Homeland Offense: 
Pentagon Declares War on America 

FRANK MORALES / South Bay Mobilization Fall 2002

With the looming passage of legislation establishing a Department of Homeland Security and the imminent repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act, a criminal statute which bars the military from becoming the police in America, the complete legal consolidation of a military police state in the US is about to transpire. Projected to occur in conjunction with the October 1st "standing up" of the Pentagon's newly formed Northern Command, which is tasked with the defense of "the homeland", the scenario of a military take-over of America is unfolding. As has become apparent since 911, "defense" of the homeland translates into increased repression in the homeland. In actuality, the Pentagon and the corporate fascist directorship hidden from view, have declared war within America. Homeland defense, situated within Pentagon "military operations other than war" doctrine, is the nature of the war being waged in America, a class war orchestrated by the ruling right- wing corporate elite.

Since the mid-1980’s US military/corporate strategists have sought to define "military operations other than war" (MOOTW) doctrine. Their aim: to rationalize and justify increasing application of military "expertise" to a wider array of operations, to grow the list of situations vulnerable to corporate/military penetration. US Joint Chiefs of Staff pronouncements on the subject of "military operations other than war" are contained in Joint Publication 3-07, Joint Doctrine for Military Operations Other Than War, dated June 1995. The document states that "the wide range of MOOTW provides the National Command Authorities with many possible options during unsettled situations." In other words, MOOTW, "an extension of warfighting doctrine", sets loose US imperialism to intervene anywhere it wants, under whatever pretense, ("unsettled situations") in order to meet the requirements of a voracious and frenzied corporate elite. Consequently, its' major feature is that these military operations are "sensitive to political considerations", where the requirement is to "understand the political objective and the potential impact of inappropriate actions." To this end, MOOTW requires "restraint in order to apply appropriate military capabilities prudently", and "perseverance" which allows for "protracted application of military capability in support of strategic aims." The broad listing of MOOTW "types of operations" includes "military support to civil authorities" under which "homeland defense" and the recently commissioned Northern Command operations are to be conducted. "Civil disturbance operations" are also situated within the doctrinal sphere of MOOTW/"military support to civil authorities."

Colonel John B. Hunt, U.S. Army retired, extended the concept of OOTW in an article in an October 1996 issue of Military Review. Essentially, Hunt argued, "OOTW’s goal is to persuade an enemy to change his behavior", wherein, "missions are primarily political processes that are sometimes accompanied by violence." Therefore, OOTW "emphasizes the primacy of the political instrument of national power." Or to paraphrase Clausewitz’s characterization of war, the continuation of politics by other means.

As Colonel Hunt sees it, "OOTW’s chief approach to war is the incorporation of political strategy", an approach that offers "a way to act politically, using military participation and support to solve a problem." And yet, Hunt acknowledges that it must be recognized that "OOTW’s chiefly political methods" operate in a climate which is characterized by the "inequality of power", wherein, according to Hunt, "smaller, weaker actors cannot hope to defeat a larger, more modern power by direct military action. Their only hope for success is to combine political, informational, economic and military means." Consequently, Hunt predicts that "future war will almost certainly be some amalgamation of wars of attrition and annihilation with OOTW’s political-informational methods" and that "prospects for success are higher through using the safer and cheaper OOTW methods of politics, propaganda and terrorism." To the point.

Therefore, "homeland defense", in the context of the "war on terrorism", is a political war which translates into the tactics and politics of counterinsurgency on the homefront. Consequently, the proposed Department of Homeland Security, with it's sweeping consolidation of local, state, and federal (militarized) police entities, facilitates and intensifies the apparatus of state repression. It completes a process begun some time ago with the utilization of military "assets" to suppress civil disturbances (Operation "Garden Plot"), to execute the "war on drugs" and the militarized southern border (Joint Task Force Six), and to carry out the "war on terrorism" (Joint Task Force Civil Support), earlier Pentagon OOTW operations.

Democracy and Militarism

While the incompatibility of democracy and the military state should be self-evident, a "war on terrorism", framed, interestingly enough, as both a law enforcement and military operation, grinds on, facilitating passage of repressive laws and the freeing up the "intelligence community" to spy on Americans. And yet it should be recognized that the current "war on terrorism" is only the latest means devised by the corporate/military elite of masking their underlying race and class based agenda, which is to mount a deepening counterinsurgency against anyone, anywhere that resists the requirements of their apocalyptic "new world order", an agenda devised and orchestrated by the oil-igarchy, the munitions industries and their banks.

