The Oath Keepers

[American Patriot]

The Oath Keepers have more in common with Henry David Thoreau than Timothy McVeigh.
By Jesse Walker

Mother Jones says they represent “the Age of Treason.” Bill O’Reilly believes they’re “pretty extreme.” When Rob Waters of the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote about the group, he called on the government to “ensure that the armed forces are not inadvertently training future domestic terrorists.” They’re talking about the Oath Keepers, a coalition of current and former military, police, and other public officials. And what treasonous, terrorist tactic have these extremists adopted? They have pledged not to obey unconstitutional commands.


Search the group’s founding document and the closest thing you will find to a call to violence is the statement that, should a dictatorship be imposed and a popular uprising break out, its members will not only refuse to fire on the dissenters but will “join them in fighting against those who dare attempt to enslave them.” And even then the “fighting” needn’t necessarily be armed. (They also say they aren’t “advocating or promoting violence towards any organization, group or person.”) Otherwise, the manifesto is a call to stand down, not to rise up. Not every Oath Keeper would appreciate the comparison, but the group has more in common with those dissidents of the ’60s who refused to go to war than with any paramilitary cell.


If you wanted to find a theoretical discussion of Oath Keepers’ plans, you wouldn’t turn to a text on terrorism or guerrilla warfare. You would open the second book of Gene Sharp’s three-volume classic on civil disobedience, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, and turn to the section headlined “Action by Government Personnel.” In “an essentially nonviolent struggle,” Sharp writes, “a mutiny may express itself entirely through the refusal to carry out usual functions of forcing the regime’s will on the populace or waging war against a foreign enemy.” In addition, “police or others may selectively refuse certain orders on a scale too limited to be described accurately as mutiny.” The examples he offers range from the British occupation of India, where a regiment refused to fire on a peaceful protest, to the Nazi occupation of Norway, where policemen frequently flouted the Germans’ orders.


In the current case, there are ten commands the Oath Keepers have forsworn. Those who join the group must refuse

• to disarm the American people
• to conduct warrantless searches of the American people, their homes, vehicles, papers, or effects
• to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to trial by military tribunal
• to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state, or to enter with force into a state, without the express consent and invitation of that state’s legislature and governor
• to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty and declares the national government to be in violation of the compact by which that state entered the Union
• to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps
• to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext
• to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people
• to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies, under any emergency pretext whatsoever
• to do anything that would “infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances”

Looking at that list, three things immediately come to mind. The first is that resisting such orders should not be controversial—or at the very least, should not be considered outside the boundaries of normal debate. The item about states asserting sovereignty will raise hackles in some quarters, though it’s rooted in the fact that several legislatures are considering resolutions that lean in that direction. Otherwise these are orders that anyone with civil-libertarian instincts would reject on their face. Appearing on MSNBC in March, Crazy for God author Frank Schaeffer dismissed the group as malcontents who think they could “break the law and not follow orders if they don’t like what they’re being told.” But these are not merely instructions the members “don’t like.” They are commands that would be illegal under the Constitution.


Second, some of the orders are not very likely. Membership in the Oath Keepers often correlates with an affinity for dubious conspiracy theories, and that in turn has led the group to embrace some fears without much foundation. Despite decades of rumors, the feds have yet to reestablish the internment camps that held Japanese-American citizens in World War II. And the chances that foreign troops will occupy American soil any time in the near future are pretty low—though if they do show up, I’ll gladly endorse the Oath Keepers’ refusal to assist them.


Third, several of the other orders are likely. Indeed, some have already happened. If the Oath Keepers are overly prone to see secret plots against our liberties, that’s because open plots against our liberties have been so successful. American police forces infringe on free speech and assembly at almost every major political summit. An American citizen, José Padilla, was famously tried before a military tribunal as an enemy combatant. Cops confiscated legal firearms from peaceful citizens following Hurricane Katrina. And speaking of Katrina, if you thought the item about blockading cities belonged on the “not very likely” list, think again. When victims of the storm attempted to flee across the Crescent City Connection bridge to Jefferson Parish, they were forced back by armed agents of the Gretna, Louisiana police. If there had been some Oath Keepers on the force that day, those refugees might have escaped the devastation.


If the Oath Keepers’ agenda isn’t objectionable, why the panic? Partly it’s the general fear of “right-wing extremists” that has taken hold of so much of the media, a narrative that allows ordinarily sensible people to conflate all manner of dissident groups. (Obviously, you needn’t be on the Right to join the Oath Keepers, but the membership does tilt in that direction.) There’s also a suspicion that the group’s concern with civil liberties is only skin deep. If they’re so committed to constitutional protections, critics ask, where were they during the Bush years?


In fact, while the group wasn’t launched until early 2009, it had been germinating for a while. The founder—a veteran, Yale law grad, and former Ron Paul aide named Stewart Rhodes—spoke out about the state of civil liberties throughout the Bush era, writing angrily about the militarization of police work, the expansion of federal power during wartime, and the repression that followed Hurricane Katrina. In 2007, for example, he warned that “the Pentagon and its close allies, the defense contractors, turned to the ‘war on drugs’ and ‘terrorism’ as the new cash-crop reason for the bloated Pentagon budget”—not exactly a standard Red Team complaint. There may be people in the organization who showed little concern for the Bill of Rights from the first month of 2001 through the first month of 2009. But that problem isn’t found at the top.


Some of the group’s critics claim that even if it isn’t violent, Oath Keepers could inflame people who are. Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he wasn’t “accusing Stewart Rhodes or any member of his group of being Timothy McVeigh or a future Timothy McVeigh.” But the organization was spreading paranoia, he argued, and “these kinds of conspiracy theories are what drive a small number of people to criminal violence.”


Radical rhetoric does sometimes attract shady characters, and in two cases people linked to the Oath Keepers have been charged with criminal violence. The first occurred in April 2009, when Daniel Knight Hayden—or “Citizen Quasar,” as he called himself—declared his support for the Oath Keepers on his Twitter feed while also announcing his plans to start a shootout at the Oklahoma State Capitol. Hayden wasn’t a part of the organization, though, and Rhodes quickly denounced him as a “nutbag.”


More recently, a man who did have ties to the group—Marine Sgt. Charles Dyer—was arrested on child-molestation charges. While searching his house, police found a grenade launcher that officials say was stolen from a military base. Rhodes quickly distanced himself from the accused, but not very adeptly: he scrubbed references to Dyer from the Oath Keepers’ website, including one that said the man would “represent” the group at a Tea Party rally. After the arrest, Rhodes announced that Dyer “never became an actual member” of the organization since Rhodes disapproved of Dyer’s plan “to train and help organize private militias across the country when he got out of the Marines.” That may be true. Still, Dyer was clearly associated with Rhodes’s group. More importantly, if Dyer is guilty on the weapons charge, that might seem to support the position that the Oath Keeper worldview encourages insurrectionary force.


But there are two problems with Potok’s thesis. The first is that there isn’t any sign that the organization drove Hayden or Dyer to violence. Hayden was unhinged to begin with, and he was spouting New World Order theories long before the Oath Keepers existed; they were simply one convenient symbol to grab as he justified his plans. Rhodes did everything he could after Hayden’s arrest to make it clear that such kamikaze assaults were not what his operation was about. Hayden was “threatening to kill police officers,” he noted, and that’s “not very compatible with an organization made up of police officers and military. That’s not even an example of someone ‘taking it too far,’ it is comparing apples to oranges.” Dyer, too, was interested in the conspiracy theories that worry Potok before he encountered the Oath Keepers. And if he is guilty of the charges against him, he was a criminally violent person to begin with. He is accused, after all, of raping a 7-year-old girl.


That leads to the second problem with Potok’s theory. As he suggests, the set of people attracted to violence overlaps with the set of people attracted to anti-government sentiments. The set of people attracted to violence also overlaps with the set of people who work for the government itself. Oath Keepers is in the rare position of pushing both groups toward nonviolence—of telling the rebels that there’s an alternative to lashing out and of telling officials with guns that there’s an alternative to mindlessly following orders.


You can criticize the Oath Keepers for being too indulgent of fringy fears or for handling the Dyer situation poorly. But what Potok calls “these kinds of conspiracy theories” are already out there. If you’re attracted to them, the Oath Keepers will inform you that there’s a peaceful way to resist illegitimate authority. At the same time, the group concerns itself with a subject that doesn’t seem to interest Potok at all, even though it’s one of the chief reasons such theories spread in the first place: the aggressive violence of the people in power. In a time of indefinite detentions, indiscriminate SWAT raids, and increasingly militarized disaster response, the Oath Keepers’ anxieties make much more sense than the anxieties of the group’s loudest critics.
__________________________________________
Jesse Walker is managing editor of Reason.


The American Conservative welcomes letters to the editor.
Send letters to: letters@amconmag.com

[American Patriot]

And for the record... the Oath Keeper's Site is BLOCKED.

There is another group called "The real oath keepers" who are apparently anti-war, anti-Israel and rather hateful from what I could see... that site IS NOT BLOCKED at my installation.

[vector7]

And for the record... the Oath Keeper's Site is BLOCKED.

There is another group called "The real oath keepers" who are apparently anti-war, anti-Israel and rather hateful from what I could see... that site IS NOT BLOCKED at my installation.

Huh?

What does that mean?

[American Patriot]

There are the "Oath Keepers" and "The Real Oath Keepers".

Two different groups. Do a google, you'll find them.

The former site is blocked by the DOD, the later is not.

[vector7]

The former site is blocked by the DOD, the later is not.

I shouldn't be shocked the DOD is backing the administration on this move.

[American Patriot]

I am considering joining them.

There. Block me.

[American Patriot]

October 3, 2010 at 20:54:05 Permalink In Praise of Oath Keepers Diary Entry by Saman Mohammadi (about the author)

View Ratings | Rate It (2 comments)

In Praise of Oath Keepers.

::::::::

Why am I praising the Oath Keepers, an organization that former President Bill Clinton described as a "hatriot group" at the Center for American Progress in Washington D.C. back on April 16, 2010? Well, for one thing, I don't view a political leader who is partly responsible for the deaths of 500,000 children as a moral authority, but a war criminal. If you want to listen to what a war criminal has to say, then go ahead.

And second, the Oath Keepers is not a "hatriot group." Its members are not "right-wing domestic terrorists," as Joshua Holland depicts in his article. Such scaremongering, and name-calling doesn't measure up to the facts. Holland says that the Oath Keepers are riding the coattails of Glen Beck, writing that the group has an, "outsized Glenn-Beckian sense of grievance," and plans on fighting for the constitution based on the "interpretations of Michelle Bachmann or Rush Limbaugh." Holland's understanding of the Oath Keepers is based on pure quackery. If you look at the origins of the Oath Keepers, and read about its founder, Stewart Rhodes, you'll get a different impression.

Rhodes was a volunteer for Ron Paul, a man who is hated by Rush Limbaugh, and was called a crackpot by Glenn Beck. But Holland wants you to believe that Beck's post-Bush shenanigans inspired Rhodes to form the Oath Keepers, even though Rhodes had the idea of the Oath Keepers when he worked for Paul in his presidential campaign, back when Bush was president, and Beck was over at CNN lying to his audience that the bank bailout was necessary to save the country from another depression . So, if you are familiar with the history of Oath Keepers, and its mission, then you'll quickly realize that there is absolutely no logic in Holland's portrayal of this group, which consists of the finest and bravest among us; military veterans, police officers, fire fighters, and active-duty soldiers.

You have to take a balance approach to understand any organization. If you form your opinion before reading the views of all the sides, then you're not being objective or critical, but ignorant. Read what Rhodes says his organization is about before forming your opinion about the Oath Keepers. Rhodes:

"We received very reliable info from a federal law enforcement officer that the political powers that be in Washington DC are not at all happy with our mission of outreaching to the current serving military and police about their oath (wow, what a surprise), so the marching orders have come down for at least one federal agency to "make Oath Keepers look like a militia like the Hutaree." Of course Oath Keepers is not a militia we are not organizing an armed body of men "to take on the government" as has been alleged by corporate media talking heads. Instead, we are an association of police, military, firefighters, and first responders who are using our First Amendment protected right to free speech to reach out to other active duty police, military and first responders, reminding them of their oath and teaching them more about the Constitution they swore to defend. We encourage them to consider the constitutionality of any orders they receive while serving here on American soil, and we encourage them to refuse to follow orders that would violate the Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights. And that's all we do."

After you read that, ask yourself: Do you consider an organization that dedicates itself to preserving the freedoms of the American people as more harmful to your society, and a greater insult to the dignity of mankind, than a government that denies children of a particular nation the basics of human life, and arrogantly attacks the sovereignty of other countries? What is more prominent on your moral radar - what do you look out for as a threat to your security and liberty and your humanity- criminal acts by your government, or the opinions of your fellow citizens that run counter to the current leaders in your society?

