Wake up people - the truth about Bush's space plans

[IkeWarnedUs]

This isn't an election ploy to make people feel good (although that may happen if people don't wake up).

This isn't a search for a new source of oil.

This isn't for scientific exploration and discovery.

This isn't about living out some Star Wars fantasy.

This isn't to win over pissed-off California voters (although it probably will win some).

This isn't a search for a place to stash the baby boomers when Social Security runs out.

It isn't because Bush was inspired by JFK (although the media whores are pushing that).

It isn't to benefit Bush's corporate investors (although it will).

It isn't to complete papa Bush's agenda (except in that the Bush I agenda was also formed by PNAC'ers).

BUSH WANTS TO TAKE US TO SPACE TO FULFILL THE PNAC PLAN TO ESTABLISH A NEW BRANCH OF THE MILITARY - U.S. SPACE FORCES.

This isn't my speculation - it is right there in the PNAC 9/00 blueprint, "Rebuilding America's Defenses; Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century." Don't take my word for it - read it yourself.

The subject of space comes up first under Key Findings in the Introduction (page v of the document, page 12 of the online PDF version):

------------------
Quote:
CONTROL THE NEW "INTERNATIONAL COMMONS" OF SPACE AND "CYBERSPACE," and pave the way for the creation of a new military service - U.S. Space Forces - with the mission of space control.
------------------

They elaborate in Chapter V, "CREATING TOMORROW'S DOMINANT FORCE" (starts on page 50 of the document, page 62 of the PDF version).

------------------
Quote:
In general, to maintain American military preeminence that is consistent with the requirements of a strategy of American global leadership, tomorrow's U.S. armed forces must meet three new missions:

(Second mission)

Control of space and cyberspace. Much as control of the high seas - and the protection of international commerce - defined global powers in the past, so will control of the new "international commons" be a key to world power in the future. An American incapable of protecting its interests or that of its allies in space or the "infosphere" will find it difficult to exert global political leadership.
-------------------

They go on to elaborate further on each of the three missions, with Space and Cyberspace beginning on page 54 of the document (page 66 of the PDF format).

On page 57 of the report, page 69 of the PDF format:

------------------
Quote:
Thus, the argument to replace U.S. Space Command with U.S. Space Forces - a separate service under the Defense Department - is compelling. While it is conceivable that, as military space capabilities develop, a transitory "Space Corps" under the Department of the Air Force might make sense, it ought to be regarded as an intermediary step, analogous to the World War II-era Army Air Corps, not to the Marine Corps, which remains part of the Navy Deparment.
------------------

Link: http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

Don't be fooled by the inadequate funding predictions - THIS WILL HAPPEN. Just like the increase in our military budget to 3.8 percent of our GDP, multiple simultaneous major theater wars, transformation of our military, weakening of the UN and NATO influence, Saddam Hussein's regime change, substantial American force in the Gulf region and even a catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor - all of which were also called for by PNAC in the 9/00 paper.

If DU'ers can't see this, how can we expect the American public to understand what's going on?

[T Roosevelt]

1. That was my first thought when I heard of the new program

I'm sure many here made that connection. Too bad many Americans won't. And it's amazing how much coverage this initiative is getting - more than Michael Jackson and Kobe put together...sheesh :eyes:

[greatauntoftriplets]

22. It was my 2nd thought.

The first was that * should be sent to Mars with a pup tent, a canteen of water and scuba diving gear.

[PATRICK]

2. Thank you

They have been so public about this I am just disgusted how all the debate has been so obligatory and genuinely naive as if this was only know on DU.

This is what excites them. The rest is for election purposes and releasing the SDI pork into Bush states and elsewhere before election.

As goofy as it sounds it fits into the Right's cowardly dream of remote control Empire where the nasty stuff is away and above the dominated world and the citizens here see only faraway, non-threatening glamorous super tech. And maybe then we could lure citizens into thinking the military a glorious "new frontier" too.

The real madness, even when public and preceding this uncharacteristic smarmy lie, people just will not imagine, even if they have expertise, knowledge and smarts. Talk about manufacturing cognitive dissonance! Suddenly we are all Pavlov's dogs dribbling a meaningless debate on cue for the master's amusement.

This presupposes a permanent GOP Empire by the way. With no Dem interregnums allowed unless it is really soppy President tool.

[wtmusic]

3. Absolutely

It's not that DU'ers can't see it, but I don't know if we've had as thorough a post on it before. Good work :-)

Honestly, though, the timing is pure politics. Had that Mars Rover crashed and burned it wouldn't have been given a second thought (for now).

