Towards Martial Law in America:
Authority to Deploy Troops Domestically
during 'National Emergencies'
by James Corbett
PREFACE
As we have said over and over again on the pages of
this website, as the pace of economic globalization accelerates,
the world is being inexorably divided between a small
elite of wealthy "worthies" and a huge population
of indigent "worker-serfs" - and it is important
to note here that the division of the earth's population
in this fashion is occurring not only in the so-called
"Developing World," but in the so-called "Developed
World" as well. [Please see our article, "The
Third World as a Model for the New World Order."]
OBVIOUSLY, UNDER THE IMPRESS
OF THIS KIND OF MALIGNANT DYNAMIC, DEMOCRACY IS NOT WORKABLE.
Why? - Because in societies where people are ground into
the dirt by the crush of the powerful, those responsible
cannot then expect those they have beaten down to endorse
what they have done through the so-called "democratic
process." In other words, when the elites force average
citizens into various states of poverty, they cannot then
expect these workers to endorse this kind of brutality
through the ballot box. Democracy - REAL democracy - is
not something the elites would want to endorse in this
kind of situation.
Given this reality, the American elites continue to
prepare for the inevitable: Specifically, the time when
democracy in any meaningful form becomes impossible –
and this dynamic continues even under the Obama presidency.
It's not that Obama himself endorses this dynamic
– as many Christians erroneously believe - but the inertia
behind this dynamic is by now so great that it's impossible
for anyone to stop, much like the Social Democrats (SPD)
found it impossible to halt the same malignant dynamic
that plunged Germany into the nightmare of the Nazi state,
even while continuing to hold onto the chancellorship. |
__________________________________
Earlier this month, the United States Coast Guard upheld its
self-declared status as a 'special' branch of the military with
the ability to prosecute civilians in military tribunals. This
startling declaration, unreported in the media, came in a Decision
on Appeal related to the case of Lieutenant Eric Shine, a commissioned
Naval officer in the Merchant Marines and a graduate of Kings
Point Military Service Academy, and was penned by the Vice Commandant
of the Coast Guard.
 |
| Lt.
Eric Shine |
NOTE: Lt.
Eric Shine, is a graduate of the United States Merchant
Marine Academy at Kings Point in New York. Lt. Shine's career
was broadsided when he was forced to confront a broad series
of federal contracting scams and violations; including graft,
collusion, corruption, waste, fraud, abuse and gross mismanagement
in some enormous Federal Contracts and Programs involving
billions of dollars. He "blew the whistle" on these shenanigans.
In direct response and retaliation the newly created Department
of Homeland Security through use of the U.S. Coast Guard
as a new "Branch of the Military" filed an Executive
branch Article II counter-complaint and literally pulled
Lt. Eric Shine out of civil court into a Military Tribunal,
detaining him in a miasma of legal mumbo-jumbo proceedings
for the last 5 years in order to stifle him to cover up
the magnitude of the corruptions and the high-ranking levels
of those involved. |
The Coast Guard began proceedings to strip Lieutenant Shine
of his merchant mariner license in March, 2003, supposedly as
the result of incidents related to his service on two private
vessels in 2001. In actuality, as Lieutenant Shine points
out, the charges were brought in retaliation for attempting
to blow the whistle on illegal dumping and other practices he
had been asked to engage in during his employment. The Coast
Guard's case against him rested on two hostile witnesses (who
had previously been named by Shine in his whistleblower litigation)
and the Chief of the Coast Guard Medical Evaluations Office,
an officer in the Coast Guard who had never examined Shine but
was willing to testify to his medical incompetence.
The precedent-setting nature of Lieutenant Shine's case-with
the Coast Guard prosecuting him as a civilian in an Article
32 military tribunal-is disturbing enough. But when this
case is set in the history and context of the Coast Guard and
its repeated attempts at "crossing the Rubicon,"
an even more disturbing picture emerges.
In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar led the Roman Legion across the Rubicon
and into Rome itself, defying the Roman Senate and soon thereafter
declaring himself Emperor for life. This was the beginning of
the changeover from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire and
the phrase "Crossing the Rubicon" is now used
to refer to a move by government toward military dictatorship
and the suspension of civil liberties.
Unbeknownst to most Americans, the United States Coast Guard
has been attempting to 'cross the Rubicon' for decades,
and actually achieved that goal in a silent coup in 2003
when it was moved from the Department of Transportation into
the newly-created Department of Homeland Security. This change
was not merely bureaucratic; it allows the Coast Guard to now
openly declare itself "one of the five armed forces of
the United States and the only military organization within
the Department of Homeland Security."
