US charges against Russia about space are the height of hypocrisy: Analyst

The US charge that Russia is polluting space with orbital debris is the height of hypocrisy, according to American political analyst Bill Dores.

Dores, a writer for Struggle/La Lucha and longtime antiwar activist, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Thursday after the United States called a recent Russian anti-satellite missile test “irresponsible” and “destructive” claiming that it caused a debris field in space that forced astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to temporarily seek shelter.

US State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters on Monday that Russia had "recklessly conducted a destructive satellite test of a direct ascent anti-satellite missile against one of its own satellites."

She said the test "has so far generated over 1,500 pieces of trackable, orbital debris and hundreds of thousands of pieces of smaller orbital debris that now threaten the interests of all nations."

Price warned the test "will significantly increase the risk to astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station, as well as to other human spaceflight activities."

“Russia's dangerous and irresponsible behavior jeopardizes the long-term sustainability of our outer space and clearly demonstrates that Russia's claims of opposing the weaponization of space are disingenuous and hypocritical," Price said.

Russia on Tuesday rejected US accusations that its missile test that struck a defunct space satellite potentially put astronauts aboard the ISS at risk.

The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that it had “successfully conducted a test” to hit an old Russian satellite launched into orbit by the Soviet Union in 1982, according to reports. 

US calls Russian anti-satellite missile test ‘irresponsible, destructive’

The United States has called a Russian anti-satellite missile test “irresponsible” and “destructive” claiming that it caused a debris field in space.

“Ned Price’s charges against Russia are the height of hypocrisy.  Before he was with the State Department, Price spent 10 years at the CIA. That agency uses spy satellites to facilitate its covert wars and terrorist activity around the world. Lockheed Corporation, now Lockheed Martin, began building spy satellites under CIA direction in 1959,” Dores said.

“The USSR put the first satellite and the first man and woman in space. Washington was horrified at this advance for science. The US also launched a space program, but its prime focus was military. The Pentagon created the National Reconnaissance Office in 1961,” he added.

“Since then the US has filled space with spy satellites just as it has populated our planet’s oceans with war fleets, our skies with warplanes and the land with its military bases. It has used its spies-in-the-sky to facilitate mass murder in its endless wars of aggression from Vietnam to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. They give the US a critical advantage when attacking and invading poorer countries,” he said.

“A US spy satellite targeted the Amariyeh air-raid shelter in Baghdad in February 1991. The Air Force hit it with two laser-guided bombs, murdering at least 408 children, women and men,” he noted.

“Air Force Undersecretary Peter Teets, who  headed the National Reconnaissance Office in 2003, claimed the use of satellites made the US invasion of Iraq  ‘the most integrated and precise military engagement in history.’ Much of the intelligence used in that war came from spy equipment the CIA installed on commercial satellites,” he said.

“‘Iraq War Boosts Space Spending,’ Reuters reported on June 6, 2003.”

‘Pentagon seeks to turn space into a battlefield’

The analyst said, “Of the 3,372 satellites now orbiting Earth, 1,897 belong to the United States. (China is second, with 412.) Of those 160 are officially military. But most of the commercial and weather satellites also carry spy equipment.”

“The United States has also destroyed satellites in space. In February 2008, the US Navy carried out Operation Burnt Frost, destroying a malfunctioning US military satellite that threatened to unleash toxic debris onto our atmosphere,” he noted.  

“But the Pentagon seeks to go beyond spying. It aims to turn space into a battlefield. In 1984, they created the US Space Defense Command with a view to weaponizing outer space,” he said.  

“In 2019, the Trump regime created the US Space Force. The Pentagon also set up the Space Development Agency that same year,” he said.

“Trump was rightly ridiculed for the Space Force. Yet the Biden White House has continued it, even as it battles Congress to fund badly needed infrastructure and social programs,” he said.

“On April 26 of this year, Space Force News-yes, there is such a publication-announced, ‘US, Israel expand cooperation to the space domain.’ The article quoted a Space Force colonel who said, ‘Israel is one of the US Space Force’s strongest partners in the Middle East, and we look forward to increased collaboration with them in the space domain,’” he stated.  

“The United States and the occupation regime in Palestine share satellite intelligence to direct airstrikes in Syria and Iraq,” he explained.

“The US militarization of space is not only a massive theft of resources from human needs in the United States. It forces other countries to divert their own resources in self-defense. And as the Russian test showed, if the US continues to pursue this dangerous course, it will be answered,” the analyst said.

“Space exploration should be for the good of humanity and life on earth, not a means to destroy it. It should be an area of cooperation, not armed confrontation. The United States should shut down the Space Force and deactivate its military satellites before it’s too late,” he concluded.

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