Bruce Gagnon / The Times-Record & The Foreign Press Foundation & Karl Grossman – 2006-10-25 23:19:46
http://www.timesrecord.com/website/main.nsf/news.nsf/0/C050C743FB13EB370525721
New Bush Policy: Weapons in Space
Bruce Gagnon / The Times-Record
(October 24, 2006) — The White House has just released the new US National Space Policy from the Bush administration. The new document makes several policy departures from past space doctrines. They include:
• Calling for the deployment of offensive weapons systems in space to “deter” and “deny” others the “use of space.” This is a very provocative notion and will give the Pentagon the green light to put anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons in space that would be able to destroy other countries satellites.
• Saying the US will “oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit US access to or use of space.”
• This means that the US is now on record as being totally opposed to the development of an international treaty at the United Nations that would ban all weapons in space. The treaty, annually promoted by Russia, China and Canada, seeks to close the door to the barn before the horse gets out. The US and Israel have been blocking such a treaty since during the Clinton years.
• The Bush administration military doctrine today calls for “preemptive” attack and “unilateral actions” around the world to protect corporate interests like oil and other diminishing resources.
Thus we saw the 2003 “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq and now hear talk that a similar attack on Iran might be pending. The administration now says that it will no longer be bound by international treaties which would “inhibit” Bush’s ability to strike at any time and any place on the Earth. Space technology, says the military, becomes crucial to US ability to create “full spectrum dominance.”
One of the first things the Bush administration did once in office was to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia that limited the development and deployment of weapons in space. It is thus no surprise that George W. Bush now comes forward with this new national space doctrine that tells the Pentagon to move ahead with Star Wars.
A key reason for America’s desire to kill the UN’s space weapons ban treaty negotiations is that the military-industrial complex views space as a new market. The weapons corporations have been saying for decades that Star Wars will be the largest industrial project in the history of the planet Earth. Both Democrats and Republicans get the message and understand that their corporate sponsors want them to leave the door open to a new costly and destabilizing arms race in space.
One other key element of the new Bush space policy is the expanded use of nuclear power systems to “enable or significantly enhance space exploration or operational capabilities.”
What this means is that the aerospace industry wants to establish mining colonies on the Moon, Mars and other planetary bodies and they want to power these bases with nuclear reactors. The military has also long been saying they need nuclear reactors in space to provide power for space weapons systems. So the nuclear industry also plans to utilize space as a new market for increasing corporate profits.
Just weeks ago, from Oct. 1-8, peace groups around the world took part in our annual Keep Space for Peace Week of local actions. Protests, teach-ins, video showings and other activities were organized in order to help expand the consciousness of the people of the world about the need to move now to protect space from a new arms race.
Not only will putting weapons in space be expensive, but it will also be incredibly destabilizing for the world. Already we see the tragic growth in the nuclear arms race on Earth. Will arming the heavens with weapons make us safer? Absolutely not.
The time has come for the American people to call on Congress to cut funding for the research and development of Star Wars technology. Let’s use our hard-earned tax dollars to fund health care, education and environmental clean-up here on our home planet. Let’s work now to prevent another maddening arms race from happening before it is too late.
Bruce K. Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. On the Net: www.space4peace.org
BUSH SIGNS NEW POLICY EDICT CALLING FOR US CONTROL OF SPACE: THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, SO NOW “US” MEANS “USURPING SPACE”
The Foreign Press Foundation
(October 19, 2006) — After US President George W. Bush signed away more basic human rights through his draconian Military Commissions Act Of 2006, he moved on this week to signing another unbelievable law: this time claiming outer space for the US, to be enforced by a new military service, the “US Space Forces.” [1]
And once again, his notion of US “diplomacy” is to order other nations to support this hegemonic US policy, or else.
Therefore, the insane usurpers in Washington are surge forward with their hijacking of US foreign policy: the world is not enough, so now they lay claim to outer space. As front-man for this neocon cabal, George “The-Man-Who-Would-Be-Emperor” Bush has just signed a new law concerning “National Space Policy” which claims the US “right” to hegemony over the entire universe, including space. [2]
Furthermore, the cabal managing the US has announced that it “rejects anything that limits the US power in space,” and asserts the right to deny access to space to anyone “hostile to US interests.”
So . . . let’s see if we lesser earthlings outside the US have understood this latest American edict correctly: now “you are for us or against us” in outer space too?
FREEDOM: LOST IN SPACE
Their new policy statement declares in its introduction: “Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power.” Freedom for whom? Bush has now signed a “space law” that has nothing to do with “security issues” but everything to do with establishing US military power over the entire universe. “From outer space into your place” is their threat.
According to their usual official denials, “the US is not planning to bring weapons into space”–and that may be correct because many are already there! And they are overtly lying because new Pentagon space weapons are being developed which will be launched.
The Washington Post [3] writes about this “far out” might-makes-right claim but–just like the rest of the US propaganda pundits–it doesn’t ask the logical question: By what legal “right” does the megalomaniacal cabal think it can usurp outer space for itself, and deny access to space to anyone it deems “hostile to US interests”?
