yeah i know, hasn't been cut for six weeks now, hopefully in the next week or two, if we get some rain that is...
Posted on 08/05/2012 7:30:25 AM PDT by Travis McGee
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.
“Fix Darlington, but don’t destroy it!”
Upon receiving the alert for possible operations in Darlington, the Fifth Army staff begins the military decision making process with mission analysis and intelligence preparation of the battlefield. (Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield is the term applied to the procedures performed by the intelligence staff of all Army unit headquarters in the development of bases of information on the enemy, terrain and weather, critical buildings and facilities in a region and other points. Army units conduct operations on the basis of this information. The term is in Army doctrine and could be problematic when conducted in advance of operations on U.S. soil. The general form of the initial intelligence estimate is in figure 1.) In developing the intelligence estimate military intelligence planners will confront the first constraints on the conduct of full spectrum operations in the United States, as well as constraints on supporting law enforcement. The analytical steps of the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield, or IPB, must be modified in preparing for and conducting operations in the homeland.
The steps of the IPB process are: define the operational environment/battlespace, describe environmental effects on operations/describe battlespace effects, evaluate the threat/adversary, and determine threat/adversary courses of action. (PSYOP was changed to Military Information Support Operations, MISO, by Secretary of Defense directive in June 2010.)
While preparing terrain and weather data do not pose a major problem to the G-2, gathering data on the threat and under civil considerations for intelligence and operational purposes is problematic to say the leasst.
(Much more of the long essay may be read at the original link.)
The comments at the site are interesting, are they not? What is so disturbing about the article is the mindset on display. The authors remain unapologetic.
Must be a picture of some Right Wing Wacko’s house.
Cut your grass, Chode! LOL
The original is flawed and wrong-headed on many levels. So it is not surprising coming from .fed is these days. In fact the base assumptions are in part why there is a Tea Party.
Oops
yeah i know, hasn't been cut for six weeks now, hopefully in the next week or two, if we get some rain that is...
Bad scenario. The rebels in it are acting too simplistically and making things too easy.
Right there is where the separation from reality occurs.
Funding dedicated to boosting the economy or towards relief is the gasoline being thrown on the fire of national debit and multi-generational poverty.
IF such action occurred, i.e. government cutting off the welfare and knocking off the idiotic TARP's, TWIST's, QEx's, AFDC, food stamps, industry bailouts, stimulus packages, Keynesian pump priming, etc, the u.S. economy would actually recover, not stagnate.
Of course that would mean hundreds of thousands of absolutely worthless federal and some State government workers would have to obtain real employment. On the reality side of such action, the most likely "rebel" will be the second to third generation welfare supported urban dweller that has been cut off from the taxpayer funded feeding trough.
They would go absolutely nuts and start burning down their own neighborhoods. We have example after example of this and in the current race-based identity politics practiced by the communist agenda "liberal and progressive" democrat party a result of cuts off all funding that had been dedicated to boosting the economy or toward relief is NOT going to occur in Darlington, South Carolina.
It will be in Detroit, MI
Buffalo, NY
Cincinnati, OH
Cleveland, OH
Miami, FL
St. Louis, MO
El Paso, TX
Milwaukee, WI
Philadelphia, PA
Newark, NJ
COL Kevin Benson describing such an uneducated economic scenario as we find in the second sentence of this post, putting it in such an unlikely location and then laying the resulting fairy tale of action at the feet of "TEA Party motivation" is stretching the art of describing such possibilities to the extreme limit of understanding.
However, the other author, Jennifer Weber, seems to be a more likely influence on the content of the "analysis."
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.
.
COL (Ret) Kevin Benson (US Army) is a 1977 graduate of the United States Military Academy. He attended the Armor Officer Basic Course, U.S. Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and the School of Advanced Military Studies. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology Security Studies Program as a War College Fellow in 2001. He completed the oral defense of his dissertation in March 2010. Kevin currently works for McNeil Technologies, Inc. as a seminar leader at the U.S. Army University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies. Kevin served the Republic in uniform for 30 years. His last two positions were: the Assistant Chief of Staff, C5 (Plans), Combined Forces Land Component Command and Third US Army from June 2002 to July 2003 during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM /Operation COBRA II, where he led the planning effort for the invasion of Iraq and subsequent post-hostilities operations and the Director, School of Advanced Military Studies, SAMS, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. His awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Armed Forces Service Medal, Humanitarian Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, the Army Superior Unit Award, the Joint Meritorious Unit Award, and the United Nations Medal.
He appears to be a career staff officer. Tin soldiers such as this man are unfortunately only too common in the officer corps.
