The American Police State

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The American Police State

 

By Chris Hedges

 

10/29/07 "Truthdig" -- -- A Dallas jury, a week ago, deadlocked in its deliberations and caused a mistrial in the government case against this country’s largest Islamic charity. The action raises a defiant fist on the sinking ship of American democracy.

 

If we lived in a state where due process and the rule of law could curb the despotism of the Bush administration, this mistrial might be counted a victory. But we do not. The jury may have rejected the federal government’s claim that the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development funneled millions of dollars to Middle Eastern terrorists. It may have acquitted Mohammad el-Mezain, the former chairman of the foundation, of virtually all criminal charges related to funding terrorism (the jury deadlocked on one of the 32 charges against el-Mezain), and it may have deadlocked on the charges that had been lodged against four other former leaders of the charity, but don’t be fooled. This mistrial will do nothing to impede the administration’s ongoing contempt for the rule of law. It will do nothing to stop the curtailment of our civil liberties and rights. The grim march toward a police state continues.

 

Constitutional rights are minor inconveniences, noisome chatter, flies to be batted away on the steady road to despotism. And no one, not the courts, not the press, not the gutless Democratic opposition, not a compliant and passive citizenry hypnotized by tawdry television spectacles and celebrity gossip, seems capable of stopping the process. Those in power know this. We, too, might as well know it.

 

The Bush administration, which froze the foundation’s finances three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and indicted its officials three years later on charges that they provided funds for the militant group Hamas, has ensured that the foundation and all other Palestinian charities will never reopen in the United States. Any organized support for Palestinians from within the U.S. has been rendered impossible. The goal of the Israeli government and the Bush administration—despite the charade of peace negotiations to be held at Annapolis—is to grind defiant Palestinians into the dirt. Israel, which has plunged the Gaza Strip into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, has now begun to ban fuel supplies and sever electrical service. The severe deprivation, the Israelis hope, will see the overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza and the reinstatement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has become the Marshal Pétain of the Palestinian people.

 

The Dallas trial—like all of the major terrorism trials conducted by this administration, from the Florida case against the Palestinian activist Dr. Sami al-Arian, which also ended in a mistrial, to the recent decision by a jury in Chicago to acquit two men of charges of financing Hamas—has been a judicial failure. William Neal, a juror in the Dallas trial, told the Associated Press that the case “was strung together with macaroni noodles. There was so little evidence.”

 

Such trials, however, have been politically expedient. The accusations, true or untrue, serve the aims of the administration. A jury in Tampa, Chicago or Dallas can dismiss the government’s assaults on individual rights, but the draconian restrictions put in place because of the mendacious charges remain firmly implanted within the system. It is the charges, not the facts, which matter.

 

Dr. al-Arian, who was supposed to have been released and deported in April, is still in a Virginia prison because he will not testify in a separate case before a grand jury. The professor, broken by the long ordeal of his trial and unable to raise another million dollars in legal fees for a retrial, pleaded guilty to a minor charge in the hopes that his persecution would end. It has not. Or take the case of Canadian citizen Maher Arar, who in 2002 was spirited away by Homeland Security from JFK Airport to Syria, where he spent 10 months being tortured in a coffin-like cell. He was, upon his release, exonerated of terrorism. Arar testified before a House panel this month about how he was abducted by the U.S. and interrogated, stripped of his legal rights and tortured. But he couldn’t testify in person. He spoke to the House members on a video link from Canada. He is forbidden by Homeland Security to enter the United States because he allegedly poses a threat to national security.

 

Those accused of being involved in conspiracies and terrorism plots, as in all police states, become nonpersons. There is no rehabilitation. There is no justice.

 

"He was never given a hearing nor did the Canadian consulate, his lawyer, or his family know of his fate,” Amnesty International wrote of Arar. “Expulsion in such circumstances, without a fair hearing, and to a country known for regularly torturing their prisoners, violates the U.S. Government’s obligations under international law, specifically the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.”

 

You can almost hear Dick Cheney yawn.

 

The Bush administration shut down the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development six years ago and froze its assets. There was no hearing or trial. It became a crime for anyone to engage in transactions with the foundation. The administration never produced evidence to support the charges. It did not have any. In the “war on terror,” evidence is unnecessary. An executive order is enough. The foundation sued the government in a federal court in the District of Columbia. Behind closed doors, the government presented secret evidence that the charity had no opportunity to see or rebut. The charity’s case was dismissed.

 

The government has closed seven Muslim charities in the United States and frozen their assets. Not one of them, or any person associated with them, has been found guilty of financing terrorism. They will remain shut. George W. Bush can tar any organization or individual, here or abroad, as being part of a terrorist conspiracy and by fiat render them powerless. He does not need to make formal charges. He does not need to wait for a trial verdict. Secret evidence, which these court cases have exposed as a sham, is enough. The juries in Tampa, Chicago and Dallas did their duty. They spoke for the rights of citizens. They spoke for the protection of due process and the rule of law. They threw small hurdles in front of the emergent police state. But the abuse rolls on. I fear terrorism. I know it is real. I am sure terrorists will strike again on American soil. But while terrorists can wound and disrupt our democracy, only we can kill it.

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Sami Al-Arian's Long Ordeal

 

By Stephen Lendman

 

27/03/08 "ICH" -- - Sami Al-Arian is a political prisoner in Police State America. This article reviews his case briefly and updates it to the present.

 

Because of his faith, ethnicity and political activism, the Bush administration targeted Al-Arian for supporting "terrorism." In fact, he's a Palestinian refugee, distinguished professor and scholar, community leader and civil activist.

 

Nonetheless, the FBI harassed him for 11 years, arrested him on February 20, 2003, and falsely accused him of backing organizations fronting for Palestinian Islamic Jihad - a 1997 State Department-designated "Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO)."

 

A week later, in spite of his many awards, impeccable credentials and tenured status, University of South Florida president Judy Genshaft fired him under right wing pressure.

 

Since February 20, 2003, Al-Arian has been imprisoned - first at Tampa, Florida's Orient Road jail, then on to more than a dozen different maximum and other federal prison facilities. He's currently on hunger strike at Warsaw, Virginia's Northern Neck Regional jail after being transferred back March 18 from Butner, North Carolina's medical prison.

