The military occupation of New Orleans, post-Katrina.
Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.
Federalist Paper No. 8, in which Alexander Hamilton displayed an atypical ardor to defend liberty against state power.
“We no longer have a civilian-led government.”
This ominous conclusion comes to us from Thomas A. Schweich, who held the title of deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement affairs in the Bush Regime, by way of a December 21 Washington Post op-ed column. Lamenting “the silent military coup d’etat that has been steadily gaining ground below the radar screen of most Americans and the media,” Schweich describes the infusion of the military “into a striking number of aspects of civilian government” as “the most unnerving legacy of the Bush administration.”
Schweich is not an advocate of limited-government who managed to burrow deeply into the Bu’ushist Welfare/Warfare State; he is an advocate of “soft power” imperialism, the supposedly benign variety that focuses more on hectoring foreigners about their shortcomings, rather than unceremoniously bombing them into blood pudding. Oh, sure – even “soft power” imperialism involves the threat and occasional practice of bombing, but usually only amid cries of anguished reluctance following the performance of the proper multilateralist sacraments. (For useful examples, consult the Clinton-era bombing campaigns in the former Yugoslavia.)
Schweich seems particularly miffed that the military shouldered aside the State Department’s efforts to train civilian “law enforcement” personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the Pentagon’s habit of Bogarting all of the boodle set aside for “reconstruction” projects.
But even though his protests have the sectarian flavor of bureaucratic in-fighting, Scweich validates his shocking announcement of the demise of civilian government with some very solid examples. For instance, the military’s domination of law enforcement training in Iraq and Afghanistan have created police forces that “have been unnecessarily militarized – producing police officers who look more like militia members than ordinary beat cops. These forces now risk becoming paramilitary groups, well armed with US equipment, that could run roughshod” over civilian governments.
While this and other “military takeovers of civilian functions” took place “a long distance from home,” Schweich elaborates, the same all-devouring militarism is at work here as well.
Witness the huge and expanding role played by the military in narcotics enforcement, including the hugely expensive “Merida Initiative” through which the Bush Regime has collaborated with Mexico’s narcotics syndicates (which are, to use a common term on this side of the border, public-private partnerships) to propagate unprecedented violence and misery in that country.
The most important example Schweich lists is the Pentagon’s plan “to deploy 20,000 U.S. soldiers inside our borders by 2011, ostensibly to help state and local officials respond to terrorist attacks or other catastrophes. But that mission could easily spill over from emergency counterterrorism work into border-patrol efforts, intelligence gathering and law enforcement efforts – which would run smack into the Posse Comitatus Act…. So the generals are not only dominating our government activities abroad, at our borders and in Washington, but they also seem to intend to spread out across the heartland of America.”
While Schweich’s concern and candor do him credit, his warnings are tantamount to urging that we secure the barn door long after the prize stallion has fled, been butchered, and graced a Frenchman’s dinner table.
The military “spill-over” into domestic law enforcement that he warns against began as a trickle in 1981 with passage of the Military Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Act. That trickle is now a cascade as voluminous and consistent of any found in Niagara Falls. Once again, this is chiefly – but not entirely – due to the so-called War on Drugs.
The eyes of the military are upon you: Active-duty military personnel collect photographs of anti-war activists during a 2002 Washington, D.C. protest against the then-impending Iraq war (above and below right).
For some time, military involvement in domestic intelligence gathering has included personal surveillance of political activists; more recently, this has expanded to the use of spy satellites to monitor political protests on behalf of militarized law enforcement bodies. While Schweich is properly alarmed by the way the Pentagon has created Iraqi and Afghan police forces that are little more than miniature armies of occupation, he apparently hasn’t noticed that the same process is well underway here in the United States as well.
In some ways, Schweich’s jeremiad is a good update and companion piece to Brig. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap’s prescient essay “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012,” published in the Winter 1992-93 issue of the U.S. Army War College journal Parameters.
Written in the form of a smuggled prison letter composed by “Prisoner 222305759,” condemned to death for “treason” by the American military junta of Gen. E.T. Brutus, Dunlap’s essay described many trends that he feared would culminate in “a military that controls [the American] government and one that, ironically, can’t fight.”
As government corruption and ineptitude grew, “The one institution of government in which people retained faith was the military,” explained Dunlap’s literary stand-in. The military was thus burdened with countless tasks unrelated to warfare – from law enforcement, to supplementing the work of doctors and teachers, from environmental preservation efforts to bolstering the financially stricken airline industry. (Dunlap, incidentally, extensively documents how the military was either active, or planning to become involved, in all of those missions by the early 1990s.)
Likewise, the military’s missions abroad were increasingly Operations Other Than War (OOTW), a term that came into vogue subsequent to publication of Dunlap’s essay. At the same time, a cultural dissonance grew between the military and the public it was supposedly serving.
The structural defects in this new model military were displayed to painful effect in what the author describes (by way of prediction, remember) as “the wretched performance of our forces in the Second Gulf War,” particularly following Iran’s intervention in 2010: “Preoccupation with humanitarian duties, narcotics interdiction, and all the rest of the peripheral missions left the military unfit to engage an authentic military opponent.”
While the military was no longer well-suited to fight and win wars (including, of course, patently unjust wars of aggression), its subtle and thoroughgoing integration into every element of domestic life made it perfectly suited to carry out a coup: “Eventually, people became acclimated to seeing uniformed military personnel patrolling their neighborhood. Now troops are an adjunct to almost all police forces in the country. In many of the areas where much of our burgeoning population of elderly Americans live – [military dictator] Brutus calls them `National Security Zones’ – the military is often the only law enforcement agency. Consequently, the military was ideally positioned in thousands of communities to support the coup.”
