SEE UPDATE AT END OF ARTICLE!!

On November 17, a page-one story in "Space News International" announced that NASA [in cahoots with the Pentagon] has laid plans to revive the X-37 space plane, which it will now send into orbit for 270 days. This trial period, says SNI, was "originally set by the US Air Force as a way to begin proving the feasibility of orbiting Earth with camera- and bomb-laden space planes for months at a time....The Air Foprce's 270-day requirement stemmed from a proposed space warfare stretegy of global strike that Air Force space planners have pushed hard inside the Pentagon in recent years [read "since the Bush junta took over]."

This scheme represents nothing less than a colossally arrogant, power-drunk bid for total global dominance. The scheme calls for the creation of a fleet of unpiloted space panes that would be able to stay in orbit, circling the planet with bombs and spy cameras for months at a time. These monsters would carry smaller "reenetry vehicles" called Common Aerospace Vehicles (CAVs). CAVs in turn would carry up to 10 500-pound bombs each. Nice, eh? And those modest bombs would without doubt only be the initial "trial load" prior to scaling up to bigger and "better" stuff - like nukes, for example. "Targets would be struck quickly nearly anywhere around the globe without having to position aircraft to forward positions," reports SNI. No need to ask the UN's cooperation, just bomb 'em!

While the Pentagon and Sean "NASA's-worst-nightmare-come-true" O'Keefe are trying to say that the revival of the program is purely for "scientific instrument deployment" purposes, Therea Hitchens, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington says this argument simply does not hold water. "You could do that [test remote sensing instruments] on a microsatellite. I don't get the justification for testing that kind of instrument on that kind of platform." ]

But most folks now familiar with the Bush administration "get it." The administration is simply using its usual modus operandi: lying to achieve its ends.

It also appears that much of NASA's funding is getting diverted into the space bomber program under cover of the inocuous sounding "Orbital Space Program." Boeing quietly announced on 11/4 to industry papers that it had set up a whole new office dedicated to this program. Less than two weeks later, the official revival of the space bomber (under the title of the "space plane" ) was announced. The same article observed that NASA was negotiating with Boeing to alter its current contracts to include the 270-day trial. I have the feeling the altered contracts were a "done deal" before Boeing opened its new office on 11/4.

But the Bush cartel appears to realize that news of what thespace bomber program is really all about would not help his popularity any. So, the White House propaganda machine is taking no chances and is using its favorite coverup strategy: Hide what the left hand is doing by drawing attention to the right hand. To do this, the corporate media/White House propaganda specialists routinely create diversionary stories in the media. The stories may be either completely fake (ties between Saddam and Bin Laden), sorta fake (Jessica Lynch) or real, but with manipulated timing.or example, doesn anyone really think that it was a coincidence that the California judicial system decided to arrest Michael Jackson the same week the Terminator took control of the state and the same week Bush was under heaviest fire for his UK trip and the escalated bloodshed in Iraq? Hardly.

Now, barely one week after Space News ran the story about the space bomber revival, Boeing and the Pentagon have pushed a story into the media about the firing of two Boeing execs over alleged unethical behavior. A classic CIA propaganda tactic that can be described as "distract and redirect." The investigation of the two execs has been ongoing for months. But they decide to fire them this week just by chance? Yeah, right.

It's also no coincidcence that Bush did not sign the defense bill until Nov. 24 - AFTER all of these "taking the Bush war into space" ducks were in a row: the new Boeing office, the NASA agreement to collude in the space bomber development, the firing of the two execs, which, insiders say, will insure that Boeing is at least temporarily exempt from the same scrutiny as before.

At the same time that the X-37 space bomber is getting revived, the Pentagon is pushing ahead with plans to create an unmanned plane capable of bombing any site on Earth within two hours. Pentagon Developing an Unmanned Vehicle that Can bomb anywhere on Earth in 2 hours.

"Northrop Grumman Corporation will help the DARPA and the U.S. Air Force develop a concept for a high-speed, unmanned aircraft and related "glide weapons" that could deliver conventional, non-nuclear weapons from the U.S. to anywhere on the globe in about two hours. This hypersonic cruise weapon system would allow the U.S. to conduct effective, time-critical strike missions on a global basis without relying on overseas military bases. " - PrimeZone

The most disturbing thing, perhaps in all of this is that with this kind of "autonomy" (no need to rely on airspace and cooperation from other nations), the US hawks will have NO incentive to use diplomacy, to compromise, to respect other nations with whom they disagree or, more likely, on whose natural resources they have their eye. It is like giving a playground bully a machine gun.

What continues to astound me is the absolute stupidity and/or monstrous indifference to any allegiance to moral standards, let alone the American citizens, that nearly 2/3 of the people in Congress exhibit. Bush continues to be hadned every penny, every revocation of civil liberties, and every reversal of social and environmental progress he asks for, thus insuring that planet Earth will become a considerably less safe, less humane, less sustainable place.

UPDATE, DECEMBER 2 2003
BOEING IS SUDDENLY WORKING VERY HARD TO DISTANCE ITSELF FROM THE PENTAGON...TOO HARD, IN FACT:

Boeing Chief Forced Out, Replaced with Foul-mouthed, Rightwing Corporazi who Promotes Space Wars Technology

Boeing's CEO Phil Condit was suddenly forced out of the company on 12/01, a move designed to manipulatively draw attention to Boeing's military contracts scandal in which the company is accused of colluding with the Pentagon for contracts. Condit has been replaced with Harry Stonecipher, a classic corporazi with a foul mouth and personality very similar to Donald Rumsfeld. This is the same guy who condemed the EU's decision to block the merger of General Electric and Honeywell and blasted Jacques Chirac for objecting to Bush's National Missile Defence Shield. This whole Boeing scenario reeks of Bush administration: first, the co. colludes with the Pentagon, next, it makes a huge show of distancing itself from the Pentagon...all while hammering out a deal with NASA and the Pentagon to work on a space warfare program ("Orbital Space Program" - office opened on 11/4). seehttp://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/5576/index.php


news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp

RESOURCES

The Space News story is inaccessible to the general public. But information being released to the general public is very, very different. Check out this supposed "fact sheet" about the X-37. Do you see anything in it about bombs. Once again, the Bush administration is planning to plunge the nation and world into danger and possible war once more without bothering to inform anyone of the truth until it is too late.

Bogus "fact sheet" : www1.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/background/facts/x37facts2.html

To read the Space News International story, try your nearest college library and look for this issue: November 17, 2003 Vol. 14, No 45

Supersonic Bomber
www.primezone.com/pages/news_releases.mhtml


Firing of Boeing Execs
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001800318_boeing25.html

Bush Is handed $87.5 billion to "fight terror"
www.themilitant.com/2003/6741/674101.html

The Arming of Space

sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi

and www.wslfweb.org/space/spacedocs.htm