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Concerns about deployment of military on U.S. soil growing

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Firefly
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« on: October 22, 2008, 09:46:36 am »

Concerns about deployment of military on U.S. soil growing -- while mainstream media buries its head in the sand: Naomi Wolf
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 10/21/2008 - 9:40am. Guest Contribution
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Naomi Wolf
The following is the spin of military spokespeople in response to questions about the deployment of the First Brigade on US soil for the first time in over 200 years.
The Army Times initially reported that the First Brigade would handle domestic crowd control and subduing 'unruly individuals' and that they had 'lethal and nonlethal technologies' to do so. Then it issued a correction declaring that the 'nonlethal' package was not for domestic crowd control. Then after a hue and cry was raised by many citizens, Northern Command (NorthCom) offered a wholesale revision of their mission – and the mainstream media is eating it up. Here is an excerpt from the articled linked to in the previous sentence:
Despite conspiracy theories that this could be a first step toward martial law in the U.S., there won't be tanks on Main Street or active-duty troops putting down demonstrations. That is barred by federal law banning the military from being used on U.S. soil for domestic law enforcement.
Instead, the soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., have been training to back up civilian authorities in providing medical care and dealing with chemical, biological, high explosive or nuclear attack.
Not only does this entirely contradict the first Army Times reports, it also egregiously misrepresents to readers the status of US law in regards to this deployment. Yes, there are laws against military policing on US streets -- they are part of both the 1807 Insurrection Act and 1879's Posse Comitatus Act -- but the Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gutted them.
Congress restored some limitations on the President's ability to deploy troops to engage in military policing in 2008 -- but President Bush issued a signing statement declaring he did not feel bound by those limitations. He also can direct these troops -- and the National Guard, and Blackwater -- to engage in military policing of civilian populations simply by verbally and unilaterally declaring a national emergency of whatever kind he wishes.
Unfortunately, the US Army spokespeople are parsing their words and misleading us. And, whatever the stated mission is today, the fact remains that military up the chain of command report to the Commander in Chief -- not to Congress or to you and me, and not to the Governors as most of the National Guard do.
Why do I insist on raising an alarm about this deployment in spite of a great deal of opposition and criticism? (Though I am grateful, too, for a great deal of support.) I insist on raising an alarm because I am aware of world events and not just blinded by American recent history.
In Zimbabwe, a nominal democracy, President Mugabe sent troops to harass, arrest and even kill voters during a closely contested election. Mugabe's challenger called off his own supporters, telling them they should not risk being killed just in order to vote.
In Sierra Leone, a nation I visited shortly after elections, during a fragile democratic voting process troops and militias were both deployed by the contesting political parties to intimidate, beat and arrest voters. In Azerbaijan, troops were sent to intimidate the opposition during the elections -- and now there is no meaningful opposition. Don't trust me -- ask Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International. Troops are sent by leaders in power, even in weakening democracies, to intimidate voters, arrest and harass opposition leaders in tightly fought elections, all over the damn world.
And nothing, nothing, nothing prevents the First Brigade from being positioned around poll locations, intimidating or silencing or threatening or worse those who challenge their voting outcome or their having been purged from the rolls. This at a time when Prof. Mark Crispin Miller of NYU and Robert Kennedy and many others are documenting MILLIONS of voters being systematically purged from rolls -- overwhelmingly by Republican actions -- and early voting is already showing machines flipping selections from Democrat to Republican, and voters becoming upset.
I am having a surreal experience with the mainstream media, as well, as I try to raise questions. A source at The Philadelphia Inquirer says that nothing has appeared on the wires about the First Brigade -- so they can't cover it. A source at The New York Times says they are 'looking into it' -- but no coverage yet. "The Today Show" asked if I was a 'fear-monger' and 'paranoid' for raising alarms and reproduced NorthCom's soundbite intact about the First Brigade being here to help with communities affected by weapons of mass destruction -- but did no independent reporting of their own. I know from hearing from citizens across party lines that I am not the only American concerned about what information the Army may have about such threats to lead to this deployment now -- the first time since the Indian Wars that troops have been sent onto US soil.
If you would like to see how average Americans are responding to the news about the deployment of the First Brigade, check out some of the posts from readers on a military-oriented Web site that posted the recent Colorado Springs Gazette article on the subject:
