Crackdown: USA

NOTE

A condensed version of this article was published in two parts in the November 21, 2011 print edition of American Free Press:

Part I: U.S. Military Believes National Debt Now Most Serious Threat to America

Part II: (which can be accessed online here) Will U.S. Army Be Used To Crush Public Resistance?

by Keith Johnson

The United States is well on its way to becoming one giant third world country as insurmountable debt, depression level unemployment, and rising costs for basic necessities continue to crush the poor and middle class. It is now no longer a question as to if or when the economy will collapse, but rather how soon the American people will realize that it is already upon them.

The Occupy Wall Street protests that have now spread to every major city in the nation is a good sign that some have finally begun to wake up. But many of them are still relying on the same government that created the problem to come up with a solution to it.

Meanwhile, elected politicians and their faithful lackeys in the mainstream media continue to peddle lies and disinformation to those still living in denial. Using mathematical and linguistic trickery, they strive to convince the naïve that the current financial crisis is only temporary, cyclical, and well on its way to making a full recovery.

Perhaps if the American people simply had the wherewithal to look over the shoulders of these talking heads, they might be surprised to learn that their government has already conceded that the end is nigh—and that behind the scenes—they have been bracing for the fallout of a large-scale economic breakdown for several years.

The most recent evidence of this came in late October, when the U.S. Army sponsored their annual “Alternative Futures Symposium” in Chantilly, Virginia. This three-day session was covered in great detail by trade publication National Defense. According to their report, “The seminar included 85 experts from academia, industry, civilian government agencies, U.S. and foreign militaries” who concluded that the United States economy was on the verge of collapse, and that its burgeoning debt now took precedence as the most serious threat to national security.

Speaking on behalf of the U.S. military, Brig. Gen. Patrick J. Donahue II conceded that bloated military budgets would likely be a thing of the past, and that branches of the armed services would have to learn to cope with less. “How are we going to come up with a military that [might be smaller but] is still effective?” he asked. “That is the big issue that the Army is facing.”

Among the other participants was Robert A. Weidermeier, author of the best-selling book “Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the next Global Financial Meltdown,” who told the group that starting in 2013 and through 2015 is “when we’re going to see bad things.”

What is notable about Weidermeier’s prediction is that 2013 marks the 100-year anniversary of the Federal Reserve, whose liberal printing of paper currency has incrementally caused the dollar to lose more than 95% of it’s original purchasing power.

Weidermeier says that things have not yet spiraled out of control because interest rates have been kept low, but that even a 1 percent increase could inflate the debt by $150 billion per year. “That’s about the same as the entire budget for the Army,” Weidermeier said. “When you hit 10 percent, all bubbles burst.”

Although that assessment is dire, it may be an underestimation of the true severity of the impending crisis. Weidermeier bases his calculations on the supposition that the U.S. debt is somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 trillion, when in reality it may be well over a hundred times that amount. In August, economics professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, who served as a senior economist on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, told National Public Radio that the U.S. ignores “unofficial” payment obligations like Medicare and Social Security when computing the national debt. “If you add up all the promises that have been made for spending obligations, including defense expenditures, and you subtract all the taxes that we expect to collect, the difference is $211 trillion. That’s the fiscal gap,” says Kotlikoff. “That’s our true indebtedness.”

Frank Finelli, managing director of The Carlyle Group, a global asset management firm, was another speaker at the symposium who warned that the Federal Reserve was largely responsible for the crisis, noting that the Fed’s balance sheet had more than tripled since 2007 by $2.5 trillion. “Such tremendous increase in the money supply has not been accompanied by economic growth in the United States,” said Finelli.

He went on to say that China would weather the financial crisis far better than the United States or Europe, and that its strength would not be exerted through missiles or submarines, but rather from its immense wealth. “China does view financial power as an exercise of power in a way that the United States does not,” says Finelli. “The United States only exercises financial power through its corporations.”

