Bush Tries Using Eminent Domain In Space
October 24th, 2006 | by Ken Grandlund |
President Bush has pissed off a lot of people around the world with his unilateralist bent, his unwillingness to grasp nuanced diplomacy, and his unrelenting charge towards destabilization and mass chaos. Yet for a man like the president, it’s not a question of who you irritate, but whether you’ve done anything to irritate them recently.
Enter the newly revised Bush administration policy on space. Released this month, the Bush policy has claimed its (America’s) right to weaponize the solar system with US arms while stopping all other countries from launching their own weapons systems into orbit. I guess wars on Earth just aren’t enough for this guy.
And what are others saying about this idea?
“America wants it all — life, the universe and everything,” proclaimed The Times of London. “Space: no longer the final frontier but the 51st state of the United States.”
“U.S. turns space into its colony,” echoed a headline in the Asia Times, which concluded that “the United States intends to monopolize its longstanding space presence by militarizing it.”
Of course, space is already weaponized to a small degree if you consider the spy satellites and guidance system satellites that the military uses. But these are not weapons in and of themselves, but merely tools for earthbound weapons systems. Bush seems to want to change that limitation.
Yet where the Clinton administration issues a space policy that emphasized the right of all countries to use space as they saw fit (read- no one has ownership of space), the Bush policy claims the US right to deny space to others:
“Arms control … must not impair the rights of the United States,” the policy reads. “The United States will preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space … and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to the United States.”
Bush already withdrew the US from the ABM treaty so we could continue to chase after the elusive missle defense system started by Reagan so long ago. And despite the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that explicitly bans WMD’s from space and any heavenly body, like the moon, Bush seems adamant on developing space weapons under the guise of we need ‘em to stop others from putting them up there. In other words, we have to break the treaty to protect the world from rogue nations.
Sounds an awful lot like ‘fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here’ to me. I wonder how many Space Divisions Halliburton has.
[tag]space, Bush, weapons+in+space[/tag]
12 Responses to “Bush Tries Using Eminent Domain In Space”
By landcomm1 on Oct 24, 2006 | Reply
We have an awful lot of turning back the clock to do. Sadly, the pace at which the shrub and his supporting army of idots is approving legislation and policy, seems to have picked up, just in time for the election. We can only hope people will see through this madness.
By SteveIL on Oct 24, 2006 | Reply
Tell me again how I’m supposed to believe “liberals” and Democrats are serious about national security? Clintoon and his policy? Oh, that’s right. The guy who “punished” North Korea by making sure the US couldn’t tell if Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were developing nukes, or developing missiles that can reach Hawaii. Yeah, that was a great idea.
The people did see through the madness. That’s why Bush is President and Congress is Republican.
landcomm1, I love you’re comment “We have an awful lot of turning back the clock to do.” To what, 9/10/2001?
Again, why should I believe “liberals” are serious about national security?
By tos on Oct 24, 2006 | Reply
I guess I would feel safer with China up there.
By Liberal Jarhead on Oct 24, 2006 | Reply
I love the logic in Bush saying, essentially, “We have the right to have American weapons hanging over everyone’s heads. The rest of the world also has the right to have American weapons hanging over their heads.” And considering how unsafe other countries would feel with Bush holding the trigger for those weapons hanging over them, this move is highly provocative, totally gratuitous at this time, and again likely to make us less secure rather than more. You don’t make yourself safer by running around waving a gun in people’s faces and screaming at them, you make them more likely to see you as a threat and treat you accordingly. I, for example, carry a pistol to protect myself and my family, but I don’t wave it around and loudly announce that I’m ready to blow away anyone who looks dangerous to me.
As for national security, Clinton’s team was tracking Bin Laden’s plans and actively looking for opportunities to kill or capture him (and don’t trot out that old lie about Clinton having passed up an opportunity to get him; that’s long since been refuted.) When they had some info that looked like a chance to nail him, Clinton tried, and the Republicans screamed that he was just trying to distract people from that vital national security issue they were obsessing on, Monicagate. You can’t have it both ways, but you try - condemn him when he tries to do something about Bin Laden, then say he didn’t take the threat seriously.
Clinton and his people passed the explicit information on to Bush’s team, who then ignored it; Bush didn’t even read the damn briefing, even though its title told him an Al Qaeda attack inside the U.S. was coming and the content said the attackers might use hijacked airliners. After 9/11, Bush and his people lied about having been told anything until the documentation surfaced that showed they were briefed, then tried to lie about the content of that briefing. Since 9/11, Bush has systematically weakened Homeland Security here in the states by cutting federal support for first responders (he promised increased funding to the NYC fire department, then turned around and cut their funding deeply - the head of their firefighters union was so angry he boycotted the first anniversary commemoration of 9/11), and by mobilizing Guard and Reserve units that contained a lot of those first responders and sending them to Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no terrorists before we invaded it but is now swarming with them thanks to Bush’s utter failure to plan for the aftermath of the war.
Yes, Democrats and liberals are serious about national security; one indicator of that is the number of us, both officeholders and voters, who have put our money where our mouths were by serving in the military, unlike Bush and the rest of the chicken hawks. I don’t care what you believe - that’s your choice - but the truth doesn’t care whether you believe it or not. It just sits there grinning at you and being true.
The greatest threat to the national security of the U.S.A. today is George W. Bush. Despite their best efforts, Al Qaeda has not been able to take away any of our rights and freedoms that he loves to bray about, but he sure has - freedom from invasion of privacy without probable cause or due process, and now the right of habeas corpus - only the cornerstone of the rule of law ever since the Magna Carta, that’s all. Soon more Americans will have died as a result of Bush’s invasion of Iraq, which had nothing to do with our national security, than as a result of 9/11.
