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Fall 2003 IRAQ
WAR: SPREADING U.S. VALUES & DEMOCRACY? Now that George W. Bush and his cast of neoconservative operatives have successfully waged war on Iraq, the long occupation begins. Instead of finding weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the Bush team is changing the rationale for the war, using Iraq as the key to transforming the region. In late July, Deputy Secretary of War Paul Wolfowitz said on national TV that “the battle to secure the peace in Iraq is now the central battle in the global war on terror.” Administration sources outline a long-term strategy in which the U.S. will spread its values (chaos and plunder) throughout Iraq and the Middle East. Before the recent war began Bush was often
heard to say that the U.S. would “remain in Iraq as long as necessary
and not a day more.” It has
become necessary for the U.S. to permanently remain in Iraq because
of oil. Documents turned over to the public interest
group Judicial Watch, in their lawsuit concerning the activities
of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields,
pipelines, refineries and terminals dated March 2001.
Also made public were two charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas
projects. It is obvious that in Cheney’s controversial
private meetings with oil industry representatives soon after taking
office, the Bush-Cheney administration then began making plans for the
hostile takeover of Iraq.
Saddam has of course been a key friend of
the U.S. for a long time. In
1959 Hussein was part of a CIA team that was given the job of assassinating
then Iraqi Prime Minister Qasim. In
the early 80’s the U.S. “relationship” with the brutal dictator culminated
with the warm hand shaking visit of Donald Rumsfeld, then an agent of
the U.S. government, sent to deliver satellite battlefield intelligence
and chemical weapons for Hussein’s war with Iran. In order to justify the current war for
oil, the Pentagon, under the direction of Donald Rumsfeld, brought relentless
pressure to bear on the CIA to produce intelligence reports supportive
of war with Iraq. Former CIA
officials have recently begun to speak out about the systematic campaign
of the Bush administration to create a false case for their preemptive
war. Just prior to war, former senior CIA official
Vincent Cannistraro said, “There is tremendous pressure on the CIA to
come up with information to support policies that have already been
adopted.” THE
SECOND SPACE WAR
Another key reason for the war was to test out the new “integrated”
war fighting capability that advances in space technology provide. “We talk about Desert Storm being the first
‘space war,’ but I’d call this the first real space war – where
we have truly integrated ‘space’ throughout the battle space, in ways
we’ve never been able to do before,” says Brig. Gen Larry Jones, commander
of the 50th Space Wing at Schriever AFB. Colorado. Never before had space systems been used
so widely and continuously for combat support in a war. Hundreds of soldiers sat at computer monitors
and giant screens showing every ship, tank and aircraft in the Iraqi
theater. Over 50 satellites,
controlled primarily out of Colorado Springs and Denver, orchestrated
the entire battle. The Air Force’s Milstar satellite system
was instrumental in controlling the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV), directing the Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles to their targets,
and coordinating clandestine communications for Special Forces on the
ground. Overall, there were more than 1,000 inter-operable
Milstar computer terminals being used, many of them in Iraq.
“Fighting units…are starting to coalesce around these capabilities.
As they exploit all the capacity we have in space systems, the
incremental gain in combat effectiveness is huge,” says one U.S. Iraq
war commander. Like the 1991 Persian Gulf war, this current
Iraq war allowed for the real-time testing of new weapons systems. The super-secret Lockheed Martin Skunk Works
in California built and tested a new UAV called DarkStar. The super stealthy pilot-less plane gave the
U.S. the capability to “dwell” over a target area for several hours
at a time. Pentagon analysts are already digesting
all available information about how their weapons systems performed
in anticipation of the “next space war.”
As in the first Persian Gulf War, a controversy has erupted concerning
the performance of the Patriot air defense system – part of Theatre
Missile Defense (TMD). Patriot
battery crews shot down two planes during the height of the war
– one American Navy F-18 and a British Air Force Tornado.
The response of the House of Representatives in Washington was
to give the Pentagon even more money for Patriot research and development! MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN
In July the Senate voted 95-0 to approve a Pentagon budget of $368.6
billion for 2004. That does
not include the $4 billion a month that Secretary of War Rumsfeld says
the U.S. will spend in Iraq, doubling an earlier Pentagon estimate.
Included in the overall Pentagon budget will be $9.1 billion
for Star Wars research and development, matching the Bush administration
request. Star Wars funds were shifted from long term
programs to more near term priorities.
Patriot, THAAD, and Aegis naval Theatre Missile Defense (TMD)
systems all received increases while some cuts were made in the ballistic
missile defense interceptor and space based laser programs. The Pentagon plans to ramp up military spending
to over $430 billion by 2009. A
newly released study prepared by arms control groups puts the total
life-cycle cost for a layered Star Wars system at nearly $1.2 trillion
by 2035. Currently Department
of Defense (DoD) programs account for the majority of federal spending
in nearly every state of the union.
