AlterNet: Real-Life Star Wars: The Militarization of Space

Real-Life Star Wars: The Militarization of Space

By Stan Cox, AlterNet. Posted November 15, 2007.


Space hasn't yet been weaponized but it is already highly militarized, thanks to a money-hungry arms industry and a commission started by Rumsfeld.



Last January 11, a missile launched from China's Xichang Space Center destroyed a satellite 537 miles above the Earth's surface. Although the target was a weather satellite belonging to China itself (shot down ostensibly because it was obsolete), the act clearly rattled the U.S. space establishment.

Said one observer, The new space policy says we can defend the heavens with technology. But we can't, and the Chinese just proved it."

Precisely six years earlier, on Jan. 11, 2001, the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization issued a report to Congress. The group, which had been headed by President-elect George W. Bush's Defense Secretary-to-be Donald Rumsfeld, asserted that it's only a matter of time until there's all-out war in the heavens:


We know from history that every medium -- air, land and sea -- has seen conflict. Reality indicates that space will be no different. Given this virtual certainty, the U.S. must develop the means both to deter and to defend against hostile acts in and from space -- and ensure continuing superiority.


The current thinking of military and industry officials was revealed last month at the annual Strategic Space and Defense Conference in Omaha, Nebraska. At that meeting, held in the backyard of the US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM).

And that strategy includes not just war mongering against countries like China and Pakistan by "space warriors," but it poses a threat to the safety and liberties of all Americans.

The Militarization of Space


Military space officials will have to develop new doctrine and concepts for offensive and defensive space operations, power projection in, from, and through space, and other military uses of space. -- Rumsfield's Commission Report


The opening talk at the Strategic Space conference was given by USSTRATCOM acting commander Lt. Gen. Robert Kehler, who repeated that old cliche about the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." Implicitly responding to China's January self-attack, he added, "Well you know what? We get paid to deal with interesting times." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/audits/67699/

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