Aside from being an industrial requirement of the Pentagon Inc. and it's myriad commercial, media and academic appendages, making war is a political requirement as well. War-making obliterates from view the everyday class, sex and race based antagonisms threatening to explode in 21st century America, while at the same time providing the pretext and panic culture so necessary for shrinking civil liberties, a tactical requirement in the suppression of dissent. The rightest and racist corporate agenda, which is the Bush agenda, amounts to more for the rich and less for the rest. It's repressive legislation and military tribunals dispense with democracy, or more specifically, dispense with the "protections" of the American Constitution at home, while raining death on millions abroad.

The American military state is a provacateur state. It creates terrorism as part of it's so-called war on terrorism, just as it creates dissent as readily as it seeks to suppress it. In both instances it requires an enemy, in recent jargon, a "permanent" one, for war-making is the "permanent" economy in the "military-industrial complex" known as America, at least for now. Hence, the enemy, if one doesn't exist, has to be conjured up in order to provide cover for the widening pre-emptive, class based dragnet against anyone who disagrees with current social (foreign and domestic) policies, particularly those who recognize the need for change, and set out to do something about it. In other words, the violence which is US militarism, a violence wed to capitalist/imperialist profit, is a pathological violence which breeds violence in whatever manner is required in order to feed the addiction of the war profiteers.

The "war on terrorism" is in reality a war on dissent. It allows for the generalization and implementation of pre-existing corporate/military strategies of suppressing dissent under the mantle of fighting terrorism. The criminalization and repression of dissent, utilizing the latest draconian measures and military/police lethal and "non-lethal" technology, is the unheralded intent of the "war on terrorism." By elevating the notion of pre-emptive strike, the elite specialists of counterinsurgency sign the death warrant of a democracy too widely distributed, too much in "excess." By acting pre-emptively, the elite seek to dissolve whatever democratic space exists within which movements of dissent can grow, nipping them in the bud so to speak, with the destruction of democratic rights as a requirement. In short, the military state, designed at present to suppress dissent pre-emptively, will no longer tolerate the niceities of due process, free speech and assembly. Nor will it tolerate an independent judiciary, press or politician.

Finally, "homeland defense", set within the Pentagon's doctrinal arena of "operations other than war", executed by a domestic military command, in the making for some years now, is the flip-side of current Pentagon Incorporated military "operations" abroad. War abroad requires war at home. Social movements which oppose the corporate/militarist foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush forces are targets in this war being waged in America on it's own citizens. In the final analysis, the evolving growth of the American military police-state, conveniently referred to as "homeland defense" is really about the ruling elite defending itself, it's power, profits and privilege. There is no intent on protecting the workers, the poor and oppressed in America from "terrorists" who our government helped to set up (ie. bin Laden, Hussein etc.). In essence, "homeland defense" is simply another stage, a more repressive stage, in the ongoing class war in America. Only now, post 911, the fascist architects of repression and counter- insurgency are in the drivers seat, sitting right behind the imbecile posing as President, pontificating in front of a terrorized public.

Homeland Defense: Some Recent History

"I personally believe that the next decade is a decade of homeland defense" - John Hamre, Former Deputy Secretary of Defense (1999)

Years before the destruction of the World Trade Center, the New York Times stated in a January 23rd 1999 editorial that "there have been discussions in the Pentagon, but no decision, about creating a new domestic military command to combat terrorism." The new "command" would, according to the Times report, "erode the long-established legal principle that America's armed forces should not be involved in domestic law enforcement." And yet, according to the report, the military has "no intention of usurping civilian control." A few days later, according to another Times report (1/28/99), under the euphemistic banner of "homeland defense", the Pentagon "decided to ask President Clinton for the power to appoint a military leader for the continental United States", a commander to coordinate US military operations within the United States, years before the WTC catastrophe.

