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actually occurs in the same “real time”—is merely coincidental. Even if that is the case, this ORI reflects the Armed Forces’ anticipation of serious troubles ahead, what and how extensive they may be, and how to handle them. And one should commend them for at least trying to be ready.
Nonetheless, some discordant notes sound in this orchestration. Do Americans really want their regular Armed Forces to be “the first responders” at home in times of crisis? Are Americans willing to accept the presumptive militarization of their country: namely, that every serious domestic emergency will be treated as a proper occasion for some variant of military intervention, even to the extent of the imposition of “martial law”? And who, in the context of a purely domestic crisis, would be the “unconventional foe” and the “well-organized terrorists” to be found in such numbers “across the Gulf Coast region” (or anywhere else within the United States) as to require suppression by the Armed Forces? As I have pointed out in my commentary “Going to the Roots of the Problem”, this “unconventional foe” could be made up of hundreds of thousands, even tens of millions, of average Americans driven—justifiably, one might argue—to desperation by the incompetence and even criminal stupidity (or stupid criminality) of their leaders. Indeed, this is the scenario of economic collapse as the consequence of a breakdown of America’s faulty monetary and banking systems—followed by massive social dislocations, political chaos, and the attempted imposition of a para-military police state—about which I have been warning for years. The present oil disaster (continued on page 7) |
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