Martial
Law Threat Is Real
By Dave Lindorff
27 July, 2007
CommonDreams.org
The
looming collapse of the US military in Iraq, of which a number of generals
and former generals, including former Chief of Staff Colin Powell, have
warned, is happening none too soon, as it my be the best hope for preventing
military rule here at home.
From the looks of things,
the Bush/Cheney regime has been working assiduously to pave the way
for a declaration of military rule, such that at this point it really
lacks only the pretext to trigger a suspension of Constitutional government.
They have done this with the active support of Democrats in Congress,
though most of the heavy lifting was done by the last, Republican-led
Congress.
The first step, or course,
was the first Authorization for Use of Military Force, passed in September
2001, which the president has subsequently used to claim‹improperly,
but so what? ‹that the whole world, including the US, is a battlefield
in a so-called ³War² on Terror, and that he has extra-Constitutional
unitary executive powers to ignore laws passed by Congress. As constitutional
scholar and former Reagan-era associate deputy attorney general Bruce
Fein observes, that one claim, that the US is itself a battlefield,
is enough to allow this or some future president to declare martial
law, ³since you can always declare martial law on a battlefield.
All he¹d need would be a pretext, like another terrorist attack
inside the U.S.²
The 2001 AUMF was followed
by the PATRIOT Act, passed in October 2001, which undermined much of
the Bill of Rights. Around the same time, the president began a campaign
of massive spying on Americans by the National Security Agency, conducted
without any warrants or other judicial review. It was and remains a
program that is clearly aimed at American dissidents and at the administration¹s
political opponents, since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
would never have raised no objections to spying on potential terrorists.
(And it, and other government spying programs, have resulted in the
government¹s having a list now of some 325,000 ³suspected
terrorists²!)
The other thing we saw early
on was the establishment of an underground government-within-a-government,
though the activation, following 9-11, of the so-called ³Continuity
of Government² protocol, which saw heads of federal agencies moved
secretly to an underground bunker where, working under the direction
of Vice President Dick Cheney, the ³government² functioned
out of sight of Congress and the public for critical months.
It was also during the first
year following 9-11 that the Bush/Cheney regime began its programs of
arrest and detention without charge‹mostly of resident aliens,
but also of American citizens‹and of kidnapping and torture in
a chain of gulag prisons overseas and at the Navy base at Guantanamo
Bay.
The following year, Attorney
General John Ashcroft began his program to develop a mass network of
tens of millions of citizen spies‹Operation TIPS. That program,
which had considerable support from key Democrats (notably Sen. Joe
Lieberman), was curtailed by Congress when key conservatives got wind
of the scale of the thing, but the concept survives without a name,
and is reportedly being expanded today.
Meanwhile, last October Bush
and Cheney, with the help of a compliant Congress, put in place some
key elements needed for a military putsch. There was the overturning
of the venerable Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which barred the use of
active duty military inside the United States for police-type functions,
and the revision of the Insurrection Act, so as to empower the president
to take control of National Guard units in the 50 states even over the
objections of the governors of those states.
Put this together with the
wholly secret construction now under way–courtesy of a $385-million
grant by the US Army Corps of Engineers to Halliburton subsidiary KBR
Inc–of detention camps reportedly capable of confining as many
as 400,000 people, and a recent report that the Pentagon has a document,
dated June 1, 2007, classified Top Secret, which declares there to be
a developing ³insurgency² within the U.S, and which lays out
a whole martial law counterinsurgency campaign against legal dissent,
and you have all the ingredients for a military takeover of the United
States.
As we go about our daily
lives–our shopping, our escapist movie watching, and even our
protesting and political organizing‹we need to be aware that there
is a real risk that it could all blow up, and that we could find ourselves
facing armed, uniformed troops at our doors.
Bruce Fein isn¹t an
alarmist. He says he doesn¹t see martial law coming tomorrow. But
he is also realistic. He says, ³This is all sitting around like
a loaded gun waiting to go off. I think the risk of martial law is trivial
right now, but the minute there is a terrorist attack, then it is real.
And it stays with us after Bush and Cheney are gone, because terrorism
stays with us forever.² (It may be significant that Hillary Clinton,
the leading Democratic candidate for president, has called for the revocation
of the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq, but
not of the earlier 2001 AUMF which Bush claims makes him commander in
chief of a borderless, endless war on terror.)
Indeed, the revised Insurrection
Act (10. USC 331-335) approved by Congress and signed into law by Bush
last October, specifically says that the president can federalize the
National Guard to ³suppress public disorder² in the event
of ³national disorder, epidemic, other serious public health emergency,
terrorist attack or incident.² That determination, the act states,
is solely the president¹s to make. Congress is not involved.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT),
chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has added an amendment to the
upcoming Defense bill, restoring the Insurrection Act to its former
version‹a move that has the endorsement of all 50 governors–but
Fein argues that would not solve the problem, since Bush still claims
that the U.S. is a battlefield. Besides, a Leahy aide concedes that
Bush could sign the next Defense Appropriations bill and then use a
signing statement to invalidate the Insurrection Act rider.
Fein argues that the only
real defense against the looming disaster of a martial law declaration
would be for Congress to vote for a resolution determining that there
is no ³War² on terror. ³But they are such cowards they
will never do that,² he says.
That leaves us with the military.
If ordered to turn their
guns and bayonets on their fellow Americans, would our ³heroes²
in uniform follow their consciences, and their oaths to ³uphold
and defend² the Constitution of the United States? Or would they
follow the orders of their Commander in Chief?
It has to be a plus that
National Guard and Reserve units are on their third and sometimes fourth
deployments to Iraq, and are fuming at the abuse. It has to be a plus
that active duty troops are refusing to re-enlist in droves‹especially
mid-level officers.
If we are headed for martial
law, better that it be with a broken military. Maybe if it¹s broken
badly enough, the administration will be afraid to test the idea.
Dave Lindorff’s
most recent book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s
Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net.
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Comment
Policy
Digg
it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands
of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page
of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an
vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So,
as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.