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When The ‘War On Terror’ Becomes A War On You

The internet is stuffed with stories, photos, rants and warnings about the building of ‘concentration camps’ inside the United States. Many of these stories come from blogs, small independent newspapers and media sites, and might encourage the more paranoid to reach for a tin-foil hat. The problem, however, is that the weight of evidence that large-scale internment camps for illegal immigrants and American citizens are now being built tips the scales on this supposed conspiracy theory towards fact, into reality.

Stories about internment camps large enough to hold tens of thousands of people (collectively), and the nightmarishly dictatorial powers now available to President Bush (and the next American president) are hitting the mainstream American media. For now at least.

A few days ago, the following story was published in the San Francisco Chronicle, and sparked a storm of reader comments, the vast majority of which took the story utterly serious and expanded on the details and scope of a presidentially decreed Police State America :

Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of “an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.”

Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.

According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.”

What kind of “new programs” require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?

Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), “Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies,” gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to “a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order.”

The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of “terrorist” organizations, or who speaks out against the government’s policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.

Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure “continuity of government” in the event of what the document vaguely calls a “catastrophic emergency.” Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure “continuity of government.” This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.

U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic “war on terror.” Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to “examine and report upon the facts and causes” of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.

According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping investigative power to combat it.

A clue as to where Harman’s commission might be aiming is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who “engage in sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal rights” as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights supporters … the list goes on and on.

What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?

Today, a Bin Laden worshiping Muslim-American who buys absurd amounts of fertilizer is a terror suspect worthy of detainment. Tomorrow it may be the ex-mayor who organises local protests against food and water shortages in an Ohio town centre.

The ‘War on Terror’ hooks state governments and city councils on federal funds to ‘fight terror’, but what happens when the pool of suspected, or potential, terrorists dries up, and future funding for ‘anti-terror’ programs on a local level is threatened?

Find more terrorists, or create new categories for what constitutes a suspected or potential terrorist.

The international ‘War on Terror’ ultimately becomes a war waged by the state against its own people. The more they fight back against ceaseless surveillance, profiling, privacy violations and ridiculously intrusive security screenings at airports, malls and the workplace, the more suspected terrorists there are for the ‘war’ to be waged against.

American Internment Camps For American Citizens - Bush’s Disturbing “New Programs”

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