The U.S. now accounts for 43% of worldwide military spending. BLACK
BUDGET PROGRAMS
In a new book called The Hunt for Zero Point, respected military
journalist Nick Cook talks much about the “black” (the Pentagon’s secret)
budget. For 15 years Cook has
been a defense and aerospace writer for Jane’s Defence Weekly,
which some consider the bible of the international weapons community. Cook spent the last 10 years researching secret
military programs in the U.S. and believes that over $20 billion a year
is spent on these programs outside the purview of Congress. Cook states, “It (black programs) has a vast
and sprawling architecture funded by tens of billions of classified
dollars every year. The
height of its powers was probably in the Reagan era.
But is has not stopped since then.
In fact, under the Bush administration it is having something
of a resurgence.” “Stealth technology is a primary example…research
into anti-gravity technology…has been going on for quite some time.” Cook traced the roots of the U.S.’s secret
programs back to the Nazi scientists brought to the U.S. after WW II
in Operation Paperclip. He
states, “We know the size and scope of Operation Paperclip, which
was huge. And we know that the U.S. operates a very deeply
secret defense architecture for secret weapons programs…it is highly
compartmentalized…and one of the things that’s intrigued me over the
years is, How did they develop it?
What model did they base it on?
It is remarkably similar to the system that was operated by the
Germans – specifically the SS – for their top-secret weapons programs.” “What I do mean is that if you follow the
trail of Nazi scientists and engineers who were recruited by America
(1,500 were smuggled into the U.S. by the military) at the end of the
second world war, the unfortunate corollary is that by taking on the
science, you take on – unwittingly – some of the ideology…What do you
lose along the way?” CREATING
EMPIRE
Building empire is meant to serve the interests of a ruling elite much
more than the people of a particular nation.
It has nothing to do with supporting democracy. In September, 2000 the Project for the New
American Century, headed by the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, John
Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, and Jeb Bush, issued a controversial report
called Rebuilding America’s Defenses.
The report declared that “at present the U.S. faces no global
rival. America’s grand strategy should aim to preserve
and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible.”
To achieve this, the report concludes, it will be necessary for
“the American security perimeter” to be expanded by establishing
new “overseas bases” and forward operations throughout the world. The Bush administration, prior to the U.S.
invasion of Iraq, ordered the implementation of a new military doctrine
– preemptive military strike. The
idea of full spectrum dominance, that the U.S. will dominate
every level of conflict (land, sea, air, and space) is a construct for
applying force with the overriding objective of controlling the will
and perception of a potential adversary.
In this regard the U.S. is developing global strike capabilities
that will include new hypersonic cruise vehicles capable of taking off
from a conventional runway and striking targets 9,000 miles away in
less than two hours. Flight
testing of these new weapons is expected in 2008. Bush has also instructed the Pentagon to
begin planning a shift of U.S. troops from traditional bases like Germany
(where today the U.S. has 60,000 soldiers deployed) to smaller bases
in the “Gap,” places like Central Asia, Africa, Balkans, Eastern Europe,
South America or the Asian Pacific region, where corporate globalization
is weak or non-existent. “We
are re-analyzing our footprint,” says Gen. James Jones, commander of
U.S. troops in Europe. Wars for scarce resources like oil and
water are the plan for the future.
But as we are seeing today on the ground in Iraq, it is difficult
to put a U.S. soldier on every street corner of the world in order to
control territory for corporate interests.
Thus the “new American way of war,” says Joint Chiefs
of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Meyers.
Clearly, advanced technology will be the cornerstone of this
new way of “modern warfare.” The only way to achieve this end of course is to spend, spend, spend
so that no other competitor can match the U.S. war machine. Thus we find in Congress, with more millionaires
elected than ever before, a near consensus on this U.S. role of global
empire. Just one illustration is the Bush administration
review of national defense policy on “space control.” There will not be big changes from his predecessor’s
plan. That’s because Bill
Clinton quietly crafted a much more aggressive stance than previously
thought on space issues. Publicly
Clinton acted as if the Pentagon’s space force options were limited. But the national policy, established in secret
some time during 1996 gives the Pentagon wide latitude. Says one Air Force officer familiar with the
secret policy, “There’s not much they can’t do.” According to James Roche, the U.S.A.F. Secretary,
America’s allies would have “no veto power” over projects designed
to achieve American military control of space. The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO),
the super secret spy agency that is responsible for U.S. military satellites,
has been given the job to develop a strategy that ensures America’s
allies, as well as its enemies, never gain access to space without U.S.
permission. And to carry out the mission of “negation”
the Pentagon is also now creating the replacement for the unstable space
shuttle fleet. A $4.8 billion
development program is now focusing on the “military space plane,” with
the Air Force crowding NASA out of the picture.