Very little of consequence separates the speculative world described by Dunlap from the one in which we presently live. One institutional impediment is the Posse Comitatus Act (or whatever remains of it), which was intended to prevent direct involvement of the military in domestic law enforcement.
But this measure, which was always a tissue-paper barricade at best, is all but extinct as we near the end of the Bush era. And the ranks of military scholars are planted thickly with people devising arguments to destroy whatever may remain of the Posse Comitatus proscriptions.
In a paper published by the US Army War College in early 2006, Lt. Col. Mark C. Weston of the U.S. Air Force Reserve points out that the Posse Comitatus Act has been perforated with “exceptions” practically since it was passed in 1878. (Just weeks after signing the act – passage of which was part of a deal that ensured his presidency -- Rutherford B. Hayes deployed the Army to carry out police functions in New Mexico.)
One of the biggest exceptions deals with what could be called the use of “civilian” police as military proxies, since the Pentagon is permitted “to provide equipment, transportation, training, supplies, and services to law enforcement officials as long as it does not directly and actively participate in law enforcement tasks,” writes Weston. Which is to say that it’s permissible to militarize the police, as long as troops aren’t actually the ones pulling triggers and conducting arrests. This is, once again, exactly the same procedure being used to create the Afghan and Iraqi “militias” described by Thomas Schweich.
There are six formal exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act listed in Title 32, Sec. 215.4 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Weston writes. To that list, he rather audaciously adds “One final exception worthy of discussion [namely] the concept of martial law.” Referring to the Supreme Court’s 1866 Ex Parte Milligan decision, Weston insists that martial law can properly be said to exist only in “the absence of order, courts, and constitution…. Martial law is the use of force by the military to maintain order by acting as the police, the court, and the legislature…. If the courts are open then [use of the term] martial law is not appropriate.”
Most domestic deployments of the military don't cross the threshold of martial law, Weston maintains, and he eagerly recommends making it easier for the military to carry out such missions by repealing the Posse Comitatus Act (or PCA). From Weston’s perspective, the PCA, which was never a good idea, has long since fallen into desuetude. He insists that the Act should either be repealed outright or modified in such a fashion as to make it entirely inconsequential.
Posse Comitatus, Weston writes, is “a significant obstacle to unified action on homeland security … an impediment to agility and adaptability of the military to national defense … [a hindrance to] national values and national purpose.” Yet he prefers to “modify” the Act rather than abolish it, apparently to maintain – for now – the useful fiction that military and police powers remain separate, with civilian officials firmly in control of the former.
In an October 2000 essay entitled “The Myth of Posse Comitatus,” Major Craig T. Trebilcock, a JAG officer in the U.S. Army Reserve offers an assessment quite similar to that of Lt. Col. Weston: The PCA is useless but not harmless, and best ignored if it can’t be dispensed with.
The only value of the PCA, according to Trebilcock, is the fact that “it remains a deterrent to prevent the unauthorized deployment of troops at the local level in response to what is purely a civilian law enforcement matter.” For example, it can result in administrative punishment or even criminal prosecution of “a lower-level commander who uses military forces to pursue a common felon or to conduct sobriety checkpoints off of a federal military post.”
As of December 12 – when active-duty U.S. Marines conducted a joint highway sobriety checkpoint with California Highway Patrol officers – that example can be crossed off Trebilcock’s list.
In his book An Empire Wilderness, Robert D. Kaplan describes a strategic planning session held at Ft. Leavenworth’s Battle Command Training Program shortly after the April 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing (a tragedy directly facilitated by several of the Regime’s three-letter agencies). One of the participants, a Marine Major named Craig Tucker, predicted that the threat of terrorism and domestic turmoil suggested that the military would have to “go domestic.”
God forgive us, if He can: Iraqi mourners display the lifeless body of an infant killed during a chemical weapons attack by US occupation troops. The burn marks on the child's body are the result of an attack using white phosphorous munitions. In a 1932 essay on domestic military deployments, Gen. George S. Patton -- who ironically took care to avoid needless civilian casualties during World War II -- recommended the use of white phosphorous to suppress insurrection.
While that prediction has been fulfilled, the process has yet to be fully consummated. On the continuum described by none other than Gen. George S. Patton – who considered domestic military deployment as the “most distasteful” form of service – we are presently somewhere between routine involvement of military personnel “in connection with Domestic Disturbances” and “Martial Law.” That continuum ends with “Military Government,” which differs from Martial Law in that it represents the complete abolition of civilian authority, as opposed to the enforcement of a civilian ruling elite’s will through direct military force.
In administering either Martial Law or Military Government, Patton – predictably enough – prescribed the pitiless application of lethal force. He digested his doctrine of domestic military missions into what he called “The Law and the Prophets of Riot Duty,” a canon that includes the following directives:
*“Take no orders from civil officials -- federal, state, or municipal.”
*“You may and should cooperate with police or state troops who may be present; but you and not they are the judge of the amount and character of this cooperation.”
*“Should some orator start haranguing the crowd and inciting them to violence, grab him even if it brings on a local, small fight. Small fights are better than big ones. Words cunningly chosen change crowds into mobs.”
*“Warn newspapers, theaters, and churches that if they encourage the mob, they are guilty of aiding them and that their leaders will be held personally accountable. Freedom of the press cannot be construed as `license to encourage’ the armed enemies of the United States of America. An armed mob resisting federal troops is an armed enemy. To aid an enemy is TREASON. This may not be the `law,’ but it is fact. When blood starts running, the law stops.”
