June 26, 2018

Is space for wonder or for war?

With Space Force, White House wants space as “a warfighting domain,” writes Beyond Nuclear International's Linda Pentz Gunter.

Posted on June 20, 2018 by beyondnuclearinternational

Excerpt:
"The 2018 Defense Budget that Trump signed into law in December 2017 authorizes almost $700 billion in defense spending, the biggest ever in US history. The Space Force was included, although without a dollar figure assigned to it. But, says Bruce Gagnon, director of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, “Trump does not have the authority to make [Space Force] happen without congressional approval and appropriation, thus at this point it is only a suggestion.”

That makes the 2018 midterm elections even more critically important because the Republicans in Congress seem all too easily suggestible to Trump’s every evil move, and no, this is not an over-statement. Pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord and disavowing climate change (while deliberately promoting greater fossil fuel use) is an act of evil, toward everyone on Earth. Withdrawing from, and potentially destroying the Iran nuclear agreement is an act of evil — it could lead to a nuclear war, combusted in the Middle East but which would inevitably spread across the world. Separating already traumatized children from their parents is evil.

“The US has gone mad,” said Dr. Helen Caldicott, godmother of the anti-nuclear movement who wrote a book on the subject of space conflict — War in Heaven. Caldicott is not known for mincing words, and now is not the time to mince them. It is time to call out wrong in the most urgent way possible, as Cummings did.

“With 800 bases in 70 countries; the biggest exporter of weapons to the world; involved in numerous wars around the world; about to spend $1.7 trillion replacing every single nuclear weapon and delivery system over 30 years; and now plans to fight war in space — the US certainly is the number one killing nation in the world,” Caldicott said.

A Space Force is not an aspiration unique to Trump megalomania, of course, but it feels worse in his reckless hands. And it is worse because of the tacit acceptance the plan has received, as if it is just a natural extension of bellicosity on Earth, an inevitable boys-will-be-boys toy.

Not content to make large parts of our world a living hell (Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, Palestine, Congo…the list goes on), now we want to cast fear and terror into the heavens as well. And this aspiration is cloaked in ominous rhetoric. Trump says America “must have dominance in space.” He is a Bond villain with the nuclear button..."

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