All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
And our next guest is Matthew Rothschild.
He is, I think, editor of the Progressive, that's progressive.org.
And I've got three important articles to direct your attention to, including a new one, but here is a Leahy concerned about Northcom's new army unit that's from October 7th, 2008 at progressive.org.
Then there is, what is Northcom up to?
This is from November the 12th, 2008.
And now the brand new one, the Pentagon advances on America, October 21, 2010.
There may be more on this topic, but those are three good ones for you.
Welcome back to the show.
Matthew, how are you doing?
I'm doing fine.
It's always nice for you to have me on.
Well, I really appreciate you joining us today.
So I guess, first of all, take us back then to 2008.
Or in fact, maybe we need to take us back to 1998 when Bill Clinton created the Northern Command for the United States in the first place, or at least tried to, right?
Well, he may have tried to, but it was actually George W. who got the thing established on October 1st, 2002.
So this is basically kind of like having AFRICOM and having CENTCOM.
This is how the Pentagon divides the worlds into different command responsibilities of battle space, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, before 9-11, I mean, the most common command was the U.S. Southern Command.
I think that a lot of political people understood was the way the Pentagon tried to intervene in Central America and South America through SOUTHCOM, which was in Panama for a long time.
And then there's CENTCOM or U.S. Central Command, which has jurisdiction, Pentagon jurisdiction anyway, over the whole Middle East and Afghanistan.
And it was Petraeus who was in charge of CENTCOM there before he was sent over to replace McChrystal over in Afghanistan.
And so now we have NORTHCOM, and that should strike people as odd because the Pentagon is not supposed to be patrolling the streets or the skies of the United States.
I mean, we have something called the Posse Comitatus Act, which has been on the books for more than 120 years, which says that the military cannot be involved in law enforcement here in the United States.
But after 9-11, Bush was able to push through this and establish the U.S. Northern Command.
And one of the astonishing things, which is what Leahy was concerned about, was this idea that, not an idea, it's actually a fact that NORTHCOM has its own dedicated fighting force.
It got the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4,700 people who actually had experience fighting in Baghdad and patrolling Ramadi in Iraq, and now they're deputized to the U.S. Northern Command.
This may be illegal, actually, but it hasn't been challenged yet.
But the ACLU is worried about it, I'm worried about it, Senator Leahy is worried about it.
Well, now, if I remember right from the Onion headline back in 2003, George Bush bravely leads 3rd Infantry into battle in Iraq, I think they were the tip of the spear of the American invasion, the 3rd Infantry Division, right?
Yeah, they were one of the first.
This is like the old Big Red One, the 1st Infantry from back before.
Yeah, they were right there at the front lines.
All right, well, now there's a few things to go over here.
First of all, you talked about the Posse Comitatus Act.
Can you give us a little bit of history for people who don't speak Latin and aren't too familiar with, say, 19th century American war history?
Well, it was a law that was put on the books to keep the Army post-Reconstruction era from patrolling the streets, essentially.
And that's been on the books for a long time.
The Bush administration tried to change it, and actually did for a little bit, and then Leahy himself of Vermont was able to pass a law that would put, or was supposed to put anyway, the military back into its box, but seems to be jumping out of that box right now.
And now I'm sitting here scratching around inside my brain trying to come up with the name of the Supreme Court case, but I'm going to get it wrong, so maybe I'll just stay quiet on that.
But at some point, I think right after the Civil War, the Supreme Court ruled that martial law is unavailable as a power to be exercised by the executive as long as the courts are still open for business.
And I think they were directly addressing habeas corpus, but they were basically saying, well, for example, what happened to Jose Padilla, you can't do that as long as the country is not in such a state of internal convulsion that the judges are still able to make it to the office in the morning.
They have the priority.
Well, I hope that's still the law they'll land, but I have some doubts about that.
One of the doubts is National Security Presidential Directive 51 that Bush signed when he was in office.
It gives the President of the United States the power over all three branches of the government, not just the executive branch, but also Congress and the judiciary in times of an emergency that the President himself would declare.
So there are a lot of things on the books that especially came on the books during Bush and Cheney's reign that are just sitting there waiting for another chief executive who wants to haul them out and really destroy our democracy.
And having NORTHCOM at the chief executive, the commander in chief's disposal would be something that that president, if he or she is malicious and undemocratic, could use.
Yeah.
And you know what I thought it was was actually right.
The Milligan case.
That was the Supreme Court decision where they said martial rule can never exist where the courts are open.
And then the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction is also confined to the locality of actual war.
So but I guess then that's begging the question, isn't it?
But here's my thing, you know, tea parties here and and left wing eco activists there or something.
What internal threat is there?
Don't tell me the mosque building Muslims in New York are going to be the target of this.
