When I saw this story the other day I saved it but dismissed its importance. I was looking at it again this morning and everything started to make sense, come into perspective, and really concern me as to the future! I saw visions of Van Damme's Universal soldier.First I just heard that Bush was at the Pentagon discussing where we would concentrate our efforts when we are done in Iraq and Afghanistan. I can't believe they can be so stupid as to think they will succeed in anything. Why start now! Anyway we are in Iraq permanently and he just penned the agreement with them so what is he talking about?
Okay, I wanted to divert from my usual subject of bush and his Forever War today to showcase "Blackwater is alleged to be taking Steroids" imagine? I have visions of Universal soldier. In light of the fact that we are concerned that Blackwater will be employed on us as bush needs the terrorists to persecute his wars and we are Bush's real enemies.
Anyway, A lawsuit against government contractor Blackwater Worldwide accuses its bodyguards of ignoring a direct order and abandoning their post shortly before taking part in a shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqi civilians. Filed this week in U.S. District Court in Washington, the complaint also accuses North Carolina-based Blackwater of failing to give drug tests to its guards in Baghdad — even though an estimated one in four of them was using steroids or other "judgment altering substances." A Blackwater spokeswoman said Tuesday its employees are banned from using steroids or other enhancement drugs but declined to comment on the other charges detailed in the 18-page lawsuit.
The lawsuit also accuses Blackwater of routinely sending its guards into Baghdad despite knowing that at least 25 percent of them were using steroids or other "judgment-altering substances." Attorneys estimated that Blackwater employs about 600 guards in Iraq. The company "did not conduct drug-testing of any of its shooters before sending them equipped with heavy weapons into the streets of Baghdad," the lawsuit states.
Blackwater's contract with the State Department to protect diplomats in Iraq expires in May, and there are questions whether it will remain as the primary contractor for diplomatic bodyguards. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said his Cabinet is drafting legislation that would force the State Department to replace Blackwater with another security company. scarey Blackwater on steroids
Hearing of Blakwater's guards taking steroids before going on assignments explains an awful lot to me! I know like Republicans and everyone else today they didn't do anything wrong except get caught. I am sick of the norm since bush and his lousy example, that it is okay to lie as long as you get your way.
Anyway no wonder we hear of these guys jumping the gun and flying off the handle all the time. A war zone is adrenalin pumping without the inducement of steroids to turn you into Universal Soldier
** I am very concerned as these guys seem to be above the law despite efforts to reel them in and now finding out that they are on steroids as many of us feel these men will be used against us before this is done as we are Bush's real problem as he moves to take total control of us and our America
James Joiner
Gardner Ma
www.anaveragepatriot.com
17 comments:
Freedom?
Freedom to serve your masters.
Bush & Co
colin
You really have to be leery about speaking against this crap but we can't stop. we are the enemy! Bush just secretly passed another law. This one gives him the right to freeze the assets of anyone that speaks aginst and hampers his wars. He has yet to do his greatest damage. Watch 2008!
Nazi Germany here we come.
Making occupation and calling it peace. Killing fewer and calling it progress. Rotating troops and calling it a withdrawal. Setting up new death squads and calling them allies. Lowering standards and calling it opening new opportunities.
All of the above phenomena seem to be part of the current campaign by Washington in Iraq. There are fewer GI deaths in the country now because they don't leave the bases. Why? Because their latest allies—tribesmen paid in cold cash to kill for DC—are doing the killing and taking the hits. Indeed, some of the most fatal of those hits come from US air strikes that “mistakenly” bomb the men involved in killing the US bogeyman Al Queda in Mesopotamia, which may or may not be a phantom reality. Meanwhile, these tribesmen learn US military methods and locations while stockpiling US-supplied weaponry for some future war on their Shi'a opposites or perhaps even the same US forces they currently align themselves with.
The politicians here in the US, meanwhile, continue their cynical dealing in human life by refusing to insist on a genuine withdrawal timetable even as they steal billions from their country men and women to fight their wars and try to maintain the empire. False arguments erupt over withdrawal bills that aren't withdrawal bills because the White House insists that it has complete control over the war and its conduct while the opposition in Congress writes legislation that has more holes than a hooker's torn fishnets. Despite the impotence of the legislation, they fail to pass even that and end up giving the White house every penny it originally asked for. Wait until the election, says the opposition. Things will change then. If previous elections are any indication, the only thing that will change are the faces in the White House. Troops will remain in Iraq and the occupation/war will continue its haphazard road to control of the oilfields. Or, it will result in the defeat of Washington's plans for the region, no matter which politician sits in the Oval Office.