[liberalhistorian]

4. The American public is too

fucking stupid, and too brainwashed by Fox and the other too-numerous media whores, to see it, much less understand it. And the hyper-excited, gee-whiz fluff media coverage ain't helping much, either. I'm so fucking sick of this country's stupid citizens right now, I could just SCREAM!

[TheDalaiMama]

5. I agree..the plan is to weaponize space....

dalai

[tom_paine]

10. Hey, at least we're not as bad as 1930s Germans

Yet.

[spindoctor]

6. So the real question is...

Who the fuck is running this country?

[lovedems]

7. It was obvious there was something "evil" behind this little plan

I just didn't know what it was. Thanks for the information, now it all makes perfect sense. With Halliburton getting in on the ground floor, that just makes it even better for them.

[mmm]

8. Russia and China will follow the US right up there

There will be nukes in space with nukes to spare
and new and improved weapons, everywhere.
This heralds the end of the end.

[markus]

9. Conquest of the Moon

Think of it:

Observation and weapons platforms out of the reach of conventional, surfaced launched attack. If you can't get to the moon, you can't touch it.

It's just about perfect. And of course, we won't be able to let anyone else up there for security reasons.

Bush and PNAC want the militirization of space, in fact the U.S. dominance in space, so that no one can defy them.

[Nihil]

15. Shades of Heinlein short story

"The Long Watch" (if memory serves me correctly)

It was in the collection "The Green Hills of Earth" and concerned
a standard space trooper who was on duty at the moon base when a
coup started. Basically, he sacrificed himself to prevent the
faction from keeping control of the moon-mounted weapons after
realising that a "simple example to bring people in line" would
result in the deaths of thousands. Nice story. Hope that there
really would be such honourable soldiers around should it prove
necessary to avoid the dictatorship.

Nihil

[bobbieinok]

31. I remember that story...

read it in jr hi, I think

[Rockholm]

11. Saw A Link Last Night On DU

That also made some sense. Seems that one month after * got in office, a trip to Mars was hatched. Same bedfellows, same result. Where, oh where is the media when they are desparately needed??

http://www.petroleumnews.com/pnarchpop/010228-49.html

Maybe this was part of Cheney's secret "energy policy.":mad:

[TeeYiYi]

13. Interesting link. Thanks. .....n/t

TYY

[rucky]

12. I couldn't think of a more meaningless goal

woo-hoo! we occupy...space! (pun intended)

[OneTwentyoNine]

25. Yeah,I'd be more worried about the Cyberspace....

Letting PNAC get control of cyberspace would be more of the "last frontier" than space would.

They could shut down sites like this,Bartcop and others under the ploy of terrorists threats towards Bush or whatever Repig was in office at the time.

David

[Hell Hath No Fury]

32. They have Big plans for cyberspace...

PNAC sees control over "cyberspace" as "an offensive capability" that "could offer America's military and political leaders an invaluable tool in disabling as adversary in a decisive manner".

A political tool. Uh huh. Combine that with their attempt to have OMB have control over the release of information on health and safety happenenings and you end with an UGLY picture.

Pul the plug on the net at a crucial time, just long enough to accomplish something...

[Stephanie]

14. Exactly right. So why isn't this aspect in any of the news coverage?

Most of the news stories can't get beyond comparing Bush (favorably) to JFK. At what point is the press going to get real and stop accepting Bush at face value? When will they READ the documents signed by Cheney, the Shadow President, under PNAC? If nothing else O'Neill's book should make clear who's calling the shots. And Cheney's blueprint is right there for all to read. WHERE IS THE PRESS? This is about transforming NASA to serve military purposes, not science.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/15/national/15BUSH.html?pagewanted=2

"The plan was put together under the direction of the National Security Council. Participants said that Vice President Dick Cheney had run several meetings and that the deputy national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, had organized many of the options. "The president didn't make these choices, but he approved them," a senior official said."

[seemslikeadream]

16. Here's where they are getting the raw materials

This project is part of the $60-billion so-called National Defense system that George W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colon Powell and Vice President Richard Cheney are pushing so vigorously. Building the space station will require many of the rare metals found in eastern Congo.

Another big player in the eastern Congo is Barrick Corp. headquartered in Canada. It is the world's second largest gold producer after Anglo-American of South Africa.
http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Company/kabila.htm

You know Barrick, the Canadian company George Sr. gave $10 billion in mining rights to citing an 1870's mining law, just before he left office. The company he became an international consultant for and helped Barrick "take" natural resources from the Congolese.

Barrick Gold started by Khashoggi.

What is Coltan?