A fleet of space planes will be designed to attack and destroy
future satellites of enemies and rivals.
A prototype is expected by 2005 with deployment envisioned around
2014. In a computer war game, held at the Air
Force’s Space Warfare Center at Schriever AFB in Colorado this
past spring, the U.S. practiced such space “negation.” The war game, set in the year 2017, pitted the blue team (U.S.)
against the red team (China). Its
scenario was fairly complex, incorporating several “opportunities for
conflict in southwest and southern Asia.”
Unlike the last such game in 2001, this year’s version urged
participants not to get “bogged down in discussions about space law
and policies, which disrupted the game’s military operations,” reported
Aviation Week & Space Technology.
This time around the ABM Treaty with Russia was no longer in
existence. SPACE WEAPONS BAN
ELECTION
TIME DEPLOYMENTS Bush is calling for deployment of six NMD
missile interceptors in Alaska, and four in California, by September
30, 2004. Ten more are due in
Fort Greely, Alaska by 2005. The
$500 million Alaska silo construction project is run by Boeing and
Bechtel corporations. The
big problem for Bush’s deployment plan, to be carried out just prior
to the 2004 national elections, is that the testing program of
the interceptor missiles is not going well.
In addition to the fact that the hit-to-kill mechanisms are proving
unreliable (trying to have a bullet hit a bullet in deep space), the
booster rockets that are supposed to launch the “kill vehicle” into
space are months behind schedule in development. The Bush solution to the problem has been to
suggest that future testing should
be done in secrecy. Each of these Missile Defense Agency (MDA)
tests cost over $100 million. Boeing
was recently promised a $45 million bonus if it could carry out a successful
test, but failed to do so. In fact Boeing has other troubles. Last January, two Boeing managers stationed
at Cape Canaveral, Florida were charged with conspiring to steal
Lockheed Martin trade secrets involving another Air Force rocket
program. Despite such fraud, delays, cost overruns
and technology problems the U.S. House and Senate continue to grant
the Pentagon virtually every penny they request for Star Wars. In 2004, $9.1 billion will be awarded to the
MDA for space weapons research and development. Protests continue at Fort Greely, organized
by the Fairbanks-based peace group called No Nukes North. In June folks gathered for the second annual
peace camp near Fort Greely. A congressional report in June warned that
the Bush administration drive to erect a nationwide antimissile system
by next year is hampered by immature technology and limited testing,
raising the risk of failure.
The General Accounting Office (GAO) report also criticized the
Bush team for refraining from making long-term cost estimates for many
elements of the planned system, clouding decisions about what technology
to pursue. NASA SHUTTLE DEBRIS: WHAT WAS ON
BOARD?
Headlines in the media like NASA’s Eroding Safety; Echoes
of Challenger; and Slamming Shuttle Safety were seen for
several months after the February 1 Columbia shuttle reentry
accident. Over $200 million was spent on the debris recovery
mission that lasted until April 1.
NASA announced that more than 50% of the prime crash site had
been thoroughly searched. The
federal government has pledged nearly $2.4 million to 54 Texas counties
and $396,000 to the state of Louisiana to cover their costs in support
of the search operations. Just what was NASA looking so intently for?
According to Reuters news service, searchers were given
a picture of a faceplate from a mystery object which said “Secret
Government Property.” The
corporate controlled media told the public that the Columbia mission
was studying bugs and moss. We’ve
since learned that the Israeli and Indian astronauts were doing military
experiments on-board – remembering that their two nations are key allies
in the U.S. Star Wars program. Immediately after the doomed shuttle flight
accident that rained debris over at least four states, NASA instructed
local authorities to keep people away from the scene because radioactive
“contamination” was likely in the area.
Special radiological teams wearing haz-mat suits and using
Geiger counters were seen on national TV taking readings of children
and elderly people who had come in contact with the debris. Several local sheriffs were heard on national news saying they were
told there were radioactive sources on-board. Amazingly no major mainstream media ever explored the story. A few small media outlet reporters contacted
the Global Network about the issue but they all reported that NASA only
gave them the run-a-round when they tried to pursue the issue. Might the Columbia Accident Investigation
Board get to the bottom of it? In a story reported in the Orlando Sentinel on May 11 we
learned that the civilian members of the investigation board, outsiders
who were added to reassure Congress and the public that the board would
be truly independent, were paid by NASA.
