From: @Home 
  
 THE PENTAGON'S NEW ARMIES OF THE NIGHT 
  
 WASHINGTON DC - Life sometimes imitates art. One of my all-time favorite 
 films is the gripping drama, `Seven Days In May.' Made in 1964 and starring 
 Burt Lancaster, the film depicts an attempted coup by far rightists in 
 Washington using a top secret, Pentagon anti-terrorist unit called `Ecomcon. 
 ' 
  
 Last week, the respected former military intelligence analyst William Arkin 
 revealed a hitherto unknown government directive, with the Orwellian 
 sobriquet `JCS Conplan 0300-97,' authorizing the Pentagon to employ special, 
 ultra secret `anti-terrorist' military units on American soil for what the 
 author says are `extra legal missions.' In other words, using US soldiers to 
 arrest or kill citizens at home, acts that have been illegal since the US 
 Civil War and are a grave violation of the constitution and tradition. 
  
 The above frightening news comes as Washington is gripped by retro-Cold War 
 fever - `Muslims Under Our Matresses' having replaced the 1950's scare, 
 `Red's 
 Under Our Bed's' - galloping paranoia, feverish threats of war against Iran 
 from the real president, Dick Cheney, and a titanic bureaucratic battle just 
 won by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. 
  
 Instead of being fired for the gigantic military-political-financial fiasco 
 in Iraq and the shameful torture scandals that are still coming to light , 
 Rumsfeld has just managed to create a new, spy/special ops organization 
 under the Pentagon, blandly named `Strategic Support Branch,' that will 
 replace or duplicate many of CIA's tasks. 
  
 CIA is being punished big-time. Too many CIA veterans criticized or 
 contradicted Bush and Cheney's phony claims over Iraq and terrorism. The 
 agency failed to back up Cheney's grotesque claims about Iraq's alleged 
 nuclear weapons and links to al-Qaida. So Bush and Cheney imposed a new, 
 yes-man director on the agency, Porter Goss, slashed budgets, conducted 
 massive purges of veteran offciers, and downgraded CIA to third class 
 status. 
  
 There is little doubt that CIA performed poorly in its foreign assessments. 
 Part of the fault lay with lack of human intelligence on the ground; but an 
 equal share of the blame came from a reporting structure that progressively 
 filtered out any information the White House or Pentagon would find 
 objectionable and, of course, from former CIA director George Tenet, who 
 failed his responsibility to Americans and the facts by pandering to 
 Bush/Cheney fantasies whipped up by a cabal of neoconservative extremists. 
  
 The last straw for the White House was publication of the brilliant book, 
 `Imperial Hubris,' by `Anonymous,' the CIA chief terrorism/bin Laden 
 analyst, that totally and embarrassingly refuted or contradicted almost all 
 of the Administration's claims about Islamic extremism. 
  
 Rumsfeld's new SSB will become the Pentagon's very own, in-house CIA, 
 complete with mammoth budgets, commando units, hits squads, spies, mercenary 
 forces, intelligence gathering and analysis, and a direct line to the White 
 House. The Pentagon has just effectively taken over the spy business. 
  
 Mind you, the Pentagon has been deeply involved in intelligence for 50 
 years. The Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency is increasingly active 
 around the globe. Army intelligence and its covert sub-branches have long 
 conducted `black' ops, including unlawful missions in the US as well as 
 assassinations and sabotage abroad. The Pentagon consumes three quarters of 
 the total US intelligence budget. 
  
 Rumsfeld has skillfully used terrorism hysteria to wrest control of 
 intelligence and make the Pentagon supreme in Washington's bureaucratic 
 power struggles. 
  
 The Pentagon's new spy arm will be largely excluded from Congressional 
 oversight or media examination. Its special operations teams will roam the 
 globe, killing or kidnapping at will, torturing suspects, and bringing down 
 governments, all under cover of `deep black' missions of which no records 
 will be kept, and no questions asked. 
  
 Equally worrying, the Pentagon's new special ops units are headed up by 
 notorious religious fanatic and loudmouth, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who 
 calls the US Army, `the house of God,' and Islamic insurgents, `agents of 
 Satan;' and told Muslims `my God is bigger than your god, which is an idol. 
 ' 
  
 Boykin's command will now dispatch post-modern Christian crusaders to 
 cleanse the world of Satanic Muslims and other miscreants. The Pentagon's 
 new special forces will be able to hire local armies and hit men, as well as 
 run ops of which CIA knows nothing. The 9/11 Commission called for improved 
 intra-agency cooperation and data sharing - what we will now get is far less 
 cooperation, as the Pentagon goes its own, secret way. 
  
  
 Equally worrisome, the Pentagon's new `black' warriors will not be 
 supervised by a normal military chain of command or some degree of 
 Congressional oversight, as were CIA combat teams. These irregular forces 
 will draw into their ranks rabid ideologists, uniformed bounty hunters, and 
 Bible Belt mutants wearing t-shirts proclaiming, `kill em'all, let God 
 sort'em 
 out.' These militarized thugs and video arcade Rambos are sure to run amok, 
 commit serious crimes, and drag America's once good name ever deeper into 
 the mud. 
  
 Anyone who doubts this should look back at the wars in Indochina and Central 
 America, where some US special forces, CIA combat teams, mercenary units and 
 local allies engaged in wide scale murder, torture and dealing in opium and 
 cocaine. 
 The `black' forces run by Pentagon neocons and Crusader Boykin will largely 
 operate outside of the control of the top brass, bypassing the chain of 
 command under cover of secrecy and `need to know.' 
  
 Have we reached `Seven Days in May?' Not yet, but the second Bush 
 Administration has been taking dangerous steps that continue to curtail 
 personal rights, undermine the supine, cowardly Congress, and empower 
 ideological or religious extremists and shadowy agencies with unrestrained 
 powers that endanger Americans at home and all those abroad suspected of 
 troubling the Pax Americana. 
  
 Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2005 
  
  
 http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2005/02/the_pentagonas.php 
  
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