I concur with landcomm1 about turning back the clock; how about to the beginning of January 2001, just before Bush took office, when our intelligence services were on top of the national security situation and the president and his team listened to them; we had a record budget surplus instead of a record deficit; and our relations with most of the rest of the world were pretty good instead of it being a bad idea to let people know you’re an American because the majority of people polled around the world think we’re the biggest threat to world peace today.
Clinton would have continued tracking Bin Laden and might have prevented some or all of the 9/11 attacks - he would have read the damn briefing and tried, anyway. Clinton would have kept the budget surplus growing, and he wouldn’t have sat on his ass on vacation for days after Katrina hit New Orleans before he did anything about it or even showed up to let people know he was aware they existed and maybe even gave a shit. Clinton is flawed, but he was a real president instead of just playing one on TV, and he left America in much better shape than he got it, despite the Republican Congress’s working harder at paralyzing his administration than at anything else for several years. If Clinton or any other Democrat had the record Bush has compiled since 2001, they would have long since impeached him. The second biggest threat to American national security is the rabid right wing of the Republican party.
By SteveIL on Oct 24, 2006 | Reply
LJ, you actually believe that crap you spewed? You’ve pretty much quoted the
Old York SlimesNew York Times to a tee. And you have the nerve to trot out the “chickenhawk” lie “liberals” have been spouting off on for years. Let’s see, what base did Clinton serve at when he was in the military? Oh, that’s right, he wasn’t in the military. He was draft-dodging in Britain, not inhaling.I’m also glad you are clairvoyant enough to know exactly what Clinton would have done regarding bin Laden, despite evidence (real evidence) to the contrary.
By Paul Merda on Oct 25, 2006 | Reply
I hate Bush as much as the next guy, but if the US doesn’t weaponize space, someone else will. It is the future of warfare plain and simple, it is the ultimate “high ground”. I once heard a retired Air Force General say, “we are slowly changing from an Air and Space Force to a Space and Air Force”. The implications of that statement are profound.
Of course if we are at war with someone we will destroy their weapons, in space and on the ground. Why is that a surprise? About 10-15 years ago the Russians destroyed one of our satellites with a ground based weapon and we responded by destroying one of theirs with one of our anti-satellite weapons.
Check out this link for more info on space-based weapons etc:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/asat.htm
However, Dear Leader could have used a bit more diplomatic tact…
By Paul Watson The Cranky Brit on Oct 25, 2006 | Reply
Paul,
So, breaking yet another treaty first is ok, because if you don’t someone else will. Welcome to the justification of drug dealers and thieves: “If I didn’t do it, someone else would and I’m much nicer than they are.”
To the rest of the world , this is just the US deciding to go it alone and ignore its commitments, yet again. Keep this up and no one’s going to take the treaties they’ve signed with you seriously at all. After all, you don’t take treaties you’ve signed seriously, why should we?
Welcome to the new arms race, good luck keeping up the cost. That was what bankrupted the Soviets, wasn’t it?
By SteveIL on Oct 25, 2006 | Reply
Paul Watson,
Note this line from ken grandlund’s original post:
As Paul Merda realistically points out:
The reality of the situation. And, unlike what ken surmised as Bush denying space exploration by other nations, it was that the US shouldn’t be denied being allowed to defend itself with space-based weapons.
What bankrupted the Soviet Union was not only the arms race, but the fact that the government was the primary employer, the primary business, of that entire country. There was no way they could keep up in an arms race without cutting costs (labor costs especially), which was a factor in leading up to the demise of the Soviet Union. Which is why I hate the idea of the federal government (and state, and local) getting into an industry (ie., health care) better served in the private sector.
By Paul Watson The Cranky Brit on Oct 25, 2006 | Reply
SteveIL,
So, whom exactly are you protecting yourself against? Who else is militarising space? The field seems resolutely missing except for the US. So again, what is the justification? Because no one else seems to be threatening you in space. So the only reason for you to do this is to threaten other people. After all, if there isn’t a threat to defend against, then this is an aggressive act.
Or, to put it another way, you’re now planning on massing military forces on the border of every country in the world. Please justify, and explain why the rest of the world shouldn’t fear the country that attempts to do this and attempt to stop them?
By Paul Merda on Oct 25, 2006 | Reply
Paul Watson,
I usually agree with ya but not here. If the US doens’t put WMD’s into space then there is no violation of the treaty. Having conventional weapons isn’t against the treaty. What conventional weapons in space will do is allow for global strike capabilities in minutes, as opposed to hours. I’m all for it, nothing will change my mind on the issue…
By Paul Watson The Cranky Brit on Oct 25, 2006 | Reply
Paul,
I can accept you being wrong just this once.
I assume you’d also be happy if the rest of the world did the same? Or would you regard that as aggressive? If you would, then why do you think we shouldn’t regard your move as aggressive?
By ken grandlund on Oct 25, 2006 | Reply
There is no space weapons race going on, unless the Bush administration precipitates one. How many countries are really seeking to weaponize space? How many really have the resources or knowledge to even begin to do so? Not so many I think.
Of those who do have the capability, most, if not all, are allies in some form to the US. Are we really worried about a terror group developing and launching space based weaponry? It’s a rather ridiculous idea. Too easy to spot, too expensive to do. It’s far easier to hijack a plane or smuggle in a dirty bomb than to base missles or lasers in space.
No, Bush is just making more enemies around the world with declarations or policies like this one. If you ask me, the harder he works to put a weapon ‘minutes from anywhere’ the harder the rest of the world will work against America. We aren’t exactly the most benevolent government on the planet, despite rhetoric to the contrary.
Simply put, there is no real reason to weaponize space. Far better to spend time and money building peace on Earth.