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TechnoratiWhat Is NorthCom Up To?
This week and into next, NorthCom and NORAD are conducting a joint exercise called "Vigilant Shield '09."
The focus will be on "homeland defense and civil support," a NorthCom press release states.
From November 12-18, it will be testing a "synchronized response of federal, state, local and international partners in preparation for homeland defense, homeland security, and civil support missions in the United States and abroad."
NorthCom is short for the Pentagon's Northern Command. President Bush created it in October 2002. (The Southern Command, or SouthCom, covers Latin America. Central Command, or CentCom, covers Iraq and Afghanistan. And the new AfriCom covers, well, you get the picture.)
Vigilant Shield '09 "will include scenarios to achieve exercise objectives within the maritime, aerospace, ballistic missile defense, cyber, consequence management, strategic communications, and counter terrorism domains," the press release states.
NorthCom's press release also says that other participants in the exercise include the U.S. Strategic Command's "Global Lightning 09," which is a plan to use nuclear weapons in a surprise attack.
The Pentagon's "Bulwark Defender 09" is also involved in the exercise, and it is a cyberspace protection outfit of the Pentagon.
Something called the "Canada Command DETERMINED DRAGON" also is participating, as is the California National Guard and California's "Golden Guardian."
California's involvement appears to center around planning for a catastrophic earthquake.
"Under the leadership of Governor Schwarzenegger and direction of his Office of Homeland Security, the nation's largest state sponsored emergency exercise will take place November 13-18," a press release from the governor's office states.
"Golden Guardian 2008 tests California's capability to respond and recover during a major catastrophic earthquake. The Golden Guardian 2008 full-scale exercise scenario focuses on a simulated, catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake along the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault."
NorthCom is being shy about giving out additional information about Vigilant Shield '09. When I called for a fact sheet on it, I was told there was none.
But the Pentagon did issue such a fact sheet for Vigilant Shield '08.
Last year's exercise included "the simulated detonation of three nuclear dispersal devices." The fact sheet stressed the need to support a "civilian-led response" and to "exercise defense support of civil authorities," including involvement in "critical infrastructure protection events" and coordinating "Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection activities."
That fact sheet ended by saying: "There will be minimal deployment of active duty forces and no crossborder deployments. We anticipate little to no direct impact on local communities."
NorthCom has been in the news lately, after the Pentagon designated to it a battle-tested fighting unit from the war on Iraq. This appears to be against the law, according to the ACLU, since the army isn't supposed to be patrolling our own country.
On top of that, NorthCom was up to its eyeballs in getting peace groups spied upon.
"The security people at USNORTHCOM . . . had begun noticing some trouble at a few military recruiting events in 2005," Eric Lichtblau recounts in Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice. "Military officials at NORTHCOM asked their counterparts at CIFA [the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity] to ping their powerful new database-do a broader study and find out how many episodes of violence and disruption were actually imperiling their recruiters."
And NorthCom even was in the loop at the Republican Convention in St. Paul.
Is it too much to ask Congress to look into NorthCom?
39 Comments so far
Show AllWhat are you pacifists going to do when they come to take you to the FEMA camps...lie down like sheep once again?
Being liberal or progressive doesn't mean being a weakling, a coward, or "going along so I may survive". Most of the Hitler-era Jews did that and we know how well it served them.
This sounds just like the description of the training in Waterloo Iowa that then became the Postville Iowa Immigration raid. Who is the logical target?
Peace
War on terrorism is an absolute necessity to keep troops around the world (even in this country) on duty to protect corporate interests. Unlike many of our other wars, such as war on hunger, war on drugs, war on poverty (was there one?), this one comes with all the weapons needed to control every aspect of our lives, until death do we part.
The Obama jugernaut seems to be stirring up a storm of concern almost on a daily basis, with announcements undermining many of the obscene measures put in place by the thugs/cohorts presently in office. We can only imagine the crazy efforts to keep things 'status quo'.
Nah. "We" are still going to need guns, bullets and violence, because there are vast untapped natural resources yet in Africa. There may be a trillion barrels of oil in Africa. Gonna need them guns.
-- EKATON --
We have become what we profess to oppose and in so doing we confess the superiority of the "enemy" to ourselves. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr observed 41 years ago about another "enemy":
"It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries.
This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated.
Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.
With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."
