The part about the patrolling aircraft is almost certainly bogus unless thay meant something like the modified 747 with a big laser in the nose. There simply isn't enough money to develop spacecraft for patrolling in orbit and such vehicles would be of limited use, anyway.

According to current military doctrine (Joint Publication 3-14, Joint Doctrine for Space Operations for starters), there are 4 parts to the Space Control mission. They are:

1. Protection:

Employ active and passive defensive measures to ensure US and friendly space systems operate as planned.

2. Surveillance of Space:

Detect, identify, assess, and track space object and events.

3. Prevention:

Employ measures to prevent adversary use of data or services from US and friendly space systems for purposes hostile to the United States.

4. Negation:

Disrupt, deny, degrade, decieve, or destroy adversary space capabilities.

The US Air Force uses different terms for space control. They essentially combine protection and prevention into Defensive Counterspace and call negation Offensive Counterspace. This is more in line with the rest of Air Force doctrine.

Of all the space control missions, no one should have any problem with the US acting to protect our assets. Our military is heavily dependent on space capabilities like reconnaissance, navigation, weather, missile warning, and communications. Likewise, no one should have any problem with us preventing others from using our assets against us.

The controvery comes in the negation mission area. Of that, only the destruction submission involves actual destruction of an adversary's space assets. Those include assets on the ground such as command and control (C2) centers, launch facilities, and remote tracking stations. After all, it's a lot easier to send a B-2 to take out ground targets than to destroy a satellite in space.