[CitizensTruth] ARTICLE-Thousands of Troops deployed on US streets

[Walterb306 at cs.com]

All,

FYI.

Beverley



Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out "Crowd 
Control"

 By Naomi Wolf, AlterNet
Posted on October 8, 2008, Printed on October 8, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/101958/Background: the First Brigade of the 
Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in 
the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form of crowd 
control they practiced in Iraq, subduing "unruly individuals," and the management 
of a national emergency. I am in Seattle and heard from the brother of one of 
the soldiers that they are engaged in exercises now. Amy Goodman reported 
that an Army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non 
lethal crowd control technologies and tanks.

George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus , thus making it legal for military 
to patrol the U.S. He has also legally established that in the "War on Terror," 
the U.S. is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a 
battlefield. Thus the U.S. is also a battlefield.

 He also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act to give him far broader 
powers in the event of a loosely defined "insurrection" or many other "conditions" 
he has the power to identify. The Constitution allows the suspension of 
habeas corpus -- habeas corpus prevents us from being seized by the state and held 
without trial -- in the event of an "insurrection." With his own army force 
now, his power to call a group of protesters or angry voters "insurgents" 
staging an "insurrection" is strengthened.

U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California said to Congress, captured on C-Span and 
viewable on YouTube, that individual members of the House were threatened 
with martial law within a week if they did not pass the bailout bill:





>  "The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a 

> panic atmosphere. … Many of us were told in private conversations that if we 

> voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop 

> two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the 

> second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in 

> America if we voted no."



If this is true and Rep. Sherman is not delusional, I ask you to consider 
that if they are willing to threaten martial law now, it is foolish to assume 
they will never use that threat again. It is also foolish to trust in an orderly 
election process to resolve this threat. And why deploy the First Brigade? One 
thing the deployment accomplishes is to put teeth into such a threat.
I interviewed Vietnam veteran, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and patriot 
David Antoon for clarification:
"If the President directed the First Brigade to arrest Congress, what could 
stop him?"
 "Nothing. Their only recourse is to cut off funding. The Congress would be 
at the mercy of military leaders to go to them and ask them not to obey illegal 
orders."
"But these orders are now legal?'"
"Correct."
"If the President directs the First Brigade to arrest a bunch of voters, what 
would stop him?"
"Nothing. It would end up in courts but the action would have been taken."
"If the President directs the First Brigade to kill civilians, what would 
stop him?"
"Nothing."
"What would prevent him from sending the First Brigade to arrest the editor 
of the Washington Post?"
 "Nothing. He could do what he did in Iraq -- send a tank down a street in 
Washington and fire a shell into the Washington Post as they did into Al 
Jazeera, and claim they were firing at something else."
"What happens to members of the First Brigade who refuse to take up arms 
against U.S. citizens?"
 "They'd probably be treated as deserters as in Iraq: arrested, detained and 
facing five years in prison. In Iraq a study by Ann Wright shows that 
deserters -- reservists who refused to go back to Iraq -- got longer sentences than 
war criminals."
"Does Congress have any military of their own?"
 "No. Congress has no direct control of any military units. The Governors 
have the National Guard but they report to the President in an emergency that he 
declares."
"Who can arrest the President?"
"The Attorney General can arrest the President after he leaves or after 
impeachment."
 [Note: Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi has asserted it is possible for District 
Attorneys around the country to charge President Bush with murder if they 
represent districts where one or more military members who have been killed in 
Iraq formerly resided.]
"Given the danger do you advocate impeachment?"
 "Yes. President Bush struck down Posse Comitatus -- which has prevented, 
with a penalty of two years in prison, U.S. leaders since after the Civil War 
from sending military forces into our streets -- with a 'signing statement.' He 
should be impeached immediately in a bipartisan process to prevent the use of 
military forces and mercenary forces against U.S. citizens"
 "Should Americans call on senior leaders in the Military to break publicly 
with this action and call on their own men and women to disobey these orders?"
 "Every senior military officer's loyalty should ultimately be to the 
Constitution. Every officer should publicly break with any illegal order, even from 
the President."
"But if these are now legal. If they say, 'Don't obey the Commander in 
Chief,' what happens to the military?"
 "Perhaps they would be arrested and prosecuted as those who refuse to 
participate in the current illegal war. That's what would be considered a coup."
"But it's a coup already."
"Yes." 
Naomi Wolf is the author of Give Me Liberty (Simon and Schuster, 2008), the 
sequel to the New York Times best-seller The End of America: A Letter of 
Warning to a Young Patriot (Chelsea Green, 2007). © 2008 Independent Media 
Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/101958/   
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