Canada joins US (and Israel) in Pacific war preparations

Peace seekers joined Indigenous activists outside Pearl Harbor, last month to protest the US military occupation of the island and the start of the destructive Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC 2026) war games taking place there from June 24 to July 31.

Hosted by the Commander of the US Pacific Fleet, the war games include Israel, a rogue state currently committing genocide in Gaza, invading Lebanon, and illegally attacked Iran.

The Liberal government has dispatched two Canadian frigates, HMCS Ottawa and HMCS Regina, the sole functioning Canadian submarine – HMCS Corner Brook, the supply ship Asterix, a CP-140 Aurora patrol aircraft, two Cyclone maritime helicopters and 800 military personnel to participate in the war games organized by an ever more aggressive United States.

“Canada Expands Indo-Pacific Presence with Major Contribution and Leadership Role at RIMPAC 2026,” boasted the Canadian Defence Review (CDR) in the runup to the war exercises.

This at a time when most Canadians see the US as the main threat to global peace.

Prior to RIMPAC 2026, members of the Five Eyes spy network – US/Canada/UK/Australia/New Zealand, gathered in Esquimalt for a week-long Cyber Mission Assurance exercise, heralded as “strengthening coalition readiness for RIMPAC 26.”

US dominance in the war games comes from its massive military presence in the Pacific. A small portion is deployed at RIMPAC, including the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, a guided-missile cruiser – USS Chosin, four US destroyers, and two submarines including the USS Charlotte.

During the Israeli/US illegal war on Iran, the Charlotte gained notoriety when it torpedoed and sank an Iranian frigate, IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka. The IRIS Dena, reportedly unarmed at the time, had been participating in joint naval exercises hosted by India at the time. Over 100 of its crew perished in the unprovoked attack.

The US bolsters its Pacific power by mobilizing its allies and RIMPAC 2026 has 30 contingents from around the world including a number from Europe, including Germany and Spain. US power is not dependent on NATO, however, but has long relied on the Five Eyes (US/UK/Canada/Australia/New Zeland) as well important allies such as Japan and South Korea.

Thus, in the leadership of RIMPAC we find a Canadian Air Force brigadier general, J.S. Davis acting as the commander of air forces; a Japanese rear admiral, Takuo Kobayashi acting as vice commander of the combined forces; and rear admiral In-Ho Kim of the Korean Navy acting as the maritime component commander.

The theme of the US-sponsored war games, “Partners: Integrated and Prepared,” suggests that the Canadian government has no qualms at further integration of Canadian forces with those of the US in the Pacific.

The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) has been especially vocal in criticizing RIMPAC, declaring that they are enmeshing Australia ever more closely into the United States’ preparations for a war with China.

That agenda was spelled out in an exclusive Hawaii News Now interview with the commander of the US Pacific fleet, Stephen Koehler. Koehler stated deploying “combat capable forces throughout the region is a main part of our mission here, as the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and China specifically works to build out a change in the global order here to their benefit.”

IPAN and others contest that premise. “‘We are not facing any threat to regional stability and security from China, our major trading partner. Rather, it is the ongoing US and Australian provocations in the South China Sea that represent the real danger,” stated IPAN spokesperson, Dr. Alison Broinowski.

Around the Pacific, activists of the Pacific Peace Network took on RIMPAC 2026 in a webinar facilitated by Ann Wright, a reservist with the US Army for 29 years who retired as colonel and was a diplomat for 16 years before resigning in 2003 in opposition to the US war on Iraq.

Among the keynote speakers was Pastor Ray Minniecon, an Indigenous elder and founder of Scarred Tree Ministries in Australia. His roots lie with the Kabi Kabi and Goreng Goreng peoples in Queensland, and Ambrym Islanders of the south Pacific.

Elder Minniecon recounted points he made in an essay he wrote after Mark Carney visited Australia earlier this year. The old international order never respected Indigenous peoples, stated Minniecon, yet the disintegrating order represented a new danger that threatened recent achievements, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

However, Minniecon warned against Carney’s recipe of strengthening middle powers as a means of contending in a new world order. “The future global system that ignores the custodianship of Indigenous peoples over lands, waters, oceans and ecosystems will fail not only morally but ecologically. Indigenous knowledge systems remain among the most effective frameworks for protecting biodiversity, sustaining ecosystems and maintaining balance between human societies and the living earth.”

The post Canada joins US (and Israel) in Pacific war preparations appeared first on rabble.ca.

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