STAR WARS, NUKES, OR START TREATY -- CHOOSE LIFE, ANYONE?

Last in the "Decade of Disarmament Delayed" trilogy.

Government brochure--17 pages-- availability limited, but see below

The debate called for in the letter that follows, never happened. Debate on how much money and technology we dedicate to War in Space, and the military in general, was demolished along with the World Trade Towers, less than two weeks later. Now we begin to come to our senses--that War on Terrorism, or War in Space, can never deliver the promised security, but only profit the business of war. Time for an informed public to demand that the Arms Race be abandoned. Time to start the Peace Race. You get what you pay for.

In this month of October, that many churches dedicate for Right to Life, what better way to lead all the world's peoples to Respect Life---work and prayer to end the spirit of war and violence, on earth, and in the heavens. All the planet's children born and unborn will be blessed.

Victim of Hiroshima bombing
--unlikely to have survived. Photo
also published in Life magazine,
Sept. 1952,
seven years after taken in 1945.

August 29, 2001

Dear Editor,

My oldest child, Maura, came home for a visit last weekend. She is a wonderful achiever, graduating from Georgetown University, and landing a job with the Federal Reserve. She has a hopeful spirit, is a logical thinker, and is not shaken by much of anything. When I showed her the U.S. Space Command's brochure, "Vision 2020", outlining our plans to take military control of space, tears came to her eyes and she said, "Dad, this can't be true." Then she made me agree to publicize this plan to 20 newspaper editors [none did publish], in hopes that its absurdity will provoke widespread opposition. I'd thought that I'd been over-reacting, the aversion I have to this attempt to go beyond the first "Star Wars" plan of former President Reagan which did nothing but waste 80 billion dollars. I was feeling weary because over 15 years ago we'd been through all the arguments against a star wars missile shield, and militarizing space. The arguments remain and have proven true, but this doesn't seem to matter to the military and this administration.

First called Strategic Defense Initiative [President Reagan's Star Wars], then called Limited Missile Defense, now called National Military Defense. Never proven workable under any name--a defensive precedent in space which has opened space to these offensive plans of the U.S. Space Command.

Maura's reaction made me see that we must all rise to the call and defeat this idea--that we can be safe as a country by ringing ourselves with defensive missiles and filling the heavens with weapons of mass destruction.

Space laser, from the pages of the "Vision 2020" brochure.

I'm hoping your staff, and the public, will take the time to contact Space Command at 719 554 6889 and ask for their "Vision 2020" brochure. It's a frightening program to militarize space--that we are in the process of implementing. [Within weeks of this letter, the brochure became unavailable from the government—it can now be found at the website below. 1] The former commander of this Space Command has just been nominated by President Bush as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and President Bush last Thursday announced that the anti-ballistic missile treaty will be rejected unilaterally by the U.S. in 1 or 2 months. There is little publicity about where this is headed--multiple lasers, nuclear weapons, & military satellites deployed in space, billions of dollars wasted in the vain attempt to hold the rest of the world hostage to our every priority.

hen you get your brochure {which is also available on line to be printed, www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace [No longer], yet more imposing perhaps in their glossy publication-- [See again new reference below,1]} please review carefully, and add the information and critique of local and national sources, for feature presentations and editorials. Have other colleagues at news organizations order copies, and spread the information far and wide. We need as many of our citizens as possible to realize what our military is planning for us: war-fighting without limit nor boundary--to infinity and beyond, if we could.

I feel re-commissioned in this task by my 21 year old [now to be 31] daughter. I hope you will feel so engaged as well, for her, and for everyone on this planet. Thanks for your consideration.

Yours truly,

Michael McCarthy, PA-C

Port Huron, MI 48060
810 982 2870
mccpax@comcast.net

1 http://www.peaceactionme.org/vision.html

These 17 pages are worth looking at, to better discern the "vision" our leaders have still in process for our future. A Space Command vision. I also have a clearer pdf copy I can send to those interested.

Also below is this still available link [with cover picture], of the slightly newer [and more wordy] version developed by Donald Rumsfeld and others, just prior to his activities in the Bush administration. These globally positioned war tactics have been part of both Afghan and Iraq wars. The Obama administration, while now calling for an end to nuclear weapons, continues much of the program, as evidenced in the remote-control warfare of drone technology now surging in Pakistan.
http://space.au.af.mil/space_commission/

Please contact your members of Senate and House, 202 224 3121, calling for a complete end to our dependence on nuclear weapons and their sophisticated systems. Ask Senators to vote for the START TREATY as a first step. Convert our security spending into life supporting education and development.