Preface: There might be an innocent explanation. But given recent trends, this is worrisome.
Retired Major General Jerry Curry wrote [11] Friday:
The Social Security Administration (SSA) confirms that it is purchasing 174 thousand rounds of hollow point bullets to be delivered to 41 locations in major cities across the U.S.
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Those against whom the hollow point bullets are to be used — those causing the civil unrest — must be American citizens; since the SSA has never been used overseas to help foreign countries maintain control of their citizens.
What would be the target of these 174, 000 rounds of hollow point bullets? It can’t simply be to control demonstrators or rioters. Hollow point bullets are so lethal that the Geneva Convention does not allow their use on the battle field in time of war. Hollow point bullets don’t just stop or hurt people, they penetrate the body, spread out, fragment and cause maximum damage to the body’s organs. Death often follows.
Potentially each hollow nose bullet represents a dead American. If so, why would the U.S. government want the SSA to kill 174,000 of our citizens, even during a time of civil unrest?
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If this were only a one time order of ammunition, it could easily be dismissed. But there is a pattern here. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has ordered 46,000 rounds of hollow point ammunition. Notice that all of these purchases are for the lethal hollow nose bullets. These bullets are not being purchased and stored for squirrel or coyote hunting. This is serious ammunition manufactured to be used for serious purposes.
In the war in Iraq, our military forces expended approximately 70 million rounds per year. In March DHS ordered 750 million rounds of hollow point ammunition. It then turned around and ordered an additional 750 million rounds of miscellaneous bullets including some that are capable of penetrating walls. This is enough ammunition to empty five rounds into the body of every living American citizen. Is this something we and the Congress should be concerned about? What’s the plan that requires so many dead Americans, even during times of civil unrest? Has Congress and the Administration vetted the plan in public.
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All of these rounds of ammunition can only be used to kill American citizens, though there is enough ammunition being ordered to kill, in addition to every American citizen, also every Iranian, Syrian or Mexican. There is simply too much of it. And this much ammunition can’t be just for training, there aren’t that many weapons and “shooters” in the U.S. to fire it.
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We have enough military forces to maintain law and order in the U.S. even during times of civil unrest.
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This is a deadly serious business. I hope I’m wrong, but something smells rotten. And If the Congress isn’t going to do its duty and investigate this matter fully, the military will have to protect the Constitution, the nation, and our citizens.
Why are government agencies doing this?
Major General Curry asks a troubling questions:
We have local police, backed up by each state’s National Guard, backed up by the Department of Defense. So in addition to all these forces why does DHS need its own private army? Why do the SSA, NOAA and other government agencies need to create their own civilian security forces armed with hollow nose bullets?
This may sound like a conspiracy theory …
But remember that Senator Daniel Inouye said in 1987:
There exists a shadowy Government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.
The Federal Reserve – which is not exactly federal [12] (and see this [13])- also has its own police force [14]. See this [15] and this. [16]
Chalmers Johnson called the CIA [17] the President’s private army.
But that’s nothing compared to JSOC. As John Glaser wrote [18] in February:
For the past decade, we’ve seen the rise of a secret, unaccountable U.S. military force … Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is an unwieldy private army at the command of the President, and him only. And they conduct military and spy missions all over the world, never receiving formal congressional approval ….
“Without the knowledge of the American public,” wrote Nick Turse back in August [19], “a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries. This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed.” According to a recent Congressional Research Service report [20], JSOC forces “reportedly conduct highly sensitive combat and supporting operations against terrorists on a world-wide basis.” As the New York Times this week reported [21]:
The Special Operations Command now numbers just under 66,000 people — including both military personnel and Defense Department civilians — a doubling since 2001. Its budget has reached $10.5 billion, up from $4.2 billion in 2001 (after adjusting for inflation).Over the past decade, Special Operations Command personnel have been deployed for combat operations, exercises, training and other liaison missions in more than 70 countries. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Special Operations Command sustained overseas deployments of more than 12,000 troops a day, with four-fifths committed to the broader Middle East.
JSOC operates outside the confines of the traditional military and even beyond what the CIA is able to do.
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But it goes well beyond the war zones. In concert with the Executive’s new claims on extra-judicial assassinations via drone strikes, even if the target is an American citizen, JSOC goes around the world murdering suspects without the oversight of a judge or, god forbid, granting those unfortunate souls the right to defend themselves in court against secret, evidence-less government decrees about their guilt. As Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh said at a speaking event in 2009:
Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on.***
Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us….
[Marc Ambinder told Wired]:
There are legal restrictions on what the CIA can do in terms of covert operations. There has to be a finding, the president has to notify at least the “Gang of Eight” [leaders of the intelligence oversight committees] in Congress. JSOC doesn’t have to do any of that. There is very little accountability for their actions. What’s weird is that many in congress who’d be very sensitive to CIA operations almost treat JSOC as an entity that doesn’t have to submit to oversight. It’s almost like this is the president’s private army, we’ll let the president do what he needs to do.
An End-Run Around the Constitution?
Remember, we’ve gone from a nation of laws to a nation of powerful men making laws in secret [22]. A nation where Congressional leaders themselves aren’t even allow to see the laws [23], or to learn about covert programs [24]. A nation where Congressmen are threatened with martial law [25] if they don’t approve radical programs.
National security powers are being used to help big business [26], to the detriment of the American people [27].
Veterans returning from the front lines are labeled “potential terrorists”, to the horror of both the Republican [28] and Democratic [29] leadership.
This is not surprising, given that tyrannical regimes always crumble when the footsoldiers refuse to carry out draconian measures [30].
Indeed, active duty military personnel are big Ron Paul supporters [31]. And see this [32]. Because liking Ron Paul – as well as liking liberty or the Founding Fathers – may get one branded as a potential terrorist [33] these days, there may be some friction between active military folks and the government as well.
We’ve been in a continuous state of National Emergency [34] for 11 years. The Constitution has so thoroughly been shredded [35] that it – literally – unclear whether we are still living in a constitutional form of government [34].
Because military folks are sworn to defend the Constitution, many still would not allow the imposition of overt, full-scale fascism without a fight. See this [36] and this [37].
As such, Major General Curry’s speculation is chilling, indeed:
Is the purpose [of the lethal ammunition purchases] to kill 174,000 of the nation’s military and replace them with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) special security forces, forces loyal to the Administration, not to the Constitution?