Growing movement demands
'Stop U.S. star wars madness!'
By Dianne
Mathiowetz
Huntsville, Ala.
Activists from around the country traveled to Huntsville,
Ala., home of the Army's Redstone Arsenal and NASA's Marshall
Space Flight Center. They traveled there in mid-March for three
days of meetings and protests called by the Global Network
against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.
Much of the development for the space-based laser, a key
component of the Bush plan for a national missile defense
system, is being conducted here.
The conference participants included many who have spent
years researching and mobilizing against nuclear weaponry. Also
there were Huntsville residents, like the young mother who
brought her child because she wanted a peaceful future for her
daughter.
Speakers drew comparisons to the burgeoning
anti-globalization movement that is sweeping the world with its
direct action protests. Person after person raised examples to
illustrate how giant military-industrial corporations such as
Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon and TRW are getting
multi-billion-dollar contracts to develop space weaponry to
establish U.S. military control of the planet.
Speakers such as Professor Karl Grossman, author of numerous
articles and a recent book on the militarization of space,
cited official documents released by the U.S. Space Command and
Congress to show that the stated goal of the United States is
"dominating the space dimension of military operations to
protect U.S. interests and investment."
Treaties, such as the Outer Space Treaty, originally adopted
in 1966 and reaffirmed Nov. 20, 2000, by 163 nations,
specifically forbid the introduction of weapons in space. Only
three countries--the U.S., Israel and Micronesia--refused this
past fall to support this resolution which "recognized the
common interest of all mankind in the exploration and use of
outer space for peaceful purposes."
Interestingly, the U.S. helped develop this treaty following
the 1957 launching of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite
to circle the Earth, by the Soviet Union. It was an attempt by
the U.S. to curb space exploration by others until it gained
dominance in the field.
Instead the U.S. has spent over $95 billion so far in
numerous attempts to develop space-based lasers and other
weapons that will operate through and from space.
These include satellites that can provide 24-hour global
surveillance of communication and monitor and impact weather
conditions on earth. They can also detect human movement and
concentrations of metals, water, heat and natural resources on
and below the earth's surface.
According to Bill Sulzman, director of Citizens for Peace in
Space, a Colorado Springs, Co. group, the U.S. Space Command is
"readying itself to be the enforcement arm for the global
economy."
As current proof of that, Peter Lunsdaine of the Vandenberg
Action Coalition pointed to the role of Vandenberg Air Force
base in Santa Barbara County, Calif.
From this base, the largest facility in the world of the
U.S. Space Command, surveillance and targeting satellites are
being launched that provide military intelligence for the
defoliation spray planes that are devastating large areas of
Colombia. This massive, poisonous defoliation is being used to
side with that country's elite in its war against the millions
of impoverished workers and peasants who are fighting for
justice.
Lunsdaine encouraged support for the May 19 direct action at
Vandenberg where like the peaceful occupation of the island of
Vieques, activists concerned with human rights and peace will
converge to challenge and disrupt business as usual at the
base.
Just as consistent and persistent actions at Ft. Benning,
Ga., exposed the role of the School of the Americas in the
violent repression of the peoples of Central and South America
by U.S.-trained and supplied militaries, Landsdaine said the
May 19 action will focus attention to the fact that information
from the intelligence and guidance satellites launched at
Vandenberg is used to direct counter-insurgency operations from
Turkey to Indonesia to Colombia.
For more information, contact the Vandenberg Action
Coalition at (831) 421-9794 or go to
www.geocities.com/vafb_m19/
According to Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network
Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, grassroots groups
all around the world are mobilizing to stop U.S. efforts to
turn space into a war zone. The network has issued an
international call for coordinated actions around the world on
Oct. 13, 2001, demanding the end to the militarization of
space. Suggested sites for local actions include U.S. military
bases, Department of Energy facilities, NASA installations,
U.S. embassies and offices of aerospace industry corporations
or academic institutions working on military space
projects.
For more information, go to www.space4peace.org or call
(352) 337-9274.
The Huntsville conference was another sign that more and
more, the issues of economic and social and political justice
in each country are intertwined with and impacted by U.S.
military domination--whether by conventional weapons and troops
on the ground or by the threat of nuclear bombs or by the
control of outer space.
Gagnon concluded, "The people of the U.S., the people of the
world, must learn what the U.S. is up to--and stop it."
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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