Reply #39: The weaponization of space is part of Cheney/Rumsfeld's long-standing

[Nothing Without Hope]

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.

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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.

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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.

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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."