- On January 3, 2001, the UN General Assembly's Prevention
of an Arms Race in Outer Space Resolution A/55/32 said:
-
- "The exploration and use of outer space....shall
be for peaceful purposes and be carried out for the benefit and in the
interest of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or
scientific development. (The) prevention of an arms race in outer space
would avert a grave danger for international peace and security."
-
- Over 140 nations agreed. Only two declined support, both
abstaining - America and Israel.
-
- On August 9, 1996, in Aviation Week and Space Technology
magazine, then Commander-in-Chief US Space Command, Joseph W. Ashy asserted:
-
- "It's politically sensitive, but it's going to happen.
Some people don't want to hear this, and it sure isn't in vogue, but -
absolutely - we're going to fight in space. We're going to fight from space
and we're going to fight into space. That's why the US has development
programs in directed energy and hit-to-kill mechanisms. We will engage
terrestrial targets someday - ships, airplanes, land targets - from space."
-
- On April 18, 2002, the Center for Defense Information's
Theresa Hitchens headlined, "Weapons in Space: Silver Bullet or Russian
Roulette," saying:
-
- Weaponizing space "could actually undermine, rather
than enhance, (America's) national security....There is nothing to be gained,
and potentially much to be lost, by (pursuing) a momentous change in US
space policy."
-
- Co-founder and coordinator of the Global Network Against
Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, Bruce Gagnon warned:
-
- "If the US is allowed to move the arms race into
space, there will be no return. We have this one chance, this one moment
in history, to stop the weaponization of space from happening. The peace
movement must move quickly, boldly, and publicly," what so far hasn't
happened, most people mindless to the danger.
-
- First revealed in the 1998 US Space Command document,
Vision for 2020, it was later released in 2000 as DOD Joint Vision 2020
calling for "full spectrum dominance" over all land, surface
and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information
systems with enough overwhelming power to wage and win global wars against
any adversary, including with nuclear weapons preemptively, ultimately
from space, America wanting unchallenged control.
-
- The Pentagon's Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) plans
an array of sophisticated weapons to achieve it, some operational, others
being tested, and new ones under development for its Operations Plan (OPLAN)
8010-08 Strategic Deterrence and Global Strike use, the US Strategic Command's
(STRATCOM) Strategic War Plan.
-
- Since at least WW II, America's strategy has been permanent
war, a topic discussed earlier, accessed through the following link:
-
- http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/03/americas-permanent-war-agenda.html
-
- On June 17, Space.com's Jeremy Hsu headlined, "Air
Force Sees Hypersonic Weapons and Spaceships in Future," saying:
-
- "A recent (Air Force) scramjet test has hinted at
a future where hypersonic vehicles," traveling five times the speed
of sound, fly around the world and in space, an "experimental X-51A
Waverider," achieving the longest ever Mach 5 flight on May 26, using
a rocket booster and air-breathing scramjet.
-
- Charles Brink, head of the Air Force Research Laboratory's
X-51 program envisions future hypersonic weapons flying "600 nautical
miles in 10 minutes," including in space. NASA's James Pittman, principal
investigator of its hypersonics project, hopes to have "large vehicles
for access to space using air-breathing propulsion."
-
- Earlier X-43A hypersonic scramjet test flights reached
Mach 6.8 in March 2004 and Mach 9.6 in November that year - about 7,000
MPH. The X-51A project uses a more sophisticated scramjet engine, but hasn't
yet matched or broken the X-43A's record, nor can it reach orbit, a goal
Boeing Phantom Works/Defense hypersonics director Joseph Vogel hopes to
achieve in the next 15 - 20 years, saying he expects the technology will
be able to fly missions not possible today, the X-51A showing early promise.
-
- In April, after years of development, the Air Force successfully
launched the X-37B, its robot space shuttle, a reusable spacecraft traveling
like an aircraft at Mach 5 - perhaps another future space weapon. Global
Security.org's John Pike told Space.com that projects like the X-37B may
"represent the tip of a space weapons program hidden within the Pentagon's
secret 'black budget,' or they might be nothing more than smoke and mirrors,"
intended to deceive America's rivals, fueling a space arms race, hoping
they'll "waste money chasing down dead ends."
-
- For its part, the Air Force denies wanting the X-37B
for an orbital weapons delivery system or for surveillance. Others disagree,
journalist Sharon Weinberger saying "the most daring job of a space
plane, and the one least discussed, is (its) role (as) a bomber, (letting
it) fly over targets within an hour of launch to release cone-shaped re-entry
vehicles that would both protect and guide weapons through the atmosphere."
-
- It would also be able to "carry 1000 or 2000-pound
re-entry vehicles armed with precision munitions like bunker-busting penetrators
or small-diameter bombs (including mini-nukes more powerful than the atom
bombs destroying Hiroshima or Nagasaki), or simply use the explosive impact
of kinetic rods cratering at hypersonic speeds to destroy targets."
-
- On the other hand, the X37B's main function may be a
test platform, perhaps for developing even more destructive space weapons,
part of America's permanent war strategy, waging future ones from space,
using technologies adversaries can't match.
-
- OPLAN-08 - The Pentagon's Strategic War Plan
-
- OPLAN 8010-08 is a "family of plans" against
six or more potential adversaries, including Russia, China, North Korea,
Iran, Syria, and other "terrorist" states. In 2002, the Bush
administration asserted the right to:
-
- "do whatever is necessary to deter the use of (undefined)
weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its allies, and
its interests. If a weapon of mass destruction is used against the United
States or its allies, (or it such use is imminent or threatened), we will
not rule out any specific type military response," including first-strike
nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.
-
- Under Obama, the policy remains in force. His May National
Security Strategy "reserve(s) he right to act unilaterally if necessary
to defend our nation and our interests." In other words, to wage preemptive
wars, using first-strike nuclear weapons "to keep the American people
safe (and advance the nation's) values and ideals," ones pursuing
unchallenged global and space hegemony, ruling it by intimidation and war.
-
- OPLAN 8010-08 - Updating SIOP
-
- Unlike the Cold War's Single Integrated Operational Plan
(SIOP), OPLAN 8010-08 contains "more flexible options to assure allies,
and dissuade, deter, and if necessary, defeat adversaries in a wider range
of contingencies." It includes conventional strike options, but it's
mostly nuclear, custom designed for each potential adversary.
-
- The nuclear options include the Emergency Response Options
(ERO), Selective Attack Options (SAO), Basic Attack Options (BAO), and
Directed/Adaptive Planning Capability (DPO/APO) options, specific details,
of course, highly classified.
-
- Options range from limited ones to massive "shock
and awe" strikes against many targets, by manned and drone aircraft,
ICBMs, and from attack submarines and surface ships, using hundreds of
strategically located warheads.
-
- The Pentagon's National Target Base includes four categories
- military forces, WMD infrastructure, military and national leadership,
and war supporting infrastructure - a post Cold War strategy to deter all
so-called WMDs, the Bush administration saying America:
-
- "has made it clear for many years that it reserves
the right to respond with overwhelming force to the use of weapons of mass
destruction against the United States, our people, our forces and our friends
and allies. Additionally, the United States will hold any state, terrorist
group, or other non-state actor fully accountable for supporting or enabling
terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction, whether
by facilitating, financing, or providing expertise or safe haven for such
efforts."
-
- The policy remains unchanged under Obama, OPLAN 8010-08
for preventive or retaliatory "strategic deterrence" and preemptive
"global strike." STRATCOM describes the former as its "first
line of operation....that includes nuclear force operations." The
latter expands national and theater operations globally, the terms Prompt
Global Strike and Global Strike used interchangeably, whether with conventional
or nuclear weapons, or if prompt or deliberate.
-
- The Air Force's nuclear/conventional command is called
Global Strike Command, using America's full attack capabilities to destroy
targets, including WMDs preemptively, STRATCOM's counterproliferation strategy
designed to destroy all WMDs "before they can be used....(a) preemptive....counterforce....or
offensively reactive" strategy.
-
- While claiming to "put an end to Cold War thinking
(by) reduc(ing) the role and number of nuclear weapons in our national
security strategy," Obama's National Security Strategy puts old wine
in new bottles, rebranding it to appear softer while keeping hardline policies
in place, backed by a growing arsenal of globally positioned sophisticated
weapons, asserting the right to use them preemptively against perceived
threats.
-
- During the Cold War, MAD (mutually assured destruction)
held both sides at bay. Today's strategy includes "more flexible options
(for) a wider range of contingencies (with weapons) to optimize performance,"
meaning destroy an adversary's capabilities preemptively, then target another.
-
- With America on a nuclear hair-trigger, it's reinvented
MAD in new form, threatening potential global nuclear winter, defined as
"a long period of darkness and extreme cold that scientists predict
would follow a full-scale nuclear war, a layer of dust and smoke in the
atmosphere cover(ing) the earth and block(ing) the rays of the sun, (causing)
most living organisms (to) perish."
-
- Anti-nuclear expert Helen Caldicott says "one single
failure of nuclear deterrence could end human history (quickly). Once initiated,
it would take one hour to trigger a swift, sudden end to life on this planet."
Only nuclear disarmament and abolition of nuclear weapons can stop it.
-
- In their joint July 1955 Manifesto, Albert Einstein and
Bertrand Russell put the nuclear threat bluntly:
-
- "Here, then, is the problem which we present to
you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human
race; or shall mankind renounce war? (The) best authorities are unanimous
that a war with H-bombs (or today's arsenal) might possibly put an end
to the human race." For some, it will be instant, but "the majority
(will experience) a slow torture of disease and disintegration." It's
our choice. So far we've made it badly.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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