Defense Department Sees Protests as Terrorism
June 16th, 2009Allow me to distribute a clue to the ACLU. This is from my 2005 essay, Militant Electronic Piracy: Non-Violent Insurgency Tactics Against the American Corporate State:
The U.S. military classifies political activism as “low intensity conflict.” The scale of warfare (in terms of intensity) begins with individuals distributing anti-government handbills and public gatherings with anti-government/anti-corporate themes. In the middle of the conflict intensity scale are what the military refers to as Operations Other than War; an example would be the situation the U.S. is facing in Iraq. At the upper right hand side of the graph is global thermonuclear war. What is important to remember is that the military is concerned with ALL points along this scale because they represent different types of threats to the ACS.
Making distinctions between civilian law enforcement and military forces, and foreign and domestic intelligence services is no longer necessary. After September 11, 2001, all national security assets would be brought to bare against any U.S. insurgency movement. Additionally, the U.S. military established NORTHCOM which designated the U.S. as an active military operational area. Crimes involving the loss of corporate profits will increasingly be treated as acts of terrorism and could garner anything from a local law enforcement response to activation of regular military forces.
Most of what is commonly referred to as “political activism” is viewed by the corporate state’s counterinsurgency apparatus as a useful and necessary component of political control.
Letters-to-the-editor…
Calls-to-elected-representatives…
Waving banners…
“Third” party political activities…
Taking beatings, rubber bullets and tear gas from riot police in free speech zones…Political activism amounts to an utterly useless waste of time, in terms of tangible power, which is all the ACS understands. Political activism is a cruel guise that is sold to people who are dissatisfied, but who have no concept of the nature of tangible power. Counterinsurgency teams routinely monitor these activities, attend the meetings, join the groups and take on leadership roles in the organizations.
Write your sternly worded letters. Darth Vader will continue to laugh at you.
Via: Contra Costa Times:
Antiterrorism training materials used by the Department of Defense teach that public protests should be regarded as “low-level terrorism,” according to a letter of complaint sent to the department by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
“Teaching employees that dissent on issues of public concern is something to be feared, rather than encouraged, is a dangerously counterproductive use of scarce security resources, making us less safe as a democracy,” Northern California ACLU staff attorney Ann Brick and ACLU Washington national security policy counsel Michael German wrote in the letter to Gail McGinn, acting undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness.
“DOD employees cannot accomplish their mission of protecting our nation and its values unless they understand that those values encompass the right to criticize our government through protest activities,” they wrote. “It is imperative that they are taught the difference between political, religious or social activism and terrorism.”
Among the multiple-choice questions included in its Level 1 Antiterrorism Awareness training course — an annual training requirement for all DOD personnel that is fulfilled through Web-based instruction — the department asks the following: “Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorist activity?” To answer correctly, the examinee must select “protests.” The ACLU wants that changed immediately, and it wants corrective information sent to all Department of Defense employees who received the training.
The ACLU letter notes that this is particularly disturbing in light of the long-term pattern of government treating lawful dissent as terrorism. In the Bay Area, my colleagues and I reported exactly this in 2003, as the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center fed local police agencies information on protests, with catastrophic results. Two years after that, it was the California National Guard.
I guess I’m surprised not only that the government hasn’t yet learned its lesson about equating the exercise of our cherished constitutional rights with terrorism, but also that it’s so incredibly obvious in doing so.
“I’m surprised not only that the government hasn’t yet learned its lesson about equating the exercise of our cherished constitutional rights with terrorism, but also that it’s so incredibly obvious in doing so.”
<boggle>
Um. Dude hasn’t read much news in the last, oh, three decades, has he?
Let’s see here:
1st amendment: Free Speech Zones, gag orders, and if the MSM doesn’t report it, it didn’t happen
2nd amendment: NFA34, FFA38, GCA68, BATF, GCA86, Brady, “assault weapons” ban
3rd amendment: we don’t have armed forces quartered in citizens’ residences yet
4th amendment: whatever, all your stuff belongs to the Feds
5th amendment: reserved for perjury to Congress
6th amendment: so long as you have money
7th amendment: not a problem, but the civil courts are so backlogged and lawyers charge so much that you’ll probably end up settling anyway
8th amendment: debt slavery doesn’t count as “cruel and unusual punishment”
9th & 10th amendments: try asking politely for your non-enumerated rights and un-delegated powers back, and see how that goes.
Obvious? Well yes. Rather hard to avoid seeing that, isn’t it?
And it’s not just the Bill of Rights, but all of the other parts of the Constitution too. Ah well, nice while it lasted, eh?
I’m not calling total BS on this; but in my service we’ve done this online for years, most recently in Early May 2009, and I’ve yet to see the question mentioned in the articles. For that matter, our online materials are identified with our service’s insignia, not “DoD”. Access is through a .mil website and one must have an account established with either a password or RFID card to enter. Other tabloid-type reporting on this issue mentions a ‘training manual’, which is also nonexistent in our headquarters. Not even the *training manager* has one.
Reader beware.
@thucydides
Indeed. Now if only the conservatives could grasp that its gone.