I know where I stand, and it is not with the tyrants and state criminals of this world. The only authority that I recognize is moral authority, which Washington D.C. abandoned long ago.

Here is a quick reminder from the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics about why force alone is not enough to make a government legitimate, and credible, and why a government must always maintain its word with its citizens if it wants to be obeyed, and respected:

"The authority of a state can neither be measured nor justified by the material force which it has at its command to enforce obedience. Force is no remedy, nor can it win the loyalty of the governed. Without loyalty the exercise of authority is hindered, confined, rendered ineffective. It makes no difference in the final issue whether power is exercised by a king or by the citizens themselves; for, if it is exercised unworthily, it casts a blight on the flower of loyalty, which is essential to the full exercise of authority. Briefly, it may be said that the State is an ethical institution, and while material force is needed, yet the exercise of that force is conditioned by the fact that it must always be exercised for the good of the community, and in the interests of the higher values. Authority and loyalty must go hand in hand in every State which is worthy of the name." (From Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Part 3, written by James Hastings, and edited John A. Selbie: pp. 251-252).

Loyalty in the U.S. government to the constitution, and to the American people is non-existent. U.S. leaders are not loyal to the citizens they claim to represent, not even to those in the military who have sacrificed so much. Instead of nurturing, and taking care of the soldiers that fight its wars, the criminal powers in Washington abandons them, and lets them rot. Instead of rewarding them with high-pay for their service, the war and deficit hawks want to reduce their benefits, dish out their life insurance benefits once they're dead to financial profiteers like Prudential, and replace them with Blackwater mercenaries that get paid upwards of $10,000 a month. All this reflects unbelievable disloyalty, treachery, and betrayal by America's top leaders in Washington. And it is incredibly sad because America deserves better.


But there is an opportunity to do make things right because of America's great constitution, and the oath that binds all officers to the survival of the freedoms enshrined in that document. Jon Watts, a member of the Oath Keepers since August 2009, explains why an oath is important to uphold, and what marks the difference between an oath keeper, and an oath breaker in his article "The Oath Keeper -- Villain or Valiant?":

"Let's set aside the controversy for a moment and examine the term "Oath Keeper." What does it really mean?

Webster's dictionary defines an "oath" as "a solemn, usually formal calling upon God or a god to witness to the truth of what one says or to witness that one sincerely intends to do what one says." We might therefore infer that an oath "keeper" sincerely intends to keep his word from the moment of an initial oath forward.

For example, each newly elected member of Congress recites this oath:

I do solemnly swear [or affirm] that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

One can compare this to the military oath of office.

Oath Keepers use a modified officer's oath for several reasons: because veterans, even if they were once enlisted, are no longer under any orders, because civilians are not under orders, and because officers have always sworn only to defend the Constitution. Even when it comes to enlisted military, the oath is first and foremost to defend the Constitution; they are duty-bound to disobey any order that is not lawful. Further, it allows all participants, of whatever status, to join in together and reaffirm their official oath. If an enlisted man or officer wants to state the exact official oath that he swore upon entry into service, he can.

The sincere intent of any oath is contained within the words recited, as well as within the heart of the individual making the oath. To diverge from that specified intent would naturally put the person in the category of oath "breaker" rather than "keeper."

The term "oath breaker" has been around since Old English was spoken. The term used in those times was "waerloga," which also meant "damned soul," "wicked person," and even "Satan." Suffice to say, an oath breaker was about the worst thing one could be back in the day. Punishments for oath breaking were of the spearing, hacking, or crushing variety -- decidedly unpleasant. Interestingly, the word waerloga is also the origin of the word "warlock" in use today. History had fitting names and biblical consequences for those who broke an oath to the Almighty. Such oaths have long since faded in value to mere formalities today.

When it comes to our leaders' constitutional oaths, how many of them are acting less like oath keepers, and more like those ancient, oath-breaking "warlocks"? Given the unrelenting torrent of legislative blasphemies, the answer is clear.

Another question begs asking. Who would these oath breakers and their media homunculi find offensive? The answer is likewise obvious: their polar opposites, those who are truly loyal in oath and deed to our dear Republic and its Constitution."

It is a mistake to view the Oath Keepers as the arm force of American fundamentalists, as many in the mainstream media, and on "liberal" websites, are saying. Its members are not right or left, and they are clear on the separation of powers, and the separation between religion and state. Anybody who says otherwise is peddling fear and disinformation to people who are ignorant about the history, and mission of the group.

The appearance of Oath Keepers is one of the most hopeful things to ever happen in America. Its members are the modern day embodiment of the founding fathers, and the brave men who fought in 1776 to secure independence from a tyrannical empire. Inspired citizens, and officers in other countries have formed similar organizations. Doug Schapira voiced the need for an Oath Keepers of Canada:

"It is becoming increasingly obvious that Canada, as with most other nations of the world, is facing a loss of sovereignty and devastating Economic Depression. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) openly states that they plan to shut down the sovereignty of nations like Canada through total collapse of our economy. WE THE PEOPLE must avert a catastrophe, we seek the protection of a moral and constitutionally compliant armed forces, police force and various other enforcement and civil protection agencies. We see indications of a militarized police state being formed in the USA and even Canada. Particularly in the USA, soldiers are being used to patrol the streets, search civilians and carry duties normally restricted to the jurisdiction of police."

There is no greater remedy to an outlaw police state than knowledgeable and conscience police officers, and soldiers, who have the most important role in modern society; protecting the law, maintaining order, and upholding the values of the community. Once they break their bond to the community, and enforce corruption and unjust policies, the police cease to be the guardians of the community and turn into oppressors.

I don't praise the Oath Keepers on face value. If their actions fail to live up to their words, then I will stop celebrating their name. So far, that has not happened.

What is happening is high treason. America's government leaders are betraying the values of freedom and justice. They broke the social contract, and tore up the constitution. And this fact must weigh on our judgments of leaders like Clinton, Bush, and Obama, and the system of evil that they represent, and defend.

No one wants to be governed by, or in bed with, traitors, and rascals. All relationships are based on trust, and equal respect. Both sides take a vow that promises made to each other will be kept. If a government promises that it will not infringe on the liberties of individuals, and these promises are later broken, then that government must be resisted, and corrected by the people immediately, before severe harm is done to the country.

If the people wait, and wait, hoping that the traitors will stop their abuses, then the treasonable government will grow in confidence to the point that they will attempt to execute plans for the total slavery of the people. It is the nature of beasts of prey that they don't finish until their prey is completely devoured, and to the traitors in charge of the U.S. government, as well as their Big Brother accomplices in England, and Canada, liberty is a prey, and the people are sheep to be controlled. So it is critical that all citizens correct their government's abuse of the rule of law and of their liberties now, not five years from now. "Courage," said Schopenhauer, "implies that one is willing to face a present evil so as to prevent a greater evil in the future, while cowardice does the reverse."


II. A Lesson From History About the Power of an Oath:

America is in special standing because its officers, and officials take an oath to support and defend the constitution, not the serving head of state. Germany fell prey to the Nazis because the reverse was true. In Nazi Germany, officers took an oath to protect the Fuhrer, so the traitor was the man who hated Hitler, and loved his country. Due to the wisdom of the founders, American officers will never have to be in a such grave predicament. All they have to do is uphold their oath, in fact, it is their individual responsibility to do so, as Stewart Rhodes says in this video. Rhodes: "In this country we save our country by keeping our oath. In fact, it's the only way we will save this country from following the footsteps of all the other countries that have gone down the long, sad slide into despotism."

An oath is a sacred thing. And if you swear an oath to somebody, or to your country, then you better be strong enough to keep it. Allen Dulles, the CIA director from 1953-1961, describes in his book, "Germany's Underground: The Anti-Nazi Resistance," how many German officers were adamant against the idea of resisting Hitler, even though they grew impatient with his antics, because they took their officer oath seriously. Dulles:

"In an age as cynical as the present, we are likely to pass too casually over the significance which the German officer corps attached to an oath. In reality it was an important factor in Nazi control of the Wehrmacht. Here is a literal translation of the oath, as decreed by Hitler:

I swear by God this holy oath that I will render unconditional obedience to the Fuhrer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces, Adolf Hitler, and that as a brave soldier I will be prepared at all times to give my life for this oath.

If the German officer corps had taken this oath to their country, to its constitution, or to the German people, Hitler would not have been quite as secure as he was for as long as he was. Only a few generals rose above this primitive conception and put duty to country ahead of the oath.

General Franz Halder, who later succeeded General Beck as Chief of Staff and who time and again was on the threshold of acting on behalf of the conspiracy, explained his dilemma during the course of his interrogation at Nürnberg:

HALDER: You reproach me that in spite of my responsibility I tried to overthrow Hitler and that I was ready to overthrow him.
INTERROGATOR: Please be assured that if I were to reproach you, it would be for not overthrowing Hitler.
HALDER: May I make a personal remark? I am the last masculine member of a family who for 300 years were soldiers. What the duty of a soldier is I know. I know, too, that in the dictionary of a German soldier the terms "treason" and "plot against the state" do not exist. I was in the awful dilemma of one who had the duty of a soldier and also a duty which I considered higher. Innumerable of my old comrades were in the same dilemma. I chose the solution for the duties I esteem higher. The majority of my comrades esteemed the duty to the flag higher and more essential. You may be assured that this is the worst dilemma that a soldier may be faced with. That is what I wanted to explain.

The power of this oath, both as a compulsion to loyalty and a disguise for lethargy or fear, was manifest in even the last moments of the war. At the end of April, 1945, I was negotiating from Switzerland for the surrender of the German armies in northern Italy. Everything had been arranged--the envoy of General von Vietinghof, commander in chief of the Italian theatre, had accepted the surrender terms, which had already been singed at Field Marshal Alexander's Allied Headquarters in Caserta. All that remained was to announce the terms and put them into effect when General von Vietinghof was subordinated as Supreme Commander in Italy to Field Marshal Kesselring. Kesselring's ratification was sought in a dramatic hour-long conversation by telephone between the German headquarters in Italy and Kesselring's headquarters, then in the Austrian Tyrol. It was April 30. Minutes were vital if Alexander's surrender terms were to be met.

Hitler was reported to be dying but Kesselring, stubborn German militarist, true to his officer corps training, categorically refused to take action until he was released from his oath to the Fuhrer by formal announcement of Hitler's death. The fact that further resistance was hopeless, that the generals in command of the Italian theater had agreed to go along, oath or no oath, had no influence on Kesselring. Fortunately, the announcement of Hitler's death came a few hours later; the situation was saved and the surrender went through. But Kesselring had stuck to his oath." (Dulles, Germany's Underground. (1947). New York: The Macmillan Company: pp. 37-39)

Kesselring, one of the most well-liked generals in the German military, showed his inflexible honor by sticking to the oath that he made as a soldier. The tragedy in Germany was that good soldiers like Kesselring took a bad oath.

Saman "Truth Excavator" Mohammadi is a blogger and a full-time university student, currently living in Toronto, Canada. His blog is http://disquietreservations.blogspot.com.
http://www.opednews.com/Diary/In-Pra...tml?show=votes

[American Patriot]

USA :: Freedoms and Liberties
THE GREAT DIVIDE
09-23-2010 3:53 pm - Robert A. Gomez - OathKeepers


http://www.libertynewsonline.com/article_301_29420.php

We are witnessing an attack on the Republic today using a classic text book divide and conquer technique used by military strategists for centuries. The progressives are instilling in the minds of the citizens that the wealthy are against the poor, as well as pitting minorities against the majority. This process has been in the works for years and, in my opinion these factions are hell bent on ensuring a renewed effort in creating class warfare amongst all of us to ensure their hold on power.

This is an insidious cancer that is no longer covertly eating away at our liberty but is being pushed overtly by the ruling class elites in Washington with the help of the mainstream media. Unfortunately, many of the people believe in and defend this reversal of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We the taxpaying citizens are being ignored by our elected officials so they can put forth their own agenda to shred and ignore the Constitution. This is being accomplished via their continuous blatant disregard of the bonds on government as stated in the Bill of Rights, and disregard of our unalienable rights as prescribed in the Declaration of Independence.

A prime example of this tactic is the labeling of groups of minorities as African-American, Mexican-American, Native American, and Asian-American. When a soldier is killed or wounded in action he or she is not listed as a Mexican-American or an African-American. Quite the contrary, every man and woman in the Armed Forces are all classified as Americans.

This is where we conservatives must remember, and attempt to educate, our fellow Americans that a bullet, just as the Constitution, does not distinguish between ethnicity. It has been the goal of many that we divide our citizenry by their ethnic back ground and culture. This goes back to the nineteenth century, when Italians, Irish, Germans, and others had immigrated and established communities where only people of like origins were welcome.

Granted, there were more factors involved in this segregation, especially when speaking of African- Americans and Hispanics, but we must move past that part of our tainted history, and learn from it.