I haven't even read the full article yet, but even after the first two paragraphs this is obvious. The rhetoric is thick, and echoes what this administration has been saying since they took over regarding whom they perceive to be the enemy.
...change in control of the White House and Congress in 2012, the governing party cuts off all funding ... dedicated to boosting the economy or toward relief.
See what will happen when we get thrown out? Those greedy Republicans want it all for themselves!
...extremist militia motivated ... “tea party” movement
Oh no! Those extremists will be in charge! (Let's ignore the extremists that are currently in charge.)
...taxes on the middle class remain relatively high ...vocal minority has directed the public’s fear and frustration at nonwhites and immigrants.
Reinforcing the evil, greedy, bigoted depiction of the "enemy".
...race-baiting and immigrant-bashing by right-wing demagogues.
Again, we are to ignore that which has already been occurring, perpetrated and encouraged by this administration and its sycophants, and ignored or deliberately mischaracterized by the useful idiots in the so-called mainstream media.
...nonwhites have become occasional targets for mobs of angry whites
Uh huh. This is getting tedious.
Telegraphing, are they?
Unfortunately, narrow thinking is our specialty. Were I reviewing this, I'd send it back and have them rewrite the scenario (a) minus the racism angle and (b) taking into consideration the political constraints of fighting a popular movement, not a fringe one. The problem is, our planners are notorious for avoiding awkward truths, and building scenarios out of wishful thinking.
For example, a long time ago, when a certain insurgency was a fairly new thing, I got shanghai'd into a counterterrorism VTC looking at a certain aspect of said insurgency. Military and civil organizations from all corners chimed in very dismissively of the insurgents political staying power. They felt that extremists would invariably be unpopular and unable to sustain any kind of public support or prolonged operational presence.
The State department reps (who I normally am inclined to dislike) made a very simple but terrifying observation. They basically said that extremist terror was not at all unpopular; in fact, on a lot of levels, our 'allies' in the region and their citizens enjoyed seeing the insurgents stick it to us. Not only would the insurgents not be socially ostracized, but they'd likely be viewed as heroes by a significant majority of region. They advised that we take the inherent social approval of the resistance into consideration.
The reaction was like the sun rising in the North. For a few moments, no one knew what to do or how to react. After a bit of cross talk the officers running the VTC pivoted to the next topic, and we moved on, as though nothing had been said. The officers refused to consider that State may have had a point. Not because they were wrong, but because the implications of them being right were politically unthinkable.
.
Travis, thank you for finding and posting the article. I have gone to the site, followed the lead there to the full posting, downloaded and saved it. Well worth the read in it’s entirety.
Steel, your summary/analytical comments are excellent. Thank you for sharing. I have added you comments to the downloaded article.
So, the authors are suggesting that the DHS be called into crush a right-wing insurgency when the right controls congress and the President is a squishy center-right moderate? Mitt Romney is a lot of things, but Abe Lincoln ain't one of them.
Although if Mitt really did cut spending to the level the article suggests, the Tea Party wouldn't be in armed revolt; they'd be out campaigning for his reelection and looking to add him to Mount Rushmore. Even if the taxes rates remained high (which is somewhat hard to fathom assuming the right controlled the legislative and executive branches), the benefits of reduced government spending would hurt the progressives and their special interests, not the middle class Tea Party types. It's the middle class Tea Party section of America that winds up paying for programs they don't use. Conversely, it would be left who'd be ready to fight back and draw blood if those programs were cut.
But people who work for government think tanks don't get paid to consider a left wing / statist revolt in protest of lower spending, now do they? In reality, this scenario only makes sense under Democratic rule, which makes me wonder why they'd avoid the obvious 'Obama is reelected and everything goes to hell' storyline, which fits their overall narrative much more neatly. Unless they find it politically unthinkable to admit that Obama + reality = failure. That's possible. Ideology often trumps honesty in government. When you maneuver around 'unthinkable obstacles' because you don't like the implication, it invariably leads to cartoonish analysis. And here we are.
good analysis
bfl
Not suggesting anything, but securing Charleston, and Columbia would yield huge benefits. Besides cutting SC in half, you would effectively control Interstates 95,20 and 26. Ft. Jackson, and the governor's mansion would give clout and increase stores. A boomer would be an added benefit too.
Pay no attention to this post, I'm just arm chair quarterbacking...
5.56mm
With a well thought out plan, assemble 10,000 highly trained, heavily armed, lightly armored "patriots," with 33% of the population sympathetic to the "cause," and you would have SC in 8-10 days.
Just say'n...
5.56mm
“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”
Terrific response. It sounds to me like you should be teaching the class, and the COL (ret) should be wearing a dunce cap.
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