Martial Law: The Pretext Is Now Set, part 2

Special Report:Katrina/Rita Fallout Part Two
Martial Law: The Pretext Is Now Set

Steve Watson / Infowars | Sept 28 2005

Click here for part one of this report

In the Aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita it has become obvious that not only will another terror attack on US soil provide the pretext for a police state crackdown, so will a natural disaster.

I'm not going to once again go over in depth the police state showcase that was New Orleans in the days after Katrina, but let us recap a few key points:

FEMA has been deliberately sabotaging relief efforts in New Orleans, making things worse than need be.

FEMA, its officials and the people it employs have a long history of incompetence, corruption, fraud and criminality.

The Federal Government has illegally initiated total gun confiscation of law abiding citizens and forcibly removed them from their property in New Orleans. Federal forces have led criminal gangs of police in an America-killing gun grab.

Along with forced gun grabs and evacuation, we have further exposed the intricacies of the operative federalized Police State, with the presence of foreign troops, SWAT teams, privately employed security mercenaries, the treatment of citizens as "insurgents" and evacuees as "internees" and the euthanization and inoculation of survivors.

The bottom line on Katrina is that whether you believe it was all incompetence or part incompetence and part malevolence, the lasting pretext is the same.

When a disaster takes place, you have no rights and the federal government can arrest you if you donâ??t follow their every order.

FEMA is clearly using this human catastrophe as a means of executing its decade long plans and providing the pretext for future takeover scenarios of all major American cities.

FEMA is not an elected body, it does not involve itself in public disclosures, and it even has a quasi-secret budget in the billions of dollars. It has more power than the President of the United States or the Congress, it has the power to suspend laws, move entire populations, arrest and detain citizens without a warrant and hold them without trial, it can seize property, food supplies, transportation systems, and can suspend the Constitution. Not only is it the most powerful entity in the United States, but it was not even created under Constitutional law by the Congress.

FEMA executive orders have been paving the way for the police State for many years. For a full synopsis of FEMA's executive orders in light of the hurricane, click here.

Here comes the Police State to save the day

Such deliberate federal incompetence and criminality made things desperate in New Orleans after Katrina. The manufactured mainstream response has been that things were so bad in New Orleans that a police state was needed to save the day:

As Washington picks through the lessons learned from hurricane Katrina, there is a growing conviction that the only organization with the skills, expertise, and resources needed to respond quickly to a catastrophe of such magnitude is the American military. "There's a strong historical precedent against doing this," says Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution here. "But now we've got a real reason." - Christian Science Monitor

President Bush's push to give the military a bigger role in responding to major disasters like Hurricane Katrina could lead to a loosening of legal limits on the use of federal troops on U.S. soil.... At question, however, is how far to push the military role, which by law may not include actions that can be defined as law enforcement â?? stopping traffic, searching people, seizing property or making arrests. That prohibition is spelled out in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, enacted after the Civil War mainly to prevent federal troops from supervising elections in former Confederate states. - Associated Press


"It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces -- the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice," - President Bush

"I believe the time has come that we reflect on the Posse Comitatus Act," - Sen. John W. Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee

The Following is from White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's Press Gaggle last week. They are openly discussing suspending Posse Comitatus:

Q What's the next step on this idea of the DOD maybe taking over at certain times if it's a big enough disaster?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, it's something we'll be discussing with congressional leaders, and talking about... whether it's a natural disaster or a terrorist attack or -- I should say, a natural disaster or a terrorist attack of a certain magnitude and scope, or a disease pandemic, like an avian flu outbreak, and you need to mobilize assets and resources and logistics and communications very quickly to help stabilize or contain the situation.

The Department of Defense is really the one organization that has the ability and capability to be able to do that.

Q -- those two laws that we were talking about earlier, the posse comitatus and the Insurrection?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you're talking about one area -- that's law enforcement. The President's talking about considering a situation where you need a clear line of authority in the event of a catastrophic event.


Q Does it take -- would it take an act of Congress to do what the President is thinking about? I think that's what you were saying.

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, that's why he said, Congress needs to consider this, and that he wants to work with Congress to look at how we move forward on it.



Q So, basically, the bottom line is, is that the Defense Secretary would be the new line of command, and control all the operations?

MR. McCLELLAN: It's something we need to consider for the event of -- for any event of a extraordinary circumstance brought about because of some catastrophic event, whether it's a natural disaster or a terrorist attack -- a large-scale natural disaster or a large-scale terrorist attack type situation, or a large outbreak of disease.



Clearly it matters not if it's a terror attack or a natural disaster, or even some kind of disease outbreak, the precedent has been set for Martial Law.

So It was federalization and the criminal negligence and sabotage on the part of the Feds that caused the mass disruption in New Orleans, yet the call is for MORE federalization? The call is for troops on our streets, stopping traffic, searching people, seizing property and making arrests?

Everything we have warned you about for years IS NOW HAPPENING. After 9/11 we said the next major events would sell the people on the police state, look at the media response to Katrina and Rita, people are begging for laws to be passed to allow the police state to become the norm.

