Our vision calls on prompt global strike space systems with the capability to directly apply force from or through space against terrestrial targets. --Air Force Space Command, Strategic Master Plan, Federal Year 2004 and Beyond Space offers attractive options not only for missile defense but for a broad range of interrelated civil and military missions. It truly is the ultimate high ground. We are exploring concepts and technologies for space-based intercepts. --Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, October 2002 Whoever has the capability to control space will likewise possess the capability to exert control of the surface of the Earth. --General Thomas D. White, air force chief of staff, November 29, 1957 page 208 Nemesis: The Last Days of The American Republic by Chalmers Johnson Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny, he [head of the Air Force Space Command, General Lance Lord] told an air force conference in September 2004. Space superiority is our day-to-day mission. Space supremacy is our vision fro the future. Simply put, he said to Congress, its the American way of fighting. We must have freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack in space.16 page 215 Americas imperial project to dominate the space surrounding our planet has provided a nearly perfect setting for official corruption. The air force and the military-industrial complex interests meshing withe powerful congressional lobbies that want to bring space-oriented industries to their districts and perpetuate their own safe seats in Congress, as well as unimaginable sums of money protected from public scrutiny by black budgets, special access programs, and other forms of secrecy, all add up to a prescription for legal thievery on an unprecedented scale. Norman Ornstein, a specialist on Congress at the American Enterprise Institute, has observed that when individual members of Congress have the ability to earmark--that is, privately attach--federal funds for pet projects and slip them unopposed into the Pentagons budget, You are creating the most fertile environment for corruption imaginable.59 page 229 William D. Hartung, Frida Berrigan, Michelle Ciarrocca, and Jonathan Wingo of the World Policy Institute have summed up our military ventures in space and space defense as Pork barrel in the sky.60 page 230 Space has also become, unfortunately, an arena for American hubris and one more piece of evidence that Nemesis is much closer than most of us would care to contemplate. page 242
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 03:31:02 +0000
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