It is now the 21st Century and although we cannot teach our fellow man not to be bigoted, we as individuals should know what is right in our hearts. If we are truly constitutionalists, and if we truly hold to the timeless principles of our Declaration of Independence, then all men are created equal without regard to race, creed, color, or religion.

Many will argue that when the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written, all men were not considered equal, based on the practice of slavery. However, since slavery was made illegal by the Thirteenth Amendment, and that prohibition became the law of the land, all of us by virtue of the rule of law are finally recognized as being equal.

That leads me to the basis of my beliefs. Although my ancestors were born in Mexico or the former Mexican territory of Texas, I was born in the United States of America. My birth certificate states my race is white. Many of you may wonder how I could be considered white. Remember high school science, where race is taught, there are only three races: Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid. If you were to look up race in the dictionary you would find the same answer, only with more detail on what is considered a person of each of race.

Maybe it was the foresight of my father based on his experience being raised in Texas during the 1940s and 1950s. We were taught that first, we had to work harder than anyone else, second, we were not taught to speak Spanish so we didn't have an accent, and third that we were Americans. My father frowned on the terms Chicano, Latino, or Hispanic. The point is, my father taught us to assimilate into this country without forgetting our culture and heritage. This is not to say we were to forget our culture, but embrace it, just as Americans of Irish decent celebrate Saint Patrick's Day.

Every American has certain practices passed down by their ancestors, to remind them of the rich heritage and culture from which they came. Sadly, many people in this country have misplaced the practice of cultural celebrations of their heritage with the belief that they must be divided by it, and thus, they are not truly citizens of this great land, but instead are hyphenated Americans.

When asked what nationality I am, my answer is certain and unequivocally American. Not Mexican -American. During my military career, I had the great fortune to visit over 20 countries and just as I answered I was an American, so did my fellow Airmen. I find it troubling that so many here at home consider themselves hyphenated Americans, not just an American.

I ask you why the difference in answers. Could it be that certain factions in our political parties want us to feel divided and disenfranchised from the rest of America? This is not at all different from the attacks on the fortunate that have helped build this country to be a leading industrial nation. Is it fair to give the unfortunate the presumption that they are entitled to gain from the hard work of those that have put their heart and soul in the success of their business and fortune?

I was recently asked to speak on behalf of the Oath Keepers at a luncheon hosted by a local conservative organization. As I spoke to the audience, I felt it necessary to establish that Oath Keepers is not a racist right wing extremist organization, as labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center. During the course of the speech, I asked how the Oath Keepers could be a racist or bigoted group, when I was not only the Oklahoma Chapter President but also on the National Board of Directors.

After my speech, as the audience was leaving, I was approached by an elderly gentleman. This gentleman had zeroed in on my statement about being an American, not a Mexican-American. He himself was a self described African-American and wanted to talk to me about my statement. He said he never had thought of hyphenated Americans and how it divides our people. In his 80 + years he was taught that he was a Negro-American, Black-American, and now, an African-American. He taught his children and many others the same. With a tear in his eye, he shook my hand and said thank you, from this day forward he was an American, and only an American.

This was enough evidence for me to validate my theory that a planned and sinister attempt by the progressives, statists, and liberals to divide and conquer was in motion and had been effective for many years.

It is clear that there are those in this country that want desperately to spread the wealth of the productive, at the expense of destroying the very foundation on which this Republic was formed, and to create a socialist type of government. They wish to enslave the people by creating a dependence on the government for all of our needs, while at the same time destroying our economy and relegating our once exceptional accomplishments and achievements to those of a third world nation.

I cannot accept this approach to changing this country. We that have served the public, to protect and defend the Constitution, did so in good faith. Many have sacrificed their lives, liberty, and fortunes to ensure the Republic survived attacks in the past, and those yet to come.

We are a Nation of one people and must turn back the divisions that have been so entrenched in our society.

[American Patriot]

Will Pentagon purge Oath Keepers?

• November 23rd, 2009 12:20 pm ET

AP photo
St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner Kurt Hofmann speculates on potential consequences for a group of current and retired military and law enforcement personnel who believe their oath to the Constitution should have bearing on their professional conduct. In today's column, he asks "Will Pentagon try to crush Oath Keepers?"
The immediate basis for Hofmann's concern is a report following up on the Fort Hood shootings:

The Pentagon may reconsider rules governing participation in extremist organizations that some lawmakers say appear outdated and too narrow in light of the shooting rampage at the Army base in Texas.

Some have been following attempts to tar Constitutionalists as extremists for years. And some of us have repeated the warnings when we saw renewed smears. We raised concerns when we saw the infamous Department of Homeland Security report single out not just Constitutionalists for special scrutiny, but saw our government issue strident warnings such as:

The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.

And we have not stood by silently when we saw some try to publicly affiliate Oath Keepers with "white supremacists, anti-Semites, nativists...and a range of other activists of the radical right [that] are cross-pollinating and may even be coalescing."


The Pentagon is reconsidering affiliation restrictions: Current "rules prohibit membership or participation in 'organizations that espouse supremacist causes,' seek to discriminate based on race, religion or other factors or advocate force or violence. Commanders can investigate and can discipline or fire people who 'actively participate in such groups.'"


Here's what we must hammer home while the politically-minded brass are considering expanding disqualifiers--what Oath Keepers are not:

We are Not advocating or promoting violence towards any organization, group or person [and] We are Not advocating or promoting any act or acts of aggression against any organization or person for any reason including, but not limited to; race, religion, national origin, political affiliation, gender or sexual orientation.

And here's one other thing to keep in mind: What do you call a person who has been dishonorably discharged?


That's right, a "prohibited person." Subject to having their firearms confiscated.


Policy makers currently trying to connect dots had better think this one through very carefully.


------------
LEAA warns Gun Talk listeners about Holder


On Saturday, we talked about Attorney General Eric Holder's plans for more "gun control". Yesterday, Ted Deeds from Law Enforcement Alliance of America appeared on Tom Gresham's "Gun Talk Radio Show" to talk about it.


If you missed it, you can listen to the segment by clicking here, then click on "Listen" and click down through "Archived Shows" to "Sun, 22 November 2009 Guntalk, Part C., Hour Three - Guest Ted Deeds L.E.A.A."


A handful of us are doing what we can to get this story heard, and trying to generate wider awareness and interest. So far, and predictably, the mainstream "Authorized Journalists" have ignored the attorney general of the United States telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that people on a government suspicion list should not be allowed to "possess" guns. Meaning citizens on such a list, who have been convicted of no crime, would be subject to having their arms confiscated...


If that concerns you, please help us spread the word, by sharing the link to "Gun Talk Radio" and to these articles:


Attorney General Holder Reveals Aggressive Gun Control In Response to Ft. Hood Terror Attack
Holder tells Senate committee Justice Department supports more 'gun control'
Gun Owners of America's "Right Side News" Analysis

[vector7]

CIVIL WAR Brewing? Fed vs States -Support


As the United States Federal government continues to lose touch with the American public, is there a potential Civil War ahead? George Hemminger (George4Title) says that the Obama administration has continued to polarize the public, Arizona is trying to defend its borders and as the patriot movement gains steam, it is likely a conflict will occur.

[vector7]

April 17th, 2011
Oath Keepers Operation Sleeping Giant: Awakening Veterans to Get off the U.S.S. Economic Titanic and Back Onboard the U.S.S. Constitution

By Stewart Rhodes
April 17th 2011



U.S.S. Economic Titanic has already hit the economic ice-berg and is sinking. Arguing over who should be the next captain is not going to save us. Even if we replaced the entire leadership staff, by firing all of Congress, that also won’t save us. Those who have served in the infantry know the old saying “embrace the suck,” which means to accept reality and deal with it. Well, we need to dispense with false hope, accept that an economic collapse is coming, embrace the suck, and deal with it. As Patrick Henry said, it is better to know the worst, and provide for it, than to delude ourselves with false hope.

Frankly, we should be glad it is coming on our watch, so that we can clean up the mess we have allowed to happen, rather than leaving it to our children and grand-children to fix. As Thomas Paine said, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” Exactly. This is our watch, so let’s get it done so our children and grand-children may have peace and freedom.

So, knowing that the ship is sinking, what do we do? Do we sit on our butts and wail and cry about what’s coming, while waiting to hit the icy water? Do we jump into life-boats and wallow around, waiting to be rescued? That’s what the globalist power elites want us to do. When the Federal Reserve created fiat money system collapses, when the ship sinks, they will then “rescue us” by sweeping us all onboard the U.N.N. Global Leviathan – their “final solution” of a world-wide version of the “Fed” (out of the IMF) along with ‘world governance.” That has been their plan all along – con us into sailing an un-seaworthy fiat hulk, sail it into an iceberg, and then “rescue” us onto their massive prison ship. You think getting rid of the Federal Reserve is tough? Just wait till you are under a world “federal reserve.”

So what do we do? Well, the U.S.S. Constitution is still sitting right there, off the stern! She’s still sea-worthy, able to weather any storm. We need to jump off of this weak, fiat imitation of a system we have been conned into sailing for nearly a hundred years, and get back onboard with our Constitution. We have neglected her. The supposed leaders have forsaken her. But we, the crew – us oath-sworn veterans, and We the People – who are the real owners – can still sail her if we but realize she is still there, just waiting for us.

Let’s patch the sails, plug any leaks, man our battle stations and get Old-Ironsides ready to give the U.N.N. Global Leviathan a royal ass kicking.

And then let’s sail back into liberty waters onboard the Constitutional Republic built by the blood and sweat of our forefathers. That is the answer to the globalist’s plans. And that is exactly why Oath Keepers has launched Operation Sleeping Giant (www.operationsleepinggiant.org).

Certainly we are all in this together, whether or not we are veterans, but the veterans of this nation have a critical role to play. Each of us who served are still bound by our oaths to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and we must acknowledge that it has been because of our neglect of our duties, because of our negligence, that our nation has come to this. So, we veterans have a duty to right this wrong.

We have the training and leadership experience it will take to help lead our people in resisting the dark plans of the global elites and in getting back to liberty. Together, we can defeat them and restore our Republic.

OPERATION SLEEPING GIANT

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto after attacking Pearl Harbor.*

America’s veterans truly are like a sleeping giant. It is time to awaken them and fill them with a terrible resolve to defeat the domestic enemies of our Constitution and their globalist fellow travelers. If we wake the veterans up, this Republic will be saved. If we don’t, then I fear that this Republic will fall. If we can’t get the veterans to step up and do what must be done to save our Republic, then how can we expect to get the rest of our people to do what must be done?

So, let’s WAKE THEM UP so they can help us wake up the whole country and so they can take the lead in restoring this Republic and resisting the plans of the enemy.

If we reach the veterans fast and “reactivate” them, with their leadership we can get our neighborhoods, towns, counties and states squared away so we won’t be weak and desperate when the fiat money system crashes.

The stronger ‘We the People’ are within our states, the less pretext there will be for “martial law” during a crisis and the less likely the current serving military and police will be to go along with it.

The more wide awake and prepared the veterans are, the more they can lead their neighbors in weathering the storm without sacrificing liberty on the alter of temporary security. Veterans can lead the people in standing up and defending the powers reserved to the states or to the people (see the 10th Amendment), resisting the liberty crushing plans of the political and financial elites who intend to use chaos as an excuse to scrap our Constitution and national sovereignty once and for all.

Time is short, and we must get the veterans to focus on:

• Food and fuel independence and security (as individuals, within local veterans organization chapters, neighborhood mutual aid societies, churches, co-ops, farmers markets, and at the town, county and state levels). As a start, follow the advice on http://www.providentliving.org/ (you don’t need to be LDS to learn from their experience in food storage and preparedness).
• Physical security and Independence, again as individuals, neighborhoods, towns, counties and states, to include forming neighborhood watches, mutual aid associations, a volunteer sheriff’s posse (staffed by volunteers under direct command of the sheriff), and county militias established by county ordinances but staffed by self-supplied and self-funded volunteers (as is done in volunteer fire departments all over this nation), and ultimately, a true state militia capable of “repelling invasions” (using the research and model bills of Dr. Edwin Vieira).
• Economic security and independence, as individuals and communities, including barter networks, use of silver and gold as real money, and sound money bills at the county and state levels (as Utah just passed). We must have an alternative to the fiat money system in place when it collapses. See www.alt-market.com for details.
• State sovereignty and nullification of unconstitutional federal laws and actions. Veterans must support only sheriffs, state legislators and governors who have the guts and integrity to keep their oaths. To vote for an oath breaker, is to become an oath breaker. We must defend the powers reserved to the states and to the people by supporting state sovereignty resolutions and nullification of unconstitutional laws. See http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/. And eventually we must kick the bums out, as GOOOH recommends. See http://goooh.com/

Go to www.operationsleepinggiant.org to learn more about what we have planned and to read upcoming articles that will provide details on each of the above.

What we do now, in whatever time we have left, will be critical. We must focus on solutions, not just diagnoses of the problems. And the solution is to restore our Republic from the bottom up, strengthening our communities at the neighborhood, town, county and state levels as we go. None of us has a crystal ball. We don’t know at what point the collapse will come. But when it comes we will certainly be in a stronger position than we are now, if we start from the bottom up, rather than putting all of our focus on Washington DC, as people tend to do. Maybe we will only have time to get our neighborhoods ready. Maybe we will be fortunate enough to be squared away at the county level when the collapse comes. Or maybe we will be fortunate enough to have time to get it done all the way up to the state level. Certainly, we can work on all levels at the same time, but it is best to focus most of our energy on ourselves and our local communities, and work our way up from there. And we can do it in both the private and public sphere. We shouldn’t put all our eggs in any one basket. Let’s build up public institutions, but also while doing so, let’s take private action as individuals, family, friends, and neighbors.

Once again, we should be doing all of the above anyway, because that’s what it means to be a free people in free, sovereign states, in a constitutional republic, but it is especially crucial as we face the prospects of a coming economic collapse. Time is short, so please help us spread the message to all veterans and all Americans, and turn the tide.

Throughout our history, all of our enemies have misjudged the strength and resolve of the American people. The British Officer Corps were convinced that Americans were cowards who would not dare to fire on the Kings troops, only to have their asses handed to them by a swarm of ticked off American veterans while retreating back to Boston from Lexington and Concord. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan also misjudged our resolve, confusing our love of prosperity and peace with weakness, only to awaken a sleeping giant that kicked them in the teeth. Our enemies have always misjudged us as being too soft, too decadent, too disorganized and weak to put up much of a fight. And we have proved them wrong every time.

The same holds true now, in the fight against the globalist, power-mad “elites’ who think they have us pegged, think they have it all figured out, and think we are too weak to resist their plans. It’s time to give them a lesson in American ingenuity and resolve.

[American Patriot]

Yeah., ok, the link doesn't work (here?)....

[American Patriot]

Probably blocked as a "hate site" LMAO

[vector7]

May 16th, 2011

An Empire Strikes Home _ Part One

37Share

Forenote: This article focuses on the recent killing of a former U.S. Marine veteran of the Iraq war in a military styled raid on his home by the Pima County, Arizona, Sheriff’s Department while allegedly attempting to serve a warrant.

However, there are two other striking stories which relate to this story.

The three stories taken together create a yet larger story, and one with very serious implications. I will break the larger story into three sub-sections, parts one through three. I will post two other parts as quickly as I can write each of them. Please check back at this site for the next installments, and do grant yourself permission to read part one in full.

Jose Huerena R.I.P.

An Empire Strikes Home _ Part One

On The Militarization Of Local Peace Officers

By Elias Alias, May 16, 2011

Let us examine some articles about a young husband and father, a war veteran with the U.S. Marines who served two tours in Iraq. The articles are about his being killed by the Pima County, Arizona, Sheriff’s Department while the Sheriff’s Department was serving a warrant at the former Marine’s house.

On May 05, 2011 KGUN9 in Tucson, Arizona, reported the following information to its audience:

PCSD ID’s man killed in morning SWAT situation

Posted: May 05, 2011 11:47 AM MDT
Updated: May 06, 2011 11:20 AM MDT

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) – The Pima County Sheriff’s Department has confirmed that a man is dead after a standoff and gun battle with deputies.

Jason Ogan, spokesperson with PCSD tells KGUN9 that 26-year-old Jose Huerena was the suspect killed this morning.

According to Ogan, deputies were serving a warrant at a home near Valenica Road and Wade Road when the standoff started. A woman and a child were also in the home with the suspect at the time the warrant was served. Howeverm [sic] they were able to get out of the house before the SWAT team became involved.

When deputies fianlly entered the home, the Huerena started firing with a long rifle. Deputies fired back, fatally shooting him.

That article is here –
http://www.kgun9.com/story/14580187/...on-in-two-days
-
As I read the above article, I gather that the Pima County Sheriff’s Department was using “deputies” to serve a warrant. At the home of the man for whom the alleged warrant was issued, a man ended up dead after “a standoff and gun battle with deputies”. The “suspect” was, as I read this story, involved in a “standoff”. That means to me that he was barricaded inside his home and keeping the officers outside his house by some means or other, with the most likely implied meaning being his brandishing of a long rifle. We don’t know for sure at this point who “the Huerena” would be, but we figure that is actually Jose Huerena, the suspect for whom the warrant was issued, who fired on the deputies “with a long rifle”. At that point, after the suspect fired on them, they opened fire and killed him.

All in a day’s work, yes?

Before moving to the next news release about this shooting incident, in which fortunately no peace officers were harmed, let us recount that an armed suspect fired on the deputies who were there to serve a warrant, as told to the news journalist by … well, by whom? We must presume that the report came from the Sheriff’s Department for Pima County, right? In fact, the article clearly states that one “Jason Ogan, spokesperson with PCSD” told KGUN9 that Jose Huerena was the suspect who was shot dead, and that deputies were serving a warrant at Huerena’s house when the standoff started.

We’ll bear that in mind.

But later and to our surprise, we’re to read a somewhat different account. Let’s look at the subsequent report:

SWAT Officers kill armed suspect, neighbors shocked

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) – At around 9:45 Thursday morning, people living near Valencia and Ajo Highway heard sounds that they’ve never heard on their street before.

“Gunshots. Boom, boom boom. Screaming!” described a neighbor. “It kind of looks like a scene from Law & Order. To see all of this is just crazy!”

Pima County Sheriff’s deputies told KGUN9 News that the SWAT team showed up at the home to serve a search warrant, although they won’t say the reason for the warrant. Deputies said that when they went down the hallway, they were greeted by Jose Guerena, 26, who was armed with a rifle. Deputies said that he opened fire on the officers which forced them to fire back, killing Guerena. The bulletproof shield that officers were carrying took the brunt of the bullets. They were not hurt.

“We are trained to always be on alert because you never know when a scenario is going to change. We don’t always know what the bad guy is going to do.”said Pima County Deputy, Jason Ogan. “The SWAT team is used deliberately for high risk type warrants, this met that criteria and that’s why the SWAT team served the warrant.”

Ogan said that Guerena’s wife and four year old son were not hurt.
Neighbors who spoke to 9 On Your Side had no idea why the SWAT team was serving a warrant on the house.

“Being out here so close to the border, it could have been anything from drugs to human smuggling,” one neighbor said. He added that the Guerena family was the “quiet family” on the street.

Guerena’s home was eventually searched, but deputies would not disclose what was found.

- end quoted passages -
-
Now we see it was not just any old run-of-the-mill Sheriff’s deputies who showed up to serve the warrant, but instead was a highly specialized sort of Sheriff’s deputies – the County Sheriff’s S.W.A.T. team.

So I’ve got a question at this point. Why did Sheriff’s deputy Jason Ogan in the first article we read above say it was “deputies” when in fact it was S.W.A.T. team members? There is a difference. S.W.A.T. is the elite of law enforcement. They are truly militarized, trained hard and intensely in “procedures” and “tactics” as if the American homes they’ll assault are battlegrounds. This mindset is perfected and driven home into their loyal brains by repeated training and indoctrination. It is a mindset which is viewed by the “authorities” to be vital and necessary for good men involved in bad work, such as assaulting the homes of American citizens.

They are trained to obey all orders instantly, and to take it up with superiors later if they think they were given a bad order.

Perhaps in his role as “spokesman” for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, Deputy Ogan felt or intuited in his first report of the incident that “deputies” sounded more benign, somehow a bit more acceptable, than just blurting out that the S.W.A.T. team had stormed the house of a citizen and shot him dead.

But it would have been okay, even if he had told the full colorful version of the story, since the suspect had fired on the S.W.A.T. team as they were simply serving a warrant. After all, we do know that law enforcement offices around the nation are given regular profile updates on “extremists” and “lone wolf radicals” and “anti-government” misfits of nefarious ilk. We also know that the Department of Homeland Security has published its opinion that returning veterans from America’s numerous foreign wars are primary objects for extra police scrutiny because they get kinky in their brains sometimes and think they’ve seen something wrong with how the Federal government administers itself upon the American people and especially how it administers itself upon foreign peoples in various countries. This of course would make our returning war vets highly susceptible to radical or extreme views. That, and of course the combat vets know damn well how to use firepower, same as or better than many cops who’ve not been in combat.

So we must ask, did the Pima County Sheriff’s Department pass this kind of government propaganda, which demonizes our war heroes, our veterans of foreign wars who served this nation by placing their lives on the line in combat zones around the world, on to the deputies and the S.W.A.T. unit members of the PCSD? We may never know, because DHS and the Fusion Centers prefer to keep these kinds of profiling of citizens secret. We can know that there are very solid grounds to ask that question, and I do not want that question to be lost in the shuffle of what’s to come later in this article.

In this second article, we learn more details, thanks to not only Deputy Ogan but also to other deputies. We learn that “the SWAT team showed up at the home to serve a search warrant, although they won’t say the reason for the warrant.” Of course everyone knows that the reason, the warrant, is only to be known by those with a need to know, and the public has no need to know, so the Sheriff’s Department hasn’t anything to tell us, in this second report, about the warrant, about just what the warrant accused the dead man. The authorities know, but they had no interest in the public’s knowing the details of a warrant which warranted a freshly dead citizen. But my God, it could have been – DRUGS!

I’m supposing that it’s common practice to go about serving warrants with S.W.A.T. teams in Arizona. That is probably a good thing, at least in this case, for the deputies have told KGUN9 tv news that when they “went down the hallway, they were greeted by Jose Guereno, 26, who was armed with a rifle. Deputies said that he opened fire on the officers which forced them to fire back, killing Guerena. The bulletproof shield that officers were carrying took the brunt of the bullets. They were not hurt.”

My goodness, he might have shot one of them. Thankfully, they had shields which “took the brunt of the bullets”. Note that the deputies stated, or are quoted as saying, that the shields took the brunt of more than one bullet, for they used the word’s plural spelling, “bullets” with an “s”. The “s” is an embellishment, no? It lends yet more to the story. Here is a guy who has a long gun and is suddenly firing not just once but multiple times at the peace officers who had barged into his home.

But that’s okay, in a way, because S.W.A.T. trains for unexpected shifts in “scenarios”. Each new home invasion has its own unique set of circumstances, its own special challenges, its own list of variables which are to be accounted for in planning a S.W.A.T. operation. They call such raids “scenarios”. Here is how Deputy Ogan put it, precisely –
“We are trained to always be on alert because you never know when a scenario is going to change.”

See? They’re trained to see home invasions as “scenarios”. That is because they are specialists and because they have been militarized psychologically. I say that because in the S.W.A.T. team members’ heads, a home invasion is an “operation”. That’s how soldiers see that kind of work. And that is how an increasing number of our local peace officers across the nation are seeing it, because an increasing river of Federal funding continues to grow its way into our Counties, such as Pima County, Arizona.

Along with that funding comes training, courtesy of Federal programs. The local peace officer becomes psychologically cognizant of a more professional approach to law enforcement. He has, through Federal grace and Fusion Centers, a notion of interface with the U.S. military, which also is being schooled and trained to interface with local law enforcement. So it’s obvious that a common perception of a common chain of command with a common set of tactics and training “scenarios” is called for. We are after all in modern times, and all that.

But Deputy Ogan was happy to say plenty to the news journalists. Look at what he said next –

“We don’t always know what the bad guy is going to do”, said Pima County Deputy, Jason Ogan.

And that brings up an interesting point as well. The training S.W.A.T. team members receive seems to paint any citizen who is the object of a warrant-serving scenario is to be automatically seen as “the bad guy”.

Pretty simple symbology, that. If there is a warrant, the intended recipient of that warrant must be “the bad guy”. Case closed, no judge and jury required. Were it not so, the system would not send a S.W.A.T. team to serve the warrant, right? Of course. Deputy Ogan spells that out for us too, in his following sentence –

“The SWAT team is used deliberately for high risk type warrants, this met that criteria and that’s why the SWAT team served the warrant.”

So we may deduce that a criteria was studied and the suspect was considered to be a “high risk type”. That does cause me to wonder how the warrant named his crime, and I wish the Sheriff would elucidate on the particulars of how this was viewed to be a “high risk type warrant”.

There is a reason why I wonder such things. It has to do with this –
http://www.kgun9.com/story/14602951/swat-team-fatal

From there –

SWAT team fatal shooting update: Suspect did not fire weapon

Posted: May 09, 2011 5:12 PM MDT Updated: May 09, 2011 5:13 PM MDT
Reporter: Jessica Chapin

TUCSON (KGUN9- TV) -The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is releasing new information in the May 5 officer involved shooting case that resulted in 26-year-old Jose Guerona’s death.

Further investigation reveals Guerena did not shoot at the deputies before they returned fire.

