Preparing for 16th Annual Keep Space for Peace Week

No Missile Defense 
Stop Drones Surveillance & Killing
Stop the Endless Wars 
No to NATO
End Corporate Domination of Foreign/Military Policy
Convert the Military Industrial Complex
Deal with climate change and global poverty

It's that time of year when the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space begins to compile a list of local actions planned around the world in conjunction with Keep Space for Peace Week.

Just this morning I emailed out the first list which is always a bit slim but you've got to begin some place.  Before long folks will start sending in notices about events they plan and just before space week starts the list is always quite impressive.

So far we've heard from folks in England, Australia, Sicily, Germany, Venezuela and in the US who are organizing events.  

This year we are likely to see some events come from South Korea as activists there are in the middle of a huge campaign against the Pentagon deployment of the THAAD 'missile defense' (MD) system in the melon farming community of Seongju.  I've previously written about the raging campaign there to oppose this provocative US deployment.

So-called MD is a key component in the US first-strike attack planning program.  MD is a layered program with various systems each playing a role in providing the 'shield' after the US first-strike sword lunges into the heart of Russia or China.

THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) is just the latest in a series of US MD deployments now being stationed at bases encircling Russia and China.  The PAC-3 (Patriot 3rd generation) MD system is presently deployed near Russian and Chinese borders.

The Navy's Aegis destroyer-based SM-3 (Standard Missile-3) MD program is bumping up along the coasts of Russia and China and has about the best testing results of any of the Pentagon's MD programs.

US drone bases in the US and around the globe are often key targets of space week protests.  In order to fly the drones they must be guided by military satellites and ground down-link stations that are strategically placed around the world.  These same installations help the US Space Command coordinate the aggressive MD system as well.

Our actual goal, as we mark our 16th year of organizing Keep Space for Peace Week, is to help increase public understanding about how the Pentagon has taken over the space program in order to "control and dominate" space on "behalf of the war fighter" and corporate interests.  All US military operations these days are coordinated and directed by space technology.

The Pentagon and the aerospace industry have bragged for many years that Star Wars (the name given to describe all of this) will be the largest industrial project in the history of Earth.  In fact this program is so expensive that the US can't afford to pay for it alone - thus the reason the Pentagon is rounding up the allies to get involved in this military space program.  But all allied military space technology systems must be "inter-operable" with US space operations which of course means that everything is run through Pentagon satellites, ground-stations, and command and control centers with the US at the top of the "kill chain".

How does all of this get paid for?  Obviously the cost of space warfare technology is one key reason we see major emphasis on domestic austerity budgets in the US and across allied countries.  They are robbing from the poor and the working class to fund these space technology programs that are making the few at the top very rich.  Better we convert these weapons factories and build solar power, wind turbines, mass transit systems, tidal power and other things that help us deal with our real problem today - climate change.

Our poster for Keep Space for Peace Week is heavily focused this year on Pentagon MD deployments around the world.  You can see the poster here

Anyone can participate in space week - you can help by writing a Letter to the Editor of your local newspaper, put up some of our space week posters around your community, or hold a house party and show one of our many videos which can be seen here.

Please let us know if you plan to organize a local event during space week this year. We welcome your solidarity in our campaign to keep space for peace.

Bruce