 

Al-Arian's trial began in June 2005 and was a travesty. It lasted six months, cost an estimated $50 million, and the prosecution called 80 witnesses, including Israeli intelligence agents and victims of suicide bombings to prejudice the jury. It introduced portions of hundreds of wiretapped phone calls from over a half million recorded; "evidence" from faxes, emails and what was seized from his home; quotes from his speeches and lectures; conferences, events and rallies he attended; articles he wrote; books he owned; magazines he edited; and various publications he read - all legal and in no way incriminating unless falsely twisted to appear that way.

 

After years of effort and millions spent, Al-Arian was exonerated. On December 6, 2005 after 13 days of deliberation, the jury acquitted him of all (eight) "terrorism" charges. They were deadlocked 10 - 2 for acquittal on nine others. All of them were false and unjust.

 

Nonetheless, within days, the Justice Department said it would re-try him on the lesser charges. His lawyers called it legal but a highly unusual move. At the same time and in secret, a plea bargain deal was struck. It stipulated:

 

-- Al-Arian neither engaged in or had any knowledge of violent acts;

 

-- that he would not be required to cooperate further with prosecutors; and

 

-- that he would be released on time served and deported voluntarily to his country of choice.

 

In the meantime, Al-Arian remained in custody pending sentencing and deportation on May 1, 2006. He expected to be free and his ordeal ended. Instead, the presiding judge changed the deal. He sentenced Al-Arian to the maximum 57 months, gave him credit for time served, and ordered him held for the remaining 11 months, after which an April 2007 deportation would follow. Now it's extended as explained below.

 

In October 2006, assistant prosecutor Gordon Kromberg violated plea bargain terms by subpoenaing Al-Arian before a grand jury. His defense attorneys tried to block it by citing his "no-grand jury cooperation" provision to prevent DOJ from springing a perjury-obstruction trap. Defense's motion was denied, and on November 16 Al-Arian refused to testify and was held in contempt.

 

A month later, the grand jury expired, a new one was convened, and Al-Arian was again subpoenaed to testify. He continued to refuse, was held in contempt, and had his sentence increased without mitigation to April 7, 2008.

 

On March 3, 2008 Kromberg ordered Al-Arian before still another March 19 grand jury, three weeks before his scheduled release and deportation. On the same day, Al-Arian began a hunger strike against the government's continued harassment. It's his third one but is life-threatening for a man in his condition. He's diabetic and needs regular sustenance to avoid serious health problems. His January through March, 2007 strike depleted one-fourth of his body weight, gravely harmed him, and ended only at the urging of his family.

 

He's now 20 days into his latest fast, lost 30 pounds, is weakening, and his life is endangered. On March 12, Al-Arian was transferred to the Butner, North Carolina medical facility where treatment is poor, the staff indifferent, and in Al-Arian's case hostile to a designated enemy of the state. On March 18, he was returned to Warsaw, Virginia's Northern Neck Regional jail ahead of his third grand jury appearance. Again, he refused to testify, so he'll likely face new contempt charges and continued confinement.

 

George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley heads up Al-Arian's legal team. On March 3, he released the following statement:

 

"On behalf of Mr. Olson and Mr. Meitl and the entire legal team, (we are greatly disappointed by) the Justice Department('s) continu(ing)....effort to mete out punishment that it could not secure from a jury. Having lost (its) case (it's) openly sought to extend (Al-Arian's) confinement by daisy-chaining grand juries. As in other cases, the government has given Dr. Al-Arian the choice of an obvious perjury trap or a contempt sanction. (Either way assures his imprisonment. This) choice....is obnoxious to our legal system and contrary to any standard of decency. The mistreatment of Dr. Al-Arian remains an international symbol of how the Bush Administration has discarded fundamental principles of fairness in a blind pursuit of retribution against this political activist. We stand committed to fighting this great injustice and hopefully reuniting Dr. Al-Arian with his family and friends."

 

In the meantime, his long ordeal continues at a time lawlessness prevails over justice, and we're all Sami-Al-Arians in America's "war on terrorism."

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Will Wall Street's Meltdown Turn America Into a Police State?

 

By Scott Thill

 

"Raw capitalism is dead." -- Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary

"Can't we just all go out and say things are OK?" -- President Bush, to congressional leaders during bailout negotiations

 

30/09/08 "AlterNet" - -- I'm not much of an Army Times reader, but after reading that a brigade was shipping from Iraq in October to serve as "an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks" in the homeland right before the election, my antennae perked up. Same as they did when I read that an electoral college doomsday scenario exists in which Dick Cheney casts the deciding vote that gives McCain-Palin the White House.

 

That is, if Cheney and Bush don't take it for themselves. That may sound like fantasy, but don't kill the messenger. They are all strands of the Gordian knot the Bush administration has tied around the neck of the American people for the last two presidential terms, best represented today by the failed bailout of banks, brokers and other complicit parties that have since jacked the American people out of trillions. And while the Army Times revelation or election doomsday may turn out to be paranoia rather than prescience, the evidence just isn't there.

 

Like I said: antennae.

 

They've come in handy as bullshit detectors since Bush stole the election from a flat-footed Al Gore and set about engineering the greatest transfer of public wealth into private hands in American history. If you factor in Monday's failed takeover, as well as the $5 trillion the American people now owe thanks to the "bailout" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, not to mention the continuing hyper-expensive occupation of Iraq and so on, our citizenry is now so far in the hole that it's pointless griping about numbers. If you want one, use the figure put forth by Dennis Kucinich: half a quadrillion dollars. We have evolved past the point of economic or geopolitical reality and entered a phase of pure concept.

 

And all vectors of that phase point toward the conclusion that the proverbial shit has totally hit the fan -- head on, and all over again.

 

Meet the New Rome, Same as the Old Rome

 

"Franklin Roosevelt had to save capitalism from itself," Los Angeles Times business editor Tom Petruno told me as Washington Mutual and Wachovia became the latest banking dominoes to fall. "Is history repeating?"