The space agency put the five civilians on the NASA payroll,
at pay rates of $134,000 a year, in order to take advantage of provisions
that allow boards composed exclusively of “federal employees” to meet
in secret. If the civilians had not been hired by NASA, a federal law would
have required the board to meet in public. In the end the entire debate around the
shuttle mission was about the heat shield tiles. No questions about the real mission of the shuttle – were they doing
Star Wars testing and was there some kind of nuclear device on-board?
We might not ever know the answer to the question. The public has been told over the years
to trust NASA. We’ve
been told to believe NASA when they say that launching nuclear power
into space is safe. In public
testimony before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation
Committee, retired Adm. Harold Gehman said that NASA’s safety organization
looks good on paper but delve into how it actually works, and “you find
there’s no there there…The safety organization sits right behind the
person making the decisions…But behind the safety organization, there’s
nothing back there. There’s
no people, no money, engineering expertise, analysis.” This is the same story we heard in 1997
when NASA launched the Cassini mission with 72 pounds of plutonium-238
into space. A retired NASA official,
who had been in charge of the safety program for previous nuclear launches,
told the New York Times that the safety plan was a fake. It was all on paper. If
a nuclear accident ever happened NASA had no real plan of action to
contain the toxic mess. NASA & THE NUCLEAR ROCKET
Remembering that NASA Chief and former Navy Secretary Sean O’Keefe told
the nation that every NASA mission from now on will be “dual use,”
(meaning having both military and civilian purposes at the same time),
it should come as no surprise to hear the recent announcement of Project
Prometheus, the nuclear rocket.
“Propulsion power generation advances that are so critical to
the purpose of (achieving) our exploration and discovery objectives
are the same technologies that national security seeks to utilize,”
says O’Keefe. The Air Force has long said they would need
a nuclear reactor to power weapons in space. Very recently Global Network member Robert Anderson, who teaches
at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, got a hold of
copies of contracts between the university and the Air Force Weapons
Lab at Kirtland AFB dated August, 1993.
The contract funded the Nuclear Engineering Department
at the university to develop a “space reactor simulator” and “laser
power” for anti-satellite weapons. The Air Force is also examining the feasibility
of a nuclear powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The military hopes that such an aircraft would
be able to “loiter” in the air for months without refueling, striking
at will any target that comes into its sights.
The A.F. Research Lab has funded
at least two studies on nuclear-powered versions of the Northrup-Grumman
Global Hawk UAV. In the 1950’s
the U.S. tried to develop nuclear powered airplanes but eventually
gave up because of the cost and major technical obstacles. NASA successfully launched two Mars probes
in June that were powered by radioactive sources. At the time of launch the two missions were
$100 million over budget. Under
NASA’s new nuclear systems initiative we will see a dramatic
escalation of the number of radioactive payloads launched from Cape
Canaveral in Florida. Missions already targeted to use nuclear
power systems are the Mars Science Lab in 2009; an Outer Planets probe
set for launch in 2011; and the Mars Sample Return mission in 2013. The Mars Society, one of the organizations
heavily funded by the aerospace industry to lobby for “everything space,”
announced strong support for the expanded nuclear space program. The Mars Society currently is pressuring Congress
to fund a series of Mars missions that will ultimately lead to a nuclear
powered human colony on Mars. The
organization seeks to have the red planet “terraformed” so that
we can move our civilization off the “decaying and dying planet Earth.” Due to NASA and Department of Energy (DoE)
plans for expanded nuclear missions in space, the government has indicated
that plutonium-238 production capability must be established right away.
Since 1992 the U.S. has relied on Russia to supply its space
plutonium needs. Now the plan
is to invest nearly $100 million to upgrade the plutonium processing
capability at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee.
At the same time, the federal government is slashing 77% of the
money it planned to spend cleaning up the east Tennessee complex, a
key center of the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal for more than 50 years.
State officials fear they will be left with the task of cleaning
the huge lab to prevent radioactive poisons from harming people
and the environment. Tennesseans can expect even more toxic contamination as they join
the space age production line. SPACE BEATS EARTH
In a vote on the House floor in Washington on July 29, the Republican
led Congress (with help from many Democrats) voted 309-114 against an
amendment to cut funding for the nuclear Project Prometheus. Rep. Ed Markey, D-MA., introduced an amendment to divert $115
million from the nuclear rocket and apply it to Superfund programs that
clean up hazardous waste sites across America.
