Will E Worm
Conspiracy...
EDITORIAL: The Civil War of 2016
U.S. military officers are told to plan to fight Americans
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.
Article
Dave_in_StLouis:
As a retired Naval Officer, I think you would be hard pressed to find a US Military commander who would issue the order to fire on US citizens.
Second, I wouldn't be all that surprised in this hypothetical story if a very large portion of the US military joined the Tea Party revolution.
RoyBaty:
I doubt that the Tea Party would start this "insurrection" but I know if provoked by the Occupy types they would bring force. I also know which side my military brothers would join, orders or not. The Left would be wise not to go down this path.
martifr:
Agree completely. Addditionally, this doesn't even count the millions of hunters and firearm owners everywhere. If he libtards think that we will not defend our selves and our homes, they are in for a very rude awakening.
misterwax:
the largest possibility would be a civil war between those on welfare (largely blacks in big cities) and those NOT on welfare......when food and fuel are running short, the uprisings will be where there are no real supplies and no ability to produce them or to buy them..... in the ghetto areas ....a target rich environment.... This will happen in Europe also.
Epiminondas *Actually, it would be nice if the left were to "go down the path" of using the military against US citizens. They would quickly find out which side the man in uniform was on...and we would be rid of those liberal polecats once and for all.
LtScrounge:
They already know which side the military is on. Why do you think they are working so hard to disenfranchise the military vote while trying to neuter every attempt to stop voter fraud as much as possible?
It is unconstitutional to use the military against American citizens.
We have the right to replace a tyrannical government with force.