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.
These kind of concept white papers aren’t written without intent to follow through. Chances are that some staff officer in TRADOC is currently busy refining the draft field manual on homeland security operations against domestic terrorism.