6. May The Force Be With You!
Where, and so suddenly, did all these sophisticated and seemingly futuristic UAV technologies come from? Will ENMOD technologies be similarly transitioned into the public sphere? Talk and deployment of UAV “drones” has become increasingly prevalent, and these hitherto unknown killing technologies have splashed onto the overt policy, “news” and war-making arena seemingly overnight. Indeed, they are appearing everywhere, all at once.
With out the least trace of irony, we can say for certain that we know where the language and public introduction of these new technologies came from – language like “drones,” names like Predator and StrikeStar and DarkStar for example – and perhaps we can now reflect on the relevance and importance of the timing of the releases of the Star Wars films and their many lesser spin-offs. These films habituated U.S. citizens to an increasingly militarized environment, the physical and social environments of every day life now characterized by rapid technological changes, and changes that are occurring at a rate far more accelerated than the rate of human adaptability, and beyond the capacity for any organized social protest. Indeed, the rate of change is overwhelming.
These major Hollywood productions were clearly intended to facilitate the military objectives of “turning science fiction into fact” and it is in the context of the popularity of these films, and the hundreds of millions of dollars dedicated to their production and proliferation, that we can situate the realities of the “death-and-destruction” technologies that were developed behind them. Indeed, the technologies did not appear overnight: the Hollywood Star Wars type films were the chronicles of death foretold.
Take two recent print magazine features for example. The campaign to manage public perceptions of U.S. militarism has penetrated all quarters of American daily life and major articles selling the patriotic imperatives of UAV weapons and communications platforms, for the example at hand, have appeared in popular print magazine venues.
In a highly sexualized account, Mark Bowden in “The Kabul-ki Dance” (The Atlantic Monthly, November, 2002), canonizes the “astonishing precision of modern American weapons” used in Afghanistan and the “extraordinarily brave stealth operators” who deliver them. This includes ‘sleek and cool” weapons of death-and-destruction, and the “coming of age of UAVs” armed with cameras and missiles – “drones like the Predator (RQ-1), which made a name for itself for the first time in this conflict” – which, in Bowden’s reading of war, eliminated the propensity for “death-and-destruction” which characterized the anachronistic wars of bygone eras. Indeed, he eulogized, “War was never like this before -- you aren’t supposed to enjoy yourself while killing people.” [115]
Bruce Sterling, writing in the popular Gen-X / Gen-Y magazine WIRED takes the U.S. military agenda even further in “ASTROCOP: The Race to Dominate Space is Over: We Won! Now What?” Curiously, Sterling postulates several of the very same “futuristic” scenarios of battle as were articulated as concerns in the Air Force 2025 document. Is this a coincidence? Does it signify a lack of editorial imagination? Or does it signify the intimate relationship Sterling enjoys with the defense intelligence and information warfare apparatus? Indeed, “intimacy” is a poor choice in the lexicon of prostitution: WIRED has certainly been expropriated – most likely a willing volunteer – for the U.S. war effort. In any case, WIRED is published by The Conde Nast Publications, a mammoth publishing enterprise sporting such major bastions of pop-culture as Vanity Fair, Vogue, New Yorker, House and Garden, Self, Allure, Glamour, Brides and GQ.
Bruce Sterling’s “ASTROCOP” feature outlines in detail many of the heretofore unappreciated but enabling satellite technologies designed to complement operational capabilities of weather warfare. These include the many advanced but operational billions-of-dollars constellations of satellites already in place, major components of the satellite space warfare and environmental warfare theater, which includes: MILSTAR (Military Strategic-Tactical and Relay), LANDSAT, DMSP (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program), GPS (Global Positioning System), DSP (Defense Support Program), SBR (Space-Based Radar), SBL (Space-Based Laser), Advanced EHF and UHF Follow-On satellite constellations. [116] Of course, we are told nothing of the billions-of-dollars research, development and deployment programs, veiled by the C4ISR/C4IST apparatuses, that have also launched satellites and other aggressive payloads into space.
These two propaganda features provide egregious examples of popular print venues – often perceived as editorially progressive – serving as unquestioning vehicles for the Pentagon’s disinformation war against the American public. Both authors have prostituted themselves to the moral bankruptcy of the military-industrial complex – and they were most likely coached in generating the propaganda they did, and/or groomed for the positions – as writers -- they have ascended to.