The move came as the Superfund program is being undermined for
lack of funding. Taking $115 million out of the space nuclear
program and allocating it to the Superfund, Markey said, would still
give Project Prometheus a 31% increase and afford Superfund a 9% increase
over 2003 levels. But even that
was not to be. “The moons of Jupiter are going nowhere,
but the people who live around these Superfund sites are people that
are affected…by the issue every day,” said Rep. Charles Bass R-NH, one
of the few Republicans to support the amendment. In the late 1990’s the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) cleaned up an average of 86 Superfund sites a year, but
it only cleaned up 42 sites in 2002. Don’t worry though, once Mars is terraformed
we can all move there and leave behind the contaminated Superfund communities
in which many of us now live. Seventy
million people live within four miles of the nation’s more than 1,230
Superfund sites. Children
are the most vulnerable to the arsenic, DDT and brain damaging toxins
like lead and mercury that are found in the water and soil at these
locations. ROCKET TOXIC LETTUCE
Perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel,
has contaminated more than 300 wells in California, including drinking
water supplies serving Redlands, Rialto and Riverside. Perchlorate also tainted the Colorado River, which 20 million
people rely on for drinking and irrigation in California, Arizona, and
Nevada. Eating lettuce or other vegetables (even
if organically grown) in fields irrigated by the Colorado River may
expose consumers to a larger dose of toxic fuel than is considered safe
by the EPA. Sworn depositions and other courtroom documents
show how Lockheed Martin, a major user of perchlorate responsible
for widespread contamination of Southern California water supplies,
knew as early as 1997 that vegetables stored high concentrations of
the chemical but said nothing to the EPA. Investigators have found levels of perchlorate
as high as 58,000 parts per billion in the groundwater in Santa Clarita
beneath a defunct munitions factory that made missiles. Perchlorate has been shown to interfere with
thyroid function and pose a danger to the development of infants
in concentrations as low as one part per billion. The Pentagon has been directed to design
future satellites in such a way that they could be used for “domestic
security.” One program under
development that could assist in the “homeland defense mission” is the
Future Imagery Architecture, a new series of spy satellites slated
for deployment later this decade. We must all do what we can to preserve
our civil liberties as technology erases the line between privacy
and the “war on terrorism.” BLINDING ADVERSARIES
In coming years the Air Force plans to field
ground based weapons systems designed to neutralize communications and
imaging satellites that could be used by “adversaries during battle.” The Counter Comm and Counter Surveillance
Reconnaissance Systems, slated for deployment in 2005 and 2008,
have emerged as key elements of the Pentagon’s space control effort. The systems could target both commercial and
military satellites and the Pentagon maintains they would not cause
“permanent damage.” (This apparent
sensitivity on the part of the Pentagon has come as a result of their
real fears that growing amounts of space junk would destroy U.S. space
assets.) In 1997 the Pentagon fired a ground-based
laser at one of its own satellites.
Experts say a laser might flood or dazzle an adversary’s
satellite’s sensitive optics, effectively blinding it. Air Force efforts to deploy these offensive
systems will lead other countries to do the same over time. EUROPE MOVES TOWARD MILITARY SPACE
Under pressure from European space scientists,
European government and industry officials appear to have reached a
consensus that a Europe-wide military space program is essential to
ensure the growth of their fledgling space program.
Estimates suggest that Europe could have an autonomous military
space program for about 880 million euros per year. According to European Research Commissioner
Philippe Busquin, the recent Iraq war showed how important space-based
observation, telecommunications, navigation and positioning have become.
Europe’s military space spending is about 1/20th of
the U.S. military space budget, and will increase.
“Our continent’s sovereignty is at stake,” he says. Lt. Col. Alexandros Kolovos, head of the
Greek Defense Ministry’s National Center for Space Applications,
said Europe’s future security policy should “ensure the (EU’s) ability
to exploit space for military purposes – but also, as required, to deny
an adversary’s ability to do so.” Sound familiar? This is how new arms races begin! In a related development, a senior Lockheed
Martin official said in June that the U.S. and Europe should create
a common defense industry market to develop capabilities to support NATO’s new role in providing global security. Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems of London have
signed an agreement to explore opportunities to work together on “missile
defense” programs throughout the world. The U.S. fears an independent European
space program and has done much to discourage its development. At the same time the U.S. encourages the rapid
growth of a military space sector in Europe but wants it under NATO,
and thus U.S. control. Europe
sees the preemptive, anti-Europe, go it alone strategy of the Bush administration
and feels they must strike off on their own space path. But many members of the EU Parliament
oppose any move toward more military space investment “without distinguishing
between security programs and more aggressive programs,” says Guido
Bodrator who is coordinator of the EU Parliament input for the
new space policy now under development. In Europe, Global Network members are actively
working to organize grassroots pressure to ensure that the eventual
policy will not support weapons in space.