Note as well that the Pentagon "request" occurred on the heels of the anti-WTO, "Battle in Seattle", protests which took place in early December 1999. At that time the military was already assigning some domestic security roles to its "special operations" forces. Specifically, according to the Seattle Weekly (12/23/99) a Justice Department official, "asking anonymity", confirmed that the elite US Army Delta Force, "operating under its cover name of Combat Applications Group (CAG) was in Seattle a week in advance" of the protests. "Under the control of the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the contingent took up residence in a Regrade motel and fanned out downtown dressed as demonstrators, some wearing their jungle greens." The Delta Force, a violent global strike force, was operating under the rubric of the Joint Task Force - Civil Support, forerunner of and incorporated within the newly christened Northern Command, about which we'll say more later, but first

Back on October 2nd, 1998, Frank J. Cillufo, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an influential (along with the Council on Foreign Relations) corporate/military "think tank", testified before the congressional committee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice. He stated that "it may be worthwhile to create a new Commander-in-Chief (CINC) USA." His testimony noted that the "CINCUSA would be responsible for all Department of Defense related strategies and activities related to homeland defense issues and would serve as a focal point and facilitate coordination within the Department of Defense and between the many federal, state and local law enforcement, intelligence and medical communities with related responsibilities." A short time later, in January 1999, CSIS released a study entitled, Defending the Homeland, authored by Fred Ikle, former under Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration, in which he stated, alluding to the Posse Comitatus Act, that there was "insufficiently understood legal authorities for a military role in homeland defense" but that "legislation can overcome this deficiency."

At the time of the Pentagon "request", White House officials, according to the Times report cited above, "reacted favorably, characterizing the proposed step as a relatively minor adjustment of the lines of military authority and organization." Former President Clinton, whose nominal approval was required in order to move ahead with the appointment of a domestic military chief, commenced to "weighing the issue carefully", and promised a response. His objectivity in the matter was doubtful all along given his authorship of various directives on the matter, including in particular, Presidential Decision Directive 62, entitled, Protection Against Unconventional Threats to the Homeland and Overseas, dated May 1998.

Meanwhile, Gregory T. Nojeim, legislative counsel on national security for the American Civil Liberties Union, concerned about the Pentagon proposal and its' impact on law enforcement stated at the time that "it's hard to believe that a soldier with a suspect in the sights of his M-1 tank is well positioned to protect that person's civil liberties." The Times report goes on to note that the Pentagon's new role has been "criticized by civil libertarians who argue that any homeland defense plan might open the door for the military to assume the role of domestic police, which is prohibited by law." Again, ACLU Attorney Nojeim: "Our concern is that there be a bright line drawn between law enforcement and the military. This not only blurs that bright line", he warned, "but virtually guarantees further involvement of the military in civilian law enforcement activity." (NYT 10/8/99)

Nonetheless, on October 8, 1999, the Pentagon "request" was granted, its insight (and foresight) rewarded, when Admiral Harold W. Gehman Jr., NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic (SACLANT), was put in charge of defending the homeland. According to script, President Clinton "approved these new changes made by the Pentagon's top officials as part of a routine revision of the responsibilities and roles of its nine commands scattered across the globe." According to this "routine revision", Admiral Gehman's new job was "to coordinate military actions should an enemy target this country" Apparently, they didn't do a very good job.

"By law, the military cannot make arrests or act in civil law enforcement. The Posse Comitatus Act, passed after the Civil War to rein in the military, bars federal troops from doing police work within United States borders." (NYT 1/28/99) Comforting words. Unfortunately, not true. Strictly speaking, the 1878 Act refers only to the Army and the Air Force, not to the Marines or the National Guard in "state status". And yet, even though militarism has become increasingly imbedded within domestic law enforcement by way of it's drug war and civil disturbance "operations other than war", the Act has functioned to preclude overt military-police consolidation, and has helped to bolster an American civil-military tradition that some would argue insures our democratic liberties.

The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, (18 U.S.C. 1385), often cited as a barrier to the normalization of domestic military/law enforcement activity, reads as follows: "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than two years or both." The Act was intended to protect the citizenry from an overreaching military, prohibiting the armed forces from directly enforcing civilian laws. Accordingly, military personnel may not arrest people, conduct search and seizures, or plan an operational role in police actions - unless the president signs an executive order sanctioning such activity.

Unfortunately, under the so-called "drug war", the war on dissent, and the more recent "war on terrorism", various "exceptions" to the Posse Comitatus Act have proliferated. Since 1981, Congress and the White House have methodically widened the military's role in domestic law enforcement, especially in the war on drugs, and in the in equipping and training of local police. In 1981, Congress enacted the Military Cooperation With Law Enforcement Officials Act, amending Posse Comitatus, the legislation injected the Pentagon directly into the drug war, authorizing the transfer of equipment and expertise in the blatantly fraudulent "war on drugs" In 1986 the Pentagon implemented DoD Directive 5525.5, "DoD Cooperation With Civilian Law Enforcement Officials" One year later, Congress set up a streamlined procedure for police departments to obtain military hardware. In 1989, President Bush Sr. approved setting up military drug units now consolidated under the so-called Joint Task Force Six.

