- According to a report published Monday by the Washington
Post (8-6-7), the Pentagon has developed its first ever war plans for operations
within the continental United States, in which terrorist attacks would
be used as the justification for imposing martial law on cities, regions
or the entire country.
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- The front-page article cites sources working at the headquarters
of the military's Northern Command (Northcom), located in Colorado Springs,
Colorado. The plans themselves are classified, but "officers who drafted
the plans" gave details to Post reporter Bradley Graham, who was recently
given a tour of Northcom headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base. The article
thus appears to be a deliberate leak conducted for the purpose of accustoming
the American population to the prospect of military rule.
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- According to Graham, "the new plans provide for
what several senior officers acknowledged is the likelihood that the military
will have to take charge in some situations, especially when dealing with
mass-casualty attacks that could quickly overwhelm civilian resources."
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- The Post account declares, "The war plans represent
a historic shift for the Pentagon, which has been reluctant to become involved
in domestic operations and is legally constrained from engaging in law
enforcement."
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- A total of 15 potential crisis scenarios are outlined,
ranging from "low-end," which Graham describes as "relatively
modest crowd-control missions," to "high-end," after as
many as three simultaneous catastrophic mass-casualty events, such as a
nuclear, biological or chemical weapons attack.
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- In each case, the military would deploy a quick-reaction
force of as many as 3,000 troops per attack-I.e., 9,000 total in the worst-case
scenario. More troops could be made available as needed.
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- The Post quotes a statement by Admiral Timothy J. Keating,
head of Northcom: "In my estimation, [in the event of] a biological,
a chemical or nuclear attack in any of the 50 states, the Department of
Defense is best positioned-of the various eight federal agencies that would
be involved-to take the lead."
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- The newspaper describes an unresolved debate among the
military planners on how to integrate the new domestic mission with ongoing
US deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and other foreign conflicts. One major
document of over 1,000 pages, designated CONPLAN 2002, provides a general
overview of air, sea and land operations in both a post-attack situation
and for "prevention and deterrence actions aimed at intercepting threats
before they reach the United States." A second document, CONPLAN 0500,
details the 15 scenarios and the actions associated with them.
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- The Post reports: "CONPLAN 2002 has passed a review
by the Pentagon's Joint Staff and is due to go soon to Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld and top aides for further study and approval, the officers
said. CONPLAN 0500 is still undergoing final drafting" at Northcom
headquarters.
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- While Northcom was established only in October 2002,
its headquarters staff of 640 is already larger than that of the Southern
Command, which overseas US military operations throughout Latin America
and the Caribbean.
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- About 1,400 National Guard troops have been formed into
a dozen regional response units, while smaller quick-reaction forces have
been set up in each of the 50 states. Northcom also has the power to mobilize
four active-duty Army battalions, as well as Navy and Coast Guard ships
and air defense fighter jets.
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- The Pentagon is acutely conscious of the potential political
backlash as its role in future security operations becomes known. Graham
writes: "Military exercises code-named Vital Archer, which involve
troops in lead roles, are shrouded in secrecy. By contrast, other homeland
exercises featuring troops in supporting roles are widely publicized."
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- Military lawyers have studied the legal implications
of such deployments, which risk coming into conflict with a longstanding
congressional prohibition on the use of the military for domestic policing,
known as posse comitatus. Involving the National Guard, which is exempt
from posse comitatus, could be one solution, Admiral Keating told the Post.
"He cited a potential situation in which Guard units might begin rounding
up people while regular forces could not," Graham wrote.
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- Graham adds: "when it comes to ground forces possibly
taking a lead role in homeland operations, senior Northcom officers remain
reluctant to discuss specifics. Keating said such situations, if they arise,
probably would be temporary, with lead responsibility passing back to civilian
authorities."
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- A remarkable phrase: "probably would be temporary."
In other words, the military takeover might not be temporary, and could
become permanent!
