RADARSAT Now Launched! Canada Reaches New Heights in Hypocrisy & Space Militarisation

Gee guys, I guess the fact that we taxpayers forked over a billion bucks for this RADARSAT thing and that it is now controlled by private corporations that happily turn over the data to the US military and intelligence agencies so they can wage cheaper and deadlier foreign wars (and keep tabs on anyone at home who challenges them) is something we can all feel darn good about because... hey... RADARSAT also gives us cute pictures of the earth (we need more nerd candy!), and hey... we can now more easily monitor just how rapidly we are destroying the entire planet from top to bottom (yippee, watch those icecaps melt away before your very eyes!), and hey... best of all... it's a nifty Canadian gizmo (like that cool Arrow warplane toy that those bully American boys stole from us).

RADARSAT should make all of our patriotic little Canadian hearts beat furiously with glowing pride. Man are we ever bloody ingenious! It's us who shoulf get the Nobel Prize for War (and hypocrisy while they're at it!)

And man, all that crap about RADARSAT-3 having a new button installed for the "Death Star" taser weapon function is total baloney. That's not going to be installed until RADARSAT-4!

Come on guys, be real, "Death Star"? This thing will ONLY be used by Canada to HELP humanity, not to hurt anyone. Canadians are way above all that. We're way up in space beyond that, eh? Look at it this way, the RADARSAT taser function is just a space platform for tasers. That's all. We can be sure it will only be used by the RCMP to Polish the floors at Canadian airports. And, maybe for mopping up in Haiti after our successful coup there in 2004.

That so called RADARSAT-3 "Death Star" laser function is what our government much more accurately calls "Life Star." Read the fine print and get your terms straight! Our government would never hurt anybody, unless there was some very excellent reason, like it was making money for their corporate friends or something.

Those "Life Star" lasers aren't for killing people. Get a freaking grip my friends! Those LIFE lasers are for simultaneously slicing bread and baloney. We are just going to be making yummy sandwiches for our troops to hand deliver to starving (yet still smiling) kids all over Afghanistan, Haiti, Kosovo and... starting sometime soon... maybe Iran too.

Be realistic, Canada will remain the world's biggest peace loving country, unless and until war is found to be more profitable, which -- as we all we all know -- it bloody isn't. No one ever made a cent from wars, if they did, we'd be fighting them all the time, or making the gizmos for someone else to do so.

RADARSAT is great! Enjoy!

RADARSAT-2 is in a class of its own.

It is to my knowledge the first and only space-based platform with GMTI capability. (See links below for details on what this means.)

GMTI will make RADARSAT useful in premptive, first-strike attacks against targets in Iran. Like SAM missile launchers that the US might suspect would be used by those cheeky Iranians to attack US (and Cdn?) warships or warplanes as they engage in "shock-and-awe" style bombardments made famous in Iraq (2003). A war with Iran will make Iraq look like a cakewalk.

This GMTI technology -- until now -- was only available on aerial platforms (aboard Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)

If anyone knows of any other satellite with GMTI capability please let us know. When I was doing my research last year, RADARSAT was hailed as the only satellite that would have this.

I've written some detailed articles about RADARSAT that are all available through links in the article posted yesterday.
[url=http://coat.ncf.ca/RADARSAT-2.htm]http://coat.ncf.ca/RADARSAT-2.htm[/url]

Read the whole mess of articles here:
[url=http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/58/58.html]http://coat.ncf.ca/our_...

Here are just a few of the heavily-footnoted articles that I've written about RADARSAT.

The last article listed below details a mobile US military satellite receiving station that has set up in warzones like Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. These things called Eaglevision allow US warfighters to get access to RADARSAT data directly from the field of battle. However they don't just downlink the data to the battlefield. Eaglevision also allows the US military to actively control RADARSAT:

* RADARSAT, Missile Defense and the Holy Grail
* GMTI and Theater Missile Defense
[url=http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/58/Articles/14-18.pdf]http://coat....

* From CAESAR to MAJIIC: How RADARSAT plugs Canada in to future NATO-led wars
[url=http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/58/Articles/19-23.pdf]http://coat....

* U.S. Warfighters get their Hands on RADARSAT Data
[url=http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/58/Articles/33-35.pdf]http://coat....

* Meet Eagle Vision: U.S. Military Bridgehead to RADARSAT
[url=http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/58/Articles/36-38.pdf]http://coat....

It never ceases to amaze me when some people say totally irrelevent things like this:

"If I didn't know of literally hundreds of peaceful projects using RADARSAT technology maybe I'd see where you're coming from a little more." (Anchovy Breather)

"Plenty of legit work is enabled because of the RADARSAT SAR. I'd say the ratio is tilted much more towards these than it is to the military industrial machine." (Anchovy Breather)

Dear Mr Anchovy Breather,

Please try putting yourself for a minute (if you can handle it) into the shoes of an innocent victim in an illegal war of aggression.

Let's go back to 2003. Imagine... just imagine... that you're an Iraqi and your Mom, Dad, two sisters and half the people in your neighbourhood were just massacred yesterday in an aerial bombardment by a US warplane that used RADARSAT data downlinked by Eaglevision I.

You don't know it but Canadian companies funded by the govt (read Cdn taxpayers) also played a part in supplying many of the major components for the bomber and all of the other major weapons delivery systems invading your country.

The aircraft carrier offshore was escorted safely into place through the Persian Gulf by multibillion dollar Canadian frigates.

The AWACs plane has Cdn personnel guiding the bombers flight as well as the fighters protecting the bomber's mission. They too are are also jammed full with Cdn technology.

CPP pension funds are invested in all the prime contractors for all the major weapons systems that are shocking and awing you and your countryfolk.

If you had internet connectivity or knew what that was you could access these details about Cdn complicity in the Iraq war:
[url=http://coat.ncf.ca/Slides/3in1/006.htm]http://coat.ncf.ca/Slides/3in1/00...

But you don't because you are a poor Iraqi kid buried under a pile of rubble.

You don't know anything of Cdn complicity but then again neither do the Cdns who paid for it all. But you have an excuse. You are an Iraqi kid. Why should you know this about the Cdn technology that is helping to kill hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

You don't have time to think about that Cdn complicity in war because your arm has just been severed off in the blast and you are buried under a heap of rubble. You are screaming in pain.

You then hear a soothing voice coming through the shattered pieces of concrete. Someone is reassuring you that Canada is generally a very good country. That 64.5% of the time it does swell stuff.

They are telling you not to be angry at the Cdn companies that are profitting from the production of communications equipment, targetting radar, landing gear, and a hundred other major electronic components that are integral to the war machine assaulting you and your friends and family.

The voice tells you that those Cdn companies also make personal computer gizmos for nerdy geeks. This of course makes you feel much better.

The voice then tells you that the CPP invests more money in nonmilitary stuff than military, that only 2.5 Billion of Cdns pension money is invested in war industries and that those war industries generally also make some damn good stuff too.

The voice explains that the AWACs personnel directing the warplane that leveled your town likes gardening and has a pet dog name Pal, that he mostly does nice things but only ocasionally helps to kill innocent people. So you don't fell angry with him anymore either.

Then the voice through the rubble tells you that the 1300 Cdn troops aboard the Cdn fleet in the Persian Gulf that escorted the US aircraft carriers into place so they could massacre your fellow countrymen, well those Cdns are a swell bunch of guys too and they mostly don't kill people, because usually they are just swabbing the decks and drinking beer, and it's only a small part of their time that they spend escorting US warships into place for battle.

And the voice says don't be concerned about that RADARSAT thing that provided the targetting data because gee it does mostly good stuff like monitor the rainforest in Brazil and look for minerals to be exploited by nice Cdn mining companies that never hurt a fly, and that RADRSAT is a nifty piece of gear, man.

And the voice tells you that RADARSAT's company reps have admitted in Parliament that a mere 35% of their data goes to the military. And you hear the voice say that only 15% of RADARSAT 1's time is given free to the US govt because they launched it, plus they get all data for free after 6 months, plus they can buy whatever else they need above and beyond all that, and they have spent millions getting maps made of the entire world, the entire world, not just Columbia and Iraq and Afghanistan and other warzones.)

So you lie there dying but feeling 65% good because you know now that Canada is a swell place and Canadians are a swell bunch because they mostly do good stuff and only ocassionally help massacre innocent people like you.

Then you swear to God that if you ever get out alive you are going to go out and find a Canadian soldier, or a Cdn geek, or just any fine Cdn you can and that you are going to go up to them with a big smile and just give them a really big hug, and thank them, and kiss them on the cheek, and wish them a nice day and then pull the cord attached to the stash of dynamite hidden in your backpack.

The logic of what I'm saying in this dramatic way is not lost on Canada's military geniuses.

