OMNI STAR WARS NEWSLETTER #1 ON MILITARIZATION OF OUTER SPACE

 

OMNI STAR WARS NEWSLETTER #1 ON MILITARIZATION OF OUTER SPACE, December 13, 2006, BUILDING A CULTURE OF PEACE

 

Edited and written by Dick Bennett

These materials are offered for you information and use.  Feel free to draw from them in contacting our Congressional delegation and other officials high and low.

 

I am writing this Dec. 13 at a time when the debate over ending the war has suddenly shifted into high gear, esp. with the announcement by Cong. Dennis Kucinich that he will run for the presidency to end the occupation of Iraq by stopping funding.   I agree with Kucinich that that is our most urgent issue at the moment, and we must not be distracted by minor issues.  But the militarization of outer space has immense danger, and it shares with the invasion and occupation of Iraq the same source:  the thoroughgoing militarism of the United States.  We must choose international diplomacy, negotiation, multilateralism, cooperation instead of armed force in both cases if we are to restore our country to the world's trust. 

 

 

 

NEW VIDEO ON MILITARIZING OUTER SPACE

(Following are notes by Dick written while watching the film.)  “The High Frontier,” new video seen on FSTV for the first time Dec. 10, 2006, about the military and commercial exploitation of outer space.  $30 billion being spent by US private companies annually, perhaps more by Pentagon, its space control budget largely secret. 

Commercial:  Mainly outside international regulation.  Communication satellites are the main business, but mining asteroids are coming: natural resources in space are on a first come first take basis. 

The Outer Space Treaty gives space to all nations and peoples.  The Moon Agreement gave all profits in space to all, especially the poor nations.  But both treaties are totally disregarded by the US, which is the superpower on earth and in space.

NASA: the chief US promoter of space exploitation and imperialism without concern for the world community.  Its annual $16 billion budget is used both for private and military enterprises.

Commercial satellites:  The military has 60 known satellites, but it rents many more, how many more not known because secret by “national security.”  For example, the Pentagon bought all commercial images of Afghanistan during the US invasion, for total domination of information from outer space during that time.  This meant, for example, that the UN and private humanitarian groups could not track refugees.

For war, satellite cameras can pinpoint not only an individual car for destruction, but can read license plates and a book over your shoulder.

Weapons in space are being developed in secrecy.  The US withdrew from the International Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to pursue control of space unilaterally, and damned be the rest of the world.

Privacy laws in individual countries are obviously useless. 

These notes are only a small part of what “The High Frontier” exposes.  Buy the film and show it, write about it, call your Congressional delegation.  Support the UN, join the UN/USA organization.

 

 

 

OBJECTIONS TO EXPLORING MARS, MOON, SATURN, AND BEYOND

 

Space Exploration Contributes to Militarization of Space

 

    As Jack Manno’s Arming the Heavens showed, NASA was enmeshed in the Pentagon from its inception. The Pentagon has always sought to use space programs for its own purposes of violent force and domination, and it continues to do so.  But it was never a simple domination, but always a contestation of aims and powers.  Carl Sagan illustrates the conflicts: he was a great supporter of space research but also as great an opponent of militarization of space.  He believed the two could be kept separate, but were they?  So we must gather the evidence and then interpret and assess the dangers.

 

The Military History of Space Exploration and NASA

    Hitler’s V-2 rocket genius, Werner von Braun, enabled the US to get to the moon.  At the end of WWII, von Braun switched sides and went to the US with his team and parts to build 100 V-2 rockets for the US Army.    The Army practiced launching the V-2s from White Sands, N.M..  Then came the Bumper, a two-stage rocket with a V-2 as the booster or first state and a U.S. Army rocket, called the WAC Corporal as the second stage.

     The Army moved its missile operations to Florida at Cape Canaveral in 1949.  By then Cold War anti-communist bigotry was pushing rockets faster and farther, with the Soviets at first taking the lead.  Explorer 1 reached orbit in Jan. 1958.

     Later that year NASA was formed, and Werner von Braun and his team developed the Saturn V, as tall as a 30 story building.  Saturn went to the moon nine times.

      Then Pres. Nixon ended the moon trips, because it was so expensive, and new NASA goals included the Skylab space station and the space shuttle in the 1970s and 1980s.  The shuttle has reached 100 flights already.  Mars exploration was being planned during this time, and space tourism.

     (Source: Marcia Dunn, “Aiming for the Stars,” NAT (November 21, 1999) C10).

 

 

BOOK

Jack Manno, Arming the Heavens: The Hidden Military Agenda for Space, 1945-1995.  Dodd, 1984 (UG1520 M36).  A comprehensive study of the military uses of space.  The election of Ronald Reagan and his push for Star Wars ABM in disregard of the 1972 ABM Treaty, signaled the end of U.S. efforts for cooperation in space.

 

Arming the Heavens

      By the time of the Gulf War, all of this research paid off in the quick destruction of the Iraqi Army.  U.S. satellites 22,000 miles above Earth, combined with radar installations and grand-based telescopes, instantly informed the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Cheyenne Mountain at Colorado Springs every time Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles were launched, and the information was instantly forwarded to Israel or Saudi Arabia.  U.S. satellites gave U.S. forces every advantage in the Gulf War.  Satellites told commanders exactly where their own troops and Iraqi troops were, and predicted weather for air attacks..  In contrast, Iraqis lost their ground-based communications early in the bombing before the ground war began.  Iraq, deaf, dumb, and blind, was an easy target.

