I love how the first prinicple in the conduct of U.S. space programs is :
"The United States is committed to the exploration and use of outer space by all nations for peaceful purposes, and for the benefit of all humanity. Consistent with this principle, “peaceful purposes” allow U.S. defense and intelligence-related activities in pursuit of national interests;"

.....for the benefit of ALL humanity, yet we get to turn "peaceful purposes" into the allowance of U.S. defense and intelligence to act in pursuit of OUR- singular- one nation- "national interests!"


hah, that's funny. Basically this whole thing is about the rights of the U.S. in outter space and how no other country can take them away from us, but also saying that space is a sovereign place with no one country allowed to "own" it.

There are so many different rules and guidelines for the different aspects of the militarization of space that it is difficult to get a full grasp of it.
There are national security guidlines, commercial guidelines, civil space guidelines and do much more.



This quote from the director of cyberspace ( Kass) in the 2006 news article is a scary thing to think about:
The Air Force has been operating in cyberspace for some time, but the efforts have been widely dispersed, Elder said. Also, cyberspace efforts until now have been mostly focused on defensive operations to protect the Air Force’s network, he said.
“The cultural change is that we’re going to treat it as a warfighting domain, and we’re going to actually focus attention and put priority on doing things in cyberspace and then balance it against air space and even terrestrial operations,” he said.

It's almost like every single aspect of life has been militarized by the U.S military. Looks like Eisenhower's last message to us about the MIC has gone out the window.

U.S.-Iraqi Tensions

"Iraqi lawmakers say the United States is demanding 58 bases as part of a proposed "status of forces" agreement that will allow U.S. troops to remain in the country indefinitely."

There has always been rumors floating around in the media about making a permanent home for the military in the Middle East, but now it is confirmed. 

The Bush Administration will be following the "Korea Model" which refers to the presence of American military in South Korea for 54 years after the end of the war. 

After all that we have learned in this class about militarization, this present day example seems most obvious. The Bush Administration wants to set up permanent bases conveniently located around most of the world's oil supply and right near Iran, a country we are having a lot of tension with right now. 

This set up of more American bases only increases our power and presence around the world and is seen as a good strategic movement for our country.

Just think, they took over Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean to have close proximity to Iraq, and that is thousands of miles away from Iraq! Now they could be right in their backyard forever. 

I think that since the UN mandate expires at the end of 2008, the U.S. should respect and follow the rules. We're already in negotiations for a SOFA with them anyways!