Australia’s Secret Military Base: The Pine Gap ‘Stealth’ Anniversary Party

‘On July 25, a Defence spokesperson insisted that, “The Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap is proud to commemorate its 50th anniversary. However, celebrations are restricted to site personnel and invited guests only.”
Power without perusal; might, without scrutiny.
The Australian press corps haven been subjected to a drip feed process over the years about what, exactly takes place at the US base, hungrily consuming morsels like indigent urchins. This is a “joint” facility in name only, but it does have Australian personnel running the low-grade coffee errands. Vassals have their uses, and should be reminded of them.
The Nautilus Institute for Security and Instability has been keeping a keener eye than most on this, notably through the eagle-eyed Richard Tanter. In an introductory overview on Pine Gap, its ongoing, updated report on the base notes the following:
“Pine Gap is perhaps the most important United States intelligence facility outside that country, playing a vital role in the collection of a very wide range of signals intelligence, providing early warning ballistic missile launches, targeting of nuclear weapons, providing battlefield intelligence data for United States armed forces operating in Afghanistan and elsewhere (including previously in Iraq), critically supporting United States and Japanese missile defence, supporting arms control verification, and contributing targeting data to United States drone attacks.”’
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