      The Pentagon wants the next war to be controlled with even better weapons in space and directed from control rooms in places like Cheyenne Mountain.  The generals and their congressional and corporate allies—the warrior complex-- know that control of space leads to worldwide military superiority, and that the first country to flood Earth’s orbital lanes with weaponry may be able to prevent anyone else from doing the same.  So the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Star Wars anti-missile program, has become an Earth-circling offensive weapons plan to shoot down not only missiles but satellites.  Such a development might be likened to the invention of nuclear weapons and the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.  And like them, it means an enormous increase in expenditures, and in an arms race.

      The details of this program to control outer space have already been developed at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, directed by Lowell Wood, and is being strenuously lobbied  by retired Air Force General Daniel Graham, head of the lobbying group High Frontier and by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

     (Source:  Jeffrey Klein & Dan Stober, “Star Wars: The Sequel,” In These Times (Sept. 30-Oct. 13, 1992) 12-13. 

 

 

Cassini Mission to Saturn

     The Cassini rocket to Saturn carried 72.3 pounds of plutonium.  Had the rocket exploded and that amount of plutonium scattered into the atmosphere and on Earth, the risk of cancer would have increased in all people.   Why would NASA prefer the world’s deadliest substance over solar energy, which would have provided all the energy the probe needed?  A report from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said solar power was adequate.   So why plutonium?  Because atomic power in space has been a mainstay of U.S. military policy for decades.  And militarized scientists and politicians back up the military.  Edward Teller convinced the Reagan Admin. to develop nuclearized orbital outposts.  Senator Al Gore, senior, advocated the union of space and atomic power, surely deriving from Tennessee’s nuclear bastion at Oak Ridge National laboratory.

    (Source: review of Grossman’s The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet in The Nation (Oct. 6, 1997)). 

 

 

“Vision for 2020” Report  (2000)

(source: “U.S. Military Moves to Control Space and Be Enforcement Arm for the Global Economy,” by Karl Grossman)

 

     That the United States seeks to control space and from space to dominate the Earth below cannot be doubted, for the U.S. has clearly declared that objective.  The military seeks to base weapons in space, and the terms “control,”  “dominate,” and “national interest” are repeated in military documents.  As the Space Commission Report (2000), chaired by Pentagon Secretary Rumsfeld, stated:  “…the U.S. will conduct operations to, from, in and through space in support of its national interests both on the Earth and in space.” 

     A key document is the U.S. Space Command’s “Vision for 2020” Report.  Its cover depicts a laser weapon shooting a beam down from space zapping a target below.  The U.S. Space Command, set up by the Pentagon in 1985, describes itself in “Vision for 2020” as “integrating Space Forces into warfighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict.”  The motto of the Space Command is: “Master of Space.”

     For what purpose?  For the old purpose in a new domain of “dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment.”  That is, space domination is intended to keep the U.S.- guided global economy on track  “The globalization of the world economy will also continue with a widening between ‘haves and have-nots.’”  From space, the U.S. would keep those “have-nots” in line.  Essential to this plan is continued funding of military contractors and the military-industrial complex. 

     Why is the public ignorant of this plan even though it has been stated in print?  One reason is the PR spin of a new Missile “Defense” System to protect against a “space Pearl Harbor,” as the Rumsfeld  Space Commission Report state, combined with an uncritical media establishment (the military-industrial-presidential-congressional- MEDIA complex it should be called).  Missiles are not our real problem (N. Korea has the GNP of Detroit), while biological and electronic “missiles” are. 

     But other nations do understand what the U.S. public does not.  At the UN last November 2000, 163 nations voted yes for “Prevention of a Arms Race in Outer Space,” reaffirming the basic internationl law on space, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 stating that space be set aside for “peaceful purposes.”  The US abstained!

(Grossman’s books include The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet and Weapons in Space, and his video documentaries include “Nukes in Space: The Nuclearization and Weaponization of the Heavens.”  Kgrossman@hamptons.com)

 

Additional evidence:

 

     The Deep Space Program Science Experiment using the Clementine spacecraft technology launched in 1944 was sponsored by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and NASA.  Its main objective was to space qualify lightweight imaging sensors and other technologies for the next generation of Pentagon spacecraft—i.e. for Star Wars.  (Source:  Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space data sheet dated 10-27-99)

     The space shuttle Endeavour launched in 2000 from Cape Canaveral, is one more example of the military involvement in the space program.  The primary mission of the Endeavour is to make high resolution 3-dimensional maps for 80% of the Earth’s surface.  The Pentagon gave NASA over $200 million for the flight.    What is the military purpose?  The Pentagon will increase their ability to identify and hit targets virtually anywhere on the planet and to determine missile flight paths..  This is the global dominance outlined in “Vision for 2020.”  (Source: Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space press release January 29, 2000.)

     Why have these projects not become widely known?  Because the US limited public disclosure of the details.

 

Pentagon control of the overall space budget increased from the 1970s to the 80s.   Nearly 70% of the overall space budget in the 1980s was controlled by the Pentagon.  Nearly $80 billion was spent on military space activities during the Reagan years.  (Source: Cong. George E. Brown, Jr., “Pentagon Usurps Civilian Space Program,”Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Nov. 1987) 26ff.)

 

 

Manno and Grossman show the connections between the Pentagon and US space explorations. Perhaps an advocate of space exploration would argue that it is not inherently linked to militarization, that just because it has been true in the past does not inevitably make it happen in the future.  Perhaps.  Certainly, if we believe in space exploration that does not lead to future wars, we should not allow it to be contaminated by the military of a nation determined to dominate space as is the U.S. Japan has by law refused to apply the results of its space development program to military purposes.  But all US space exploration history reveals that the US has applied its discoveries to militarize the heavens and suggests that it will continue to do so.  Until advocates of space exploration can guarantee that their individual projects are unconnected to military domination, they should stop them.