This most recent symposium was part of the U.S. Army’s “Unified Quest 2012” exercise, the latest in a series of annual war games that—in recent years—has focused on America’s response to a global financial meltdown.

In November 2010, CNBC’s Eamon Javers had this to say about last year’s exercise: “Ever since the crash of 2008, the defense intelligence establishment has really been paying a lot of attention to global markets and how they can serve as a threat to U.S. national security interests.”

Javers goes on to report, “The Army is having a very interesting yearlong exercise called Unified Quest 2011. In that war gaming series, the Army is looking at the implications of a large scale economic breakdown in the U.S. that would force the Army to keep domestic order amid civil unrest, and deal with global fragmented power and drastically lower budgets.”

According to Javers, 30 military officials from the Marine Corps war colleges visited the trading floor of JP Morgan in October 2010 to study markets and the economy. “So you can see that all different parts of the Pentagon and defense intelligence establishment are looking at markets, and looking at ways they can present a new kind of threat to the United States,” says Javers. “These are the guys whose job it is to think of the very worst things that could possibly happen—and they’ve dreamed up some very scary scenarios here.”

Inside Defense magazine also reported on Unified Quest 2011 in a November 2010 article entitled “Army Officials Think Through the What-If’s of a Global Economic Collapse,” where it was revealed, “Officials picked the scenario of a worldwide economic collapse because it was deemed a plausible course of events given the current global security environment. In such a future, the United States would be broke, causing a domino effect that would push economies across the globe into chaos.”

According to Army Lt. Col. Mark Elfendahl, these were some of the conclusions drawn during a three-day session connected to that exercise: “The Army would have to significantly alter its investment portfolio, focusing on light and inexpensive forces” and that “an increased focus on domestic activities might be a way of justifying whatever Army force structure the country can still afford.”

In an almost light hearted manner, the article concludes by saying, “The only silver lining: The Army would have an influx of qualified recruits as the result of an unemployment rate between 25 percent and 30 percent.”

Tracing the government’s contingency plans back even further—to 2008—we find a prominent American newspaper and a foreign news agency both reporting on the Pentagon’s plans to confront the repercussions of an economic meltdown in the not-so-distant future.

According to a Russia Today report from 2008: “Twenty thousand additional U.S. uniformed troops, set to be trained by 2011, are to help as a response to the threat of a possible mass terror attack or civil unrest following an economic collapse.”

And from the Washington Post: The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.”

More recently, in a July 2011 article for the popular alternative news website The Intel Hub, Shepard Ambelas writes that the Pentagon’s 2008 announcement dovetails “into the current troop and equipment movements around the country reported by truckers as well as many troop sightings by everyday citizens.”

Ambelas goes on to write, “The military is already taking an active role in numerous domestic policing activities in close to a dozen states including Florida, Tennessee, California, Alabama and Pennsylvania.”

It may be no mere coincidence that the recent announcement by President Obama to have all troops return from Iraq by the end of 2011 coincides with the anticipated economic collapse. Will those troops now deployed on the streets of America? An even more relevant question might be: Will those troops exact the same toll on this nation as they did to the one they just left?

Will U.S. Army Be Used to Crush Public Resistance?

November 11, 2011

Army Crushes Dissent

By Keith Johnson -

The Alternative Futures Symposium in Chantilly, Va. was all part of the U.S. Army’s Unified Quest 2012 exercise, the latest in a series of annual war games that in recent years has focused on America’s response to a global financial meltdown in which average citizens took to the streets en masse.

In November 2010, CNBC’s Eamon Javers had this to say about last year’s exercise: “Ever since the crash of 2008, the defense-intelligence establishment has been paying a lot of attention to global markets and how they can serve as a threat to U.S. national security interests.”

Javers went on to report: “The Army is having a very interesting yearlong exercise called Unified Quest 2011. In that war-gaming series, the Army is looking at the implications of a large-scale economic breakdown in the U.S. that would force the Army to keep domestic order amid civil unrest and deal with global fragmented power and drastically lower budgets.”

