Our Coming National Nightmare

[Wiley50]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/8045

by Timothy Gatto | Jun 11 2007 - 1:26pm

Like I said, these two documents together, under the light of day, bear some close scrutiny. Besides these, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 thrown into the mix makes for one scary scenario. Consider this;
A hurricane, Category 5, hits Tampa Florida, the result is a massive tidal surge into the harbor, and the death toll runs into the thousands. The National Guard is called out to stop looting and to protect people and property. The President, under his new “authority” calls up the Florida National Guard and gives them law enforcement powers. The storm, still churning, hits Jacksonville and heads towards the Atlantic, The Florida National Guard is stretched so thin that they can’t possibly handle the two cities that have been blindsided by this catastrophe.

Meanwhile the storm in the Atlantic reforms and heads towards Virginia as a category three and gaining strength, it veers into Washington DC and Maryland as a Category 4. Bush nationalizes the Maryland, DC and Virginia National Guard. There is looting in the Capitol, The President now declares Martial Law throughout the country. Congress is suspended, the Supreme Court is on hiatus, and we have a sitting dictator in the White House.

The people now start to react, and Bush calls out the National Guard in the contiguous 48 States, cancels the 2008 elections and declares a “State of Emergency”. The military now open sub-stations within every city and start to issue National ID Cards that all citizens must carry because we are on a threat level RED, called by the Director of Homeland Defense to a real or imagined crisis. The next thing that happens is that an explosion occurs at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant and the President blames it on “Islamic Fundamentalists”. We now have a military dictatorship headed by the Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush.

Will it happen? I don’t know. Can it happen? In a word yes, it can. If Bush were to do something such as this he would be perfectly within his rights as the “decider”. It wouldn’t be a joke anymore. No citizen would be afforded the writ of Habeas Corpus. Anyone could be detained indefinitely for just about any reason. This is where we stand today.

[mediawatch]

1. I'm still waiting for the draft of march 2005

Can't get to this yet

[KharmaTrain]

2. Would An American Soldier Shoot An American Citizen??

One of the worst gambles the "coup plotters" in the former USSR bet on was calling in the military to solve their problems. Instead of firing on the protestors, units joined in. The same was also the early case in China...Deng had to call for troops from the far reaches of the country...mostly rural...who did the dirty work.

With the military pushed to the breaking point, is there the will to go after their own citizens? I think if it got to that point, we'd have the guns trained on the White House, not the other way around.

[paparush]

3. Google "Kent State"

Question answered.

[KharmaTrain]

5. Sorry...Try Again...

We're talking thousands of troops occupying major cities...regular army troops, not national guardsmen.

[Gabi Hayes]

7. WADR the OP does say National Guard. with that,

I think the regular army is MORE likely to shoot civilians than National Guard troops, who, unless the disaster is humongous, will be sent to their own states

besides which, don't you think ANYthing is possible with this junta?

don't you think they've exceeded even the WILDEST, most pessimistic expectations?

I knew it was going to be BAD, but I didn't realize how panoramic their vision was/is, how widespread their destruction of almost all government infrastructure has been, in every agency that's been publicized (god knows what hasn't been uncovered yet)

while this is obviously wild speculation, the fact is that the decree DOES exist, and I have no doubt that, given the right circumstances, they won't HESITATE to implement it

[KharmaTrain]

11. I Don't Put Anything Past This Regime

Gabi...I know this regime will supercede not just the Constitution but any sense of humanity in their actions. I could see booshie using his unity powers (more like cheney) and order troops to shoot on Americans. Yes...I had the worst expectations and they were shattered beyond belief.

My point is even if they tried to pull this...what kind of military he had to work with. It's the same destruction of the infrastructure that I feel will be their undoing.

[Gabi Hayes]

14. unfortunately, the only undoing will be that which is undone by time, as in

eighteen months, or so

they'll stonewall as long as it takes, the courts and M$M avidly abetting their every move

history, if it's ever written honestly, will record this as the darkest era of US history, worse than slavery, worse than the civil war

mercy upon us if another Fascist Party operative steals yet another election, because, as bad as our Dem choices are, they will be nothing to a Giuliani or Thompson. One a vicious authoriarian in his own right, the other a lazy cretin, somewhere between Bush and Reagan, who only exists to act out a role provided him, who will only gladly be the gilding on their corporate/fascist lily. funereal flower, indeed

I have my passport sitting about ten feet away.....

[shadowknows69]

10. So multiply Kent State by a relevant number

"400 dead in Ohio"

Maybe Neil Young will live long enough to write that one. I'm sure he hopes not.

[KharmaTrain]

12. Now Let's Keep Going Here...

Say the plan would be to occupy the Top 100 cities...each would require 10,000 troops to take control from civil authorities. We're talking a lot of troops...and in many cases with few or little supplies on the ground, since so much is already in Iraq. I just can't see those numbers happening...and that American soldiers would willingly shoot at American citizens (not just college kids, but their neighbors or own family) in the name of the boooshie cabal.

[shadowknows69]

15. Cue Blackwater

Bushies own army for hire. I'm sure the Military Commissions Act allows for him to hire Mercs. if "deemed necessary for national security"

[KharmaTrain]

16. EvenThey're Short-handed

I get your point and I'm not sure how the Posse Comitatus act covers "outsourcing".

Now how many Freepers would take $100G tax free to shoot another American? Just wonderin'

Cheers...

:hi:

[shadowknows69]

18. I suspect plenty

And don't forget the potential for a "Hitler Youth" movement. They'd be recruiting at every high school football field in the country.


edit: Yes, that was a bad stereotype of our young football players. Apologies.

