- On a recent visit to Tucson, Arizona, where I was invited
to give a presentation on monetary reform, I was disturbed by a story of
strange goings on in the desert. A little over a year ago, it seems, a
new industrial facility sprang up on the edge of town. It was in a remote
industrial zone and appeared to be a bus depot. The new enterprise was
surrounded by an imposing security fence and bore no outward signs identifying
its services. However, it soon became apparent that the compound was in
the business of outfitting a fleet of prison buses. Thirty or so secondhand
city buses were being reconfigured with prison bars in the windows and
a coat of fresh paint bearing the "Wackenhut G4S" logo on the
side.
-
- The new Wackenhut operation is shrouded in mystery. It
has been running its fleet of empty prison buses night and day, apparently
logging miles on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contract. Multiple
buses can be seen driving all over town and even on remote desert back
roads. Oddly, except for the driver and one escort guard seated in front,
these buses are always empty.
-
- Wackenhut Services was founded by George Wackenhut in
1954 to provide prison guard services to state and federal governments.
Wackenhut Services is now owned by the Danish corporation G4S.
-
- Observers originally thought that the purpose of the
new Wackenhut operation was to outfit prison buses to be distributed in
other parts of the country. But it soon became apparent that none of the
buses was leaving the Tucson depot. Recently, a passerby observed what
appeared to be a training operation there. In what seemed to be strange
activity for 10:30 PM on a Saturday night, the depot yard was fully illuminated,
the entire fleet of buses was up and running, and drivers and guards were
scrambling around the yard. The question is, what were they training for?
-
- Wackenhut has never officially announced itself to the
community, and the local news media have never mentioned its presence.
Hiring has been discreetly conducted via the Internet, and an apathetic
general public has taken little notice. Among the few who have noticed,
one theory is that the prison bus depot is simply infrastructure for border
security. But if so, where are the illegal aliens? Why are these buses
always empty? What is the alleged justification for burning thousands of
gallons of diesel fuel to run thirty decrepit, smoking buses night and
day without passengers?
-
- There is another interesting piece to this puzzle. On
the desolate plain between Phoenix and Tucson is a tiny town called Florence,
Arizona, which features a population consisting largely of prisoners. For
decades, Florence has been the home of two of the largest county and federal
prisons in the state; and in 2007, a vast new DHS prison was built there
as well. Like the Wackenhut buses, this shiny new facility, which literally
disappears into the horizon, has gone unannounced and unnoticed by the
general public. A new facility for imprisoning illegal aliens? It is hard
to imagine such expensive infrastructure being built for that purpose when
U.S. policy has been to simply return illegals to their home countries.
-
- Fraud and waste aside, this mysterious activity has sinister
implications. Why the obvious secrecy? Since the World Trade Center disaster
in 2001, the Department of Homeland Security has grown to monster proportions,
claiming a projected $50 billion of the federal budget in 2009. DHS includes
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which earned notoriety
in 2005 for its gross mishandling of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans.
Al Martin, a retired naval intelligence officer and former contributor
to the Presidential Council of Economic Advisors, has linked the remilitarization
of FEMA to the civil unrest anticipated along with economic collapse. He
wrote in a November 2005 newsletter called "Behind the Scenes in the
Beltway":
-
- "FEMA is being upgraded as a federal agency, and
upon passage of PATRIOT Act III, which contains the amendment to overturn
posse comitatus, FEMA will be re-militarized, which will give the agency
military police powers. . . . Why is all of this being done? Why is the
regime moving to a militarized police state and to a dictatorship? It is
because of what Comptroller General David Walker said, that after 2009,
the ability of the United States to continue to service its debt becomes
questionable. Although the average citizen may not understand what that
means, when the United States can no longer service its debt it collapses
as an economic entity. We would be an economically collapsed state. The
only way government can function and can maintain control in an economically
collapsed state is through a military dictatorship."1
-
- All of this is quite ominous. It is also a good argument
for considering radical funding alternatives. There are other ways to deal
with the federal debt besides relying on the waning appetites of the Chinese
and the Japanese for U.S. securities. Some innovative alternatives for
funding both the federal debt and President Obama's new economic stimulus
package will be the subject of followup articles. Stay tuned.
-
-
- _____
-
- Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney
practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest
book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and
"the money trust." She shows how this private cartel has usurped
the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people
can get it back. Her earlier books focused on the pharmaceutical cartel
that gets its power from "the money trust." Her eleven books
include Forbidden Medicine, Nature's Pharmacy (co-authored with Dr. Lynne
Walker), and The Key to Ultimate Health (co-authored with Dr. Richard Hansen).
Her websites are www.webofdebt.com and www.ellenbrown.com.
-
- 1.Al Martin, "FEMA, CILFs and State Security: Shocking
Updates," www.almartinraw.com (November 28, 2005)
-
-
- © Copyright Ellen Brown, www.webofdebt.com/articles
- Web of Debt, 2009
|