Fw: Paranoia Grips the U.S. Capital

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Wed, 9 Feb 2005 11:23:51 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)

Fw: Paranoia Grips the U.S. Capital

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives.php

 

 

By Eric Margolis

The Toronto Sun

Sunday 06 February 2005

 

The film Seven Days In May is one of my all-time favourites. The

gripping 1964 drama, starring Burt Lancaster, depicts an attempted

coup by far rightists in Washington using a top-secret Pentagon

anti-terrorist unit called something like " Contelinpro. "

 

Life imitates art. This week, former military intelligence analyst

William Arkin revealed a hitherto unknown directive, with the

Orwellian name " JCS Conplan 0300-97, " authorizing the Pentagon to

employ special, ultra-secret " anti-terrorist " military units on

American soil for what the author claims are " extra-legal missions. "

 

In other words, using U.S. soldiers to kill or arrest Americans, acts

that have been illegal since the U.S. Civil War.

 

This frightening news comes as Washington is gripped by reborn,

Cold-War-style paranoia, ominous threats of war against Iran from the

real president, Dick Cheney, and a titanic bureaucratic battle just

won by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

 

Instead of being fired for the grotesque military-political fiasco in

Iraq and the shameful torture scandals, Rumsfeld has just managed to

create a new, Pentagon spy/special ops organization, blandly named

" Strategic Support Branch, " that will replace or duplicate many of the

CIA's tasks.

 

The CIA has been sent to the doghouse. Too many CIA veterans

criticized or contradicted Bush's and Cheney's phony claims over Iraq

and terrorism. So Bush has imposed a new, yes-man director on the

agency, slashed its budgets, purged its senior officers, and

downgraded CIA to third-class status.

 

Rumsfeld's new, massively funded SSB will become the Pentagon's CIA,

complete with commando units, spies, mercenary forces, intelligence

gathering and analysis, and a direct line to the White House. The

Pentagon has just effectively taken over the spy business.

 

Used Terrorism Hysteria

 

Mind you, the Pentagon and its Defence Intelligence Agency have been

deeply involved in intelligence around the globe for 50 years. U.S.

Army intelligence and its covert sub-branches have long conducted

" black ops, " including missions in the U.S. as well as assassinations

and sabotage abroad. The Pentagon consumes three-quarters of the total

U.S. intelligence budget.

 

Rumsfeld has skillfully used terrorism hysteria to wrest control of

intelligence and make the Pentagon supreme in Washington's

bureaucratic power struggles.

 

The Pentagon's new spy arm will be largely excluded from Congressional

oversight or media examination. Its special operations teams will roam

the globe, all under cover of " deep black " missions of which no

records will be kept, and no questions asked.

 

Equally worrying, the Pentagon's new special-ops units are headed up

by notorious religious fanatic, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who calls the

U.S. Army " the house of God " and Islamic insurgents " agents of Satan. "

He warned Muslims, " my God is bigger than your god, which is an idol. "

 

Boykin's command will now dispatch post-modern Christian crusaders to

cleanse the world of Satanic Muslims and other miscreants. The

Pentagon's new special forces will be able to run operations of which

the CIA knows nothing.

 

The 9/11 Commission called for improved intra-agency co-operation and

data sharing -- instead, the U.S. will get far less co-operation, as

the Pentagon goes its own, secret way.

 

Now, George W. Bush, who clearly believes he holds the mandate of

heaven after being re-elected by the less mentally active half of

American voters, has decided to " unleash " special forces and all sorts

of irregular units, including mercenaries, uniformed bounty hunters,

and mutants sporting t-shirts proclaiming " kill 'em all, let God sort

'em out. " These militarized thugs and video arcade Rambos are sure to

run amok, dragging America's once good name ever deeper into the mud.

 

We have evidently learned nothing from the wars in Indochina and

Central America.

 

Have we reached Seven Days in May?

 

Not yet, but the second Bush administration has been taking dangerous

steps that continue to curtail personal rights, further emasculate the

supine, cowardly U.S. Congress, and empower ideological or religious

extremists and shadowy agencies with unrestrained powers that endanger

Americans at home, and all abroad suspected of troubling the Pax

Americana.

 

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Eric Margolis is Contributing Foreign Editor to the Toronto Sun.