*“If you have captured a dangerous agitator and some `misguided’ federal judge issues a writ of Habeas Corpus for him, try to see the judge to find out what he is liable to do…. There’s always the danger that the man might attempt to escape. If he does, see that he at least falls out of ranks before you shoot him. To be soft hearted might mean death to your men. After all, WAR IS WAR.”
*“As in all military operations, information is vital. By the use of detectives, soldiers in civilian clothes, and friendly citizens, get all possible information about the condition within the city.”
*“The use of gas is paramount…. While tear gas is effective, it should be backed up with vomiting gas.”
*"Although white phosphorous is incendiary, it is useful in forming a screen for the attack of barricades and defended houses.”
*“If you must fire, DO A GOOD JOB. A few casualties become martyrs; a large number becomes an object lesson.”
These admonitions, remember, were issued with respect to the use of military force against American citizens by a man revered as a patriotic hero by millions (including some lately given to second thoughts) – and who, ironically enough, was almost certainly assassinated by the same State he served with such ruthlessness.
Patton's model for a domestic counter-insurgency "war" during the last depression would probably resemble the approach used by the military in dealing with serious internal upheaval in the depression that has just begun.
Significantly, Patton’s tactics track very closely with those employed to enforce US occupation of Iraq – including the use of hideous white phosphorous munitions. That occupation is supposedly slated to end in 2011 – the same year, incidentally, when the military’s 20,000-man Homeland Security force is supposed to be fully deployed.
If the conclusion voiced by Thomas Schweich and other very credible analysts is correct – if, indeed, we are living under a de facto military junta , the nature of which will become clear as the economic collapse strips away all politically comfortable pretenses – we may soon learn, in the most painful way possible, that our military missions abroad have been carefully training the occupation force that will extinguish whatever remains of our liberty.
Update: Are you prepared to be "quelled" by the military?
In the installment immediately preceding this one ("`Question 46,' Revisited"), I mentioned a DUI/license checkpoint carried out recently as a joint effort by the California Highway Patrol and personnel from the Marine combat station at Twentynine Palms, California. The Marines were supposedly on hand as mere "observers."
That explanation struck me as implausible, or at least insufficient. Of course, there is a sense in which Marines, or other military personnel, could be invited to participate in ordinary law enforcement operations both to "observe" and to intimidate. This is illustrated by a letter published last July in the Colorado Springs Independent, which is reproduced below in full:
I feel compelled to notify fellow citizens of what is now occurring during the early morning hours in our downtown streets. This past Friday, July 11, after an evening at Rum Bay, I was met with an unexpected and disturbing sight. It was not the ever-increasing number of police officers that I found so disturbing. It was the three Fort Carson Army soldiers in full camo, armed with 9mm handguns, standing in the middle of Tejon Street with Colorado Springs police as people exited the night clubs.
I knew instantly what was occurring, but delayed my departure to watch and confirm my suspicions. After 30 minutes I approached an officer and inquired, "With all due respect, sir, why do we have armed soldiers in our streets?" He smirked slightly and responded in a more serious tone, "There are people that do certain things that need to be stopped; we started a program with the local base to bring some soldiers out with us to quell those things that go on ... even just their presence has a quelling effect."
That confirmed my suspicion: It was solely to create a sense of fear and intimidate the people under direction of the CSPD.
The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in 1878 to prevent our military from being used for general civilian police activities. Since the U.S. Patriot Act, and the Defense Authorization Act, virtually all aspects of the Posse Act were overwritten but directed at events of large civil disobedience, natural disasters or terrorist threats.
On this evening there were no organized masses, just the normal instances of confrontation between random people. In short, what CSPD is doing is illegal, and the CSPD and our local government need to be `quelled' of thinking that such blatant violations of civil law can continue.
— Justin Blough
Colorado Springs
I suspect, but cannot prove -- yet -- that this kind of gradual but accelerating militarization of routine police functions is becoming quite commonplace, largely at the invitation of local law enforcement bodies.
On sale now.Dum spiro, pugno!
40 comments:
Just another view of the same god: Moloch, the golden calf.
The golden calf down in Wall Street.
The golden calf requiring the sacrifice of our children (to the god of war). LEV 18:21
The United States a Christian country? Nah. Moloch is the deity of CHOICE, just as in the days of old. One of these days I'll write a thesis proving such, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Lord knows there are plenty of correlations between the worship of the state and the worship of ba'al.
Christians today "tsk tsk" the Israelites for being ignorant enough to warrant wandering for 40 years despite the obvious signs of the Lord's favor. So what is so different about today? We are wandering just as ignorant while having been just as favored.
The ignorance is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Evidently, the Creator is not the only unchanging entity in the universe.
Thanks Elijah, we all need to hear the voices in the wilderness. The remnant is listening.
It's past time to start treating those who wear the uniforms of the imperial legions with the contempt they deserve. If you see one in public, give them a nasty look and avert your gaze. If they approach you in public to ask directions, walk away from them (and take special pains to publicly warn your children about the danger they represent). If you work in a service industry and they patronize your employer, do your best to avoid serving them. If you absolutely cannot avoid associating with them, tell them why you hold the uniform they wear in contempt: it no longer represents the defense of a freedom-loving, constitutional republic, but of a mercenary army of enforcers for the imperial power elite. Most of them (of the current generation, anyway) are used to experiencing either unearned praise or indifference, neither of which prompts critical thinking or self-examination. Hostility here at home, as was experienced by their Vietnam-era ancestors, is a largely unknown experience for most. Odds are that they will react with something bordering on violence, but if their curiosity is piqued, consider giving them a copy of the Constitution that they took an oath to uphold and defend, against all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC, as their primary duty. (Oh, the beauty of the soldier who experiences the epiphany that his superiors are the classic example of "domestic enemies" of that precious founding document!)