In 1994, the Clinton administration weighed in by approving the transfer of high-tech gear to the police, by way of its technology transfer agreement, codified in a "Memorandum of Understanding Between Department of Defense and Department of Justice on Operations Other Than War and Law Enforcement", which states that the memorandum reflects "a growing convergence between the technology required for military operations and the technology required for law enforcement." Over this period the Posse Comitatuts Act has been greatly weakened by way not only of the militarization of the police, but by the policization of the military via its "peacekeeping" missions abroad.

The military, for it's part, has been very vocal on the subject of Posse Comitatus for some time. US Army Colonel Sean J. Berne argued in a 1997 article for Military Review entitled, Defending Sovereignty: Domestic Operations and Legal Precedents, that although "there continues to be considerable concern over the legal authority and limits of using the Armed Forces in domestic actions", and that some would even "argue against virtually any involvement by the military in domestic operations." Col. Berne though believes otherwise, asserting that "under specific circumstances, use of military forces in domestic operations, while controversial, is not only appropriate, but legal and warranted." The Colonel has little patience for "preconceived notions concerning civil-military relations based on incomplete information." The Posse Comitatus Act is not, according to the Colonel, "the final word on the subject." He states that "based on emergency situations and emerging threats to national security, Congress passed a number of exceptions clearing the way for significantly increased involvement by the Armed Forces in domestic activities."

These "exceptions" to Posse Comitatus, or to put it in more precise language, these new missions for the military inside America, include "Title 10, US Code, Sections 331-335 dealing with civil disturbances and insurrection." These sections, and other "exceptions", according to Berne, "also provide the Executive and Legislative branches with a standing force involved with domestic law enforcement on a day-today basis." Berne notes that while "at first blush it would appear these amendments could be in conflict with the intent of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and the Posse Comitatus Act by placing a potentially unchecked military in a position to infringe on Fourth and Fifth Amendment right", we'll, don't be afraid, the Colonel would have us take comfort in the notion that our "Congress went to great lengths to ensure thatcivil-military relationships would not be subverted." Some comfort. And besides, "no case has been found involving criminal prosecution of anyone for Posse Comitatus violations." So, lets get our heads screwed on right, cause after all, as Colonel Thomas R. Lujan, lead attorney ("staff judge advocate") for US Special Operations Command said back in a 1997 Parameters magazine piece entitled, Legal Aspects of the Domestic Employment of the Army, "our nation can ill afford to have the effectiveness of its military assets artificially constrained by a misunderstanding of the law."

Along those same lines, the Air Force's Air University offered a 1998 course entitled The Posse Comitatus Act: Consideration of its Contemporary Value/Appropriateness. An abstract of the course states that "this project will review the history of the Posse Comitatus Act, the rationale for its existence, contemporary exceptions, and explore the logic for its continued existence and enforcement. If it is determined the Act is no longer necessary, consideration will be given to making a recommendation for modification or elimination of the Act", while the US Army Peacekeeping Institute summed it up this way in a slide entitled: "The Posse Comitatus Act (18 USC 1385)." It's simple: "Exceptions: Military Purpose Doctrine, Sovereign Authority, Civil Disturbances." Many such examples exist within prolific Pentagon literary polemic. The point being that for quite some time the Posse Comitatus Act has been under assaulteven now.

The July 21, 2002 edition of the New York Times reported that "Wider Military Role in US is Urged". Apparently, the "generals and others back changing law to add domestic power". The law that they are referring to is, you guessed it, none other than the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, the object, as we have shown, of much Pentagon concern during the latter part of the 90's. According to the July 21st Times report, "the Bush administration has directed lawyers in the Department of Justice and Defense to review the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and any other laws that sharply restrict the military's ability to participate in domestic law enforcement." The Washington Post (7/21/02) put it a bit more starkly, stating that the Bush administration "has called on Congress to thoroughly review the law that bans the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines from participating in arrests, searches, seizure of evidence and other police-type activity on US soil."