NOTE: As
a result of this act, the Coast Guard – acting in its
capacity as a military organization – can now be dispatched
in the United States against civil targets. This opens
the way for all the military services to be dispatched
in a similar fashion. |
 For those who understand how the United States military has
been set up, and the laws and prohibitions against military
personnel engaging in the policing of civilians, the fact that
the Coast Guard wants to act as a maritime police agency at
the same time as it declares itself a branch of the military
is a clear indication that the United States is now officially
under martial law.
In 1878, Congress passed a law known as Posse Comitatus
that prohibited the use of military personnel or assets in domestic
law enforcement. At the time, it was clear that the act was
an attempt to prohibit the military from policing civilians
on U.S. soil, as happened in the South under Reconstruction.
What has been taking place in earnest since 9/11, however, is
an attempt to erode the spirit and the substance of Posse
Comitatus so that the Executive branch can effectively 'cross
the Rubicon' and use military personnel in domestic policing
operations.
As the video below demonstrates, both Democratic and Republican
demonstrations have been attempting to overcome Posse Comitatus
for decades, and 9/11 was the blank cherub they needed to kick
their agenda into high gear:
On October 23, 2001, unconvicted war criminals John Yoo and
Robert J. Delahunty wrote to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales
giving the legal opinion that "The president has ample
constitutional and statutory authority to deploy the military
against international or foreign terrorists operating within
the United States." [For information on John Yoo, please
see our article, "The Left:
Seeking to Destroy the Right – Root and Branch."]
The Bush Administration then tried to use that very opinion
to justify sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo
to seize a group of men who were claimed to be working with
Al Qaeda. The decision was evidently
made not to pursue that course of action at that time, but the
legal opinion stood and the Administration waited for the opportunity
to formalize the legality of deploying troops on home soil.
 |
| The
Lackawanna Six |
NOTE: In the
winter of 2000 a group of young men from Lackawanna ( suburb
of Buffalo), New York - ALL American citizens - began
meeting in the evenings for religious instruction at their
place of worship. All of these men considered themselves
to be "sinners in need of redemption." Yasein
Taher, for example, had had a child out of wedlock; he drank,
he smoked and he had married a girl "outside the faith"
- all of which, he was told, were things that no one who
took his religion seriously should do! Shafel Mosed, Yahya
Goba, and Faysal Galeb were rowdies with sketchy employment
histories. The others had similar backgrounds. Their instructor
was Kamal Derwish, also an American citizen. All
these men were Muslims and the faith that they embraced
was Islam, a faith which - Derwish related to them - was
under attack by the West. This was something that most
of them were all too ready to believe as a result of the
intolerance of their "Christian" neighbors in
"upstate New York" - the kind of intolerance
that breeds religious bigots like Randall Terry.
As the meetings progressed, they became ever more
intense; many participants stopped coming as a result;
but a number - the most devout - remained: seven of them.
Derwish advised them that they should continue their education
at a "school" in Pakistan where they could "earn
their salvation." The training at the school would
last from six months to a year. Derwish described the
school as "exceptionally attractive" in a "land
of milk and honey, a green place with waterfalls."
In late April and early May of 2001, the seven students
from Lackawanna journeyed to Pakistan in search of "salvation."
But surprisingly, their journey didn't end there; they
were taken on to an al-Qaida training facility in Afghanistan
known as Al Farooq.
They were shocked by what they found there: It was,
in the words of one of the "Lackawanna Seven,"
"a nasty place out in the middle of the desert"
- and rather than religious training, they were to receive
training in jihad.
Six of them wanted to leave immediately, and within
days four of them bailed out and returned home. The other
two also wanted to leave, but they were told "one
more day, one more day." After two weeks they were
let go as well. All returned seriously chastened by their
experience and desperately wanting to return to their
everyday lives in Lackawanna.
