How to avoid the Patriot Day Coup of 2016

This is a follow-up of my article on September 11, 2016 – The Patriots Day Coup, the first story was a fictional account used by Lt. Colonel  William J. Astore as an attention getter for what could potentially happen if our national leaders remain on this collision course with history. The second part of this two part article  covers in detail what LTC. Astore recommends be done 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 is more realistic and thought provoking than the attention getter of a military coup in 2016.

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

The Coup of 2016 Can Happen Here, Unless We Act by William J. Astore, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Air Force-Retired

Yes, it can happen here.  In some ways, it’s already happening. But the key question is: at this late date, how can it be stopped?  Here are some vectors for a change in course, and in mindset as well, if we are to avoid our own stealth coup:

1. Somehow, we need to begin to reverse the ongoing militarization of this country, especially our ever-rising “defense” budgets.  The most recent of these, we’ve just learned, is a staggering $708 billion for fiscal year 2011 — and that doesn’t even include the $33 billion President Obama has requested for his latest surge in Afghanistan.  We also need to get rid of the idea that anyone who suggests even minor cuts in defense spending is either hopelessly naïve or a terrorist sympathizer.

It’s time as well to call a halt to the privatization of military activity and so halt the rise of security contractors like Xe (formerly Blackwater), thereby weakening the corporate profit motive that supports and underpins the American version of perpetual war.  It’s time to begin feeling chastened, not proud, that we’re by far the number one country in the world in arms manufacturing and the global arms trade.

VT Editors Note: the Xe Website remains UNDER CONSTRUCTION, so let’s keep it that way. Seriously there is a link to an Xe subsidiary that clearly shows the SAME characteristics a Blackwater. It is called the U.S. Training Center to give it sort of an official U.S. government sounding name, but folks this is what Blackwater has become from mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan to now training unauthorized private armies in the continental United States.  Check it out for your selves then contact Congress demanding an investigation into U.S. Training Center to determine its relationship with Blackwater and the National Rifle Association (NRA). Are these mercenaries training home grown militias that have gotten out of control during the Bush administration?

What exactly are the ties between Blackwater, U.S. Training Center, and Xe.

The copyright caveat at the bottom of U.S. Training Center reflects it is an Xe company. The link to the Pro Shop at the bottom left side notes that it is the Blackwater Pro-Shop. U.S. Training Center is also a Blackwater company. Note that every link has a blackwater.com transition between pages. U.S. Training Center –  A Xe company.

2. Let’s downsize our global mission rather than endlessly expanding our military footprint.  It’s time to have a military capable of defending this country, not fighting endless [offensive] wars in distant lands while garrisoning the globe.

3. Let’s stop paying attention to major TV and cable networks that rely on retired senior military officers, most of whom have ties both to the Pentagon and military contractors, for “unbiased” commentary on our wars.

In the spirit of the upcoming film  SEVERE CLEAR, LTC. Astore notes   that,” If we insist on fighting our perpetual “frontier” wars, let’s start insisting as well that they be covered in all their bitter reality: the death, the mayhem, the waste, the prisons, and the torture.

Why is our war coverage invariably sanitized to “PG” or even “G,” when we can go to the movies anytime and see “R” rated, pornographically violent films? And by the way, it’s time to be more critical of the government’s and the media’s use of language and propaganda. Mindlessly parroting the Patriot Act doesn’t make you patriotic.

LTC. Astore has no knowledge nor connection with the SEVERE CLEAR film company or the effort of a young Marine to film their experience during the invasion of Iraq. Astore is like me a Retired Air Force officer. WE have to allow the young combat troops to be able to tell their stories from their perspectives foul language and all. I agree with Astore that it is way past time to stop sanitizing the wars in order to sell them to the American voter and keep the public ignorant of what our troops experience.

4. It’s time to elect a president who doesn’t surround himself with senior “civilian” advisers and ambassadors who are actually retired military generals and admirals, one who won’t accept a Nobel Peace Prize by defending war in theory and escalating it in practice.

5. Let’s toughen up. Let’s stop deferring to authority figures who promise to “protect” us while abridging our rights.  Let’s stop bowing down before men and women in uniform, before they start thinking that it’s their right to be worshipped and act accordingly.

6. Let’s act now to relieve the sort of desperation bred by joblessness and hopelessness that could lead many — notably male workers suffering from the “He-Cession” — to see a militarized solution in “the homeland” as a credible last resort. It’s the economy, stupid, but with Main Street’s health, not Wall Street’s, in our focus.