Major-General Andrew Leslie, when he was Canada's military commander in Afghanistan, in the summer of 2005 publicly said:

"Afghanistan is a 20-year venture. There are things worth fighting for. There are things worth dying for. There are things worth killing for."

Then he said this, and this is the juicy part that shows how smart he is:

"Every time you kill an angry young man overseas, you're creating 15 more who will come after you."

Yes, Leslie and if we go by that logic, in about 5 easy steps we will have killed the entire population of the planet because they keep coming at us!

A crime is a crime. Period.

It does not matter two wits if the crime is committed by someone who has spent most of their free time doing nice things to help others.

So please stop coming up with the totally irrelevent fact that RADARSAT does good stuff too.

All that good stuff that we Cdns have done through RADARSAT does not make up in any way for all the harm we have done through RADARSAT, at least not in the eyes of our many innocent victims.

No where in anything I've written on RADARSAT -- (and that is, I'm afraid to say, several tens of thousands of words) have I ever said, not even once (correct me if I'm wrong) that I am: "attacking the technology [RADARSAT] as something inherently 'evil' and no one should use it."

So, let me make the following clarification for Anchovy Breather, or anyone else who isn't going to actually read what I've written but is just going to imagine that I am a "Luddite" (as suggested by someone aptly named "500_Apples").

I am not attacking the technology itself. My focus has been on exposing its extensive use by the military, particularly by the US and NATO in real live killing wars and their use of the data to prepare for future wars.

Repeat: I have focused my critique of the RADARSAT system on its use warfighting applications.

I have criticised the media and govt for playing up the peaceful uses and playing down or hiding the military uses.

This has happened again here. The peaceful use gets played up, the militaryt side gets played down, exactly in a parallel way to what the media and govt have done.

My critique has also focused on the fact that Cdn taxpayers forked over 85-90% of the bill for RADARSAT's $1.2 billion but the government has turned over the control and operation of the technology and the sale of RADARSAT to private hands. It is run by "for profit" corporate interests. It was given away! We have no control of it. Not that our govt could have been trusted to keep the technology out of military hands either, but we might have had a chance of having some democratic control over the thing if they hadn't given it away to the companies that are run by their corporate buddies.

Control of who can access and manipulate these satellites (as the US military can do directly from battlefields using Eaglevision) and who can buy the data and what they can use it for is at the crux of the problem, not the satellite technology itself.

I shouldn't have to repeat all this here. It is already all written very clearly in what I've already written, if people care to read it.

[url=http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/58/58.html]http://coat.ncf.ca/our_...

But I suspect I will continue to be called a Luddite by those who read a headline or two and a few lines into my words and then use their active imaginations to create false impressions of what I've said and then to conveniently attack those ludicrous ideas online.

And, by the way, I would be proud to be a real Luddite. I am not worth of that term.

Luddites were NOT against technology.

This again is another "straw man" created by people who haven't bothered to actually study the history of this amazing social movement. The Luddites opposed the social injustice caused by the industrial revolution.

These were people, largely weavers who worked at home in their own "cottages." They were using very complex looms. They weren't against technology, they made their living using copmplex technology, ie., the looms, etc.

They were against the destruction of their livelihoods, their "cottage industries."

They were hurt by the rise of factories and industrial capitalism. They lost their jobs, and they had to then work under horrific and appalling conditions in these factories to line the pockets of big capitalists.

The Luddites represented the interests of the common folk who had became virtual slaves to the factory machines. The Luddites were independent self employed craftspeople who produced beautiful things. They became revolutionaries because their way of life had been destroyed by capitalist greed.

However, they have been turned into a cartoon image of someone who blindly attacks all technology. It is so sad that so many people have fallen for the popular mytholgy that Luddites were opposed to all technology.

What's worse, most people don't know the first thing about what the Luddites really stood for.

Their real history has been destroyed and covered up and turned into a mockery. It is a terrible shame.

Similiarly, please don't ignore what I've actually written and just post silly notes pretending for instance that I oppose technology in and of itself.

Ratnik S's comments question whether a company in Russia would be allowed to launch RADARSAT if it was really and truly being used by the US and NATO military forces.

He asks:
"is your ideas about US military abuse of Canadian technology true or just feared."

Read what I've written and the many sources I've quoted and judge for yourself. I have relied on govt and corporate sources only as the peace movement and progressive forces have written virtually nothing about RADARSAT.

Let me assure you that it is an absolute fact that US and NATO forces are using RADARSAT. That is well documented by my research and there is no denying it.