The SWAT Team shot and killed Guerena Thursday morning after he pointed an assault rifle at officers who were trying to deliver a warrant.

The rifle had the safety on, but was loaded.

Guerena’s wife and 4-year-old son were also at home but they were not injured.

The sheriff’s department is still investigating.

- End -

Well damn.

That sorta changes things, we reckon.

Let’s be clear, regarding one sentence above – one cannot “return fire” when one has not been fired upon. The truth here could be that Guerena was first officially said to have fired “bullets” at the S.W.A.T. deputies, now we’re told that he did not fire a shot.

We were told by the Sheriff’s Department that the S.W.A.T. shields deflected the shots so that no deputy was injured. Remember that? Now we’re told by that same Sheriff’s Department that the man did not fire a single round at the S.W.A.T. team. What can we make of that?

I imagine it’s just the fog of war. Another militarization of the local peace officer – when one screws up, one obfuscates, just like Deputy Ogan has done, on the record no less. A good question at this point would be from whom Deputy Ogan got his story’s details. Did he just make up those lies himself, or did someone tell him what the story would be? Caught in a total self-contradiction in the news media, on the record, is an automatic waiver of any immunity, especially when a citizen’s death hangs in the balance. Killing a U.S. Marine veteran and lying about it is a grave situation.

There is more.

Here is another revelation:
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crim...f206f8301.html

SWAT team fired 71 shots in raid

Fernanda Echavarri Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Wednesday, May 11, 2011 12:00 am

From the article –

The Pima County Regional SWAT team fired 71 shots in seven seconds at a Tucson man they say pointed a gun at officers serving a search warrant at his home.

Jose Guerena, 26, a former Marine who served in Iraq twice, was holding an AR-15 rifle when he was killed, but he never fired a shot, the Sheriff’s Department said Monday after initially saying he had fired on officers
during last week’s raid. (snip)

Now let’s look at this story from the perspective of the widow. Continuing from story linked above.

Vanessa Guerena says she heard noise outside their home about 9 a.m. Thursday and woke her husband who had just gone to bed after working a 12-hour shift at the Asarco Mine, she said. There were no sirens or shouts of “police,” she said.

Guerena told his wife and son to hide inside a closet and he grabbed the AR-15 rifle, his wife said.

The department says SWAT members were clear when identifying themselves while entering the home.

“Tucson is notorious for home invasions and we didn’t want to look like that,” said Lt. Michael O’Connor of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.

“We went lights and sirens and we absolutely did not do a ‘no-knock’ warrant.”

When five SWAT members broke through the front door Guerena was crouched down pointing the gun at them, said O’Connor.

“The suspect said, ‘I’ve got something for you,’ when he saw them,” O’Connor said. Guerena’s wife denied he said that.

Deputies began shooting.

A deputy’s bullet struck the side of the doorway, causing chips of wood to fall on his shield. That prompted some members of the team to think the deputy had been shot, O’Connor said.

The Sheriff’s Department put in a call to Drexel Heights fire at 9:43 a.m. requesting assistance with a shooting. But crews were told to hold off.

Guerena was dead by the time they were allowed in the house, fire officials said.

Vanessa Guerena vividly remembers seeing her wounded husband.

“When I came out the officers dragged me through the kitchen and took me outside, and that’s when I saw him laying there gasping for air,” Vanessa Guerena said. “I kept begging the officers to call an ambulance that maybe he could make it and that my baby was still inside.”

The little boy soon after walked out of the closet on his own. SWAT members took him outside to be with his mother.

“I never imagined I would lose him like that, he was badly injured but I never thought he could be killed by police after he served his country,” Vanessa Guerena said.

- end –

Here is more -
http://www.kgun9.com/story/14621212/...se-says-family

From that link:

Former Marine killed by SWAT was acting in defense, family says

Posted: May 10, 2011 7:14 PM MDT Updated: May 13, 2011 5:40 PM MDT
Reporter: Joel Waldman
Web Producer: Layla Tang

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) -New details are emerging about Jose Guerena, the man killed last Thursday in a SWAT incident at his Tucson home. He was gunned down by SWAT members while his wife and young child hid in a closet.

Now, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department has taken responsibility for the fatal shooting. The SWAT team said it was just executing a narcotics search warrant when Guerena threatened officers with a military rifle. But the Sheriff’s Department has changed its story on whether Guerena actually fired at anyone.

On Tuesday, candles and tributes to Guerena could be seen outside his home. Family members said the 26-year-old former Marine served two tours of duty in Iraq. A smashed window and a barrage of bullet holes might be the type of scene a battle-hardened Marine would find in a war zone but not the Tucson home he shared with his two children and wife.

Guerena’s wife, Vanessa, said her husband died thinking he was protecting his family from an invasion.

“I saw this guy pointing me at the window. So, I got scared. And, I got like, ‘Please don’t shoot, I have a baby.’ I put my baby (down). (And I) put bag in window. And, I yell ‘Jose! Jose! Wake up!’” she explained.

Jose had just come home from working at the mine. Vanessa said he had fallen asleep two hours before, only to wake up to chaos in his house. It was Pima County SWAT executing a narcotics conspiracy search warrant, but according to her, neither she nor her husband knew it was the authorities until it was too late.

“You’re saying only (they) yelled SWAT after the shootout?” asked KGUN9 reporter Joel Waldman.

“Oh, yes! Yes,” said Guerena.

[Elias note: Let’s break in this story right here long enough to note something significant. The wife of the dead Marine veteran is saying that the invading S.W.A.T. deputies did not yell their identity until after the shooting began. So this aspect of the case is in contest. That is not good for the Sheriff’s Department, because the Sheriff’s Department has already demonstrated that it will state false information as if it were truth. The Sheriff’s Department is the only side of this argument which has already established itself as being capable of lying. Thus far, Mrs. Huerena has not had to retract any of her statements, while the Sheriff’s Department has.]

(continuing from article) Vanessa said Jose grabbed a gun to protect himself from what he thought were home invaders.

The Pima County Sheriff’s Office denies that officers failed to identify themselves. Lt. Michael O’Connor told KGUN9’s Joel Waldman that the SWAT team has a standard procedure when serving high-risk search warrants of this nature designed to prevent the suspect from confusing officers with criminal home invaders. “We will have a lot police vehicles there, with their lights and their sirens on. In this case… because it was a narcotics high risk type of a search warrant, we had our large armored vehicle there with the markings on it. It also has lights and sirens, it was going. So we do everything we can to portray the image that we are law enforcement, we are not home invaders.”

O’Connor also said emphatically that this was not a “no knock” raid. “This case was, we came in very high profile, lights and sirens. We go to the door, we pound on the door. We wait approximately 15 seconds. If no one answers the door, we breach the door with a heavy tool and open the door.”

The officer said that when the SWAT team got the door open, they found Guerena crouched in the hall pointing an assault rifle at them. According to O’Connor, Guerena said, “”I have something for you!” He said that Guerena “brought this all on himself by presenting himself the way he did.”

Guerena’s relatives disagree. “Now, they’re saying this now that they admitted for him not shooting back (SIC). They want to throw more dirt on him,” said cousin Oscar Garcia.

Garcia is referring to the issue [ of ] the change [ in the ] story about whether Guerena fired his gun. Initially investigators reported that he had, but then later, they corrected that statement and said that Guerena had not gotten off a shot. Deputies confirmed that Guerena’s safety was still on when his gun was recovered. Also, officials said that reports that some SWAT officers’ shields were riddled with bullets are also untrue. (snip)

- end quoted passages –

Additional reading:
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crim...7da6e9e4b.html
-

What can we say about all of this? I think, personally, that someone somewhere might see good cause to establish a fund for Mrs. Huerena’s two children, who now have been deprived of a father by the government.

We have learned, if we are to believe everything we read, that Mr. Huerena’s warrant was related to “conspiracy” and to “narcotics”. We wonder if the people will be able to see that warrant. We wonder if the others supposedly involved in that conspiracy will be named. We wonder if they will be giving statements, whether coerced or volunteered. We wonder how many years it shall take the S.W.A.T. team members to mature in their personal wisdom, each of them who pulled a trigger in this home invasion, enough to realize that the war on drugs is not lawful and cannot be justified in the U.S. Constitution, and that what they did the day they killed this young father, young husband, young new-home owner, young war veteran, they violated something very sacred, something which is supposed to be protected by our women and men who wear the uniforms, badges, and guns of law enforcement.

Their training produces a mind-set which is so intense, so reinforced, so strongly structured that some of them may never become human again.

Perhaps a few will sober up in later years, come down from their perpetual adrenalin high, and realize that they were duped into being strong-arms for a corrupt government program which is working to destroy the U.S. Constitution which they swore to uphold and protect.

While this incident is very damning, we must recall that this incident is but a tiny fraction of the great number of S.W.A.T. team mis-applications in this nation. Innocent citizens have been brutalized, tormented, and even shot to death by government agents acting like storm troopers in the so-called war on drugs. And I’m guessing that hardly a one of the guys with the guns who are conducting such assaults ever looks into the Constitutionality of this kind of thing. I’m guessing that they will be old men and women before they realize that in enforcing anti-drug laws they are assisting the government in its claim to own the citizen.

How can I say that? Easy. A free American citizen has full Constitutional rights, including an unalienable right to complete ownership of one’s body and one’s mind. It has to be that way, and the government has to admit it ultimately, because it is written into our nation’s founding legal documents. It is amplified in the letters and writings of this nation’s founders. It is enshrined in numerous Supreme Court rulings. And it is simple common sense. If government can own one’s body, one is not free.

This nation’s government declares incessantly that Americans are “free”.

To be free, one must accept full ownership of, and responsibility for, one’s body and one’s mind.

When government would tell anyone what one may or may not put into one’s body, government has at that point exceeded its authority and violated its own founding legal charter and nullified the compact between the several sovereign States of the compact. There is no authority for the government to own anyone’s body, nor to dictate what one may or may not ingest into one’s body. Self ownership is an unalienable right. Government is wrong about the war on drugs.

And that is where we should close part one of this article. There is another very interesting story just out, and that story involves the same scenario – a police raid on a citizen’s home and whether or not the home owner has lawful right to defend himself against an unlawful assault by law enforcement. Seems the Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that the cops can do as they wish, make any mistake on a warrant or an address, and the home-owner is liable if he tries to defend his home against an unlawful attack by the cops.

[vector7]

June 21st, 2011
An Empire Strikes Home _ Part Two

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An Empire Strikes Home _ Part Two

Militarizing Law Enforcement / Domestic Military Deployment, By Elias

Alias, May 18 – June 21, 2011

Profiling The Policy

In Part One of “An Empire Strikes Home” we focused on a sad shooting death involving the Pima County, Arizona, Sheriff’s Department regional multi-jurisdictional S.W.A.T. team. We also spotlighted several Arizona news articles in which the Sheriff’s Department issued conflicting stories regarding the S.W.A.T. raid. The published statements began by claiming that the suspect initiated and conducted a “standoff” and started a “gun battle” with deputies who had come to his home to serve a warrant.

I think that everyone knows that for any government action involving shooting of a citizen those kind of reports is the proper (meaning, from LE’s perspective) way this sort of operation should be presented to the press and to the public – the cops are the good guys and the dopers are the bad guys.

When SWAT showed up to enforce the law one of the bad guys had the audacity to draw down on the good guys as they were busting in his front door. As the acceptable, just, and lawful scenario was presented to the press, the good guys prevailed and the bad guy failed.

Message done, cut and dried, clean and closed, nothing more to see here, now move along to the next five-second news sound bite and have a nice day.

The public will take that kind of story and say, “Oh well, that ‘bad guy’ should have thought twice before choosing a life of crime, and it’s no loss to society that he’s gone. Too bad about the widow and fatherless children she’ll raise alone now – she married the wrong dude. The man was associated with marijuana, so he must be a ‘bad guy’. Live by the gun, die by the gun.”

That is, generally speaking, how a significant part of the public would see this event by reading the first Sheriff’s Department accounting of the death of Jose Guerena. And that is the desired perception which the Sheriff’s Department and higher-ups wished to present for public consumption, for that is the perception which will spare the County the trouble of more extensive damage control. If it works.

Days later, however, the Pima County Arizona Sheriff’s Department confessed that Jose Guerena did not shoot at the officers. Tough luck for Sheriff Dupnik, drat.

In early June, 2011, the cheerleaders for militarized law enforcement are saying “But hey – wait a minute here! We’re telling you the facts as we get them. There are new discoveries coming out of the investigation and we now know that earlier reports were less than factual. It is true that we said Jose fired on the officers first, and that bullets were bouncing off the SWAT shield at the doorway, bullets fired by Guerena. Yeah we said that, but now we are saying that he did not fire his rifle at the SWAT team, and besides, we now believe that the man was associated with a grouping of family members who constituted a threat to society They are under suspicion of marijuana-related crimes. So he really was a bad guy and we really were justified in sending a SWAT urban-warfare combat team into his home and shooting him dead. After all, he did have a rifle in his hand.”

