THE
OMAHA
CATHOLIC
WORKER
COMMUNITY

U.S. STRATCOM and World Domination

by Tim Rinne
State Coordinator, Nebraskans for Peace
29 June 2007

ALL U.S. WARS ARE DESIGNED, PLANNED, LAUNCHED, AND COMMUNICATION-CENTERED HERE IN, OMAHA, NEBRASKA.

Starting in October 2002, Strategic Command began undergoing a major mission overhaul. Without taking away any of StratCom's nuclear-related responsibilities, the Bush/Cheney 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), Missile Defense, the charge of combating Weapons of Mass Destruction and "Full-Spectrum Global Strike."

Having foregone all semblance of its purportedly 'defensive' For more than half a century, U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska has symbolized the threat of nuclear holocaust. The command center for the United States' nuclear arsenal, this remote base in the American heartland has become synonymous with the 'unthinkable' and inspiring everything from Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" to Christian fundamentalist visions of the 'final battle' of Armageddon.

Cold War policies like the doctrine of "Mutually 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 only be 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, StratCom's utility and value quickly depreciated. It was a warrior without a foe, and talk accordingly arose about whether this Cold War icon should be dismantled outright. One of its former commanders, General George Lee Butler, even briefly became a pronounced disarmament advocate.
But 9/11, as the Bush/Cheney Administration never tires of reminding us, changed everything. It certainly changed StratCom’s role.

StratCom today serves as the command center for offensively waging the administration's international "War on Terror" with conventional as well as nuclear weapons. As the industry sponsor for the recent "Strategic Space and Defense 2006" trade show and arms bazaar in Omaha so forthrightly expressed it, "StratCom is a laboratory for the future of warfare."

And the next war the White House gets the U.S. into will be with rogue states like Iran and North Korea or geo-political rivals like China will be planned, launched and coordinated from Omaha, Nebraska.

Under the Bush/Cheney "doctrine of preemption," StratCom has been empowered to launch a first-strike attack against any perceived threat to America's national security anywhere on the planet within two hours. Following the same drill used in the preemptive attack 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 its 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 Orwell's 'Big Brother.' The "warrantless wiretaps" on American citizens that the National Security Agency is still regularly conducting are, it turns out, a StratCom brainchild. As part of its C-4ISR mission, the NSA was made a "Component Command" of StratCom, and the decision to begin this domestic spying operation was made by General Michael Hayden, the former head of the NSA and now current 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, Colorado. 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 to the planet is graver than ever before.

It not only continues to hold the fate of the earth in its hands.

It is now regularly traversing the globe on 'search and destroy' missions to 'protect' America's interests.

It is spying into the private lives (and violating the civil rights) of anyone on the face of the planet.

And, it's assiduously pursuing a strategy for the total domination of Space. Because, as Global Network supporters well know, 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 one of our chief missions in the Global Network is to make sure the rest of the world fully understands the political, military and economic implications of what's now going on.