Rubicon in the Rear-View, Part I: Militarizing the Police

The future of law enforcement: The 193rd Military Police Battalion, Colorado National Guard, trains at Ft. Carson last July 12 in preparation for deployment as part of JTF-DNC -- the military component of security arrangements for the Democratic Convention in Denver.



There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them.

Garet Garrett, The Revolution Was (1938)


The seamless integration of the military and law enforcement into a single "Internal Security Force" is the defining characteristic of a fully realized police state. Once this fusion is accomplished, the question becomes not "whether" a police state exists, but rather how acute its institutional violence against the subject population will become.



That condition now exists in the country that still calls itself -- without any apparent irony -- the United States of America.



Much alarm has been raised over the admittedly alarming news that beginning October 1, the U.S. Army's Northern Command will deploy a specialized, combat-tested unit as an "on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks."



This "dwell-time" domestic deployment of the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team will permit its soldiers to "use some of the [skills] they acquired in the war zone" to deal 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."



In the context of our descent into rank imperial corruption, this small but significant development could be seen by some as the moment our rulers crossed the Rubicon. But that metaphorical boundary has been in our rear-view mirror for quite some time. Admittedly, there is something quite ominous about the news that "homeland tours" are expected to become a routine part of the rotation of soliders tasked to carry out missions for those who command Washington's Empire.



The Homeland Security apparatus is a recombinant organism, engineered from multiple strands of institutional authoritarianism.



The process began in earnest in the late 1960s with the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration; the chimera has grown in power and malignancy because of the generation-long, trillion-dollar exercise in murderous cynicism called the "War on Drugs."



Indeed, it was in the context of this "war" that exceptions began to be carved out of the Posse Commitatus Act, which was intended to prevent the fusion of military and law enforcement functions within the United States. The cultivation of a huge population of official informants added another critical element to the metastasizing organism of official tyranny.



The Drug War likewise introduced Americans to the variety of official larceny called "civil asset forfeiture," through which police and Sheriff's departments nation-wide were turned into roving bands of officially protected highway robbers. The corruption of local law enforcement into federal welfare whores was an indispensable step toward the synthesis of a distinctly American police state.



Although we're constantly told that "everything changed" on September 11, the actual impact of The Day That (Supposedly) Changed Everything was to add a highly potent nutrient into the growth medium in which the Beast was already flourishing. This merely accelerated a process that was already well advanced.



Consider, as just one illustration, a series of Presidential Decision Directives, issued by Bill Clinton in his second term, that deal with the integration of the military with civilian law enforcement to deal with terrorist incidents involving Weapons of Mass Destruction or catastrophic natural disasters.



Apart from a few hidebound constitutionalists and easily-maligned Y2K "alarmists," nobody objected to this new intimacy between the military and civilian police. Then again, nobody had become concerned over the proliferation of military-trained SWAT and tactical teams, or the creation, in 1995, of the Pentagon's Law Enforcement Support Organization (LESO), through which police and Sheriff's departments could receive military hardware of any kind they desired at concessionary prices, "as if they were a DoD [Department of Defense] organization," in the words of the program's official pitchman.



The results of this ... well, call it a "guided evolution" of the law enforcement system, were entirely predictable.



"I served in the U.S. military and after I got out I ended up becoming a cop in 2002," recalls Bill, who was Battalion Soldier of the Year in 1999 and "Top Gun" in his police academy class. Bill shared his experiences in reaction to a podcast I recently did with Lew Rockwell examining the emergence of America's unitary, militarized Homeland Security state.



At the time he joined the force, many of the veterans "were old school, having started in law enforcement before I was born. They were tough but fair. They treated people with respect."



However, the "old school" officers "were forced out of the department [and it] took on a military feel," Bill continues. "You were expected to take [a] `just follow orders and obey the [department administration attitude], no matter what, regardless if it was constitutional or not. The amount of force used during arrests went through the roof."











"Urban Shield": A SWAT operator at UC-Berkeley play-acts in a training simulation involving a stand-off with armed, militant animal rights activists. Yeah, that's a plausible scenario.


This militarized mindset -- the notion that the job of police was to compel "civilians" to submit to state authority -- had a tangible impact in terms of the promiscuous use of the "non-lethal" Taser weapon.



"When I first started we had a couple M26 Tasers of we needed them, but most people either left them at the PD or in their patrol cars," Bill relates. They were useful in a handful of instances involving armed, deranged people, and when used in those circumstances "they do save lives." However, once the Taser was in use, police started to use them as instruments of "pain compliance": "Anytime anyone did anything was was not compliant, out came the Taser."



"The tactics the SWAT team was using were also becoming more like the military," Bill laments. "We even got a military Humvee. We were now wearing BDUs and carrying fully automatic machine guns and wearing the same body armor as soldiers were in Iraq. All of our 870 Remington shotguns were removed from the patrol cars and replaced with full-automatic H&K-made G36 machine guns -- to the protest of all the patrol officers, mind you. If anyone spoke out they were `dealt with.' In the course of 3 years they went through over 50 patrol officers. And this is a department with only about 47 officers total."



Once the exception, now the rule: SWAT paramilitaries put on a demonstration for teenagers attending a "Citizen Police Academy."


While military hardware was being forced on recalcitrant officers, those willing to carry out their assigned roles were being used to disarm civilians as the opportunity presented itself:

"People were having their weapons confiscated for `safe keeping' during traffic stops. [My home state] is a rural state that relies heavily on hunting for income. Everyone has a gun here. Even my 88-year-old grandma carries one in her purse (yes, she has a CC permit). So to take someone's guns you had better have a damn good reason, not just because they have a gun in their car and it's after 9 PM."



After witnessing this long train of official abuses, "many of us spoke out." Those who did so "were then run through the cleaners." Bill recounts an effort by the department administration to extort perjured testimony from him against a shift Sergeant who had condemned the department's corruption. Those who spoke out against corruption -- which included prosecutors and judges -- "were either fired unlawfully or quit."



In August 2007, after five and a half years on the force, Bill finally reached his frustration threshold and quit.



The sinkhole of dictatorial abuse and Sicilian corruption described by Bill is a small community in South Dakota -- that haven of sober Midwestern rectitude whose citizens aren't afflicted with a state income tax. If it's this bad in the green wood, what's it like in the dry? Well, according to Bill, "these abuses do, sadly, happen in almost every town in America."



