Pentagon eyeing weapons in space

[Eugene]

(The Boston Globe)

Pentagon eyeing weapons in space

Budget seeks millions to test new technologies

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | March 14, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is asking Congress for hundreds of millions of dollars to test weapons
in space, marking the biggest step toward creating a space battlefield since President Reagan's
long-defunct "star wars" project during the Cold War, according to federal budget documents.

The Defense Department's budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 includes money
for a variety of tests on offensive and defensive weapons, including a missile launched at a small
satellite in orbit, testing a small space vehicle that could disperse weapons while traveling
at 20 times the speed of sound, and determining whether high-powered ground-based lasers can
effectively destroy enemy satellites.

The military says that its aerospace technology, which has advanced exponentially during the last
two decades, is worth the nine-figure investment because it will have civilian applications as well,
such as refueling or retrieving disabled satellites. But arms-control specialists fear the tests
will push the military closer to basing weapons in space than during Reagan's Strategic Defense
Initiative in the mid-1980s -- without a public debate of the potential consequences.

<snip>

Full article: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/14/pentagon_eyeing_weapons_in_space
(Boston Globe - free registration may be required)

[creeksneakers2]

1. The terrorists don't have satellites

The Pentagon continues to prepare for hypothetical but profitable war. They've asked for $71 billion for research and development for their 2007 budget. That's almost as much as they throw away on weapons. Research and development contracts must be great for the big defense contractors. Achievement is very difficult to measure.

[sutz12]

4. Bingo

This is about being the biggest badass on the block. This is their version of the new world order. If we are first, we can prevent anyone else from attaining significant weapons in space.

I'm feeling a real chill. :scared:

[Jackpine Radical]

31. The terrorists WILL have satellites

just as soon as we can get them up there.

[wordpix2]

32. How will Star Wars stop IEDs and RPGs? Congress: Just say NO

[liberal N proud]

2. Antihero republican president another star wars dream

Didn't Ronnie want to do this?

[saigon68]

3. JUST THINK

They can melt the skulls of a few (insert racial epithet here) heads in the near future.

[Rageneau]

5. I think it's time for the intergalactic police robots to come wipe us out.

In "The Day The Earth Stood Still," Klaatu warned us that if humans didn't stop causing trouble in this part of the galaxy, a race of super-robots would come and kick our asses to infinity and beyond.

I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't on their way.

I guess it was no accident that Klaatu landed near the Pentagon, huh?

[megatherium]

8. The weapons in space are intended to defend us from interstellar threats.

The government has known since Roswell in 1947 that we are not alone. :sarcasm:

[RazzleDazzle]

42. BINGO! Plus, there's a more mundane purpose as well

and it has nothing to do with terrorism, or not enough.

This is also for global domination, to ensure that nothing, no other country(ies) can bring down the Fourth Reich -- OR the PNAC American Empire, however you prefer to think of it.

[megatherium]

45. That's right! And I find it so reassuring that our government has the

power to zap any target or person in the world from orbit, at any time.

[RazzleDazzle]

49. Right! Long live the (evil) Empire.

Actually, apparently the Goddess made them self-imploding by Nature, collapsing under their own weight eventually and all that.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. They can't even control Iraq

how the fuck are they going to control space?

[Ganja Ninja]

7. We can't find enough money to support wounded vets but ...

we can always find money for the Pentagon's wet dreams. Let me guess who's going to get the contract to develop all this crap, the Carlyle Group who else.

[Marie26]

53. Check out the PNAC plan

They're practically drooling over all the cool new space toys they can buy, to "preserve American defenses", of course. There's a whole chapter on nothing but space wars. What's the use of being in power if they can't buy some cool weapons? Oh, also, this allows for complete global dominance as well. Going to Canada won't help with this.

[htuttle]

9. Deploying weapons in space is illegal

In case that matters to anyone anymore.

[Mithras61]

16. Thank you... this was my first thought on the subject...

but I thought I'd read ahead & see if anyone else noticed. Deploying weapons to orbital & sub-orbital platforms has been illegal since before NASA was around IIRC.


Maybe it's another one of the "old" laws that W_rong can just ignore, though...

[mom cat]

18. Gonzales and the puppet masters are probably working at

breakneck speed to find a way around the mear legalities, of it. The LAW has not been an obstacle to Bushco.