 

Additional Reasons to Oppose Weapons in Space (and therefore any exploration which contributes to proliferation of weapons in space and U.S. domination):

 

A great threat to the security of the US is the unnecessary creation of enemies.  The announced plans by the US to dominate space militarily is tremendously provocative and a source of new enemies for the US.  If terrorists rise up against the US to attack our embassies or trade centers, we should blame our militarist leaders.

 

The use of space as a battlefield will be devastating to the world’s ability to travel away from Earth because of the amount of orbiting space junk that would result from such a conflict in space.  Outer space is already becoming hazardous because of exploration/military litter.

 

That US attempts to dominate space militarily will lead to further expansion of weaponry and national rivalry is certain.  It will continue the Cold War pattern of U.S. weapon initiative countered by Soviet search for equality or better.  China will be impelled to develop new nuclear-armed missiles, expanding its nuclear arsenal with multiple warheads like the US missiles.  China and Russia will seek to circumvent our “defenses.”  India and Pakistan will respond with their own buildups.  And on and on.  So certain is this chain of cause and effect, that it’s almost as if the U.S. actually wants to encourage proliferation and threatening!

 

NASA PLANS MOON BASE TO CONTROL PATHWAY TO SPACE

 by Bruce Gagnon

 (This essay argues that the US has planned for many decades to commercially and militarily control the Moon.  I have shortened it.  D)

At a time when the U.S. faces historic debt, NASA announced last week its intention to establish a permanent base on the Moon by 2024.

 

The NASA plan is portrayed as the next phase of the space agency’s exploration agenda after space shuttles are retired in 2010. NASA’s ambitious schedule includes a 2009 test of one of the lunar spaceships, a 2014 manned test flight of the new Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) without a Moon landing, and a 2020 flight with a four-astronaut crew that would land on the Moon for a short visit. NASA envisions people living on the Moon for six-month intervals beginning in 2024.

 

Just to ensure that Congress will support funding for the Moon program, NASA is spreading the operation out to 13 states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. Pratt & Whitney in West Palm Beach, Florida is now working on the engines for a lunar lander. Bechtel is interested in building structures on the Moon for NASA.

 

Last year, NASA said it would cost $104 billion just to return to the Moon for a first visit, but has declined to give estimates for the total cost of a permanent base. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that NASA’s procurement plan for the Moon lander risks delivering a product that is late, over budget, and short on capability. This is what happened in the case of the International Space Station (ISS) that was originally supposed to cost taxpayers $10 billion; the price has grown to $100 billion and the station is still not complete.

 

 

The idea of a U.S. base on the Moon is nothing new. In a secret study called “A U.S. Army Study for the Establishment of a Lunar Outpost” published on June 9, 1959, the military maintained that, “The lunar outpost is required to develop and protect potential United States interests on the Moon; to develop techniques in Moon-based surveillance of the Earth and space; in communications relay, and in operations on the surface of the Moon; to serve as a base for exploration of the Moon…Any military operations on the Moon will be difficult to counter by the enemy because of the difficulty of his reaching the Moon, if our forces are already present and have means of countering a landing or of neutralizing any hostile forces that have landed.”

 

In 1999, John Young, former Gemini, Apollo, and space shuttle astronaut, said that the Moon would also be useful for “planetary defense.”

 

Recognizing that “control” of the Moon could cause enormous conflict over time, the United Nations created the Moon Treaty in 1979. Much of the Moon Treaty reiterates earlier and internationally-accepted “space law,” particularly the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. Article 11 of the treaty maintains, “The Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind.” The treaty also prohibits national appropriation, adding the words “by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” In other words, no military bases and no claims of ownership are allowed. The U.S. never signed the Moon Treaty, and in fact it was only ratified by nine nations.

 

A 1989 study commissioned by Congress, called "Military Space Forces: The Next 50 Years" reports that whoever holds the Moon militarily will control the "earth-Moon gravity well" and thus will essentially control the front gate to the Moon.

 

Former Nazi Major General Walter Dornberger, who was in charge of the entireV-1 and V-2 missile operation for Hitler’s Germany, testified before the U.S. Congress in 1958 that America's top space priority ought to be to "conquer, occupy, keep, and utilize space between the Earth and the Moon." (Dornberger, along with 1,500 other top Nazi scientists, was smuggled into the U.S. under Operation Paperclip after WW II. He became Vice-President at Bell Aerospace in New York.)

 

The Moon has one resource that is getting everyone’s attention. It is helium-3, and, say many space enthusiasts, could be used for fusion power back here on Earth. In a 1995 New York Times op-ed, science writer Lawrence Joseph asks the question: “Will the Moon become the Persian Gulf of the 21^st Century?” Joseph maintains that the most important technological question of our time will be “which nation will control nuclear fusion?” He ends his piece by saying, “If we ignore the potential of this remarkable fuel, the nation could slip behind the race for control of the global economy, and our destiny beyond.”

 

One person who is not ignoring helium-3 on the Moon is former astronaut and engineer Harrison Schmitt who has created a corporation to mine the Moon for it. Schmitt, though, is concerned about obstacles to his grand plans. In a 1998 piece for the industry newspaper Space News called “The Moon Treaty: Not a Wise Idea” he writes, “The strong prohibition on ownership of ‘natural resources’ also causes worry….The mandate of an international regime would complicate private commercial efforts…. The Moon Treaty is not needed to further the development and use of lunar resources for the benefit of humankind...including the extraction of lunar helium-3 for terrestrial fusion power.”

 

Some scientists predict that one metric ton of helium-3 could be worth over $3 billion.  Researchers at the Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory have estimated that some one million tons of helium-3 could be obtained from the top layer of the Moon.

 

If all this turns out to be true and scientifically possible, imagine the gold rush to the Moon and the conflict that could follow in years to come. Who would police the Moon, especially when countries like the U.S. refuse to sign the Moon Treaty that restricts “ownership claims”?