 

Indeed, it is, as one could tell from the repetitive usage of loaded terms and phrases like "Great Depression," "meltdown," "apocalypse," "Armageddon" and more to describe the just-on-time cratering of the American economy. After the strange bedfellows in both parties torpedoed Bush, Bernanke and Paulson's so-called bailout, more than $1 trillion of market value in American equities disappeared in a single day. The Dow Jones average set a record for quickest suicide dive in a single day. Other indexes sunk to multiyear lows, wiping out years of value, and stocks across the board went negative like Ann Coulter. In fact, the only major stock that actually advanced on Monday was Campbell Soup.

 

Can there be a more fitting metaphor for the American economy stuck beneath the Bush administration's thumb?

 

But the reruns, and their loaded terminology, are merging: Bush himself is just another iteration of the infamous "New World Order" instituted by his father while trying to, what else, convince the American public that it needed to go to war against Saddam Hussein. The revisionism is transparent, befitting a government that cares nothing of what its people actually think. Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" recently juxtaposed Bush's address on the financial cataclysm with his pre-invasion speech in 2003 and found -- surprise! -- they were exactly the same.

 

This is a long way of saying that this particularly frightening crux of historical geopolitics, fascism and environmental calamity has been a long time coming. Failing banks? Deregulation. Endless war? Homeland security. Total information awareness? Transparent government. Bankrupt economy? The fundamentals are strong.

 

"Here's my question," Petruno adds. "If this is remembered as Black September, will that end up being too gentle a reference to what actually happened to the American financial system this month? It is beyond comprehension for people who have been on Wall Street their entire lives. I can only imagine how absolutely stunned the American public must be. Stunned, and very afraid."

 

It should be. From a military brigade armed for action in the homeland in blatant transgression of Posse Comitatus to what ex-hedge funder and financial personality Jim Cramer recently called "financial terrorism," the United States is pushing forward back.

 

To start with, the bailout was obvious theft, but our situation is more precarious than you think. The hyperreal credit default swap market, which few understand although it is estimated to involve tens if not hundreds of global trillions, is faltering under the weight of its own Ponzi origins. The scenario significantly worsens once you factor in the given that countries like China and others who have denominated their loans in dollars are shouldering our exploding debt, along with oil-soaked sovereign wealth funds from nations whose civil liberties records suck ***. As I wrote last year on this cluster****, if the Chinese call in our debts and oil-producing countries decide to peg their petrodollars to the euro, you can more or less kiss the dollar goodbye. Which means the last thing you'll need to worry about is your stocks, retirement or credit cards. You will instead worry whether or not the cash you have on hand will be worth anything at all. That is the loaded gun that bankers, brokers and the White House is holding to the public's head, as I write. That trillion erased on Monday, as well as the trillions that have been lost and will be lost in the coming months, was nothing more than a hostage situation engineered by the Bush administration, the Federal Reserve and their partners in crime in finance, insurance and real estate business.

 

They don't call that sector FIRE for nothing. Fire destroys everything and leaves little in its catastrophic wake. Which raises the question: What's left to burn?

 

"I think our economic situation can get much worse," argues Danny Schechter, the veteran producer and author whose 2006 indie documentary "In Debt We Trust" covered this volatile territory long before CNN would. "Jobless claims are already at a seven-year high, but the government is worried about the reaction from Asia. We are living on other countries' money, and when that spigot gets cut off, we will be in deeper doo-doo. Part of the reason for the scale of the bailout is to show Asia and sovereign wealth funds that we will protect their interests."

 

But for how long? The Bush administration and Congress' disdain for the American people has been painfully obvious, so it's hard to believe they will call from sky-high Dubai to see how we are doing after making off with almost all of our money.

 

"It's a high-stakes gamble, which is why Paulson tried to do it quickly in a climate of shock and crisis," Shechter says. "He knew that the longer it takes, the more opposition it will attract. This plan, if eventually passed, will pre-empt the next president from doing anything about it, because there will be no money. They are wrecking the government by wrecking the economy first."

 

That shock doctrine, as Naomi Klein explained in her brilliant book of the same name, has foisted this same kind of disaster capitalism on country after country over the last century. Klein's book is littered with democracies that slept their way through coups and takeovers, entranced by one simulation or another. The United States was plugged into a matrix that onetime White House press secretary Ari Fleischer described as "an American way of life," adding without deceit that "it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life."

 

By destroying it? Mission accomplished.

 

"This is the September of surprise," Schechter concluded, "not a war on Iran but on America."

 

Civil War, the Rerun?

 

So, what's the next step for the shoe yet to drop? Perhaps the Army Times has the clues:

 

 

 

(The brigade) may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack. ... The 1st BCT's soldiers also will learn how to use "the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded," 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.

 

 

Like every move the Bush administration has ever made, from the Patriot Act to the occupation of Iraq and down to bankrupting the American economy, this maneuver is a solution in search of a problem that it seems destined to create. Look around you. Housing is over. Stocks are nosediving. The banks are gone. War is ceaseless. Civil liberties are disappearing. Nerds at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury are taking hostages. It is madness.

 

And mad people have a tendency to infect everyone around them. The difference is that when you go mad ... well, that's the question mark: What will happen?

 

Ask the late Iman Morales, who went crazy in Brooklyn on a ledge 10 feet above ground and was illegally tasered by New York police officers, eventually falling to his death, immobilized. A perfect metaphor for our economy, sure, but it's also the type of literal shock we might be awaiting, as the November election creeps nearer and shit begins to hit the fan with ferocity. Many of us so-called alternative journos are not conspiracy nuts, but realists. We look at galvanizing leaders like Barack Obama, America's next president, and compare his impact to that of Lincoln, Kennedy or King -- without forgetting that all three were eventually assassinated. We are the type of realists who live through two Bush presidents, both of whom configured a New World Order, with and without the approval of the American people and the world at large. The type of realists that notice that after 9/11, we couldn't fly to Vegas, but Osama bin Laden's family was flown out of the country on government charter.

 

And here is what we see today: Crowds protesting in the streets, the people's money wiped out thanks to the Bush administration's latest economic shock and awe. An army brigade matter-of-factly betraying Posse Comitatus for the purpose of crowd control. The public trust and wealth almost robbed cleanly with congressional approval.

 

In other words, we see another unfolding coup, which is to say, a rerun. And there is no telling what the future may hold, or whether or not we are connecting vectors that should remain solitary. But our math has worked just fine in the past -- better than Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson's math, that's for sure.