Examples of the technologies seen first in Hollywood films include small, remotely deployed, information sensors scattered over the landscape (see the BAE Systems development of MIUGS devices below) reporting on the comings and goings of Luke Skywalker and his droids. Our first introductions to the conceptual, albeit futuristic, realities of the info-warfare “drone” technologies – the UAVs, UCAVs and TUAVs – came through such films as Dune, Star Wars and Star Trek. The decades old Star Trek series, of course, set the stage.
It is important to truly appreciate the subservient role that the mass media and entertainment industries play in further institutionalizing the American addiction to war and space. Consider that the Pentagon has sponsored hi-tech “brainstorming” sessions with some of Hollywood’s most celebrated science fiction writers and producers. With a five-year, $45 million dollar contract with the U.S. Army, the Institute for Creative Technology in Marina del Rey (CA) has been tapping the creative genius of John Milius (co-writer: Apocalypse Now), David Ayer (writer: Training Day), Ron Cobb (creature designer for Star Wars films). Hollywood consultants are paid anywhere from $500 to $1,000 a day to dream up new high-tech military gizmos. [117]
Other highly leveraged corporate ties proliferate. For one example, consider that one of the directors of aerospace and defense giant GE Company, Barbara Scott Preiskel, is also a director of the Washington Post, and she is Senior Vice-President of the Motion Picture Associations of America, New York, NY. For a second example, consider that Lucille S. Salhany sits on the Hewlett Packard board of directors with Philip M. Condit, Chairman and CEO of The Boeing Company, and that Lucille S. Salhany was President of United Paramount Network (1994-1997); Chairman and Director of Fox Broadcasting (1993-1994); and Chairman of 20th Century Fox Television (1991-1993). [118]
The Chairman of the board of a massive tier-one defense corporation called Allied Defense Group (ADG), discussed below, is General (Ret.) J.H. Binford Peay, III , previously Commander-in-Chief, and Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army. It is notable that General Peay’s is a private consultant to Walt Disney Imagineering, a major subsidiary business of Walt Disney Company.
Of course, Walt Disney Company owns ABC Broadcasting, purveyor of ABC News, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Nightline, Prime Time Thursday, 20/20 and other major broadcasts. The ABC television station group includes 10 local stations, which reach 24 percent of the country’s TV households.
The ABC Entertainment Television Group includes both the ABC Entertainment division and the Touchstone Television studio, which brings major programming to CBS and NBC networks as well.
As owner of 53 local radio stations, ABC Radio Group reaches 15 million listeners on a weekly basis, while ABC Radio Networks provide programming to more than 4,600 affiliated stations reaching 126 million people weekly. ABC Radio also includes Radio Disney, which is available in 48 markets, representing 54 percent of the country. About 2.5 million children ages 6-14 and 1.4 million moms tuned to Radio Disney on a weekly basis in 2001.
Walt Disney Television International (WDTV-I) distributes almost 5,000 hours of programming, including war propaganda films such as Pearl Harbor, to 120 countries around the world. Walt Disney publishing company Hyperion publishes bestsellers that hide and deny the significance of U.S. military terrorism, as with George Carlin’s Napalm and Silly Putty, which by virtue of its title alone suggests that napalm is some benign children’s toy, and not the deadly chemical agent that burned uncountable bodies of innocent men, women and children under defoliation bombings in Vietnam. Notably, the effectiveness of napalm was studied under the Pentagon’s “Project Heatwave” in 1966, overseen by the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, a premier defense contractor for military aircraft, and chemical and biological weapons. The Cornell labs -- and the napalm work – were intimately connected to Rockefeller interests. [119]
A nother poignant example of the relationship between the peddlers of the permanent warfare economy and the major entertainment venues in America, note that defense and intelligence deep-insider General Alexander Haig – a major Reagonite and Star Wars proponent -- is today director for major media giant America Online, and director for the mammoth Hollywood films corporation Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) -- the producer of major propaganda pictures, like Black Hawk Down.