[understandinglife]

27. "The LAW has not been an obstacle to Bushco." True. Thus, We ...

... must be the obstacle.


Be The Bu$h Opposition - 24/7

[mom cat]

41. Right on!

[RazzleDazzle]

43. matters not a whit to the Bushies - they rather LIKE breaking laws

perhaps you've noticed.

[Marie26]

54. I don't think it matters to them

What's another broken treaty? They think they'll rule the world anyway.

[Canuckistanian]

55. But that's against the Second Amendment!

The framers wanted us to have weapons.... in space... umm... to defend our....

Help me out here.

[NMDemDist2]

10. I saw a documentary on FSTV that was chilling on this issue

here's some more info http://www.envirovideo.com/starwars.html




snip... This is not a picture from your kid's sci-fi comic. It's an illustration from a report by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Space Commission. The report advocates circumventing the intent of international laws (notably, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967) that seek to keep space free from war and urges that the President "have the option to deploy weapons in space." National Missile Defense, begun as Star Wars under Reagan, is just one layer of this much larger scheme to "control" space and "dominate" the earth, in the words of the report. "The United States is seeking to turn space into a war zone," maintains the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space www.space4peace.org

[ConcernedCanuk]

11. Weapons in space? - they gotta be nuts!

.
.
.

If a 15 year old can hack into the DOD . .

The consequences are unthinkable .

[0007]

13. They are. nuts. On the Senator floor this morning Talent & Lieberman are

trying to get more money for the defense system by cutting Homeland Security and the Veteran programs.

[ConcernedCanuk]

15. DEFENSE System? - gimme a break. I may be a Canuk but I ain't 'tupid!!

.
.
.

This is for OFFENSE

So they can threaten anyone on the globe instead of taking months to get their weapons in position like they had to do in Iraq.

They'll just move/point a nuke from the "heavens" at Iran, Syria, North Korea or whomever else pissed the PNAC mob off and tell them to kiss the USA's ass

or kiss their own ass good-bye -

INSTANTLY

Scary bunch y'all got down there

[saigon68]

30. Not Joementum Limpmannn again

Mr "Socks in the Mouth A/K/A Mumbles"

[daleo]

12. Weaponization of space

Time for Bush to break another treaty.

[donkeyotay]

14. MORE. This should read "asking for MORE money"

Anyone remember the rods from god nutjob or the little spat about how the $10B/yr spent on starwars might be violating international treaty?

People are going without basic needs and the privatized military just can't get enough. We should give them 100s of billions of dollars to weaponize space and they couldn't even protect the Pentagon? Corporate welfare.

[Whoa_Nelly]

17. Arsenal of Hypocrisy:The Space Program and the Military Industrial Complex

Arsenal of Hypocrisy:The Space Program and the Military Industrial Complex is a documentary everyone should see.

First saw it on Free Speech TV (FSTV), and it scared the shit out of me. All that seems so strange with so much of what BushCo and the neocons of the PNAC have done over the last several years really makes sense after seeing this one-hour documentary.

Bruce Gagnon is the main speaker, as well as one of the producers, of this documentary.

About Bruce:

Mr. Bruce Gagnon is a professional organizer for the Global Network, a grassroots organization dealing with issues in space and security. He served in the US Air Force during the Vietnam War and attended the University of Florida, where he studied Sociology and Political Science. Mr. Gagnon also worked for 15 years as the State Coordinator for the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice, and has been involved in space issues for the past 20 years.


http://www.spusa.org/issue/spaceandsecurity/space_field2.html

If you're interested, you can get it from PeaceProject in Arcata, CA at http://www.peaceproject.com/books/dvd50.htm

And here's their home page: http://www.peaceproject.com/

About Arsenal of Hypocrisy:

The glory days of NASA are over! Today the Military Industrial Complex is marching towards world dominance through Space technology on behalf of global corporate interest. To understand how and why the space program will be used to fight all future wars on earth from space, it's important to understand how the public has been misled about the origins and true purpose of the Space Program.
"
The militarization of space is a real threat to survival, a serious threat to survival... maybe the end of the species." -- Noam Chomsky, professor at MIT and author

"If we have a war in space, in the vicinity of the earth, it will be the one and only. There will never be a second war in space and let me tell you why..." -- Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut

[corporatemedia]

19. We either fight the TERRONAUTS in space or we fight them on earth! eom

[Rex]

20. They're not going to be happy until we are all dead and the

planet is a glowing ball of radiation.