After all of the US wars of aggression, global atrocities, and yesterday’s slaughter of the Writ of Habeas Corpus and the rest of the American constitutional jurisprudence, people in the rest of the world couldn’t have dreamed of the Bush cabal descending into deeper madness. But now they have surely crossed the Rubicon. [4]
The Pentagon militarists and the Washington neocrazies have officially, and by their own new space law, announced that their greedy goal is to “enable unhindered U.S. operations in and through space to defend our intere sts there”! Of course, by “defending our interests” they mean “to get rid of any competition” for the loot.
US SPACE FORCES: NOW THE EMPIRE WANTS BASES THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE
Bush is usurping space in accordance with his neocon cabal’s “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC), about which Wikipedia states the following [5]: “The PNAC and its members also propose to control the new ‘international commons’ of space and ‘cyberspace,’ and pave the way for the creation of a new military service — US Space Forces — with the mission of space control.
In 1998, Donald Rumsfeld chaired a bipartisan commission on the US Ballistic Missile Threat toward advancement of these goals.”
RUMSFELD RECOMMENDED DEVELOPING SPACE WEAPONS
And then in 2004, Rumsfeld’s so-called “Counterspace Operations Doctrine,” which the US Air Force tabled, called for ”a more active military posture in space,” and rather ominously stated that protecting US satellites and spacecraft may require “deception, disruption, denial, degradation and destruction.”
Four years earlier, a congressional commission led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recommended developing space weapons to protect military and civilian satellites. [6]
Critics of the United States’ troglodytic concept of international relations especially take umbrage at the PNAC’s unabashed advocacy of maintaining their nation’s privileged position as world’s sole superpower.
Contrastingly, the more enlightened European critics assert: (a) that the fall of the Soviet Union indicated a welcome end to the era of “superpowers”; (b) that any concept of the military hegemony of one ascendant superpower is overrated and archaic; and (c) that military might is not power in itself because it requires huge financial commitments, strong domestic and international support, plus skillful management, to even be considered worthwhile.
They see this US edict as representing yet another disturbing step towards total world subjugation by the neocon managers. This sick cabal is motivated by a primitive militaristic imperialist policy of global expansionism: dominance through fear of genocide by their war machine, and now through a counterproductive new arms race in space.
SPACE WEAPONS CAN BE USED FOR OFFENSE AS WELL AS FOR DEFENSE!
Philip Coyle — who served as the Pentagon’s top weapons tester from 1994 to 2001 — was quoted in an interview with the Boston Globe [7], that he sees a ”new emphasis on space weapons,” even though ”there is no threat in space to justify a new arms race in space.”
”US missile defense is the first wave in which the United States could introduce attack weapons in space, that is, weapons with strike capability,” Coyle said. ”Once you’ve got space-based interceptors up there, they can just as well be used for offense as defense.”
“From outer space into your place”–that is the neofascist threat the American leaders have announced. And they don’t mean Internet or cable-TV service delivered via satellite. [8]-[12]
If you ask people outside the US, they will tell you that everyone laughs scornfully when your sadistic dictator Bush call others “fascists.” He just keeps getting stranger, and his cabal keeps getting scarier, so they cannot help but doubt the sanity of the US leadership.
And they will tell you that the disgusting things they are doing to our world — like this greed-driven push for US hegemony over everyone and everything, including outer space — is why the neocon cabal and its front-man don’t deserve to survive. The world’s people implore you to get rid of them in November! [13]
ENDNOTES:
[1] Susan Goldenberg’s 10-19-06 Common Dreams/Guardian (UK) article, “Bush Issues Doctrine For US Control Of Space”: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1019-07.htm
[2] Google search results 1-10 for recent articles on the Bush administration’s new “National Space Policy”: http://tinyurl.com/yhzw4o
[3] Mark Kaufman’s 10-17-06 Washington Post article, “Bush Sets Defense As New Space Priority: U.S. Says Shift Is Not Towards Arms; Experts Say It Could Be”: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR200610170148 4.html
[4] “Space Weapons: Crossing The U.S. Rubicon,” by Bruce DuBlois, Richard Garwin, Scott Kemp and Jeremy Marwell, in International Security (Fall 2004, Vol. 29, Issue 2) [The US plans to significantly increase its military activities in space, including the deployment of space-based weapons and defenses. However, these experts conclude: (a) that US national security interests would be better served by an international regime which bans space weapons; because (b) the utility of space weapons is constrained by three major factors–high cost, considerable susceptibility to countermeasures, the availability of cheaper and more effective alternatives.]: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=17168&ttype=6
[5] Read Wikipedia’s entry about the “Project for a New American Century”: http://tinyurl.com/2rp4c
[6] Right Web’s 5-21-04 article, “Profile of the Rumsfeld Space Commission” [In January of 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld chaired the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization. This article explains who was behind Rummy’s Space Commission, and what they argued for in Orwellian style.]: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/2820
[7] Boston Globe’s 3-14-06 article, “Pentagon Eyeing Weapons In Space: Budget Seeks Millions To Test New Technologies”: http://tinyurl.com/yyovkj
[8] Leonard David’s 6-17-05 Space.com article, “Weapons In Space: Dawn Of A New Era” [The White House is now delving into US military space policy. US Air Force plans for future wars in space.]: http://www.space.com/news/050617_space_warfare.html