[paparush]

27. The question was - Would soldiers shoot American citizens?

History proves that they have.

[mitchum]

23. Well, that would be the regular army troops under the command of MacArthur...

and Patton who fired upon the Bonus Marchers.
Edit to add: And of course, the commander in chief was that great republican Herbert Hoover

[haele]

24. Actually, I think it would be a mercenary/HSA (Homeland Security) mix in the cities

The regular army is stretched thin - and is otherwise occupied. I'm hearing all sorts of job opportunity ads for Homeland Security umbrella organizations like Border Patrol/ICE and training facilities that send out security people to ATF, DEA, Federal Corrections, and other federal alphabet soup policing agencies.

There's nothing in any of the HSA organizations that limit the security personnel to just one job or one agency; they're supposed to be able to backfill and support as required. So, in case of "national emergency", the feds can pretty easily transfer federal security employees to take on jobs that would otherwise be National Guard. And we now know that Mercenary companies like Blackwater and Dyncorp already have served as fill-in for National Guard security personnel in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the Katrina aftermath.

The trick to getting security forces that would not be sympathetic to locals is to ship in forces from out of state - where a local National Guard troop might have problems with enforcing Martial Law on their neighbors with round-ups and summary shooting of "law-breakers", a force from the other side of the country wouldn't have any problems at all - the locals are now "the other" and it's just a job they're doing.

And we see how well that's working in foreign countries.

Haele

[shadowknows69]

8. Many of the guys we've been letting in lately

Had no problem shooting american citizens before they joined. Gang members, violent felons, people who wouldn't pass a psych evaluation for a night watchman job. A lot of these guys really like to kill now.

[Selatius]

9. I think you answered your own question. Just reference what Deng did in 1989.

He would do this gambling that countryside soldiers have less empathy towards people in the city than soldiers who grew up in the cities. This is what Deng did.

[marions ghost]

13. do we really have citizen solidarity anymore?

When you have people downtrodden and fearful, some will side with whatever entity they perceive as the strongest. After what we've seen with Iraq, I think many could go with "protecting" the govt against the "insurgents." I'm not sure this would be so easy to predict.

[corkhead]

19. He'll outsource that, it will be troops from the "third world"

[warren pease]

21. They've had no trouble shooting US citizens in the past...

Many times when there was a strike to be broken or a local insurrection by the "real" Americans -- the indigenous peoples and tribes -- to be stamped out, federal troops were called in to destroy the opposition by any means necessary, including state-sanctioned killing. See the National Railroad Strike of 1877, the Ludlow Massacre, the Pullman Strike and the Haymarket Riots for examples and details.

And all but the 1877 railroad strike occurred after posse comitatus was adopted in 1878 to prohibit exactly that kind of abuse of military power. Also see the surrender of Chief Joseph and the slaughter at Wounded Knee to properly gauge the government's respect for indigenous tribal societies.

Now, given the level of military opposition to the Iraq occupation (which doesn't necessarily translate to opposition to BushCo itself, or to the morality of war itself, but rather to this particular war), it's possible that US troops wouldn't attack civilian protesters. However, if the protest went a bit beyond the usual peaceful march and involved violent confrontations with military or cops and/or destruction of property, out comes the tear gas, then the rubber bullets and, if the crowd still hasn't dispersed, live ammo.

Unless troops suddenly turn from gung-ho killers to Constitutionalists rabid about supporting the 22nd Amendment, I don't see how this situation is any different from the numerous instances throughout US history in which the military has been used against the citizenry.

Add to that the fact that a high percentage of them will return with post-traumatic stress disorder, will have been trained solely as efficient killing machines rather than as thinking, caring citizens, will have spent most waking hours in mortal fear for their lives, will have seen horrors and atrocities we just can't comprehend -- and the trigger finger gets a little itchier.

And this is particularly true when their commanding officers tell them they're going up against people who didn't support them, wanted them to fail, didn't care if they got killed or maimed, and were happy to see them vent their anger thousands of miles away. The standard way to dehumanize the enemy. Given all that, do you really think a fair percentage of these military personnel would have much difficulty putting a bullet through your skull? I doubt it. Aim, squeeze, fire, and move on to the next target. Heart rate never getting much above 80.


wp

[Greyhound]

26. Beat me to it, thanks and...

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[SoonerPride]

4. Simpler route

Cheney has Bush assassinated. Blames "terrists"

Declare emergency.

Suspend Congess.

The First Empire of the Republic is born.

All hail emporor Cheney.

[coco77]

6. It's time for them to go!

[lpbk2713]

17. Definitely a nightmare as far as I'm concerned.

We're talking about that bad boy going right over my house.


The three that went right over us in 2004 in six weeks time are still fresh in my mind. And they say 2007 might be an above average season.

[CrispyQ]

20. About three months ago my husband starting saying

"These guys aren't going anywhere. They didn't work to get all this power just to hand it over to someone else." He doesn't think there will be elections in '08. I scoffed then & I'm still not convinced. But, recently I've read that same comment on liberal boards like DU & Common Dreams more & more. It may be tin foil, but people are concerned what the cabal is going to do. People like them do not just walk away from power.

[Melynn]

22. Don't need no hurricane to declare martial law

Just look at what is happening in the UK today. That will be enough for Bush to declare martial law.

[shadowknows69]

25. Sure would

he could lock down every city in the nation, or at least the big ones, on the premise that we need to search for potential devices. See the movie "The Seige" for a prescient view of this.

[dkofos]

28. Next years plot for 24

[The Cleaner]

29. One problem -

DC wouldn't get hit by a hurricane. It's too far inland. By the time it would reach DC it would be about 50-60mph winds at worst.