 

And we'd love to be wrong about what's coming. But unfortunately that isn't up to us, and it never has been: It's up to the Bush administration. And it has never failed to let us down.

 

Scott Thill runs the online mag Morphizm.com. His writing has appeared on Salon, XLR8R, All Music Guide, Wired and others.

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Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out "Crowd Control"

 

Members of Congress were told they could face martial law if they didn't pass the bailout bill. This will not be the last time.

 

By Naomi Wolf

 

08/10/08 "AlterNet" -- 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.

 

I interviewed Vietnam veteran, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and patriot David Antoon for clarification:

 

"If the President directed the First Brigade to arrest Congress, what could stop him?"

 

"Nothing. Their only recourse is to cut off funding. The Congress would be at the mercy of military leaders to go to them and ask them not to obey illegal orders."

 

"But these orders are now legal?'"

 

"Correct."

 

"If the President directs the First Brigade to arrest a bunch of voters, what would stop him?"

 

"Nothing. It would end up in courts but the action would have been taken."

 

"If the President directs the First Brigade to kill civilians, what would stop him?"

 

"Nothing."

 

"What would prevent him from sending the First Brigade to arrest the editor of the Washington Post?"

 

"Nothing. He could do what he did in Iraq -- send a tank down a street in Washington and fire a shell into the Washington Post as they did into Al Jazeera, and claim they were firing at something else."

 

"What happens to members of the First Brigade who refuse to take up arms against U.S. citizens?"

 

"They'd probably be treated as deserters as in Iraq: arrested, detained and facing five years in prison. In Iraq a study by Ann Wright shows that deserters -- reservists who refused to go back to Iraq -- got longer sentences than war criminals."

 

"Does Congress have any military of their own?"

 

"No. Congress has no direct control of any military units. The Governors have the National Guard but they report to the President in an emergency that he declares."

 

"Who can arrest the President?"

 

"The Attorney General can arrest the President after he leaves or after impeachment."

 

[Note: Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi has asserted it is possible for District Attorneys around the country to charge President Bush with murder if they represent districts where one or more military members who have been killed in Iraq formerly resided.]

 

"Given the danger do you advocate impeachment?"

 

"Yes. President Bush struck down Posse Comitatus -- which has prevented, with a penalty of two years in prison, U.S. leaders since after the Civil War from sending military forces into our streets -- with a 'signing statement.' He should be impeached immediately in a bipartisan process to prevent the use of military forces and mercenary forces against U.S. citizens"

 

"Should Americans call on senior leaders in the Military to break publicly with this action and call on their own men and women to disobey these orders?"

 

"Every senior military officer's loyalty should ultimately be to the Constitution. Every officer should publicly break with any illegal order, even from the President."

 

"But if these are now legal. If they say, 'Don't obey the Commander in Chief,' what happens to the military?"

 

"Perhaps they would be arrested and prosecuted as those who refuse to participate in the current illegal war. That's what would be considered a coup."

 

"But it's a coup already."

 

"Yes."

 

Naomi Wolf is the author of Give Me Liberty (Simon and Schuster, 2008), the sequel to the New York Times best-seller The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Chelsea Green, 2007).

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Why An Army Unit May Be Needed In USA?

 

 

Because The Republicand might steal Election!

 

Ironically, the candidadate who may lose this upcoming election if stolen is Mzee Obama, a relative of Mr. Odinga of Kenya whose votes were stolen by the Neocon supported Kibaki, which resulted riots and death and mass migration.

 

 

Could that happen in America?

 

 

Possibly, America is already a police State, totalitarian, torture, spying on its peacful citizens, jail without rights, denial of human rights.

 

For that reason, the Neocons are not taking chances in this election.

 

.................................................................................................... .......................................

 

 

Robert F. Kennedy and Greg Palast

 

Vote Rigging and Suppression Ahead of the 2008 Election

 

 

 

By Democracy Now!

 

09/10/08 -- - ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR. "A lot of Europeans wonder, why are Americans so crazy? They keep reelecting this guy. Well, the answer is, we don’t. You know, they keep stealing these elections. And they stole it in 2000, they stole it in 2004, and they’re all set up to steal it again."

 

 

JUAN GONZALEZ: Election Day is less than a month away, and a record-breaking voter turnout is expected in the 2008 race. But voting rights groups are warning that tens of thousands of registered voters might not be able to cast a ballot come November 4th.

 

 

 

Beyond the documented problems of electronic voting machines, thousands of names have been purged from the rolls in several states, including at least six swing states. In some states, voters have been deemed ineligible because of voter registration laws that require photo identification or due to state officials checking voter names against Social Security databases.

 

 

 

Democrats and Republicans are locked in court battles over these in a number of states across the country. While Democrats say they’re trying to prevent attempts to block votes, Republicans say they are trying to prevent voter fraud.

 

 

AMY GOODMAN: Today, we spend the hour looking at voting rights and the political manipulation of the voting process. We begin with a report filed by BBC investigative journalist Greg Palast on how both parties are accusing each other of trying to steal the election.

 

 

GREG PALAST: There’s a war on for that White House over there. Both political parties say the other is trying to take it, not by winning the vote, but by stealing it. In fact, the Democrats say the Republicans have done it before.

 

 

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.: You know, a lot of Europeans wonder, why are Americans so crazy? They keep reelecting this guy. Well, the answer is, we don’t. You know, they keep stealing these elections. And they stole it in 2000, they stole it in 2004, and they’re all set up to steal it again.

 

 

GREG PALAST: Now, the Republicans accuse the Democrats of voter fraud on a massive scale. Republicans charge that Democrats have registered as many as five million illegal aliens, fakes, felons and fraudulent voters.

 

 

So, the question is, are the Democrats stuffing the rolls with millions of bogus voters, or are the Republicans blocking millions of genuine voters?

 

 

The answer is buried somewhere out here. This is no country for old men—or young ones, for that matter. It’s economic ghost town. This is the desert town of Las Vegas—the other one, Las Vegas, New Mexico—where they made the movie No Country for Old Men. For many people, work as extras on the film was the only work they had all year. Even the candidates for office are back on horseback to save gas. Odd thing, in elections earlier this year in New Mexico, one in nine people who turned up at the polls found their names had simply vanished from the voter rolls.