``We're going to fund the troops,' Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said today (11/25/07) on the ``Fox News Sunday' program. ``No one's trying to undercut the military.' The subtext of this quote is simply this. No one is going to undercut the wars. After all, it is the military that fights the wars, is it not? It's hard for students of history to believe, but there was a time in the history of this nation when the military was not the untouchable institution it has become. Indeed, there was a brief shining moment when it was purely a defensive force. Unfortunately, that time was not only brief, it was also quite long ago. There has been no time in US history, however, when the military has dominated the American polity like it has since the United States entered World War Two. This domination of the political sphere is why no politician who wants to stay in power will ever defund the Pentagon and the complex it has spawned. This situation exists not necessarily because the US public wants most of their tax monies going to corporations that build weapons or to maintain an imperial army. It exists because the propaganda wing of the aforementioned complex can and will destroy the career of any politician that attacks that complex. Consequently, the number of national politicians in the two major parties fundamentally opposed to the Pentagon's sacrosanct position in US politics can be counted on one hand. Not only does fear guide these spineless men and women, but so do the dollars tossed their way by the very corporations that profit as members of the previously mentioned complex. Our silence, fed by fears that are by definition unreal allows them to get away with what can only be truthfully called murder.
Back to Iraq and Afghanistan. Violence in those countries ebbs and flows, reflecting a rhythm of death and destruction known only to the beast of war. Some children lose their parents while other parents lose their children to that beast. The dollars we pay in taxes every day feed the beast's greed despite the outspoken desire of what seems to be the majority that they be used for peaceful purposes. Perhaps the structures we allow to rule can no longer spend that money for peace. Perhaps they are too corrupted by war and its profits. Perhaps their long service to the beast of war has rendered them not incapable of conceiving a world where peace does not mean domination and does not require war in a fruitless effort to secure said peace.
It is only natural that those who are subject to this domination would resist. That resistance takes up arms only because to do otherwise is suicide. Why should one commit suicide when they are being murdered? When this is the scenario, then armed resistance become self-defense and doing nothing is defeat. If this is so, the question is raised once again: are those tribesmen currently working with the occupier in Iraq and Afghanistan merely pretending to collaborate so as to strike the final blow to the occupier when the guard is down? Wasn't this the strategy of anti-occupation forces of Muqtada al-Sadr (labeled Shi'a by the western press)? And aren't those forces now in the gunsights of the US military?
Meanwhile, the government in Baghdad's Green Zone is asking the US military to commit to a longterm agreement to stay in Iraq in substantial numbers. Besides the obvious fact that the Green Zone government really has no say in how long the US military occupies Iraq, the fact that those in power are asking the military to remain is an acknowledgement that their power does not come from the Iraqi people but from the military power of Washington. In fact, according to the November 26, 2007 Associated Press story discussing this “request” by the Green Zone government, the request was made because “Iraq's government, (is) seeking protection against foreign threats and internal coups.” One can be certain that those internal coups most likely refer to Washington's fear of a victorious insurgency. Tellingly, opposition to the “request” was voiced by the supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr, who opposes the US occupation in all its manifestations. The more things appear to change, the more they don't. The casualties continue to mount, even when they are not part of the equation.
More lies from the Bushy's.
Communism was created and is controlled by the gluttonous Power Elite. Russia, because it was a treasure trove of untapped oil resources, needed a revolution (a political coup). The Czar and his family were murdered; it was planned and financed by the Schiffs, the Warburgs and the Rothschilds who directed the activities of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. [1] The Power Elite have, through their machinations, secretly sponsors a majority of the world’s tyrants. The autocrats Hitler and Mussolini were financed during the 1920-1930s by international bankers, including the regional banks that comprise the Federal Reserve System, the criminal cabal in partnership with the U.S. government.
“Communism was a hoax perpetrated by financiers ‘to control the common man’ and to advance world tyranny. The Communist Party operates by infiltrating and subverting social institutions like the churches, schools, mass media and government. Its aim was ‘to create new types of human beings who would conform to the blueprint of the world they confidently expected to control.’” [2]
In 1919 when industrial nations were carving up nations for the competing firms of Standard, Shell, and British Petroleum, M. Henri Berenger, a future Ambassador to Washington gave the following warning in a memorandum:
“He who owns the oil will own the world, for he will rule the sea by means of the heavy oils, the air by means of the ultra refined oils, and the land by means of petrol and the illuminating oils. And in addition to these he will rule his fellow men in an economic sense, by reason of the fantastic wealth he will derive from oil—the wonderful substance which is more sought after and more precious today than gold itself.” [3]
The Power Elite look for certain unscrupulous characteristics in their potential political pawns: opportunistic, dishonorable, manipulative, ruthless, conscienceless and indifferent to the consequences of their actions; they must be willing to totally subvert established laws that define individual freedoms and be prepared to turn their countries into tyrannical police states using newly-created Gestapo-style enforcement agencies. These candidates must also be hypocritical enough to conceal these traits when necessary. Effective speech writers provide counterfeit, charisma-deficient “deciders” a modicum of credibility. “The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.” (Adolf Hitler) Nearby Power Elite handlers make the real decisions.