Strong medicine? You bet. I'm sure I will take tremendous flak for writing these recommendations (disclosure: I served for nearly two decades as a misguided mercenary of Rome-on-the-Potomac before coming to my senses), but it is ESSENTIAL that we strip the layers of idolatrous glory from "military service." Such mindless adulation merely fuels the current destruction of our republic at these mercenaries' hands, accelerating it to dangerous levels not seen even during the Lincoln Regime.
It may be painful for both parties, but it is essential now more than ever that we begin in earnest the "deprogramming" of our family members and friends who still serve Leviathan's most lethal and destructive appendage.
From the linked Telegraph article by Tim Shipman --
'Mr Bazata led an extraordinary life ... He ended his career as an aide to President Ronald Reagan's Navy Secretary John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 Commission and adviser to John McCain's presidential campaign.'
HUH? A New York Times obituary confirms that Douglas Bazata indeed died in July 1999, as Shipman stated earlier in his article. How, then, did Bazata manage posthumously to serve on the 9/11 Commission, followed by service in the McCain presidential campaign, nine years after his own death?
It must be true that old soldiers never die; they just fade away. And some fade more slowly than others.
The dissidents and "agitators" as Patton called them, are not "the armed enemies of the United States of America." They are patriot citizens trying to defend and take back this great Republic from the military and the government who deserted our principles long ago.
Another good column Will, though I had kind of hoped for something a little bit lighter on Christmas eve.
Don't have my references handy, but wasn't one of the military commanders who was responsible for attacking the War Bond protesters after WWI. If so, he had some experience with attacking citizens on their own soil - the very same people whose tax dollars filled his belly.
We certainly live in interesting times . . . mankind may never know peace. Sad that . . .
Sic Semper Tyrannis
liberranter,
your words are not wise. yes, i am in the military, but that's not the reason why your words are what i would call foolish.
i'll keep this brief, or try to. God says (Luke 16:9), "And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations."
if there are those who do as you suggest, they might wind up, like
this guy.
bottom line, you need to now start positioning yourself to survive when TSHTF.
in a more wordly light, if donating $1000 to a local college now will improve your child's chances by 40% of getting into that same school school later, would you do it? don't like cops? got it. but if donating $500 to a sherrif's re-election campaign buys you favor? why not pay it? might be distasteful, but could keep you below the radar screen while everyone else is being roughed up.
Jesus also said something about the children of darkness being wiser than the children of light. come out of the dark.
from the way you sound, you're like the zealots who took on the romans. they had a legitimate gripe, but got their clocks cleaned in the end.
will once told me about how he was once in a foreign country and had befriended a UN soldier. later on he was approached by some other UN soldiers who were really giving him a hard time [possible arrest if i remember correctly]. guess what happened? the guy he had befriended was in the vicinity and came over and told the others to leave him alone and let him be. will walked free.
don't know if you are Christian or not, but if you are, please listen. God cannot use you if you're dead or locked away in prison (away from what He had assigned you to do).
John Cougar Mellancamp once said, "when i fight authority, authority always wins."
now that cop had a night stick, a soldier will have a rifle.
the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
--japanese proverb
lastly, God has people everywhere. even in the military. let Him deal with them, while you do what it is He would have you to do. if you do that, it'll all work out in the end.
rick
Off topic, but a quick note to wish you, your family and your readers a Merry Christmas. The unmerited favor of our Father is all that holds our nation together -- we'd be remiss if we didn't stop today long enough to thank Him for all He's given us, especially His Son.
It's easy to get mired in the details of the death of this world, but let's remember today we celebrate the birth of the One who will at the end say "behold, I make all things new."
'The military “spill-over” into domestic law enforcement ... is chiefly – but not entirely – due to the so-called War on Drugs.'
Quite so. And why do we have an oversized military constantly seeking to 'reinvent itself' with quixotic missions such as suppressing smuggling, 'democratizing' Asian deserts, and running DWI checkpoints?
Because 63 years after WW II ended, the U.S. has never demobilized. It has remained on permanent war footing, continuing to occupy Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, and others with military bases, decades after it stopped making sense. Now NATO is even attempting to incite a fresh Cold War with Russia, two decades after its mission ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
That the bloated military establishment of the US is not subject to even a peep of Congressional or public debate highlights the atrophied democracy which invites the military to insinuate itself into domestic affairs.
Someone joked that the troops will come home from Iraq when their paychecks start bouncing. But there's a grain of truth here. If a dollar crisis makes America's global military empire unaffordable, its best growth prospects will be right here in North America ... particularly since the strangulation of imports resulting from a dollar crisis would also ripen the conditions for domestic insurrections.
Have our overlords already seen this coming? Worse, have they planted provocateurs to MIHOP (Make It Happen On Purpose)? After the improbable spectacle of 9/11, anything is possible. 'The revolution was,' as Garet Garrett used to say. Shame about the 'constitution' and all that rot.
liberranter,
I understand your concern. But I think a smart thing would be not to make enemies of people that are marginal. The troops will paint you as a military-hatin', left-wing, America hater. That is the classical division where TPTB place people - right or left. I'd rather not have to choose their sides. I know this is hard, but in our small ways, I'd prefer to educate our policy enforcers or military to what is right. But open confrontation just divides us more. I'd rather have correct thinking policy enforcers or military to JUDGE situations than to have it made "personal". Please do not make it "personal" in their minds. There are too many Vietnam-era vets who have already had it "personalized" for them.