Coltan looks like black mud, but is three times heavier than iron and only slightly lighter than gold. It is found in abundance in eastern Congo and can be mined with minimal equipment. Coltan is vital to the high tech economy. Wireless electronic communication would not exist without it. The "mud" is refined into tantalum - a metallic element that is both superb conductor of electricity and extremely heat-resistant. Tantalum powder is a vital component in capacitors, for the control of the flow of current in miniature circuit boards. Capacitors made of tantalum are found inside every laptop, pager, personal digital assistant and mobile phone. Tantalum is also used in the aviation and atomic energy industries. ...It is generally believed, however that 80% of the world's reserves are in Africa, with the DRC accounting for 80% of the African reserves.
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/newsletter/issue13/issue13_part3.htm

[Bluerthanblue]

17. also Lockheed Martin

stands to gain much $ through this initiative-

And the ties to LM are many, and tangled in this administration.

[Faygo Kid]

21. See their full-page ad on this in today's Washington Post?

Yep, full page, a "thank you, Mr. President," for going back to space. It's in section A of the Thursday Post.

[Bluerthanblue]

23. i didn't but

thanks for the info-

Just read that Lynne Cheney was on the board of directors until mid Jan 2001, and was paid almost $200,000 per year for her services....

Also, that they are the worlds largest producers of WMD's.

It's beyond comprehension how stupid we Americans have become... either that or how apathetic- and hypocritical-

i just don't 'get it'- !!??

[bigtree]

33. Lockheed

Lockheed leads the defense industry in lobbying expenditures. Lockheed Martin made over $10.6 million in campaign contributions to candidates and party committees from 1990 to 2000, including $3.4 million in donations in the run-up to the year 2000 elections.

[Snivi Yllom]

18. Death Star 3

But it will be called something like the Planetary Defense Projector or something benign.

[rman]

19. "Unilateralism goes to space"

http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030519S0030

From the day Donald Rumsfeld became defense secretary, concurrent with the release of the Rumsfeld Commission Report on national security in space,...
The nation's largest intelligence agency by budget and in charge of all U.S. spy satellites, NRO is talking openly with the U.S. Air Force Space Command about actively denying the use of space for intelligence purposes to any other nation at any time-not just adversaries, but even longtime allies, according to NRO director Peter Teets.
...

[IkeWarnedUs]

20. Thanks for these great posts

All of the statements of what Bush's space plans are NOT about came from posts here on DU. I kept posting the quotes from the PNAC paper and started to think I was typing in invisible ink.

Thanks for reading this and responding. Thank you all for re-affirming my faith in DU'ers.

Now, back to sending this to the media.

[Cleita]

24. Good assessment, I thought so too.

Since he couldn't invade Iran and Syria according to the original plan, he had to do something to bulk up the military and I thought this could be it.

Also, as a side benefit, I noticed it's a good distraction for the whore media. When CNN was reporting on Bush's trip to Atlanta and they showed some footage of protesters, then they suddenly segued into a story about the NASA and the new plans for new space missions. Convenient eh?

[jmowreader]

26. There's another reason

He wants to solidify or reestablish his lead in Texas, Florida and Utah and give people in California another reason to vote for him.

Why those four states? Texas and Florida are obvious: NASA's main operations are in those two states. Utah because NASA can't launch a major initiative without Morton Thiokol, which is in Utah's Wasatch Valley. And California because there's plenty of aerospace work there.

Don't get me wrong: the PNAC conquest of space thing is important too. But Bush doesn't wipe his ass without considering how his choice of toilet paper will affect the electoral vote.

I say "reestablish" because, after the Mad Cow scare, I think Texas may be in play.

[One Taste]

27. That's exactly what I thought when I first heard it

[ecstatic]

28. Ha, I thought it was so he & his friends could have somewhere to live

once they bombed the earth into oblivion. Actually I still believe that.

[Cleita]

29. These people are so cultish and well weird, I wouldn't put that

past them. What is Dick Cheney building under his house?

[Astarho]

30. Good post

It isn't to benefit Bush's corporate investors (although it will).

BUSH WANTS TO TAKE US TO SPACE TO FULFILL THE PNAC PLAN TO ESTABLISH A NEW BRANCH OF THE MILITARY - U.S. SPACE FORCES.

They are one and the same.

[bigtree]

37. Bush's corporate space investor's shills in his administration:

Lockheed and possibly Raytheon stands to receive the lion's share of future space contracts because of Boeing's suspension for spying on Lockheed.

With a share of 24% of U.S. arms exports, Lockheed-Martin is the world's largest arms exporting company. Lockheed leads the pack of defense contractors who do business with the U.S. with valuable Pentagon contracts worth a total of nearly $30 billion and an advertised $70 billion backlog.

A World Policy Institute review found that 32 major policy makers in the current administration have significant ties to the arms industry now, and prior to joining the administration.