Bush's Jrs. "review" of Posse Comitatus is due any day now. What we can expect is something along the lines of a recent report (2/02) by the ANSER Journal of Homeland Security, a publication of the so-called Institute for Homeland Security, in an article entitled, The Posse Comitatus Act and Homeland Security, authored by John R. Brinkerhoff, a former FEMA official, in which he states that "it is time to rescind the existing Posse Comitatus Act and replace it with a new lawPresident Bush and Congress should initiate action to enact a new law that would set forth in clear terms a statement of the rules for using military forces for homeland securityThings have changed a lot since 1878, and the Posse Comitatus Act is not only irrelevant but also downright dangerous to the proper and effective use of military forces for domestic needs."

Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the recently created (post 911) "civilian" Office of Homeland Security agreed on the need to examine Posse Comitatus, noting that, "we think a review is necessary to streamline interpretations of some existing laws." And so did Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in testimony (10/9/01) before the Senate Armed Services Committee. In response to Senator Warners' "it seems to me it's time to re-examine that doctrine", Wolfowitz exclaimed, "I agree very strongly", adding that "it would be better to think through in advance what kind of civilian control and what relationship with civilian authorities(interrupted)"

Utilizing any and all means to prepare the public for the outright repeal of Posse Comitatus, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, along with General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, signed a recent order approving the use of military reconnaissance and surveillance equipment to be used in tracking down the Washington DC sniper who as we go to press is still on the loose. Characterized by Bush as a form of "terrorism", the incident has conveniently opened the door to yet another military incursion into law enforcement. According to CNN (10/15/02), although "the plan would mandate that civilian law enforcement officials work closely with the militarythat procedure would avoid any potential conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act, the 1878 law that prohibits the military from direct involvement in civilian law enforcement." OK. This was apparently the opinion of the "Military and Justice Department officials (who) wrestled for much of the day with the question of how and whether the Pentagon could aid in the sniper investigation without violating an 1878 law, the Posse Comitatus Act" (NYT 10/16/02) Good timing wouldn't you say. Its as though the sniper is following a script

Northern Command 2002

General Ralph E. Eberhart, head of the newly established Northern Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, which was "tasked" as of October 1st 2002 with the homeland security "mission", stated in the July 21st NY Times report cited above that, "we should always be reviewing things like Posse Comitatus and other laws if we think it ties our hands in protecting the American people", and that "Posse Comitatus will constantly be under review as we mature this command, as we do our exercises" His job, according to a Washington Post report (11/21/01) is to "coordinate federal troops used in homeland defense, part of a broad reorganization that Pentagon officials say could change some forces' primary mission from waging war overseas to patrolling at home." Patrolling at home. The kind of "protection" you don't refuse.

In a recent interview (9/24/02) on PBS NewsHour, General Eberhart was more explicit on the Posse Comitatus Act and the overall mission of his domestic Northern Command, stating that "we have unique capabilities that could be used to defeat a terrorist or any other type of illegitimate or an attack on our people or on our country." He went on to say that as far as the Posse Comitatus Act goes, it "has a lot of provisions whereby its designed that there are exceptions so, if necessary, to use federal forces to protect life, propertyso we believe that right now based on those exceptions that there's nothing in posse comitatus that will preclude us from doing what we need to doBut as you saw, as the president released his homeland security strategy, he said that we will be, in fact, reviewing posse comitatus law and if we see something in there that we think ties our hands, that precludes us from protecting the American people, then we will pursue a change in posse comitatus"

General Eberhart's Northern Command or NORTHCOM is somewhat different from the rest of the regional "unified commands" that control military operations around the world (and beyond), for example the European , Southern and Space Commands. This is because that beyond its central mission of deterring and defending against military threats to the United States, which is common to all the commands, NORTHCOM will have the distinct task of providing so-called "military assistance to civil authorities."

So-called "Military Assistance to Civil Authorities" or MACA, codified in various Pentagon directives and congressional legislation, enables the Pentagon to function in the sphere of policing America, wherein the troops act as force multipliers to "civilian" forces, amounting to the precipitous militarization of police forces within America which has occurred over the last two decades. Integrating heretofore separate entities into a single, consolidated entity of force, the trend has acted as a slow torture of the Posse Comitatus Act. The emergence of the Northern Command institutionalizes this trend.