 

 

LAS VEGAS RESIDENT: I wasn’t on the list, and I had to do one of those—

 

 

VOTER REGISTRAR CLERK: Provisional?

 

 

LAS VEGAS RESIDENT: Yeah.

 

 

VOTER REGISTRAR CLERK: OK, let me tell you. Those lists came from the Secretary of State’s office. We—the local clerk did not have anything to do with that.

 

 

GREG PALAST: What’s going on here? We asked this man, County Elections Supervisor “Pecos” Paul Maez.

 

 

So, people are losing their vote?

 

 

“PECOS” PAUL MAEZ: Yes, because they’re not on the voter rolls, you know.

 

 

GREG PALAST: Even the supervisor had his own surprise.

 

 

I understand you had a problem.

 

 

“PECOS” PAUL MAEZ: I had a problem during the caucus, yes.

 

 

GREG PALAST: What happened? Your name was missing?

 

 

“PECOS” PAUL MAEZ: It was—yes.

 

 

GREG PALAST: And it didn’t say “Pecos Paul” on the voter roll?

 

 

“PECOS” PAUL MAEZ: It didn’t say “Pecos Paul.” It actually—

 

 

GREG PALAST: Wait, you’re the elections—you’re the elections supervisor. It didn’t have your name on the voter roll?

 

 

“PECOS” PAUL MAEZ: Yeah.

 

 

GREG PALAST: The presidency could be decided right here. Republicans won New Mexico last time by barely 5,000 votes. Which voters have gone missing?

 

 

A lot of poor folk on this street—officially, they don’t exist. In fact, this whole street doesn’t exist.

 

 

Low-income voters, especially, have been purged from voter rolls under new US law. Republicans claim these purge laws are needed to prevent voter fraud. We caught up with one of the party’s top anti-fraud crusaders at a Republican celebration. Lawyer Pat Rogers singled out ACORN, a Democratic Party-linked group.

 

 

Are the Democrats using fraudulent means to stuff the voter rolls and steal the election?

 

 

PAT ROGERS: My experience in Albuquerque with the ACORN group is that they were involved in serious registration fraud. My experience in Albuquerque with the elections over the last few years have indicated that there have been isolated instances of voter fraud.

 

 

GREG PALAST: It’s true that several ACORN workers were convicted of making up fake names for the voter rolls, because they were paid for each name they collected. But there’s no evidence that any fictional voter actually cast a ballot. Rogers still fears they’ll appear in November.

 

 

PAT ROGERS: If you’re going to go to this effort and this expense of having fraudulent people register, why would you do that? People say that there is no fraud here, but there is.

 

 

GREG PALAST: I drove into Detroit to investigate whether Republican plans to stop fraudulent voters might also capture innocent victims of the economic crisis. In Michigan, 62,000 families now face losing their homes to foreclosure on their mortgages. In neighborhoods like this, half the houses have been repossessed.

 

 

ROBERT PRATT: This house here is vacant. I mean, they’re nice houses. Look at this house. This is a nice house right here.

 

 

GREG PALAST: This is Robert Pratt. He’s next on the list.

 

 

ROBERT PRATT: This house here is vacant. Yeah, it’s empty. This house is empty.

 

 

GREG PALAST: That makes it impossible for you to sell your house.

 

 

ROBERT PRATT: To sell any house. This house is vacant. Then you look across the street over there, those houses are vacant.

 

 

I work straight with no overtime, no off-days. I’m talking seven days a week, eight hours a day. Yes.

 

 

GREG PALAST: So you’re trying to get these built [inaudible].

 

 

ROBERT PRATT: Yes, yes, yes. I want to build. I want—I mean, look at our neighborhood. Our neighborhoods are starting to look like a battle zone.

 

 

GREG PALAST: As the neighborhood spun down into poverty and violence, his son, just twelve years old, playing in the backyard, was shot dead by a stray bullet.

 

 

ROBERT PRATT: This is my son. This is my son here. This is Robert.

 

 

GREG PALAST: He’s lost his son, his home, and now he could lose his vote. A reporter for the Michigan Messenger wrote that the local Republican chairman told the journalist that his party would challenge residents right at the polling station to stop them from voting if their names are on a foreclosure list. The Republicans now deny this. But the Michigan Messenger sticks by its story.

 

 

There’s another issue. If you lose this house, there is an allegation that the Republican Party is—

 

 

ROBERT PRATT: Don’t want us to vote. And that’s not—I mean, that’s like saying we’re not a United States citizen anymore. You know, we lose our house, we lose our right to vote. That’s not right. That’s not fair.

 

 

GREG PALAST: This is the second time this family has faced foreclosure. Last time, they were thrown out by a company called Trott & Trott, a firm that evicts more than a hundred Michigan homeowners every day.

 

 

ROBERT PRATT: Trott & Trott—I mean, come on. That’s a mortgage company that’s here in Michigan that then got a lot of peoples and put a lot of peoples out on the street. I mean, to a lot of homeowners, that’s like an enemy.

 

 

GREG PALAST: Home after home after home, foreclosed, boarded up, abandoned.

 

 

But in an exclusive enclave nearby, there are no boards over the windows. These go for $10 million apiece.

 

 

Wow! No foreclosure sign on this house. This is the home of David Trott. He is Michigan’s foreclosure king. No one has evicted more families in this state.

 

 

What’s this below the Stars and Stripes? The Jolly Roger? It’s Mr. Trott’s flag. And this is Mr. Trott’s office. And it’s also Mr. McCain’s office.

 

 

The Republicans are renting their local headquarters from Mr. Trott’s eviction operation.

 

 

Greg Palast, BBC Television.

 

 

The Republicans wouldn’t speak with us, but they deny they are going to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters. So, we went upstairs.

 

 

And right upstairs from McCain headquarters, Mr. Trott.

 

 

David Trott not only houses the Republican Party, he’s also one of their biggest Michigan contributors. He and his wife have given hundreds of thousands to the party.

 

 

McCain has just given up on Michigan, yet the foreclosure controversy remains key to swing states Nevada and Florida.