Most puppets are intoxicated with, among other things, their self importance and the tangible symbols of their bogus authority, like being commander-in-chief of the military minions who are verbally manipulated into sacrificing their lives in countries targeted by the Power Elite. Americans, who have experienced a degree of freedom, are particularly susceptible to the emotional, “democracy card” rhetoric against alleged dictators. Understandably, those unfortunate Americans who have experienced fewer choices are often the very first individuals to challenge unwarranted military actions against other vulnerable citizens. They frequently receive lengthy jail sentences for their views.
Some leaders unexpectedly displease their backers by pursuing personal or even national objectives actually beneficial to their citizens but contrary to Power Elite objectives. They are denigrated, reclassified as enemies and eliminated: to be replaced by more obedient pawns. The CIA-financed, well-trained tyrant, Saddam Hussein, infamous for his use of chemical weapons (provided by U.S. corporations through Pentagon contracts) disappointed his backers with his ambitious oil production policy. Ultimately captured, Hussein was immediately tried, silenced and executed.
Hussein intended to expand oil production! “Iraq alone has the third largest oil reserves on the planet – accounting for 10% of the world total. Iraq is also reckoned to have the world’s largest unexplored potential, primarily in the Western Desert.” In addition, “Iraq is estimated to have between 100 and 200 billion barrels of further possible (as yet undiscovered) reserves.” [4] Iraq has “112 billion proven barrels” and the “second largest reserves in OPEC after Saudi Arabia.” “Iraq has fewer than three thousand operating wells compared to one million in Texas.” Iraq has 74 known fields and only 15 in production. Iraq has 526 known structures (pools of oil) and only 125 have been drilled. [5]
In the first Gulf War, the Basra oil fields were targeted and deliberately demolished by American B-52s. [6] That war failed to pressure Hussein into compliance. Economic sanctions were imposed – hundreds of thousands died – mostly children. Those sanctions also banned oil exportation, maintaining OPEC oil prices and quotas. Hussein was obstinate. Another invasion occurred in March 2003. The U.S. now occupies Iraq. The Oil Ministry remains the only facility under constant U.S. military protection. Meanwhile stately libraries and museums, containing irreplaceable antiquities and Iraq’s cultural heritage, were/are wantonly destroyed.
The major oil companies are represented by the International Tax & Investment Centre (ITIC), a corporate lobby group established in 1993. [7] A quarter of their 110 sponsors are from the oil industry. Their Board of Directors hosts representatives from Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco. [8] They developed an 84 page plan for Iraq and its oil in 2004. See it here. This plan was adopted by the State Department. It entails suppressing oil production, yes suppressing it!
Iraq’s oil expansion program is now dead, along with more than a million Iraqis. The U.S. invasion and occupation has been very effective in accomplishing Big Oil’s financial goals. Iraq produced more oil under the highly restrictive Oil-for-Food Program than its yield in 2003, 2004 and 2005. This decline in production tripled profits for the five major U.S. oil companies to $89 billion for a single year, 2005, compared to pre-invasion 2002. Coincidentally, Big Oil profits increased at the same time that the oil industry increased contributions to Bush's reelection campaign, approximately $40 million. [9] Hey, that’s how Fascism works. Politicians do not represent the people, they represent business! Big business pays for that representation. [10]
Power Elite puppets have never been subtle about their intentions. The February 1950 New York Times reported: “Indo-China is a prize worth a large gamble. In the north are exportable tin, tungsten, manganese, coal, lumber and rice, rubber, tea, pepper, and hides. Even before World War II, Indo-China yielded dividends estimated at $300 million a year.” [11] “South-East Asia supplied 90% of the world’s crude rubber, 60% of its tin and 80% of its copra and coconut oil. It had sizeable quantities of sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, sisal, fruits, spices, natural resins and gums, petroleum, iron ore and bauxite.” [12] However, certain U.S. based Power Elite principles made no profits from any of this and that was a major problem, especially for the highly competitive Standard Oil.
On August 4, 1953, Eisenhower revealed reasons for U.S. interest in Southeast Asia and in the war that France was waging against Viet Nam by stating: “So, when the United States votes $400 million to help that war, we are not voting for a giveaway program. We are voting for the cheapest way that we can to prevent the occurrence of something that would be of the most terrible significance for the United States of America – our security, our power and ability to get certain things we need from the riches of the Indonesian territory, and from Southeast Asia.” [13] What exactly was the Power Elite objective in Viet Nam? Southeast Asia has oil resources! However, Shell Oil (formerly known as Royal-Dutch Petroleum), a Standard Oil competitor, had control of Indonesia’s oil resources. [14]
According to author Marshall Douglas Smith, Herbert Hoover (CFR, Bilderberger), a very astute world traveling geologist who later became the 31st U.S. president (1929-33), produced an exhaustive world resources survey that included an interesting “insider secret – one of the world's largest potential oil fields ran along the coast of the South China Sea right off French Indochina, now known as Vietnam.” [15]
According to author Smith, Laurance S. Rockefeller (David’s brother) was aware of that oil survey. During World War II, Laurance Rockefeller served in the Navy (1942-1945), attaining the rank of lieutenant commander.” [16] At the end of World War II, Rockefeller was Japan’s Vice-Governor under General Douglas MacArthur, Military Governor of Japan (a strategic political position). [17] It was Rockefeller who allegedly arranged to sell that huge stash of weapons from the island of Okinawa to Ho Chi Minh, an ally, for his war against France for one dollar and his “good will.” [18] Later, that “good will” just might be remembered when the Rockefellers approached Ho Chi Minh about that oil.
There is a banker behind every puppet president. Bush’s great-grandfather, Samuel P. Bush, director of the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland, was a close adviser to President Herbert Hoover. [19] Hoover was a well-compensated puppet who, for certain projects, surrounded himself with Rhodes Scholars. He was a member of the infamous Bohemian Grove, to which every Republican President since Hoover has belonged. [20] He called it the “greatest men's party on Earth.” [21] Hoover, a sanitized scoundrel, is portrayed as a humanitarian who merely mismanaged the destabilizing effects of the October 29, 1929 contrived crash which forced the middle class into soup lines and onto relief rolls. Hoover took great pains to manage the public’s perceptions about him, especially after his activities in China. See here. He embraced what he called the “noble experiment” of prohibition, an unprecedented opportunity for organized crime to amass money and power. One may compare the “prohibition on alcohol” to the “war on drugs” – both encouraged crime while confiscating public funds and generating huge profits for criminals.
“The Bolsheviks were originally saved from collapse by Herbert Hoover who raised money to buy food which was appropriated by Lenin and his gangsters. They used it as a tool to subdue starving peasants who had been resisting their newly imposed slave masters. While Hoover's ‘humanitarian’ gesture saved the Soviet regime, the Russian economy was still in total chaos. In came the Vanderlips, Harrimans and Rockefellers. One of the first to jump in was Frank Vanderlip, an agent of the Rockefellers and one of the Jekyll Island conspirators, president of the Rockefeller First National City Bank, who compared Lenin to George Washington.” [22]
On March 4, 1929, Herbert Hoover was inaugurated as the thirty-first President of the United States. On March 28, 1929, Henry L. Stimson, Hoover’s obliging Secretary of State initiated efforts to help Rockefeller’s Standard Oil of California (SOCAL) obtain oil rights in Bahrain from the Gulf Oil Company. By 1935, SOCAL had 16 operating oil wells in Bahrain. [23]
The Hoover Institution of Stanford University was founded in 1919 by Herbert Hoover with a donation of $50,000. He created this influential think tank at the suggestion of three men: Andrew Dickson White, (Skull & Bones), Daniel Coit Gilman, (Skull & Bones) and Ray Lyman Wilbur, president of Stanford. [24]
Decades later and two weeks after the official end of the war in 1975, the U.S. placed punitive economic sanctions against the unified Democratic Republic of Viet Nam under the Trading With the Enemy Act. Apparently, even after decades of devastating war, Viet Nam was not sufficiently cooperative, despite Nobel laureate Kissinger’s “diplomacy.” The Power Elite frequently venerate each other with public praise and ostentatious awards. For confirmation of presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani’s true loyalties, please watch this video. He may possess the very traits that the Power Elite require of an “elected” official.
Viet Nam was classified an enemy after Saigon (renamed Ho Chi Minh City) fell to North Viet Nam troops in April, 1975. That U.S. embargo banned all trade with the U.S., Britain and the European Community. In 1976 even humanitarian and private aid to Viet Nam was blocked. Because of U.S. influence, access to international lending agencies, like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank was blocked.
Allegedly, sanctions were imposed because Hanoi didn’t account for the missing American servicemen (MIAs). However, the unsanctioned U.S. invader, didn’t make an accounting to Viet Nam for:
• Eight million tons of bombs (four times the amount used by the U.S. in all of World War II) leaving ten million bomb craters [25]
• Operation Linebacker One and Two
• 3.5 million land mines and 300,000 tons of unexploded ordnance. 40,000 people killed since 1975 by landmines and buried bombs. [26]
• Agent Orange, cluster bombs
• 400,000 tons of napalm, dropped on Vietnamese villages [27]
• The destruction of infrastructure
• The birth defects and catastrophic illnesses resulting from toxic chemicals.
• In 1971 alone, 800,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Laos, Cambodia, and Viet Nam.
• The massacre at My Lai; “Colonel Oran Henderson, who had been charged with covering up the My Lai killings, told reporters in early 1971: ‘Every unit of brigade size has its My Lai hidden someplace.’”
In conjunction with America’s war in Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia were affected:
• Congressional Research Service report prepared for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee indicated that over one million Laotians had been killed, wounded, or turned into refugees [28]
• The figure for Cambodia estimated at two million. [29]
• Under Nixon and Kissinger (Rockefeller agent), secret bombing in Cambodia began in March 1969. The U.S. Air Force officially recorded the use of nearly 260,000 tons of bombs there.
• Secret bombing missions over Laos began in late 1964
• Around 230,000 tons of bombs were dropped just in northern Laos alone in 1968-69 [30]
• Bombs dropped in Laos over eight and a half years exceeded two million tons. [31]
Three million Vietnamese were killed and 300,000 additional were missing in action. The U.S. lost almost 59,000 men and women with 2,000 missing in action. U.S. allies lost over 6,000. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, about 20,000 Viet Nam veterans committed suicide. Hundreds of thousands of “boat-people” died in the China Sea, and countless thousands of former Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) Officers and other government officials died in ‘reeducation’ camps. The people of resource-rich Viet Nam became some of the poorest in the area. [32]
War expenses amounted to $500 billion, paid to the government-friendly, banker-sponsored military/industrial complex. This destabilized the American economy. The conflict sapped the U.S. gold reserves, plentiful since 1945. [33] It was, after all, never about a military victory. Yet the war met the expectations of the Power Elite, according to their playbook.
This sounds like the Bush era.
Colin we are all under threat by the warlords in charge of the destruction of this nation.
Larry
I am sick of this two faced lyinging underhanded lie to get what you want as long as you get it atmosphere of today and it isn't just Politics.
It is terrible1 What stinks is everything will continue to get exponentially worse.
I know I rold you before but Rove who started this crap for Nixon is the master of this smile while you lie underhanded crap and has been rewarded for it ever since.
You pose those questions, i know you've seen me say this before but look at what you said and just look at this little description I coined a few years ago.
It is called 3D Politics (deceitful, deceptive, divisive, politics) It is Rove taught and how everything is conducted. Lying has become the new truth. I can't stand it.
Check this out Jim:
Can you think of anyone better than George W. Bush with whom to entrust the dictatorial powers hinted at in NSPD-51? Or perhaps you are unwilling to trust anyone with such powers, even Bush. That is not an option in NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE 51 (NSPD-51), signed by Bush and released without comment by the White House on May 9, 2007. To quote from NSPD-51: “This policy establishes ‘National Essential Functions,’ prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.” What one would expect, but for some of its few details.
Under NSPD-51, only limited ‘National Essential Functions’ of government will continue, which may or may not include Congress and the courts. NSPD-51 assures us: “Enduring Constitutional Government means a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches...” This “matter of comity,” which usually refers to the informal and voluntary recognition of jurisdiction among courts, is troublesomely ambiguous in this context. Is Bush claiming that he, rather than the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court, determines which functions the three branches of the federal government shall continue to perform? Does the president decide for himself, as he "coordinates," which laws and court orders to faithfully execute?
NSPD-51 claims that it "provides guidance” to state and local governments, when in fact it does the opposite because it revoked the then existing Presidential Decision Directive 67 of October 21, 1998 ("Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations"), including “all Annexes thereto.” And replaced them with NSPD-51, along with: “Annex A and the classified Continuity Annexes, attached hereto.” But then the rabbit disappears as NSPD-51 soldiers on: “This directive and the information contained herein shall be protected from unauthorized disclosure, provided that, except for Annex A, the Annexes attached to this directive are classified and shall be accorded appropriate handling, consistent with applicable Executive Orders.” In other words, all the details are secret and even the non secret “Annex A” remains undisclosed by the White House.
Having revoked on May 9, 2007 the nation’s then existing emergency plan for continued national governance without explanation, Bush’s NSPD-51 calls for: “The Plan shall be submitted to the President for approval not later than 90 days after the date of this directive.” One assumes, during this lapse in emergency plans, no emergency was expected, or at least presented less risk than leaving that old Clinton plan in place. Since the national media, except one story each in the Washington Post and Boston Globe, have ignored NSPD-51, Bush has not bothered to explain any of this.
Especially if such explanations might raise questions about the decision to revoke the existing plan before finishing work on the new plan, which some might conclude serves only to rush the review of one of the most complex and sensitive plans in government in an attempt to slip something by the rest of us. Whatever the motive, abruptly revoking the existing plan, while mandating a new plan within 90 days, exhibits the same reckless, delusional optimism that characterizes much of Bush's planning record. Clearly Bush is confident he can do far better than Clinton, whose administration labored for years on that old plan. Much of the old plan may even be in the new plan, who knows?
Among those who do not know are members of the House Committee on Homeland Security. The Bush administration has repeatedly denied the committee access to NSPD-51, about which Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio (D) complained in a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives. What we do know is those 90 days passed without a new plan approval being announced. Perhaps no plan gives the president exactly the maximum power and minimum accountability desired; or, perhaps the plan's approval is secret as well. Apparently, the "matter of comity"among the three branches of government, referred to in NSPD-51, does not include allowing NSPD-51 to be read by members of Congress, which the Congress, in a continuing pattern of acquiesce, has not challenged.
This almost entirely secret directive can be invoked when the president decides “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 functions” occurred. Bush alone will decide when he must assume this burden, though surely only upon prayerful contemplation during the time saved not having to consult Congress. In addition, because of a change to the Insurrection Act of 1807, enacted as part of the 439-page 2007 Defense Authorization Bill signed into law in October 2006, Bush need no longer obtain a governor’s consent to take control of a state’s national guard units. This same bill overturns the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which limited the use of US military forces within the United States for law enforcement. In addition, Bush issued an executive order on July 17, 2007 authorizing the government to seize the assets of anyone "undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq" under provisions of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Could this include critics of the Iraq war, whom Bush has repeatedly accused of undermining the war effort?
When might Bush invoke NSPD-51? My own guess would be Spring ‘08, after Bush is "forced" to attack Iran, perhaps with nuclear weapons, and Iran then fails to cooperate, attacking US ships in the Gulf and Mediterranean instead of accepting our offers of assistance. Even if Iran denied Bush his basic objective by refusing to be goaded into reacting beyond its own borders, the resulting global economic chaos and spontaneous popular reactions beyond Iran could compel Bush to invoke NSPD-51, quite apart from whatever our new enemy might undertake. On the other hand, under NSPD-51 any provocation of Bush could lead to him creating a pretext for declaring a national emergency. For example,Ralph Nader quotes Massachusetts Rep. John W. Olver (D), who has a PhD from MIT, when presented with the votes of 13 Town Meetings [real Town Meetings, not the media events staged for candidate performances] in Olver's congressional district calling for impeachment of Cheney and Bush, Olver responded that he opposed any impeachment move against Bush because "the current autocratic executive [Bush] would attack Iran from the air, declare a national emergency, institute marshal law, and call off the 2008 elections were the Democrats to initiate impeachment."
Should Bush declare a national emergency and begin exercising the many powers available to him in law, as well as the ever expanding powers he claims by fiat, our nation would cross into a world increasingly difficult to predict, largely beyond our national experience, except perhaps for our revolution and civil war, subject to ad hoc, unchecked decision making, with genuine rule of law no longer an available guide. It would likely become increasingly difficult, in the absence of reliable information, to understand and deal with the originating crisis, however real or contrived. And to distinguish it from the difficulties arising from the declaration of a national emergency itself. However, this sort of thing has sadly occurred in many other countries, with much the same result likely here: a self-sustaining crisis, in which the chief rationales for continuing the national emergency are the effects of the national emergency themselves, compounded by errors in governance and crimes by those who seized power, sustained by their fear for what would happen to them should they give it up. The longer term prospect would likely include national decline and insurrection, with an even more unpredictable array of international consequences starting with a widening war.
In the short term, one can imagine Congress, demonstrating its usual wisdom and courage, expressing concern about the clearly large, though secret, number of American citizens "detained," surprise at the scope of firearm and asset seizures, discomfort with the pace of executions under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and outrage at being locked out of its capital offices due to a classified biological threat of undetermined duration, thus preventing Congress from voting to set benchmarks for Iran and to demand our readmission to NATO. But Congress would likely find some comfort in the "delay" of the 2008 elections, given Bush's decision to allow all incumbents, including those temporarily detained, to remain in office, which many in Congress would praise for its "unifying bipartisan comity," and await the president's determination when it is safe for Congress and the Supreme Court to actually meet again. Just as many in corporate American would appreciate the need to "defer" collecting capital gains and corporate taxes in the interests of helping the economy in a time of national crisis. Besides, how could anyone resist the perfectly Orwellian logic of declaring a dictatorship to insure "Constitutional Continuity" for the “homeland,” while setting aside the actual Constitution of the United States?
Whatever unknowable future a declaration of national emergency might bring, clearly many are going to be profoundly unhappy with such a turn of events. And that may be why Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, is already building detention centers around the nation to “support the rapid development of new programs” that could accommodate those incompatible with Constitutional Continuity, the dead-enders who actually protest or resist, plus the usual suspects who might think to object.
