US COMBAT BRIGADE PREPARES
FOR CIVIL UNREST ACROSS COUNTRY
By Mark Anderson
The battle-hardened 1st
Brigade Combat
Team/3rd Infantry Division, based in Fort Stewart, Ga., may be deployed
as a crowd-control unit in anticipation of possible civilian unrest
just before the 2010 midterm elections. The thinking is that the
nation’s severe economic downturn and uncertainty about the
nation’s economic and political status could spark rioting or
large demonstrations.
This Army unit that has
made several
deployments to Iraq, but was assigned on Oct. 1, 2008 to the U.S.
Northern Command (Northcom) based at Peterson Air Force Base in
Colorado Springs. Thus, this division would be the main military force
to carry out Northcom’s stated mission. Northcom
“plans, organizes and executes homeland defense and civil
support missions,” Northcom’s web site states.
Northcom was
actually established Oct. 1, 2002 in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist
attacks for the express purpose of protecting the U.S.
“homeland” and to support local, state and federal
authorities. Northcom is commanded by Gen. Victor R. Renuart Jr.
This marked
the first time an active-duty unit had been given a dedicated
assignment to Northcom. The force is known as Consequence Management
Response Force. It is an “on call” federal response
force for “terrorist attacks and other natural or manmade
emergencies and disasters,” according to military sources.
“In
October of this year, one month prior to the November midterm
elections, a special army unit known as ‘Consequence
Management Response Force’ will be ready for deployment on
American soil if so ordered by the president. According to The Army
Times, they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd
control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive
poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological,
radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE,
attack,” is how Conservative Examiner writer Anthony G.Martin
stated the situation on April 13, 2010. He is among several sources,
another being infowars.com, that have posted articles saying the Army
seems more focused on domestic operations due to expectations of
civilian unrest.
Due to the
1878 Posse Comitatus Act—a long-honored civil code that
severely limits the use of the military in domestic law enforcement,
mainly due to abuses experienced by Southern Americans from post-Civil
War martial law during Reconstruction—many concerned
Americans wonder if the U.S. military will ever “cross the
line” and break that act, ushering in a militarized police
state, temporarily or long-term. The Military Commissions Act of 2006
(MCA) is said to have watered down some of the act’s
restrictions, but the Supreme Court has challenged some MCA
sections’ constitutionality.
U.S. Army
Major Mike Humphreys of Northcom explained to AFP a great deal from the
military perspective, saying that “the Posse Comitatus Act is
a civil code that we follow. . . .We take that very seriously. We are
citizens, too. All we can do is follow our orders and assist in
defending the Constitution of the United States. I have faith in our
Constitution.”
Asked about
soldiers’ behavior in the aftermath of the 2005 Hurricane
Katrina in New Orleans—in light of video footage that shows
GIs entering occupied homes and confiscating weapons that homeowners
may have needed to deter looters—Humphreys replied that
federal troops only entered those homes if accompanied by National
Guard troops that had not been federalized and answered to the state of
Louisiana. That is how it worked, which could not be understood from
watching the videos, he said.
He said he
has heard talk of unrest near election time in 2010, dismissing it
mostly as the concerns of “angry, disgruntled
people,” but he said there would have to be enough unrest for
a state governor to ask the federal government for an emergency
declaration. The president would then have to issue such a declaration.
FEMA, with the permission of the state or states affected by the
unrest, would enter the state as the lead federal agency for which
military units assigned to Northcom would “assist,”
Humphreys said.
“Even
FEMA is not in charge; the state governments still have
responsibility,” Humphreys added, pointing out that to
technically violate Posse Comitatus, the U.S. military and Department
of Defense would actually have to take control from the states.
“We did not violate Posse Comitatus—U.S. forces,
the U.S. military, was not in charge,” he said, with respect
to Katrina’s aftermath. “FEMA took an active
role.We assisted FEMA and other local authorities.” However,
FEMA’s policy of keeping droves of Katrina refugees holed up
in the New Orleans Superdome, where many suffered deprivations and some
died, received stinging criticism in many quarters, including from Fox
News reporter Shepard Smith, who’s not normally critical of
government operations.
AFP pressed
Humphreys on whether Posse Comitatus is violated in spirit, through a
backdoor approach following FEMA’s lead, even though the
military is not technically usurping control from the states. He denied
that was the case.
He summarized
that with FEMA taking the lead, “We set up a joint operations
center” during emergency response operations, regardless of
whether the reason is a manmade disaster, unrest, natural disaster or
terrorist attack. That operations center is typically comprised of
state emergency people, the National Guard under the affected states,
federal military under the Defense Department, the Red Cross and
various nonprofits.
There are,
notably, online reports from military sources that confirm the
existence of “nonlethal” directed-energy weapons
that some military commentators have suggested for use during crowd
control operations in the United States. Critics say the use of these
weapons can cause severe burns.
Mark
Anderson is
a longtime newsman now working as the deputy editor for AMERICAN FREE
PRESS. Together he and his wife Angie provide many photographs of the
events they cover for AFP. Mark welcomes your comments and inputs as
well as story leads. Email him at at [email protected].
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(Issue
# 18, May 5, 2010)
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