Page 107 - Elana Freeland - Under an Ionized Sky

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correspondingly useful.

But who other than Vallely and Aquino knew in 1980 that shifting to a “multidimensional
model” of warfare would threaten the entire biosphere and the human mind?
Let’s begin with a quick tour of duty through the U.S. military as it is today (and not as it is
in Hollywood war films), how it and its entrenched agencies and defense contractors have
militarized the United States (and NATO) for more than a half-century, and how the release of
the 1,176-page “Department of Defense Law of War Manual” for the four military branches
appears to be an all-in-one legal guide to superseding international human rights treaties and the
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U.S. Constitution. In fact, the military-industrial-intelligence complex is now synonymous with
the word military and has metastasized into a morphing Hydra with hundreds of shape-shifting
heads.
In the spirit of resistance to the poisoning of our atmosphere and planet with a blizzard of
chemicals, polymers, sensors, microprocessors, and genetically engineered ‘bots in the name of
full spectrum dominance “force multiplication,” we begin with the U.S. Army Chemical Corps,
renamed in 1986 the Dragon Soldiers, whose regimental insignia exclaims Elementis Regamus
Proelium, Latin for Let us rule the battle by means of the elements, their logo changed from the
old cobalt blue benzene ring superimposed on two gold retorts crossed like swords to a gnarled
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tree stump and the chemical-breathing Green Dragon of the alchemists. The Dragon Soldiers
constitute a military Brotherhood.
Then there is the USAF Meteorological and Space Environmental Services and Air Force
Weather Agency out of Offut Air Force Base in Nebraska (headquarters of Strategic Air
Command) and Asheville, North Carolina, and the Air Force Combat Weather Center at Hurlburt
Field, Florida and Scott Air Force Base in southern Illinois supporting Combat Weather Flights
and Battlefield Weather Teams.
Policy decisions about “force multiplier” weather may rest with the USAF Meteorological
and Space Environmental Services, a military/civilian phalanx of 4,100 active duty and reserve
military and civilian personnel serving under the Director of Weather (AF/A30-W).

The majority of AF weather personnel are focused on two distinct yet related functions: characterizing the past,
current, and future state of the natural environment, and exploiting environmental information to provide actionable
environmental impacts information directly to decision-makers.
AF weather is organized in a 3-tier structure to maximize capabilities that can be accomplished in the rear area via
“reachback” technology. This minimizes forward presence on the battlefield, making a “light and lean” presence
consistent with the overall USAF vision for contingency operations in the 21st century. 8

The field-operating Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) oversees global-scale collection and
production of weather. Reporting directly to the Air Force Director of Weather, AFWA plans,
programs, and fields standard weather systems, and collects, analyzes, predicts, tailors, and
integrates weather data, providing “timely, accurate, relevant, and consistent terrestrial and space
weather products necessary to effectively plan and conduct military operations at all levels of
war.” 9

AFWA consists of a functional management headquarters; the 1st Weather Group (1 WXG) with three subordinate
CONUS [continental US] operational weather squadrons (OWS); the 2nd Weather Group (2WXG), which operates
three squadrons, two at Offut and one at Asheville, NC; the Air Force Combat Weather Center at Hurlburt Field, FL,
which supports the Combat Weather Flights and Battlefield Weather Teams through investigation, development,
integration, exploitation, and training across new and existing systems and processes; as well as five detachments and
operating locations. The 1 WXG commands three operational weather squadrons that conduct weather operations in