In addition, the MACA mission, the core of so-called "homeland defense", allows for the use of "US military personnelto suppress insurrections" as well, another exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, this sert down in such directives as DoD 3025.12, "Military Assistance for Civil Disturbances" 1994. In other words, in coordinating "military support to civil authorities" the Northern Command will coordinate domestic response to "civil disorder", "instances of national concern", and other "illegitimate" activities, ie. social protest. In doing so, NORTHCOM will adhere to the already operative Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, Code-named "Garden Plot", which was originated in 1968 and last updated in 1994. See www.cryptome.org/garden-plot.html

In reference to the 1976 Church Committee congressional findings which exposed massive military surveillance of political dissidents throughout the period, General Eberhart stated during his PBS interview that "when you look at the 50's and 60's, some ugly things happened, and and and I can assure that as we stand up this command, we're not involved in those kinds of activitieswe're not going to be in the intelligence gathering modewe're not going to be out there listening, we don't do those kinds of things", despite the fact that the command has 200 people focusing on domestic intelligence. And why is that? Because "we get information from people who do" the spying, for example, the 11,000 FBI agents out there, unfettered in their intelligence gathering efforts. As Attorney General Ashcroft recently put it. "you can't limit your investigators to investigating only crimes that have been committed. You have to authorize the investigation to develop information that might help signal that a crime is about to be committed or might be committed." (see, Ashcroft Revises FBI Guidelines to Counter Terrorism, American Forces Press Service, May 31, 2002)

NORTHCOM will report to the Joint Force Headquarters - Homeland Security, headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, which according to the NORTHCOM website www.northcom.mil "coordinates the land and maritime defense of the continental United States, and military assistance to civil authorities." Set up this past January, the new unit directs the Joint Task Force - Civil Support, an earlier "anti-terror" strike force, as well as Joint Task Force 6, which is the Defense Department's southern land border counter-drug force, based at Fort Bliss, Texas, which "provides Department of Defense counter-drug support to regional, state and local law enforcement agencies throughout the continental United States."

Finally, NORTHCOM, according to its "factsheet", will provide "assistance to a lead federal agency when tasked by DoD. Per the Posse Comitatus Act, military forces can provide civil support, but cannot become directly involved in law enforcement", unless of course that involvement is classified as "passive" rather than "active" and other such creative hair-splitting. In providing "civil support", NORTHCOM will generally operate through "established Joint Task Forces subordinate to the command", in other words, local "civilian" groupings "subordinate" to Pentagon control. And when, and only "when the scope of the disaster is reduced to the point that the lead federal agency can again assume full control and management without military assistance", only then will "NORTHCOM exit, leaving the on-scene experts to finish the job."

TIPS

Recently, the Northern Command was looking for a few good so and so's. A circular, an "internal/external announcement" noted that "the primary purpose of this position is: To serve as the Senior Intelligence Analyst for USNORTHCOM, with an emphasis on analyzing foreign and domestic terrorism threats to the United States and threats to critical infrastructure as well as other traditional and asymmetric threats that relate to the command's Homeland Defense mission." The position "open to all qualified US citizen candidates" offered $90-117,000 annual salary. The deadline to apply was August 22, 2002, but you never know, could still be some openings, better move fast! Check them out at: www.spacecom.af.mil/21mssdpc/NORTHCOM00132A-15.doc and good luck!

But if you can't make it with the Northern Command why not try TIPS! Typical of the need for "tactical (on the ground) intelligence", the first requirement of both "anti-terrorist" and civil disturbance "suppression", is the creation of TIPS or the Terrorism Information and Prevention System. Set up this past January by Ashcroft's Justice Department, TIPS, according to their website www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html is a "national system for concerned workers to report suspicious activity". In fact, TIPS is a hotline to the National White Collar Crime Center, a Justice Department organization that deals with "economic crime" and cyberattack. For a little under a million bucks they plan to register all "suspicious, publicly observable activity that could be related to terrorism" and forward it to law enforcement and other agencies "opting to receive TIPS information." These agencies "would be responsible for determining how to respond to the tips they receive."

The "workers" that TIPS is willing to offer its hotline service are those in the transportation, trucking, shipping, maritime, and mass transit industries. The truckers, for their part, are jumping in with both feet. The trucker magazine FleetOwner recently noted (6/1/02) that "attempting to stay ahead of Federal regulators charged with securing US transportation networks from terrorist attacks, the American Trucking Assns. has readied a 'Neighborhood Watch' program for the nation's highways." The ATA's "Anti-Terrorism Action Plan", geared to keeping the "wheels of commerce" rolling, envision a plan in which "a potential 3 million professional truck drivers will be trained to spot and report any suspicious activities that might have terrorism or national security implications." It might be wise for all workers to keep their eyes wide open...

It seems that the Bush administration concern for workers knows no bounds. Just this past August 14th the New York Times reported that Bush wants to exempt all homeland security coordinated agencies "from collective bargaining requirements if (he) were to determine that our national security demands it." Little known to the public, the President is seeking not only to "exempt agency employees from federal labor relations rules and prohibit them from joining unions", but he's also prepared to force them to work, under the conditions he chooses, if "national security demands it". The "flexibility" that Bush is calling for, a "fast moving homeland security department unfettered by work rules and red tape" is sure to result in a lot less "flexibility" on the part of workers who may soon be confronted with a form of involuntary employment during "times of war", all set out in pre-existing Department of Defense directives.

TIPS, part of the CitizenCorps/FreedomCorps/AmeriCorps axis of patriotic, police loving do -gooders, is buttressed with funds via the Washington DC based, Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), which has been around since the mid-90s but has only recently, post 911, become linked to "homeland defense efforts". This past March, the Corporation issued a "notice of availability of funds to strengthen communities and organizations in using service and volunteers to support homeland security." With an emphasis on "public safety" and "freeing up police time", the grants offered under the announcement "are to assist communities in getting involved in the war against terrorism on the home front." In the area of "public safety" the grants "will help provide members to support police departmentsin tasks and other functions that can be performed by non-sworn officers." Now mind you, the volunteers "are not armed, nor can they make arrests, but they carry out vital tasks including organizing neighborhood watch groups" They also "organize communities to identify and respond to crime and disorder problems"

On July 18, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge announced, while sitting in a Washington DC police station, the first round of CNCS homeland security grants totaling $10.3 million, an "initiative" that is to involve some 37,000 volunteers nationwide. One recipient of a $484,000 Corporation grant, based in NYC, is the Center for Court Innovation. Linked to the NYC Public Safety Corps, the grant "will enhance homeland security by assisting criminal justice officials (police, probation officers, judges) as they perform their duties(while) 40 full time AmeriCorps members willfree up policeto address conditions of disorder that if left unchecked create a climate where crime would flourish." In NYC, ground zero for the attack, homeland defense equates to the same old thing, cracking down on "disorder" (protest) and "quality of life crimes", which is racist police code for arresting and jailing more poor people. As for the "crime" of dissent, recently the NYPD made a move to overturn the restrictions on political surveillance. According to New York Newsday (9/26/02) "it appears that the city wants to start engaging in political surveillance without any evidence of unlawful activity." For the past two decades, the so-called Handschu Agreement has protected the rights of the dissenting public against unwarranted police surveillance of Constitutionally guaranteed rights to dissent.. Now, given the "war on terrorism" the city is asking a federal judge to abolish this protection. According to the police department's legal bureau, "before, investigators needed a criminal predicate or suspicion of criminal activity", but today, stated NYPD assistant deputy commissioner Tom Deopfner, "terrorists don't do anything illegal for a long time." Some reasoning. Apparently, permanent war requires permanent spying, from the cradle to the grave.

Military Tribunals

In early June of this year the Bush administration jailed a New York City man of Puerto Rican descent, Jose Padilla - or as he now calls himself - Abdullah al Muhajir. He is presently being held in a military brig in South Carolina. He has yet to be charged with any crime. Like the hundreds of Muslim and other immigrants still being held in detention since Sept. 11, he is considered a "material witness" to the 911 investigation. And yet, rather than have him subject to the discretion of Federal courts, he was handed over to the military as a "enemy combatant" after Attorney General Ashcroft and the Pentagon talked it over.

At that moment, Padilla was taken out of his New York prison cell and transferred to a US Navy brig in South Carolina. His attorney, Donna Newman of NYC was not informed of his transfer and has been denied access to her client. Even the Washington Post, which has backed virtually all of the repressive measures of the Bush administration since Sept.11, wrote at the time of Padilla's jailing that, "the governments actions in this latest case cut against basic elements of life under the rule of law" and that "if its positions are correct, nothing would prevent the president - even in the absence of a formal declaration of war - from designating any American as an enemy combatantIf that's the case, nobody's constitutional rights are safe." Just about sums it up. And yet, this "chilling legal precedent" is but the tip of the iceberg of the complete subsuming of normal judicial processes to the growing militarization of law enforcement and jurisprudence.