So called "Homeland security experts" are calling for federal troops, that don't need 72 hours for call-up as some National Guard units require, capable of dropping into a disaster zone as the damage is being done, rather than afterward. The media is calling for the TOTAL FEDERALIZATION of America.

They want "Military authorities" to supersede"Civilian authorities". When did we stop being people and become "civilians"? Can it really be a coincidence that the calls for complete federalization and martial law are coming in conjunction with the calls for greater funding for FEMA and Homeland Security? The perceived incompetence of the Feds has been manufactured in order to garner a greater wealth of both personnel, resources and mass support. We are literally sanctioning moves towards the police state, sleep walking into tyranny.

As the Neocon criminals in charge of the US Government sink their teeth further into our freedoms, the masses are losing consciousness and becoming more passive. They EXPECT the government to demand they give up their liberties and now they are WILLINGLY doing so, in some cases even DEMANDING that the government take them. The more they ask, the more they shall receive.

NORTHCOM Takeover drills

After Katrina and Before Rita Lord Bush canceled a scheduled trip to Texas and instead visited Colorado Springs, Colorado and the U.S. Northern Command Headquarters.

Our sources informed us at that time that far from this being a change of plan, Bush was visiting Northcom to be witness to a martial law takeover drill which was directly connected to Granite Shadow, which the Washington Post reported, "is yet another new Top Secret and compartmented operation related to the militaryâ??s extra-legal powers regarding weapons of mass destruction. It allows for emergency military operations in the United States without civilian supervision or control.

A Joint Task Force Rita was been created under the jurisdiction of NorthCom. Operating out of Austin Texas, in liaison with NorthCom in Colorado, under the command of Army Lt. Gen. Robert Clark. A "standing joint force headquarters" was established in Austin, Texas.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff subsequently classified Hurricane Rita as an "incident of national significance," which justifies the activation of a so-called "National Response Plan"(NRP).

As Michael Chossudovsky pointed out in his article on this, The National Response Plan (NRP) is effective upon issuance with a phased implementation process during the first year. During the first 120 days of this implementation process, the Initial NRP (INRP), Federal Response Plan (FRP), U.S. Government Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operations Plan (CONPLAN), and Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan (FRERP) remain in effect. (For further details, consult the complete document at http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf

So essentially, the period of time during which the NRP would be in operation would extend far beyond the emergency period in the disaster area. In all likelihood, the NRP would modify the functions of civilian government.





The Washington Post reported Aug. 8 that The Northern Command would be the lead agency in domestic terror response. The Pentagon "has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans."

Northcom has a history of calling for the end of Posse Comitatus and officials there seem to be hell bent upon a military takeover. Head of Northcom Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart was quoted in the New York Times in 2002 as saying

"My view has been that Posse Comitatus will constantly be under review as we mature this command, as we do our exercises, as we interact with FEMA, F.B.I., and those lead federal agencies out there,"

This is precisely the point, the erosion of Posse Comitatus has been ongoing for a long time. As revealed in part one of this report, military takeover drills and exercises have been in operation for years.

Eberhart has also said that he is anxious to use new technology, including unmanned surveillance blimps cruising at 70,000 feet and Predator drones scanning American coastlines.

The general said it was also possible that the North American Aerospace Defense Command would expand beyond the United States and Canada to include Mexico.

"To defend this nation, we have to defend as far out as possible...Therefore we need the support of Canada and Mexico to be able to defend our interests."

A recent Council On Foreign Relations document corroborates this proposed move. The 59-page CFR document spells out a five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter."

The document entitled "Building a North American Community," asserts that George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin "committed their governments" to this goal when they met at Bushâ??s ranch and at Waco, Texas on March 23, 2005. The three adopted the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" and assigned "working groups" to fill in the details.

So there we have Orwell's Oceania coming to pass. A unionized Americas under the control of a military dictatorship.

Could it be that Rita was a NORTHCOM beta test to see if they could get people out of the cities should they want to? One was a rich city, the other was a poor one. Was Katrina a beta test for keeping people in the city?

Whatever happens next it's going to be on a grander scale.

What more is it going to take?

We cannot go any further down the line towards a Martial Law Police State in America without actually being in one. How much more has to happen before people realize there is a Constitutional crisis in effect now.

The Neo-con element of the Elite power structure have decided that now is the time to instigate the takeover. The massive power trip they have received after 9/11 has tipped them over the edge. The loonies are in complete control of the asylum now. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and wherever else they choose next are side issues to them now. Target number one is the occupation of the USA.

When The United States of America become Oceania their goal is complete. As the masses sleepwalk into this scenario the few that are still awake are becoming more active and waking up more people. We have to move on this now, there is no more time for procrastination. Everyone should be writing reports like this one, everyone should be waking up their families and friends. We are in an Information War.

Are we going to stand by and be the generation who go down in history as the weak, poor saps that allowed themselves to be ruled over by brutish warmongering power hoarding criminals elites?

Or are we going to go down in history as the generation that defeated tyrannical violent warmongers by standing up and being counted? Through peaceful, progressive intelligent outreach and the reclaiming of our freedom.