Liberranter, while I see where you're coming from, even Jesus himself associated with people who did violence for the State. It never said he approved of their actions, but it doesn't say he shunned them. But they that came to him? I'll wager that they later on came to the realization, like you, that what they were doing was wrong, and finally recognized that Zealots living hundreds of miles away posed absolutely no threat to anyone living in or near Rome. Especially if the Roman soldiers left them alone.
I think the most effective thing to do is ask them bluntly, out of love and concern for their souls, "From whom do you think you are protecting Americans? Do you really think that you being 3,000 miles away is going to prevent any determined individual from slipping across the porous political map lines of the U.S. government's territorial claim and doing whatever he wants to whomever he wants? Did the Viet Nam vets protect us from the Viet Cong? Were they circling off the coast of Santa Barbara in LCT's, waiting to land and plant punji stakes and toe poppers?"
That's the kind of questions we need to ask them. Hard, blunt questions asked out of righteous anger, but also out of love.
As a friend of mine related to me, "The easiest way to end a war is to convince the guy at the front lines not to pull the trigger."
-Sans Authoritas
to anon @ 0738,
yeah, we need to downsize, but we just keep getting bigger. heck, the marines
alone are larger than the british army.
the guy who wrote that paper may have the circumstances/causes wrong, but if things get as bad as i think they will, he's on the money as saying most americans will welcome military rule...as bad as that sounds.
rick
Liberranter,
Remember that most military personnel attended public schools, like most Americans and most people you know, and therefore are subject to the same propaganda from whatever Regime is in power. Change the minds of the voters to put better people in office, and the mission of the military changes and these same individuals will go back to serving their legitimate function. Showing contempt for military personnel is simply misfiring on your part and is unproductive. Remember that Ron Paul received more support from military personnel than all other Republican candidates combined.
I can't believe we are about to inaugurate an Illegal Alien as President! As a Jewess in the US, may I remind everyone that America wasn't won with a registered gun? And that criminals are stopped by FIREARMS, not by talk? That is why all REAL Americans put our 2nd Amendment FIRST!!
Although I must believe that liberantor has good reason to feel the way he does, I simply am not ready to subscribe to his thinking on this...yet.
I still have faith that when it becomes necessary, the majority of the men and women of our armed forces will be educated enough to know when they have been given an unlawful order, and will have the honor and resolve to refuse such order.
My question to my brothers and sisters serving in our armed forces is will you prove me right, or wrong? Please consider this question carefully since the very survival of the United States depends upon your answer. Those of you who decide to serve with honor, dignity, and fulfill your oaths to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States will find me to be a staunch and vocal supporter. However, those who choose incorrectly may very well find me to be a vicious and deadly adversary.
Although I have never worn the uniform of our armed forces nor taken the solemn oaths which accompany them, I hold my responsibility as an American citizen to defend the Constitution and the ideals from which it sprang to be no less binding, and no less grave. It is an oath I have taken on my own.
Once, when they believed there to be no acceptable alternative, the people of this land took up arms and overthrew a government which sought to subject them to totalitarian rule. If that time be upon us once again, how could I dishonor these great men and women by doing less?
Is life so dear, and comfort so vital that I am willing to sacrifice my very soul to preserve them? I pray to God that this not be so.
My line in the sand has been drawn and I will retreat no further. Will surrender no more freedoms to the State. I am but one man and as such can only die for the ideals I have sworn to defend. A million such men cannot be stopped.
Good men and women died to bring forth this nation from the bounds of tyranny. Good men and women have died to defend it. If it is soon necessary for good men and women to die to restore it, can any of us think of a more worthy cause for such sacrifice?
Jon Koopman
Dunlap's piece was certainly worth the time to read, though at points such as this...
"They convinced themselves that they could more productively serve the nation in carrying out their new assignments if they accrued to themselves unfettered power to implement their programs."
...I tend to lose track, and at times I wasn't sure if he was speaking about the fictional military junta, or the predictable endpoint of the natural progression of a democracy--because, we're all clear on the empirically-demonstrated fact that anything approaching pure democracy ends up with the majority of power and wealth under control of a minority of the populace. Right?
Reminds me: after Katrina folks in the media were agonizing how "all that" was allowed to happen. One motor mouth said "I hope the government has a camp ready for me when the time comes." I almost coughed up my corn flakes. I know, the term "camp" has a different connotation for the uninitiated -- the point is, when stressed, most people will look to the gov't for solutions. That's just how it is.
The challenge for the liberty-minded is how to get through to people that they should not want gov't to have the power it has now, let alone any more power.
That's a toughie.
I would argue that alienating (misguided) young kids, such as what Libberanter recommends, will not help.
I was in the Army back in the eighties. I was stationed at Ft. Ord, CA for a couple of years. One Saturday I was at the local mall with a couple of other guys from "planet Ord." We were in civilian clothes, but we were obviously military. A woman approached us and asked us if we were in the military. We said we were. She then asked how it felt to be Nazis. One of my buddies said "Great. How does it feel to be a stupid c*nt?" She went away in a huff and us young soldiers had a good laugh. This woman might have been the most righteous, blessed person in town that day, but she did not convince us.
The military has been looking for "relevance" since the cold war ended. Unfortunately, the leadership cares not what the mission is, as long as their careers are enhanced and their fifedoms grow. This is the location of the appeal I have made to those officers. Please take a look and pass to those officials you know. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_yHY9hFl94
Louis
A Dec. 27th NY Times article provides a chilling preview of what the military prison-camp regime will be like:
------------
CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. — Few in this threadbare little mill town gave much thought to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, the maximum-security jail beside the public ball fields at the edge of town. Even when it expanded and added barbed wire, Wyatt was just the backdrop for Little League games, its name stitched on the caps of the team it sponsored.