[9] See NuclearFiles.org’s webpage “Space Weapons: Basics On The Weaponization Of Space.” [Click on the buttons to read the basics, the history, and the issues, about the weaponization of space.]: http://tinyurl.com/ykx56x
[10] Taylor Dinerman’s 5-9-06 TheSpaceReview.com article, “The Bush Administration And Space Weapons” [This hawkish author argues that “Neither the Canadians through NORAD nor the Europeans through NATO should be allowed a serious say in US space policy.” None of its allies want the US to develop space weapons, but the neocon cabal is nonetheless pursuing its control-freak imperialist policy of “space supremacy,” ostensibly so the US can establish sole-and-exclusive control over outer space, which means they can exploit all of the potential sources of wealth in the entire universe.]: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/368/1
[11] Karl Grossman’s 6-99 FAIR.org article, “The Phantom Menace: Space Weapons Aren’t On Media Radar” [“The US military’s plans to control space and the Earth below by placing weapons in orbit are explicit and extreme–and go unnoticed by the media.”]:
http://www.fair.org/extra/9905/phantom-menace.html
[12] “Space Security,” a forthcoming book edited by John Steinbruner (MIT Press, December 2006), addresses the ongoing US attempts to militarize space:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10850
[13] Dr. Richard Franklin’s 10-19-06 ThePeoplesVoice.org essay, “Growing Global Madness Fueled By Insane US Cabal: Neocons Back In The Saddle Again”: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2006/10/19/p11637
Bush Opens Outer Space to Combat
Karl Grossman / MinutemanMedia
(October 25, 2006) — It was issued quietly: 5 p.m. on the Friday before the long Columbus Day weekend, a release seemingly designed to get little notice. But what it involved deserves major attention: a new US National Space Policy that could set the stage for the heavens being turned into a battleground.
For decades, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 has shaped how nations approach space. Developed by the United States, United Kingdom and Soviet Unio — and now ratified essentially by all the world‚s countrie — the landmark agreement sets space aside for peaceful purposes.
But the United States became uncomfortable with the treaty in the 1980s during President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” program. That discomfort was marked in the 1990s by US opposition to efforts (still ongoing) led by Canad — and including Russia and Chin — to ban all weapons in space; the treaty only bans weapons of mass destruction.
There were bellicose declarations in the 1990s, too, from the US Space Command speaking of “dominating the space dimension of military operations to protest US interests and investment.”
Moreover, as George W. Bush took office, a commission chaired by his defense secretary-to-be, Donald Rumsfeld, spoke of how “in the coming period the US will conduct operations to, from, in, and through space to support its national interests.”
Then the Bush administration began revising the US National Space Policy as issued by President Bill Clinton. A front-page, lead article in “The New York Times” last year reported that the US Air Force was “seeking President Bush’s approval of a national-security directive that could move the United States closer to fielding offensive and defense space weapons.”
It told of how one “Air Force space program, nicknamed Rods from God, aims to hurl cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to destroy targets on the ground striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles an hour with the force of a small nuclear weapon.”
The new policy does not explicitly declare the United States will now move ahead with such space weapons — but it opens the door.
“Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power,” it asserts in its introduction. Under “National Security Space Guidelines,” it says, “United States national security is critically dependent upon space capabilities, and this dependence will grow.” So the United States will “develop and deploy space capabilities that sustain US advantage.”
Also, the 10-page policy says the United States “will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit US access to or use of space.”
Further, the policy authorizes the use of nuclear power overhead to “enhance space exploration or operational capabilities… The use of space nuclear power systems shall be consistent with US national and homeland security, and foreign policy interests.”
Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, speaks of the document’s “very provocative language…. This is the kind of talk that will create a new arms race in space, clearly just what the military-industrial complex wants.” And, he says, “Bush’s new space policy enshrines the rejection of an international treaty to ban weapons in space.”
The vision of the Outer Space Treat — to set aside space as a global commons and to prevent the armed conflict that has marked human history on Earth from extending into the heaven — would be altered by the new US policy.
The United States sees its potential military supremacy in spac — and seeks to take advantage of this. But that’s similar to the US attitude in 1945 when we had the atomic bomb and no one else did. It will not take long if space is opened up to war for other nations, notably Russia and China, to meet the United States in kind. We still have an opportunity now to adhere to and strengthen the Outer Space Treaty and, with verification, continue to keep space for peaceful purposes.
Or we can turn the heavens into a war zone and a place for nuclear activity. We are at a crossroads. The policy must not be slipped through quietly. The people of the United States must have a voice and there should be wide public discussion on this fateful decision.
Karl Grossman, journalism professor at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, wrote and narrated the award-winning TV documentary: “Weapons in Space: The Nuclearization and Weaponization of the Heavens.” www.envirovideo.com