 

 

And now, to the critical swing state of Colorado, where SUVs have replaced the buffalos that used to roam the plains. According to this report, Colorado voters are going the way of the buffalo: they’re disappearing. This government report says that nearly one in five voters, 19.4 percent, were taken off the rolls in an unparalleled, massive purge. Democrats accuse Republican Secretary of State Donetta Davidson of orchestrating the purge. But she says local officials have the final say over voter rolls.

 

 

She ended up here, in Washington, when George Bush appointed her head of the United States Elections Assistance Commission, where her job is to tell the rest of the nation how to run unbiased elections. She commissioned a report on election fixing. The report came in like this, but came out like this. It was written by Republican and Democratic experts. They concluded that Republican fears of widespread voter fraud were unfounded. This is the report’s author, Tova Wang.

 

 

TOVA WANG: This idea of massive in-person polling place fraud on Election Day is just an absolute myth.

 

 

GREG PALAST: The bipartisan team found Democrats were right to worry that legitimate voters were being excluded, but by the time Bush’s chairwoman published the report, the experts’ conclusions were turned upside-down.

 

 

TOVA WANG: They left out a lot of the information that we provided regarding voter intimidation and vote suppression. They left out—edited out a number of things that could be perceived as critical of the Department of Justice’s handling of voter intimidation cases.

 

 

GREG PALAST: US law permits political party workers to go right into the polling stations and challenge voters when they show up to vote. Experts fear this could lead to intimidation of legitimate voters. Despite the election experts’ views, Republicans demanded new grounds for challenge, they said, to stop Democrats cheating.

 

 

UNIDENTIFIED: We know that, and we know—your party rests on the base of electoral fraud.

 

 

GREG PALAST: The answer came from the man known as Bush’s brain, Karl Rove, who demanded new ID voting laws.

 

 

KARL ROVE: I go to the grocery store, and I want to cash a check to pay for my groceries, I’ve got to show a little bit of ID. Why should it not be reasonable and responsible to say that when people show up at the voting place, they ought to be able to prove who they are by showing some form of ID?

 

 

GREG PALAST: New ID laws will hit black voters hardest, says Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of the late attorney general, and voting rights lawyer.

 

 

You know, Karl Rove said he goes to the grocery store, he has to show an ID to cash a check. So, why can’t you be required to show a photo ID when you vote for president of the United States?

 

 

That seems sensible. However, in America, it raises a racial issue.

 

 

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.: I have an ID, and most Americans have an ID. But one out of every ten Americans don’t have a government-issued ID, because they don’t travel abroad, so they don’t have passports, and they don’t drive a car, so they don’t have driver’s licenses. The number rises to one in five when you’re dealing with the African American community.

 

 

GREG PALAST: Altogether, an estimated 100,000 black voters in just one swing state, Indiana, will lose their vote to the new law.

 

 

But when I stopped by the Native American pueblos of New Mexico, I discovered that when it comes to voter suppression, Democrats don’t have clean hands, either. Local politicians wanted to reopen a uranium mine on the pueblos’ sacred mountain. The pueblos were not happy.

 

 

NATIVE AMERICAN MAN: See, that’s a very sacred mountain that we have. There is a place, special place, that we pray for—to have a nice summer, have good rain.

 

 

GREG PALAST: The officials gave the pueblos ballots without envelopes. Then these same politicians threw out their votes, because they didn’t come in the right envelopes. The Democrats were charged with cheating the pueblos by this man, David Iglesias, a rising Republican star appointed US prosecutor by George Bush. But the Bush administration wanted him to go after individual Democrat voters. Republicans bombarded Iglesias with allegations of fraud by Democrats.

 

 

DAVID IGLESIAS: Over 100 complaints we investigated for almost two years. I didn’t find one prosecutable voter fraud case in the entire state of New Mexico.

 

 

GREG PALAST: So the Bush administration fired him.

 

 

Not prosecuting innocent people led to your removal?

 

 

DAVID IGLESIAS: Yeah. I mean, they wanted some splashy pre-election indictments that would scare these other—these alleged hordes of illegal voters away. They were looking for politicized—for improperly politicized US attorneys to file bogus voter fraud cases.

 

 

GREG PALAST: In the last presidential election, officially, three million votes were cast and never counted. This time, it could go a lot higher.

 

 

And then, there is the chronic shortage of voting machines. In Ohio last time, voters in prosperous white neighborhoods waited only fifteen minutes to vote, while voters in poor black areas waited in line four hours. It all adds up, and it can change the outcome.

 

 

TOVA WANG: If you combine people who are disenfranchised by voter ID, people who are disenfranchised by other things, such as there not being enough voting machines, combined with people who will be shut out because they have been left off the voter registration list, that’s enough to swing the election.

 

 

GREG PALAST: If the final count is as close as the polls indicate, the next man in that house won’t be chosen by counting the votes, but by blocking the voters.

 

 

 

AMY GOODMAN: A report on voting rights filed by investigative journalist Greg Palast for BBC Newsnight. When we come back from break, he joins us live. Then we’ll be talking to the Secretary of State of Ohio and find out about a new report on voter purging around the country. Stay with us.

 

 

[break]

 

 

AMY GOODMAN: Greg Palast, BBC investigative reporter, joins us here in our firehouse studio, author of Armed Madhouse, as well as The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Democracy and Regulation. Right now, he has teamed up with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to investigate this year’s election. They’ve just released a voting guide comic book called Steal Back Your Vote.

 

 

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Greg Palast.

 

 

GREG PALAST: Glad to be here. Let’s see how many we can steal back.

 

 

AMY GOODMAN: And your piece is coming out in Rolling Stone next week. Just summarize what we just watched, what you found as you traveled the country, the most egregious problems of people taken off the voting rolls.

 

 

GREG PALAST: Well, that’s the problem, is that we have millions and millions and millions of people being purged off the voter rolls, like in the state of Colorado, it was stunning to find out that one in five voters had their names simply erased by the Republican secretary of state. And then George Bush found—picked her out and made her the head of the US Elections Assistance Commission, as—you know, our joke in the comic book is that Bush wanted to name her “purgin’ general,” but Rove said it was a bit too much. So, this is one of the big problems.