Dave Knight (UK) and Regina Hagen (Germany) are among many who
have been key leaders in pressuring the EU to follow a policy of non-weaponization
of space. They are also urging
individual countries within the EU to declare a moratorium on
the development and deployment of space weapons. ISRAELI SPACE SYSTEMS GROWING
The elimination of Iraq as a military power
is not slowing down Israeli efforts to expand its military space operations.
Under a program called Seventh Heaven, the Israeli military
will build and deploy an extensive satellite communications system.
One Israeli military official said Israel
hopes that significant U.S. hardware in the planned satellite system
would allow Israel to justify funding the bulk of the program with
U.S. military aid. Israel
receives more than $2 billion each year in military grants from the
U.S. Israel also is planning to establish a centralized
command and control center to manage the various elements of its multi-layered
missile defense system. The
planned center would operate all radars and launchers associated with
their Arrow missile defense program as well as the U.S. built Patriot.
The center will be able to process early warning data from U.S.
military satellites and ship-based Aegis radars off their coast. Israel is now vigorously exploring the use
of armed UAV’s. The unmanned
aircraft, outfitted with weapons, would “relieve” the round-the-clock
operations by the Israeli Air Force.
“Manned operations require lots of logistical support that we
don’t have. A mission to
western Iran would take five hours…You will see armed UAV’s in the
Israeli Air Force,” says Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, Chief of the IAF
Air Division. CHINA CLAIMS COASTAL BUILDUP DEFENSIVE
Despite its growing economic power, China
is at least two decades behind the U.S. in military technology
and ability says a report by the mainstream Council on Foreign Relations
(CFR). The report says China
is far from becoming a global military power and does not pose a threat
to the U.S. The CFR report also suggests that it is unlikely
that China would attack Taiwan. The
Chinese buildup was more likely a way to coerce Taiwan, just 90 miles
off the coast of mainland China. Right wing critics claim China is positioning
itself to dominate the South China Sea. Prior to 9-11 the U.S. military had all but singled out China as
a likely next major enemy. Today China has about 450 short-range ballistic
missiles but hopes to add about 50 per year in the near future. (They also have 20 nuclear missiles capable
of hitting the continental U.S., while America has 7,500 nuclear weapons.)
China annually spends between $20-$60 billion
on their military. China maintains
that recent missile advances are defensive moves to counter forthcoming
U.S. Theatre Missile Defense and National Missile Defense
deployments aimed at their country.
U.S. deployments in Central Asia, along China’s inland border
also serve to give China the strong impression that the U.S. intends
to surround the communist nation. China’s
leaders have asserted that the U.S. seeks to maintain a dominant geo-strategic
position by containing the growth of Chinese power, ultimately “dividing
and westernizing” China. Of interest is that two of the largest aerospace
corporations in the U.S., Hughes and Boeing, have been charged
by the U.S. government with illegally transferring sensitive space technology
to China. The companies could
be fined up to $60 million and barred for three years from selling controlled
technology overseas. The Justice
Department has spent years investigating those corporations and a third,
Loral, also involved in similar sales activity with China.
A year ago Loral agreed to pay a $14 million fine. Administrative charges were dropped against Loral. U.S. weapons corporations stand to make
enormous profit if a full scale arms race can be created with China. As we have seen in the Middle East, U.S. weapons
corporations often sell weapons to all sides in such conflicts. JAPAN SEEKS TO BUILD OWN TMD
On March 28 Japan launched its first
two military reconnaissance satellites from the Tanegashima launch
center. Members of the opposition
parties said the military space program violates the resolution the
Japanese parliament passed in 1969 to limit the country’s space program
to peaceful purposes. Japan intends to deploy the Patriot Advanced
Capability-3 (PAC-3) TMD system as early as 2006 in response to
rising tensions with North Korea. Japan
would also upgrade its four Aegis destroyers with a U.S. made missile
defense system. According to
Japanese military estimates, the minimum cost for the two new systems
is likely to be around $4.2 billion. Japanese peace activist Hiro Umebayashi
analyzes the current conflict between Japan and North Korea this way: “The fair description of the situation is that
it is North Korea and China that have long been exposed to an overwhelming
threat of offensive theater (intermediate range) missiles posed by the
U.S.-Japan military alliance.