Replace "communism" and "Marxism" with "radical Islam" and "terrorism" and ask yourself: What has changed?
Instead of giving the Pentagon all that extra responsibility and money, we ought to:
Determine to give every human being on planet earth clean, safe, potable, drinking water.
Determine that every human being on planet earth has adaquate food to avoid starvation or malnutrition.
Determine that every human being on planet earth will be literate and able to access information and knowledge.
I'll bet that will solve more problems than guns, bullets, and violence, how about you?
Poet
[quote]Replace "communism" and "Marxism" with "radical Islam" and "terrorism" and ask yourself: What has changed?[/quote]
It all boils down to the "vigilance" of the PEOPLE. That is what they essentialy hate and that is what they truly war against today, yesterday...but hopefully not tommorrow. Or it will truly be world war three. And the end of life for billions.
If we want to be vigilant then the blood of those killed will be upon our hands .
Eat drink and be merry
....or else.
Poet:
One of Mahatma Gandhi's core principles was Ahimsa or non-violence. If you look into this teaching you'll find that sometimes nonviolence requires violence, if only to spare additional suffering. He offered the example of a rabid dog at the center of a village, terrorizing and harming people. A rabid dog cannot be reasoned with, and will spare no one any quarter. Ahimsa would require that the villagers take out that dog in order to spare additional harm.
In the case here in the US, our government has clearly gone rabid, with the shadow structure behind the puppets quite visible now.
They've got all kinds of lists of who to round up, who shoot on-site, etc. I suggest that when they forcibly detain 1000s of US citizens, and when the Republic is dead beyond repair, and when they are knocking down your door at 4 AM that you are entitled to defend yourself.
There are all kinds of quotes RE the our patriotic duty to depose tyrannical government.
You would think that this beast of the US shadow government (i.e., powers unaccountable to the citizenry) would die of its own illegitimacy. But with all those $trillions, it seems to have joined the vampiric un-dead.
Hopefully, exposure and informational "sunshine" will spare us a violent confrontation.
What Mahatma Gandhi said has been distorted by the Western Press many times. Ahimsa is not pacifistic, cowardice,and Gandhi said that if you are not willing to give your life for Ahimsa just like the brave, soldier on the battlefield. then you are not really a follower of Ahimsa.
snydly
The DNI was on a news clip today making a statement, part of which referred to another terrorist attack. Co-incident with that remark his eyes twitched big time. Tough job. These guys are severely conflicted. They read like books. But heavily redacted books.
Look out this week...
Secret Service---how about ramping up Renegade's coverage, hey? Just in case.
FBI---can you stop the false flag this time? We all hope so.
CIA---aren't you tired of having your honor and love of country dragged around in the mud by the neo-cons?
Northcom---show the neo-cons where your heart is, and show us bloggers that we're just a bunch of clucking worry-warts.
God---save America, and show support for the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
And like the song asks: "Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave?????????????" We all hope so.
And all this so on Thanksgiving we can all stick a fork in the bird and yak about the big, fat false alarm.
Peace.
Fuhrer W declared the entire globe a theatre for the US/corporate GWOT. This makes every US citizen a suspected terrorist. Soon "citizenship" and "Constitutionality" are going to be irrelevant. Limbaugh is there to keep conservatives asleep. And Obama is there to coopt the so-called "left." Don't hold your breath for any trials of the neocon criminals, and the lawyers and foundation think tanks that made it all possible.
Consider third party. Anyone who is not bought off.
***
911 was an inside job. Cheney suspended the Constitution via the imposition of Continuity of Government on 911. Congress has been denied access to the COG details. COG is martial law. http://prisonplanet.tv/alex_jones_live.html
Clinton got WTC in 93, Bush got 9/11 in 01. Its not unlikely that Northcom is simply preparing for another "lets test the new guy" terrorist attack from al-qaida.
WTC '93 and WTC 911--both INSIDE JOBS. Hit the road, Mossad!
massud -
You forgot about Clinton's Oklahoma City Bombing operation to bolster Janet Reno's "Justice" Department after their botched crackdown on Waco. The Murro Bldg massacre also legitimized the targeting of Caucasian / armed US citizens' resistance to federal authority as being the real problem -- not corrupt government/corporate/financial power.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOBIUGBTB9w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57eKK5QMet0
Oh, why bother? People wanna watch their "sexy" shows. To them, news like this isn't "sexy" enough. Besides, we just voted the Republicans out so give this another 2 or 4 years and let's see how the other side handles it.
