Posted on 08/05/2012 7:30:25 AM PDT by Travis McGee
“Crime rates? Welfare dependency? Percentage of votes democrat?”
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Come to think of it, it is all of the above.
I wish somebody would get the original SWJ essay over to Glenn Beck at The Blaze.
It needs to go national that our overlords are planning to use the Glorious 5th Homeland Army to crush the “evil white racist tea party militia.”
You’re welcome (I maintain the CWII ping list).
Very though provoking. Thanks for posting it Travis.
Thanks.
Heads up!
EDITORIAL: The Civil War of 2016
U.S. military officers are told to plan to fight Americans
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/7/the-civil-war-of-2016/
Imagine Tea Party extremists seizing control of a South Carolina town and the Army being sent in to crush the rebellion. This farcical vision is now part of the discussion in professional military circles.
At issue is an article in the respected Small Wars Journal titled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future.” It was written by retired Army Col. Kevin Benson of the Army’s University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and Jennifer Weber, a Civil War expert at the University of Kansas. It posits an “extremist militia motivated by the goals of the ‘tea party’ movement” seizing control of Darlington, S.C., in 2016, “occupying City Hall, disbanding the city council and placing the mayor under house arrest.” The rebels set up checkpoints on Interstate 95 and Interstate 20 looking for illegal aliens. It’s a cartoonish and needlessly provocative scenario.
The article is a choppy patchwork of doctrinal jargon and liberal nightmare. The authors make a quasi-legal case for military action and then apply the Army’s Operating Concept 2016-2028 to the situation. They write bloodlessly that “once it is put into play, Americans will expect the military to execute without pause and as professionally as if it were acting overseas.” They claim that “the Army cannot disappoint the American people, especially in such a moment,” not pausing to consider that using such efficient, deadly force against U.S. citizens would create a monumental political backlash and severely erode government legitimacy.
The vision is hard to take seriously. As retired ArmyBrig. Gen. Russell D. Howard, a former professor at West Point, observed earlier in his career, “I am a colonel, colonels write a lot of crazy stuff, but no one listens to colonels, so I don’t see the problem.” Twenty years ago, then-Air Force Lt. Col. Charles J. Dunlap Jr. created a stir with an article in Parameters titled “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012.” It carried a disclaimer that the coup scenario was “purely a literary device intended to dramatize my concern over certain contemporary developments affecting the armed forces, and is emphatically not a prediction.”
The scenario presented in Small Wars Journal isn’t a literary device but an operational lay-down intended to present the rationale and mechanisms for Americans to fight Americans. Col. Benson and Ms. Weber contend, “Army officers are professionally obligated to consider the conduct of operations on U.S. soil.” This is a dark, pessimistic and wrongheaded view of what military leaders should spend their time studying.
A professor at the Joint Forces Staff College was relieved of duty in June for uttering the heresy that the United States is at war with Islam. The Obama administration contended the professor had to be relieved because what he was teaching was not U.S. policy. Because there is no disclaimer attached to the Small Wars piece, it is fair to ask, at least in Col. Benson’s case, whether his views reflect official policy regarding the use of U.S. military force against American citizens.
The Washington Times”
Another bayonet to the heart!
Forgive my ignorance, but are there any Tea Party Militias? I can think of a single such entity ever being identified. So if there are none YET, what is the primary motivation of a progressive lapdog like Benson pretending there are such entities? ... And yes, that is sort of a rhetorical question, but I would like to know if any Tea Party Militia has ever been identified. I’d be inclined to join them!
And that's a bad sign, at least for Leavenworth. If the American military has any characteristic strength, it's overestimating the enemy. The two times the Pentagon underestimated the enemy, huge and bloody quagmires resulted. (The Civil War, Vietnam)
Leaving aside the silliness of the scenario, I sincerely hope that this duo is not representative of strategic planning in the Pentagon. The British Empire made the same mistake vis-a-vis the German Empire; all the worthies thought the war would be over by Christmas. It ended up being the bloodiest war ever until WW2 came along.
The wages of kicking the crap out of little countries every decade or so is hubris. The kind of hubris that will lead to an awful (and likely avoidable) war of attrition.
If I were in the Pentagon, I would keep those two far, far away from the contingency planning re mainland China.
Thanks for posting this thought provoking article and starting this great thread.
On the face of it the SWJ piece as others pointed out seemed cartoonish in it’s set-up. Broad stroke characterizations, straw man opponents, etc, the sort of thing a semi precocious teen would conceive. However, once I realized that the sought feedback I wonder if the act of publishing was an intelligence probe to gauge mood, temperament, capabilities, in effect opposition research and probe. Can’t be hard to track respondents on the SWJ site nor to follow the trails of the squirrels to find where the nuts are stashed. (I projecting their mind set with that remark). Quite a bit to think about.
Trav, you and others mentioned the number and skill sets of American hunters. Back at the beginning of the current regime the news of the huge increase in fire arms sales lead me to wonder, just how many people had armed themselves. NCIC check gross numbers indicate sales but not individuals. So I thought a better guess would be the number of hunting licenses issued. Turns out “The Deer Hunting Annual” did the work for me. Not having access to it for a full count I discovered that in 2009 Texas lead with 1.1 million rifle hunters. Add PA, NY, MI, WI, and the others and indeed, there damn near is a rifle behind every blade of grass.
I read the entire piece and I read all of the comments on SWJ to the piece.
I NB’ed the response Benson gave to the issue of his choice of the Tea Party.
What a bunch of mealy-mouthed BS.
This was a deliberately chosen scenario to comport with the higher-up thinking in the Pentagon and political circles. Benson is clearly shopping this inside the Beltway.
Please add me to your ping list.
An observation: The "southern racist redneck" is the original "cracker", a derogatory term so popular in certain segments of the population of late.
likewise please add me to your ping list.
Regards,
Lurking’
Done!
The Insurrection Act does not need to be changed for the 21st century. Because it is broadly written, the law allows the flexibility needed to address a range of threats to the Republic.
What we must consider in the design of homeland defense or security exercises is translating the Act into action. The Army Operating Concept describes Homeland Defense as the protection of “U.S. sovereignty, territory, domestic population, and critical defense infrastructure against external threats and aggression, or other threats as directed by the president” (TD Pam 525-3-1, p. 27. Emphasis added.) Neither the operating concept nor recently published Army doctrine, FM 3-28 Civil Support Operations, goes into detail when considering the range of “other threats.” While invoking the Insurrection Act must be a last resort, once it is put into play Americans will expect the military to execute without pause and as professionally as if it were acting overseas. The Army cannot disappoint the American people, especially in such a moment. While real problems and real difficulties of such operations may not be perceived until the point of execution preparation will afford the Army the ability to not be too badly wrong at the outset.
Great post. Benson is acting extremely irresponsible by authoring this kind of crap. These kind of crazy ideas have a tendency to grow legs, especially under the currrent regime.
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