The process Bill describes is a peculiar type of alembic, distilling the worst elements from a recruiting pool to serve in local police forces. Rather than retaining people of character and principle, the process selects for the officious, the self-satisfied, the opportunistic, and especially for those fixated on power.



Martin, who likewise shared his experience in reaction to the Lew Rockwell podcast, is a former Marine. As he was processed out of the Corps he was pitched by a recruiter the LAPD. Although he had no interest in the job, he was interested -- and more than a bit alarmed -- by what he learned about the ease with which former military personnel can become "civilian" police, and the eagerness of the LAPD to absorb military veterans into its ranks.



Recruiters "told us how they'd worked with command elements so that a Marine couldgo through LAPD academy while still in the service -- meaning a seamless transition to police work from military life," Martin reports. Probably the "scariest" element of military recruitment, Martin says, is that "for basic officer positions a series of mental testing and psychological testing was not necessary. It is feasible for a Marine to get back to the states from a deployment to Iraq, get out of the military, and then start patrolling the streets of LA in a matter of a few months."



"Police work is the easiest and most lucrative thing for a former Marine or military person to transfer to, especially us infantry kids who received no real job training while in the military," Martin concludes. "To us police work is the closest civilian equivalent of the patrolling that we did in Iraq. I think it is safe to assume that the more `grunts' we make and give combat experience the more militarized our police departments will become."

















Running through this entire story we can find a microscopically thin thread of hope in the reluctance of at least some military and police personnel to serve the Regime's apparatus of repression. But the generational trends Bill describes will only grow worse as a law enforcement assimilates veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have on the mindset of tomorrow's police recruits.



In his fascinating Iraq war account Generation Kill, Evan Wright describes his experiences as a reported embedded in one of the first Marine units to invade Iraq in 2003. One lieutenant, describing the "Gen X" and "Gen Y" youngsters fighting in Iraq, observed that during World War II, when the Marines hit the beaches in the Pacific campaign, “a surprisingly high percentage of them didn't fire their weapons, even when faced with direct enemy contact.Not these guys. Did you see what they did to that town? They f*****g destroyed it. These guys have no problem with killing."



No problem with killing.



Our sin nature notwithstanding, any typical human being has exceptionally strong inhibitions where taking another life is concerned. This internal restraint can be subverted by a process of self-seduction in the service of some illicit design; it can be undermined by severe emotional or psychological trauma. For those in the military, it is nullified through patient, deliberate indoctrination -- and even then, the psychological impediment to homicide still re-asserts itself for many in the military.


But "Generation Kill" includes more than a few young men produced by a deeply nihilistic popular culture who have exceptionally few compunctions about killing. When they are recruited into law enforcement, they will retain both the mindset and muscle-memory of trained, remorseless killers.


(Part II will examine the other half of this equation, the mutation of the military into a police force.)


On sale now!











Dum spiro, pugno!

All the Reich Moves

Either fight it now, or get used to this kind of thing: Pennsylvania State Troopers -- one with a drawn assault rifle, his trigger-finger ready -- bracket a terrified driver during a roadblock set up near Pittsburgh following the death of a "comrade" in a domestic shooting. Don't assume for a pico-second that the friendly people in official costumes would resist any opportunity to treat the rest of us like this.


We will not recognize [American Fascism] as it rises. It will wear no black shirts here. It will probably have no marching songs. It will rise out of a congealing of a group of elements that exist here and that are the essential components of Fascism....

It will be at first decorous, humane, glowing with homely American sentiment. But a dictatorship cannot remain benevolent. To continue, it must become ruthless. When this stage is reached we shall see that appeal by radio, movies, and government-controlled newspapers to all the worst instincts and emotions of our people. The rough, the violent, the lawless men will come to the surface and into power. This is the terrifying prospect as we move along our present course. --

John T. Flynn, American Mercury, February 1941




The formula for an American variant of Fascism includes, but is not limited to, the following:



*A fusion of institutions the constitutional Framers intended to keep separate; abolition or nullification of any residual checks on the power of the central government.

Barack Obama's January 11 executive order creating a "Council of Governors" to help "synchronize" policy regarding foreign and domestic military operations doesn't merely add another redundant layer of bureaucracy to the overgrown Homeland Security apparatus. It represents a critical milestone in the devolution of the American republic into an undisguised Reich.


The Council of Governors will be a bipartisan panel of ten state governors who "meet at the call” of various executive functionaries, including the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, to assist the Supreme Leader in carrying out the “synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States.”


In 2006 Congress turned the National Guard into something akin to a Praetorian Guard to be used — whether at home or abroad — as the president desires. This helps explain an obvious and ominous change in the Guard’s definition of its mission and responsibilities, which include hands-on involvement in domestic law enforcement.


[See the clarification below.]

The Constitution's Framers defined what we now call "law enforcement" as a function to be reserved almost entirely by the states. They were deeply hostile to the concept of a standing army; it's not clear that most of them would support the existence of paramilitary government police bodies. It is clear, however, that they would be intransigently opposed to the consolidation of military and police power. They would also view the creation of an executive branch organ like the Council of Governors with considerable alarm.


As an advisory body, the Council of Governors will have no real policy-making authority. Its chief function, I suspect, will be to ratify a binding "consensus" on behalf of whatever mission the Commander-in-Chief ordains for his new personal army. This "consensus" will be invoked to justify the usurpation of state control over Guard units.


According to an official White House press release, the Council “will provide an invaluable Senior Administration forum for exchanging views with State and local officials on strengthening our National resilience and the homeland defense and civil support challenges facing our Nation today and in the future.”



In the interests of brevity, the Obamacrats could simply have said that the Council will help “relieve the distress of the people and Reich" -- a justification used by the German National Socialists during their own campaign of national "synchronization and integration."



The Nazis used the term Gleichschaltung to describe this process of “coordination” or “synchronization” of all government functions by centralizing power in the Chief Executive. This was accomplished through a series of executive decrees supposedly authorized by the 1933 Enabling Act, formally known as the “Law for Removing the Distress of People and Reich.”


Obama's January 11 executive order is a natural outgrowth of the post-911 American Enabling Act.


*Imposition of the "Leader Principle" under which the powers of the chief executive are self-defined, self-ratifying, and effectively limitless.


In terms of the role it played in institutionalizing a permanent state of emergency and wartime executive dictatorship, the German Enabling Act was the direct antecedent of the September 14, 2001 “Authorization for Use of Military Force” enacted by a Congress in a fit of institutional panic.



That measure was an open-ended grant of unspecified power to conduct war against all and sundry, whether at home or abroad. It has been invoked to justify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, low-grade warfare in Pakistan and Yemen, and the prospective war against Iran.


Celebrity war criminal John Yoo, the chief legal architect of the American torture regime, maintains that the September 14 Enabling Act justifies any imaginable exercise of power by the president. On this construction the president can summarily imprison anyone he chooses to, authorize the use of torture -- either against the detainee or even his children -- or even order summary executions.


The only congressional recourse, according to Yoo and those who share his perspective, is to de-fund such presidential activities should they ever come to public notice. Given that Congress in September 2008 essentially surrendered its constitutional authority to control the public purse, it's not at all clear that it even retains the ability to withhold funding as a way of addressing presidential atrocities after the fact.



*Repudiation of explicit and indispensable due process guarantees and protections in the interest of "efficiency," expediency, and public "safety."



The most remarkable legal "victory" won by the Obama regime effectively re-instates the odious assumption at the heart of the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision -- namely, that the government can treat some human beings as "non-persons."

On December 14, the Supreme Court let stand a lower court’s ruling that suspected terrorists classified as “unlawful enemy combatants” enjoy no legal protection against torture or other mistreatment because they are not considered “persons” under the law.

Attorneys representing terrorist suspects had invoked the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (or RFRA), which explicitly applies to all “persons.” A federal appeals court rejected that argument, thereby effectively categorizing such detainees as “non-persons.”

Just as remarkable is the lower court's blithe observation that "torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants." Accordingly, torture victims thus categorized have no standing to pursue civil relief, let alone criminal prosecution despite the fact that torture is explicitly forbidden by both federal statute and the U.S. Constitution (as well as international accords, for whatever they're worth).

There is a sinister syllogism here: Only "persons" enjoy legal standing; "suspected enemy combatants" subjected to torture aren't "persons"; ergo, they have no legal standing and thus no recourse.

"Your papers, please": This billboard was on display in rural Arizona. (Photo courtesy of Ernest Hancock.)

It's not just accused or suspected terrorists who qualify for indefinite detention.

In 2006 -- a very busy year for those beavering away constructing the Homeland Security State -- Congress enacted the "Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act," a measure that permits perpetual "civil confinement" of "sexually dangerous persons."

As previously noted in this space, the Adam Walsh Act is firmly in the totalitarian tradition of designating entire groups of people to be "socially dangerous" and thus suitable only for confinement, even in the absence of a criminal conviction or after a prison term has been served.

The Obama administration, which recently defended that law before the Supreme Court, subscribes to the view of its predecessor that the end of a prison term doesn't necessarily mean the end of imprisonment. During oral arguments, this view appeared find favor with a majority on the Court, including liberal (and therefore supposedly "soft-on-crime") Justices Breyer and Ginsburg. Breyer, according to the Los Angeles Times, drew an analogy between open-ended "civil confinement" and quarantine.

The chief distinction here, of course, would be that "sexually dangerous" people (a category that includes many people entirely innocent of actual criminal offenses) would be subject to perpetual quarantine. As one former civil detainee pointed out to CNN, this may mean being "committed to a mental institution for the rest of your life."

No rational person should suppose that the practice of perpetual civil confinement will be restricted to "sexually dangerous people." The definition of "socially dangerous people" will be made as elastic as our rulers desire, eventually becoming a net that will gather indiscriminately of every kind of dissident. This is exactly how the Soviet ruling elite filled the gulag.

*Subsumation of state and local police into a centralized, militarized internal security apparatus.


With apologies to the immortal Marty Robbins: Down in the west Texas town of El Paso, each cop will now have an AR-15....


Last fall, the city government of El Paso received a federal "stimulus" grant of nearly one million dollars to use at their discretion.


Despite being the second-safest city in the U.S. in terms of violent crime, the city decided to spent the money on 1,145 military-grade assault weapons for the local police.



Why?



Well -- would you believe that the police are threatened by narcotics syndicates across the border in Juarez?


Actually, they aren't. While spectacular criminal violence does plague Juarez, El Paso, once again, is the second-safest city in the United States.



All right -- would you believe that the police are concerned that "errant soldiers" stationed at local Ft. Bliss might run amok and slaughter local citizens?



While this argument effectively demolishes an assumption cherished by advocates of civilian disarmament (namely, that police and soldiers are uniquely trustworthy when it comes to firearms), firearms-related crimes involving soldiers have been quite rare and the weapon of choice has invariably been a handgun.



Well, whatever you do believe, those responsible for this policy simply won't countenance the idea that the police intend to over-awe the gun-owning public.


"We are not trying to outgun the people with guns in our community," insists El Paso city council member Beto O'Rourke, "but to protect the public."



Fellow council member Susie Byrd, to her credit, isn't inclined to buy what O'Rourke and his allies are selling. "You always want police to approach any situation with an abundance of caution," she points out. "Having big assault rifles might embolden less cautious behavior."


This isn't just a particularly troublesome example of the familiar bureaucratic routine of finding a "problem" to justify a profligate "solution." It's a splendid example of the federally subsidized militarization of "local" law enforcement in the absence of any legitimate threat.



This began in earnest decades ago with the creation, by future LAPD Chief Daryl Gates, of the first SWAT team, which was supposed to be used in extraordinary circumstances, such as hostage situations.


Richard Nixon's politically motivated invention of the "War on Drugs" caused a nation-wide proliferation of SWAT teams. In recent years, SWAT missions have expanded to include commonplace tasks, such as serving warrants or even policing city parades. It seems as if many police departments are becoming civilian support systems for the local SWAT teams.



SWAT and other tactical units are armed, trained, and equipped by the Pentagon; their members are marinated in military doctrines incompatible with civilian peace officer duty. It's reasonable to suspect that, whether by design or default, SWAT teams serve as a way to circumvent the Posse Comitatus prohibition on the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.


Lt. Andrew Esposito, Operational Commander of the Rescue Entry and Counter Terrorism (REACT) team for Rockland County, New York, regards the Posse Comitatus act as an impediment to effective counter-terrorism arrangements, which would involve extensive coordination between law enforcement and the military.


Lt. Esposito (a 21-year Marine veteran) would also require that "local" police departments "send [their] operators and SWAT commanders to Military schools that instruct infantry tactics and command.



A recent RAND Corporation report commissioned by the Pentagon's Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute explores another possible detour around the Posse Comitatus Act -- namely, the creation of a "hybrid" military/law enforcement body called the "Stability Police Force."

The SFOR would created within the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) for use “in a range of tasks such as crowd and riot control, special weapons and tactics (SWAT), and investigations of organized criminal groups” — both in UN-supervised military missions abroad, and domestic emergencies here at home. Initially as small as 2–6,000 personnel, the SFOR’s size “could be increased by augmenting it with additional federal, state, or local police from the United States” as necessary.

Using the Marshals Service rather than the US Army’s Military Police as host for the SFOR would provide the Regime with all the advantages of militarizing law enforcement without creating a direct conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act. Using the USMS as a platform for the unit “would place it where its members can develop the needed skills under the hybrid staffing option,” summarizes the RAND report. “Furthermore, the USMS has the broadest law enforcement mandate of any U.S. law enforcement agency…. [This model] provides significant domestic policing and homeland security benefits by providing thousands of additional police officers across the United States.” (Emphasis added.)

Once retro-fitted into the Marshals Service, the SFOR would be used to deepen and accelerate the process of assimilating domestic law enforcement into the military by "augmenting state and local agencies, many of which currently suffer from severe personnel shortages."

*The demand for instant, unqualified submission by "civilians" to any directive issued by someone in a government-issued costume.



A recent California court ruling held that police officers cannot use Tasers as instruments of "pain compliance" in situations involving simple defiance of supposed police authority. Not surprisingly, that decision -- which probably won't lead to a noticeable reduction in gratuitous use of Officer Jackboot's favorite torture toy -- provoked the indignation of police unions and was widely criticized by people who assume that citizens are required to render immediate, unquestioning submission to any demand made of them by anyone bearing the State's insignia.



News archives and file-sharing sites abound in episodes of entirely unnecessary criminal violence inflicted on harmless people in retaliation for "contempt of cop." (Here is an exceptionally comprehensive source.) To that collection we can add the recent experience of retired Marine and former police officer Ron Doyle of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.



Last Sunday (January 10), Doyle noticed a pickup truck parked in the fire lane outside a local grocery store. Annoyed by the sight, Doyle confronted the driver. The man, who was dressed in casual clothes, responded by reaching into the pocket of his jeans and produced the piece of costume jewelry identifying himself as a Pennsylvania State Trooper named Craig Finkle.



After Doyle made a disparaging comment pointing out that Finkle wasn't on duty and turned to leave. The Trooper pulled out his cell phone and demanded that Doyle come back; as Doyle approached Finkle again he overheard the Trooper call for "units that can roll now." Doyle quite understandably decided to leave. He walked a short distance to his car and drove home, with Finkle trailing him.


Shortly thereafter three state police cars converged on Doyle's home. Displaying a confidence that would be touching if not so tragically misplaced, Doyle called 911 and pleaded for intervention by the local borough police department.


The phone line was left open as Doyle unlocked the door, only to be dragged to the floor by three of Finkle's homies, who said he was being arrested for "disorderly conduct" -- a "cover charge" commonly used to punish anyone perceived to be insufficiently servile in the presence of the state's punitive priesthood.


Finkle -- who, as a police officer, is quite literally trained to lie -- claimed that a visibly intoxicated Doyle shouted obscenities at him. The arresting officers claimed that he had assumed an "aggressive stance" -- a phrase used to describe any posture other than that of cringing, chastened submission -- and that he had shouted obscenities at them as well.


Doyle points out that the entire incident was recorded by the 911 dispatcher. The "local" police, in whom Doyle had invested his trust, are refusing to release the recording. According to the county "open records" officer, "the public interest in disclosure does not outweigh the interest in nondisclosure." This almost certainly means that publicizing the recording would contradict the official story, which of course simply wouldn't do.


*The emergence of the military as the core public institution.


In the Winter 1992-1993 issue of Parameters, the journal of the U.S. Army War College, military historian Charles J. Dunlap published a premonitory essay entitled "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012."


Written from the perspective of an officer awaiting execution as a traitor to the new junta, Dunlap's essay presents a terrifyingly plausible scenario for America's descent into undisguised military rule.

On the Empire's errand: In a Photoshop composite widely circulated by supporters of the Iraq War, a U.S. soldier in Iraq uses shoulder patches to express disdain for the refusal of Washington's tributaries to bear their "share" of an unnecessary imperial burden.



"It wasn't any single cause that led us to this point," writes the condemned patriot in a long letter to a friend. "It was instead a combination of several different developments, the beginnings of which were evident in 1992.


Unlike previous eras in which the military would be de-mobilized after a war, the end of the Cold War saw an increase in the op-tempo of deployments abroad, both for "peacekeeping" missions and various "operations other than war."



Rather than cashing in a peace dividend, the federal government actually expanded the military budget. It also found new domestic missions to keep the military occupied.


Military personnel became "an adjunct to all police forces in the country," the officer recalls; social and economic problems were redefined as "national security" issues and brought within the military's area of responsibility.


Uniformed military personnel became a common sight, recalls Dunlap's fictional narrator. People became inured to the sight of "uniformed military personnel partrolling their neighborhood.... Even the youngest citizens were co-opted.... [We have] an entire generation of young people who have grown up comfortable with the sight of military personnel patrolling their streets and teaching in their classrooms."


As political and economic turbulence hit the United States, the military was exempt from public disaffection with government institutions. While most people properly viewed elected officials and bureaucrats with contempt, for some reason they saw the military as a bottomless well of competence.


That perception somehow survived the disasters Dunlap predicted would occur in 2010, when the "Second Gulf War" in Iraq metastasized into a large-scale conflict with Iran, and event that triggered a terminal crisis of confidence in the existing political order.


As the federal government became a failed state, the proverbial Man on a White Horse arrived: General E.T. Brutus, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 2012, indefinitely "postponed" elections, and engineered a referendum in which his new status as military ruler of the United States was ratified by a traumatized and desperate plurality of the voting public.


