In the midst of all the turmoil over the hurricane conspiracy theories of weather control and outer space monsters, I’m surprised I haven’t seen anybody mention this article from the Washington Post, dated August 8, 2005. It’s a thousand times more damaging than any paranoid fantasy I’ve read. In fact, this is probably the scariest most dangerous thing I’ve read in months: the military is being granted authority to deploy on US soil in the event of terror attacks and other catastrophes (article link, and login info, if you need it)

COLORADO SPRINGS — The U.S. military has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans.

The classified plans, developed here at Northern Command headquarters, outline a variety of possible roles for quick-reaction forces estimated at as many as 3,000 ground troops per attack, a number that could easily grow depending on the extent of the damage and the abilities of civilian response teams.

The possible scenarios range from “low end,” relatively modest crowd-control missions to “high-end,” full-scale disaster management after catastrophic attacks such as the release of a deadly biological agent or the explosion of a radiological device, several officers said.

[…] The war plans represent a historic shift for the Pentagon, which has been reluctant to become involved in domestic operations and is legally constrained from engaging in law enforcement. Indeed, defense officials continue to stress that they intend for the troops to play largely a supporting role in homeland emergencies, bolstering police, firefighters and other civilian response groups.

Yes, I’m sure the Pentagon is TERRIBLY “RELUCTANT” to become involved in domestic operations. I’m sure that they would just HATE to do that!

But the new plans provide for what several senior officers acknowledged is the likelihood that the military will have to take charge in some situations, especially when dealing with mass-casualty attacks that could quickly overwhelm civilian resources.

Conspiracies aside though, it is a fair question: what would happen in the event of a full-scale crisis (ahem, like the one we just had), where things really are thrown into a state of chaos? Is it legitimate to roll out the troops in that case? For everybody who’s saying that it’s not, I’d like to see you come up with a viable alternative plan. I’m not saying there isn’t one, I’m seriously saying I want to know what it would be. What are our alternatives?

Elsewhere in this article we see classic techniques of how to frame debate so as to circumvent the real issues, and channel dissent into appropriate channels. It’s sly, can you catch it?

Military officers and civilian Pentagon policymakers say they recognize, on one hand, that the armed forces have much to offer not only in numbers of troops but also in experience managing crises and responding to emergencies. On the other hand, they worry that too much involvement in homeland missions would diminish the military’s ability to deal with threats abroad.

In other words, the positive side of the issue is that armed forces are good at this stuff. The negative side is that they are so good at it that they are needed all over the world. Sneaky, right? The negative side of the debate is NOT that we shouldn’t have armed troops patrolling our streets and dictating our actions. It’s that it’s going to detract from our all-important war efforts.

In fact, this issue isn’t even approached tangentially till almost the very end of the article, well after most people have stopped reading:

Civil liberties groups have warned that the military’s expanded involvement in homeland defense could bump up against the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricts the use of troops in domestic law enforcement. But Pentagon authorities have told Congress they see no need to change the law.

According to military lawyers here, the dispatch of ground troops would most likely be justified on the basis of the president’s authority under Article 2 of the Constitution to serve as commander in chief and protect the nation. The Posse Comitatus Act exempts actions authorized by the Constitution.

Again, they are framing it as though it were simply a matter of “law.” Is it really just a matter of law, or is the law symbolic of something much more important to the American spirit? In either event, it seems they’ve already figured out the legal wrangling necessary to circumvent the Posse Comitatus Act, and effectively dissolve the Imperial Senate. So that should be pretty fun when it happens, am I right?

Ha, and if you think they’re not serious, check out the end of this quote, where they are talking about the technical difficulties of National Guard units being under state control (which doesn’t violate the PCA):

It could be a challenge for the commander who’s a Guardsman, if we end up in a fairly complex, dynamic scenario,” Keating said. He cited a potential situation in which Guard units might begin rounding up people while regular forces could not.

WAIT! What the fuck did they just say? Something about rounding people up? You heard it here in the Washington Post, folks. Maybe the conspiracy theorists know what the hell they’re talking about after all. But if so, why aren’t they talking about this?