Thoughts on Martial Law

[Minstrel Boy]

Posted to my blog here:

There's a Law


I fell with my angel down the chain of command
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand - Leonard Cohen

There's lots of talk, as there should be these days, about Martial Law, because it's coming to America just as surely as another attack. I think we can say that safely now, if we haven't been saying it already for years. In 2003, General Tommy Franks said he doubted that the Constitution would survive a WMD attack. The doubts should have since been erased: "the US military has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States.... The new plans provide for the likelihood that the military will have to take charge in some situations."

But when it comes, will Americans recognize it?

I don't know if you recall it, but I remember an old SCTV episode parodying a New Year's Eve special for 1984. Everything was normal until the stroke of midnight. Then suddenly, the message: "Please Stand By." When programming resumed it was mad, drab and Orwellian: Eugene Levy, for instance, hosting a game show called Doublethink, in which contestants try to guess whether choco rations have gone up or down, for the prizes of razor blades and shoe laces.

Say "Martial Law" to people, and often their first thought is detainment: multitudes of dissenters being hauled off to FEMA camps, disappearing into an American Gulag. For others, it's soldiers in the streets. For some, military courts.

I'm not denying the essence of those fears - the Gulag is already real enough for Jose Padilla - but that's my point: the fears have already been realized. Padilla and many others have vanished. The soldiers are in the streets. A formal declaration of martial law seems almost a quaint nod to constitutional formalities, when we consider the violence these people have already done to the constitution.

There will be no "Please Stand By" for America. No on/off toggle for totalitarianism will be thrown with Martial Law, and those expecting one may find themselves saying "Hey, this isn't so bad." America is passing through gradations of grey, the next nearly indistinguishable from the last. It's only in stepping back, in comparing now to then - five years ago; 10, 25 or 50 - that you realize how your eyes have adjusted to the dark.

After the shock of a mass casuality event, and during the aftershocks of martial law, what will be the chief tone Homeland Security will want to set? It will be reassurance. Why? Because FEMA may have many camps, but it doesn't have enough to hold everyone. For the few to maintain power, the many need to participate in their own subjugation. They must be self-contained. And so, Michael Chertoff will attempt to alleviate the psychological sting of martial law, while he rubs the poison in, and invite Americans to "go about their business." (Privacy fears unjustified, Chertoff said this week.) It will be a soft sell of "temporary" measures, dictated by a supposed self-necessity. Americans will be encouraged to pretend that things are normal, or normal enough, and that the measures, while serious and unfortunate, don't affect them. And to keep it that way, many will watch what they say and watch what they do, and become detainees under self-monitored house arrest.

And this is going to happen, unless something else happens, fast. What that might be doesn't particularly matter. But to forestall their intention it must be as big as their own, and as beautiful as theirs is bloody.

Thursday the FBI issued a warning to police that al Qaeda - the CIA's "Database," the late Robin Cook called it, a month before his untimely death - may attempt to us "fuel trucks as weapons to attack Los Angeles, New York and Chicago." Just the day before, a truck carrying explosives was vaporized, and cratered a highway in Utah. I wonder in which direction it was heading?

[neweurope]

1. Excellent. Nominated.

That's exactly the way it is/will be. There'll be no fighting with guns as some here seem to think.


--------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[gman16]

2. Good post,

The question I have been thinking about is if Martial Law is enacted, how will it affect the Corporations?. If another attack is allowed to happen, how will that affect the Corporations?.
If we have mass casualties, I cannot see people running to their local car dealership in the hopes of getting that "employee discount" or closing on the house they want to buy.
I would think another attack or martial law would not be beneficial to the profit margins of the corporations that control this Government.
Any thoughts?

[bryant69]

3. OK, yeah

We'll have to see what actually happens; but this scenario doesn't strike me as extremely likely.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[moodforaday]

4. How does Ireland fit into this, do you think?

Here's a dot that I can't readily connect, but the news was just too weird:

Treaty gives CIA powers over Irish citizens
July 21, 2005
By Dan Buckley

US INVESTIGATORS, including CIA agents, will be allowed interrogate Irish citizens on Irish soil in total secrecy, under an agreement signed between Ireland and the US last week.

Suspects will also have to give testimony and allow property to be searched and seized even if what the suspect is accused of is not a crime in Ireland.

Under 'instruments of agreement' signed last week by Justice Minister Michael McDowell, Ireland and the US pledged mutual co-operation in the investigation of criminal activity. It is primarily designed to assist America's so-called 'war on terror' in the wake of the September 11 atrocities.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/pport/web/ireland/Full_Story/did-sg46g7Ks0cvBEsg7OWirIStPSk.asp

[gman16]

6. Without knowing

much about the specifics, it would not surprise me if Michael McDowell
was bought out to sign this deal. I wonder what he got in return to cooperate considering the significance of such a deal.
Also, that's the way the US Gov. works...buying the cooperation of others.

[moodforaday]

8. True, but this is a complete subjugation of sovereignty

And I don't recall hearing about Ireland, of all countries, as a source of Al Qaeda-related terrorism.

[gman16]

11. Yes, I agree

Imagine signing over your countries sovereignty to a foreign entity. I wonder how many people over there realize what has been done.

[psychopomp]

35. Holy ####!!!!!!

Unbelievable! WTF?

Thanks for pointing this out... I am hoping there will be outrage in Ireland.

from the article:
"It also allows US authorities access to an Irish suspect's confidential bank information. The Irish authorities must keep all these activities secret if asked to do so by the US.

The person who will request co-operation is US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the man who, as White House counsel, instigated the notorious 'torture memo' to US President George W Bush which advised how far CIA agents could go in torturing prisoners. The person to whom the request is sent is the Minister for Justice.

About 20,000 immigrants, who have not been charged with any crime, are currently in prison in the US."
http://www.irishexaminer.com/pport/web/ireland/Full_Story/did-sg46g7Ks0cvBEsg7OWirIStPSk.asp

on edit: This reminds me of when I saw John Stockwell, a Central Intelligence agent who spoke publicly about the criminal corruption of our democracy by the Agency and its danger to the world. After going over his experience at the Agency and reviewing its dark history he told the audience to "go home, find your dictionary and look up the word 'safe.' Take that page and tear it right out of the dictionary because in today's world there is no place safe any longer." That was fifteen years ago. Good Lord, he was right!

[moodforaday]

5. Oh, and one more dot

This one for your yesterday's "Things go sliding" post, Minstrel Boy. Regarding Sudden Response drill in August, there is also this, from Reuters.

"China, Russia to hold first joint war games in August"

BEIJING (Reuters) - China and Russia will hold their first joint military exercises in August, involving nearly 10,000 troops, officials said on Tuesday.

The exercises, dubbed "Peace Mission 2005", will be held from August 18-25 in Vladivostok in the Russian far east, and in the coastal Chinese province of Shandong and nearby waters.

Defence officials in both countries were anxious to play down any threat to other countries in the region, saying the drills would work on ways to combat international terrorism and internal strife.

"We are not talking at all about North Korea or Taiwan, There were no such talks... so there is no occasion to speak about any third country," Russian General Vladimir Moltenskoi, deputy commander of land forces, told journalists in Moscow.

He said the scenarios included resolving ethnic strife and destroying "terrorists" at a coastal strip with naval forces.

http://za.today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-08-02T120751Z_01_ALL243601_RTRIDST_0_OZATP-CHINA-RUSSIA-20050802.XML

[gman16]

9. China and Russia

Are the big dogs on the block now, and the US cannot afford to play with them without total destruction. Despite what has been said, I don't think the Neocons want "total destruction", they have worked way to hard to get to this point.

[moodforaday]

18. It's not that they would be attacked.

Rather - if you accept the OP premise - they are seeing what's coming and are putting their forces on high readiness, for one thing. For another, it's a show of unity: mess with one of us, and you're messing with the other. This is apparently the first time Russia and China are holding joint military exercies (according to Polish press here).

[Dhalgren]

7. Good post!

Nominated. The whole point of 21st Century American Fascism is have the people oppress themselves - and each other. You are quite right, "America is passing through gradations of grey"; slowly going deeper and deeper into a fascist society - you can see it every day, everywhere, but you have to step outside the numbing fog of propaganda, unease, and fear to see it. When the final darkness descends, most people will refuse to see it...

[G_j]

10. nominated, I hope ppl will take a moment to read this n/t

[theboss]

12. There's no money in martial law

Therefore...it ain't coming.

[Minstrel Boy]

13. More often than not, it's imposed because

it's considered "good for business." Think Chile.

Martial law does not equal lockdown. It's the usurpation of civilian authority. The point of my post is to suggest that, even under martial law, Americans will be encouraged to "go about their business."

[gman16]

15. They might be encouraged,

but do you think they will.
Imagine it is imposed and your home watching one of those "make you feel good" commercials, the one where life is good, and the puppy licks your face type. Do you think people will turn off to that knowing they have to pass a checkpoint to get to Walmart, or have to be inside by 6pm or else they might be shot?
Attitudes towards the economy and life in general, I feel, would be negatively impacted.

[Minstrel Boy]

16. The checkpoint to Walmart and 6pm curfew

are not happening. That is the point of my post. Martial Law does not require these measures. And when they don't happen, even though civil authority has been usurped, people will breathe easier, relax, and say This ain't so bad.

[gman16]

19. I hear ya

I think that has been the attitude of the people so far (that what we have now is not so bad).
I just question as people become more wise to them whether they will be forced to implement more overt tactics.
I feel there is a tipping point for the American people, and we are approaching it ever so slowly.
Another attack, and you might have people across this country calling for their heads, covert tactics will no longer work then.

[Minstrel Boy]

32. tipping point

I think there's one, too. But I think there's a point at which it becomes irrelevent whether the people reach it or not. And I have the feeling that that point is fast approaching.

[gman16]

14. Exactly,

Their is no money in martial law.
So the question remains will the big corporations allow it to happen.

[moodforaday]

17. That's Neo-cons for you

We tend to conflate all forces into one, into some generic governmental-military-corporatist block of unrestrained power. I think this is wrong. There are various factions, and their interests, which sometimes converge and at other times do not.

I think if you look at Neo-cons, they don't seem to be interested much in helping corporations. They seem to be actually "idealists" (in a perverted sense), and their plans are not necessarily plans that purely corporate interests would endorse.

Greg Palast once did an interesting piece of reporting, aired on BBC's Newsnight, about how there were actually two plans on how to run Iraq with regard to privatization, esp. of oil. One was the corporate plan, the other was a Neocon plan. Palast says the latter won, and big oil was pissed. The BBC program should be googlable (streaming RealVideo), and here's Palast's recent article about that:
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=417&row=1

In one interview Palast put forth a good meme, which I'll quote from memory: "Big Oil wants the Middle East oil fields, but they don't want them on fire." Neo-cons don't seem to be making this distinciton.

[BeFree]

27. There is no money to be made?

The only reason Martial law is being held back is because the corps haven't figured out how to make a buck from it's consequences. As soon as they do, watch out.

As Minstrel Boy says, the first imposition will be so mild as to seem like nothing more than an insect bite. The Sleople won't even be awakened.

[rman]

30. money is a means to an end:

wealth and control.

martial law = control.

once they control us like that, they can just take our wealth.

[DemonFighterLives]

20. They have greased the skids

I don't know how or who will stop the juggernaut.
Great post as always.
:argh:

[starroute]

21. They don't have the troops for real martial law

They haven't even left enough of the National Guard in place to fight forest fires.

It's also increasingly unclear that the military would actually go along with enforcing direct military rule.

So what you would get instead would be something more like a permanent state of emergency that would allow them to override civilian authority, clamp down on dissent by extra-legal methods, and control the flow of (increasingly) scarce resources.

The weak spot in such a plan is that coercive authority ultimately depends on coercion -- and would that be there if push came to shove? Would American troops be willing to fire on American civilians?

The lack of that will to kill their own people caused the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states. In China, where they were able to bring in peasant forces from the outlying provinces to shoot up Tiananmen Square, the government survived. (At least for the moment.)

From anything I see, the real goal of the neocons is to corporatize the American system -- turn the government into something like a private corporation, with top-down authority, tight control of information, and a complete lack of accountability.

The American military -- every member of which is sworn to uphold the Constitution -- can only be an impediment to their attainment of that goal. The neocons' ultimate plan therefore has to include destroying the military, just as they've been hard at work the last several years destroying the CIA.

The CIA and its friends have shown a fair ability to fight back. We can only hope that our military will ultimately be even more resolute in the defense of liberty.

[gman16]

22. I just heard on the radio

the courts have issued a rulling allowing the Pentagon to control the National Guard (domesticly) as opposed to the individual states.
How interesting.