[stillcool]

21. Wow....it seems almost logical....

after pissing off the rest of the world in the quest for global dominance, it sure would be handy to make that eye in the sky bigger, better, and with a little added punch. Why do I feel like I'm in a psycho/thriller/science-fiction film?

[EFerrari]

22. They're insane. They can't house Katrina survivors but

they can throw zillions of dollars we don't have into weapons.

[Judi Lynn]

23. This is some of the ghastliest news you can ever read..........

From the article:

The Pentagon has always examined space as a possible battleground, but the budget request marks a transition from laboratory theory to reality. And the Bush administration has sought to keep the military's options open despite international opposition to weapons in space.

Indeed, for the first time ever, the United States voted last fall to block a UN resolution calling for a ban on weapons in space. In the past, the US delegation abstained from voting on similar measures.
(snip/...)

I surely hope something will be done to check their absurd, and vicious quest for more and more power over others, and wealth.

Ugly, ugly Republicans.

[mom cat]

33. This is truly terrifying. They could have laser weapons in space that

could kill us in our homes with just the click of a button. And kids are learning how to be good little executioners in the video games that they play.

[Marie26]

56. We already can

In Afganistan, we were flying drones to kill Al-Queda leaders based only on a phone call. The call passed through the NSA spying network & the person's voice was ID'd as an Al-Queda agent, the location was pinpointed by global satellite, & the coordinates were entered into the drone. SO really, we can already instantly target someone. I guess the difference is, w/space technology, we could instantly kill them too w/o needing to send out a plane to do it.

[kpete]

24. K&R

[quiet.american]

25. Another fab idea brought to you by the people at PNAC

We all remember their manifesto includes military dominance of space, don't we?

[phusion]

26. my message to the Pentagon:

Fuck off!

[Joe for Clark]

28. K & R

[newswolf56]

29. This is astounding, especially given Peak Oil: do you set out...

on a cross-country trip with an empty gas tank? Do you ride into the desert on a dying horse? Do you try to cross the ocean in a sinking boat?

Absurdity reductio ad absurdum.

[Ian David]

34. Confession: I own stock in one of the companies making some of this

They were supposed to be figuring out how to mine an asteroid, not how to blow-up the world!

http://www.SpaceDev.com

Serves me right that I'm losing money on them.

[yurbud]

35. no one can put a plane in the air unless we let them and they worry about

space?

But of course they aren't worried about any particular threat, just maximizing profit.

[radio4progressives]

36. Keep this high on the radar.. kick and recommended

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:

[tabasco]

37. More profiteering that will hurt our national security.

Just anotehr money grab that will hurt us by diverting money away from things that would really make the people safer.

[sakabatou]

38. The Pentagon: Finding Out More Ways to Kill People

[Nothing Without Hope]

39. The weaponization of space is part of Cheney/Rumsfeld's long-standing

global domination plan. That it is very much still on the table despite the huge deficit and utter failure of their military adventures to date is clear from the Boston Globe article cited in this March 14 thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2165313
thread title (3-14-06 LBN): Pentagon eyeing weapons in space
Excerpt:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/14/pentagon_eyeing_weapons_in_space/

Pentagon eyeing weapons in space

Budget seeks millions to test new technologies
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | March 14, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is asking Congress for hundreds of millions of dollars to test weapons in space, marking the biggest step toward creating a space battlefield since President Reagan's long-defunct ''star wars" project during the Cold War, according to federal budget documents.

The Defense Department's budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 includes money for a variety of tests on offensive and defensive weapons, including a missile launched at a small satellite in orbit, testing a small space vehicle that could disperse weapons while traveling at 20 times the speed of sound, and determining whether high-powered ground-based lasers can effectively destroy enemy satellites.

The military says that its aerospace technology, which has advanced exponentially during the last two decades, is worth the nine-figure investment because it will have civilian applications as well, such as refueling or retrieving disabled satellites. But arms-control specialists fear the tests will push the military closer to basing weapons in space than during Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative in the mid-1980s -- without a public debate of the potential consequences.