But that was not to be; the FBI field office in Buffalo
received an anonymous tip that the men from Lackawanna
who had just returned from Pakistan had really attended
an al-Qaida training facility in Afghanistan. [Ah,
those "anonymous tips" from people whom you
think are your friends; people who want to ingratiate
themselves with the government; "false friends"
who don't want to step out of the shadows to identify
themselves.]
 |
| Pulitzer Prize
winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh |
A single FBI agent paid a visit to Lackawanna to question
the men. The men explained what had happened: that they
had gone to Pakistan for "religious training"
that had turned out to be something more than they had bargained
for. The agent noted all this down and left. That was the
end of it - UNTIL THE CASE RESURFACED AFTER 9/11 AS A MEANS
(PRECEDENT) FOR THE FBI TO USE IN ORDER TO EXPAND THE MEANING
OF "MATERIAL SUPPORT." It was a perfect precedent
for that purpose, a means whereby the government could expand
the meaning of "abetting terrorism" to include
any act - stupid or otherwise - that identified one with
"terrorists." And - much more importantly - it
could be used as a device TO TARGET AMERICAN CITIZENS.
And this is precisely what happened. Today the Lackawanna
Seven (now the Lackawanna Six) are doing time in a federal
super-max prison, and the precedent gained by this case
is now being used to target all American citizens who
oppose government policy. For instance, this is PRECISELY
the precedent that was used against Lynne Stewart. It
is also the precedent that Tony Blankley of the Washington
Times is clamoring for the government to use this
precedent against investigative reporter Seymour Hersh
for publishing an expose of the Bush administration's
covert (and illegal) operations in Iran and detailing
plans and possible preparations for war with that country.
He is calling for Hersh to be jailed and executed. |
That opportunity (see above) came
in 2006, after years of scaremongering over the "War on
Terror" (which former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge
later admitted was done to influence voters at politically sensitive
times). A section (1076) was slipped into the John
Warner Defense Authorization Act that granted the president
the authority to deploy troops domestically during "national
emergencies." In 2008, Congress attempted to take these
powers away from the administration by passing legislation repealing
the offending sections of the Act, but President Bush issued
a signing statement when signing that legislation into law saying
that his administration was not bound by it.
From that point on, the legal floodgates have been open and
a stream of increasingly disturbing reports have confirmed that
Posse Comitatus had been repealed and that the public
is being conditioned to accept uniformed military personnel
policing American civilians on the streets of America.
In September 2008, the Army Times reported that the
3rd Infantry Division's Brigade Combat Team had been reassigned
to NORTHCOM to patrol the "homeland" in crowd control
and civil unrest situations. In December of 2008, the Marine Corps Air and Ground Combat
Support Group dispatched uniformed troops to aid police checkpoints
in California. In September of 2009, the Army and Air Force provided assistance
to the National Guard for security at the G20 in Pittsburgh. Also in September of 2009, the Assistant Secretary of Defense
in Obama's Defense Department requested authorization to deploy
379,000 troops inside the U.S.
But this issue is not merely an American one. There is currently
a coordinated agenda across the Western world to harmonize these
types of Rubicon-crossing moves toward outright martial law
across borders.
 |
| Depiction of American
troops attacking Canadian civilians who supposedly are
rioting against Ottawa. |
In March 2009, the Canadian military-which began a formal merger
with the American military in February 2008 that would see
American troops deployed on the streets of Canada during 'national
emergency'-announced that it, too was preparing special
reserve units to provide for 'domestic security' during times
of civil unrest. The troops are being trained in various crowd
control and emergency measures, such as how to set up and maintain
internment camps for Canadian citizens in the event of such
things as enforced quarantines after a bioterror attack.
Also in March 2009 it was revealed that the British Army was
being readied to deal with Brits should rioting break out in
the UK.
What all of this case history reveals is that there is a
coordinated agenda to knock down any remaining walls separating
the general population of America, Canada and the UK from their
own militaries. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the
way the Coast Guard has quietly shifted from a federal policing
agency into a self-declared branch of the military.
As Lieutenant Eric Shine rightfully asks in his own article
on the subject, how does the Revenue Cutter Service, originally
located in the Department of the Treasury, merge with the Lighthouse
Service, the Ice-breaking Service and other civil service agencies
to become a branch of military? How
does a branch of the military end up in the Department of Homeland
Security, whose mission is explicitly to police the "homeland"
and its residents? How does this branch of the military
get away with filing charges in a military tribunal against
an alleged civilian who has never served in their uniform, and
then proceed to prosecute, adjudicate and act as appellate of
that tribunal?
And perhaps the most important question of all: When will the
American public, and the peoples of the other Western powers,
realize that the Rubicon has long since been crossed and that
they are already living in a military dictatorship?
We URGE you to see our article, "Understanding
What You Will Be Facing during the Tribulation."
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American Empire: The Corporate / Pentagon / CIA / Missionary
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