 

The U.S. Space Command's plan, Vision for 2020, says, "Historically, military forces have evolved to protect national interests and investments — both military and economic. During the rise of sea commerce, nations built navies to protect and enhance their commercial interests....Likewise, space forces will emerge to protect military and commercial national interests and investment in the space medium due to their increasing importance."

 

I have always been convinced that, by creating offensive space weapons systems, one of the major jobs of the Space Command would be to control who can get on and off planet Earth, thus controlling the “shipping lanes” to the Moon and beyond.

 

There has long been a military connection to NASA’s Moon missions. In early 1994, NASA launched the Deep Space Program Science Experiment, the first of a series of Clementine technology demonstrations jointly sponsored with the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). The Pentagon announced that data acquired by the spacecraft indicated that there is ice in the bottom of a crater on the Moon, located on the Moon’s south pole — the same venue NASA now envisions as the site for the 2024 permanent base. According to a Pentagon website, “The principal objective of the lunar observatory mission though was to space qualify lightweight sensors and component technologies for the next generation of Department of Defense spacecraft [Star Wars]. The mission used the Moon, a near-Earth asteroid, and the spacecraft’s Interstage Adapter (ISA) as targets to demonstrate sensor performance. As a secondary mission, Clementine returns valuable data of interest to the international civilian scientific sector.”

 

In the end, the NASA plan to establish permanent bases on the Moon will help the military “control and dominate” access on and off our planet Earth and determine who will extract valuable resources from the Moon in the years ahead.

 

The taxpayers will be asked to pay the enormously expensive “research and development” costs of this program that in the end will profit the aerospace industry and those corporation like Bechtel that intend to build the bases and extract resources on the Moon.

 

NASA is not really looking for the “origins of life,” as it tells school children today. Instead, it is laying the groundwork for a new gold rush that will drain our national treasury and enrich the big corporations that now control our government. It is beyond time for the American people to wake up to the shell game underway.

 

  

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 729-0517
http://www.space4peace.org
globalnet@mindspring.com
http://space4peace.blogspot.com (our blog)

 

One of the foremost hero opponents of the militarization of outer space is Bruce Gagnon, founder and director of Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.  OMNI (thanks to Mark Swaney) brought Bruce here several years ago, and his speech focused and inspired us.  To learn about him go to google and type in Gagnon Bruce.

 

Another Level of Argument: Human Needs Should Precede Outer Space Exploration.  The example of Arkansas.

 

Defenders of exploration argue that there is always an argument for present human/social needs over scientific research into space, so unless we are always to refuse to do research,  we must find a balance.  But this proposition is too vague for me.  I prefer constantly to weight priorities (should we have first-class pre-natal care or first-class highways?), particularly when the practical value of a research project is undemonstrable or at least vague.  And often no balance is possible because it should not be when the aims and results are incommensurate: one is universally recognized as essential to human life while the other is expensively unimportant:  cure malaria or potholes?  In these cases human needs should take priority.  The clichéd “human thirst for knowledge” must take second place to urgent social needs, when the search for knowledge has minimal utility compared to other projects.

 

Proposition:

If the enhancement of life of all sentient creatures on Earth should be our main priority, as I think, then the people and creatures of our Earth urgently need increased assistance instead of shockingly expensive and trivial space programs promulgated by the self-interest of scientists and corporations, or instead of the $1.5 trillion tax cut for the wealthy engineered by Pres. Bush.

 

Consider Arkansas (1990s)

The useless expenditure of over $100 million to enlarge a football stadium for a few games a year contrasts to Arkansas’ needs:

Among lowest in teacher pay.

42^nd in nation in per-pupil school spending.  Ark. Constitution guarantees both an equal and adequate education, but the state provides neither.

Among lowest in per capita income.

2^nd highest divorce rate.

Working poor in distress: in 1998 32% of children under 13 lived in low-income households with both parents working; 69% of children have both parents working. 

No financial assistance to the working poor for daycare.  State’s day-care workers among lowest paid in state and nation (consequence: child neglect and abuse, unreadiness for school, etc.).  Recent study shows that children who spend most of their time in child care are 3 times more likely to display behavioral problems in kindeergarten.

 Urgent shortage of nurses.

Gov. Huckabee recommended 100% cut in state aid to libraries.

Some of the lowest health ratings in the nation.  State cuts $7 million from Health Department, cutting school health clinics that administer medical care and counseling to thousands of poor children.  (10 million children in US have no access to health care.)

Early and periodic screening diagnosis and treatment for infants to be scrapped.

Private duty nursing program reduced (patients requiring total care must move to institutions).

Highest per capita smoking percentages; near top in smoking-related deaths; 4^th for lung cancer deaths.

Babies less healthy than national average; high low-birthweight births.

Arkansas sixth in nation in number of tuberculosis cases.

Extreme need for more and better foster-care case workers.

Fewer than half the state’s counties have teams to investigate child abuse.

Early childhood programs for poor children eliminated.

Only state that does not fund domestic-violence shelters.

One of 19 states levying income taxes on people below the poverty line.

General lack of public transportation.

Inadequate mental health benefits for children and youth.  More than half of jailed youth receive little help for their mental illnesses.

Inadequate AIDS medical care.

Public Defender Commission out of money.

Low workers pay because few unions.

AEGIS summer programs for high school students (Academic Enrichment for the Gifted in Summer) cut.

Global Systems Institute Summer Program (GSI, an AEGIS program) at Uof A to be cut

School health clinics cut.

AIDS epidemic, infection rate maybe four to five times higher than reported.

Thousands upon thousands of jobs lost each year.

Teen-age nonviolent offenders can be sent where the most brutal offenders are contained.