They’re saying stuff like that already, not quite a month into this. Jose was shot on Cinco de Mayo, May 05, 2011.

But shouldn’t we ask: Who gave that story to the Sheriff’s Department’s official spokespersons?

Who told the two spokespersons to tell the press and media that Jose fired first, and that his bullets were bouncing off the SWAT team’s shield as they came through the doorway?

It’s a good question, because just asking that question leads to something very sinister, a psychological anomaly which is subtle and very much out-of-sight, very much hidden from the public awareness. We must ask – Is there a purpose in the perception generated by the Sheriff’s Department?

I do not think for one minute that the two spokespersons would dare make-up a story like this on their own. But even if they did make up this story, they would certainly have submitted it to higher-ups in the chain of command for approval before releasing it to the press. I mean, this story has one shot-up dead man, after all. And there were 71 rounds expended in the operation which must be reconciled according to protocol. A dead war veteran and 71 bullets cascading upon the busting down of a front door of an American home needs proper public perception, lest the natives grow restless. Care should be taken in making press releases. Both spokespersons have a chain of command to which they must report and be held accountable. Did some higher-up tell those two spokespersons to tell that story to the media and press? Or did they just make it up and peddle it to the press?

(Like a gelatinous amorphous blob of pulsating undulating mood-bearing omni-directional free-floating mass of unconscious consciousness, the public mind is to be symbolized as a cohesive field of action. We each have a “mind”, and all of our minds together create what Carl Jung dubbed to be the “collective consciousness” of the human race – well over six billion individual minds registering the impulses and vibration-waves from Alpha through ever-how-many frequencies science now knows the brain emits – and all of those minds together constitute the collective mind of mankind. Specific to America, there are over three hundred million individual minds with each being a singular element (like a molecule in your physical body) in the sum total of all American minds. That collective of American minds constitutes what I refer to as the “public mind”. Edward Bernays and his pals of the day back in the 1920s referred to it as the “Group Mind”.)

Remember: The story initially put forth was that the good guys prevailed and the bad guy failed.

That is a perception, and that perception was manufactured using the press and media. The press and media, however, merely reported what the Pima County Sheriff’s Department spokespersons gave them. The spokespersons relating the story to the news people were using the press and media to get a public perception into the public mind or the group mind – the floating resilient elastic amorphous collective consciousness. It appealed to a common meme, and the news outlets dutifully reported it.

Some in the news business at Tucson felt the sting when it came out later that Jose had not fired. (Oath Keepers especially would like to salute KGUN9 of Tucson.)

The S.W.A.T. team members fired seventy-one shots in seven seconds to kill the man dead because he had grabbed a rifle as his wife woke him up shrieking and S.W.A.T. broke in his door. It is questionable whether he had a chance to actually know it was law enforcement invading his home. I mention this because we are looking at something which is a mask, a veil of sorts placed over the public mind. We are looking at a designed, engineered, carefully crafted perception, duly perfected and inserted into the public mind through the regular programming stations and the press.

It’s what got into the News. The good guys prevailed, and the bad guy failed. That was the meaning in the initial injection from the Sheriff’s Department into the consciousness of the public mind.

The details of that incident aside, we note that the trend in American law enforcement reveals a large-scale policy of escalation in a process of militarization of local enforcement agencies. And that is a policy with which Oath Keepers has a problem. America’s good cops, the experienced ones who’ve survived many years in law enforcement and know the score through a body of knowledge which only the years can render, know what I am talking about. Such good souls join Oath Keepers as a way to band together with other good cops who also see the larger horror behind the News.

FBI_SWAT

Cops Playing Soldiers?

Our nation is embroiled in much emotional upheaval and wide-spread confusion as the public is being bombarded 24/7 by a compliant media which trumpets Federal utterances on behalf of a desired consensus on Federal policy and issues. Why?

Because Americans are awakening from the somnambulistic sleep states in which for generations they’ve been living the American dream. They are awakening because the oppression coming from a centralized and unstoppable Federal behemoth in Washington D. C. has now reached outward into all of the several sovereign States, down into the respective Counties of those fifty Republics and right into their own cities, towns, neighborhoods, and even into their very homes. They’re feeling the pinch of bungled Federal governance over the past four to six decades, with emphasis on the last four Presidential administrations. Don’t deny it. We all know it’s true.

Tensions are high and continue to rise. Fear is rampant and is being fanned by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and all the other usual suspects in the Federal array. Our economy is in its death throes and preparations are being made for the U.S. dollar to be replaced as the world’s reserve currency. Home loss is rampant, job loss is rising, suicide rates among civilians and veterans is skyrocketing, natural disasters are pounding, corruption is everywhere, socialism/Marxism/collectivism are on the march through our social and cultural institutions, our Bill of Rights is being held hostage by a belief system based on ignorance of the virtues of personal freedom in a Republic of law, our schools are pumping humanist/behaviorist existentialist immorality into our children’s heads while Wall Street is conquering their souls with hi-tech toys and myriad related distractions. The nation is in a bad way, and the worse things become, the tighter the Federal government squeezes to wring out the last vestiges of personal freedom and liberty for the American people. And their wealth. Many Americans are feeling such angst now, and the public mentality shifts toward a heightened awareness of the presence of government in everything people do.

Caught up in the middle of everything are our cops and soldiers and firemen, each of whom is an individual, possessed of one subjective mind of one’s own, is one of countless good Americans sent up to their respective posts from the bosom of American society, from families and neighborhoods, communities and towns.

Our men and women with the authority, the badges, the guns, the uniforms are noble Americans who have grown up and lived in tumultuous times just like everyone else. They represent a cross section of America, and the overwhelming majority of them want to make a difference on behalf of the good in life, want to serve for the benefit of this nation, our respective States, and our local communities.

But they are often trained to see things in Govlish terms, and are not often trained to see things in Constitutional contexts. They are taught, trained, schooled, conditioned, programmed, and motivated to follow instructions, to be a team player, to care for one’s career, to succeed by acting as expected and required. To the ‘T’. The best pro-and-con marks bring the best career successes. If not shot in the line of duty, a nice retirement, graced by public appreciation, awaits the proper mindset in any soldier or cop.

The title of this article suggests an empire striking home. Part One was about a Tucson home which has been struck down horribly. Parts Two and Three will reveal the empire and its tentacular interface across the landscapes of America with an enforcement arm emanating from a centralized governmental structure tied into a global economic balancing act which keeps the power elite jumping and the government pumping and the average cop and soldier humping.

We will note how international, national, Tribal, State, County, and Local government is now interfaced into the same circuitry – and we shall see how this statist madness made it possible that Jose Guerena was gunned down in his home by a militarized urban warfare combat team of Sheriff’s deputies doing the work of would-be soldiers.

The tactic elected by the Sheriff’s Department for the simple serving of a warrant was a military-styled assault with plenty of multi-jurisdictional equipment and personnel. This was an urban combat team operation, and it gave the Sheriff’s Department a little on-the-job training for executing procedures, practice in real time, coordination testing for execution of an official court-sponsored urban warfare scenario.

This militation did not come from the neighborhoods of Tucson or Pima County. It originated in Federal programs and the offices which run them. It did not come from grassroots, where we people live and work – it came from top-down concentrated, designed, choreographed, engineered and focused Federal power. That fact is part of Oath Keepers’ interest in this case.

In this second installment we will look more deeply into the militarization of our local peace officers, and note the transformation from local-service peace officers who signed up to “serve and protect”, into authoritarian-styled enforcement tools of bureaucratic governmental mechanisms. We will look at both the military side, and the law enforcement side of the military-police paradigm.

Through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) you’re looking at a burgeoning police state apparatus connected across agency lines, across Federal, State, and County lines. This particular home invasion by SWAT under color of law has exposed the thing to public scrutiny.

But wait; did you read Part One? Understanding of Part Two will be more complete with one’s knowledge of the information in Part One. Thank you for having read Part One first:

http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2011/05/...me-_-part-one/
-


SWAT_Combat

Cohen: Welcome To A Grave New World

Before looking at his infamous speech of 1999, let us first go back in time to the Clinton Administration, where in 1997 then-Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen was giving a press conference which referenced “terrorism” in exaggerated Hollywood fashion.

– William S. Cohen, April 28, 1997 at a news briefing. The link for this transcript is –

http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/t...anscriptid=674

You can trust the link – it’s a dot gov link. While briefing the press as Secretary of Defense, Cohen touches upon the concept of weather wars.

The sentence is contained within the paragraph below. Watch for it, when it comes up. Here is the sentence: “Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.

It’s that “electromagnetic waves” part. Recall, Cohen said this in 1997 -
“…But as we’ve learned in the intelligence community, we had something called — and we have James Woolsey here to perhaps even address this question about phantom moles. The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search. The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one. There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops.

Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations. It’s real, and that’s the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that’s why this is so important.”
-

When Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen gave that press conference in 1997 and listed some of the horrific wmd sciences which he alleged the world of terrorists was even then developing to use against us, his message was echoed down the line of command, outward to the entire nation. Justice Department bulletins spread the word, State-level intelligence and enforcement communities dispersed the message to local authorities and offices, and finally your friendly firefighter down the street saw it in a journal while your next-door neighbor cop got it at roll call. The soldiers? They got it straight down the chain of command. A Secretary of Defense has power over the thinking and perception of the entire military, as well as an influence in the public mind, the group mind, the amorphous, shimmering, oscillating bubble of the collective consciousness.

So cops and firefighters and soldiers who served honorably back in 1997 and since have had a choice to make. Does one conscientiously believe that any rogue nation-state has the technology to “alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves”? Or does one simply accept whatever the Secretary of Defense says without asking the hard questions, such as, “How can any rogue nation-state get that kind of technology and the materials and logistics needed to actually study such science, much less develop and deliver it, without help from our own Defense contracting multi-nationals?” (We’ll go into HAARP in another article, at another time.)

In other words, public servants who do not ask such questions will tend to somewhat-blindly accept whichever new reality our leaders pontificate and announce. And act accordingly in order to get good pro and con marks on one’s record of service. Don’t rock the boat. If Cohen says someone is developing the ability to use ultra-low frequency electromagnetic waves to set off the Yellowstone Caldera or bust loose the San Andreas Fault, then by God it must be true and we’d better start looking out for such varmints wherever we work or are deployed.

It becomes a mindset.



DARPA Mind Control

That basic foundational mindset has surfaced in the visage of one Pima County Arizona Sheriff named Clarence Dupnik. He obviously believes the government’s propaganda. We will look into that here, for it is an altered state of consciousness and it sets in one of the people’s seats of power and authority. And, we should note, it has a SWAT team.

But Oath Keepers firefighters and cops and soldiers are awake, are very reasonable and knowledgeable individuals, can think well for themselves, and they do ask questions. As such, Oath Keepers now offers a look back in time to July 26, 1999, a couple of years after Cohen made his rash predictions in ‘97.

On that day the Washington Post published a speech by then-Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, President Clinton’s go-to military guy. The speech is entitled “Welcome To A Grave New World”.

< http://www.cohengroup.net/news/op_ed/op_ed072699.cfm >

Couched among all the grave reasons why the U.S. Defense Department should be on call to civil authorities for domestic operations, Defense Secretary Cohen was telling us that there would need to be a chain of command between the Pentagon and the appropriate civilian authorities. He dared not use the words “chain of command”. No sir. He put it this way –
As part of a federal interagency effort launched last year by President Clinton and led by the National Security Council, the Defense Department is doing its part to prepare the nation for the catastrophic consequences of an attack that unleashes these horrific weapons. Because it has long prepared to face this grim possibility on the battlefield, the military has unique capabilities to offer in the domestic arena as well. Several core principles are guiding our efforts. First, any military assistance in the wake of a domestic attack must be in support of the appropriate federal civilian authority — either the Department of Justice or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Second, an unequivocal and unambiguous chain of responsibility, authority and accountability for that support must exist.
-
That’s it. An “unequivocal and unambiguous chain of responsibility, authority and accountability”.

Is that by any other definition not a “chain of command”? You’re right. But he was speaking a couple of years before 9/11/2001, and at that time any claim by the Pentagon to have any authority to give marching orders to civilian agencies, such as the Justice Department’s enforcement groups or any others, would have been laughed out of court by the American people. Therefore Cohen also notes in his speech –

Finally, we must not [sic] trample on American lives and liberties in the name of preserving them. Fears about the military’s role in domestic affairs are unfounded, as evidenced by a long history of reasonable and successful military support to communities ravaged by natural disasters, such as fire and flood.

