.

Britain currently hosts 19 U.S. military sites which it provided to the U.S. after World War II, and relies on the U.S. for its nuclear weapons systems.

When British Green Party leader Zack Polanski stated that, if the U.S. decides to take Greenland, it would close down all U.S. military bases, 55% of the British population said they agreed with this stance. Some 61% of the population also said they were against nuclear weapons and 70% of the population was against the Iran War.

Much of the peace activism in Britain has focused on the Lakenheath base, the largest U.S. air base in Britain, which hosts a new generation of U.S. nuclear bombers that were secretly delivered there last summer in an operation uncovered by activists who tracked their presence.