 

(Yet Pres. Bush cut taxes mainly of the rich by est. $1.35 trillion over the next 10 years!  And Tyson Foods Inc. urges improvements in highways.)

 

If I were to make a similar list for the world, the data would be a hundred times more atrocious and revolting—for example, one million people die each year from malaria; two million from tuberculosis.  The diseases are preventable and curable, if the money were spent.

The Way to Peace:  Disarming the Heavens Through Cooperative Treaties

The US should seek peace treaties, not war weaponry.  The record on treaties of peace, such as the Antarctica Treaty is good.  A reaffirmation by the US of the universal spirit of  the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Treaty will cause the entire world to rejoice.

 

Humans Can Create a Culture of Peace in the Heavens

 Claims that wars are unavoidable are untrue; such claims are a type of self-fulfilling prophecy.  Let the US seek to be a nation that expands international laws instead of weapons.  (See: The Human Potential for Peace  by Douglas Fry).

 

 

 

OMNI SEEKS A WORLD FREE OF WAR AND THE THREAT OF WAR, A SOCIETY WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL, A COMMUNITY WHERE EVERY PERSON’S POTENTIAL MAY BE FULFILLED, AN EARTH RESTORED.  GRASSROOTS NONVIOLENCE, WORLD PEACE, HUMAN RIGHTS, SOCIAL and ECONOMIC JUSTICE, ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP PROTECTING SPECIES AND THE EARTH. 

 

 

CONTACT YOUR  CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES
 

 --Senator Mark Pryor: Web Site (see contact link):   www.pryor.senate.gov ;  http://pryor.senate.gov/contact/
Washington Office:217 Russell Senate Office BuildingWashington, D.C. 20510-0403
Phone: (202) 224-2353 Fax: (202) 228-0908
Main District Office: 500 Pres. Clinton Ave., Suite 401, Little Rock, AR 72201
Phone: (501) 324-6336 Fax: (501) 324-5320

 

--Congressman John Boozman, District 3, 12 counties from Benton to Washington

Lowell office: 479-725-0400.  213 W. Monroe, Suite K, 72745.  Steve Gray, coodinator of office.  Web site (with contact link):  http://www.boozman.house.gov/     Heath Hasenbeck, intern (one of them).  Boozman's new office in Lowell is located at 213 West Monroe in Lowell between I 540 and Business 71.  To reach that office take Exit 78 off I - 540 and go  east. You will be on Hwy 264 which is also West Monroe. The office is  in the Puppy Creek Plaza, past the McDonald's on the right.  His suite is in the back of the complex to the left.

Ft. Smith office: 479-782-7787; 30 South 6^th St. Rm 240, Ft. Smith 72901.

Harrison office: 870-741-6900; 402 N. Walnut, Suite 210, Harrison 72601.

DC address: 1708 Longworth House Office Bldng., Washington, DC 20515; 202-225-4301.  Leslie Parker, appointments secretary: 202-225-4301.

 

 

 

 

Dick Bennett

 

OMNI IMPEACHMENT NEWSLETTER # 1: REPORTS, OPINION, COMMENT

 

OMNI IMPEACHMENT NEWSLETTER # 1: REPORTS, OPINION, COMMENT

 DECEMBER 7, 2006, BUILDING A CULTURE OF PEACE AND JUSTICE

Editor: Dick Bennett

 

SPECIAL NUMBER ON IMPEACHING PRESIDENT BUSH

 

Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law. -Louis D. Brandeis, lawyer, judge, and writer (1856-1941)

 

"There have been serious crimes committed.  People have been killed because of those crimes. They need to be pursued.  I would like Democrats, or whoever’s in the winning catbird seat here to realize that they have a responsibility under The Constitution of the United States to pursue violations of the Constitution and violations of criminal law..."     Ray McGovern- 27- year CIA analyst.

 

Things are moving slowly in the US on Impeachment. It's embarrassing that Germany has to do our job for us. Perhaps that will convince our legislators to do a little more housecleaning…. Amy Goodman highlighted the German initiative on her program yesterday.  A video version is available online for anyone who missed it:: “War Crimes Suit Filed in Germany Against Rumsfeld, Other Top U.S.”   http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/14/1517243

* “Torture Suit Star Witness, Fmr. Abu Ghraib Head Janis Karpinski Points to Signed Rumsfeld Memo Listing Harsh Interrogation Techniques”  *http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/14/1517249

 

 

 BOOKS

 

THE TWO MOST RECENT BOOKS PUB. THIS DEC.

 

John Nichols’ The Genius of Impeachment.  Free Press, 2006.

 Nichols authored the critically-acclaimed analysis of the Florida recount fight of 2000, Jews for Buchanan, and a best-selling biography  of Vice President Dick Cheney, Dick: The Man Who is President,.

With Robert W. McChesney.  Nichols has co-authored the books, It's the Media, Stupid!, Our Media, Not Theirs and Tragedy and Farce:  How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy.    McChesney and Nichols are the co-founders of Free Press, the nation's media-reform network, which organized the 2003, 2005, and upcoming 2007 National Conferences on Media Reform. Nichols lays out impeachment from a historical perspective and the importance of impeachment to the

founding fathers. He argues that impeachment was provided in the US Constitution to depose elected despots and, rather than fearing the idea of impeachment, that it is the duty of Americans (and their elected representatives) to impeach elected officials who violate the US  Constitution.

 

Elizabeth de la Vega. U.S. v. George W.