Tanks for nothing: Is this what Washington will look like some day in the near future, when putsch comes to shove?



For Dunlap and others who cherish individual liberty protected by law, this projection is a nightmare scenario. For many conservatives it embodies an entirely realistic political "solution" for our current distress -- or perhaps even their fondest and most earnest wishes.



"When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup," mused conservative columnist Thomas Sowell a few years ago.



Sowell later defended, and elaborated on, that comment during an interview on Sean Hannity's Fox "News" program: "I’m very serious about whether or not the country can be saved at all in the long run, especially with Iran moving toward nuclear weapons, with so many signs of degeneracy – the schools, whatnot. Heaven knows, I don’t want to see a military coup but I don’t want to see the society disintegrate, either."

The "Man on Horseback"

Though it may appear odd to hear such sentiments emanating from a pundit regarded by many as a species of libertarian, it's reasonable to believe that the same views are shared by a significant portion of the punitive populist right, and liberals who covet the power to wage domestic war against their own political enemies. For people of that persuasion, Guy Odom's 1999 manifesto America's Man on Horseback is pure political poetry. For militarists of the Victor David Hanson variety, Odom's book would be like Viagra in print.


Odom, a Texas resident who is a Navy veteran, self-made billionaire, and self-taught political philosopher, is a writer of considerable gifts and no small amount of wit. He describes his book as an updating of Machiavelli's notorious work The Prince, in this case addressed to the military veteran Odom predicts will arise in 2013 to become the first ruler of an undisguised American Empire.



While I may be blind to some Swiftian subtlety in Odom's writing, it seems clear to me that the author eagerly anticipates a military dictatorship and intended for his book to serve as a program of action, a blueprint for "America's transition from a dying Republic to a dynamic Empire."



The titular Man on Horseback, Odom predicts, will be a military veteran in robust middle age who will be elected "to deliver the honest, hardworking, law abiding minority from their persecution by the ungodly and the unconscionable ... the first president empowered to rid the country of crime and punish all criminals, whether violent or nonviolent, who rob Americans of their lives, their safety, and their livelihoods."



While the Ruler, the "sole arbiter of good and evil," will have power to do whatever he pleases to whomever he chooses, Odom predicts that he will exercise such power with surgical delicacy in order to "benefit the population on the whole with your necessary cruelties."



As was the case with Dunlap's dystopian projections, Odom's eager prescription for dictatorship anticipates developments that have already come to pass, either in whole or part.



"When you suspend the Constitution and the writ of Habeas Corpus, enemies and their public statements of indignation will surface," Odom writes. While the former hasn't formally happened -- why "suspend" a charter of government that has been rendered useless through decades of institutional contempt? -- the latter happened in 2006.



Odom observes that the Ruler's minions "will record the names" of those who condemned the abolition of the Great Writ and otherwise opposed the Dear Leader, "tape their television quotes, and fill electronic file cabinets with their newspaper articles -- all of which can be of immense value to you in times ahead, as the names of your impulsive adversaries will be documented for future recall and consideration."



A literal domestic "war on crime" would be undertaken, led by the Marines. All civilian law enforcement agencies would be "inducted temporarily into America's armed forces" in order to participate in "open warfare" against criminals. Rioters and armed domestic dissidents would be quickly liquidated, of course.



Under the new "justice" system, convicted criminals would be subject to "extraordinary rendition" to prisons in Siberia and Africa. Blackwater-style mercenaries in the employ of the president would be dispatched overseas to apprehend tax evaders and others who had fled the dictator's jurisdiction.



Odom anticipates a vastly expanded role for the Internal Revenue Service. It would be assigned to "oversee the United States domestic law enforcement agencies"; it would be put in charge of the national census, and be given the resources to hire huge numbers of civilian informants; it would be in charge of a database containing DNA samples from each American, and supervise the quarantine of anybody carrying AIDS or afflicted with other dangerous diseases.



The IRS would also be given the assignment of enforcing a sweeping bill of attainder against those deemed to be hereditary enemies of the state. Although those summarily executed would be "relatively few in number," Odom writes, at least some of them would be punished not for anything they had done, but because of the purported crimes of their ancestors.



"Attainder and corruption of blood recognize no innocence," he observes. "For the first time in American history, citizens will perish without a trial and, even, without a pronouncement of guilt." The IRS would seize and bank the assets of those "cleansed" in that fashion, an entirely suitable task for that repellent agency.



In economic affairs, the Ruler's regime would implement a hyper-Hamiltonian regime of state corporatism, with the federal government as the "employer of last resort." Vast New Deal-style public works projects would be undertaken. The educational system would be fused with early childhood programs and placed under the Ruler's personal direction as "child development centers."



"For your future glory, name the child-development schools after yourself," oozes Odom in an appropriately obsequious tone. Those centers would provide the Ruler with the means of cultivating a huge corps of Janissaries -- most of whom would be recruited from economically blighted inner cities -- ready to give their lives on behalf of their Dear Leader.



To offer his Janissaries a chance to prove their devotion in combat, the Ruler would embark on an ambitious campaign of foreign aggression that would include the conquest of Mexico and the destruction of "terrorist" nations by any necessary means, including pre-emptive nuclear strikes.



"Mobilizing the country's armed forces and making war to acquire territory is the only way a country can climb out of its decadence and into a stable period of growth and prosperity," writes Odom in a remarkably pure expression of military Keynesianism.



In addition to serving as the ultimate government "economic stimulus program," war is necessary in order to ensure the Ruler's continued primacy: "Without the catharsis of war, authoritative leaders are dislodged. Conquest can help maintain your leadership, Mr. President.... Conquest at some point becomes a must for you, Mr. President, not an option."



The Generalissimo envisioned by Odom would rule for at least thirty years, leaving behind him an American Empire spanning the entire Western Hemisphere, with the possible exception of Quebec.

Forestalling a Fascist Future

Much of what Dunlap warned against, and Odom cheerfully anticipated, can be seen materializing around us. The ambivalent good news is that the Regime may collapse before those predictions are consummated. This wouldn't mean the end of the domestic garrison state, but it would offer opportunities for rebellion against the imperial center, both abroad and at home. The growing movement toward interposition is a very encouraging trend, but that political movement will avail little unless Americans by the tens of millions start practicing interposition and nullification on an individual level.