[Howardx]

23. agreed

thats my thought whenever these martial law discussions come up

[starroute]

25. Which side are you on?

Thinking about the China model that I referred to above, I can see a lot that is disqueting about the blue-red split that has been foisted on us since 2001.

What enabled the Chinese government to set the tanks rumbling through the streets of Beijing was the existence of a conservative rural population that saw city folk and students as alien and dangerous and was therefore willing to shoot them down.

We haven't had that sort of division in this country until now -- and in most places, we still don't. But the right is working very hard to create it. To turn us into two nations, one of which would be perfectly happy to fire on the other.

I don't think the conditions are yet in place for that -- and with a little luck, they may never be. The rural and small town population of America is impoverished, demoralized, Walmartized, fundamentalized, and put in fear of all the wrong things. But they aren't crazy and they aren't stupid -- and they do remember what it means to be Americans.

There are a lot of resources available to us in the vocabulary and iconography of American patriotism. In the past, they've been so coopted by the right that we on the left haven't felt free to draw on them. But now that the right is pell-melling away from traditional standards of liberty, integrity, and giving the other fellow a square deal, there's no reason we shouldn't remind people of what the ideal of America *really* means.

It could be our ultimate weapon against the coming of the corporatized sheeple-state.

[sexybomber]

28. Yes, but in a martial law situation

The police would be given extra powers and would probably be authorized from on high to use deadly force against dissenters.

Essentially, they would turn our nation's Men and Women in Blue to Men and Women in Brown.

[elehhhhna]

31. FYI China's reporting riots & internal terrorism regularly.

Last week for example a farmer blew himself and a bus UP. This is getting to be a common form of suicide for those whom China's business economy has left destitute.

[H2O Man]

24. Very true.

They may trick the public by calling it the Patriot Act, and saying they are protecting people's constitutional rights by taking them away. Sad to say, a lot of people might not recognize it for what it is.

[earth mom]

26. KICK!

:kick:

[Just Me]

29. Seems to me it's already underway,...

,...with P1 and P2. On the other hand, there appears to be a strong resistence within the intelligence and military communities.

I agree with your assessment that martial law certainly would NOT be announced as such by this regime. They would impose it in steps and call each a pretty name.

[seemslikeadream]

33. REPEAL IT

:hi:

[BamaBecky]

34. Martial Law has been on my mind too.

I wonder what form it will take and what impact it will have on our lives. Will the neighbors turn me in, because I have tried to instruct them on 911? I have my ear to the ground everyday now. I'm wondering about indictments, impeachments, military exercises, and ships in Charleston with nuclear cargo arriving on the 17th of August. My head is spinning actually. And I can't even remember what they talked about on the evening news today, but it wasn't any of the above..........

Bama

[passy]

36. It's not even 1984 anymore.

Don't you know that your republican neighbors keep a log book about your activities. Only kidding but not far off.
Your local book shop foward to the FBI the list of the books that you buy there.
The garden center where you buy your flowers also keeps a list of who buys large amounts of fertilizer.
If your name is arabic sounding you probably already have a file, even if your 12, well we all know that kids make the best suicide bombers. (that is a true story, happened to a young girl in New York some time ago)
If you buy a plane ticket, the government asks the airline to provide them with all your personal details.
Your fear is now colour coded, but it will never be green.
Reality is now something you see in entertainment programs, the news has become entertainment.
Your president is guided by God himself except that it doesn't seems like he's listening to the same one as you.
Patriotism means blinded obedience, not wanting the best for your country.
Wars are declared against nouns, like the war on drugs and communism previously now it's the war on terrorism and since terrorism is not a definable entity they are no rules that apply as to the fighting of that war.
And if you're name is Winston Smith you're probably disappeared by now.

[BamaBecky]

37. Hi Passy! Belated Welcome to DU!

My book list is VERY interesting.....it should ALARM them.....Ha

All my neighbors and co-workers have me pegged.......I should be the first one "picked up" around these parts......

I liked your post! keep it up.........

Bama:hi:

[passy]

39. Thanks for the welcome.

Like many I have been here since nov 2004 trying to find answers to something that should have been perfectly obvious.
And belated congratulations on your 1000th post.
And don't worry they'll never take us away, we'll defeat them first.

Take care

[Al-CIAda]

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[Al-CIAda]

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[Al-CIAda]

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