 Bush et al.  Seven Stories, Dec. 2006.   http://www.amazon.com/United-States-George-Bush-al/dp/1583227563/sr=1-1/qid164224113/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-3676802-6048838?ie=UTF8&s=books>

US v. Bush, et al.    By William Fisher ,     t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Vega is a retired government lawyer with more than 20 years of

 experience. She served as an Assistant US Attorney in Minneapolis, and a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force and Branch Chief in San Jose,

 California.  Why did Ms. de la Vega write this book? She

 says, "The President will not be held accountable for misrepresenting the

 pre-war intelligence unless and until Congress conducts hearings similar to the Watergate hearings.”   She adds, "Although the evidence of wrongdoing

 is overwhelming, the facts are so complicated that it's impossible to

 have a productive debate about them in the political sphere. One forum where

that's not true is the courtroom."

      Does she believe that her book will lead to

 making her hypothetical case real? She writes, "Consider this my 911 call. I'm

 calling on Democrats and Republicans to do the right thing ... and convince

 Congress to do the right thing. I am not talking about bringing people to

 justice in the vengeful sense that President Bush employs. I am talking

 about effecting justice ... holding out highest government officials accountable for ... a criminal betrayal of trust that is strikingly similar to, yet far worse, than the fraud committed by Enron's top officials…."

(I deleted most of the review.)

 

EARLIER 2006 BOOKS ON IMPEACHING BUSH
www.bushscrewedamerica.com

--Peter Phillips is co-editor with Dennis Loo from Cal Poly Pomona of the The Case for Impeachment of Bush and Cheney .    Seven Stories, 2006.   Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored.  Opens WITH “12 Reasons Why George W. Bush and Richard Cheney Must Be Impeached,” backing them up with 16 chapters that cover the impeachable crimes.  Pref. and Afterword.  Index, contributors’ bios, resources.  Ch. 13, on the overthrow of the legal Haitian gov’t. of Aristide, violated international laws,  the US Constitution, and laws of the land (see below).   Chap. 16, “What Can Be Done?”  At end lists orgs. working to impeach.

       Pres. Clinton told one lie about a sexual peccadillo; Pres. Bush has smashed Constitution and international law.  If you want to be able to tell your Congressional delegation why you want them to reverse the Bush assaults on democracy and what they are, this one book provides a host of the details.

--Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush.  Center for Constitutional Rights.  Melville House, 2006.  www.mhpbooks.com   Presents the case for impeachment exactly as it could be presented by the House of Representatives to the U. S. Senate.  Clearly and concisely the Center delineates the four strongest charges against the president.  Also includes what the Constitution says about impeachment, the rules of procedure, and more.   Only $10. 

-- The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office    Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky.  (St. Martin's Press, May 2006). $24

         http://www.booktv.org/General/index.asp?segID=7322&schedID=446

Four intro. chapters (Why Impeachment, etc.) lead to discussion of 6 chapters on 6 Articles of Impeachment, followed by a chapter on “Impeaching Other Bush Admin. Officials,” and 8 important appendices.

 

Dave Lindorff's “10 Reasons to Impeach” http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_dave_lin_060719_happy_impeachment_da.htm      His writing is available at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net

 

-- Holtzman, Elizabeth, with Cynthia Cooper.  The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens.  Nation Books, 2006.  Probably the best general introduction.  Holtzman was a Congresswoman member of the Nixon impeachment committee.

 

-- George W. Bush versus the U.S. Constitution: The Downing Street Memos and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Cover-ups in the Iraq War and Illegal Domestic Spying.  U. S. House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff.  Academy Chicago Pub., 2006. 

 

-- Verdict and Findings of Fact.  International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration.   2006.

 

-- Impeach Bush: A Funny Li’l Graphical Novel about the Worstest Pres’dent in the History of Forevar.  Blatant Comics, 2006. 

 

-- O’Huallachain, D. L. and J. Forrest Sharpe, eds. Neo-Conned! and Neo-conned! Again:  Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape of Iraq.  Vienna, Va., Light in the Darkness Pub., 2005. Not specifically about impeachment, but packed with justification.  These two huge volumes are from a Catholic publisher and the just war tradition.  They offer encyclopedic  knowledge and indictments.

 

Ask local book stores and libraries to order these books, and buy them to support the stores, the publishers, and the writers, all of whom have worked to enable us to be informed citizens.  Then write and call Lincoln, Pryor, and Boozman; create petitions; speak over CAT.  If we don’t raise our voices the Democrats will do little, for remember that many Bush outrages were supported by some to many Democrats.

 

Swanson, David.   “Impeachment Anyone?  The Case for Taking the Tape Off Our Mouths.”  TomDispatch.   Based on the earliest 7 books.

Lindorff, Dave.  “Happy Impeachment Day! 10 Reasons to Impeach,” OpEdNews.com, 7-19, 2006.

 

The following Wikipedia's page for the Movement to impeach George W. Bush seems to be a useful guide to impeach Bush.
Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_to_impeach_George_W._Bush

Subject: [Project-Censored-L] Human Rights Denial Deserves Impeachment
published November 8, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

“Human Rights Denial Deserves Impeachment” by Peter Phillips

Human Rights belong to people collectively. To believe in rights for some and not others is a denial of the humanness of people worldwide. Yet, denial is exactly what Congress and George W. Bush did with the signing of the Military Commission Act of 2006. The new official U.S. policy is that torture and suspension of due process are acceptable for anyone the president deems to be a terrorist or terrorist supporter. This act is the overt denial of the inalienable rights of human beings propagated in our Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Our famous words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," did not declare that some men (and women) are without unalienable rights. Our independence was founded on the belief that all men and women are recognized by this nation as having innate rights derived from their humanness.

Likewise, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, created by the United Nations in 1948 and signed and ratified by the U.S. Congress, specifies in its preamble that "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world."