(snip)

The descriptions included in the budget request mark only what is publicly known about the military's space warfare plans. Specialists believe the classified portion of the $439 billion budget, blacked out for national security reasons, almost certainly includes other space-related programs.

(snip)

What's behind this seemingly insane drive for space weaponization? For an explanation of its long history and deep roots in the Cheney/Rumsfeld global domination cabal, I recommend an article originally published in Harper's Magazine in October 2002. I strongly recommend reading the entire article, but here is the 4-paragraph excerpt allowed by copyright rules:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1544.htm

Dick Cheney’s Song of America

The Plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful.

By David Armstrong
Harper's Magazine, 0017789X, Oct 2002, Vol. 305, Issue 1829

(snip)

In case there was any doubt about the administration’s intentions, the Pentagon’s new DPG {Defense Planning Guidance) lays them out. Signed by Wolfowitz’s new boss, Donald Rumsfeld, in May and leaked to the Los Angeles Times in July, it contains all the key elements of the original Plan and adds several complementary features. The preemptive strikes envisioned in the original draft DPG are now “unwarned attacks.” The old Powell-Cheney notion of military “forward presence” is now “forwarded deterrence.” The use of overwhelming force to defeat an enemy called for in the Powell Doctrine is now labeled an “effects based” approach.

Some of the names have stayed the same. Missile defense is back, stronger than ever, and the call goes up again for a shift from a “threat based” structure to a “capabilities based” approach. The new DPG also emphasizes the need to replace the so-called Cold War strategy of preparing to fight two major conflicts simultaneously with what the Los Angeles Times refers to as “a more complex approach aimed at dominating air and space on several fronts.” This, despite the fact that Powell had originally conceived – and the first Bush Administration had adopted – the two-war strategy as a means of filling the “threat blank” left by the end of the Cold War.

Rumsfeld’s version adds a few new ideas, most impressively the concept of preemptive strikes with nuclear weapons. These would be earth-penetrating nuclear weapons used for attacking “hardened and deeply buried targets,” such as command-and-control bunkers, missile silos, and heavily fortified underground facilities used to build and store weapons of mass destruction. The concept emerged earlier this year when the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review leaked out. At the time, arms-control experts warned that adopting the NPR’s recommendations would undercut existing arms-control treaties, do serious harm to nonproliferation efforts, set off new rounds of testing, and dramatically increase the prospectus of nuclear weapons being used in combat. Despite these concerns, the administration appears intent on developing the weapons. In a final flourish, the DPG also directs the military to develop cyber-, laser-, and electronic-warfare capabilities to ensure U.S. dominion over the heavens.

Rumsfeld spelled out these strategies in Foreign affairs earlier this year, and it is there that he articulated the remaining elements of the Plan; unilateralism and global dominance. Like the revised DPG of 1992, Rumsfeld feigns interest in collective action but ultimately rejects it as impractical. “Wars can benefit from coalitions,” he writes, “but they should not be fought by committee.” And coalitions, he adds, “must not determine the mission.” The implication is the United States will determine the missions and lead the fights. Finally, Rumsfeld expresses the key concept of the Plan: preventing the emergence of rival powers. Like the original draft DPG of 1992, he states that America’s goal is to develop and maintain the military strength necessary to “dissuade” rivals or adversaries from “competing.” with no challengers, and a proposed defense budget of $379 billion for next year, the United States would reign over all its surveys.

(snip)

This is an important article, its contents essential reading for understanding why the Administration is pushing so hard for the dominance and weaponization of space. The want the US to be the greatest bully in the world, able to monitor and target any area anywhere in the world immediately if it shows signs of dissent or development. THAT is what this is about and we must spread the word to the vast majority of people who either have never "gotten" it or who have been lulled into forgetting. Oh, you can bet there would be massive profits to Halliburton, the Carlyle Group, and other Bushie crony corporations here and around the world - and that, too, is part of the goal. But the central reason is the lust for permanent global domination - the "New American Century."

[Nothing Without Hope]

40. I updated my new DU journal entry to include a longer

excerpt of the important Boston Globe article cited in the opening post of the current thread, and it appeared here too. Clearly, I have not yet figured out how to use the new Journal feature. :shrug:

[wordpix2]

46. this is Star Wars plan from time of Ray-gun; these old timers are living

in bubble zone of way back when. Rummy, Dickhead, Georgie*, Wolfowack and the rest have already bankrupted us but they'll sell our most beloved national parks to pay for this madness as their next step.

