How US Army Could "Legally" Crush "Tea Party" Militia in 2016

[Michael K.]

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/fu ... the-future

Synopsis: Retired queer-ass Masonic Colonel tries to ingratiate himself to Kikes by innovating a Talmudic legal maneuver to get around Posse Comitatus, and crush everyone the ADL hates in one sanitary swoop.

Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A "Vision" of the Future
by Kevin Benson and Jennifer Weber

Journal Article | July 25, 2012 - 4:53am

About the Authors

Kevin Benson

Kevin Benson, Ph.D., Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired, is currently a seminar leader at the University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  He holds a B.S. from the United States Military Academy, an M.S. from The Catholic University of America, an MMAS from the School of Advanced Military Studies and a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas.  During his career, COL Benson served with the 5th Infantry Division, the 1st Armored Division, the 1st Cavalry Division, the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, XVIII Airborne Corps and Third U.S. Army. He also served as the Director, School of Advanced Military Studies.  He works for AECOM.

Jennifer Weber

Jennifer Weber is an Associate Professor of History (Ph.D. Princeton, 2003) at the University of Kansas.  Jennifer Weber specializes in the Civil War, especially the seams where political, social, and military history meet. She has active interests as well in Abraham Lincoln, the 19th century U.S., war and society, and the American presidency.  Her first book, Copperheads (Oxford University Press, 2006), about the antiwar movement in the Civil War North, was widely reviewed and has become a highly regarded study of Civil War politics and society.  Professor Weber is committed to reaching out to the general public and to young people in her work. Summer's Bloodiest Days (National Geographic), is a children's book about the Battle of Gettysburg and its aftermath. The National Council for Social Studies in 2011 named Bloodiest Days a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People. Dr. Weber is very active in the field of Lincoln studies.  She has spoken extensively around the country on Lincoln, politics, and other aspects of the Civil War.

[Excerpt:] The Scenario (2016)

The Great Recession of the early twenty-first century lasts far longer than anyone anticipated.  After a change in control of the White House and Congress in 2012, the governing party cuts off all funding that had been dedicated to boosting the economy or toward relief.  The United States economy has flatlined, much like Japan's in the 1990s, for the better part of a decade.  By 2016, the economy shows signs of reawakening, but the middle and lower-middle classes have yet to experience much in the way of job growth or pay raises.  Unemployment continues to hover perilously close to double digits, small businesses cannot meet bankers' terms to borrow money, and taxes on the middle class remain relatively high. A high-profile and vocal minority has directed the public's fear and frustration at nonwhites and immigrants.  After almost ten years of race-baiting and immigrant-bashing by right-wing demagogues, nearly one in five Americans reports being vehemently opposed to immigration, legal or illegal, and even U.S.-born nonwhites have become occasional targets for mobs of angry whites.

In May 2016 an extremist militia motivated by the goals of the "tea party" movement takes over the government of Darlington, South Carolina, occupying City Hall, disbanding the city council, and placing the mayor under house arrest.  Activists remove the chief of police and either disarm local police and county sheriff departments or discourage them from interfering.  In truth, this is hardly necessary. Many law enforcement officials already are sympathetic to the tea party's agenda, know many of the people involved, and have made clear they will not challenge the takeover.  The militia members are organized and have a relatively well thought-out plan of action.

With Darlington under their control, militia members quickly move beyond the city limits to establish "check points" – in reality, something more like choke points -- on major transportation lines.  Traffic on I-95, the East Coast's main north-south artery; I-20; and commercial and passenger rail lines are stopped and searched, allegedly for "illegal aliens."  Citizens who complain are immediately detained.  Activists also collect "tolls" from drivers, ostensibly to maintain public schools and various city and county programs, but evidence suggests the money is actually going toward quickly increasing stores of heavy weapons and ammunition.  They also take over the town web site and use social media sites to get their message out unrestricted.

When the leaders of the group hold a press conference to announce their goals, they invoke the Declaration of Independence and argue that the current form of the federal government is not deriving its "just powers from the consent of the governed" but is actually "destructive to these ends."  Therefore, they say, the people can alter or abolish the existing government and replace it with another that, in the words of the Declaration, "shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."  While mainstream politicians and citizens react with alarm, the "tea party" insurrectionists in South Carolina enjoy a groundswell of support from other tea party groups, militias, racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, anti-immigrant associations such as the Minutemen, and other right-wing groups.  At the press conference the masked militia members' uniforms sport a unit seal with a man wearing a tricorn hat and carrying a musket over the motto "Today's Minutemen."  When a reporter asked the leaders who are the "red coats" the spokesman answered, "I don't know who the redcoats are...it could be federal troops." Experts warn that while these groups heretofore have been considered weak and marginal, the rapid coalescence among them poses a genuine national threat.