Declaring an "extraordinary emergency" on November 13, 2001, President Bush signed an unprecedented order authorizing the creation of special military tribunals to try non-citizens suspected of terrorism. The order violates the constitutional separation of powers, because according to the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, the order "has not been authorized by the Congress and is outside the President's constitutional powers", and further, "the order strips away a variety of checks and balances on governmental power and the reliability and integrity of criminal judgments." In addition, "by its example, the order undermines the rule of law worldwide, and invites reciprocal treatment of US nationals by hostile nations utilizing secret trials, a single entity as prosecutor, judge and jury, no judicial review and summary executions."

According to Barbara Olshansky (Secret Trials and Executions: Military Tribunals and the Threat to Democracy, Seven Stories Press, 2002) the "tribunal" system "radically abandons the core constitutional guarantees at the heart of American democracy." "With the single swipe of his pen, President Bush replaced the democratic pillars of our legal system with that of a military commission system in which he, or his designee, is rule-maker, investigator, accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, sentencing court, reviewing court, jailer or executioner." Yes, executions, where the entire process is carried out in secret, executions without any accountability to Congress, the courts or the American public. Who can be charged? Anyone whom Bush thinks is a terrorist. Again, Olshansky states that the language of the military order "tells us that the decision of who to prosecute by military tribunal will be based entirely on the President's subjective assessment and not upon the more stringent and objective standard of probable causeas required by the Supreme Court's decisions interpreting the constitutional boundaries of our criminal laws."

According to the military order signed (certainly not written) by Bush, whose subjectivity resembles an empty bottle of booze, anyone "knowingly harboring" someone accused of "terrorism", although ostensibly a civilian criminal act, and not a military-like terrorist act, may be tried by a military tribunal. In addition, with an eye towards suppressing dissent by shifting jurisdictions for "political crimes", the military order seeks to "extend the jurisdiction of the military commissions beyond trials concerning 'violations of the law of war', to those concerning all 'other applicable laws'." In other words, the Bush forces intend "to use military commissions to try people accused of committing state and federal crimes that have no relationship whatsoever to any terrorist activity." Consequently, "the order thus appears to permit", according to Olshansky and the Center for Constitutional Rights, "governmental prosecutions for common crimes in which our civilian criminal justice system, with all of its constitutional guarantees is completely bypassed."

Department of Defense Military Commission Order No.1, issued March 21, 2002, is concerned with "procedures for trials by military commissions of certain non-United States citizens in the War Against Terrorism." As we have seen of course, as in the case of Mr.Padilla, "citizens" alike are potential targets of the tribunals. The "commissions", according to the order, "shall have jurisdiction over violations of the laws of war and all other offenses triable by military commission." Overseen by a "military officer" who will "admit or exclude evidence at trial", the "prosecutor" would be a "special trial counsel of the Department of Justice." On the defense side, well, one could opt to go with the DoD's version of the public defender, namely another "military officer", or one could secure an attorney. One hitch though, because although "the Accused may also retain the services of a civilian attorney of the Accused's own choosingat no expense to the United States Government", this would only be possible once it "has been determined" that the civilian attorney is "eligible for access to information classified at the level of SECRET or higher" In other words, to get any kind of impartial and efficient legal representation in Mr.Rumsfeld's court your attorney has to be cleared by the opposition, in this case, the Pentagon. She or he need be SECRET worthy.

The trend towards the complete consolidation of the military and the police in America, represented in the "homeland defense"/"homeland security" developments described above, received a major boost with the events of 911. In fact, some months prior to the WTC/Pentagon attack, the Center for Law and Military Operations, located in Charlottesville, Virginia, had published its Domestic Operational Law Handbook (April, 2001), detailing legal grounds (according to Pentagons lawyers) for mounting military operations within America.

The recent spate of terrorist actions, the anthrax, the smallpox, the snipers, the rumors of impending doom, all feed into a process that, as has been argued, are designed, and have been designed to limit the democratic freedoms of Americans, particularly those who object to the corporate/Bush agenda for America and the world. Only through a sustained resistance to these trends, to the repeal of Posse Comitatus and the unrestrained violence of militarism, can we hope to retain our freedom, to speak, to protest, and to build the kind of America and world where militaries and police are no longer required or utilized by elite merchants of death and greed. "Homeland defense" is, in essence, a form of state terrorism directed against the American people and democracy itself. It is the Pentagon Inc. declaring war on America. Issue the call for a New American Revolution, which deconstructs the deadly symbiosis between militarism and profits.

source: http://southbaymobilization.org/web/otherthanwar/HomelandOffense2002.pdf 1jun03