"Vigilant Shield '09": Can't they think of something more fascist sounding? What about "Operation Grapes of Wrath '09"?
John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta
I was thinking the same thing
It's funny how they always play with the word "vigilance". I see it used a lot with these plays on words.
The "VIGILANCE" OF CIVILIANS is what they seek to SHIELD THEMSELVES from.
They HATE the vigilance of civilians. Our vigilance means they can't get away with doing whatever they want, when ever they want to.
They NEED to keep us as ignorant as possible. Without us knowing. At all costs (and they do have all costs) Especially in these times of their raging rampage of wanton rape and pillage of the planet. The ones with their hands pulling the strings are so completely bad, but look how the lowly troopers and underlings try to appear to be clueless of the wrongdoing against civilians.
(another example)
If you google "PPD PATCH" and you will find that the "providence police" department that uses a masthead with the depiction of a sword which is ACTUALLY STABBING through the word "SEMPER VIGILANS" (Ever vigilant).
VIGILANCE!!.. Of, For, and By the People..not greedy global terrorists who call themselves leaders
DWIGHT BAKER
NORTHCOM now ARFRICOM what is the need for those activities? Could it be that big money folks have a need to steal and rob from those folks where those two deployments of our troops reside now days?
ARFRICOM is involved in Nation BUILDING HA HA. In my investigation the Bush Bunch builds nations by upsetting the ruling party at the time then inserting a SUNNI ruling clown and goon to do the dirty work with the aid of our CIA and I guess now our troops ------ so that the new so- called Democratic regime can cut the right kinds of deals for oil and gas----precious metals and stones found in Africa all for the enrichment of the BUSH BUNCH back home in the good ole USA.
Good piece, matthew.
i am in the process of researching and writing an article on Northcom.
http://geocities.com/northcommm
I believe Northcom has become a 'clear and present danger' to our society.
Jonas the Prophet
Mt Shasta, California USA
http://jonastheprophet.tk
And, Mr. Rothschild failed to mention here that in February of 2008, the commander of NorthCom and the Commander of Canada forces signed an agreement which would allow the use of US forces in Canada and vice versa in order to "quell civil unrest."
I've been thinking and posting for quite a while on some other blogs that Cheney and Bush went to all the trouble to legislate, enact Presidential Directives and Executive orders, as well as adding hundreds of signing statements to laws in order to give themselves near dictatorial powers. It seems unlikely they would go to all that trouble and then just walk away with using them.
Check out Cheney when he's on the news today/tonight. I thought he looked rather wan and sickly when I saw him the other day. Maybe the old ticker is giving out - At Last!
snydly
I doubt that dick will be on the scene for the swearing in... too easy to get served papers.
A complete merging of U.S. military functions and domestic ones (like earthquake preparedness) is taking place right before our eyes.
We need to holler and yell in protest!!
I think "Canada Command DETERMINED DRAGON" is a group of gay-married, dope smoking, freedom loving Canucks who will be acting as the "Protesters/Terrorists"
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Now hear this! Resistance is futile! Open all blinds and curtains! Remain in your homes! Don't move, don't speak!
Look up and duck if necessary. It may not be the usual construction debris or occassional falling object from an airplane, or some outerspace debris coming "home". Have you noticed the allegedly catchy names of those "games" and "exercises"? Somebody gets paid for that?
Oh come on.
Bush wants outta there.
He is tired.
He cant wait to get back to cleaning brush in 100 degree weather.
Enough with the nonsense already. The bottom line is this: the vast majority of Americans are about as passive as a corpse. Look around - the Constitution is shredded, we're occupying 2 countries and routinely bombing and/or invading at least 3 more, the wealthy have stolen as much as they can carry, the economy is tanked, we torture at will, we're under constant illegal surveillance (including the listening to all calls and the reading of all emails,) the environment is more degraded than ever, and the future looks grim.
Do you see anyone raising hell? A rise in civil disobedience and monkey-wrenching? Are the streets filled with the angry and armed? Any signs of an uprising or revolution or revolt?
Nope. NORTHCOM and the rest of "law enforcement" can practice all they want - they got nothing to worry about - we Americans have surrendered...