Then people began to disappear: the leader of a prayer group at St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church; the father of a second grader at the public charter school; a woman who mopped floors in a Providence courthouse.
After days of searching, their families found them locked up inside Wyatt — only blocks from home, but in a separate world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/us/27detain.html?_r=1&hp
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'Then people began to disappear.'
First it was the 'renditioned' terrorists. Then the illegal aliens. Then the dissidents, the hooligans, the gunners, the constitution-huggers.
The 'America' we knew is gone; an obsolete myth. Continuing to believe in it is maladaptive; a hazard to your health and well-being.
I'm not liberranter but I want to adress some of the criticisms:
God cannot use you if you're dead or locked away in prison (away from what He had assigned you to do). John Cougar Mellancamp once said, "when i fight authority, authority always wins." now that cop had a night stick, a soldier will have a rifle. the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.--japanese proverb
I like the proverb, but I'm pretty sure liberranter agrees that it's better to oppose while at the same time making sure to stay alive and free. The word guerilla comes to mind here.
The troops will paint you as a military-hatin', left-wing, America hater. That is the classical division where TPTB place people - right or left. I'd rather not have to choose their sides. I know this is hard, but in our small ways, I'd prefer to educate our policy enforcers or military to what is right. But open confrontation just divides us more. I'd rather have correct thinking policy enforcers or military to JUDGE situations than to have it made "personal".
It is naive to think you could educate the military. The way the military works is conducive to authoritarianism. You can talk for hours to a soldier. But the point is, this man takes orders from his hierarchy and he has learned that he must always follow those, no matter what happens. The reason liberranter would be painted as a military hater is not that he hates the military. It is because he does not display the same obedient attitude as the soldiers do. This is a problem of culture, not of ideology. Soldiers hate hippies because they are not subservient like them, because they do not wear uniforms or have their hair cut short. It has nothing to do with how hippies treat them. Rather, this treatment adds to the hatred they already feel from the start, for the reasons I cited.
I can't believe we are about to inaugurate an Illegal Alien as President! As a Jewess in the US, may I remind everyone that America wasn't won with a registered gun? And that criminals are stopped by FIREARMS, not by talk? That is why all REAL Americans put our 2nd Amendment FIRST!!
I can't believe you are calling Barack Obama an illegal alien. Apparently, anything that is darker than snow white must be illegal, and this illegality seems to be falling down from the heavens, unconditionnal and irrevocable; instead of being the result of a legislation created by the same snow white guys who have been ruling this country from the start.
Criminals use firearms to begin with. Regulations make no sense. Either you go for a complete interdiction, including the State authorities, or you make it completely available to everyone.
As for the 2nd amendment, it made sense 2 centuries ago. Now the State has helicopters, F-16s, nuclear bombs, SWAT teams, Delta Forces, etc. If you want to give people a chance, you should first level the playing field a little, cause I don't see some shmuck overcome the United States government with a Smith&Wesson, or whatever is available at Wal-Mart. Remember also this quote: if voting made a difference, it would be illegal. Well, the same is true of firearms. If it really protected the population, it would be banned. The government lets you buy guns, because it has such a big-ass technological and strategical edge on your petty spitballs, that it doesn't view it as a problem.
I still have faith that when it becomes necessary, the majority of the men and women of our armed forces will be educated enough to know when they have been given an unlawful order, and will have the honor and resolve to refuse such order.
Such unlawful orders have been given time and again in the past century. I doubt very much the revolt will come from the same men and women who have followed them. There is always a spin to unlawful orders.
Americans have for the most part a skewed sense of the real history of the USA.
I can't say I blame them,they have been fed fairy tales from apologists
with heaping doses of propaganda .
For instance I hear Americans talk about the Constitution and the forefathers as if the forefathers followed the constitution.
The Fore fathers were hunted and hung or died paupers.
Fore the British would never allow
the Constitution to be ratified
So they had slaves up until the mid 1800's.
the Civil war was sparked off by the British at Harpers Ferry using Canadian and American personnel in what is known as the Abolitionist movement.
Lincoln and the North were backed by the British.and the war was fought not for freedom but to abolish the Union that was based on a consortium of states called the nation of nations.
Today the legal definition of USA is "A corporation"
and not a nation of nations.
as was the case prior to the civil war.
In effect Americans have been thumping their chests and praising
the victory of the North as a victory for America and the constitution but in point of fact nothing can be further than the truth than that.
Also Many Americans have the funny notion that America is a Christian nation with god on it's side.
These folks are so delusional that
they should be medicated.
Today we have Canadian type laws being implemented across the board in America in and effort to bring about the North American Union.
Canada is a subordinate of the Throne.
So if you understand the real history of America that is the Throne would never of given up their enterprises in America
especially not to farmers dressed in rags while they were at the height of their power the mighty British are not that kind.
The real power of America derives by way of the Throne of England
it has 54 seats at the UN
it has 26 seats at the world trade union
and it outnumbers America in America's sphere of influence 14 to 1
The throne and those behind it are behind the North American Union and they will no doubt starve America into submission to achieve
their goals.Those Americans still in the delirium thinking America is the super power and the British Empire is dead are the laughing stock of the world.
good will towards men
Little Horn said:"As for the 2nd amendment, it made sense 2 centuries ago. Now the State has helicopters, F-16s, nuclear bombs, SWAT teams, Delta Forces, etc. If you want to give people a chance, you should first level the playing field a little, cause I don't see some shmuck overcome the United States government with a Smith&Wesson, or whatever is available at Wal-Mart."
