StratCom in Nebraska: The Most Dangerous Place on the Face of the Earth

Tim Rinne, NFP State Coordinator

For more than half a century, the U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska has symbolized the threat of nuclear holocaust. The command center for the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal, this remote base in America’s heartland, has been synonymous with the ‘unthinkable’ — inspiring everything from Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" to Christian fundamentalist visions of "the final battle" of Armageddon.

Morbid Cold War policies like the doctrine of “Mutual Assured Destruction” (MAD) effectively 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 be only 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 notable disarmament advocate.

But 9/11, as the Bush-Cheney Administration never tires of reminding us, changed everything.

Although it didn’t seem that significant at the time, it was to StratCom that Air Force One rushed the president the day of the terrorist attack. And from that day forward, StratCom too would never be the same.

Within months, Strategic Command was undergoing a major mission overhaul. Without yanking any of StratCom's nuclear-related responsibilities, the White House began 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), integrated missile defense, combating weapons of mass destruction and "Full-Spectrum Global Strike."

Foregoing all semblance of its purportedly ‘defensive’ role, StratCom today serves as the command center for offensively waging the administration's international "War on Terror" — with both conventional and nuclear weapons.

As the industry sponsor at the Omaha "Strategic Space and Defense 2006" trade show and arms bazaar so forthrightly expressed it last fall, "StratCom is a laboratory for the future of warfare."

And the next war the White House gets the U.S. into — be it with a “rogue state” like Iran or a geopolitical rival like China — will be planned, launched and coordinated from Offutt Air Force Base just outside Omaha, Nebraska. Under the administration’s "doctrine of preemption," StratCom has been commissioned to launch a first-strike attack anywhere on earth — within two hours — if a threat to America’s national security is even suspected. Following the same drill used on Iraq over its alleged stockpiles of WMD, this new StratCom directive (called "CONPLAN 8022") 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 the way.

For more than a year now, StratCom has had a war plan in readiness for just such a preemptive and (under the UN Charter’s “Prohibition of Aggression”) illegal attack on Iran. It’s only been waiting for word from the White House to strike. As the article March 2007 issue of Vanity Fair reported:

“Another serious development is the growing role of the U.S. Strategic Command (StratCom), which oversees nuclear weapons, missile defense, and protection against weapons of mass destruction. Bush has directed StratCom to draw up plans for a massive strike against Iran… ‘Shifting to StratCom indicates that they are talking about a really punishing air-force and naval air attack [on Iran],’ says [retired colonel W. Patrick Lang, who served as an officer for the Middle East, South Asia, and terrorism at the Defense Intelligence Agency].”

Imagine how this must look to the Muslim world…

The command center for the most sophisticated nuclear arsenal in the world has been charged with planning, launching and coordinating an unprovoked assault on a non-nuclear Muslim nation, in order to keep that country from even being able to develop nuclear energy for civilian purposes. StratCom’s attack plan even includes the use of tactical nuclear weapons to take out the reinforced bunkers housing Iran’s nuclear research facilities.

The Islamic broadcast network, Al Jazeera, could have a field day with this sort of ‘double standard’: The U.S. gets to have all the nuclear armaments it wants (including a proposed new generation of nuclear weapons — the ‘bunker-buster’ mini-nuke and the Reliable Replacement Warhead), to use however it sees fit. And under its preemption doctrine, America even has the prerogative of offensively using nuclear weapons to prevent ‘wannabe’ states from ‘going nuclear.’ But Iran is to be prohibited from even developing nuclear power, for fear it might someday make a bomb.

This type of hypocrisy is guaranteed to feed anti-American feeling in the Mideast.

And elsewhere as well.

When the administration’s plans to construct a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic were disclosed last January, Russian President Vladimir Putin promptly warned that such a provocation was destined to ignite a new “Cold War” between our two countries, because Russia would take steps to defend itself. At least 15 countries around the world are now engaged in StratCom’s missile defense program, the majority of which lie within striking distance of Russia. The White House was quick to claim that the missiles were intended to defend against an attack from Iran. But Putin was unmollified, charging that, by it actions, it was the U.S. — rather than the Iranian government — that was menacing the world.

The mission array of the newly retooled StratCom, however, extends far beyond this vigilante role. In its struggle with the forces of international terrorism, the Bush-Cheney Administration has seen fit to equip the Omaha command center with powers worthy of “Big Brother.”