Which Americans could George Bush or Barack Obama possibly conceive of using this third infantry division against?
Matthew, do you think?
I just don't know.
I mean, that's that's the puzzle.
And that's the worry.
You know, there was a discussion in the Bush administration by Homeland Security.
Actually, a contract went out to Halliburton to build detention camps for for illegal immigrants or undocumented workers.
And so and that's always a fear that I have that they're going to be roundups if, you know, this climate gets any worse.
I mean, we're seeing a lot of nastiness coming out of Arizona and spreading across the country about people who are here without proper papers.
And, you know, you it doesn't take a wild imagination to see that things could really go down an ugly slope here in the United States.
And then to have all that power at the hands of the president with the Northern Command at its disposal is a concern.
I mean, last year, the Northern Command tried to get Congress to allow it to dispatch 400000 troops across the country in times of an emergency and to let the secretary of defense, not even the president, authorize it at his or her own discretion.
So it's not like the Pentagon is not thinking of these things.
Yeah, you know, it's it's just like Robert Higgs wrote in his book Crisis and Leviathan.
You have this ratchet effect where no matter how bad these people fail, since they have a monopoly on doing their supposed job, all they can ever do is get more power.
So if 9-11 sits there and happens or happens while they're sitting there on their watch, then they get a Patriot Act.
They get an Office of Homeland Security.
Then the 9-11 commission comes out and says, just what a poor job they did.
They get a Department of Homeland Security out of that.
Then Hurricane Katrina comes and drowns New Orleans.
And George Bush says, you people are right.
You know what?
Brownie didn't do that good of a job.
From now on, we need to put the army first.
They're the ones that we can trust to really get things done.
And every time something horrible happens, the rule of law dies a little more.
And the power of the imperial presidency grows.
And not just over Iraqis and Afghans and Pakistanis and Somalis, but over us here.
And this is what concerns me.
And, you know, any person in any branch of government in any bureaucracy is hostile to giving up the power.
Rather, they want to accumulate power.
And now that power has been accumulated in the executive branch, you don't see Obama giving it up.
And so it's just going to lie there, waiting for the next person to abuse it, assuming that Obama doesn't abuse it.
I don't think Obama will abuse it in any kind of dictatorial way, though I know there's these conspiracy people on the right think that's going to happen any second.
Now, that's not how I read Obama.
But I do have some real concerns if, you know, Sarah Palin became president.
Sure.
Well, and, you know, for the people who, you know, come from the other point of view, think this is perfectly fine when it's George Bush or if it's Sarah Palin, but don't trust it with Obama.
The point is the same, right?
That, you know, violence in this society is supposed to be distributed by law, not by the will of some man up there on a high chair.
Absolutely.
And where were they when Bush was grabbing all this power?
Right.
Well, and, you know, there is there's plenty of real concern for the Constitution and plenty of hypocrisy on all sides to go around, it seems like to me.
But I'm really glad that the progressive is good on this issue.
It's some of the best journalism on it.
We'll be back with Matthew Rothschild after this anti-war radio.
All right, everybody, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
Website is antiwar.com/radio.
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It's about my time.
Almost there.
All right.
We're talking with Matthew Rothschild from The Progressive.
And by the way, Matthew, did I say it right that you're the editor of The Progressive?
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
I just didn't have your bio in front of me.
I want to know.
I'll answer to that.
Yeah, there you go.
Good.
It's a it's a good thing to take responsibility for.
All right.
So now here's the thing.
You're talking about, again, 4700 men of the 3rd Infantry Division now basically active duty, maybe just sitting somewhere waiting to be used for something.
But they're on the case.
These Iraq war veterans hardened, you know, battle hardened soldiers here.
And it all sort of seems like it's anvil on the windowsill up there waiting to fall on our head.
But it hadn't quite been pushed yet.
And I wonder, you know, is this the kind of thing where you think, like, say, there was another September 11th sized attack.
Do you think that that would just be it?
And they would just say, well, there is no constitution anymore.
It's it's military rule now, like Tommy Franks told Cigar Fish in one more attack and we'll have a military form of government in this country.
Well, that's that's a big concern.
And it wasn't just Tommy Franks, but it was Wayne Downing, who was Condoleezza Rice's deputy at the National Security Council, who said if the United States attacked again with weapons of mass destruction, we're going to have to suspend the Constitution.
And so, you know, they were right up front about that.
And Bob Woodward himself had heard people talking about that, too.
And I heard him give a graduation speech a few years back where he said, you know, we need to pay more attention to this because this is what these guys have in store for us.
And yet there haven't been a lot of people paying attention to it.
Yeah.
Well, and you know what, as long as we're talking about it, I happen to have a clip here.
