October 7th - A Malignant Silence

Friends,

Yesterday was the anniversary of the day (October 7, 2001) the United States brought President Bush's perpetual War On Terror to Afghanistan. And once the first bomb was dropped and the first soldier set foot on Afghan soil, we were locked in, stuck in the place of no return. As Arundahti Roy said in 2001, "once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place."

Eight years later, and while folks in Washington, D.C. consider how many more troops to send over to country about which we still understand so little, people in the U.S., by and large, go about business as usual; there is little public conversation (or action) about stopping the war. Of course, our nation is not a shambles due to the long presence of foreign invaders, and incessant military actions, including aerial bombings and missile attacks, that have destroyed environment and infrastructure, and killed and maimed countless civilians.

Much of that death and destruction has been perpetrated by (very) long distance; military personnel (and perhaps the occasional private contractor) sitting in trailers in places like Las Vegas, Nevada, operate unmanned aerial vehicles (a.k.a. drones), their signals transmitted by military satellites. We are conducting war using space technology and, as Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, "Death at a distance is still blood on our hands."

A small band of dedicated peacemakers from Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action bannered and leafleted yesterday outside the U.S. District Courthouse in Tacoma, Washington to remind others that we must Keep Space for Peace. Judging by the overall lack of enthusiasm for our message, I would guess that most people would rather not be bothered by such things as space weapons and perpetual war, as long as they are used/waged somewhere else. Nevertheless, there were some who were receptive to the message. At any rate, our spirits were high as we spread the message of peace and nonviolence to anyone willing to listen.

Join us as we call for peace - peace in space as well as peace on Earth. Check out my previous post where you can send a message to Congress asking them to call on President Obama to negotiate a new space treaty to prevent an arms race in space. Each of us can help break the silence by being another voice for peace. Speaking out for peace is the only way to cure the malignancy of silence.

Peace,

Leonard

Note: Photo of members of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action bannering in front of U.S. District Courthouse, Tacoma, Washington on October 7, 2009 taken by Leonard Eiger.

Keep Space for Peace!

Hey kids! Looking for a really cool job doing pretty much what you've been doing all these years - playing video games? Well, Uncle Sam wants you! After spending millions training pilots to fly really big, heavy, expensive jets and then sending them overseas, your United States government finally got smart. We realized that we could spend a whole lot less on pilot training AND even less on aircraft (both acquisition and operation). The upshot of the whole thing is that you can fly these cool remote controlled aircraft right from the comfort of your air-conditioned trailer each day, and then head home, crack open a beer and watch the latest reality show from the comfort of your own home. No more being away from home for months at a time in some hot desert; leave that to the grunts. And the best part is it doesn't even seem like work. Yes, it's just like playing those video games you are so used to.

Okay, so that's not exactly how the military recruiters are signing up the new generation of pilots to control drones (in Afghanistan) from exotic places like Creech Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada. But it isn't all that far from the truth. The battlefield of the future is here today, and relies heavily on space - picture a swath of military satellites orbiting the Earth - to do everything from communications and targeting to controlling the remote controlled aircraft known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones. What is really scary about drones is we are setting the stage for fighting wars quite literally from halfway around the globe. Will this make it easier for governments (like the U.S.) to start and continue wars? If Iraq and Afghanistan are examples, then we had better watch out! This is certainly a Pandora's Box, the likes of which we have never before seen.

Space is, as Captain Kirk of Star Trek called it, the final frontier. And if the Pentagon has anything to say about it, that frontier will belong solely to the United States, lock, stock and satellites. The current U.S. National Space Policy, an extension of the policy started by President Clinton in 1996 and expanded by the Bush Administration, says that, "“In this new century, those who effectively utilize space will enjoy added prosperity and security and will hold a substantial advantage over those who do not. Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power.”

That pretty much sets the tone, doesn't it??? While the National Space Policy does not explicitly endorse placing weapons in space or fighting in, through or from space, the U.S. is definitely using space (via satellites) to control drones as well as locate and destroy targets. The stage is being set, and it is creating a veritable feeding frenzy among defense contractors such as General Atomics, which can't create new ideas for drones fast enough to keep up with the Pentagon's destructive desires. This is, as with everything else "defensive", a full employment policy for defense contractors.