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a treaty that legally binds the United States government. Article 10 states that "everyone is entitled to full equality, to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him," and Article 5 specifically prohibits torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

For the U.S. government to unilaterally declare that our country will not comply with international human rights laws, nor uphold the core values of our nation's foundation is an indication of extremism that supersedes the values and beliefs of the American people. When such an extremism exists, we may need to take seriously the founders' declaration that, " to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

The U.S. government is actively torturing people to death. One need only read the 44 official U.S. military autopsy reports on civilian detainees from Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 to 2004 posted on the American Civil Liberties website to see the horrendous details of deaths by "strangulation," "asphyxiation" and "blunt force injuries."

The Military Commission Act retroactively approved the use of torture to the beginning of the 9/11 Wars. Congress's reaction to the ACLU report in October of 2005 was to pass legislation banning further use of the Freedom of Information Act to request documents on current military operations.

We are in a time of extremism, permanent war, and the unilateral manifestation of ethnocentrism and power by an openly public cabal of people in the U.S. government. Those in power are set on the U.S. military domination of the world. They seem willing to defy the foundational values of the American people to achieve their ends. We have no choice but to declare openly our belief in universal human rights and demand the immediate impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney and a full accounting of those in their administration.   Peter Phillips is a professor of sociology at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored. He is co-editor with Dennis Loo of the new book "Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney," available at: http://www.projectcensored.org/impeach.htm

This from the Ark Times blog: " the L word"  (liar)
 "The Washington Post nailed him on the secret prisons and torture there; CBS and the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh nailed him on Abu Ghraib. Geoffrey Miller, torture at Bagram in Afghanistan was NYT - then the NYT (belatedly which was criminal) nailed him on spying ON AMERICANS. He's been stripped of all cover, hanging out there for two years now while the press WUSSES AROUND about what to do about it, and the former GOP Congress blocked investigations and testimony under oath (thanks, Arlen Specter, et. al.) .   All four of the things I mentioned above are separate, impeachable offenses. Yet the papers and TV news, one at a time, darted forward to put one lance into the monster and then scuttled backwards. "
 (from Larry W)

 

From Dick’s Talk at the November 5, 2006 Rally

“Let us seek to defend law, our Constitution, and the people of the United States and of the world, by urging a Congressional inquiry into the possible impeachment of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney.  Impeachment it must be, because our President cannot be indicted for a felony (a V-P can be), and anyway he has declared and behaved himself to be above the law; that is, like bin Laden, lawless.

       Impeachment of a president must prove a systematic undermining of the rule of law, of our Constitution, and of the public trust.   Here is a partial list any one of which justifies impeachment:

 

--lying  in order to launch an unprovoked, illegal war of aggression upon Iraq;

--authorizing the use of illegal antipersonnel weapons in urban settings in Iraq;

--sanctioning  the illegal  torture of thousands of captives;

--overthrowing Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide; 

-- issuing over 700 so-called “signing statements” negating Congressional laws;

-- illegally spying on millions of citizens;

--obstructing investigations: stonewalling, coverup, false and misleading statements and reports;

--and increasing presidential power to suppress public protests by weakening restraints against martial law.

 

Today we defend international law, our Constitution, and our freedoms.  Sign our petition.   Distribute the petition.  Call and write our Congressional delegation.  And keep up the pressure until these abuses of misplaced power are reversed, and we regain the decent respect of the opinion of the peoples of the world.”

 

Before you oppose impeachment, read at least one of the books above.  Cong. Pelosi has declared there will be no impeachment.  Examine the wisdom of that decision.  However, whatever the Democrats do or don’t do about impeachment, there is no better way to know what the Cong. committees should do to reverse the Bush assaults on Consltitution, international law, and the public trust than to STUDY IMPEACHMENT.

 

(approx. 700 wds., pub. in Free Weekly Nov. 2, 2006)

IMPEACHING PRESIDENT BUSH by Dick Bennett

 

      The twenty contributors to Impeach the President edited by Loo and Phillips reached a consensus of twelve indictments of High Crimes against President Bush and Vice-president Richard Cheney.  The essential charge is their undermining of     the rule of law established by the U. S. Constitution, as illustrated by the following six (of the twelve) indictments (reorganized and edited).  A High Crime means a serious abuse of power that undermines law and endangers our constitutional system of government.

 

   A.  Foreign

   1.  Lying to the public and Congress in order to launch an unprovoked, illegal, unconstitutional war of aggression upon Iraq.

   2.  Ordering free fire zones and authorizing the use of antipersonnel weapons in urban settings in Iraq, contributing to the deaths of some 600,000 Iraqi civilians—war crimes under international law.

   3.  Authorizing the torture of thousands of captives, out-sourcing hundreds of prisoners to secret sites for torture, hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, and indefinitely detaining people without protection of habeas corpus—all in violation of Geneva Conventions.

   4.  Overthrowing Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and installing an illegal, highly repressive regime.

   B.  Domestic

   5.  Stealing the White House in 2000 and 2004 elections through outright voter fraud.

   6.  Subverting the Constitutional balance of powers by issuing over 700 “signing statements” negating Congressional laws, by weakening the Freedom of Information Act, and by illegally spying on millions of citizens, to mention only three of many violations.

 

“Regime Change” in Haiti (from the essay by Duff and Bernstein)

     I will elaborate on the ousting of Haiti’s President Aristide, not because it is more heinous than some other Bush/Cheney offenses, but because, although it illustrates emphatically the High Crimes of subversion of law and of our Constitution, it has received much less attention than others.

     George W. Bush, in violation of international law chose to undermine and then overthrow Haiti’s democratic government (its president was elected with 91 percent of the popular vote to serve a second term in the year 2000) and to fund and militarily support the political opposition. 

