Freedom of Thought

Quiet | by Paul J. Norton

 

 

In today's world there are no shortages of things about which to worry. Especially as an analyst. An attempt was made by industrialists in the 1930's to recruit Major General Smedly Butler of the USMC into an effort to use his popularity with military veterans to raise an army of 500,000 men to overtake the elected government of the United States, an effort that failed when Butler exposed the conspiracy. If the rest of what has been happening and the way that it resembles this past effort to overthrow the government is any indication, the latest plot may have similar plans.

 

It's well known that standards for acceptance into the military have been drastically lowered so that persons with criminal records are now allowed to serve in the military. In the past people with criminal records were prevented from serving because they were the most likely to be discipline problems, participate in war crimes, and possibly to have self serving rather than patriotic motives for wanting to enter into the military, and/or for gaining military expertise.

 

While this is bothersome enough, there are now an enormous amount of mercenaries presumably fighting in Iraq who will be returning when this war is over, and will most likely be looking for new work. At present they outnumber US armed forces in Iraq.

 

It has even been bragged about by some racists that they have entered into the US armed forces in order to gain military training and experience. Any of these factors would be worrisome enough, perhaps, but combined they seem to make the perfect conditions for raising an army hostile to our constitution, and we may be looking at a planned future effort to overthrow the elected government by force. That it is logical enough that it couldn't have been better planned to achieve such ends is concerning, but then if you add into the mix the chatter from right wing extremists who are making threatening overtures towards Congress and the public, it becomes not a little bit worrisome.

 

ABC News, for example, has been taking a harder line with this administration, and then in an event that brought to mind the anthrax scare in Congress, the staff were chased out of their establishment by a little white powder which turned out to be aspirin. It would be difficult to say why any middle eastern terrorists would have done such a thing, but this administration would have had motive enough, as well as means and opportunity given it's enormous assets.

 

Any number of recent events could be explained by such a theory, that we are looking at an attempt by industrialists to fulfill the failed dreams of a previous conspiracy, it could even explain Halliburton's moving to Dubai if they were expecting some sort of civil war to occur right here in the states. It is difficult to understand why else the providers of our military wares would place such assets off shore.

 

There is much to worry about in America, to be sure. But there are such things as counter conspiracies, and I'm sure that we haven't as much to fear as the enemies of our constitutional form of government had hoped. All the same, it is a good time to maintain heightened awareness and double our efforts at capturing the principle conspirators before the troops, and the mercenaries, all return home from these foreign wars.