USA preparing for civil unrest?

It seems that the U.S. government seems to think there is some impending calamity ahead, as it will be deploying the army on home soil for the first time.

What problem does the government foresee? Who knows, but if they’re making it public by putting this info on the internet then it’s obviously not that secret. But too secret to tell you outright, it seems. Yes, you’ll have to guess on this one.

Here’s quoted text from an article entitled ‘US Army unit deployed to home front’ found at :
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/25/us_army_bct_home_deployment/ :

A US army brigade combat unit will be deployed at home for the first time, the Army Times reports.

The 1st BCT (Brigade Combat Team), numbering about 650 personnel, has returned from Iraq. But rather than dealing with enemy combatants, it may be called to deal with unruly Americans.

The Team “may be called upon to help 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.”

The Posse Comitatus Act forbids the use of the US military at home. So the task of dealing with domestic “emergencies” has been the role of the National Guard, for whom there is an exemption. But the demarcation has blurred in recent years, with the National Guard called up to bolster the military occupation of Iraq.

[CBRNE = Chemical, Biological, Radiological/Nuclear, and Explosive Incidents.]

Here’s quoted text from the Army Times post at :
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/ :

Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1

3rd Infantry’s 1st BCT trains for a new dwell-time mission. Helping ‘people at home’ may become a permanent part of the active Army.

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.

After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one.

“Right now, the response force requirement will be an enduring mission. How the [Defense Department] chooses to source that and whether or not they continue to assign them to NorthCom, that could change in the future,” said Army Col. Louis Vogler, chief of NorthCom future operations. “Now, the plan is to assign a force every year.”

They may be called upon to help 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.

Training for homeland scenarios has already begun at Fort Stewart and includes specialty tasks such as knowing how to use the “jaws of life” to extract a person from a mangled vehicle; extra medical training for a CBRNE incident; and working with U.S. Forestry Service experts on how to go in with chainsaws and cut and clear trees to clear a road or area.

The 1st BCT’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.

“I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” said Cloutier, describing the experience as “your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body.

“I’m not a small guy, I weigh 230 pounds … it put me on my knees in seconds.”

So, what problem exactly does the government foresee? Who knows?

But this time, barring the ghost of Saddam Hussein rising up, I think we can safely rule out that threat.

And we may probably also rule out Osama bin Laden, as he possibly died around the time of the Tora Bora bombings of December 2001, if these reports are anything to go by, and numerous other sources, although it is hard to authenticate any of them:

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/osama_dead.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41576,00.html
http://www.welfarestate.com/binladen/funeral/

So who exactly is the bogeyman now? The USA’s own citizens?

As of September 26, 2008 — The United States government’s national threat level is Elevated, or Yellow. They have the following info:

“There is no credible, specific intelligence suggesting an imminent threat to the homeland at this time.”

See:
http://www.dhs.gov/xinfoshare/programs/Copy_of_press_release_0046.shtm

After years of lax financial regulatory control, lending vast sums of money to the very people least likely to be able to pay it back, especially during times of increasing fuel and food prices, and with banks dropping like flies, perhaps US.gov are concerned about a run on the banks, as confidence in the banking system collapses.

Or, heaven forbid, is it just an elaborate hoax, intended to help force through the $700 billion bail-out of the bankers’ past insanities — i.e. the sub-prime problem?

Also, the timing is interesting: approximately 6 weeks before the election on November 4th 2008.

You’ll have to make your own guesses as to what’s going on.

Finally, see this interesting video, entitled ‘Money as Debt’ :
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=money+as+debt&emb=0&aq=f#

This is the text accompanying the video, as placed by the submitter:

Paul Grignon’s 47-minute animated presentation of “Money as Debt” tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created. It is an entertaining way to get the message out. The Cowichan Citizens Coalition and its “Duncan Initiative” received high praise from those who previewed it. I recommend it as a painless but hard-hitting educational tool and encourage the widest distribution and use by all groups concerned with the present unsustainable monetary system in Canada and the United States.

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9 Comments

  1. THEY ARE PREPARING FOR THE ELECTION, AND THE “PEOPLE” WHO FIGURE WE ALL GET FREE TV’S IF WE SMASH A STOREFRONT. OBAMA, WIN OR LOSE, THE BLACKS ARE GONNA GO CRAZY!

  2. Hi Matt, yes I think you are right: this stuff is probably related to the upcoming election. With the Obama lead in the opinion polls, if he loses, there will be a lot of angry people suspecting tampering with the results, and if he wins there will be euphoria and likely mayhem as people celebrate.

    Let’s hope that these peacekeepers don’t have the effect of intimidating voters in the areas where they are being deployed 😉

    I copied a few links from your myspace page — at least I assume it’s yours — hope you don’t mind:

    http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/police-prepare-for-unrest-2008-10-21.html

    http://calvininjax.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/police-plan-for-civil-unrest-no-matter-who-wins-the-presidential-election/

    http://suzieqq.wordpress.com/2008/10/25/militarization-of-the-american-homeland-suppression-of-civil-disturbances/

    http://streetknowledge.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/police-prepare-for-civil-unrest-on-election-day/

    Today, 27th October 2008, according to the Gallup poll, Obama leads McCain by 51% to 42%. See US Election polltracker:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/7360265.stm

  3. Oh, but if this deployment was purely for the 2008 election, then why would it need to be permanent? It appears to be for much more than just the election:

    “Right now, the response force requirement will be an enduring mission. How the [Defense Department] chooses to source that and whether or not they continue to assign them to NorthCom, that could change in the future,” said Army Col. Louis Vogler, chief of NorthCom future operations. “Now, the plan is to assign a force every year.”

    They may be called upon to help 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.

    See: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/

    Also, the election has finished now, Obama has won decisively and, to my knowledge, and without having done any comprehensive search, I have heard nothing about any rioting / civil unrest.

  4. I reckon if the military keeps growing as fast as the prison industry in about 200 hundred years 5% of the population will work for the military and 95% will be in prison. hmmm. Sounds like Warsaw in the 1940s.

  5. Well, based on the large increases in unemployment in the U.S. due to the financial crisis, I expect a lot of this has to do with the fear of civil unrest from the unemployed rising up, and thus the need to keep things under control. Also, when people are losing their jobs in large numbers and they see bankers still getting large bonuses, they could perhaps feel more than a little annoyed.

  6. Under Bush & Lord Cheney, who knows what kinds of civil unrest they may have had in mind when assigning this brigade. But legitimate concerns of dealing with a CBRNE terrorist attack or some natural disasters (including some pandemic scenarios) will probably be enough to keep the mission permanent even under Obama.

    Note that it’s hardly a large enough unit to even begin to deal with massive unrest across the nation. It wouldn’t help much for dealing with Matt’s dark paranoias of “blacks going crazy” whether Obama had won or lost. (I’d hate to live in Matt’s mind full time, there must be a lot of other fears there too). Nor for suppressing masses of “patriots” who imagine having a gun in the house means they can keep the government from becoming oppressive. For those things it would take a large distributed force which would take a long time to mobilize. This particular brigade is for quick deployment for spot application in one place. Like a nuke, or hurricane, for example. And those tasks can also include elements of crowd control, roadblocks, etc.

    I will be more concerned if there are at some point plans for massive mobilization of the military against distributed civilian targets. And that would have especially concerned me under Lord Cheney.

    Zeph

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