7. Let’s take Sarah Palin and her followers seriously. They’re tapping into anger that’s real and spreading.  Don’t let them become the voices of the angry working (and increasingly unemployed) classes.

Class warfare for good or bad is the message being thrown around by the Tea Baggers, and in many ways this is a good thing if controlled properly with discipline not out of control home grown militias trained by Blackwater regardless what Xe calls themselves. A mercenary is a mercenary is a mercenary and changing logos does not change the shame of being a MERC.

8. Recognize that we face real enemies in our world, the most powerful of which aren’t in distant Afghanistan or Yemen but here at home. The essence of our struggle to sustain our faltering democracy should not be against “terrorists,” with their shoe and crotch bombs, but against various powerful, perfectly legal groups here whose interests lie in a Pentagon that only grows ever stronger.

9. Stop [arrogantly] thinking the U.S. is uniquely privileged.

Don’t take it on faith that God is on our side. Forget about God blessing America. If you believe in God, get out there and start trying to earn His blessing through deeds.

10. And, most important of all, remember that FEAR  is the mind-killer that makes militarism possible. Ramping up “TERROR” is an amazingly effective way of shredding our Constitution.  Putting our “safety” above all else is asking for trouble.  The only way we’ll be completely safe from the big bad terrorists, after all, is when we’re all living in a maximum security state.  Think of walking down the street while always being subject to a “full-body scan.”

That’s my top 10 things we need to do. It’s a daunting list and I’m sure you have a few ideas of your own.  But have faith.  Ultimately, it all boils down to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s words to a nation suffering through the Great Depression: the only thing we have to FEAR is FEAR itself.  These words came to mind recently as I read the following missive from a friend and World War II veteran who’s seen tough times:

“It’s very hard for me to accept how soft the American people have become. In 1941, with the western world under assault by powerful and deadly forces, and a large armada of ships and planes attacking us directly, I never heard a word of FEAR as we faced three powerful nations as enemies. Sixteen million of us went into the military with the very real possibility of death and I never once heard of FEAR, except from those exposed to danger.

Now, our people let [their leaders] terrify them into accepting the destruction of our economy, our image in the world, and our democracy... All this over a small group of religious fanatics [mostly] from Saudi Arabia whom we kowtow to so we can drive 8-cylinder SUV’s.  Pathetic!

“How many times have [you] stood in ‘security lines’ at airports and when [you] complained of the indignity of taking off shoes and not having water and the manhandling of passengers, have well educated people smugly said to me, ‘Well, they’re just keeping us safe.’ I look at the airport bullshit as a training ground to turn Americans into docile sheep in a totalitarian state.”

A public conditioned [indoctrinated]  to act like sheep, to “support our troops” no matter what, to cower before the idea of terrorism, is a public ready to be herded.

The real military threat could be our own

A military that’s being used to fight unwinnable wars is a military prone to return home disaffected and with scores to settle.

Angry and desperate veterans and mercenaries already conditioned to violence, merging with “tea baggers” and other alienated groups, could one day form our own Freikorps units, rioting for violent solutions to national decline. Recall that the Nazi movement ultimately succeeded in the early 1930s because so many middle-class Germans were scared as they saw their wealth, standard of living, and status all threatened by the Great Depression.

If our Great Recession continues, [and it will along with the fiscal cost of the wars] and if decent jobs remain scarce, if the mainstream media continue to foster fear and hatred, if returning troops are disaffected and their [military] leaders blame politicians for “not being tough enough,” if one or two more terrorist attacks succeed on U.S. soil, wouldn’t this country be well primed for a coup by any other name?

Don’t expect a “Seven Days in May” scenario.  No American Caesar will return to Washington with his legions to decapitate governmental authority.  Why not?  Because he won’t have to.

VT Editorial Comment: Already the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress appear to FEAR the hold overs of the Bush administration in high level civilian and military postions. The worse mistake any President can make is not cleaning house at the Pentagon to ensure all military and civilian leaders of our military are loyal to him or her.

As long as we continue to live in perpetual FEAR in an increasingly militarized state, we establish the preconditions under which Americans will be nailed to, and crucified on, a cross of iron.

William J. Astore teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology ([email protected]).  A retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), he has also taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School.  A TomDispatch regular, he is the author of Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism.

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.