But how would all those potential incompatibles, certainly tens of thousands and likely far more, find their way to an appropriate detention center? After all, the Bush administration has managed to prosecute only a handful of businesses for hiring illegal aliens who number in the millions. Its clearly a matter of priorities. So, despite such distractions as hurricane Katrina, the Justice Department has been conducting mass arrest exercises code named Operation Falcon, whereby thousands of law enforcement officers from federal, state, county and local agencies arrested some 10,000 individuals within seven days, working from lists provided by the U.S. Marshall’s Service, all coordinated to commence across the country simultaneously. Since practice makes perfect, three mass arrest exercises have been conduced: Two national (Falcon I April 4-10, 2005 arresting 10,340; Falcon II April 17-23, 2006 arresting 9,037); and one “eastern half of the country” (Falcon III October 22-28, 2006 arresting 10,733).
What can not be found among these data is mention of any legitimate law enforcement purpose served by these mass arrests. While some arrested were serious criminals, most were of the unanswered warrantee and support payment delinquent sort, soon released. The important element here appears to be getting operational experience and, perhaps most critically, habituating state and local police agencies to conducting mass arrests from lists provided by the federal government. In the eastern regional Falcon III alone, 103 state agencies, 430 county sheriff's offices/departments and 482 police departments did just that according to the U.S. Marshals Service web site. At the current pace, perhaps Falcon IV, for the western half of the U.S., will be the last drill and then the real thing: Operation Falcon V.
So its likely, when Bush addresses his fellow citizens after declaring the national emergency, many of his critics will be listening most attentively to detention camp loud speakers. As for how detainees will be treated, one can assume every effort will be made to maintain our current standards for indefinite detention without trial and torture assisted interrogation, where little slip-ups under the press of numbers and emergency conditions are likely to be of little consequence.What is certain, should coup d'etat by national emergency take place, is it will be denied even as it unfolds, and this is likely to be followed by assurances it will be temporary, lasting "not one day more than it needs to," followed by accusations the resistors are responsible for prolonging the state of emergency, and finally appeals to turn in others if you want your own relatives released soon from detention or your property/assets returned; all lies to sustain a long planned, permanent state of national emergency.
What is likely to be important in most corporate media is demonstrating our determination to carry on by shopping as well as selecting the proper anthem for our new world order. I'm hoping for something stirring along the lines of "Deutschland Uber Alles," except with a touch of Texas twang as in "Dallas Uber Alles," in an arrangement using fewer trombones plus a weeping steel guitar. However, since this is such an important decision, our new anthem, with its companion national prayer and corporate logo, should be selected by ‘We the people of the United States’ from among three finalists chosen by our First Lady, in our first-ever national referendum, proving yet again our commitment to democracy and putting all those new voting machines to use in November '08 after all.
Or you might send this and/or additional such materials to others, including your congressional delegation as well as the press, to warn about the danger Bush’s NSPD-51 presents, and demand steps be taken to prevent it. Since the courts are hopelessly slow given the immediate danger, Congress must do its duty. And we must do our duty and demand Congress end its reluctance to stand up to Bush's repeated, escalating, bullying contempt: if its unnecessary, it should be easy; if its not easy, it is all the more necessary.
NOTE TO THE READER: It is entirely true that each real event cited here has alternative, plausible explanation, and those participating in these events may be entirely unaware of the darker ends to which their work may be put. The essay's many conjectures are exactly that. However, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance not good faith or trust. Nor is the US Constitution based on trust, but rather on checks and balances, in a arrangement designed to avoid the gravest of follies and to contain inevitable mischief, embracing sound assumptions about the weaknesses of human nature rather than its virtuous pretenses. Knowing the Bush administration's record of reckless lawlessness and radical mind set, the possibility of a coup d'etat by national emergency can not be ignored, especially within the context of recent institutional actions that can be reasonably interpreted as being consistent with and preparatory to such an undertaking. These include Bush's relentless assault on and blatant affront to the constitutional limits on executive power, exemplified by the brazenly sly release without comment of NSPD-51, and encouraged by congressional failure to stand up to his flagrant excesses. I believe the risk to our republic is real. And needs to be confronted immediately, with the objective of using existing congressional power and establishing additional safeguards, formal and informal, to prevent it. Better to prevent what some may claim was never going to happen, than to suffer betrayed good faith, with the appalling costs of experiencing and undoing this grave folly Bush appears to be edging toward, as relentlessly as he undertook the invasion of Iraq from the first days of his administration.
larry
You are something. That was some comment. You mentioned the Warburgs. That was one of the most awesome Biographies I ever read. Anyway those guys were before their time and they were right but!
They could not have even imagined the now and the future. who rules the oil or the water or anything here is no longer the measure in a war time atmosphere.
I wrote about this many times and got a lot of guff for it on kos. I will guarantee you it is right on. Remember whoever owns space owns the future.
That is why Bush demands superiority there and to know what the Chinese are up to, Remember the shot across out bow when they shot down their own satellite.
I know I mentioned it before but I don't know if you read it or not. Remeber, our carriers, airforce, military equipment, command structure, everything, would be dead in the water if our satellites were blown. read this It will really make you think. the Assassins mace
it's funny Larry!
Massachusetts Rep. John W. Olver (D), who has a PhD from MIT, when presented with the votes of 13 Town Meetings [real Town Meetings, not the media events staged for candidate performances] in Olver's congressional district calling for impeachment of Cheney and Bush, Olver responded that he opposed any impeachment move against Bush because "the current autocratic executive [Bush] would attack Iran from the air, declare a national emergency, institute marshal law, and call off the 2008 elections were the Democrats to initiate impeachment."
Olver is my Representative and we correspond ofen. I have told his that many times. I would say you are right about nspd-51. People jokingly say Bush is the decider but if they do not understand by now that he is they never will.
He has too much power to stop him. He used 9/11 and the Patriot act to steal it. he has proven it many times but the Constitution means nothing too him. It is only something else he has to work around.
Bush is a lying underhanded fool who can do what he wants and has to listen to no one. He once said he would listen to his dog before anyone else. We better learn how to bark! This idiot will act before anyone can stop him and that too you know I have said many times.
i have to shut down now, talk to you later!
i have to shut down now, talk to you later!
can't follow that :)
Talking Points Memo:
Over the summer, we reported on an under-the-radar executive order issued by President Bush allowing him to freeze or seize the U.S-based assets of anyone, potentially including U.S. citizens, he deems to threaten "the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq" or who "undermin(e) efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq."
The executive order was written so broadly as to alarm civil libertarians, who feared it was a back-door attempt at criminalizing the antiwar movement -- which Bush could conceivably argue posed a threat to Iraq by seeking to end the U.S. military presence -- or even unwitting donors to insurgent-linked charities. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, Molly Millerwise, told us not to worry: "Be assured that the individuals and entities we add to this list are in full faith acting in an aggressive, violent and reckless way in financing the insurgency," she said.
Earlier this month,the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said: actually, maybe you should worry. It released a report (pdf) exploring "the contrast between the executive order's broad language and its narrow aim" and questioning why the Treasury Department hasn't released a list of eligible Iraq-related targets for the order.
While CRS credits Millerwise with indicating that the order will cause the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to primarily go after foreigners, it criticizes the order's "piggybacking potential":
The issue is whether the executive order's application to anyone who provides "support" for a designated entity might affect U.S. persons inadvertently involved in some form of assistance, such as arranging transportation for, selling consumer goods to, or providing routine legal assistance to an entity that becomes blocked under the executive order. Could U.S. persons find themselves designated under the authority of the executive order and thereby have all of their assets subject to blocking whether or not the assets have any nexus with the transaction of any blocked entity or with any foreign entity?
The report says we can't answer that question until OFAC releases a set of regulations covering how to implement the order. Nothing so far appears to be forthcoming, despite Millerwise's comments to TPMmuckraker creating what CRS calls an "expectation" that OFAC will document its rules for implementation. It's also not clear whether interest from a particular member of Congress prompted the report -- and, if so, which member.
(Via Steve Aftergood, who observes, "the potential application of the order appears to be technically unlimited since it includes a recursive clause that has no defined endpoint." In other words, you can be targeted under the order even if you're X Degrees of Kevin Bacon away from an insurgent-related financial transaction.)
Hey Betmo
Can't follow what? Something in the comments or steroids affecting Blackwater guards?
You know from abuse os steroids by athletes how it afects you physically right? You also know from at least the use by professional wrestlers how it makes you crazy and do things you would never do otherwise right?
Are you familiar with Van Damme's Uinversal Soldier series?
Knowing many of us fear Blackwater being used on us someday and now I understand why they have done some of the crazy things they are credited with in Iraq and I fear we will be facing these "super soldiers" too. That's all!
Larry
I caught this at Lydia's and was in on some of the conversations. It blows me away that MSM is in his pocket too and nothing was said. His total control over us amd his Forever War situation is pretty much complete.
Now we can only wait and watch to see which excuse the chief shit is going to use to set this horror show into motion.
Leaving aside the deaths of Iraqis by Blackwater personnel, one thing most troubling about this soldier of fortune company is that many Americans approve of their actions.
Godspeed to this lawsuit. The back of Aryan Nation was broken by seizing their assets and we can hope the same will eventually happen with Blackwater.
Mirth that is troubling. I have to believe that the average citizen does not realize what they are about or the danger we face of having them used on us in the future. Like everything else by the time they realize reality it will be too late to do anything about it.
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