"Everything within the state; nothing outside the state; nothing against the state," pronounced Mussolini in defining the fundamental fascist formula. Restoring freedom will me inverting that formula: We must exploit every opportunity to reject the state's authority over our lives, refuse both its plundered largesse and the chains that accompany it, and develop systems of mutual support outside of the state's ambit.


This will involve some social hardship and even an element of physical danger. Conspicuously refusing to celebrate the supposed valor and virtue of the imperial military and law enforcement apparatus is not a prescription for popularity. De-monetizing one's assets by converting them from fiat Federal Reserve Notes into real money (gold and silver) requires uncomfortable adjustments in one's time preference and consumer habits. Devising contingency plans to protect one's family in the event of a sudden threat from the State is difficult and time-consuming. Refusing to submit to unwarranted demands issued by an armed state functionary can be exceptionally risky.


These are minor inconveniences or trivial trials when examined in light of the future that awaits us. Breaking up Leviathan's political mass through political and personal secession may be the only way to prevent it from becoming a super-dense, liberty-annihilating political singularity.

Update and Clarification:
The Leahy "National Guard Empowerment" Measure

A reader points out that the Senate passed a measure sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) overturning the 2006 amendment to the Insurrection Act. That amendment was designed to make the National Guard, in effect, the president's personal militia.


Sen. Leahy was an outspoken critic of the Insurrection Act revision, and the "National Guard Empowerment" amendment he sponsored in 2007 did mitigate its danger. In my view, however, Leahy's amendment isn't a step back from the brink, but more accurately seen as a sideways step along the brink.


For what it's worth, here's my assessment ("Martial Law on the Installment Plan," PL, May 29, 2008) of that measure shortly after it was passed:


"The Guard `empowerment' bill sponsored by Leahy ... actually continues the process of folding the Guard -- which was once ... the independent people's militias -- into the national military establishment.... Its commanding officer is made a full general, for instance, and given a more prominent role in the Pentagon's councils.


More significantly, the measure creates `a stronger relationship between the Guard and the Northern Command' and instructs the Pentagon to work with the Guard in planning homeland defense."


In the event of a future terrorist attack or a White House-decreed national emergency, I noted, Northern Command "would provide the assets and manpower to lock down the country under Homeland Security supervision."


This arrangement plays a very significant role in the developments I describe in the multi-part "Rubicon in the Rear-View" series published in this space in 2008. One very telling example was the role played by the National Guard in suppressing demonstrations during the 2008 Republican and Democratic political conventions.

(Please note that the modified image of the Iraq soldier above was not identified as such in the original version of this essay. My thanks to the commenter below for catching this oversight.)




Please be sure to tune in for Pro Libertate Radio each weeknight from 6:00-7:00 Mountain Time on the Liberty News Radio Network.

Dum spiro, pugno!

Rubicon in the Rear-View, Part II: Perpetual War, Here and Abroad (Updated)

Two missions that should never intersect are those of the military and of the civilian police, respectively. The logic of empire ultimately demands that which our rulers have now provided: A militarized apparatus of coercion in which military and police roles are inextricably blended.


UPDATE

It's much too early to tell how this welcome development will affect the trends described below, but the House of Representatives just defeated the Wall Street Swindle measure -- something I quite frankly considered impossible.



"We have entered an era of persistent conflict.... [We face] face new security challenges influenced by the effects of globalization, especially in failing states and in ungoverned areas.... Radicalism influenced by extremist ideologies and separatist movements will remain attractive to those who feel threatened and victimized by the cultural and economic impacts of globalization...."

From the 2008 Army Modernization Strategy



We are entering the age of "persistent conflict," advises the Army's 90-page official report on modernization and strategy. Dr. Tom Clonan, the international security analyst for the Irish Times, usefully peels away the thin veneer of euphemism applied to that phrase, rendering it "perpetual warfare."


The Army document is an admission that our rulers intend to divest us of what few tangible liberties we still enjoy. James Madison's warning resonates again: "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."


Had the Billionaire Bailout, aka the Mother of All Swindles, been consummated in the teeth of nearly uniform public opposition, the Regime ruling us would have achieved a Platonic ideal of plutocratic corruption. The Army's strategic preview still seems to anticipate this development, given its astonishing candor in expressing the ethics of the Robber State.*


In describing the mission of the military over the next generation or two, the document dutifully refers to the threat of a "radical, ideology-based, long-term terrorist threat...." Additionally, insists the report, Washington faces "a potential return to traditional security threats posed by emerging near-peers as we compete globally for depleting natural resources and overseas markets."


What proper role can the military play in "competing" for "natural resources and overseas markets"? The military embodies the refined essence of the murderous ugliness to which we've given the name "government": It is an instrument employed to kill and destroy, not to "compete." It can conquer territory, but it cannot create a market -- except in the crudest corporatist sense of reducing a country to rubble as a prelude to taxpayer-subsidized "reconstruction" efforts of the kind that have succeeded so marvelously in Iraq.



The vision expressed in the Modernization Strategy is a more elegantly phrased version of the familiar Ditto-head bumper-sticker sentiments, like "Kick their ass and take their gas," or "What is their sand doing on top of our oil?" (Another variation of that trope we may soon see: "Begin the slaughter -- seize control of their water.") Of course, that approach engenders terrorism, rather than pacifying it -- but this is an entirely suitable outcome for our rulers, since it relieves them of the trouble of dreaming up new pretexts for the wars they desire.


Seizing resources through military force is one of the best ways to destroy a market: Military control over a given resource is, after all, nationalization in its bluntest form. The truly remarkable -- and terrifying -- aspect of the Army's new strategy is the evidence it provides that our rulers have now embraced, without qualification, the socialist premise that the government's role is to administer an economy based on scarcity.


Here we collide with one of the defining ironies of our age. At a time when Washington now candidly admits its intention to acquire vital resources through military pillage, Russia and China, the "neer-peers" clumsily alluded to in the document, are acquiring resources through commerce, rather than conquest.


A case can be made that a modest, mobile military establishment is necessary in order to protect freedom of commerce abroad; at least, that was the view of those who wrote the constitutional provision requiring Congress to "maintain" a Navy. But the Framers who composed that provision were steadfastly opposed to a standing Army, quite properly fearing that an establishment of that kind would be used precisely as the new Army strategic document describes: To carry out perpetual war abroad, and regiment society here at home.