'Since 9/11 the Department of Homeland Security has spent billions to prepare civilian law enforcement, local fire departments and civilian agencies to deal with such [crises]. This smells of despicable mission creep for the Armed Forces. In the late 1980's, I participated in several exercises focused on "counter insurgency" operations that specifically dealt with demonstrators and civil unrest. Backing up law enforcement officials is a end run around Posse Comitatus and this should be exposed for what it is, unconstitutional.'
'Just why is a combat brigade being tasked for these scenarios and not Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Warfare commands? Medical Commands? Construction Battalions?
'This seems much too similar to the use of troops to put down the Bonus March of WW I veterans in which Army Troops fired on and killed veterans in DC protesting the government's failure to pay their promised [bonuses].'
'This job can AND SHOULD be handled by National Guard troops (domestic issues).'
'This smells...no, it stinks. Posse Comitatus is in place for very valid reasons. This looks like pre-positioning equipment in preparation for a fight.
'The Defense Authorization Act of 2006 empowers the president to impose martial law in the event of a terrorist "incident," if he or other federal officials perceive a shortfall of "public order," or even in response to antiwar protests that get unruly as a result of government provocations.
'The terms "incident" and "public order" are left wide open to interpretation under the Military Commissions Act...'
"Just why is a combat brigade being tasked for these scenarios and not Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Warfare commands? Medical Commands?
Construction Battalions?"
'Back in the late seventies I was apart of a force that had a similar responsibility, except we were trained to handle "civil disturbance", thank god we were never needed. This is not the first time something like this has happened, the only difference, we were Arty. Every Batt. had to train so many troops, from Inf. to Medical. I enjoyed it, we all did because for the time we were apart of it, we were exempt from all duty. To have the troops on stand-by is not a problem, to deploy the troops to take over civil responsibilities is...'
'This is quite disturbing. 4000 troops may not be enough to impose martial law on an entire country, but they could do it to a moderately sized city.'
'There is already a group to do this its called the National Guard Civil Support team. They are all over the country and are more trained than these rotating people will ever be.'
'As a former member of the 10th Civil Service Detachment/Weapons of Mass Destruction, I do feel a bit insulted. The unit is a full time National Guard unit that was in place for two years before the 9/11 attacks. We were trained to do exactly what this article says this combat brigade is being trained to do. Is this another example of the services not talking to each other, or are these commanders really that ignorant of the world around them?'
'Reorganize FEMA and keep the Combat Military out of the picture. Our Combat troops are for Combat. SeaBees are Construction Battalions that have the expertise for disaster related occurrences. They understand support missions and are the best in the world when it comes to Can-Do.
If the Combat Military has to become involved, it means Martial Law is a scribble away with the pen.
'If we actually need this Brigade, take it away from the Combat Army and assign it to the SeaBees.'
'Did anyone catch the articles in the Army Times in September about this. The first article on 8 Sept. mentioned the Oct 1 deployment was to be prepared for any civil unrest during the election. The Next article I read on line around 26 Sept Changed 3 times in one day. From explaining about the extensive training they have received in IRAQ, the new non lethal weapons for use against (American Citizens) for civil unrest to a final article of they just here to help for emergencies.'
"Despite conspiracy theories that this could be a first step toward martial law in the U.S., there won't be tanks on Main Street or active-duty troops putting down demonstrations. That is barred by federal law banning the military from being used on U.S. soil for domestic law enforcement."
'Did you read the Army Times article?
Have you read the Military Commissions Act 2006?
Have you read the Military Budget Act of 2007?
Have you read the Patriot act?...
'What they are saying is that the local, state and federal police departments can't handle a crisis?'
'If you're reading these posts, you've already read the words "mission creep," "end-run around Posse Comitatus" and "unconstitutional"'.
'I joined the Navy to make sure NO GOVERNMENT WOULD NEVER DEPLOY TROOPS ON OUR SOIL. Why did you join? I believe every Governor should recall all National Guard troops to defend your states.... This detachment must stand down. This is an illegal order.'
So don't take the warning from me. Take it from many these patriots in military circles.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Buy Naomi Wolfe's latest book, Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries (Paperback), from BuzzFlash.com.
We recommend watching the just-released free online documentary of Wolf's "End of America." It's alarming and persuasive.
http://buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1813
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Volitzer
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« Reply #1 on: October 23, 2008, 01:03:54 am »