The old notion that space would be an arena for international cooperation ( lest we forget the token International Space Station) is being quickly replaced by a new era of competition (thanks to U.S. military efforts), and it is likely to become something rivaling the Cold War should we not put on the brakes right now. The Obama administration must work to negotiate a United Nations treaty to prevent an arms race in space.

This week is the International Week of Protest to Stop the Militarization of Space. Learn more about keeping space for peace at the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. You can also learn more at Reaching Critical Will's Outer Space Page and at the PAROS Working Group.

Bruce Gagnon at the Global Network has a sample letter to Congress calling on them to urge President Obama to negotiate a new space treaty to prevent an arms race in space. Click here to find Congressional contact information. Join me in asking Congress to Keep Space for Peace.

Peace,

Leonard

Read the 2006 U.S. National Space Policy.

Droning On, And On, And On...

Friends,

Let's face it; drones (or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as the Pentagon likes to call them) are the hottest thing to hit the skies since the U.S. Army first showed interest in the Wright Brothers. With their popularity so high with just about everyone in the U.S. military (and, it seems, The White House) perhaps the Pentagon will just sack the F-22 and F-35 and order more drones. They're a whole lot cheaper, they stay in the air a whole lot longer, and pilots don't run the risk of getting shot down.

And now, the "investigative" television newsmagazine, CBS 60 Minutes has produced a cheerleading segment on drones (you can watch the entire segment below) that might as well have been produced by the public relations crew at the Defense Department. Watching the segment gave me the distinct impression that the Pentagon is trying to put the happy face on the Reaper and Predator, which have been doing both recently as they have taken out way more civilians than "terrorists" (depending on whose news you believe).

In Pakistan, where the CIA has been droning away, the "collateral damage" (according to the Pakistani government) may be as high as 50 civilians for every militant killed by a drone strike. All that for roughly "14 terrorist leaders in three years?" Do the math; it's not looking good. And if you don't believe the numbers claimed by the Pakistanis, the Times/UK quoted David Kilcullen, Condoleezza Rice's former chief counter-terrorism advisor saying that the use of drones should be stopped. "Since 2006 we've killed 14 senior al-Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period we've killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area. The drone strikes are highly unpopular." he said. "The current path that we are on is leading us to the loss of Pakistani Government control over its own population."

Whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan, the drones are not making many (or is that "any") allies. I don't think one can underestimate the number of enemies we create for every innocent human being killed in a drone attack, what the military refers to as collateral damage. Of course, listening to the 60 Minutes story is enough to make one think that the U.S. couldn't possibly make mistakes. While showing the reporter how they killed an enemy sniper using a drone, the pilot was asked, "What if you get it wrong? " "We don't," he replied.



With drones flying in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and pilots flying them from places like Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, the signals going back and forth are relayed by military satellites. So much for keeping space for peace, eh? Yes, the U.S. is waging war from space in a very real sense, and this is a primary reason for the U.S. military to be working so hard to maintain dominance in space.

Of course, drones are merely bit players in the arms race in space (yes, even though the weapon itself is not in space, space is an integral part of the weapons system), but represent the hubris of a nation that wants to dominate not only the land, sea and air, but also the final (or at least next) frontier - SPACE. Check out the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space where you can learn more about this issue and how you can get involved in the International Week of Protest to Stop the Militarization of Space, October 3–10, 2009. Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network also writes a worthy blog called Organizing Notes in which he offers (to quote Bruce) "his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire."

Keep Space for Peace,

Leonard

References and Resources:
CBS News, 60 Minutes, Drones: America's New Air Force, May 10. 2009
The New York Times, Death From Above, Outrage From Below, Op-Ed, May 16, 2009
Times Online (UK), Concern mounts over US Predator covert killings, May 23, 2009
Website: Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
Bruce Gagnon's Organizing Notes Blog post on CBS's propaganda piece on UAV's