Granted, the latter half of that formulation -- domestic regimentation -- is not made explicit in the Modernization document. But it becomes very clear when key strategic considerations from that document are viewed in the light of the increasingly overt role played by the military in domestic law enforcement.


The implosion of America's financial system is now all but a moral certainty. The increasingly panicked corporatist elite have abandoned any pretense of acting on behalf of the public good, seeking to preserve their own power and plundered wealth by any means.


It is this corporatist financial elite that ultimately controls the legions deployed both here and abroad.


Recall again Madison's warning that wars beget "armies, and debts, and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many beneath the domination of the few." Yes, as Machiavelli noted in chapter ten of his Discourses, it is iron rather than gold that is the "sinew of war." But it is gold, or whatever prevailing substitute, that buys and bridles those who deploy iron in wartime. The creators and exploiters of public debt -- the FED and the nomenklatura it serves -- also created, and remain in control of, Washington's sprawling military establishment and rapidly catalyzing system of internal repression.



Acting through Henry Paulson -- soon to be our first economic dictator -- the oligarchy threatened, bribed, bullied, and extorted from Congress a measure permitting them to plunder the wealth of the embattled remnants of the Middle Class. According to a visibly and audibly overwrought Texas Republican Congressman Michael Burgess, this was achieved by effectively holding Congress hostage in a condition he referred to as "martial law":

**



**

Whether or not Comrade Pelosi's expression was intended metaphorically, we have to believe that extraordinary duress was required to compel congressmen to support, or at least to countenance, the Mega-Swindle in the face of ferocious public opposition just weeks before those same congressmen stand for re-election.


It is relatively easy to neutralize the rebellion of a relative handful of politicians. But the public can expect no deference or delicacy when the time comes to deal with the social upheaval that will (not "would," mind you -- will) accompany the full-orbed economic collapse our rulers have now arranged for us.


Recall the excerpt from the Modernization Strategy document that was used above as an epigram, and note the reference to "those who feel threatened and victimized by the cultural and economic impacts of globalization." The imponderably huge heist being carried out on behalf of Wall Street is a splendid example of the globalization of corporatist crony capitalism, and its impact on our standard of living will be immense.


A large and ideologically heterogeneous movement has taken shape that opposes "globalization," as the term is variously defined and understood. We can expect to see this opposition become much larger, much better organized, and much more militant. And we can also expect to see these developments over-matched by an even more dramatic escalation in the tactics used by the domestic arm of the Empire's military.

(Continues after the jump.)














Here is the caption supplied by the US Army for this photograph: "Minnesota National Guard Soldiers with the 1st Combined Arms Battalion, 194th Armor stand guard to assist police in maintaining order during an overly-aggressive demonstration Sept. 1, in St. Paul, Minn. The demonstrators were protesting during day one of the Republican National Convention."


There are elements of the anti-globalization movement that, either out of ignorance or (more likely) ideological malice, target private enterprise as the enemy, and act out their rage against private property. Protesters of that persuasion have made their unwelcome presence felt at every significant anti-globalist event since the much-romanticized 1999 "Battle in Seattle." When they destroy private property and imperil innocent people, such protesters are criminals, not activists, and should be dealt with accordingly.


However, in recent years the prevailing "security" model treats the act of public protest itself as an assault on public order. That model embraces the use of "non-violent" means of crowd control -- such as the use of pepper spray, tasers, clubs, bean-bag rounds, and "rubber bullets" -- and the mass arrest of anyone found in a targeted area, whether or not any particular detainee was actually involved in a protest.


An independent journalist covering a Labor Day demonstration in St. Paul that coincided with the beginning of the Republican National Convention captured a striking example of this tactic: Militarized riot police detained nearly 300 people, without probable cause of any kind, who were sitting peacefully in a public park. In carrying out these arrests, the police were provided with on-site support by the National Guard. The reporter had to bury the video record of this event in order to prevent its confiscation by the police.


As I've commented before, the recently concluded national nominating conventions by the two retail outlets for the Ruling Party served as a coming-out party for the Homeland Security State's enforcement apparatus. It was also a foretaste of what we can expect to see as the economic collapse accelerates, if public resistance solidifies.


The Strategic Modernization document makes it plain that the ground-based military will be fighting among targeted populations, with "commanders employing offensive, defensive and stability or civil support operations simultaneously." This is the kind of hybrid mission we've seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia, in which soldiers are also required to behave as beat cops.


Boba Fett meets Halo? No -- it's one military contractor's vision of the U.S. Army's "Future Force Warrior."




In its new strategy, the Pentagon envisions the deployment of a new generation of soldier, a "Future Force Warrior" digitally interconnected not only with his command base and fellow troops, but also with a large and sophisticated array of remote, unmanned weapons, both aerial and ground-based. He would have access to intelligence provided by both aircraft and satellites.



Through the use of such "force-multiplying" technology, the military would be able to deploy small brigade combat teams (remember that term -- "brigade combat team") to carry out challenging missions within a targeted population.


Granted, the technology behind this vision isn't yet widely available. But elements of this approach have already been used domestically, this year, for the purpose of enforcing "public order."

(Continues after the jump.)















Support your local paramilitary bullies: This commemorative T-shirt, featuring a caricature of an abusive cop, was not produced by an anti-police group. It was created by the Denver police union, which gave one to each member of the Denver PD and expects to sell 2,000 more at $10 a copy. When the police -- who in this case were backed up by the military -- actually celebrate the abuse of civilians, it's time to admit that the government is at war with the American public. (Thanks to StrikeTheRoot.)



During the recent Democratic National Convention, a specialized National Guard unit of 1,700 troops, "Joint Task Force-DNC" (JTF-DNC) was deployed in Denver. Ostensibly there for the exclusive purpose of backstopping "civilian" law enforcement in the event of a terrorist event, JTF-DNC also provided "information such as satellite imagery to assist law-enforcement authorities, the Colorado Department of Transportation and the U.S. Secret Service," boasted an all-but-buried press release.


"About 40 Guard Soldiers assigned to the 1st Space Brigade's 117th Space Battallion have been preparing for the convention by monitoring computer images, uploading data and reviewing map printouts," continued the account.