     Under the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution the president has the responsibility to faithfully abide by all sanctioned international treaties.  Among these, is the United Nations Charter.    Violating the U. N. Charter is a direct breach of the president’s oath “to faithfully carry out the laws of the land.”      Article Two of the U. N. Charter requires the leaders of all member states to refrain “from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” 

      The actions of President Bush and members of his administration  in overthrowing the government of  Haiti--by violating the integrity, sovereignty, and self-determination of the Haitian people, by lying about the events, by embargoes and arming the opposition, by a bloody two-year coup in which 4000 U. S. marines were deployed to suppress popular protest, and untold thousands of pro-democracy activists, union leaders, and members of peasant organizations were arbitrarily detained, tortured,  killed, women raped, and other thousands disappeared at the hands of death squads, by kidnapping President Aristide in February 2004,  and by replacing him and his government with a government with no constitutional or electoral legitimacy--are grounds for impeachment.

 

 

OMNI SEEKS A WORLD FREE OF WAR AND THE THREAT OF WAR, A SOCIETY WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL, A COMMUNITY WHERE EVERY PERSON’S POTENTIAL MAY BE FULFILLED, AN EARTH RESTORED.  GRASSROOTS NONVIOLENCE, WORLD PEACE, HUMAN RIGHTS, SOCIAL and ECONOMIC JUSTICE, ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP PROTECTING SPECIES AND THE EARTH.

 

MATERIALS ADDED AFTER NEWSLETTER MAILED

 

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/12/08/why_impeachment_is_crucial.php

	Why Impeachment Is Crucial	javascript:ol('http://www.tompaine.com/action/respond/');	javascript:ol('http://www.tompaine.com/print/why_impeachment_is_crucial.php');	javascript:ol('http://www.tompaine.com/action/sendtofriend/');
	Jennifer Van Bergen is a journalist with a law degree. Her book The Twilight of Democracy: The Bush Plan for America has been called a “primer for citizenship.” She can be reached at jvbxyz@earthlink.net. With the Democrats in the majority in Congress for the first time in 12 years, and after six years of executive overreach and civil liberties incursions by the Republican administration and Congress, one would think impeachment would be in the air. But many progressives and Democrats—even some who have been on the front lines demanding investigations and prosecutions—view impeachment as the wrong approach and a waste of effort. They say that impeachment can’t take place without Republican backing, which will never happen. They say that impeachment will take time and energy away from more important business, such as getting out of Iraq, lowering taxes, congressional ethics and pulling our budget back into line.   These arguments present a false dilemma, however. The choice is not between impeachment and Iraq, or impeachment and ethics, or impeachment and the budget. Impeachment proceedings are not the beginning but the end result of a healing process for the nation that needs to begin now. Impeachment begins with investigations.   The ever-growing list of egregious wrongs by this administration has been hypocritically ignored by the Republican Congress. When you remember what the Republicans did to Clinton over a peccadillo and compare that to the high crimes committed by Bush and his administration, there should not even be an argument over whether to move toward serious investigations with impeachment in mind. We are not talking bipartisanship; we are talking about law and morals.   The charges against this administration are so extensive there are several books that make the legal case (John Nichols, Elizabeth Holzman, Center for Constitutional Rights, David Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky, Howard Zinn). Impeachment groups have formed across the country; at least one major city council, San Francisco’s, passed an impeachment resolution; the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, has issued a 200-plus page report; and there has even a citizens’ impeachment trial, complete with indictment, hearing and verdict.   The grounds for impeachment are far greater now than they were when Congress threatened to impeach President Nixon and there is a tremendous groundswell for impeachment which the newly-elected Congress would do well to heed.   Congress must start the national healing process by selecting an independent prosecutor. We don’t need another commission to merely make a report that finds some comfortable middle and allows the administration to play the national security card to further hide its wrongdoing. A prosecutor will be able to gather evidence from all corners, interview those with real information and see the entire picture. He or she can decide, on the basis of the law, where culpability lies and what charges to bring.   A sitting president or vice president cannot be tried in a court of law This is why impeachment is necessary at the end of investigation, if criminal acts are found. If an independent prosecutor finds that our leaders have committed crimes, this information must be brought before the House, and that body must vote to bring impeachment charges against them. The prosecutor could wait until the officials leave office, but there are strong reasons not to do so. First, if our leaders are criminals, they should not be permitted to retain office for even one more day; impeachment will stop the crimes from continuing. If we allow criminal officials to remain in office, we are as guilty as they for their crimes. It is already clear that this administration has severely damaged America’s reputation abroad and undermined our ability to hold other nations accountable to high moral ideals. Impeachment will ameliorate some of these effects.   Finally, there is a great sense of powerlessness and rage that the populace expressed strongly through the midterm elections. But more than elections are needed to address the deep concerns so many people have. A nagging malaise, a gray depression has afflicted the country, and ordinary people—those who are not politicians or journalists or activists or lawyers—have no outlet for these feelings and no sense of remedy.   Democracy is about the power of voice. All people have the right to speak and be heard. But the past six years have silenced millions, and merely putting the Democrats (whose track record is not sufficiently better than the Republicans to warrant celebration) back into office will not end the silence or cure the depression or the sense of powerlessness.  Americans know that crimes have been committed in their name. Many now perhaps wish that the wrongs would simply fade and all would be as it was before. But we all know that crimes demand punishment. Punishment is the only way to even partially repair the damage.   Immediate investigation with an eye to impeachment may also forestall war with Iran and prevent worse action in Iraq. Cabinet members facing a criminal investigation and impeachment will think twice before they commit more criminal acts.   The right wing is already regrouping and restarting nasty attacks against Democrats who threaten their belligerent drives. We have the initiative now. We will lose it if Republicans take the stage and are allowed to divert attention away from the real issues.   This nation has been deeply injured, but not by the continued threat of terrorism. Instead, we have been afflicted by the criminal acts and executive overreaches of this administration. Cancer cannot be healed by being avoided.