Let's see, Iraq, Afghanistan, Samalia, Vietnam, are a few places that come to mind where the might of the American military falls short against a determined guerrilla opponent. While it would be nice for the field to be leveled, it is not patently necessary.
A supposed discussion between a Nazi and a Swiss militia guy went like this....Nazi-what will you do when our 1,000,000 man army comes to you and meets your 500,000 man force? Swiss - we will shoot twice and go home. Louis
"Littlehorn" said:
"As for the 2nd amendment, it made sense 2 centuries ago....I don't see some shmuck overcome the United States government with a Smith&Wesson...The government lets you buy guns, because it has such a big-ass technological and strategical edge on your petty spitballs, that it doesn't view it as a problem."
Wrong, wrong, dead wrong. This person knows nothing of the history of insurgencies. Never make the mistake of assuming that lightly armed insurgents can do nothing against powerful militaries. Do you think those Iraqis and Afghans are using F-16s and tanks? They seem to be doing a bang-up job tying down a large part of our uber-modern army using assault rifles and home-made bombs. So far, something like 4000 of our troops have been killed and tens of thousands injured by insurgents using...what was the phrase?--oh yeah, "petty spitballs".
You may not "see some shmuck overcome the United States government with a Smith&Wesson", but you'd better believe our government takes the possibility seriously...and that's the danger that Will is trying to warn us about.
'A few casualties become martyrs; a large number becomes an object lesson.' -- George Patton
As in Gaza -- an atrocity which the U.S., in contrast to all other governments, has actually cheered on. Its admonition to Israel to spare civilian lives, as the turkey shoot proceeds in a densely-populated city of 1.5 million, is a macabre comedian's wink to let us know it's a laugh line.
What irks the U.S. and Israel is the way the Gazans have copped a 'tude. Their election was nullified; for electing the 'wrong' party to power, their city has been under siege for three years. Yet these uppity brown folks actually think they have the right to shoot back at their oppressors. The damned cheek!
Fallujah and Gaza provide vivid warnings as to how non-submissive populations -- including here in Amurrikah -- will be 'dealt with' by the U.S. jackal government.
As a Canadian we have been acclimatized to follow directions of the authorities and for the most part would do so without question. However I draw a line at following the orders of the US military which situation could arise because of the agreement between the US military and the Canadian military to be used on both sides of the border. I for one will not follow orders of a foreign military attempting to patrol our streets and I think our current government in Ottawa are close to traitorous for agreeing to such an egregious possibility.
This person knows nothing of the history of insurgencies. Never make the mistake of assuming that lightly armed insurgents can do nothing against powerful militaries.
That's a good point. Shame on me.
Do you think those Iraqis and Afghans are using F-16s and tanks? They seem to be doing a bang-up job tying down a large part of our uber-modern army using assault rifles and home-made bombs. So far, something like 4000 of our troops have been killed and tens of thousands injured by insurgents using...what was the phrase?--oh yeah, "petty spitballs".
Indeed, you got me there. One point for the firearms.
Still, I would point out that America is still in Iraq, even as light weapons are effective enough. While it's true that a ground occupation might prove difficult, or impossible, control of the air still plays a huge role and involves little or no casualties on the side of occupation forces. In this configuration, firearms and RPGs are of limited help. Unless you can prove that wrong again, my point about the 2nd amendment remains true.
Mr. Grigg,
I want to congratulate and encourage you for your continuing efforts to defend what little we have left.
I hope you don't mind that I've posted a brief summary of the series here http://inibo.livejournal.com/166285.html and http://pucksmith.blogspot.com/2008/12/rubicon-in-rear-view.html in hopes of disseminating what I think is some important work and possibly driving a few more eyeballs your way.
Keep it up. We need this.
Mr. Puck -- Thanks so much for helping cast a wider net, and for your very kind words.
God bless!
BTW -- I'm a little slower on the uptake than usual, most likely because of the lingering effects of Christmas indulgence, but is "Puck" your actual name, or a cyber-nym?
In either case, thanks again.
Will, if I may presume to address you as such, yes, as I have now updated my blog profile to say:
Puck T. Smith is the nom de plume of a man who wishes to live his life in peace and obscurity while at the same time sharing the insights he has acquired through both suffering and joy in more than half a century of living in this world of terrible tragedy, radiant beauty and dizzying possibilities.
In a way you are at least partly responsible for me blogging here at blogspot. First, yours is a blog that show how it should be done. Very readable, but also very thorough. Second the link to Create Blog and the simplicity of blogspot made it almost too easy.
I'm not sure exactly when, probably sometime in 2007, I came across your blog, likely following a link from LewRockwell.com. I have been an avid reader ever since. Most of my efforts have been more aggregating the work of others. However I have been cutting my teeth on a few social networking sites and political forums, applying the crash course in liberty and free market economics Ron Paul gave me and a myriad over the past couple of years. I'm finally ready, I think, to create a little original work of my own.
If you can spare the time I'd appreciate any critique or comment you could give on http://pucksmith.blogspot.com/2008/12/israel-has-no-right-to-exist.html
At any rate, keep up the fight.
When you are trying to attack our army, you will lose, because the first thing they will do is turn off all electrical power and natural gas to the community. While you struggle to save your family, they will wipe you off the face of the earth. They are playing for keeps, they have superior weapons, they can napalm your homes to maintain control. We have to win in the ballot box, and as long as you elect Republicans and Democrats, you surrender.
I wonder if we have any patriots left in America that will join hands to return control of our nation to PresidentDon that will end this treason. When the SWAT team is at your front door, demanding surrender of all weapons, you will surrender. Brag all you want, but you will turn coward when faced with a dozen armed military demanding you submit or else. We have to stop this now, not when it gets to that point.
