STRATCOM: In the Yorkshire Dales

Professor dave webb
leeds metropolitan university

As the nerve center for waging conventional and nuclear war anywhere on the face of the earth, StratCom commands a vast network of military bases stretching literally around the globe. One of these international bases lies in Yorkshire County, England, close to the city of Leeds and the home of Professor Dave Webb, convener of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. In the article below, written specifically for our Nebraska Report readership, Webb describes the insidious role that the Menwith Hill base in Yorkshire plays in StratCom’s international web.

People of Nebraska in the U.S. and residents of the Yorkshire Dales in the UK might not realize it but they have something in common—they are connected through the military networks and bases that disfigure their landscapes and afflict their local communities.

In Yorkshire, the Menwith Hill base near Harrogate is the largest electronic monitoring station in the world. Although it is designated as RAF (Royal Air Force), for the past 40 years it has been run for, and predominantly by, the NSA (National Security Agency—part of StratCom’s “Network Warfare” Component Command). The base is situated in a National Park and an area of outstanding natural beauty and forms a major part of the U.S. global network of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) listening posts which intercept and monitor the world’s satellite and electronic communications. Using a computer-based search system known as ECHELON to detect messages that might be useful to military intelligence, it is constantly relaying information back to NSA HQ at Fort Meade, Maryland for further processing. (For more information, see the Yorkshire Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament web site at www.cndyorks.gn.apc.org/mhs/)

Nebraska, of course, is the home of StratCom, which has a mission to:

“Enable decisive global kinetic and non-kinetic combat effects through the application and advocacy of integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR); space and global strike operations; information operations; integrated missile defense and robust command and control.”

Many of the messages intercepted and processed in the heart of Yorkshire will determine activities in Nebraska. The importance of the monitoring and collection of SIGINT during times of ‘international tension’ is obvious, and Menwith Hill received awards for its support to U.S. naval operations in the Persian Gulf from 1987 to 1988 and in 1991 for support given to operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. The close linkage between space-based intelligence collection and military operations was also clearly spelled out in congressional testimony in 2002 by the then Director of the National Reconnaissance Office:

“In the future, U.S. forces will rely upon space systems for global awareness of threats, swift orchestration of military operations, and precision use of smart weapons... Our goal is to detect, track and target anything of significance worldwide and to get the right information to the right people at the right time.”

The objective then is to enable the U.S. military to deliver “precise military firepower anywhere in the world, day or night, in all weather,” and at Menwith Hill around 1,800 personnel are currently employed to service the computers and technologies associated with the 30 or so satellite downlink receiver dishes housed in white spherical ‘radomes’ within the base perimeter—each connecting to a different satellite system. A recent parliamentary question revealed that 415 U.S. military, 989 U.S. civilians (from arms contractors like Lockheed Martin), 5 UK military and 392 UK civilian personnel (excluding those from the UK’s NSA equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters—GCHQ) were working there. Observations of activities at the base, including building developments, indicate that it is set to expand dramatically in the near future.

Menwith Hill has also been designated as home for the European Ground Based Relay Station for the Space Based Infra Red System (SBIRS)—a missile detection, tracking and targeting component of StratCom’s Missile Defense Command, due to replace the Defense Support Program (DSP) early warning satellites. The satellite dishes are now erected and ready to receive the signals from SBIRS satellites when and if they are eventually launched. However, the SBIRS technologies (and associated Space Tracking and Surveillance System) are way behind schedule and excessively over budget and future deployment is uncertain.

As if all that fiendish activity wasn’t enough, Menwith Hill and the NSA are also very much involved in the ongoing scandal over the Bush/Cheney Administration’s illegal spying on U.S. citizens and the UN.

Thankfully, wherever darkness resides good people are usually not far away to question and challenge. The reason we know so much about the activities of this top secret base is not because our government and politicians tell us (they do not even know themselves— they have to be told by us), but because women peace campaigners illegally entered the base (sometimes cutting through the perimeter fence with bolt croppers), bringing out documents and letters from bins and notice boards and passing them on to analysts and investigative journalists. Those activists are still there and have been joined by many others.

The Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases (CAAB—see www.caab.org.uk) is led by Lindis Percy and Anni Rainbow who hold weekly Tuesday evening protests outside Menwith Hill. Lindis has been arrested over a hundred times at the base while challenging the controversial military bye laws and is often described in the news as “Britain’s most famous peace campaigner.” (She also climbed the gates of Buckingham Palace to hang out a “He’s Not Welcome” banner during a President Bush visit in 2003, and surprised George Bush, Sr. with a faceto- face confrontation about his son at a Harrogate business conference in 2006). Every July 4th, CAAB hosts a day-long protest for “Independence from America” with special guests—some from the U.S. Last year, Scott Ritter addressed the demonstration, and this year Tom Nielson entertained us all with some great songs. There are also annual protests held by Yorkshire CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) and CAAB during ‘Keep Space for Peace Week’ (see www.space 4peace.org), which this year will be held on October 8.

The Menwith Women’s Peace Campaign (led by Helen John and Anne Lee) holds frequent peace camps and demonstrations. Helen was a founding member of the Greenham Common Peace Camp in 1981 and in 2001 was sentenced to three months in prison for her protest activities. Anne Lee also writes several letters a week to find out more about the base activities and its plans for future expansion, attempting to employ the Freedom of Information Act and monitoring planning applications—see www.cndyorks.-gn.apc.org/mhs/wpc/wpcmhs.htm.

The ‘Menwith Hill Forum’, established in response to widespread concern and administered by Leeds City Council, meets regularly four times a year. Local elected representatives (councillors, Members of Parliament, Members of the European Parliament) from all major political parties, relevant peace groups, trade unions and local residents meet to discuss activities around and within the base. The group seeks transparency in the operation of the American surveillance station at Menwith Hill, full accountability of the base under British and international law, and to put forward the legitimate local concerns of its members (see www.menwithhillforum.org.uk.) It organizes regular public meetings, asks questions, writes letters and generally tries to raise public awareness.

It is clear, however, that Mr. Blair’s unquestioning loyalty to Mr. Bush extends to protecting U.S. interests in his own country, even to the possible detriment of his electorate. In 2005, the Blair Government introduced the Serious Organized Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) in the guise of antiterrorist legislation. Under SOCPA, specific “Designated Areas” have been established around certain military and nuclear establishments in the UK (Menwith Hill is one) within which protests and gatherings are effectively forbidden under threat of one year in prison and/or a fine of £5000.

Peace campaigners and activists are challenging this Act and at Menwith Hill Helen John and Sylvia Boyes were arrested on April 1, 2006, when they entered the base wearing peace placards and carrying hammers and cutting equipment. Their intention was to illustrate how the right to peacefully protest is under threat.

Other indications that the right to protest is under threat in the UK include:

• the arrest of 81-year-old John Catt for wearing an anti-Blair T-shirt in Brighton during the Labour Party Conference;

• the removal of 82-year-old Walter Wolfgang from that Conference, for heckling Foreign Secretary Jack Straw;

• the arrest of Brian Haw, for maintaining a vigil berating Blair and Bush in Parliament Square, London since June 2001;

• the arrest of Maya Evans for reading out the names of soldiers killed in Iraq on the Cenotaph in Whitehall; and

• the court-martial of Lt. Malcolm Kendall-Smith an RAF doctor, for refusing to return for a third duty in Iraq.

Helen and Sylvia took equipment with intent to commit damage so that they would be tried in front of a jury in a Crown Court. They repeated the action again on June 1, because they became frustrated that the first case was not being taken seriously (a decision on whether to prosecute under the new law had been deferred for a third time by the Attorney General and the Crown Prosecution Service). Eventually the Attorney General decided to prosecute, but directed that the case would be heard in a Magistrates Court—with no jury. Helen and Sylvia are planning to take the case as far as they can through the legal system. There will be more news on the case in the next couple of months. Further information and messages of support can be obtained from sarah@yorkshirecnd.org.uk

There are many people opposing the war preparations at places like StratCom and Menwith Hill all over the world. We are not alone and global events like “Keep Space for Peace Week” October 1-8 remind us how worldwide the protest is and how strong we can be when we stand together. During “Keep Space for Peace Week,” likeminded people in Yorkshire and Nebraska will be linked through our thoughts and actions with countless others, as we demonstrate our opposition to the use of violence and war and seek to keep the heavens weapon-free.

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