Army deploys Troops for coming Civil Insurrection

FORGET 9/11 - THIS IS BIGGER The new mission for the US military: Dealing with civil unrest and crowd control in the US. A battle-hardened infantry unit is already trained and ready to go. They hit the ground last October. For the first time ever, the US military is deploying an active duty regular Army combat unit for full-time use inside the United States to deal with emergencies, including potential civil unrest. Beginning 1 October, the First Brigade Combat Team of the Third Division will be placed under the command of US Army North, the Armys component of the Pentagons Northern Command (NorthCom), which was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks with the stated mission of defending the US homeland and aiding federal, state and local authorities. The unit—known as the Raiders—is among the Armys most blooded. An article that appeared earlier this month in the Army Times (Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1), a publication that is widely read within the military, paints a very ominous picture. They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control, the paper reports. It quotes the units commander, Col. Robert Cloutier, as saying that the 1st BCTs soldiers are being trained in the use of the first ever nonlethal package the Army has fielded. The weapons, the paper reported, are designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them. The colonels remark suggests that, in preparation for their homefront duties, rank-and-file troops are also being routinely Tasered. The brutalising effect and intent of such a macabre training exercise is to inure troops against sympathy for the pain and suffering they may be called upon to inflict on the civilian population using these same non-lethal weapons. Col. Lou Volger, NorthComs chief of future operations, tried to downplay any enforcement role, but acknowledged the obvious, that the Brigade Combat Team is a military force, while attempting to dismiss the likelihood that it would play any military role. It has forces for security, he said, but thats really—they call them security forces, but thats really just to establish our own footprint and make sure that we can operate and run our own bases. Lt. Col. James Shores, another NorthCom officer, chimed in, Lets say even if there was a scenario that developed into a branch of a civil disturbance—even at that point it would take a presidential directive to even get it close to anything that youre suggesting. Whatever is required to trigger such an intervention, clearly Col. Cloutier and his troops are preparing for it with their hands-on training in the use of non-lethal means of repression. The extreme sensitivity of the military brass on this issue notwithstanding, the reality is that the intervention of the military in domestic affairs has grown sharply over the last period under conditions in which its involvement in two colonial-style wars abroad has given it a far more prominent role in American political life. The Bush administration has worked to tear down any barriers to the use of the military in domestic repression. Thus, in the 2007 Pentagon spending bill it inserted a measure to amend the Posse Comitatus Act to clear the way for the domestic deployment of the military in the event of natural disaster, terrorist attack or other conditions in which the president determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order. The provision granted the president sweeping new powers to impose martial law by declaring a public emergency for virtually any reason, allowing him to deploy troops anywhere in the US and to take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of state governors in order to suppress public disorder. The provision was subsequently repealed by Congress as part of the 2008 military appropriations legislation, but the intent remains. Given the sweeping powers claimed by the White House in the name of the commander in chief in a global war on terror—powers to suspend habeas corpus, carry out wholesale domestic spying and conduct torture—there is no reason to believe it would respect legal restrictions against the use of military force at home. It is noteworthy that the deployment of US combat troops as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters—in the words of the Army Times—coincides with the eruption of the greatest economic emergency and financial disaster since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Justified as a response to terrorist threats, the real source of the growing preparations for the use of US military force within America and the domestic mobilisation of the armed forces is a response by the US ruling establishment to the growing threat to political stability. Under conditions of deepening economic crisis, the unprecedented social chasm separating the countrys working people from the obscenely wealthy financial elite becomes unsustainable within the existing political framework. http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/598.html