It's just one minute long from the days of the Iran-Contra scandal back in the 1980s.
And this is Congressman Jack Brooks, a Democrat from Texas, attempting to ask Oliver North about a plan to suspend the Constitution.
And in this case is the Rex 84 and Operation Garden Plot and all that people can read about it.
And it's a lot like what you talked about with those contracts for Halliburton to build, you know, presumably temporary camps for mass roundups of immigrants.
Well, the idea was if there was in this case, if there was too much domestic dissent among Latinos about a full scale invasion of Nicaragua, then this is what we would have to resort to.
And they came up with a plan for it.
And I just like sharing this exchange with people because I know most have never heard it.
It's from the movie, The Panama Deception.
Why isn't it going?
OK, well, my iTunes decided to stop working, so never mind.
I mean, the other thing that a waste of a piece of interview there.
So that I wanted to hear it.
But but listen, there was also just back in 2008, a member of Congress, a California representative named Brad Sherman said this is right as the Lehman Brothers had crashed and the whole economy on Wall Street was going down.
Congressman Brad Sherman said, you know, he was told that if they don't, you know, hold their nose and vote for this bank bailout, there was going to be martial law.
Oh, you know, this is a member of Congress using that term.
So so I think we need to take this seriously and see what what structures are in place that would enable the president of the United States to do that in demand of our members of Congress that they hold hearings on this so that we can see what they have in store for us and so that we can try to prevent it before it happens, because once it happens, it's too late.
Yeah, well, and, you know, in a way, it seems kind of fantastical and unrealistic.
You got 18000 separate sheriff's departments and city police agencies and that kind of thing.
But then again, you know, there was a civil war in America before 600000 people killed.
It's not completely unprecedented.
Well, and one thing to to consider, especially if the Republicans take over in Congress, is to see whether they are going to sponsor this bill that would give the Pentagon the authority to deploy almost 400000 troops in this country in times of emergency.
Actually, Obama's Pentagon was trying to do that, too.
But, you know, maybe this is one of those things where they're going to get bipartisan agreement, God forbid, because this would allow the secretary of defense to call up the troops and it would allow the president to call up the troops in times of emergency.
You said up to 400000, half a million soldiers.
Yes, just about 400000.
I mean, that's as many documents just came out in the biggest document leak ever.
That's a lot of soldiers.
These are documents with guns.
That's yeah.
I mean, that's more than double what was the highest number of soldiers in the Iraq war at any given time.
Yeah.
So even including the Mercs.
I mean, it's just it's just I mean, you should look at the legislation that was drafted and we have it on our on our website, this idea about the Pentagon having wanting the power to call up all these troops.
I mean, it would give the secretary of defense and the president at their own discretion after they call an emergency or all sorts of possible things, you know, to have the army in our streets.
And that's just not supposed to be our system of government.
All right.
Well, I think I got that clip working.
So let's take a listen.
Yeah, I don't know if in your work at the NSC.
Will you not decide at one time to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?
Mr. Chairman.
I believe the question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area.
So may I request that you not touch upon that, sir?
I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers and several others that there had been a plan developed by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency that would suspend the American Constitution.
And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was the area in which he had worked.
I believe it was, but I wanted to get his confirmation.
May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage.
If we wish to get into this on certain arrangements can be made for an executive session.
OK, so that was Senator Daniel Inouye from Hawaii saying, no, no, no, we're not going to talk about this here in front of everybody.
Isn't that beautiful?
I mean, what should be more public than a discussion of whether we're going to still have a democracy in our country or not?
But no, they had to take that off the table.
Well, you know, in a way at this point, I wonder maybe if we could be better off if they quit pretending that there was a constitution that granted them legitimacy and quit pretending there was a rule of law that applied to them when clearly it doesn't.
Government employees can murder whoever they want.
They can torture whoever they want.
They can lie us into war.
They don't even have to declare it.
They can set up a military garrison like you're talking about right in the heart of our country and no law can stop them.
Why keep pretending?
Well, I mean, that's certainly we're not a democracy the way we're supposed to be right now.
There's no doubt about that.
And the question is, who would stop or who would be able to stop a president who tries to call out the troops and take control of the country?
Remember when Nixon was about to be impeached, there were big questions as to, you know, what's going to happen if Nixon calls, you know, the 82nd airport and has them surround the White House and prevent the Supreme Court from nabbing them, you know?
Yeah.
Well, that's that's the kind of things that people do fight about war powers.
We've seen it throughout history.
All right.
Well, listen, I really appreciate your journalism on this particular issue, especially Matthew, and thank you for your time on the show.
Well, it's been my pleasure.
Let's keep watching it.
All right, everybody.
That's Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive, progressive.org.
