Re: SC78

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10473

Secret Bush Administration Plan to Suspend US Constitution
"Continuity of Government" (COG) Provisions activated in 2001

...........Plans for Continuity of Government have been in place since the 1950s. Originally conceived during the Cold War when fears of a nuclear strike envisaged by atomic war-gamers at the RAND Corporation, believed that an immobilization of government functions and a breakdown of civilian rule would follow a nuclear attack. But from their inception, COG planning has been shrouded in secrecy.

In addition to constructing nuclear-proof underground facilities where the civilian leadership could escape a decapitation strike, other COG provisions included a series of executive orders designating which officials would assume Cabinet-level posts and other Executive Branch positions. Officials so designated would constitute a "shadow government" should office holders be killed in an attack "or otherwise incapacitated."

However, when these and other Pentagon "civil disturbance" plans surfaced in the 1980s during the Iran-Contra hearings, they were roundly criticized by members of Congress, civil liberties groups and the media before disappearing once again, down Orwell's "memory hole." The inherent dangers implicit in such plans are that unelected Executive Branch officers could assume the Presidency and other appointed offices subject neither to congressional scrutiny nor judicial oversight.

Exercising sweeping emergency powers buried within Presidential Decision Directives (PDDs), unelected officials could suspend the Constitution, declare martial law and create an Executive Branch dictatorship that rests solely on the power of the U.S. military.

Most troubling, Executive Branch officials under secret rules of a COG regime could suppress and usurp the lawful powers of Congress and the Judicial Branch (by force of arms if deemed necessary) as a means of ensuring "cooperation" under a "unitary executive."

As we have seen, the "unitary executive" theory has been a salient feature of Bushist rule since the December 2000 judicial coup d'état, when the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision handed a contested election to George W. Bush by stopping the vote count in Florida.

Since assuming office, the administration has ruthlessly wielded executive power in order to achieve their antidemocratic agenda: from the looting of the economy through "deregulation," massive deficit spending and tax cuts for their corporate "clients," to waging a preemptive war of conquest in Iraq, the "unitary executive" has systematically shredded America's constitutional system of checks and balances.

The Bush administration put COG plans into operation for the first time in U.S. history in the hours directly following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. They have never been rescinded.

Their implementation involves a rotating staff of 75-150 senior government officials and others from every Cabinet department in two "secure, undisclosed locations" on the East Coast. However, key congressional representatives have been kept out of the loop and House and Senate leaders have said they were not informed the "shadow government" had "gone live."

So secretive are Bush administration plans that Peter DeFazio (D-OR), a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, was denied access in 2007 to the classified version of the COG plans contained in top secret Presidential Decision Directive annexes. This too, is unprecedented.

While the Bush administration admitted that COG was activated in 2001, their disclosure came only after The Washington Post broke the story based on confidential administration sources troubled by the scope of the program and its secretive implementation...........

..............As researcher Peter Dale Scott revealed, in early 2006 the Department of Homeland Security awarded a $385 million contract to a Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, to provide "temporary detention and processing facilities." Scott wrote,

The contract--announced Jan. 24 by the engineering and construction firm KBR--calls for preparing for "an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs" in the event of other emergencies, such as "a natural disaster." The release offered no details about where Halliburton was to build these facilities, or when. ...

After 9/11, new martial law plans began to surface similar to those of FEMA in the 1980s. In January 2002 the Pentagon submitted a proposal for deploying troops on American streets. One month later John Brinkerhoff, the author of the 1982 FEMA memo, published an article arguing for the legality of using U.S. troops for purposes of domestic security. (Peter Dale Scott, "Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps," Pacific News Service, February 8, 2006)

The DHS contract to KBR had been preceded by the April 2002 creation of the Pentagon's Northern Command (NORTHCOM), specifically empowered by the Bush administration for domestic U.S. military operations in direct violation of Posse Comitatus prohibitions forbidding the use of the military for domestic law enforcement. At the time, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld called NORTHCOM's launch "the most sweeping set of changes since the unified command system was set up in 1946."

Sweeping indeed! Last month Army Times reported that the Army's "3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team [BCT] has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys. Now they're training for the same mission--with a twist--at home.".............

.............As researcher and analyst Michel Chossudovsky comments:

The BCT is an army combat unit designed to confront an enemy within a war theater.

With US forces overstretched in Iraq, why would the Pentagon decide to undertake this redeployment within the USA, barely one month before the presidential elections?

The new mission of the 1st Brigade on US soil is to participate in "defense" efforts as well as provide "support to civilian authorities".

What is significant in this redeployment of a US infantry unit is the presumption that North America could, in the case of a national emergency, constitute a "war theater" thereby justifying the deployment of combat units.

The new skills to be imparted consist in training 1st BCT in repressing civil unrest, a task normally assumed by civilian law enforcement.

What we are dealing with is a militarization of civilian police activities in derogation of the Posse Comitatus Act. ("Pre-election Militarization of the North American Homeland. US Combat Troops in Iraq repatriated to 'help with civil unrest'," Global Research, September 26, 2008)

One scenario envisaged by Chossudovsky is that "civil unrest resulting from from the financial meltdown is a distinct possibility, given the broad impacts of financial collapse on lifelong savings, pension funds, homeownership, etc."...........

Information is out today that Representative Brad Sherman from California has stated that during the recent Emergency Economic meetings with president Bush that some people in attendance were told that if they did not vote for the 700 Billion bailout plan immediately that the stock market would drop by 1000 points a day and the US would be under Martial Law in short order. NSP51 allows Bush the ability to declare a National Emergency and assume power over all branches of the government. The Army's "3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team is is under Bushes control, and not the Congress ( think National Gaurd in their case ). These troops could be used by Bush according to his sole discretion the way things have been set up. The Congress was threatened with the specter of US Martial Law to force them into un-precedented and immediate action to pass the Bailout Plan. The dots are adding up to some ominous visions for our near term future. The economic meltdown shows all signs of worsening. The 700 Bailout is a scam ( rewarding the perpetrators of this crisis ) and has in no way addressed the monumental problems facing the US economy. In 1929 ( the Great Depression ) the US produced all its own oil and was the world's biggest exporter of oil. Now we import almost 70% ( costing around 700 Billion a year currently ). In 1929 other countries in the world owed us money and we were the biggest lender. Now we are the biggest debtor nation ( in off the scale dimensions ) in the world and we are borrowing Billions every month just to keep our econmy going. Most americans are deep in debt and finacially maxed out, losing their jobs en mass. In 1929 we still had a country very rich with various resources. Now we are seeing many of these same resources in steep decline. So this finacial crisis is happening to a country that is in many respects much worse off than it was at the start of and during the last Great Depression. Thats why this time around, an extended, and even precipitous decline in the US economy may very well go on for the foreseable future ( a Long Emergency ), given that by increasing agreement Peak Oil has occurred as of 2005 and we will not see again oil production levels above those established up too 2005, aprox 85 million barrels a day. People are going to become very upset about all these things as the economic conditions degrade and we may be seeing US troops being used against US citizens, and perhaps even martial law and police state conditions imposed within the US.