Thursday, March 13, 2008
Stories about the transformation U.S. Strategic Command has
undergone since 9/11 have been dribbling out for years. But just recently have
we gotten a clearer picture of what these changes portend.
In October
2002, when the U.S. Space Command was shifted to StratCom, nobody could have
imagined that in six months the “shock and awe” bombing campaign on Iraq would
originate from Omaha. But with 70 percent of the missiles and smart bombs used
in that pre-emptive attack guided from space, StratCom directed what Air Force
Secretary James Roche termed the “the first true space war.”
Then, in
August 2003, the “Stockpile Stewardship Committee” overseeing StratCom’s nuclear
arsenal held a classified meeting at StratCom to plot the development of a new
generation of crossover nuclear weapons — so-called “bunker busters” — that
could be used in conventional military conflicts. The “firewall” between nuclear
and conventional war-fighting was being torn down, and StratCom was swinging the
hammer.
And who could have guessed in December 2005, when
revelations about the warrantless wiretapping program became public, that this
National Security Agency operation had StratCom fingerprints? But the NSA, under
StratCom’s new mission of “Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance,” had
been made a StratCom “component command,” and the NSA director, Gen. Michael
Hayden (who now heads the CIA), was carrying out this constitutionally suspect
activity.
It’s been nearly three years since the story broke that Vice
President Dick Cheney ordered StratCom to draw up plans for an air- and
sea-based attack on Iran. Under its “Prompt Global Strike” and “Combating
Weapons of Mass Destruction” missions, the Omaha headquarters is now charged
with attacking any place on earth — within one hour — on the mere perception of
a threat to America’s national security. The war on terror is being waged from
StratCom, and the next war the White House gets us into (whether with Iran or a
geopolitical rival like China) will start in Nebraska.
With all the
missions it’s now got in its quiver, you can hardly open a newspaper anymore
without reading about a StratCom scheme.
The current flap with
Russia over the proposed missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech
Republic — that’s StratCom’s handiwork. The command picked up its
“Integrated Missile Defense” mission in 2003 after the Bush/Cheney
administration pulled out of the ABM Treaty. And those Eastern European
installations — which the Russians warn are reigniting the Cold War — will
be added to the network of international bases already under StratCom’s
command.
But from reading the news accounts, you’d never know the
command was involved. StratCom’s name is never mentioned.
Or who
realized that, when a U.S. Predator drone fired a missile killing al-Qaida
commander Abu Laith al-Libi in Pakistan this past January, StratCom did
everything from supply the intelligence to help fly the unpiloted vehicle? That
incident dramatized how easily StratCom — with its new war-fighting
authority — can skirt the law. According to an Associated Press
story, the missile attack infringed on Pakistan’s national sovereignty, meaning
international law may have been breached. But with the free hand it’s been
granted, 60 minutes from now, StratCom could have started a war and Congress
wouldn’t even have had a clue.
This is not our fathers’
StratCom.
Gone are the days when Strategic Command simply
controlled America’s nuclear deterrent, and its doomsday weapons were only to be
used as a last resort. Since 9/11, StratCom has gone from never supposed to be
used to being used for everything. Likening the changes that have occurred
at the command to a tsunami, former astronaut and current StratCom Commander
Kevin Chilton brags that StratCom today is “the most responsive combatant
command in the U.S. arsenal.”
It’s now also the most dangerous place on
the face of the earth.
And hardly anybody knows it.
StratCom’s
well-publicized shootdown of the spy satellite, however, may have finally shown
the world just how menacing the command has become. Barely a week after the
United States repudiated a treaty proposal to ban space weapons at a U.N.
Conference on Disarmament, StratCom shot down the satellite — using its “missile
defense” system. And the message this shootdown sent to the world struck
with all the force of an anti-satellite missile. Despite the innocuous name,
missile defense is now understood to be an offensive weapon by which the United
States (in the language of the administration’s national space policy) means to
“dominate” space …
And whoever controls space controls the
earth.
Operating like some executive-branch vigilante, StratCom has just
launched a new arms race — because you can bet Russia and China will never
surrender the heavens without a fight.
What’s equally worrisome,
though, is that StratCom is now hourly making a mockery of our system of
congressional checks and balances. And if Congress can’t rein in StratCom, can
anyone?
Tim Rinne is the state coordinator of Nebraskans for
Peace, the nation’s oldest statewide peace and justice organization. Nebraskans
for Peace will co-sponsor an international conference April 11-13 in Omaha about
the threat StratCom poses.
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in
Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
http://www.space4peace.org
globalnet@mindspring.com
http://space4peace.blogspot.com
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