In Yokosuka, Japan, as many as 500 vertical launchers of Tomahawk
cruise missiles are aboard six U.S. naval warships home ported at the
U.S. base…Adding the TMD system to such a situation could never be viewed
as a defensive step. It appears to be an action for ultimate offensive
dominance.” BIG MOVES IN ASIA
For some time the Pentagon has been seeking
agreements to increase its military presence in Singapore, Malaysia,
Philippines, Vietnam, and India. Each
of these new basing options are intended as part of a broader anti-China
strategy in which Washington attempts to build up military ties with
countries situated along China’s periphery. This effort was given a major boost after 9-11, when the U.S. set
up bases in Central Asia along Beijing’s western frontiers and began
major military maneuvers in the Philippines after a 10-year hiatus. Donald Rumsfeld has extended a formal invitation
to his Vietnamese counterpart to visit Washington DC in the near future.
It is the latest step in the
courtship that the Bush team hopes will draw Vietnam into U.S. strategic
designs in the region. U.S.
military planners long to return to Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay naval
base. India lies at the “center of Asia” and recent
Pentagon reports indicate that it would be logical to deploy some U.S. troops there too. NATO took over the leadership of the International
Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in August and is actively
urging Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to build closer long term ties with
the formerly Euro-centric military alliance controlled by the U.S. “Central Asia is now going to be very much
part of NATO’s agenda,” said NATO Secretary General George Robertson
on a July trip to the region. Russia
still stands in the way of total NATO east-ward expansion as it fights
to hang onto support of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. Control of oil and natural gas, and
the pipelines to move these resources to ports hang in the balance. IS WAR WITH NORTH KOREA NEXT?
Recent disclosures have made public an order
from Secretary of War Rumsfeld for the Pentagon to devise a new war
plan for North Korea. In a July
21 story in U.S. News, the plan called Operations Plan 5030,
was revealed as so aggressive that it could provoke a war.
One scenario in the plan calls for U.S. surveillance flights
to bump up alongside North Korean airspace, possibly creating a spark
that could ignite conflict. North Korea maintains that it still intends
to join the U.S. in China in September for nuclear weapons talks. In recent days North and South Korea formally
relinked their cross border railroads in ceremonies closed to foreign
reporters, fearing that the U.S. would be “irritated” by this
inter-Korean peace process. North Korea’s withdrawal from the Treaty
on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) on January, 2003 hurt
its chances to win favorable world opinion.
North Korea’s admission in 2002 that it had undertaken a nuclear
weapons development program gave the U.S. the public relations victory
in the escalating war of tensions in the region. North Korea has long claimed its willingness
to address U.S. security concerns, proposing three conditions for a
peaceful settlement. (1)
U.S. recognition of North Korea’s sovereignty (2) U.S. assurance of
non-aggression (3) A stop to U.S. interference in North Korean economic
development. Bush turned down the proposal, insisting instead
that North Korea give up its nuclear bargaining chip. In 1994 North Korea signed an agreement
with Bill Clinton in which it committed to freeze and eventually dismantle
its nuclear facilities in trade for fuel oil and a proliferation-resistant
nuclear reactor. The U.S. never
met its end of the bargain. North
Korea backed out of the agreement after Bush named it an “axis of evil”
soon after taking office. Is it safe to conclude that the Bush administration
has worked in North Korea, just as it did in Iraq, to take every possible
step to create conflict rather than avoid it? The answer appears to be yes. SOME SMALL VICTORIES ALONG THE WAY
BOOST PHASE PROBLEMS
An extensive study
by the American Physical Society, the largest U.S. association
of professional physicists, has raised serious questions about the likely
effectiveness of boost phase missile defense, whose job it would
be to hit missiles immediately after they are launched. The study concluded
that boost phase weapons would probably prove ineffective against fast,
solid-fueled missiles (with short burn times) that potential adversaries
– like North Korea or Iran – are projected to possess within the next
10-15 years. Even against the longer burning liquid-propellant ICBM’s that
North Korea and Iran might initially deploy, an effective boost phase
defense would have limited use due to the need for the interceptor missiles
to be based close to the potential missile flight paths. GIANT FLOATING RADAR
The Pentagon is investing heavily in X-Band radar systems that
will help track and engage ICBM’s aimed at the U.S. The crown jewel
of the new system is the Sea Based X-Band being built by Boeing. The $748 million project will put an
enormous radar on top of a 25-story converted oil-drilling platform. The MDA has decided on Alaska as the homeport
for the huge device that would be towed to various sites during the
missile testing process. Civilian
authorities in Snohomish County, WA., have raised concerns about potential
adverse effects of electromagnetic radiation on local citizens’
health. Under the plan, 20 interceptor missiles would be placed on three
Navy Aegis destroyers. This
sea-based system was outlawed by the 1972 ABM Treaty with Russia, but
Bush withdrew the U.S. from the treaty last summer, calling it ancient
history. Denmark’s parliament
voted in May to allow the U.S. to modernize the existing radar at the
U.S. base at Thule, Greenland.
