The Empire Strikes Out, Then Back

When it comes to arrogance and idiocy, the sky is no limit for the Bush administration. Check this out:

The United States will preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space... and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to US national interests...

It's from the U.S. National Space Policy, a document released by the White House today and signed by the Crawford Cashew himself. This new rant says that "freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power"; and adds that the U.S. will aggressively assert its "right" to deploy weaponry in outer space.

Well, let's look at it from their point of view for a moment. You're Karl Rove, and you've just transfigured from a poodle into your natural self in the West Wing (maybe now some of you will be able to guess our banner quote for the week). Things are going as awful as could be in Iraq (despite Uncle Dick's outer-space assertions to the contrary). The American death toll is on pace to set a record this month; the civil war is only becoming worse by the day; our hand-picked figurehead for the occupation is recommending that Iran and Syria be brought into peace negotiations; and scientific estimates are supporting a total death toll to date for this war of over half a million Iraqis.

So what does any self-respecting demon do? Why, he gets the public's and the media's eyes off—far off—that lingering unpleasantness. And how much farther off can you direct vision than toward the heavens?

If we don't fight them up there, they'll attack us down here. Next week comes the CIA's report that will definitively establish, beyond any rational doubt, that Iran (or was it Venezuela?) has purchased weapons-grade dilithium crystals from Niger and is preparing to launch them into orbit. Scotty...er, I mean, Tony, set phasers to kill, and send a message to the Federation that we're going this one alone...

It gets better:

The United States considers space systems to have the rights of passage through and operations in space without interference. Consistent with this principle, the United States will view purposeful interference with its space systems as an infringement on its rights...

Is this what Daddy sent Uncle Jim Baker to Washington to do? Maybe, for Tony Snowjob is saying, "We're comfortable with the policy."

If they're comfortable, what should the rest of us be? We'll find out more about that tomorrow. But remember, it's almost Halloween...