As in the past, any military support will be precisely that — support. Both legal and practical considerations demand it. The Posse Comitatus Act and the Defense Department’s implementing policies are clear — the military is not to conduct domestic law enforcement without explicit statutory authority, and we strongly believe no changes should be made to Posse Comitatus.
-
But of course Cohen was not being genuine. In fact, he was flat-out lying. Consider: It is doubtful that “explicit statutory authority” exists in any body of lawfully written mandate, for Posse Comitatus stands opposed to any ‘explicit statutory authority’ which would place the military on U.S. soil in a policing role. He states clearly that no changes should be made to Posse Comitatus, the old 1878 law prohibiting the use of the Army to police the people of the several sovereign States. He was preparing the way for George Bush 43 to completely butcher Posse Comitatus, as indeed happened. But look at this – Cohen continues…

Also clear is that the military’s unique assets are most valuable when used to supplement — not supplant — continuing federal, state or local efforts. This is one of the reasons we are helping to train the local emergency “first responders” in 120 cities under a program mandated by Congress and now being transferred to the Justice Department.

But merely managing the consequences of an attack is not sufficient. We must be vigilant in seeking to interdict and defeat the efforts of those who seek to inflict mass destruction on us. This will require greater international cooperation, intelligence collection abroad and information gathering by law enforcement agencies at home. Information is clearly power, and greater access to information will require the American people and their elected officials to find the proper balance between privacy and protection.

-end excerpt from Cohen’s speech-

Did we notice how slick he was in sneaking that in there? I mean the part about the “information gathering by law enforcement agencies at home”.

This speech was published in 1999. Cohen’s drawing-table mentality, like all planning adventures, dealt with abstractions, with concepts which planners use like wishful building blocks of children’s play. Think-tankers and Planners (working groups, etc) get their blocks and Tinker Toys from the U.S. Census, the NSA, the NRO, Pentagon, FBI, CIA, etc, etc. (More on that in part three.)



DARPA

But as the Guerena shooting shows clearly, the “proper balance between privacy and protection” was anything but an abstract in Jose Guerena’s life. Jose Guerena’s death is sourced to national-level planners who saw, even back in the 1980s and 1990s, some reason to militarize our civilian peace officers. Cohen was pushing that policy in the 1990s.

Before moving along, please note for recall later that Cohen also said, “Information is clearly power”.

From Cohen’s speech in 1999 we can jump now to 2011, just a dozen thrill-packed years later, and find that there exists a Federalized/militarized infrastructure, similar to the 120-City gambit under Clinton’s Administration in which major population centers would become networked in communications and other areas vital to the national intelligence systems required by the Pentagon. There now exists a unifying central hub for all this, and it’s called the Department of Homeland Security. In its outreach, DHS uses for conduits a network of intermediary Intelligence centers called Fusion Centers.

Had Cohen been candid and truthful he would have noted that his announcement of the government’s intent to use U.S. military forces on U.S. soil under whichever exigent circumstances would be deemed worthy, and in conjunction with our local peace officer community, was actually itself predicted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Keeping in mind the fact that Cohen has just told us about 120 centers to be established in as many cities around the nation, and that the 120 centers would exert liaison relationships with local, State, Federal, and Military interface, with that unequivocal and unambiguous command structure of unambiguous authority and accountability etc., let’s look at something else before getting to the fruits of his prophecy.

This is a National Institute of Justice report from 1997, well before Cohen’s Grave New World speech.

http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/164268.txt

In 1994 the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) entered into a cooperative agreement to develop technologies of value to both. This agreement, codified in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and signed by the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General, formalized and focused a longstanding ad hoc relationship. To manage this technology development program and to direct its day-to-day activities, the MOU established a Joint Program Steering Group (JPSG) that would represent both departments and be staffed with members from several agencies…

Part I: The Partnership Between Law Enforcement and the Military [emphasis EA]

The boundaries separating the functions of the law enforcement and military communities are clearly defined in law. The military’s function is to provide for the national defense, while Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies maintain domestic tranquillity. [Sic] Although performing different functions, law enforcement and the military perform many of the same tasks. Both law enforcement and the military operate their own judicial, police, and prison systems. Within the limits set by law, civil law enforcement and the military communities work cooperatively…. Often law enforcement and the military may also participate in the same missions. Such interagency efforts include waging the war against drugs, countering terrorism and espionage, and providing disaster relief… [emphasis EA]

The potential benefits of a joint development program became clear to officials in DOD and DOJ, as well as to Congress, in 1993. The overlap of technology needs had been noted by a senior working group (SWG) convened by DARPA in 1993 to assist in formulating a program to develop technologies to enhance the effectiveness of U.S. forces engaged in Operations Other Than War (OOTW). These kinds of operations involve providing humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping, countering the flow of drugs into the United States, and countering terrorism. This initiative was prompted by events in Somalia and elsewhere. The SWG and DARPA noted many common technology needs between civilian law enforcement operations and OOTW. [emphasis EA]

Congress and senior officials in both DOJ and DOD moved DARPA and NIJ toward establishing a formal partnership agreement. In June 1993, the Attorney General sent a letter to DOD and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) suggesting collaboration on technology development. In July 1993, Congress initiated language directing the establishment of an interagency working group, which included DOJ and DOD, to look to the development of dual-use technologies. This was prompted by the recognition of the effect of defense downsizing on the industrial base and the effort to reduce Federal expenditures and by apparent interest within the administration to “reinvent government” by eliminating unnecessary redundancies. In hearings before the House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Research and Technology that year, the DOD Director of Defense Research and Engineering endorsed establishing joint technology development with DOJ. Also at these hearings, key NIJ and industry officials testified about the value such a partnership might produce. [emphasis EA]

NIJ reorganized in 1994 by elevating its Division of Science and
Technology to full office status and establishing a Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Advisory Council (LECTAC) consisting of 85 representatives from Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies. At that time, LECTAC identified law enforcement technology needs for NIJ and noted that many of these needs were pertinent to the military. [emphasis EA]

Memorandum of Understanding. The clear benefits of this partnership led
to the execution of an MOU between DOJ and DOD on April 20, 1994.

Highlighting the importance attached to this MOU was its execution by the Attorney General and the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the presence of the VicePresident, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy at the signing ceremony. This MOU set in motion the development and enactment of the technology program described in Part II of this report.

[Interjection by Elias – Please note that an unlawful merging of the Justice Department and the U.S. Military was enacted at this juncture and was officially presided over by the Vice President as well as representatives of the Treasury Department and the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Also note that this sub-authority grouping of government officials did not include the U.S. Congress. No law was passed in Congress to permit this, the public mind was not advised of this until after the fact and even then only briefly in the back sections of newspapers for a day or two, and therefore no case regarding this merging of two diametrically-opposed civil bodies, DOJ and DOD, would ever involve the Supreme Court, which would undoubtedly have condemned this mischief. They just did it in the same off-hand way that NORTHCOM recently merged the U.S. Northern Command with the Canadian Army. See: http://www.northcom.mil/news/2008/021408.html ]

The MOU calls for the establishment of an extendable 5-year program in which a JPSG, jointly staffed by DOD and DOJ representatives, manages daily operations and a high-level interagency Senior Review Group sets policy. Members of the JPSG have been drawn from DARPA, NIJ, the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and the U.S. Army. The JPSG works at any point along the research, development, and acquisition (RDA) spectrum so that it can support demonstrations of existing technology as well as development of totally new and unique technologies. [EA note: When the report mentions that JPSG works at any point along the research, development, and acquisition spectrum, it created the capability of the military and civil law enforcement communities to interchange equipment, technology, science, and logistics, which explains how SWAT teams dash about sporting amazing militarized toys such as APCs and Sound Weapons etc. Recall, this would officially begin in 1994, because a group of visionaries decided to bypass Congress and the American people to build an infrastructure which would be occupied readily under COG or COOP as what General Tommy Franks dubbed “a military form of government”.]

- End quote from 1997 NCJRS report. Read the whole thing at above link. -

I have saved this document for many years, just as I also saved that Grave New World speech by Cohen back in 1999. These are the kind of documents which the theater-going average Wal-Mart shoppers and the typical American voter will hardly ever read, but the documents are there for those who care, and the documents mean something. For example, it was in this DARPA document that I first encountered the term, “OOTW”.

Operations Other Than War.

That concept is quite a clever innovation for the pursuit of an ever-growing policy which would empower government. Remarkably, that concept came to us on the heels of our victory in the Cold War, and recall: after we won the Cold War, America had no “enemy” left on this planet who could dare attack us.

This was the case with every major war of the 20^th Century – we won WWI, WWII, and the Cold War, and after each victory there was no conceivable enemy left on this earth who could dare threaten us. After WWI, Wall Street and the City of London built up the Third Reich in Germany across the 1930s, giving us the second World War by 1939. [See Antony C. Sutton’s books at Amazon] After we won WWII, again there was no credible “enemy”, so Stalin, Churchill, and Franklin D. Roosevelt created the United Nations (1945) and then used Yalta to launch a mutually beneficial Cold War which they could milk for another forty years or so.



Mujahideen_1979_CIA

And when America finally won the Cold War 1989-1991, lo and behold our Defense contracting industry was once again faced with the need for an enemy, so our think-tankers came up with a War on Terror which George Bush 43 boasted would last beyond our lifetime.

That should explain why “Policy” dictates sending massive military incursions into tiny nations to hunt down a handful of “terrorists”, yes? It also explains why, ten years after invading Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden, and finally, allegedly, killing him and conveniently dumping his body into the great blue sea for the bellies of disinterested fish, the U.S. military is still fighting an escalating war in Afghanistan, yes? But I digress.



uav4tf3_DARPA

The point is that the U.S. economy is addicted to Defense contracting and spending big time. We all know it, and 20^th Century history now shows it – win a war and save the world, and walah, a new “enemy” magically appears.

While it is a stretch to understand how the military can fight a concept employed by surrogates handled and directed by black-op CIA and other Intel agents, we do admit that “terrorism” is a concept with very real consequences, not the least of which is a tinkering with perceptions in the public mind. That perception is necessary, according to neo-con philosophy as vomited forth by the now dissolved Project For A New American Century…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project...erican_Century

…which suggested to the White House, on page 51 of its 2000 report entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses …

http://www.newamericancentury.org/Re...asDefenses.pdf

…the following psy-op need –

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions.

In exploiting the “revolution in military affairs,” the Pentagon must be driven by the enduring missions for U.S. forces. This process will have two stages: transition, featuring a mix of current and new systems; and true transformation, featuring new systems, organizations and operational concepts. This process must take a competitive approach, with services and joint-service operations competing for new roles and missions. Any successful process of transformation must be linked to the services, which are the institutions within the Defense Department with the ability and the responsibility for linking budgets and resources to specific missions.

-end quoted passages from page 51 in PNAC document-

All planners know that if we dry up the Defense contracts to the Defense contracting industry Wall Street’s bubble will pop pronto. See:
http://www.jeffersonrivercoalition.c...Mountain_2.htm

It is surely no exaggeration to say that a condition of general world peace would lead to changes in the social structures of the nations of the world of unparalleled and revolutionary magnitude. The economic impact of general disarmament, to name only the most obvious consequence of peace, would revise the production and distribution patterns of the globe to a degree that would make changes of the past fifty years seem insignificant. Political, sociological, cultural, and ecological changes would be equally far-reaching. What has motivated our study of these contingencies has been the growing sense of thoughtful men in and out of government that the world is totally unprepared to meet the demands of such a situation. [EA: that situation being the occurrence of global peace]
-
So we see that a War on Terror would be a solution for the Defense contracting corporations which drive Wall Street and the local economies of countless communities around the nation. Peace-keeping forces would engage in very limited police actions such as Korea and Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and much of the new duties for the military would involve “Operations Other Than War”.

But an added benefit would be that in a War on Terror, the U.S. military could also be deployed domestically as a charitable and benevolent service to the Department of Justice and its enforcement agencies as well as State-level and local-level law enforcement offices and departments. This scenario would allow for the U.S. Army’s NORTHCOM to engage in OOTW right here in our own country – and as Defense Secretary Cohen pointed out previously, there is a governmental intent to merge the military with civilian law enforcement for purposes of interdicting domestic terrorists.

I did not say that – Cohen did.

To any Constitutionalist who knows about the Constitution’s references to standing armies, there would be no authority for the standing army to involve itself with police work within any of the several sovereign States.

To those who would argue to the contrary, I can pass this along to you from a Constitutional historian named Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr. –
“…the doctrine of ‘emergency powers’ runs afoul of America’s Constitution in particular. Anyone who bothers to read the Constitution will see that it:

1- Delegates to the General Government as a whole – or to Congress, the President, or the Supreme Court separately – no ‘emergency powers’ under that rubric;

2- Delegates neither powers that only an ‘emergency’ can call into existence, nor powers that may be exercised only in an ‘emergency’;

3- Delegates no power even to declare that an ‘emergency’ exists; and perhaps most decisively of all,

4- Does not even employ the word ‘emergency’, let alone define it as a legal principle relevant to any part of the ‘supreme Law of the Land’.

