Homeland Defense: The Pentagon Declares War On America

State Terrorism directed against the American People and Democracy Itself By Frank Morales

Global Research, May 17, 2013

Global Editor’s Note

The Department of Defense now authorizes the domestic deployment of US troops  in “the conduct of operations other than war”  including law enforcement activities and the quelling of “civil disturbances”: “Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances…“

These developments –which are currently the object of heated debate– are the result of  more than ten years of “repressive legislation” which increasingly points to the “fusion of the police and military functions both within the US and abroad”.

In a path breaking article published by Global Research in 2003,  award winning author Frank Morales shows how the post 911 “Patriot Act” which he describes as a “repressive coordination” had set the stage for the militarization of America, namely “a form of state terrorism directed against the American people and democracy itself.”

We bring to the attention of our readers this path-breaking analysis

Michel Chossudovsky, May 17, 2013

The “PATRIOT Act” is a repressive “coordination” of the entities of force and deception, the police, intelligence and the military. It broadens, centralizes and combines the surveillance, arrest and harassment capabilities of the police and intelligence apparatus. Homeland defense is, in essence, a form of state terrorism directed against the American people and democracy itself. It is the Pentagon Inc. declaring war on America.

The “domestic war on terrorism” hinges upon the Pentagon’s doctrine of homeland defense. Mountains of repressive legislation are being enacted in the name of internal security. So called “homeland security”, originally set within the Pentagon’s “operations other than war”, is actually a case in which the Pentagon has declared war on America. Shaping up as the new battleground, this proliferating military “doctrine” seeks to justify new roles and missions for the Pentagon within America. Vast “legal” authority and funds to spy on the dissenting public, reconfigured as terrorist threats, is being lavished upon the defense, intelligence and law enforcement “community.”

All this is taking place amidst an increasingly perfected “fusion” of the police and military functions both within the US and abroad, where the phenomena is referred to as “peacekeeping”, or the “policization of the military”. Here in America, all distinction between the military and police functions is about to be forever expunged with the looming repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act. The latter, was passed after the Civil War to rein in the military. It bars federal troops from doing police work within United States borders, although strictly speaking, the Act refers only to the Army and the Air Force, not to the Marines or the National Guard in “state status.” According to the New York Times:

“the Bush administration has directed lawyers in the Department of Justice and Defense to review the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and any other laws that sharply restrict the military’s ability to participate in domestic law enforcement.”

The Washington Post (7/21/02) put it a bit more starkly, stating that the Bush administration:

“has called on Congress to thoroughly review the law that bans the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines from participating in arrests, searches, seizure of evidence and other police-type activity on US soil.”

In other words, the “New World Law and Order” based on the repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act, requires a system of domestic and global counterinsurgency led by the Pentagon.

The first requirement of this counterinsurgency, which is directed at all forms of social dissent is the “collection”, “retention” and “dissemination” of information, information on anyone who resists, whether through violent means or otherwise. Recall, that the protests in Seattle and numerous other cities in recent years were more often than not classified within official DoD and FEMA documents as “terrorist events”. The objective is to centralize all intelligence gathering under one roof, the Department of Homeland Security and to widely cast the net over all of us, making certain that we all fall in line with the Pentagon Inc. agenda.

To this end the myriad modes of intelligence gathering or “collection” have been beefed up: From CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) to Carnivore (e-mail spying), from the NSA’s Echelon (global listening device), to spy satellite imagery, from FBI “roving wiretaps”, to CIA access to grand juries and secret FISA “foreign intelligence” courts, the means, legal sanctions and technology of social control proliferate, are sanctioned, are demanded by a paranoid public. Homeland security requires manufactured insecurity. A bit of anthrax to keep em on their toes and minding their p’s and q’s…

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