 

 

You’re going to have millions of people walk into the voting booth, if you’re in Colorado, especially in New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Michigan—if you have any foreclosure problems, anything, they’re going to tell you you can’t vote, and they’re going to try to either get you out of the voting booth or give you a provisional ballot. And what we’re trying to tell you is how you can, in effect, steal it back.

 

 

So, look, Kennedy and I are coming out with an exposé in Rolling Stone next week on the massive theft of the vote in November. And we were kind of shaken up about it, because—so, Jesse Jackson recommended to us, said, “Look, that’s so grim. You’re going to discourage people from voting. They’re going to say there’s no chance. So you’ve got to do something.” So what we did is we—you know, facing a democracy crisis in America, we did what you have to do, which is to create a comic book. And it’s twenty-four pages of full color with the idea that it tells you—it gives you the Rolling Stone story, with Ted Rall and other great comics laying it out, but then also telling you how you—you know, how you steal it back. And so, we have six ways that they’re stealing the election, but then seven ways you can steal it back.

 

 

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, one of the things that we were talking as the film was playing, the—you’re not often getting Democratic leaders in some of these states really raising a ruckus about this issue.

 

 

GREG PALAST: Oh, yeah.

 

 

JUAN GONZALEZ: And why is that? In terms of your investigations, for instance, in New Mexico, you mentioned that some of the Democratic leaders were willing to go along with these kinds of purges.

 

 

GREG PALAST: Well, as—you know, why don’t Democrats stand up? For the same reason as jellyfish. They don’t—you know, invertebrates, but—or as my co-author, Kennedy, said, they’re cowards. But, you know, he’s true blue. I’m not a Democrat. And, by the way, the guide is totally nonpartisan, so you—which means you can take it into the booth with you, by the way, to protect yourself, the Steal Back Your Vote comic.

 

 

And why don’t the Democrats protect voters? Because they’re in on the game. As you saw in New Mexico, you had Democratic Party officials knocking off the Native American vote, which is huge in New Mexico. It’s a swing vote in New Mexico. And they’re all Democrats—Native Americans—almost to a one. But they wanted to stop a uranium mine locally, and so the local policy want their baksheesh from the uranium mine are knocking off Native American votes. We see this in Colorado, we see this in Florida, where local Democratic officials are in on the purge, in on the game, trying to block the low-income minority voters. There are so many dangers now for the new voter, for the minority voter, for the elderly voter. There are so many tricks that they’re using now. It’s not one thing.

 

 

You know, I think a lot of people remember me from busting open the Florida purge of 2000 when Katherine Harris said that thousands of black folk were felons, when their only crime was voting while black. You know, that was kind of the magic bullet they gave in Florida. Kennedy, my co-author of the comic book and Rolling Stone article, showed how they stole Ohio.

 

 

Now what we see is a nationwide kind of Floridation of the nation, under something called the Help America Vote Act, because, you know, Bush is now trying to help us vote. It’s under the Help America Vote Act, where it’s like a whole series of things. So we have the mass purges. We have new ID laws.

 

 

How many new voters in America that have just signed up and all of those Obamaniacs realize that if you mail in your ballot on a first-time vote, almost every state requires you to also include a photocopy of your government ID? Obama is going to lose a million votes from absentee ballots which are mailed in without ID. It’s a new requirement. They don’t tell you that. In some cases, like Kentucky, you’ve got to serve—you have to notarize it. I mean, it’s completely out of control, the mass purging.

 

 

But there are things—I don’t want—again, I got to go back to Jesse Jackson’s admonition: don’t be discouraged. In fact, you should be encouraged. You should have the courage to now protect your vote.

 

 

JUAN GONZALEZ: And what are some of the ways you can fight back?

 

 

GREG PALAST: Yeah. Well, in Steal Back Your Vote, we actually—besides the wonderful comic book, we have a pullout page, which you can get at stealbackyourvote.org, that we have print copies. Download copies. Download them right now, stealbackyourvote.org.

 

 

But some of the things you can do is, first of all, don’t mail in your ballot. There’s just too many ways that they can throw it out: you didn’t have your ID, you didn’t have your—you know, you’re not—you’re on some type of purge list, you don’t know it.

 

 

Vote early. Today, right now in Ohio, what are you doing after this program? You’re voting. That’s what you’re doing. In Ohio, in Indiana, you can vote right now. In Florida, you can vote right now, in many states, because if you are on a purge list, Amy and Juan, then you have time to correct it, to scream.

 

 

We also have the 800 number from Election Protection, so that—bring this in with you, by the way, please. Don’t leave the voting booth. And then we say things like—that’s number four.

 

 

AMY GOODMAN: Just go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

 

 

GREG PALAST: One, don’t mail in your ballot. Don’t go postal.

 

 

Second, vote early, vote now.

 

 

Three, register and register. What we mean by that is check your registration. We give you a place to go from our sponsor Voto Latino. We also have this in Spanish, Voto Latino.

 

 

AMY GOODMAN: You mean, you go online.

 

 

GREG PALAST: Go online to stealbackyourvote.org, and then you can check your registration and see if you’re valid, how you’re registered, because you better know how it’s spelled. You know, if you’re Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., you better have ID that says “Jr.” on it.

 

 

The fourth thing is vote unconditionally, not provisionally. Three million people were handed provisional ballots. Now, if you’re a white listener to this program, you may not know what a provisional ballot is. If you’re Hispanic or you’re black, you sure know what it is, because they gave out three million in almost all minority areas. Provisional ballots are what you get if there’s a dispute on your ballot or your ID. They challenge you. Some guy with a Blackberry from the Republican Party is challenging you. And I’m not being partisan. It’s just the Republicans that are doing this, challenging you. You get a provisional ballot, and then they throw it out. Don’t accept a provisional ballot. Demand adjudication. Go to stealbackyourvote.org for the steps on how you do it.

 

 

The fifth one is—I call it “occupy Ohio, invade Nevada.” What that means is you should be working, you should be working on Election Day. You should vote early now, and on Election Day help people get out the word, get out the comic book, get out—you know, get out the protection. You can’t win anymore by 51 percent. You’ve got to win by 56. I’m not an Obama supporter, but I do believe that every single vote should count.

