Thursday, February 09, 2006
Early Warning! Is Bush Preparing to Wage War on Americans?

He has asserted his "power" to do so amid reports that there are some 800 detention camps throughout the US, staffed, as yet empty but ready for operation. Armed guards are reported to be in place. [ See: INN World Report (Free Speech TV), February 7 broadcast]

The "official cover story" is that FEMA maintains these facilities in the "event of a mass influx of illegal immigrants or in case of national emergency". It is more likely, that the detention camps are created to house "political subversives".
(1) The President is now claiming, and is aggressively exercising, the right to use any and all war powers against American citizens even within the United States, and he insists that neither Congress nor the courts can do anything to stop him or even restrict him.
—Glenn Greenwald: The NSA Fight Begins - Strategies for Moving Forward, The Huffington Post


The Pacific News Service meanwhile reports that Homeland Security had awarded a $385 million dollar contract to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.

The cover stories —mass influx of immigrants, national emergencies —are just not credible. There was no such massive influx following the Tsunami and there is no evidence that the Feds cared a whit about New Orleans until it was too late. And even then, it was the political fallout, stupid! Likewise, it's a safe bet that federal compassion has nothing to do with Halliburton's new windfall.

The announcement comes at a time when Bush has unilaterally declared his power to designate anyone —possibly a Cindy Sheehan — an "enemy combatant". If Bush can spy on you, in secret, without a court order, he can, likewise arrest you in secret, imprison you without charges, and, in other ways, deny you "due process of law". He could even have you executed in secret. Already, Bush claims that criticism of his administration aids and abets an enemy of his defining and Jose Padilla, an American citizen, has spent over four years in a Navy brig.

This is all doubly troubling when one considers the lack of credibility surrounding the Bush administration. Bush's own rhetoric does not help his case. To wit: "The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper!" and, early on: "...this would be a whole lot easier if this was a dictatorship...just as long as I'm the dictator!"

"Almost certainly this is preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters," says Daniel Ellsberg, a former military analyst who in 1971 released the Pentagon Papers, the U.S. military's account of its activities in Vietnam. "They've already done this on a smaller scale, with the 'special registration' detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo."