DLC's Blog

The current global war on terror (GWOT) is not anything new in terms of American foreign policy.  America has been fighting global wars since World War I.  Woodrow Wilson made it a point (well he had 14 points actually) to involve American resources on the world stage.  Wilson wanted nation-states to be able to express self-determination, but his ideas fell on deaf ears until the Second World War.  FDR, the Father of the New Deal, took Wilson's ideas to another level.  Instead of mere self-determination for the nations, FDR wanted America and her allies to police the world against threats to human freedom.  Roosevelt called his new idea "spheres of influence."  He had to allow Stalin and the Soviet Union their sphere of influence (and China too), but that was because he couldn't do anything about them at the time.

Since America financed the Allied war effort against the Axis Powers, American leaders felt they had a greater say on the new world order that was to emerge in the aftermath of the war.  America eclipsed Britain as the West's greatest industrial and military power, so a changing of the guard occurred.  From that point on, America's involvement in the geopolitical world continuously expanded.  The rise of the military industrial complex can be attributed to the financiers who funded the war effort, and in order to protect their investments, new enemies had to be found.

Of course a new foe was found in the Soviet Union.  The emerging threat of communism easily galvanized American policy makers into concentrating all their efforts on stopping the spread of the hated ideology.  No one on the American side, however, was aware of the fact that the Soviet Union was reeling from their catastrophic losses incurred by the Nazi invasion.  The Soviets were in no position to threaten the West militarily in the decade after World War II, but the Truman and Eisenhower administrations decided in favor of a policy of containment buttressed by the threats of thermonuclear war if the Soviets stepped beyond their sphere of influence.  The famous Domino Theory thus dominated American foreign policy from then on. 

In time, the Domino Theory expanded from Eastern Europe (The Berlin Airlift Crisis) to Korea to Cuba (The Missile Crisis) to the Middle East (Iran and Mossadeq and Arab-Palestinian conflict) finally to Vietnam.  Korea and Vietnam were the result of America's belief in a Sino-Soviet "bloc" arrayed against the West...an alliance that never actually existed since Stalin and Mao never agreed in their respective mechanics of communism...but that never mattered to American policy makers like Keynes or Robert McNamara or especially the so-called "whiz kids" McNamara recruited.  In their eyes, nations were ready to fall to communism like dominoes in a line.  Eisenhower warned of the ever expanding tentacles of the military industrial complex, but his admonitions were soon forgotten (and he probably never even believed what he was saying either).

Despite the failure of Vietnam, America pressed on.  Containment of the Soviet Union transformed into Detente under the Kissinger/Nixon regime.  The balance of power under the status quo became the new goal.  America was just going to "wait out the Soviets."  This Fabian strategy fell on its face as well, but in 1980 America's perpetual war escalated again when a "cowboy" from California took office.  Reagan's decision to ramp up the arms race with the Soviets and bog them down in Afghanistan via the Muhajadeen (led by Osama bin Laden), pushed the Soviets and their new leader Mikhail Gorbachev past their financial and ideological limits.  The strange thing however, was that even though once the Berlin Wall came crumbling down, and the Soviet Union broke up, America's military industrial complex wasn't satisfied with the "victory" and the peace dividends America could then enjoy.

Of course the military industrial complex wasn't satisfied.  Without a great enemy out there staring down America, they were in danger of going out of business.  So, enter George Herbert Walker Bush, son of Prescott Bush, who once financed the rise of Adolph Hitler (before it was known what Hitler was going to become in all fairness).  Bush was elected benefiting from the success of the Reagan era in which he played a prominent part.  He proudly expanded old Woodrow Wilson's 14 points to 1000 and elevated them to the higher metaphysical realm of "light."  Bush's new celestial policy of a New World Order was really just more of the same.  He merely repackaged the old ideas of foisting American power and might onto the world in the name of freedom in a nice modern catch phrase. 

As you might guess, a new enemy was going to be needed.  Well one was found in the form of a petty dictator from Iraq named Saddam Hussein.  Ironically Saddam was once an ally in the old struggle against the Soviet Union and the Soviet satellite nation of Iran (under the Ayatollah Khomeni).  When Saddam invaded Kuwait, Bush wasted no time coming to that Oil emirate's defense.  In short order Saddam's army was ousted from Kuwait and pounded all the way back to Baghdad mercilessly.  However, Bush stopped short of toppling the Hussein regime, and opted instead to mimic the Cold War policy of containment by imposing geographical limits on Saddam's regime inside their own nation.  Iraq thus became a great experiment in world government via the United Nations.  When Bill Clinton took over for Bush, he continued the policy of containment in Iraq with little to no change.  America's perpetual war was now centered on the Middle East.

Clinton's administration served little more than as an intermission between Bushes.  When George Jr. took office, the perpetual war went into its next and greatest phase.  After the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Bush initiated the most aggressive foreign policy shift in American history.  He launched the Global War on Terror to combat "terrorism" anywhere in the world.  The scope and magnitude of Bush's new policy is not only unfathomable, it's downright mind boggling.  The resources of America, under this new war, would be stretched to a greater degree than ever before.  Bush turned America into the world's policeman of not only its sphere of influence, but that of the rest of the world too.  The Military Industrial Complex was most pleased because now they again have their open ended war with the accompanying blank check.  So the idea of perpetual war is not something PNAC or Neo-Cons invented, it's as American as apple pie, and coming up on its 100th anniversary.