My compilation:

-Rumsfeld was chosen as defense chief to usher in the next cash cow for the military industry: Space-Based Weaponry. He chaired the Rumsfeld Commission a.k.a.: "Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States" Wolfowitz was on the board, and Iraq reconstruction's Gen. Jay Garner was there too.

-Peter B. Teets, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, is the former president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin who retired from the company in late 1999.

Teets now serves as the director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) 65, Undersecretary of the Air Force, and chief procurement officer for all of military space, controlling a budget in excess of $65 billion, a figure that includes $8 billion a year for missile defense and $7 billion annually for NRO spying.

To date it is believed that the NRO has provided more than $500 million each to Lockheed-Martin and Boeing. "A key player in supplying revolutionary breakthrough technology has been, and will continue to be, the National Reconnaissance Office," Teets said February in a Pentagon briefing.

As reported by Karl Grossman of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Stephen Hadley told an Air Force Association Convention in a speech September 11, 2000, "Space is going to be important. It has a great feature in the military."

-Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of DOD, and former assistant to Dick Cheney, was a Northrop-Grumman consultant.
Wolfowitz, along with Condi Rice and Richard Perle, and others, formed the Bush campaign foreign policy and national security team with others, which Ms. Rice named "The Vulcans," after a statue of the Roman god in Rice's hometown.

Wolfowitz is a longtime member of the PNAC, and a veteran of both the Reagan and Bush I administrations.

-Colin Powell, owned more than $1 million in General Dynamics stock before joining the administration.

-Gordon England, Secretary of the Navy was a General Dynamics contractor and a former president of Lockheed.

- Undersecretary of Defense Michael Wynne, was Senior Vice President for International Planning and Development at General Dynamics before joining the administration.

- Richard Perle, White House Defense Policy Advisor, worked for Trireme, a company of which he is a managing partner, involved in security and military technologies, and agreed to work as a paid lobbyist for Global Crossing, a telecommunications giant seeking a major Pentagon contract.

Perle accepted an offer from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to chair the Defense Policy Board, which is a Defense Department advisory group composed primarily of former government officials, retired military officers, and academics. Its members include former national-security advisers, Secretaries of Defense, and heads of the C.I.A. The board meets several times a year at the Pentagon to review and assess the country's strategic defense policies.

Perle now serves as a director of the Autonomy Corporation, a British firm that recently won a major federal contract in homeland security.

-Karl Rove, Senior Advisor to the President is a Boeing shareholder.

-Michael Jackson, Deputy Secretary of Transportation is the former Vice President, Former CEO of Lockheed Information and Management Services and a shareholder.

-Norman Mineta, Secretary of Transportation is a former Vice President, shareholder of Lockheed, who fell out of Congress and into Lockheed's financial cradle.

-Otto Reich, Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America was a paid consultant for Lockheed when the company was seeking a reversal of the U.S. ban on the sale of high tech weapons to Latin America.

-James G. Roche, Secretary of the Air Force is a former president of Northrop-Grumman, a subsidiary of Lockheed. "We have encouraged and exploited the rapid advancement and employment of innovative technologies and have taken significant action to implement the findings of the Space Commission in our new role as the executive agent for space," he said to a Senate committee in 2002.

-Dov Zakheim - Under Secretary for Comptroller of Defense was a paid advisory board member of Northrup-Grumman.

-Nelson F. Gibbs, Air Force; Assistant Secretary for Installations, Environment and Logistics is a former corporate comptroller for Northrop-Grumman.

-Sean O'Keefe, NASA Administrator was on a paid advisory board of Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon.

-I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff and Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs was a Northrup-Grumman consultant.

-Retired general Jay Garner, who served briefly as the administrator for postwar Iraq, is the President of SYColeman Corp., which is owned by L-3, one of Lockheed-Martin's communications technology units.

In their new positions, these military industrial warriors are well-positioned to make decisions on procurement and research programs that will directly or indirectly benefit their former employer (Lockheed),which has major portfolios in nuclear weapons, missile defense, and military space systems.

[Rabrrrrrr]

34. Oh, so obviously and absolutely

Against all treaties - oh wait, this asshole has never broken a treaty before, has he? I asked naively and TOTALLY SARCASTICALLY - this &@*$^@%@ is gonna get our military in space.

I can't wait until he is no longer with us.

[wunnerfulrobin]

35. Better us than anyone else. Sorry.

We might as well be the first, why let China have it. Believe me they are trying, too.
Not that I really think it would happen anytime soon........

[Cronus Protagonist]

36. This will be Bush's "Russian Front"

I believe a similar act of underfunded, undersupported bravado cost his predecessor World War II.

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