My articles on this matter don't really examine the issue of who launched RADARSAT-2. That was a point that was beyond the scope of my research. (Though I detailed how NASA launched RADARSAT-1 and therefore got to control about 15% of "our" satellite's time and got access to all the archived data.

So, that said I'm no expert on who launced R-2.

However, I do know that RADARSAT-2 was not launched from Russia. It was launched from Kazakhstan, which -- like Russia -- was a former state within the USSR.

Now they are separate countries with separate governments.

RADARSAT-2 launched by Starsem which is a Soyuz company. It is an amalgam of many European space corporations that are in cahoots with the Russian Federal Space Agency (created just after the USSR fell apart). The RFSA is a junior partner in the operation.

Read more here:
[url=http://www.starsem.com/starsem/founding.htm]http://www.starsem.com/stars...

As for Ratnik's question of whether "the Russian military (in Baikonur) may be over-privatized" I have no idea about Russian military presence there, privatised or not.

I know there are large US military bases in the neighbouring countries of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. I believe the Kazakhstan govt allowed US military to land and refuel on their way to Afghanistan, and that the US was trying to get a base there. Maybe they succeeded I don't know.

My focus was on the military use of this Cdn satellite not who launched it, that could perhaps be a different stream for discussion on babble.

It's nice to know that Anchovy_Breather has:

"concede[d] upon looking that the new technology, that the object detection/recognition would probably have targeting applications for military purposes"

In my research, which is footnoted to within an inch of its life, I have cited chapter and verse from dozens and dozens of US military, NATO, corporate and other right-wing (and therefore "reliable") sources, that both RADARSAT-1 and -2 are being used for military purposes, including targetting functions.

Read what I've written about GMTI. That's what it's all about and all the sources are very upfront that this is for use in theatre missile defence, i.e., in protecting warships, troops, and weapons systems that are engaged in battle.

Simulations of RADARSAT-2 data have been used for many years in NATO exercises for Theatre Missile Defense exercises. See what I've written about CAESAR and MAAJIC.
[url=http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/58/58.html]http://coat.ncf.ca/our_...

In other words, military forces have been very busy practicing using RADARSAT-2 data for many years. They have been anxiously preparing for its arrival on the market so they can use it in wars. It has now arrived.

IPOne place they will likely use it is in Iran because Iran has Russian TELs with Scub Bs, so do N.Korea and Libya, Syria, Yemen, and others.

The other thing is that Anchovy_Breather and many others refer to warfighting as "defence." I have nothing against "defence." I suffer from the illusion that ALL people and countries have a right to defend themselves, even those people who are trying in vain to defend themselves from us. I believe this is recognized by the UN as a right of all nations, perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps only we are allowed to defend ourselves and others are supposed to just let us invade without a fight. I'll have to check into that.

Anyway, I believe that what we folks in the peace/antiwar movement all have a slight problem with is the use of military technology (notice I didn't say "defence" technology) being used to massacre innocent civilans in illegal offensive wars.

Since the early 1980s when I started devoting myself full time to antiwar research, writing and activism, I have refused to use the word "defence" as an adjective for industries, budgets, ministers, analysts and departments, etc., that are dedicated to the waging of wars. The correct adjectives for use in these cases are "war" or "military."

"Defence" is the euphemism that they use to speak of themselves. It is designed to cover up, whitewash and sugarcoat what they are doing.

It really bugs me when progressive folks get sucked into this use of the terminology (propaganda) that has been put out there as a way of making war industries sound like something that we can't object to unless we are therefore objecting to "defence."

Again, I have no problem with legitimate defence.

I am against illegal, unjust wars that are grabs for billions of dollars worth of resources, or to change regimes to oil the wheels of resource extraction in order to line the pockets of corporate hucksters.

RADARSAT *IS* a tool in the WAR-fighters' kit.

There is no question whatsoever about that.

Again, its all thoroughly documented in what I've written, if anyone bothers to read it.

Who you gonna call?

Can I call 911 if I learn that a cult-like organization that has killed millions of innocent people during my lifetime alone [ie., the US military] has used Canadian technology [ie., RADARSAT] that I helped pay for [ie., with my taxes] to scan the entire surface of the planet?

Such a call to 911 would make ME a suspect!

Why?

Because I, like you, should NOT be monitoring what they are doing!!

This is an invasion of THEIR private rights to run and control with impunity, countless criminal rackets throughout the world.

Apparently we should praise them for doing wonderful things with RADARSAT and then inform on anyone who tries to look into the horrific misuse of this Canadian technology.