This is a followup to my first blog entry about martial law.  Please feel free to comment here or on LiveLeak.com if you want.

I have been seeing more and more videos on YouTube depicting the threat of martial law being implemented in America.  I have watched videos by Alex Jones the syndicated radio talk show host from Austin, Texas, and other videos like Loose Change by Aaron Russo.  The 911 Truth movement is continuing to grow across the land and this movement raises the spectre that something is afoot in the United States.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, nor do I give credence to outlandish hypotheses that cannot be substantiated.  However, I am open minded about questioning the "official story."  I do not believe the 911 Commission was completely truthful or thorough in their final conclusions.  I believe the political wagons were circled so to speak...mostly to protect the gross negligence within the intelligence and law enforcement communities who might have cooperated more efficiently in preventing the 911 terror attacks. 

The part of the martial law fear that gets my attention is all of the terror legislation that has been promulgated and hurriedly passed through Congress in the aftermath of 911.  We have the creation of the Department of Homeland Security for starters with its close association with the Patriot Act.  We also have the Military Commissions Act and the John Warner Defense Bill.  Furthermore, we have new phrases like "unlawful enemy combatant" who are not afforded the rights of the Geneva Convention.

We have already seen the new laws and practices put into motion in the recent tragedy of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  People were herded into the Super Dome and homes were forcibly entered and firearms illegally confiscated by officers combing the neighborhoods.  New Orleans was a test case for martial law in my opinion.  We will probably see more of the same in future natural disasters of similar magnitude.  Arguably similar unconstitutional precedents were set in the recent Midwest flooding in Iowa.  I've even witnessed martial law drills in my own little hometown in Kentucky recently.  I've never seen an Apache gunship fly over my little town, and I know of no other reason to see one since it's not the type of helicopter used for emergency evacuations or other non-combat related missions.  The Apache is a gunship designed to destroy heavily armored vehicles including the largest battle tanks.  It's only purpose would be to disperse rioting "unlawful enemy combatants" aka., dissenting patriots who will not bow to authoritarian tyranny.

Once upon a time not too long ago, Posse Comitatus prevented the military from being used on domestic soil even for emergency situations such as natural disasters or not so natural disturbances like rioting.  Now even the National Guard can be federalized by the President without the States' or Governors' consent or approval.  This means that civilian control of the military is now tenuous at best.  I am sad to say that our Founding Fathers must be rolling over in their graves right about now.  911 has started a chain reaction of events that have steadily and incrementally eroded our civil liberties as outlined in the Bill of Rights.  The federal governmnent can now perform warrantless wiretaps and surveillance based upon the presumption of guilt that someone "could be" a potential terrorist.  Now even the telecommunications companies can no longer be held liable if they turn over private customer information that aids in these controversial investigations.  The lines of accountability have now been erased, and the promise of privacy removed.  But this isn't even the big picture....cause there's more!

Ever wonder why our borders have not been adequately secured?  Well if actions were to be taken to further tighten our border security, we would be reinforcing our national sovereignty in the current nation-state world system.  Of course there are many inside our government who wish to eradicate the current world order for a more regionally cooperative economic and political order akin to what has transpired in Europe.  I'm sure many of you have heard by now that there is some talk about the creation of a North American Union between the United States, Mexico, and Canada.  Lou Dobbs reported this on his CNN newscast quite a while back, and Alex Jones et al have been following up on it ever since.  It seems that a huge Trans-Continental Highway system going from Mexico through the Texas corridor, all the way up to Canada is currently being constructed.  So the logic now stands that the reason they don't want to reinforce our current borders is because they won't be our future borders within the near future.  Are you ready to trade in your dollars for ameros yet?  Me neither.

So are our officials preparing for martial law?  I would say there are contingency plans on the table for social unrest....to the degree I am not quite sure of.  Total national martial law would be extremely expensive and demanding on national resources.  I figure that it will not work if overtly imposed upon the populace without good reason.  What our government would need would be an "event" that would satisfy the general public's concerns in such a way that the people would willingly hand over liberties to the government.  Such a pretext would be a terror event on the scale of 911 or possibly even greater.  The current sabre rattling with Iran could be the impending "event" our officials are hoping for.  I'm sure Iran has sleeper cells embedded across the U.S. awaiting word from Ahmadinejad to go into action.  Iran has the capability to strike at the heart of America and Israel with pre-positioned unconventional forces.  Despite this, Iran is not the real threat to America...no our own fear and stupidity is the real threat. 

So if America were to become embroiled in a new conflict with Iran, it could very easily escalate into World War III.  Such an atmosphere would likely convince Americans to go to high alert and receive martial law in the name of military preparedness.  The window of opportunity to seize cash, firearms, information, and all other articles associated with freedom and the pursuit of happiness will be open to the government during such a crisis.  It is my opinion that scenarios have been rehearsed and planned for if and when we enter such a level of world tension.  Newt Gingrich has already gone on record having said we are already in the early stages of World War III.  Either he is preparing the public for what's coming, or he's just posturing for attention.  I believe the former since I don't think Newt is an attention seeker.  If he's correct, we are in the "Phoney War" stages of The Third World War.  No matter how one looks at it, something strange is going on in our world today, and it's beginning to look a lot like what John the Revelator saw in the Book of Revelation.  There's no doubt that a new world order is emerging, but just who is behind it and how far they are willing to go is still uncertain.  Our only option right now is to be ever vigilant and continuously ask questions where we see questionable actions being taken by our leaders.  It's the American thing to do.