"When the SWAT team is at your front door, demanding surrender of all weapons, you will surrender."
That may be one of those Matthew 10:16 "...be wise as serpents..." moments.
Anonymous @ 12:28...
Do you really think voting will accomplish anything? Really? I'm not advocating violence by saying that, but voting? Really?
When you vote, you're not electing a man who reflects the most noble virtues found in society. You're electing the singularized aggregate of a society's ignorance. You're electing Joe Average, who suddenly has much more power than the average person, but who possesses no more wisdom, virtue, or knowledge than the average Joe. What does that get us? A bigger, more intrusive, more violent state. Always. Every time. No exceptions.
People seem to think that someone who is elected to a your-money-sucking office is somehow a wise man. A prudent or virtuous man. He's not. He's an average man who now has ludicrous amounts of power over your life.
Do you really feel the need to elect someone to take your money and give you things, because you think you're an idiot who can't act reasonably and prudently? Do you feel the need to have another man rule you? No, of course not. You know you can take care of yourself in the free market. It's always "that other guy" who needs to be controlled for his own good, because he's an idiot.
Give me the idiot acting with his own earned funds any day. The average man who has the power to take other people's money by violence is infinitely more dangerous.
Is that a fact, or not? If you acknowledge it as a fact, abandon all support for the mental illness that is the state.
-Sans Authoritas
I submit that if you wait to act until there is a SWAT team at your door, you have already lost.
Brag all you want, but you will turn coward when faced with a dozen armed military demanding you submit or else. We have to stop this now, not when it gets to that point.
That's some truth right there.
It is obvious to this casual observer that most folks are missing the primary point of America’s problems.
We turned away from God. You may maintain that America is not a Christian nation, but the globe trotters will tell you that other people in other countries think of America as a Christian nation.
Now we worship all sorts of idols and not the one true God.
Do you remember the shocking news when 7-11 stores were authorized to operate 7 days a week and 24 hours a day? Christians noted that this was directly moving against the commandment to rest on the Sabbath. Corporate America and its consumers thought it was a great idea. Previously American laws prohibited sale of alcohol and other non-essential consumer products on Sunday. Now just about every store and business is open on Sunday. Never mind God.
The National Guard ranks are not filled with jack booted Nazi thugs. Those ranks are filled with your neighbors. Spitting at soldiers and being rude to them does nothing except show that you have not thought out the problem. Jesus didn’t spit on the Roman soldiers. National Guard leaders are aware of the Constitutional impositions forced upon them. Are there some who would follow orders no matter if the orders violated the basic rights granted in the Constitution? Yes. Are there more who would stand up for your rights and violate those illegal orders? Yes.
Being prepared is a good option. Proverbs teaches us to be wise in God’s approved manner.
Rather than waiting for the SWAT team to show up, I recommend that you do what is readily available to prevent the SWAT team from ever showing up at your door.
Start worshiping God in a right manner. Return to singing hymns in four part harmony rather than using the tune to Gilligan’s Island for a praise song. Spend more time preaching from the Bible.
Start partaking of the Lord’s Supper every Sunday rather than once a week, or once a month or once a quarter.
Get your kids out of public schools. If your kids are grown, help someone else get their kids out of the schools.
Start living the scripture instead of talking about it. Don’t shop on Sunday if you don’t have to. Americans today think that Christians are pushovers. They are and it is because Christian men aren’t standing up for what is right.
Pray diligently that God would restore Godly leaders to our nation, to our states and to our local governments. Pray that God would restore peace to our country and turn it to a Godly country again.
Dave
"Still, I would point out that America is still in Iraq, even as light weapons are effective enough. While it's true that a ground occupation might prove difficult, or impossible, control of the air still plays a huge role and involves little or no casualties on the side of occupation forces. In this configuration, firearms and RPGs are of limited help. Unless you can prove that wrong again, my point about the 2nd amendment remains true." Littlehorn
I am sure some footage of the USAF dropping a few 500 pounders on Omaha or using some napalm on Dallas will really help the cause. Aside from troop movement, all air power does in guerilla warfare is create more guerillas.
Dave, I, for one, do not care a whit about what the Constitution says anyone can or can't do. The National Guard is itself unconstitutional. It's not a "militia of the several states," it's an occupying branch of the federal Army.
Secondly, I don't care what the Constitution says or cares for the reason that the Constitution says men can do a lot of things to each other that God says you can't. (Robbing others of their property, their money, directly flowing from these means, their liberty.)
God never said you can establish a system whereby a group of men may take money from other people by force or the threat thereof, no matter what their end may be. I cannot rob you of a third of your income, even if I donate it to an orphanage for cripples.
God specifically warned his people not to abandon their voluntary system of government in exchange for the State. Read 1 Samuel 8 and consider precisely why God is warning them, and see if you can draw a few parallels between their "manner of king" and every other God-forsaking man who has ruled by initiating violence for the past 10,000 years.
-Sans Authoritas
"wonder if we have any patriots left in America that will join hands to return control of our nation to PresidentDon that will end this treason. When the SWAT team is at your front door, demanding surrender of all weapons, you will surrender. Brag all you want, but you will turn coward when faced with a dozen armed military demanding you submit or else."
1) Who is President Don?
2) Some people, when faced with a dozen assailants, turn martyr.
SellCivilizationShort,
True. And we know what martyrs beget.
-Sans Authoritas
Man, if name choice was grounds for removal from the home by social services, there wouldn't be any room in foster homes and facilities for the influx of children these days.
I work in a residential facility with children, and it's amazing the names I encounter. Some of them border on child abuse--I say that in jest, but only partially.
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