Revamped StratCom even more dangerous 


TIM RINNE : The writer, of Lincoln, is state coordinator for Nebraskans for Peace.


For more than half a century, the U.S. Strategic Command has symbolized the threat of nuclear holocaust. Having inspired everything from Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" to Christian fundamentalist visions of "the final battle" of Armageddon, this command center for the nation's nuclear arsenal has become synonymous with the unthinkable.

The Cold War doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) reinforced this doomsday view. America's nuclear deterrent, it was popularly understood, was strictly defensive in intent, meant to keep the communists at bay with the threat of total annihilation. If nuclear weapons ever were to be used, it would be only as a last resort, in an end-of-the-world scenario where Americans would "rather be dead than red".

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the utility and value of the then-Strategic Air Command quickly depreciated. It was a warrior without a foe, and talk accordingly arose about whether this Cold War icon (which subsequently adopted its present name) should be dismantled outright. One of its former commanders, Gen. George Lee Butler, even briefly became a disarmament advocate.

But 9/11, as the Bush-Cheney administration never tires of reminding us, changed everything. It certainly changed StratCom.

Starting in October 2002, Strategic Command began undergoing a major mission overhaul. Without taking away any of StratCom's nuclear-related responsibilities, the White House started padding the command's repertory, adding in quick succession the U.S. Space Command, its "C-4ISR" missions (Command, Control, Computers, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance), integrated missile defense, combating weapons of mass destruction and "Full-Spectrum Global Strike".

Foregoing any semblance of a defensive role, StratCom today serves as the command center for offensively waging the administration's international "war on terror" with conventional as well as, possibly, nuclear weapons.

As the industry sponsor for the recent "Strategic Space and Defense 2006" conference in Omaha so forthrightly expressed it, "StratCom is a laboratory for the future of warfare."

And the next war the White House gets the United States into - be it with rogue states like Iran and North Korea or geopolitical rivals like China - will be launched and coordinated, and in large part planned, from Bellevue, Neb.

Under the Bush-Cheney "doctrine of pre-emption," StratCom has been empowered to launch a first-strike attack against any perceived threat to America's national security anywhere on Earth within two hours.

Following the same drill used on Iraq over its alleged stockpiles of WMD, this new White House/StratCom policy is a high-tech version of "shoot first and ask questions later." And neither a dithering Congress nor international rule of law will be permitted to stand in the way.

But the mission of this newly retooled StratCom extends far beyond this vigilante role. In its titanic struggle with the forces of international terrorism, the Bush-Cheney administration has seen fit to equip StratCom with powers worthy of George Orwell's Big Brother in "Nineteen Eighty-Four."

The "warrantless wiretaps" on American citizens are still regularly conducted by the National Security Agency - a "component command" of StratCom under the command's C-4ISR mission. The decision to begin this domestic spying operation was made by Gen. Michael Hayden, the former head of the NSA and now the director of the CIA.

More spying on civilians of every nation takes place under the aegis of StratCom's Space Command, based in Colorado Springs, Colo. With its international network of "listening stations," the Space Command's satellite surveillance system keeps a close worldwide eye on anything deemed suspicious and shady.

This StratCom-generated information is of course fed right back into StratCom for processing and analysis to determine whether some preemptive military action, to be executed by StratCom, is in turn warranted. It's a closed circle that leaves precious little room for oversight by democratic institutions, and it's creepy to the core.

Ordinarily, given StratCom's historic mission, it's hard to imagine anything more sinister than being the agent of nuclear holocaust. But impossible as it sounds, the threat StratCom now poses is graver than ever before.

It not only continues to hold the fate of the Earth in its hands but also is positioned to traverse the globe on "search and destroy" missions to "protect" America's interests. It can spy into the private lives of anyone on the face of the planet. And it is assiduously pursuing a strategy for the total domination of space because, as anyone attending those Strategic Space and Defense conferences can tell you, whoever controls space controls the Earth.

StratCom's long-range plans call for securing space exclusively for the United States and its approved allies. This strategic goal of planetary dominance is already fixed and will go on regardless of which party controls Congress or whether a Democrat or a Republican occupies the Oval Office.

StratCom is fast becoming a law unto itself. And if unchecked, that spells doom for an open society and our democratic way of life. 

(http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=609&u_sid=2289915&u_rnd=9859159)