It is through the proliferation of such popular cultural artifacts as sci-fi films (Star Wars) and techno-mags (WIRED) that the military will continue to acculturate the public to its agenda, and thereby facilitate the easy transitions of state-of-the-art technologies -- such as weather warfare capabilities -- into the unclassified (public) arena. Mass media and pop culture technology and warfare purveyors like novelist Tom Clancy have done their part to acculturate the public to the DOD and intelligence warfighting agendas, and to further institutionalize the permanent warfare economy of the United States.
The transition from military classification to public purview occurs through well-defined “public acclimation programs” designed to slowly leak and strategically place information, and through extensive perception management (propaganda) campaigns which thereby acclimate the public to DOD pursuits, objectives, technologies or programs that might otherwise spark massive resistance or public protest.
Attesting to the awareness of elite DOD planners about the potential public resistance to ENMOD pursuits are the following statements made by a consultant to the HAARP ionosphere modification project in Alaska. (See: Angels Don’t Play This HAARP, Section 10, herein.):
As soon as information on any of the projects becomes known to residents… it will trigger a strong reaction of concerns.
However justified or unjustified these concerns might be, they will be voiced passionately, perhaps even stridently.
Classification of the entire project by DOD at an early stage would help prevent surprises at a later stage (but it should be clear that concealment or credible cover-up would be essentially impossible). [Note: impossible in the case of the huge HAARP antenna array.]
“I expect increasing activism… if and when the concepts… become widely known, a very strong international reaction could be expected. [120]
“The above comments have proven to be prophetic,” wrote Dr. Bernard Eastlund. ‘since the large HAARP phased array [antenna system for ionospheric modification] was constructed in Alaska, there have been intense protests by local Alaska environmentalists as to the safety and intent of the project.” [121]
While his ties to the military industrial complex run to the deepest levels, as we will later show, Dr. Bernard Eastlund’s pursuit of ENMOD research and technologies ostensibly in the private sector can be gleamed from the web site of Eastlund Scientific Enterprises Corporation. The corporate product line includes such state-of-the-art ENMOD capabilities as:
Ionospheric modifications
Weather Modification
Tornado modification
HAARP Applications
Not coincidentally, Dr. Bernard J. Eastlund – whose ENMOD research and development has proceeded under the guise of private and supposed non-military pursuits -- was Vice President for Energy Technology with BDM Corporation from 1979 to 1984. For years BDM has operated as a major front company for the intelligence apparatus (see below). As a consultant to Atlantic Richfield Corporation (ARCO) from 1984 to 1987, Eastlund developed “new civilian and military uses of North Slope natural gas.” From 1966 to 1974, Dr. Bernard J. Eastlund managed research programs for Controlled Thermonuclear Research for the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission. [122]
Eastlund’s connections sink deep into the classified military-industrial arena, and it is just such cases like Dr. Bernard Eastlund that provide stark examples of one of the means whereby the military realizes its objectives – even those prohibited by international treaties. And that is through the ostensible independence of private sector actors, those who are otherwise deeply in tune with both overt and covert military goals, allowing the DOD and its peripheral and supporting agencies to hide behind intelligence and defense “front companies” and thereby exercise their highly efficacious -- and deceitful -- constructs of plausible deniability.
Recognizing early on that it would be “essentially impossible,” to “conceal” or “cover-up” the sheer physicality of the huge HAARP antenna systems, DOD classification was strategically dismissed. In contradistinction are the numerous highly classified ENMOD programs whose “concealment” and “cover-up” was both feasible and deniable, in an effort to prevent “unavoidable surprises” by an educated, intelligent but dissenting public -- a public unwilling to tolerate the egregious arrogance of elite planners, and their plans for the hostile manipulation of the earth’s environment. Having pursued their ENMOD agendas under the veil of secrecy, without public approval or discussion -- and with plenty of overt research and development pursued by proxy agents in the so-called “private sector” -- these people are now preparing to transition large-scale weather-as-a-weapon developments into the public realm. The objective, again, is to use them openly and without question. The public hysteria whipped up as an integral part of the United States’ “war on terror” offers an apt vehicle for the introduction and deployment of such technological madness.