The mayor of Darlington calls the governor and his congressman.  He cannot act to counter the efforts of the local tea party because he is confined to his home and under guard.  The governor, who ran on a platform that professed sympathy with tea party goals, is reluctant to confront the militia directly.  He refuses to call out the National Guard.  He has the State Police monitor the roadblocks and checkpoints on the interstate and state roads but does not order the authorities to take further action.  In public the governor calls for calm and proposes talks with the local tea party to resolve issues.  Privately, he sends word through aides asking the federal government to act to restore order.  Due to his previous stance and the appearance of being "pro" tea party goals the governor has little political room to maneuver.

The Department of Homeland Security responds to the governor's request by asking for defense support to civil law enforcement.  After the Department of Justice states that the conditions in Darlington and surrounding areas meet the conditions necessary to invoke the Insurrection Act, the President invokes it.

(From Title 10 US Code the President may use the militia or Armed Forces to:

§ 331 – Suppress an insurrection against a State government at the request of the Legislature or, if not in session, the Governor.

§ 332 – Suppress unlawful obstruction or rebellion against the U.S.

§ 333 – Suppress insurrection or domestic violence if it (1) hinders the execution of the laws to the extent that a part or class of citizens are deprived of Constitutional rights and the State is unable or refuses to protect those rights or (2) obstructs the execution of any Federal law or impedes the course of justice under Federal laws.)

By proclamation he calls on the insurrectionists to disperse peacefully within 15 days.  There is no violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.  The President appoints the Attorney General and the Department of Justice as the lead federal agency to deal with the crisis.  The President calls the South Carolina National Guard to federal service.  The Joint Staff in Washington, D.C., alerts U.S. Northern Command, the headquarters responsible for the defense of North America, to begin crisis action planning.  Northern Command in turn alerts U.S. Army North/Fifth U.S. Army for operations as a Joint Task Force headquarters.  Army units at Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Stewart, Ga.; and Marines at Camp Lejuene, N.C. go on alert.  The full range of media, national and international, is on scene.

Comments:

by Seadragonconquerer | August 5, 2012 - 6:33pm

@Kev and Jenny: here's some news you - and NorthCom - can use. There's going to be 1,2,3...many Darlingtons. And the doggies probably shouldn't count on a lot of cooperation from A)U.S. Marines, B) National Guard, C)County Sheriffs. Once the dollar goes, and takes the Ponziconomy with it (cf.: IranWar), the days of our current Zionist-Socialist treason regime are numbered. I suspect the DC gang will quickly be reduced to recruiting Red Guards from the FEMA camps.

by WGBJ | August 5, 2012 - 1:20pm

Interesting if slanted piece. As a one time infantry soldier, and current serving old school southern peace/law officer I think the authors do themselves and the government a dis service by using the tea party and constitutionalist anti immigration types as the dissidents in the peace.Given the current schism in politics in this nation where the government is persecuting law officers for doing their job along the southern border.Where voter intimidation investigations of organizations like the New Black Panther Party by career DOJ employees are interfered with by political appointees,and other such activity is common place but ignored by the DOJ this article smells of a liberal bias. It also feeds the paranoia about the current administration and the fears of the use of the military to do everything from confiscation of constitutionally protected weapons, to enforcement of politically unpopular laws and executive orders.The only way the authors could have made it worse was to have included what the people down south refer to as "Blue Helmets" or UN troops.
The chances of this scenario happening are minuscule compared to the dangers of another serious terrorist attack in the homeland by Muslim extremists, narco terrorists, or even Black Block types from the OWS protests causing at say a political party's convention.

by Obvious Moniker | August 5, 2012 - 11:48am

I'll admit to being one of the many offended by the choice of parameters; however, for the sake of discussion, I'll try to minimize repeating what previous commenters have said.

First, it has been claimed that any group could be substituted for the Tea Party types in the scenario.  While this claim is undoubtably true on its face, from the detail in the scenario given and the current political climate, I cannot help but wonder if said claim has not been made disengenuously.  Several other commenters have wondered how many axes are being ground with the setup used, and I must echo that feeling.

  Having been stationed at a 3-star level staff command for 5 years, there's a reason why our J5/J7 guys had all the local powers in each scenario represented by Pineland, Treeland, et.al.   That methodology avoids accusations that the setup may be politically tainted or skewed along ideological lines that would otherwise be unnecessarily detract from the training and potentially make sharing said scenario with our allies unwise.

One untrained in military planning might get the impression from the universal application of said naming obfuscation by such a wide variety of planners whose scenarios truly did not depend on taking place in a location that such a principle was something those planners were taught in their training.  In that light, I hope you can understand my skepticism of your claim to being unbiased, as it seems so woefully poor form as to stretch credibility with such denials.