THEY MUST BE STOPPED!

[Roland99]

44. So much for NASA being an inspiration....

Now we'll get to look forward to being zapped from high-altitude orbiting arsenals.

[Marie26]

57. "Star Wars" Director appointed head of NASA

Bush appointed Micheal Griffin to be the next head of NASA in 2005. http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/griffin_bio.html While Griffin is not an astronaut, he does have a lot of other relevant experience. In his work as an aerospace defense contractor, Griffin helped create new intelligence & data-mining technologies for the CIA. He also worked for Orbital, a major missile defense company. Coincidentally, in the 80's, Griffin also worked as the Technology Director for the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. This is the agency that oversaw Reagan's Star Wars missile defense program. http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/missiledefense/history.html Hmmm, I wonder why Bush would want to appoint this man to head our space program? I'd bet the new space war program has already been developed.

[Roland99]

58. *sigh*......n/t

[Solly Mack]

47. Kick

Gee, let's just blow up the cosmos too.

sheesh...

[EVDebs]

48. Maybe they can use that missing $2.3 TRILLION Rummy mentions here

CBS News War on Waste
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml

""According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

"We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service. ""

But somehow the DoD finds time to harass whistleblowers who report overcharging !

[Nothing Without Hope]

50. kick - the insanity will escalate until they are removed from power. n/t

[lovuian]

51. This is what Star Wars is about!!!

:nuke:

[Nothing Without Hope]

52. kick - this should be receiving more attention n/t

[hogwyld]

59. Awww. come on!

They are only trying to protect white, old, pasty, PNAC fascist pukes from the unwashed masses. Once they "eliminate" those against them, (about 5.9 billion) the world will be safe again, and oil will be about 10 cents a barrel.:sarcasm:

[Marie26]

60. Spaceport being built in UAE

Not sure if this is related, but just throwing it in: At the same time that the UAE ports deal went down in Feb., the UAE also received a contract to build a "spaceport" for the launch of shuttles, missiles, etc. from Dubai. There's no reason to think these two deals are related, yet I know they are. It all seems to be part of the neocons' obsession w/space technology & warfare.

Spaceport Comes To UAE

"Space Adventures will build its first spaceport in the emirate of Ras Al-Khaima, less than an hour's drive from Dubai, and, in a project estimated to cost at least $265 million, is designing to add further ports in locations such as Singapore and North America.

The US company has also struck a deal with investment firm Prodea to develop rocket ships to take paying customers on sub-orbital flights.

Eric Anderson, the president of Space Adventures, explained the reasoning behind locating the spaceport in the UAE: "Ras Al-Khaimah's unique airport and spaceport support facilities and the close proximity to Dubai, one of the world's leading luxury tourist destinations, makes it a choice location for spaceflight operations."

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BFCD648C-FE21-498B-921A-324AC5D7EE28.htm
Press release - www.spaceadventures.com/media/releases/2006-02/347

I wonder who's funding this "Space Adventure"?

[mikeybabe125]

61. Whats with all this...

crazy shit?

First its remoite controlled sharks, then bugs, now this?

WHAT A F**CKING WASTE! and, not to mention, scary as hell.

[Marie26]

62. Just imagine a psychotic 13-year-old running our country

And you start to understand the logic.

[Loose Nuke]

63. "To deny others the use of space"

And "to protect American interests and investment". These are the stated goals of the Space Command, whose motto, "in your face from outer space" says it all. They frankly state that globalization will result in increasing disparity between the world's haves and have nots, which will result in increasing resentment of America, hence more terrorism and opposition. They see the Space Command as a way to ensure that no other country gets the power to "deter" them. All this stuff was on their website, unless they've deleted it- it's been getting attention. http://peaceinspace.org/

The Andrews Air Force Base website changed references to having squadrons fighters constantly on alert after they failed to defend the DC airspace on 9/11- even though the time between when the Pentagon and the first tower were hit was nearly AN HOUR.
Still believe the official story about 9/11?

115 ommissions and distortions, documented by David Ray Griffin:
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20050523112738404