These Guard troops weren't there merely to stand sentinel against terrorist attacks. JTF-DNC was sent to Denver following following several months of specialized training, including weeks of practice in riot gear at a MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) at Fort Carson.


"If there are [violent] demonstrations, these National Guard Soldiers will have to protect people and business from protests that could get out of hand," explained Lt. Col. Don Laucirica.



There were no "violent" protests in Denver. Yet the National Guard JTF-DNC was there, along with its array of cutting-edge weaponry and intelligence-gathering assets, to provide defense in depth to a contingent of militarized police.



The same configuration was on display a few weeks later at St. Paul, where the Secret Service and local law enforcement agencies liaised with the National Guard's JTF-RNC. Some 150 soldiers were deployed in St. Paul on the first day of the convention when the local police complained that protesters were becoming "increasingly aggressive."


That was the day, recall, when 284 people were arrested for the supposed crime of "aggressively" enjoying a late summer day without harming anyone.


"Our main mission is to support law enforcement," explained 1st Lt. T. Zdon, an armor officer with the Minnesota National Guard. "Soldiers in their uniform and gear provide a strong presence, or show of force, for local law enforcement, if they need us."


Spc. Ben Doran, an infantryman with the same unit, elaborated that the Guardsmen were there to use "shields and batons to keep crowds back. We want to use the minimum amount of force necessary to complete the mission."


"The mission." That's the language of a military occupier, not a peace officer in a free society.

**



**


In his video-recorded remarks to troops before the convention, Brig. Gen. Joseph Kelly, commander of JTF-RNC, pointed out that the task force was composed of members of the U.S. military from all branches of the service, including some who had been brought back to the "homeland" from overseas. "Our primary mission," he told the troops, "is to conduct military operations in support of civil authorities.... [W]e are working for the law-enforcement organizations responsible for the security of the convention."


While the Secret Service was the lead agency, and local police exercised operational control, some Soldiers would be expected to carry out routine security duties "to free up police officers for higher-level law enforcement tasks."


"As during any other operation, you must take care of yourself, each other, and your equipment. Please, be safe," intoned Kelly, as if preparing his troops for D-Day rather than an operation on their home soil in which they would confront unarmed fellow citizens.


**


**

In his post-convention message congratulating his troops, Gen. Kelly strained to extract drama and heroism from a "mission" that was little more than an exercise in adolescent posturing and gratuitous bullying.

**



**


"There were some long, hard days," Kelly warbled, as if his subject were the Siege of Stalingrad, rather than a four-day deployment in the warm, placid, and comfortable setting of St. Paul, Minnesota. "Monday, September 1 -- Labor Day -- was a day of special challenge, and you all met that demand with skill, determination, professionalism, and in some cases, personal courage."


Once again, Gen. Kelly is referring to the episode referred to previously, in which police and Guardsmen surrounded and incarcerated hundreds of people who had done nothing, and who put up no resistance. Kelly's account makes me suspect that at least some of the Soldiers who participated in that event will be receiving service commendations.

**




**


Some might contend that the role played by the Guard JTFs in Denver and St. Paul were exceptional, given that the conventions were "National Special Security Events." But this is to concede the fact that it is now routine for nominating conventions and similar events to take place amid an atmosphere of martial law.


Furthermore, the behavior of Guard JTFs at the conventions underscores the real significance of the permanent Homeland Security response unit that will begin operations this Wednesday (October 1).

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, which has spent three of the last five "in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle," has been "training for the same mission — with a twist — at home," reported the Army Times. Remember -- the Pentagon's new Modernization Strategy emphasizes the role of brigade combat teams (or BCTs) in deployments among targeted populations. In the case of the 3ID 1BCT, the new mission for the next year will be serving under the US Army North as an "on-call federal response force" to deal with contingencies ranging from natural disasters to terrorism to ... widescale civilian rebellion.

No, the third contingency is not explicitly stated. In fact, the official posture of the Army is that the "response force" would be devoted entirely to dealing with contingencies beyond the competence of local law enforcement -- natural catastrophes or unconventional weapons attacks.

Patti Bielling, Chief of Media Operations for the US Army North, informed Pro Libertate that the force would be on call to deal with "a catastrophic incident and in support of a civilian agency. Posse Comitatus applies [meaning that the military personnel would not be directly involved in law enforcement]. The role of federal DOD forces in a civil support mission is to save lives, reduce human suffering and mitigate great property damage. Likely ... missions would be air evacuation, medical response, decontamination, logistics support, and transportation."

However, the commander of the unit has a very different perception of the mission.

As noted by the Army Times, "the 1BCT'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. `It's a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they're fielding. They've been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we're undertaking we were the first to get it.' The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets."

None of this has any necessary connection to post-WMD incident response. All of it would come in quite handy in dealing with civil unrest. When I pointed this out to Capt. Carla Gleason, a very earnest, helpful, and professional information officer for Northern Command's Joint Task Force-Civil Support, she noted that the training and non-lethal hardware being provided to this unit will be used in Iraq, once the 1 BCT's domestic deployment ends and they're rotated overseas once again.

Here's why no solace can be found in that explanation: The skills and hardware in question can, and most likely will, be employed both in Iraq and here at home, as the National Command Authority sees fit. They can be used to subdue unruly Iraqis who display their lack of "gratitude" for the occupation of their country, or unruly Americans who object to the destruction of their economic future in order to preserve the perquisites of the Power Elite.

It is impossible to maintain a republic at home while supporting an empire abroad. Imperial commitments abroad inevitably mean the corruption of the currency, the destruction of the rule of law, the liquidation of the middle class, and a descent into national bankruptcy, undisguised oligarchical rule, and the imposition of some variety of martial law.

We are likely to learn, very soon, in very painful ways, we enjoy no happy immunity to the consequences of the policies we have permitted our rulers to impose on us.

*This paragraph was revised from the original version, which was written before Congress rejected the Wall Street Swindle Enabling Act.

Here's how it read originally: "With the consummation of the Mother of All Swindles, achieved in the teeth of nearly uniform public opposition, the Regime ruling us has realized what may be the Platonic ideal of plutocratic corruption. The Army's strategic preview seems to have anticipated this development, given its astonishing candor in expressing the ethics of the Robber State."

On sale now!










Dum spiro, pugno!