Greenland, a vast island in the artic under Danish control since
1721, is home to 57,000 inhabitants who generally fear the U.S. Star
Wars program will make them a prime target. A former prime
minister of Greenland and a member of the Siumut party, Lars Emil Johansen,
has accused the Danish government of bowing to U.S. threats and demands. Other key Star
Wars radars at Beale AFB, CA. and Fylingdales in England are also slated
for major upgrades. KEEP SPACE FOR PEACE WEEK: LOCAL ACTIONS
On October 4-11 the Global Network
will hold its annual Keep Space for Peace Week: International Days
of Protest to Stop the Militarization of Space. Groups around the world will hold local events ranging from protests
at U.S. bases and weapons corporation facilities, to educational events
at schools and churches. The
purpose of the annual week of local activity is to bring the space issue
to as many people as possible all around the world – to symbolically
hold hands in acknowledgement that the movement to keep war out of the
heavens is indeed growing. One key action
this year will be held on October 11 at the U.S. military space spy
base called Menwith Hill in the United Kingdom.
Weekly demonstrations are held at the base that is currently
undergoing a major transformation to prepare for Star Wars. The Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases (CAAB)
is the principal organizer of the weekly actions and Lindis Percy from
CAAB is often arrested for entering the base while carrying her upside
down American flag with the words “Independence from America”
or “Stop Star Wars” written on it. Tony Blair’s government
has signed secret agreements with the Bush administration to allow Star
Wars upgrades at Menwith Hill and Fylingdales. The Campaign
for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in Britain has made the UK’s participation
in Star Wars one of their top issues around which to organize.
Because of recent reports that Britain might house missile silos
and host Airborne laser aircraft in its country, the peace movement
led by CND has been very active. We hope all friends and affiliates of the Global Network will
join us October 4-11 to bring the space issue home to our local communities.
Check our web site for a list of available speakers.
Keep Space for Peace posters are now also available for
$3 each, or five for $10. We
also have newly updated brochures for distribution during the week. AUSTRALIA ANNUAL MEETING
Our 11th
annual Global Network meeting was held in Melbourne, Australia on May
16-18. Thanks to a generous
response to our travel fund appeal, we were able to help bring several
of the people from 11 countries who came to the event.
The weekend began with a downtown protest in front of the Optus
Corporation headquarters. Optus
will launch Australia’s first ever military satellite, reported to cost
over $500 million, while the Australian government cuts back on the
national health service due to “lack of funds.” Shortly before the
Global Network meeting, Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced that the country strongly backed
the U.S. Star Wars program, which created discord within his own party. Sen. Lyn Allison (Australian Democrats) gave
a keynote speech at the conference saying that the Optus military satellite
would give Australia the ability to spy on nations as far away
as India. She predicted that
the future would bring more military spending and more government
secrecy to Australia. Many thanks go
to our host organizer Jacob Grech of Ozpeace who made us all
welcome inside the famous Trades Hall, built by union workers in 1874. The stately labor hall housed the 1917 anti-conscription
campaign that opposed WW I. Global Network
founding member Dr. Michio Kaku, Professor of Physics at CUNY, was the
other keynote speaker. Michio’s
stirring words began the conference with the message about the need
to talk about the right-wing foreign policy architecture that he called
“New Rome.” He said the containment strategy in place for
the last 50 years is now obsolete because of the U.S. move toward a
policy of preemption, which will bridge New Rome and space. Michio reminded the assembled that “now is
the time to educate the peace movement about the new strategy and it’s
use of space technology.” At the annual Global
Network business meeting on the last day of the event it was decided
that the 2004 annual meeting and conference would be held in Maine.
The presence of Bath Ironworks, builder of Aegis destroyers with
the new TMD interceptors on-board, made Maine the perfect choice. The tentative date for the Maine conference
will be April 23-25. MEMBERSHIPS & SUPPORT
The Global Network relies on the support of our individual
members and group affiliates to fund our important work to build a global
consciousness about space. Our membership
is based on a sliding scale between $10-$100 (pay what you can best
afford within that range.) Your dedicated
local work and financial assistance will help us keep growing at this
crucial time in history. Working
together, all around the world, it is possible to turn our governments
away from the insanity of a new arms race.
The global peace movement we witnessed prior to the recent U.S.
attacks and occupation of Iraq is the other superpower in the world
today. U.S. ambitions for global
control and domination in the end will fail because the people of the
planet will not allow any one nation to be the master of us all. Let us build for
the sake of the future generations.
Let us prevail in our quest to fund human needs rather than space
war technologies. The waste of our precious resources, so needed by
humanity today, is truly a sin. We
thank you for your support and solidarity. Newsprint
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