Frank,
I think it was on CNN or possibly another news channel that said gun sales of all types are booming. Are more citizens arming themselves for when the bailouts fail and economic hell breaks loose or are they preparing for an uprising?
Sioux Rose
FRANK: Your post brought to mind what Wilhelm Reich uncovered in his research in search of answers for why the German people submitted to Hitler and his deranged policies. It boiled down to the need for an outside father figure, an authority. A lot of Americans (according to James Dean) carry that "authoritarian gene," and like their German counterparts, rely upon a father figure to tell them what's up, down, real, important and so forth.
We have been, as a society, conditioned to "let the experts" handle it, and with so many media pundits taking that expert stance advocating things as banal as the latest diet pill to matters significant, many PRESUME that "the experts" are handling things as best as can be expected. Since AMerican hearts tick in synch with their bank accounts/pocketbooks, the loss of income, 401K values, etc IS causing the first wake-up call perturbation (although falling gas prices could put IT back to sleep).
As for all the expense directed at all this "protect us" technology, two points. First, it's always cheaper to just DO the right thing; but of course that would undermine the profit-based objective of disaster capitalism and two, most empires rot from within and that's where they lose their capacity to defend. With American statistics so high in the areas of illiteracy and obesity, how many are capable of living lives NOT of quiet desperation?
"The tragedy of the 20th century is that nothing is any longer perceived AS traggic." (I forget whose quote that is... I thought it was George Bernard Shaw, but was once corrected.)
"Determined Dragon"? Who thinks up these names? Colonel Cathcart? Colonel Korn? Lieutenant Scheisskopf? Or just some PFC with a penchant for Dungeons and Dragons?
Sioux Rose
SECRETARY: As per "the names," did you catch the articles published (CD took them) by Tomdispatch with respect to the sci-fi component of DARPA, a branch of military technology? It's straight out of dark comic book material... no doubt that mindset comes up with the names. Those who profit from this insanity will one day have to meet their maker and answer for what they devoted their precious hours to; as will the designer of policies who put money into these obscene powers while electing NOT to feed the hungry.
So Bush is acting as if his time is over. Obama states we have one President at a time. Ah, who is in charge? And where is Dick Cheney and what is he doing?
I believe cheney is showing Biden his castle today, grinning slyly to himself with that evil crooked grin, and saying "Take a good look around Joe, but not too closely, you'll never see the insides of these walls again"
Yeah, that is scary - that little thing about when NorthCom last did an exercise in this country - 9-11. We can only hope that cheney isn't up to his old games again.
9/11 and the 7/7 bombings in the UK were exercises that went live... this is not good people... not good at all!
I was thinking along the same lines.
Me too.
Remeber what happened that last time there was a major US/Canada 'Vigilant Whatever' wargame when the opinion of the gov't was in the crapper.
Come on, you remember... four airliners, three New York skyscapers, the Pentagon, some 'terrists' with box cutters and 2800+ innocent Americans... we were all there in Sept.11, 2001.
Do you really think Bushco is going to let go of thier stolen power THAT easily, especially when they are itching to use PD 51...and the spectre of REAL investigation and incarceration looms in the wake of the single greatest failure of the US economy in history.
Walk in peace.
Don't be suckered-in that this doesn't cross political lines and responsibility. One could quite easily make an argument that the dems were even more responsible.
I surely don't know what's getting ready to go down, but whatever it is, it ain't gonna be pretty. Ain't gonna be pretty at all.
This ain't about Bush, this is about "them".
NorthCom is preparing to fight the 'Global War on Terror' in their alloted sphere of influence.
Remember the words of the AUMF that Congress passed after 9-11. Congress authorized the President to use the US military against the groups and persons that supported the attackers of 9-11, IN ORDER TO prevent future acts of terrorism.
Since there is no actual fighting currently in this sphere they are searching for and preparing to combat anyone CAPABLE of 'future acts of terrorism'.
That means everybody, everywhere, forever and ever, or at least until 'future terrorism' is prevented. Nobody can even explain how that can be achieved.
Here are a couple of link to information about the the 2007 multi-branch military exercise “Vigilant Guard” which simulated a 10 kiloton nuclear explosion in Indianapolis.
http://www.campatterbury.in.ng.mil/vg_news.htm
http://www.tribstar.com/local/local_story_127235015.html