Pine Gap hosts the largest CIA facility outside America, so it is reasonable to assume that crimes against humanity, such the kidnap of suspects and their transport to torture zones, have been aided by the capacities of Pine Gap. Day after day, its intelligence kills people. If you regard this is an exaggeration, visit the US Airforce website and click the link marked "airpower summary", which reveals the number of daily missions conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of these involve air strikes, around a 100 a day, or 36,500 a year, which explains why Pine Gap operates around the clock.
On a December midnight in 2005, after seeking the permission of a traditional custodian of the Arrernte land, four resolute Christians trudged across the central desert with bolt cutters. One of the party was Donna Mulhearn, whose visit to Baghdad led her to bone up on the activities of Pine Gap. The group cut through two fences, scrambled on a rooftop and unfurled their banner: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? YOUR BROTHER'S BLOOD CRIES OUT TO ME. Security guards surrounded them. One shouted, "Get on your knees"._
"That's a good idea", said one of the group, and prayed to God that the guard would one day cease his co-operation with the violence of Pine Gap. The Christians explained they had entered the base to carry out a Citizen's Inspection. (A few days before, the facility had been inspected by John Negroponte, the former US Ambassador to Iraq and Director of National Intelligence, who is now Deputy Secretary of State. Renowned for his "dirty work in Honduras" in the 1980's, Negroponte has long been accused of complicity with human rights abuses, torture and assassinations.
The four pacifists were arrested, charged with entering a prohibited area and put on trial. One of the defendants, Jim Dowling, told the jury that after Nuremberg, citizens had the right and a duty to take action against a government guilty of war crimes. "When an Apache gunship approaches a target in Iraq", noted defendant Bryan Law, "it will be receiving data transferred from Pine Gap. When a missile is directed at that target, the information will also have come from Pine Gap". (The helicopters are still at it. In March this year, six Sunni fighters from the "Awakening" movement allied to the US, were killed in strikes by an AH-64 Apache helicopter in Samarra, Iraq, their bodies loaded onto a pickup.) In March 2003, Donna Mulhearn had witnessed the results of missile strikes on civilians and she asked the jury to "honour the humanity of the unknown person whose blood is on my boots".
STRIKING AT THE HEART OF NATIONAL SECURITY
Expert witnesses called by the defense to illuminate the operations of Pine Gap were ruled inadmissible by the Alice Springs court, as such testimony was deemed contrary to the national interest. The "Pine Gap Four" were convicted and fined. The government appealed. The prosecutor demanded a jail term, stating the actions of the Christians "struck at the heart of national security". The case dragged on until March this year, when the defendants were unexpectedly acquitted because their witnesses had been prevented from giving evidence.
The trial received scant attention. The courthouse was not ringed with demonstrators. The Australian community remains uninformed about the case and its implications.
One of the defendants was interviewed on ABC radio's Law Report to discuss the legal niceties of the proceedings - not the nasty side of Pine Gap. Dream on Australia! The much-hailed withdrawal of our troops from Iraq is an irrelevant shadow play, because the cut and thrust of the terror war is orchestrated from a military base in Central Australia, impervious to investigation.
What if Pine Gap had stuck to its originally claimed role of monitoring weather? The world might have received an early warning on global warming; and the Central Desert, the soul of Australia, would not now be disfigured by an American controlled intelligence weapon of mass destruction.
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