Military Coup

by Jim Parks

Department of Defense Announces Plans For A Military Coup

The U.S. Armed Forces recently announced their plans for a military takeover.

Apparently, the plan is linked to a government bailout of mortgage companies, banks, Wall Street trading houses and auto manufacturers.

The U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute released a report warning that the U.S. military must prepare for a "violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States" that could be provoked by "unforeseen economic collapse" or "loss of functioning political and legal order."

Entitled "Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development," the report was produced by Lt. Col. Nathan Freier, a recently retired officer who is a professor at the college - the Army’s main training institute for prospective senior officers.

"To the extent events like this involve organized violence against local, state, and national authorities and exceed the capacity of the former two to restore public order and protect vulnerable populations, DoD [Department of Defense] would be required to fill the gap...Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order An American government and defense establishment lulled into complacency by a long-secure domestic order would be forced to rapidly divest some or most external security commitments in order to address rapidly expanding human insecurity at home."

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss- Kahn warned last week of riots and unrest in global markets if the ongoing financial crisis is not addressed and lower-income households are beset with credit constraints and rising unemployment, the Phoenix Business Journal reported. Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Rep. Brad Sherman of California disclosed that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson discussed a worst-case scenario as he pushed the Wall Street bailout in September, and said that scenario might even require a declaration of martial law.

According to the War College report, "DoD might be forced by circumstances to put its broad resources at the disposal of civil authorities to contain and reverse violent threats to domestic tranquility. Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States.

"Further, DoD would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance...DoD is already challenged by stabilization abroad. Imagine the challenges associated with doing so on a massive scale at home."

The Defense Department has made plans to deploy 20,000 troops nationwide by 2011 to help state and local officials respond to emergencies.

Although the 130-year-old Posse Comitatus Act restricts the military’s role in domestic law enforcement, a 1994 Defense Department Directive allows military commanders to take emergency actions in domestic situations to save lives, prevent suffering or mitigate great property damage, according to the Business Journal.

Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the U.S. military operations to liberate Iraq, said in a 2003 interview that if the U.S. is attacked with a weapon of mass destruction, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.

By the year 2011, if funding is approved. A full brigade- strength military presence of three rapid reaction forces will be in place.

The first such unit, a 4,700 person unit at Ft. Stewart, Georgia - part of the Third Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, which rotated into place in the spring of this year, became available as of October 1, according to General Victor E. Renuart, Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command.

Two additional teams will join 80 small National Guard and reserve units to support local and state officials - all trined to respond to what the Army calls CBRNE events (chemical, biological, nuclear or high-yield explosive).

All this represents a nearly seven-fold increase in five years, something Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said "would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable" in remarks before the Center For Strategic and International Studies. He called this a "fundamental change in military culture."

It's enough of a fundamental change to alarm such widely divergent groups as the American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute, both of which decry the potential for domestic spying and a military presence that might become oppressive and inhibitory.

But the notion that enemies of the nation might not confine their hostilities to areas overseas persists. Subjecting the U.S. to attacks by nuclear devices in major cities might cause the defense establishment to give up the fight.

Late in 2007, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed a directive approving more than $556 million over five years to set up the three response teams.

Planners assume an incident could lead to thousands of casualties, more than one million evacueees and contamination of as many as 3,000 square miles, an area the size of that affected by Hurricane Katrine. The Federal Emergency Management Agency began a $1.8 million pilot project in November, according to McHale. It includes operation areas in Hawaii, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Washington and West Virginia - each of which will focus on a particular threat such as pandemic flu, a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake and catastrophic chemical release.

It's all part of federal and state emergency planning that began in 2003.