Thus, constitutionally speaking, “emergency” has neither place nor meaning and therefore by itself cannot serve as the justification for or measure of any power whatsoever.

Even the Supreme Court has recognized, as a fundamental constitutional principle, that: “…emergency does not create power.

Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the Federal Government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency and they are not altered by emergency”. (HB&LA v Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 425; 1934)

- End quoted passage from Dr. Vieira’s Constitutional “Homeland Security”. [1]

So we now see that back in the 1990s we had a Federal government with agencies eager to assimilate their powers into an interfaced network which could be employed by government authority – in emergency situations – to keep the peace in our communities, towns, and cities nationwide. The military would see this as OOTW.

Not clear yet on OOTW? Here is an example –
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41258569...s-marine-base/

From that page – “A mock city roughly the size of downtown San Diego has risen in a remote Southern California desert to train military forces to fight in urban environments. The $170 million urban training center was unveiled Tuesday at the Twentynine Palms military base, 170 miles northeast of San Diego… Seven separate mock city districts spread across 274 acres of desert. The fake markets, hotels and other businesses are complete with actors who create scenarios that pose a full range of challenges from humanitarian relief efforts to peacekeeping to police work and direct combat, according to the Marine Corps.”

And there it is. Humanitarian relief efforts, peacekeeping, and police work. Those are three sorts of OOTW.

Let’s quickly sum up. We have seen here that the military is interested in interface with law enforcement at the State, County, and local levels. We have seen that local law enforcement everywhere is vying for local SWAT teams, search and rescue teams, first responder teams, and intelligence gathering by law enforcement on behalf of the DHS. We have seen a bit about the Fusion Centers operated by DHS, and we know that DHS also interfaces with the Pentagon as well as with the Department of Justice, FEMA, the various Port Authorities, the Secret Service, the U.S. Treasury, the NSA and NSC, and all sorts of other fancy agencies wielding Federal power like a wand over the lives of the mesmerized American people.

All of this represents a philosophy of statist authoritarianism. It is a mindset frequently alluded to as a neo-con mindset. It is the ruthless and bullheaded approach to governing an unwilling population. It is force, and as we shall see, it employs remarkable psychological operations involving the media and press and entertainment industry. In part three, coming right up, we’ll look further into the military-police interface and the ADL / DHS / SPLC trinity of tyranny, which will bring yet more clearly to the surface and make more readily seen and comprehended the reality of an unequivocal and unambiguous chain of responsibility, authority and accountability. Finally, we will see how that chain of command can transform well-intended men and women from our communities and ultimately send a SWAT team to anyone’s house to kick down one’s door and shoot one dead in one’s own home over a weed which grows wild in Nature, while one’s wife and child hide in terrified confusion and unspeakable horror.

1- To order Dr. Vieira’s Constitutional Homeland Security Order your copy directly from Dr. Vieira: $19.95 postpaid, by check or money order to
Edwin Vieira * 52 Stonegate Court * Front Royal, Virginia 22630

Constitutional “Homeland Security”: Volume 1: The Nation In Arms by Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr.; copyright 2007 by Edwin Vieira, Jr.; Bookmasters, Inc., 30 Amberwood Parkway, Ashland, Ohio 44805; International Standard Book Number (10): 0-9671759-2-5; International Standard Book Number (13): 978-0-9671759-2-8.

Elias Alias for Oath Keepers

[American Patriot]

March 3rd, 2009 Declaration Of Orders We Will Not Obey


393

Orders We Will Not Obey

“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army” -- Gen. George Washington, to his troops before the battle of Long Island

Such a time is near at hand again. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this Army -- and this Marine Corps, This Air Force, This Navy and the National Guard and police units of these sovereign states.


Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of currently serving military, reserves, National Guard, peace officers, fire-fighters, and veterans who swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic … and meant it. We won’t “just follow orders.”


Below is our declaration of orders we will NOT obey because we will consider them unconstitutional (and thus unlawful) and immoral violations of the natural rights of the people. Such orders would be acts of war against the American people by their own government, and thus acts of treason. We will not make war against our own people. We will not commit treason. We will defend the Republic.
Declaration of Orders We Will NOT Obey

Recognizing that we each swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and affirming that we are guardians of the Republic, of the principles in our Declaration of Independence, and of the rights of our people, we affirm and declare the following:


1. We will NOT obey any order to disarm the American people.
The attempt to disarm the people on April 19, 1775 was the spark of open conflict in the American Revolution. That vile attempt was an act of war, and the American people fought back in justified, righteous self-defense of their natural rights. Any such order today would also be an act of war against the American people, and thus an act of treason. We will not make war on our own people, and we will not commit treason by obeying any such treasonous order.


Nor will we assist, or support any such attempt to disarm the people by other government entities, either state or federal.

In addition, we affirm that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to preserve the military power of the people so that they will, in the last resort, have effective final recourse to arms and to the God of Hosts in the face of tyranny. Accordingly, we oppose any and all further infringements on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. In particular we oppose a renewal of the misnamed “assault-weapons” ban or the enactment of H.R. 45 (which would register and track gun owners like convicted pedophiles).


2. We will NOT obey any order to conduct warrantless searches of the American people, their homes, vehicles, papers, or effects -- such as warrantless house-to house searches for weapons or persons.
One of the causes of the American Revolution was the use of “writs of assistance,” which were essentially warrantless searches because there was no requirement of a showing of probable cause to a judge, and the first fiery embers of American resistance were born in opposition to those infamous writs. The Founders considered all warrantless searches to be unreasonable and egregious. It was to prevent a repeat of such violations of the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects that the Fourth Amendment was written.


We expect that sweeping warrantless searches of homes and vehicles, under some pretext, will be the means used to attempt to disarm the people.


3. We will NOT obey any order to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to trial by military tribunal.

One of the causes of the American Revolution was the denial of the right to jury trial, the use of admiralty courts (military tribunals) instead, and the application of the laws of war to the colonists. After that experience, and being well aware of the infamous Star Chamber in English history, the Founders ensured that the international laws of war would apply only to foreign enemies, not to the American people. Thus, the Article III Treason Clause establishes the only constitutional form of trial for an American, not serving in the military, who is accused of making war on his own nation. Such a trial for treason must be before a civilian jury, not a tribunal.
The international laws of war do not trump our Bill of Rights. We reject as illegitimate any such claimed power, as did the Supreme Court in Ex Parte Milligan (1865). Any attempt to apply the laws of war to American civilians, under any pretext, such as against domestic “militia” groups the government brands “domestic terrorists,” is an act of war and an act of treason.


4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state, or to enter with force into a state, without the express consent and invitation of that state’s legislature and governor.


One of the causes of the American Revolution was the attempt “to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power” by disbanding the Massachusetts legislature and appointing General Gage as “military governor.” The attempt to disarm the people of Massachusetts during that martial law sparked our Revolution. Accordingly, the power to impose martial law – the absolute rule over the people by a military officer with his will alone being law – is nowhere enumerated in our Constitution.


Further, it is the militia of a state and of the several states that the Constitution contemplates being used in any context, during any emergency within a state, not the standing army.


The imposition of martial law by the national government over a state and its people, treating them as an occupied enemy nation, is an act of war. Such an attempted suspension of the Constitution and Bill of Rights voids the compact with the states and with the people.


5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty and declares the national government to be in violation of the compact by which that state entered the Union.


In response to the obscene growth of federal power and to the absurdly totalitarian claimed powers of the Executive, upwards of 20 states are considering, have considered, or have passed courageous resolutions affirming states rights and sovereignty.


Those resolutions follow in the honored and revered footsteps of Jefferson and Madison in their Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, and likewise seek to enforce the Constitution by affirming the very same principles of our Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights that we Oath Keepers recognize and affirm.


Chief among those principles is that ours is a dual sovereignty system, with the people of each state retaining all powers not granted to the national government they created, and thus the people of each state reserved to themselves the right to judge when the national government they created has voided the compact between the states by asserting powers never granted.


Upon the declaration by a state that such a breach has occurred, we will not obey orders to force that state to submit to the national government.


6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.


One of the causes of the American Revolution was the blockade of Boston, and the occupying of that city by the British military, under martial law.



Once hostilities began, the people of Boston were tricked into turning in their arms in exchange for safe passage, but were then forbidden to leave. That confinement of the residents of an entire city was an act of war.


Such tactics were repeated by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto, and by the Imperial Japanese in Nanking, turning entire cities into death camps. Any such order to disarm and confine the people of an American city will be an act of war and thus an act of treason.


7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.


Mass, forced internment into concentration camps was a hallmark of every fascist and communist dictatorship in the 20th Century. Such internment was unfortunately even used against American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II. Whenever a government interns its own people, it treats them like an occupied enemy population. Oppressive governments often use the internment of women and children to break the will of the men fighting for their liberty – as was done to the Boers, to the Jewish resisters in the Warsaw Ghetto, and to the Chechens, for example.



Such a vile order to forcibly intern Americans without charges or trial would be an act of war against the American people, and thus an act of treason, regardless of the pretext used. We will not commit treason, nor will we facilitate or support it.”NOT on Our Watch!”


8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control” during any emergency, or under any other pretext. We will consider such use of foreign troops against our people to be an invasion and an act of war.


During the American Revolution, the British government enlisted the aid of Hessian mercenaries in an attempt to subjugate the rebellious American people. Throughout history, repressive regimes have enlisted the aid of foreign troops and mercenaries who have no bonds with the people.
Accordingly, as the militia of the several states are the only military force contemplated by the Constitution, in Article I, Section 8, for domestic keeping of the peace, and as the use of even our own standing army for such purposes is without such constitutional support, the use of foreign troops and mercenaries against the people is wildly unconstitutional, egregious, and an act of war.


We will oppose such troops as enemies of the people and we will treat all who request, invite, and aid those foreign troops as the traitors they are.


9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies, under any emergency pretext whatsoever.


One of the causes of the American Revolution was the seizure and forfeiture of American ships, goods, and supplies, along with the seizure of American timber for the Royal Navy, all in violation of the people’s natural right to their property and to the fruits of their labor. The final spark of the Revolution was the attempt by the government to seize powder and cannon stores at Concord.


Deprivation of food has long been a weapon of war and oppression, with millions intentionally starved to death by fascist and communist governments in the 20th Century alone.


Accordingly, we will not obey or facilitate orders to confiscate food and other essential supplies from the people, and we will consider all those who issue or carry out such orders to be the enemies of the people.


10. We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.


There would have been no American Revolution without fiery speakers and writers such as James Otis, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, and Sam Adams “setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

Patrick Henry: “Give me Liberty, or Give me DEATH!”

Tyrants know that the pen of a man such as Thomas Paine can cause them more damage than entire armies, and thus they always seek to suppress the natural rights of speech, association, and assembly. Without freedom of speech, the people will have no recourse but to arms. Without freedom of speech and conscience, there is no freedom.

Therefore, we will not obey or support any orders to suppress or violate the right of the people to speak, associate, worship, assemble, communicate, or petition government for the redress of grievances.


— And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually affirm our oath and pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. Oath Keepers

The above list is not exhaustive but we do consider them to be clear tripwires – they form our “line in the sand,” and if we receive such orders, we will not obey them. Further, we will know that the time for another American Revolution is nigh. If you the people decide that you have no recourse, and such a revolution comes, at that time, not only will we NOT fire upon our fellow Americans who righteously resist such egregious violations of their God given rights, we will join them in fighting against those who dare attempt to enslave them.

NOTE: please also read our Principles of Our Republic We Are Sworn to Defend


More About Oath Keepers

Oath Keepers is a non partisan association of currently serving military, peace officers, fire-fighters, and veterans who will fulfill our oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God.
Our oath is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and not to any political party. In the long-standing tradition of the U.S. military, we are apolitical. We don’t care if unlawful orders come from a Democrat or a Republican, or if the violation is bi-partisan. We will not obey unconstitutional (and thus unlawful) and immoral orders, such as orders to disarm the American people or to place them under martial law. We won’t “just follow orders.” Our motto: “Not on Our Watch!” or to put it even more succinctly, in the words of 101st Airborne Commander General Anthony McAuliffe at the Battle of the Bulge, “NUTS!”
There is at this time a debate within the ranks of the military regarding their oath. Some mistakenly believe they must follow any order the President issues. But many others do understand that their loyalty is to the Constitution and to the people, and understand what that means.
The mission of Oath Keepers is to vastly increase their numbers.
We are in a battle for the hearts and minds of our own troops.
Help us win it.

[Luke]

A friend of mine, a staunch Southern Baptist by the way, is a member of a group called "the Promise Keepers." I suppose some would consider them a conservative religious group.

It is too bad that there wasn't an Oath Keeper movement around in Germany in the late 30"s.

[American Patriot]

The Promise Keepers are good people.

I think the Oath Keepers are just as good.

One is armed with promises to God and his wife, the other with weapons.

[Luke]

Fairly good description.