Government and Corporate Media Use the Dubious Threat Posed by IEDs to Ramp Up Fear Ahead of Further Efforts to Demolish Posse Comitatus

In 2002, Northern Command, NORTHCOM, was formed within the Defense Department (previously known as The War Department). This group was formed to handle domestic situations involving terrorism with a force of about 2,000. As reported by The Washington Post and reprinted in The Dallas Morning News, President Bush authorized the strength of this group to increase to 20,000 by 20111. Part of their responsibility would be to confront domestic civil unrest. This responsibility belongs to the local authorities, police, state police, and perhaps the individual state National Guard as authorized by the respective governors. This new mission by federal troops is a clear violation of the Posse Cmitatus Act of 1878. Easy to hold President Bush solely responsible, however something sinister is at work here. With less than 60 days left in office why would President Bush issue such an authorization? He must know that on January 20th, 2009 when President Obama took office, he would not rescind this executive order. There is something suspicious going on here where our two party system and representative democracy is nothing but a façade. - PropagandaBuster, December 1, 2008

Phantom IEDs to Finish Off Posse Comitatus

July 30, 2012

Infowars.com - The remnants of Posse Comitatus stand between the Pentagon and the globalist dream of a police state in the United States. The 1878 law prohibits federal military personnel from working with state and local law enforcement. It has weathered sustained attacks following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In 2007, Congress passed the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act. The legislation gave the president the authority to deploy federal troops to “restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States” during “a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition.”

Following senator Patrick Leahy’s warning that changing the 1807 Insurrection Act “subverts solid, long-standing Posse Comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the president to declare martial law,” Congress repealed the changes and restored the Insurrection Act in its entirety, thus limiting presidential power during an emergency.

The latest effort to weaken Posse Comitatus unfolded earlier this month when Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, head of the military’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, told a partially closed House Committee on Homeland Security hearing that terrorists with IEDs – Improvised Explosive Devices – now threaten the United States.

“The domestic IED threat from both homegrown terrorists and global threat networks is real and presents a significant security challenge for the United States and our international partners,” Barbero warned.

“Since the successful attacks on September 11, 2001, externally based global threat networks have attempted numerous failed attacks such as the underwear bomb aboard Northwest Airlines fight 253 on Christmas day in 2009, the failed Times Square car bombing in 2010, and the ink cartridges packed with explosives aboard two separate cargo planes in 2010,” Barbero said. “These attempts clearly demonstrate the commitment of these threat networks to continue to employ IEDs against our homeland in traditional as well as new and creative ways. The use of advanced IED technology and sophisticated tactics, techniques, and procedures provide individuals and transnational networks with cheap and easily accessible means to achieve high visibility effect.”

Barbero’s examples are undermined by the questionable nature of the supposedly failed attacks. (See Kurt Haskell’s The Colossal Deceit Known As The Underwear Bomber Case and Paul Joseph Watson’s Times Square Bomber Linked With CIA-Controlled Terror Group.)

Despite a paucity of evidence that the United States does indeed face a threat by terrorists using IEDs, Republican Congressmen Peter King of New York, Daniel Lungren of California, and Michael McCaul of Texas, leaders of the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent out a clarion call.

“To me, it’s crazy that the guy who is the expert on IEDs overseas can’t coordinate with the Texas Rangers,” said McCaul, a former counterterrorism official with the Justice Department. “The military is unable to coordinate with state and local law enforcement, leaving a gaping hole in our security.”

“The threat is indeed real. IED attacks have been attempted multiple times in New York City already,” Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne told Politico.

The corporate media has done its part to magnify this unsubstantiated threat.

“Evidence of the threat has surfaced repeatedly,” the Houston Chronicle claims. “A car bomb was disarmed in New York City’s Times Square and explosives were detected in ink cartridges aboard two U.S.-bound commercial cargo planes in 2010. Improvised explosives in an airline passenger’s underwear nearly brought down a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009.”

In addition, according to the Christian Science Monitor, there is the possibility that IEDs may be used “in combination with a cyber attack.”

As Obama’s former chief of staff quipped, a good crisis should never go to waste, especially if it helps the government further militarize law enforcement and destroy Posse Comitatus.

“The accused shooter in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater massacre, James Holmes, allegedly deployed IEDs in his apartment, prompting federal law enforcement agencies to look into possible links to domestic or foreign-based terrorism,” the Chronicle reports.

Left unmentioned are the highly suspicious circumstances surrounding James Holmes and the irregularities of the “Batman” shooting, as the corporate media calls it.

The dubious threat posed by IEDs is only the latest effort by the government to ramp up the fear ahead of further efforts to demolish Posse Comitatus as well as dilute and diminish constitutional safeguards against unwarranted government power.