 

 

Six, we call it date a voter. As our sponsor Jesse Jackson said, arrive with five. But, you know—and what we say is, like bowling and love, don’t vote alone. The reason is, you have to protect each other. And when you go in in a group, it’s a lot easier to have the courage to stand up to the vote thieves when they’re challenging you.

 

 

And then, of course, last one is, make the democracy demand, which is that if there is games with the vote, the election doesn’t end then on November 4th. It’s Wednesday that counts as much as Tuesday. We have to change the culture of America, where we stop shrugging our shoulders, like after 2000, 2004, and say we’re going to count the votes right now.

 

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Greg Palast, I want to thank you for being with us. Greg Palast and Robert Kennedy, Jr. have come out with a new comic book, Steal Back Your Vote. “Hold it! Who said you could vote?” is on the front page, but they say you can, and they have ways to do it. Thanks very much for being with us. Look forward to your piece in Rolling Stone next week.

 

 

Read On.

 

 

Senator Leahy Concerned about NorthCom’s New Army Unit

 

By Matthew Rothschild

 

09/10/08 "The Progressive Magazine" -- October 7, 2008 -- Senator Patrick Leahy is concerned about the Pentagon’s decision to designate an Army unit to Northern Command.

 

On October 1, the Pentagon, for the first time ever, dedicated an Army force specifically to NorthCom, which is in charge of securing not some foreign region but the United States of America.

 

The unit it assigned is the 3rd Infantry, First Brigade Combat Team, which has spent three of the last five years in Iraq. It was one of the first units to get to Baghdad, and it was active in retaking and patrolling Fallujah. One of its specialties is counterinsurgency.

 

This marks a change for NorthCom, which was established on October 1, 2002. Its website still says it “has few permanently assigned forces,” and that “the command is assigned forces whenever necessary to execute missions, as ordered by the President and the Secretary of Defense.”

 

Leahy “asked for a briefing from his staff” on this development and “wants to monitor the situation,” an aide to Leahy said.

 

Leahy was instrumental in getting Congress to repeal the “Insurrection Act Rider” in the 2006 defense appropriations bill. That rider had given the President sweeping power to use military troops in ways contrary to the Insurrection Act and Posse Comitatus Act. The rider authorized the President to have troops patrol our streets in response to disasters, epidemics, and any “condition” he might cite.

 

Leahy said last December that this rider “made it easier for the President to take over the Guard and to declare martial law.” In a Senate statement on April 24, 2007, he cautioned against inserting the military “into domestic situations.” As he put it: “One of the distinguishing characteristics of the United States is that we do not use the military to patrol our communities and neighborhoods.” A few months before that, he warned that we must ensure that “the military is not used in a way that offends and endangers some of our most cherished values and liberties.”

 

The repeal of the rider was signed by Bush on January 28, though Amy Goodman reports that “Bush attached a signing statement that he did not feel bound by the repeal.”

 

The roles the 1st Brigade Combat Team will take on at NorthCom are a bit unclear.

 

“They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control,” said the Army Times when it first reported on it. These duties would be in addition to dealing with “potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”

 

Soldiers in the unit “also will learn how to use ‘the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has field,’ 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them,” the article noted.

 

Cloutier even bragged to the Army Times: “I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered.”

 

The Army Times has since issued a correction, stating that the “non-lethal crowd control package” is “intended for use on deployments to the war zone, not in the U.S.”

 

NorthCom’s own press release of September 30 says, “This response force will not be called upon to help with law enforcement, civil disturbance, or crowd control.”

 

The unit will have its regular weapons, however. It will store other weapons in “containers,” and will have access to tanks, as Amy Goodman has reported and the Pentagon has confirmed.

 

The Army is taking a strong interest in this deployment.

 

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey personally observed the combat team’s training exercise, entitled “Vibrant Response,” which was held at Fort Stewart, Georgia, last month. According to NorthCom’s public affairs department, Gen. Casey “pointed out that being part of the new force requires a shift in thinking for soldiers who are accustomed to taking charge.”

 

One soldier in the exercise said he learned that the troops should “preposition containers and equipment.”

 

NorthCom’s website, in a section on frequently asked questions about Joint Task Forces—Civil Support, cites “DoD Directive 3025.1” as laying out the criteria for how the Pentagon will respond in domestic situations.

 

That directive talks about “military support in dealing with the actual or anticipated consequences of civil emergencies.” Those civil emergencies could be “arising during peace, war, or transition to war.”

 

While it states that such support “does not include military support to local law enforcement,” there is a provision in the directive for the military to take over functions of the civilian government.

 

Military personnel “shall not perform any function of civil government unless absolutely necessary on a temporary basis under conditions of Immediate Response. Any commander who is directed, or undertakes, to perform such functions shall facilitate the reestablishment of civil responsibility at the earliest possible time,” the document states.

 

Under this “Immediate Response” exception, local military commanders can even act without prior approval from their superiors. “Imminently serious conditions resulting from any civil emergency or attack may require immediate action by military commanders, or by responsible officials of other DoD agencies, to save lives, prevent human suffering, or mitigate great property damage,” it says. “When such conditions exist and time does not permit prior approval from higher headquarters, local military commanders and responsible officials of other DoD Components are authorized by this Directive, subject to any supplemental direction that may be provide by their DoD Component, to take necessary action to respond to requests of civil authorities.”

 

The Pentagon’s decision to dedicate the First Brigade Combat Team to NorthCom has raised alarms, especially in the context of the current economic crisis. In Bush’s National Security Presidential Directive 51, he lays out his authority in the event of a catastrophic emergency. In such an emergency, “the President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government” and will coordinate with state, local, and tribal governments, along with private sector owners of infrastructure.

 

NSPD 51 defines a catastrophic emergency as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function.”

 

Notice the use of the word “or” above. In our current circumstances, it might be more relevant to read the definition this way: “any incident . . . that results in extraordinary levels of . . . disruption severely affecting the U.S. . . . economy.”

 

President Bush could declare a catastrophic emergency today. And he’d have the 3rd Infantry, First Brigade Combat Team, well trained from its years patrolling Iraq, at his disposal here at home.

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Matthew Rothschild was on Democracy Now! on October 7 debating Army Col. Michael Boatner, USNORTHCOM future operations division chief.