The "warrantless wiretaps" on American citizens conducted by the National Security Agency are, it turns out, a StratCom brainchild. As part of StratCom’s C-4ISR mission set, the NSA was made a "Component Command" of StratCom, and the decision to begin this domestic spying operation was made by General Michael Hayden before he subsequently moved on to become the 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 “Echelon” 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 is graver than ever before.

It not only continues to hold the fate of the Earth in its hands. Through its international network of bases, StratCom now circles the globe, poised to conduct ‘search and destroy’ missions at the drop of a hat to ‘defend’ America's interests. And with its unparalleled satellite surveillance and reconnaissance system, it’s spying into the private lives (and violating the civil rights) of people all over the planet.

But the invasive behavior doesn’t end there. Seizing on this “asymmetrical advantage” in space technology and infrastructure, the U.S. — through StratCom — is actively pursuing a strategy for the military and economic domination of space… because whoever controls space controls the Earth.

For instance, 70 percent of the bombs and missiles unleashed on Iraq during the “Shock and Awe” campaign in March 2003 were guided from space. The efforts of StratCom’s Space Command in that coordinating the blitzkrieg on Iraq’s military and civilian infrastructure inspired then-Air Force Secretary James Roche to describe that bombing campaign as “the first true space war.”

The updated “National Space Policy” released last October calls for securing space exclusively for the United States and its approved allies. So intent, in fact, are the White House and StratCom on dominating space that the U.S. now officially opposes the adoption of any new space treaties, for fear they might thwart their plans (which also explains why the administration was so anxious to dump the ABM Treaty). In 2005, the U.S. actually voted against the “Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space” (PAROS) resolution in UN, as opposed to abstaining like it had in previous years. As the director of space law for the U.S. Air Force General Counsel’s Office publicly stated at a “Space and TeleCom Law Conference” at the University of Nebraska this past March, for the U.S. to consent to any UN-backed proposals restricting or prohibiting the militarization of space was equivalent to “disarmament.” These proposed treaties, the counsel declared, were in effect “tools of war” against the United States by our adversaries. They were, the speaker spat out, “law-fare.”

In describing StratCom’s plans for world domination, it’s easy to feel like a character in an “Austin Powers” movie talking about “Dr. Evil’s” latest plot. But the fact of the matter is that 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.

Once on the verge of obsolescence, StratCom has reinvented itself and is now the most dangerous place on the face of the earth. Virtually a law unto itself, StratCom’s even collaborating with the University of Nebraska College of Law to create the nation’s first “space law” program — presumably to fill the ranks of legal professionals and lawyers (the law-iors?) needed for the “law-fare” being waged over space.

So how do we resist such a threat, which left unchecked, spells doom for an open society and our democratic institutions?

In the late 1970s, Daniel Ellsberg came to Lincoln, Nebraska to talk about the protest at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility, where he’d just committed civil disobedience. During the ‘Q & A’ period, I remember someone in the audience asking him what was the most important thing we as citizens should be doing at that moment. Ellsberg’s answer, and it’s been sound advice to me ever since, was “It takes everybody and everything.”

The organization I work for, Nebraskans for Peace, is the oldest statewide Peace & Justice organization in the country. We’ve been working to educate Nebraskans about the risk StratCom represents to our national security since our founding in 1970. The Des Moines, Iowa, Catholic Workers, for their part, have been conducting regular nonviolent protests and “line-crossings” onto the base for nearly 30 years. And all of these activities have been valuable to some degree.

But with StratCom having now become an overtly offensive force, capable of starting a war at any moment, we need to extend the reach of our message. While the command’s reputation as the nerve center for America’s nuclear arsenal is well-known, virtually nobody in the world is aware of the drastic transformation that has taken place there in the past five years. And if we are to have a chance to thwart whatever belligerent, destabilizing and illegal initiative the White House has got up its sleeve, we’re going to need the help of the international community — in forums like the UN and the World Court.

At present, though, the world doesn’t even know what’s going on at StratCom. The changes have been so dizzying, public awareness hasn’t been able to keep up.

Unless the world community has a working knowledge of the threat StratCom now represents, however, we will never be able to muster the power needed to start reining it in.

Which is why the recent decision in Darmstadt, Germany this past March to hold the 2008 “Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space” international conference and protest in Omaha is so heartening. Next April 11-13, people from all over the U.S. and around the world will be coming to Omaha to shine some light on StratCom.

The Global Network conference will be an important start at alerting the world to this menace. But getting the word out, worldwide, is not only going to require the efforts of “everybody and everything.” It’s going to require speed. Because if this remote base in America’s heartland is permitted to continue dwelling in obscurity, one day soon it’s going to lead us right into oblivion.

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