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
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Volitzer
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« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2008, 01:12:00 am »

The Timeline to Tyranny
Ten advances towards the end of freedom and privacy in the United States

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
      

The top ten advances towards tyranny in the United States during the tenure of the Bush administration, from the Patriot Act to the latest expansion of the illegal eavesdropping surveillance program.

1) The USA Patriot Act

The party line often heard from Neo-Cons in their attempts to defend the Patriot Act either circulate around the contention that the use of the Patriot Act has never been abused or that it isn't being used against American citizens. Here is an archive of articles that disproves both of these fallacies.

The Patriot Act was the boiler plate from which all subsequent attacks on the Constitution were formed.

2) Total Information Awareness

"Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database," infamously wrote New York Times writer William Safire, announcing the birth of Total Information Awareness, a kind of Echelon on steroids introduced a year after 9/11.

TIA was not canned, it was simply removed from the newspaper, renamed and continues to operate under a guise of different programs.

(Article continues below)

3) USA Patriot Act II

The second Patriot Act was a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves. Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganized the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command.

The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship.

4) Military Commissions Act

Slamming the final nail in the coffin of everything America used to stand for, the boot-licking U.S. Senate gave President Bush the legal authority to abduct and sexually mutilate American citizens and American children in the name of the war on terror in passing the Military Commissions Act and officially ending Habeas Corpus.

There is nothing in the "detainee" legislation that protects American citizens from being kidnapped by their own government and tortured.

The New York Times stated that the legislation introduced, "A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted."

Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman states in the L.A. Times, "The compromise legislation....authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights."

Similarly, law Professor Marty Lederman explains: "this [subsection (ii) of the definition of 'unlawful enemy combatant'] means that if the Pentagon says you're an unlawful enemy combatant -- using whatever criteria they wish -- then as far as Congress, and U.S. law, is concerned, you are one, whether or not you have had any connection to 'hostilities' at all."

5) John Warner Defense Authorization Act

The Bush Junta quietly "tooled up" to utilize the U.S. military in engaging American dissidents after the next big crisis, with a frightening and overlooked piece of legislation that was passed alongside the Military Commissions Act, the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, which greased the skids for armed confrontation and abolishes posse comitatus.

6) Illegal Domestic Wiretapping Program

"Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials," reported the New York Times on December 16, 2005

The secret warrantless spying program was a complete violation of both the 4th Amendment and FISA.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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7) Expansion of Illegal Domestic Wiretapping Program

Not content with now being lawfully allowed to force ISP's and cell phone companies to turn over data about customers without a warrant, the Bush administration is pushing for even more authority to spy on American citizens, and has already been handed a 6 month window within which to impose any surveillance policy it likes, and for that program to remain legal in perpetuity.

The administration has a 6 month window in which to impose any surveillance program it chooses and that program will go unchallenged and remain legally binding in perpetuity - it cannot be revoked. Under the definitions of the legislation, Bush has been granted absolute dictator status for a minimum of 6 months.

If he so chooses, and so long as it's implemented within the next half year, Bush could build a database of every website visited by every American - and the policy would be immune from Congressional challenge even after the "surveillance gap" legislation reaches its sunset

8 ) Martial Law Presidential Decision Directive 51

New legislation signed on May 9, 2007, declares that in the event of a "catastrophic event", the President can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of government at the state, federal, local, territorial and tribal levels, and thus ensuring total unprecedented dictatorial power.

The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, which also places the Secretary of Homeland Security in charge of domestic "security", was signed earlier this month without the approval or oversight of Congress and seemingly supercedes the National Emergency Act which allows the president to declare a national emergency but also requires that Congress have the authority to "modify, rescind, or render dormant" such emergency authority if it believes the president has acted inappropriately.

9) Destruction of the Dollar

Former World Bank Vice President, Chief Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has predicted a global economic crash within 24 months - unless the current downturn is successfully managed. Asked if the situation was being properly handled Stiglitz emphatically responded "no,".

Stiglitz caused controversy in October 2001 when he exposed rampant corruption within the IMF and blew the whistle on their nefarious methods of inducing countries to fall under their debt before stripping them of sovereignty and hollowing out their economies. Stiglitz agreed that the process of hijacking and looting key infrastructure on the part of the IMF and World Bank, as an offshoot of predatory globalization, had now moved from the third world to Europe, the United States and Canada.

10) Amnesty & The North American Union

The open plan to merge the US with Mexico and Canada and create a Pan American Union has long been a Globalist brainchild but its very real and prescient implementation on behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations has finally been reported on by mainstream news outlets.

The framework on which the American Union is being pegged is the NAFTA Super Highway, a four football-fields-wide leviathan that stretches from southern Mexico through the US up to Montreal Canada .Coupled with Bush's blanket amnesty program, the Pan American Union is the final jigsaw piece for the total dismantling of America as we know it.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2008, 01:14:10 am by Volitzer » Report Spam   Logged
Volitzer
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« Reply #3 on: October 23, 2008, 01:14:30 am »

Naomi Wolf on Colbert Report: Fascism in 10 Easy Steps
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag (labor camp/political prison)
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens' groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law
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