September 11, 2016 – The Patriots Day Coup

Two articles came to my attention that I wanted to throw out there for our readers to feed on. One deals with the potential threat of a defense budget and industry out of control, and the other (posted separately) deals with the WE Political Party to counter the Tea Party movement. I found that one very interesting, because instead of bashing the Tea Party movement, the author recommended taking the best ideas from it and making them progressive (the ideas that is not the Tea Baggers).

This first post will be in two parts to allow the initial reaction to set in. Although I do not buy everything in what appears to be a very good plot for a remake of the movie Dr. Strangelove or The Rock about renegade U.S. military generals losing it. However, the scenario does stress just how divided and angry America is, plus how out of control our Defense budget remains.

The scenario that William J. Astore presents in his fictional account, A Very American Coup Coming Soon to a Hometown Near You, does leave readers with food for deep thought that goes a bit beyond a script for a motion picture about renegade Generals at the Pentagon.

Astore wrote this piece to make a point about the need to begin reversing an ongoing militarization of the Nation, especially our rising Defense Budgets, or the scenario of a military coup could in his words, “Happen Here, Unless We Act.”

William Astore is a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who had taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy (no not religion)  and the Naval Postgraduate School.

Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired, VT News

Coming Soon to a Hometown Near You

Astore’s scenario begins six years from now during September 2016. It is now year 15 of America’s “Long War” against terror. As weary troops return to the homeland, a bitter reality assails them: despite their sacrifices, America is losing.

Iraq is increasingly hostile to remaining occupation forces. Afghanistan is a riddle that remains unsolved: its army and police forces are untrustworthy, its government corrupt, and its tribal leaders unsympathetic to the…U.S. intervention. Since the Obama surge of 2010, a trillion more dollars have been devoted to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and other countries in…central Asia, without measurable returns; nothing, that is, except the prolongation of America’s Great Recession, now entering its tenth year without a sustained recovery in sight.

Take America Back

Disillusioned veterans are unable to find decent jobs in a crumbling economy. Scarred by the physical and psychological violence of war, fed up with the happy talk of politicians who only speak [hypocritically] of shared sacrifices, [Vets] begin to organize. Their motto: take America back.

Meanwhile, a lame duck presidency, choking on foreign policy failures, finds itself attacked even for its putative successes. Health-care reform is now seen to have combined the inefficiency and inconsistency of government with the naked greed and exploitative talents of corporations. Medical rationing is a fact of life confronting anyone on the high side of 50.

Presidential rhetoric that offered hope and change has lost all resonance. Mainstream media outlets are discredited and disintegrating, resulting in new levels of information anarchy.

Protests from across the political spectrum

Protest, whether electronic or in the streets, has become more common — and the protesters in those streets increasingly carry guns, though as yet armed violence is minimal. A panicked administration responds with overlapping executive orders and legislation that is widely perceived as [even more attacks] on basic freedoms.

The Frustration Revolution

Tapping the frustration of protesters — including a…mainstreamed “tea bag” movement — the ‘former’ Captains and Sergeants, the ex-CIA operatives and out-of-work private mercenaries of the War on Terror take action.

Conflict and confrontation they seek; laws and orders they increasingly ignore. As riot police are deployed in the streets, they face a grim choice: where to point their guns? Not at veterans, they decide, not at America’s erstwhile heroes.

A dwindling middle-class, still waving the flag and determined to keep its sliver-sized portion of the American dream, throws its support to the agitators. Wages shrinking, savings exhausted, bills rising, the sober middle can no longer hold. It vents its fear and rage by calling for a decisive leader and the overthrow of a can’t-do Congress.

Savvy members of traditional Washington elites are only too happy to oblige. They too crave order and can-do decisiveness — on their terms. Where better to find that than in the ranks of America’s most respected institution: the military?

The Coup of September 11, 2016

A retired senior officer who led America’s heroes in central Asia is anointed. His creed: end public disorder, fight the War on Terror to a victorious finish, and put America back on top. The United States, he says, is the land of winners, and winners accept no substitute for victory.

Nominated on September 11, 2016, Patriot Day, he marches to an overwhelming victory that November, embraced in the streets by an American version of the post-World War I German Freikorps and the police who refuse to suppress them. A concerned minority is left to wonder (and tremble) at the de facto military coup that occurred so quickly, and yet so silently, in their midst.

Although Astore’s fictional account makes a decent plot for a movie, he contends that It Can Happen Here, Unless We Act.

The second part of this two part article will cover in detail what LTC. Astore recommends we do in order to prevent this fictional scenario from becoming reality.

Nope he does not recommend anything as near radical or irrational as his fictional account. In fact, it is exactly what he recommends that if more realistic and thought provoking than the attention getter of a military coup in 2016 that he uses.

Posted by: Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired, VT News

Robert L. Hanafin

Readers are more than welcome to use the articles I’ve posted on Veterans Today, I’ve had to take a break from VT as Veterans Issues and Peace Activism Editor and staff writer due to personal medical reasons in our military family that take away too much time needed to properly express future stories or respond to readers in a timely manner.

My association with VT since its founding in 2004 has been a very rewarding experience for me.

Retired from both the Air Force and Civil Service. Went in the regular Army at 17 during Vietnam (1968), stayed in the Army Reserve to complete my eight year commitment in 1976. Served in Air Defense Artillery, and a Mechanized Infantry Division (4MID) at Fort Carson, Co. Used the GI Bill to go to college, worked full time at the VA, and non-scholarship Air Force 2-Year ROTC program for prior service military. Commissioned in the Air Force in 1977. Served as a Military Intelligence Officer from 1977 to 1994. Upon retirement I entered retail drugstore management training with Safeway Drugs Stores in California. Retail Sales Management was not my cup of tea, so I applied my former U.S. Civil Service status with the VA to get my foot in the door at the Justice Department, and later Department of the Navy retiring with disability from the Civil Service in 2000.

I’ve been with Veterans Today since the site originated. I’m now on the Editorial Board. I was also on the Editorial Board of Our Troops News Ladder another progressive leaning Veterans and Military Family news clearing house.

I remain married for over 45 years. I am both a Vietnam Era and Gulf War Veteran. I served on Okinawa and Fort Carson, Colorado during Vietnam and in the Office of the Air Force Inspector General at Norton AFB, CA during Desert Storm. I retired from the Air Force in 1994 having worked on the Air Staff and Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon.