Every new day brings more grave news from the U.S. As the McCain-Palin campaign is now intent on whipping up the frenzy of the uninformed ever further, doggedly pursuing the line that the next President could himself be an enemy of the state; as McCain supporters shout “Off with his head!” about Obama at a rally; as the economic crash becomes more acute with each passing day; as voter rolls are being purged in suspicious and illegal ways in the final weeks of the electoral campaign…then what could be more alarming? How about: Threatening members of Congress with martial law if they fail to pass legislation authorizing the Wall St bailout. Or, stationing an army force used in Fallujah for “crowd control” in the U.S.
Amy Goodman, writing in “Is Posse Comitatus Dead?” informs us:
In a barely noticed development last week, the Army stationed an active unit inside the United States. The Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Team is back from Iraq, now training for domestic operations under the control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The unit will serve as an on-call federal response for large-scale emergencies and disasters. It’s being called the Consequence Management Response Force, CCMRF, or “sea-smurf” for short.
It’s the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to USNORTHCOM, which was itself formed in October 2002 to “provide command and control of Department of Defense homeland defense efforts.”
As you read further in the interview conducted by Goodman, you will discover that this Pentagon unit was also used at the Republican National Convention, to scan for bombs, taking over one of the functions that used to be the domain of domestic law enforcement. “Economic insecurity” can also be a used as a basis for President Bush to declare martial law and to use Pentagon troops at home.
From Naomi Wolf, “Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out ‘Crowd Control’“:
Background: the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form of crowd control they practiced in Iraq, subduing “unruly individuals,” and the management of a national emergency. I am in Seattle and heard from the brother of one of the soldiers that they are engaged in exercises now. Amy Goodman reported that an Army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non lethal crowd control technologies and tanks.
George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus making it legal for military to patrol the U.S. He has also legally established that in the “War on Terror,” the U.S. is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a battlefield. Thus the U.S. is also a battlefield.
He also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act to give him far broader powers in the event of a loosely defined “insurrection” or many other “conditions” he has the power to identify. The Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus — habeas corpus prevents us from being seized by the state and held without trial — in the event of an “insurrection.” With his own army force now, his power to call a group of protesters or angry voters “insurgents” staging an “insurrection” is strengthened.
U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California said to Congress, captured on C-Span and viewable on YouTube, that individual members of the House were threatened with martial law within a week if they did not pass the bailout bill:
“The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. … Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no.”
If this is true and Rep. Sherman is not delusional, I ask you to consider that if they are willing to threaten martial law now, it is foolish to assume they will never use that threat again. It is also foolish to trust in an orderly election process to resolve this threat. And why deploy the First Brigade? One thing the deployment accomplishes is to put teeth into such a threat.
Also, for an investigation that outlines these developments in greater depth and with more documentary support, please see:
by Tom Burghardt
Global Research, October 6, 2008
ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY 