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“Star
Wars” Opponents Gather in Alabama By Clare Hanrahan
Star Wars and the Space Frontier The conference was sponsored by the Florida-based Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, the North Alabama chapter of Veterans for Peace and the War Resisters League. WRL participated as part of its new Disarmament Task Force campaign against the Strategic Missile Defense System, which focuses on the corporate interests behind the “Star Wars” revival.
The Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space notes that the Bush administration, the Pentagon and their corporate allies are pushing hard to move the arms race into space. Weapons makers Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW have received billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars already; 60 percent of all Pentagon missile defense research and development contracts went to those four companies during 1998 and 1999, according to the World Policy Institute at New School University. The companies stand to make billions more if a national missile defense system is deployed. Conference participants shared information and strategies to defeat the U.S. Space Command’s plan to control and own space as a “U.S. fourth frontier” as outlined in a report released January 11 by the Space Commission, a 13-member panel chaired by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield. The report baldly says, “In the coming period, the United States will conduct operations to, from, in and through space in support of its national interests both on earth and in space.” It goes on to propose that the U.S. Space Command become the nucleus of a U.S. Space Corps, to be like the Marine Corps and possibly “transition” to a fully separate Space Force or “Space Department” on a par with the Army, Navy and Air Force. The Space Command’s plan to militarize space violates more than one international agreement. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which the United States signed along with more than 90 other countries, bans nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction from space and stipulates that the “exploration of outer space be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all [hu]mankind.” The 1972 ABM Treaty signed by the United States and the U.S.S.R. prohibits building a system to counter strategic ballistic missiles or their elements. And, says the Global Network’s Bruce Gagnon, “Last year at the United Nations, 157 countries, including China and Russia, passed a resolution calling for a global ban on weapons in space.’’ Three nations abstained from that vote, he adds: “The U.S., Israel and Micro-nesia.” The Space Command’s own document “Vision For 2020” leaves no doubt about the sinister intent, calling for “[i]nte- grating Space Forces into war-fighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict,” with an ability “to deny others the use of space.” A motto of the Air Force Space Command is “Master of Space,” displayed in large letters over the entrance to the 50th Space Wing in Colorado. The conference included speakers and discussions on the ‘’Nuclearization and Weaponization of Space,” ‘’Military Satellites for Warfighting, Intelligence, and Counterinsurgency,’’ and “Strategies and Movement Building Under a New Administration.” A full day of information was sandwiched between demonstrations Friday afternoon at the gates of the Redstone Nuclear arsenal, site of 70 percent of the research and development for the Nuclear Missile Defense and Theatre Missile Defense programs, and Sunday morning at Huntsville’s Space and Rocket Center Museum, where busloads of America’s children are subjected to space weapons propaganda. “Although it all sounds like science fiction,” said WRL Disarmament Coordinator Chris Ney, “missile defense (in any form) is just a ruse to build space weapons and satellite-based communications and reconnaissance.” And Peter Lumsdaine, an organizer with the Vandenberg Action Coalition in California, warned that the Space Command is increasingly “the coordinating hub of the military terror and space-age counterinsurgency war used to enforce the economic and environmental violence of corporate globalization.” The Vandenberg Air Force Base is a satellite launch complex for surveillance and targeting satellites, part of the $60 billion national missile “defense” system. Lumsdaine called for direct action of the magnitude that occurred in Seattle in 1999. “I believe that the U.S. Space Command is the [World Trade Organization] of military control and terror in the 21st century,” he said. He also underscored the connection between the Space Command’s activities and the war in Colombia. (The New York Times recently confirmed that “U.S. military satellites are now guiding the defoliation planes, helicopter gunships and elite military strike teams as they accelerate their offensive in southern Colombia.”) “The peace in space movement is growing rapidly,” said Gagnon, whose tireless and dedicated work has taken him throughout the world to alert people to the dangers of weapons in space. “We all have a piece of the puzzle,” he added, noting that “the South is vital to this plan for the weaponization and nuclearization of space.” According to the Global Network, the space-based laser to be tested at the Stennis Missile Center in Mississippi will be the “follow-on” technology to ballistic missile defense. Bill O’Connell, an adult education teacher from Birmingham, AL and a member of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, said, “Star Wars is building pyramids to the sky on top of my students. Our books are falling apart. We’re already 50th in education.” O’Connell explained that the tax dollars he withholds from the Pentagon will go to purchase books, computers, supplies and equipment for his students. Conferees also heard from a member of Huntsville’s City Council. “I know how the fight goes and I understand what you’re up against,” Dick Hyatt told the assembly. “We profess to have a democracy. A democracy is based on an informed populace. Without that a democracy cannot exist. Without hearing the other side of this issue we cannot have democracy. If you go back into your communities and inform them about the other side of this issue, I firmly believe that the people, people like you and me, can make this country move into the new millennium in a way that is good for all of us.” Perhaps the most poignant point was made by a Huntsville mother. “I worked in Huntsville on development of the ‘smart’ missile,” she said. “I helped build 14 prototypes. When my children asked me, ‘Mommy, are you really building things that will kill people?’ it made me think. I had to stop.” Resources WRL will have a new organizers’ kit to oppose Star Wars and other missile “defense” systems and will hold a Disarm Space! one-day seminar in Colorado Springs, CO, July 12; for information, contact Chris Ney, (212)228-0450. The Vandenberg Action Coalition has called for a Nonviolent Security Zone Occupation on May 19 as part of the Vandenberg Resistance Camp May 18-23. For information, contact (831)423-1626 ext. 104, www.geocities.com/vafb_m19.
Asheville, NC, writer and war tax resister Clare Hanrahan serves on the National Committee of the War Resisters League and is a member of the National Writers Union. She is awaiting trial for nonviolent action at the Ft. Benning, GA, site of the U.S. Army School of the Americas. She can be reached at chanrahan@ncpress.net. |
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hile
the Pentagon moved to control space as this country’s “fourth frontier,”
activists from throughout the country gathered in Huntsville, AL, March
16-18 for “Keep Space for Peace,” the national space organizing conference
and protest. 