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- In his article, Graham describes the Northern Command's
"Combined Intelligence and Fusion Center, which joins military analysts
with law enforcement and counterintelligence specialists from such civilian
agencies as the FBI, the CIA and the Secret Service." The article
continues: "A senior supervisor at the facility said the staff there
does no intelligence collection, only analysis. He also said the military
operates under long-standing rules intended to protect civilian liberties.
The rules, for instance, block military access to intelligence information
on political dissent or purely criminal activity."
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- Again, despite the soothing reassurances about respecting
civil liberties, another phrase leaps out: "intelligence information
on political dissent." What right do US intelligence agencies have
to collect information on political dissent? Political dissent is not only
perfectly legal, but essential to the functioning of a democracy.
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- The reality is that the military brass is intensely interested
in monitoring political dissent because its domestic operations will be
directed not against a relative handful of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists-who
have not carried out a single operation inside the United States since
September 11, 2001-but against the democratic rights of the American people.
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- The plans of Northcom have their origins not in the terrible
events of 9/11, but in longstanding concerns in corporate America about
the political stability of the United States. This is a society increasingly
polarized between the fabulously wealthy elite at the top, and the vast
majority of working people who face an increasingly difficult struggle
to survive. The nightmare of the American ruling class is the emergence
of a mass movement from below that challenges its political and economic
domination.
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- As long ago as 1984-when Osama bin Laden was still working
hand-in-hand with the CIA in the anti-Soviet guerrilla war in Afghanistan-the
Reagan administration was drawing up similar contingency plans for military
rule. A Marine Corps officer detailed to the National Security Council
drafted plans for Operation Rex '84, a headquarters exercise that simulated
rounding up 300,000 Central American immigrants and likely political opponents
of a US invasion of Nicaragua or El Salvador and jailing them at mothballed
military bases. This officer later became well known to the public: Lt.
Colonel Oliver North, the organizer of the illegal network to arm the "contra"
terrorists in Nicaragua and a principal figure in the Iran-Contra scandal.
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- As for the claims that these military plans are driven
by genuine concern over the threat of terrorist attacks, these are belied
by the actual conduct of the American ruling elite since 9/11. The Bush
administration has done everything possible to suppress any investigation
into the circumstances of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon-most likely because its own negligence, possibly deliberate, would
be exposed.
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- While the Pentagon claims that its plans are a response
to the danger of nuclear, biological or chemical attacks, no serious practical
measures have been taken to forestall such attacks or minimize their impact.
The Bush administration and Congress have refused even to restrict the
movement of rail tank cars loaded with toxic chemicals through the US capital,
though even an accidental leak, let alone a terrorist attack, would cause
mass casualties.
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- In relation to bioterrorism, the Defense Science Board
determined in a 2000 study that the federal government had only 1 of the
57 drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tools required to deal with such an attack.
According to a report in the Washington Post August 7, in the five years
since the Pentagon report, only one additional resource has been developed,
bringing the total to 2 out of 57. Drug companies have simply refused to
conduct the research required to find antidotes to anthrax and other potential
toxins, and the Bush administration has done nothing to compel them.
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- As for the danger of nuclear or "dirty-bomb"
attacks, the Bush administration and the congressional Republican leadership
recently rammed through a measure loosening restrictions on exports of
radioactive substances, at the behest of a Canadian-based manufacturer
of medical supplies which conducted a well-financed lobbying campaign.
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- Evidently, the administration and the corporate elite
which it represents do not take seriously their own warnings about the
imminent threat of terrorist attacks using nuclear, chemical or biological
weapons-at least not when it comes to security measures that would impact
corporate profits.
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- The anti-terrorism scare has a propaganda purpose: to
manipulate the American people and induce the public to accept drastic
inroads against democratic rights. As the Pentagon planning suggests, the
American working class faces the danger of some form of military-police
dictatorship in the United States.
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- See Also:
- http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/patr-a01.shtml
- US Congress votes to make Patriot Act permanent
- [1 August 2005]
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