According to Javers, 30 military officials from the Marine Corps War College were concerned enough to visit the trading floor of JP Morgan in October 2010 to study volatile markets and the economy.

Inside Defense magazine also reported on Unified Quest 2011 in a November 2010 article entitled “Army Officials Think Through the What-ifs of a Global Economic Collapse,” wherein it was revealed: “Officials picked the scenario of a worldwide economic collapse because it was deemed a plausible course of events given the current global security environment. In such a future, the United States would be broke, causing a domino effect that would push economies across the globe into chaos.”

According to Army Lt. Col. Mark Elfendahl, these were some of the conclusions drawn during a three-day session connected to that exercise: “The Army would have to significantly alter its ‘investment portfolio,’ focusing on light and inexpensive forces . . . an increased focus on domestic activities might be a way of justifying whatever Army force structure the country can still afford.”

“The only silver lining,” concluded the article, is that “the Army would have an influx of qualified recruits as the result of an unemployment rate of 25 and 30 percent.”

Tracing the government’s contingency plans back even further—to 2008—we find The Washington Post and Russia Today both reporting on the Pentagon’s plans to train 20,000 troops by 2011 to help as a response to threats of a possible mass terror attack or civil unrest following an economic collapse.

In July, Shepard Ambelas wrote for the popular alternative news website The Intel Hub that the Pentagon’s 2008 announcement dovetails “into the current troop and equipment movements around the country reported by truckers as well as many troop sightings by citizens.”

Ambelas added: “The military is already taking an active role in numerous domestic policing activities in close to a dozen states including Florida, Tennessee, California, Alabama and Pennsylvania.”

It may be no coincidence that President Obama’s recent announcement to have all troops return from Iraq by the end of 2011 coincides with the anticipated economic collapse.

Will those troops now be deployed on the streets of America? An even more relevant question might be: Will those troops exact the same toll on this nation as they did to the one they just left?

Which should put to rest the question of whether or not US troops will fire on their fellow citizens.

Prepare accordingly...

What are they going to pay them with?

In the old days, successful soldiers were paid with the spoils of war, but how many IPhones does one soldier need?

In all honestly, probably FOOD! If the choice is do what they say or starve the choice gets simple.

Food, fuel, other greature comforts. It has been the same since 10 thousand Dinars was offered for the throne of Rome. The military will follow whomever offers it the best deal. Even General Eisenhower saw it, after he was elected President.

The military's problem is going to be complex, and unsolvable, if civil war once again comes to our door. The land mass is too large, and the supply train too unstable, for it to be successful. Our military depends on a stable and uninterrupted supply of everything it needs to function, in order for it to function. Disrupt that, and our military might collapses. And our military is too small to occupy these United States, even with the NG.

That is what scares our political class. An uprising in this country would be unstoppable, if it gains a foothold. OWS thought they could tap into that, but they lacked the drive (and the political esprit de corps) to get anywhere. And of course, the actual intellect to figure out what end the power flowed from. They want socialism. We, the American people, don't.

We want liberty.

We want freedom.

We want to be left the heck alone as long as our fist does not come near our neighbors nose.

We claim today to be the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Its only partly true. Home of the brave? Yeah. Got that licked.

Land of the Free? Nope. Not for a long time. Longer than I have been alive. And that has been for 41 years. Even my father-in-law, who walked through Hiroshima just months after it happened, sees we aren't free any more.

Are these not the amongst the "spoils of war?"

Ancient armies, whilst encamped far from their home bases, often relied not upon supply routes, but upon the food and resources within their remote locations, to the detriment of the locals, of course.

By the way, welcome to AWRM, and I like your sig!


Pray for peace. Prepare for war.

Also, land and property grants, "foreclosed" homes and "repossessed" vehicles. Confiscated weaponry and ammo. Your personal valuables.

Whatever else the marauding packs of government sanctioned, gang affiliated miscreants want, they'll just take. Booze, pharmaceuticals, women etc.