Second, I find it interesting that the scenario chooses to focus so hard on the legal and command structuring to justify the operation with nary a mention of the implications and ramifications of the situation as a whole.  Granted, one needs to keep a defined scope in preparing scenarios; however it is dangerous to ignore extremely relevant items that would have real-world implications were the scenario to be a live event, such as the fact that, as written, 5th Army was just ordered to fire upon American citizens and done so in such a fashion that the CiC can hide behind the convenient line that he only ordered them to "fix" the problem, not level the place.

Logic like that is why Posse Comitatus exists in the first place, as the military is not a police force.  Cliche as it is, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail... And in the end, only the foolishly ignorant would be surprised that sending combat troops to "fix" a problem ended in bloodshed.

Honestly, I do hope that this scenario has been sanitized for public consumption because if no further thought was given to the ramification that 5th Army has been ordered to effectively give the opening volley to what will turn into another Civil War, then this whole deal underscores the dangerous myopia infecting our senior leadership (both civilian and .mil) that will ensure bloodshed is inevitable.

There was a jarring lack of concern for the Constitutional rights of our citizens amongst the field grade and flag officers that I spoke with during my time as part of JTF-KATRINA.  As someone who takes their oath extremely seriously, it was disconcerting and disheartening to see those above me blithely ignoring the fact that their viewpoints were in direct conflict with the oaths they swore.  In the few cases I made mention of such concerns, such thoughts were dismissed out of hand, sometimes in a most hostile manner.

Finally, were I to be in command of 5th Army in a situation such as this, I would be in quite a pickle.  Being a Tea Party person, thus having a fair amount of context as to how the organization works, I would be inclined to discount much of the "intel" claiming that these folks were anti-immigrant, etc.  While the decentralized nature of the party does make it difficult to make generalities across regions, I have yet to run into a single anti-immigrant or openly racist person.   My immediate efforts would be to determine the true leanings of the group, are they actually tea party types or using the tea party flag to cover their actions (false flag) ?  If they are actual tea party types, then I would be concerned with what gave them the impetus to actually engage in these actions, given the scenario's starting point is wholly unlike the stated goals of the group or the actions of their membership in part or in whole.  I would be very cautious that the information I'd been given was tainted and did not reflect reality on the ground.

With their identity determined and their casus belli identified, only then could I begin to determine a proper course of action... If the insurgent operation turned out to be a false flag or over-reaction, then I would have to plan accordingly.  This would require careful coordination with the PAO, given the powder keg quality of the situation.  As a false flag, you'd need to find out who is really running it but realize that their goal is to make the group whose flag they're running with look as bad as possible... Which would mean you shouldn't expect negotiations to work, if you got them to the table at all... And honestly, I'd expect widespread bloodshed to further the true groups goal.  Press nightmare and chaotic results.

  If it was an overreaction, then one could presume properly implemented negotiations would work.  Assuming intel on the leadership did not indicate psychotic tendancies, the best way forward would likely be a very small contingent.  Show up in person with an escort armed enough to show respect but not weakness and "take me to your leader."  Dangerous, but you have to lead by example.  Hiding behind intermediaries would do more harm to the negotiative process than good and a show of good faith would go a long way to calming their fears or should the locals choose their actions poorly to the show of good faith, it would absolutely sink their case to the public at large.

  On the other hand, if it turned out they were actual tea party and had a valid casus belli... Well, at that point, my Chief of Staff and I would be having a heart-to-heart over exactly what Honor and our Oaths demand of us.  Take that as you will.

by William T Russell | August 5, 2012 - 2:52am

Congratulations to COL (Ret) Benson. You have just hit the national political scene via Free Republic. The headlines will read: "US ARMY PLANNING TO QUELL TEA PARTY INSURRECTIONS." This article should be a thoughtful discussion on the process of suppressing potential insurrections and Military/Defense Support to Civil Authorities. However, your scenario using the TEA Party, combined with your credentials as a Seminar Leader at Ft Leavenworth, has a high potential of causing a major political firestorm on the national level. Your scenario could easily give the President, the SECDEF, the CJCS, the SECARMY, and the CoS a political black eye. You have given credibility to the conspiracy theorists who believe the President is preparing to implement martial law to stay in power, and have undermined the faith which so many of the TEA Party members place in the United States Military to support and defend the Constitution. For an author who discusses the importance of information operations your article, you have demonstrated your utter incompetence in this area.

by gfmucci | August 4, 2012 - 11:39pm

This socialist/progressive retired Col. and his sidekick sure missed the boat on this analysis. They miss reality to the point of being creepy/otherwordly.

How about this 1000 times more likely scenario:

In November 2012 the communist progressives fail to reelect Obama by a very small margin. Major riots break out in 15 major cities nationwide with disenfranchised-feeling blacks, Islamists, and Latinos expanding their destructive protests into the suburbs. The governors of three of the most liberal states refuse to take action to quell the disturbances.

These clueless writers fail to understand who tends to be violent and who tends to be peaceful. They are either disconnected from reality or are driven by an ideology that ignores reality.