Post by MCGEE4ME on Sept 9, 2005 13:10:51 GMT -5
UN Peacekeepers in the U.S.?
by William Norman Grigg
September 2, 2005
The breakdown of civic order in the Gulf states has resulted in martial law. Could UN intervention be next?
This is the reality:
"U.S. troops poured into New Orleans on Friday [September 2] with shoot-to-kill orders to scare off looting gangs…. Faced with a growing threat of anarchy after a natural disaster that may have killed thousands of people, the U.S. military rushed in National Guard reinforcements…. 'These troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded,' Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said … of one group of 300 National Guard troops being deployed here after recent duty in Iraq. 'These troops know how to shoot to kill and I expect they will.'"
This is the prophecy:
"[W]e had riots in 1930, 1929, 1960, the '90s. And now we’re going to have them [again], except they’re going to be, hopefully, what I call an insurrection, versus a riot, where we actually take complete control of our lives…. I’m talking about something that I am right now organizing ... that will make these riots look like a Fourth of July picnic. I mean armed insurrection in the inner cities so that you have to bring the National Guard in…."
Those words were spoken by Milwaukee alderman Michael McGee, an organizer of the Black Panther Militia, on May 4, 1992, as Los Angeles was convulsed in the so-called Rodney King riots. But McGee’s prediction didn’t end with military occupation of U.S. cities by the National Guard:
"You’ve got to remember that if the UN could go into Beirut, if they go into Lebanon, if they go into Iraq, eventually the UN, I think, is going to have to come in here, because what I’m talking about organizing is something that’s going to be called urban guerilla warfare. It’s something that’s not going to be fought like a riot."
Granted, McGee, a professional race agitator, is difficult for some to take seriously. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Bob Greene of the Chicago Tribune, a more mainstream figure, tentatively endorsed a scenario very similar to that described by McGee.
"The United Nations currently has multinational peacekeeping troops stationed in 14 countries around the world," observed Greene in his September 29, 1993 column. "Their precise missions vary, but they all have one thing in common: The international soldiers are there to help bring tranquility and safety to places that can’t do so on their own. So perhaps there is one more place where a UN multinational force is desperately needed: The United States. Preposterous?… Sending soldiers from around the world onto the streets of our own country? We probably haven’t come to the point where we need such action yet, but we’re veering perilously close."
During the weeks following the 9/11 attack, NATO, a regional affiliate of the United Nations, supplied AWACS planes that patrolled America’s airspace. This was done after the Bush administration invoked the principle of collective security (i.e., an attack upon one is an attack upon all) contained in the NATO Charter. Prior to the Black Tuesday attacks, significantly, our military assets were already over-extended, in large measure because of ongoing UN missions in the Balkans and the Middle East. This created a perceived need, and a pretext, for multinational aid to protect our skies from another 9/11-style assault.
As we have noted elsewhere, the occupation of Iraq, as well as the largely forgotten war in Afghanistan, have stretched both the army reserve and the National Guard. While the Constitution reserves to the states the power to deal with law enforcement and disaster relief, states can petition for federal help to deal with insurrections. Thus there is a role that Washington can play in helping to restore order in the Gulf states.
It is worth pondering, however, what might happen if the "insurrection" foretold by Michael McGee and his cohorts materializes, and metastasizes.
In a May 1996 interview in Dallas, I discussed a scenario of this sort with Aaron Michaels, founder of the New Black Panther Party and a close associate of McGee.
"We are seeing the beginnings of a new civil war," he replied, explaining that while the initial spark would come from conflict between races, the conflagration would eventually become a full-blown, Marxist-inspired class war: "The next civil war that will be fought in the United States will not be a civil war between black and white. It will be between the haves and the have-nots. It’s already happening. You see white people, poor white people, fighting against the government.... We have a low-intensity war that is being fought right now."
In New Orleans, those who could afford to leave got out. Most of the poor who remained behind were black. This unspeakable human tragedy is even now being exploited by demagogues eager to sow and cultivate antagonisms that could blossom into the racially tinged class war described by McGee and Michaels.
During the early 1990s, UN military intervention was undertaken to suppress the multi-ethnic, multi-racial conflicts that erupted in the former Yugoslavia, particularly in Bosnia and Kosovo. Were a similar breakdown to occur in the United States, the resulting violence would make Bosnia look like a slap-fight — and international intervention would become palatable to millions of Americans.
But it’s important to recognize as well that the "battle-tested" National Guard troops deployed in Louisiana are veterans of a UN-instigated mission abroad. From its beginnings in 1990, the ongoing conflict in Iraq has always been conducted under the purported authority of the United Nations Security Council, rather than a constitutional declaration of war by Congress. In principle, we are already seeing a form of UN "peacekeeping" take place on the streets of an American city.
by William Norman Grigg
September 2, 2005
The breakdown of civic order in the Gulf states has resulted in martial law. Could UN intervention be next?
This is the reality:
"U.S. troops poured into New Orleans on Friday [September 2] with shoot-to-kill orders to scare off looting gangs…. Faced with a growing threat of anarchy after a natural disaster that may have killed thousands of people, the U.S. military rushed in National Guard reinforcements…. 'These troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded,' Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said … of one group of 300 National Guard troops being deployed here after recent duty in Iraq. 'These troops know how to shoot to kill and I expect they will.'"
This is the prophecy:
"[W]e had riots in 1930, 1929, 1960, the '90s. And now we’re going to have them [again], except they’re going to be, hopefully, what I call an insurrection, versus a riot, where we actually take complete control of our lives…. I’m talking about something that I am right now organizing ... that will make these riots look like a Fourth of July picnic. I mean armed insurrection in the inner cities so that you have to bring the National Guard in…."
Those words were spoken by Milwaukee alderman Michael McGee, an organizer of the Black Panther Militia, on May 4, 1992, as Los Angeles was convulsed in the so-called Rodney King riots. But McGee’s prediction didn’t end with military occupation of U.S. cities by the National Guard:
"You’ve got to remember that if the UN could go into Beirut, if they go into Lebanon, if they go into Iraq, eventually the UN, I think, is going to have to come in here, because what I’m talking about organizing is something that’s going to be called urban guerilla warfare. It’s something that’s not going to be fought like a riot."
Granted, McGee, a professional race agitator, is difficult for some to take seriously. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Bob Greene of the Chicago Tribune, a more mainstream figure, tentatively endorsed a scenario very similar to that described by McGee.
"The United Nations currently has multinational peacekeeping troops stationed in 14 countries around the world," observed Greene in his September 29, 1993 column. "Their precise missions vary, but they all have one thing in common: The international soldiers are there to help bring tranquility and safety to places that can’t do so on their own. So perhaps there is one more place where a UN multinational force is desperately needed: The United States. Preposterous?… Sending soldiers from around the world onto the streets of our own country? We probably haven’t come to the point where we need such action yet, but we’re veering perilously close."
During the weeks following the 9/11 attack, NATO, a regional affiliate of the United Nations, supplied AWACS planes that patrolled America’s airspace. This was done after the Bush administration invoked the principle of collective security (i.e., an attack upon one is an attack upon all) contained in the NATO Charter. Prior to the Black Tuesday attacks, significantly, our military assets were already over-extended, in large measure because of ongoing UN missions in the Balkans and the Middle East. This created a perceived need, and a pretext, for multinational aid to protect our skies from another 9/11-style assault.
As we have noted elsewhere, the occupation of Iraq, as well as the largely forgotten war in Afghanistan, have stretched both the army reserve and the National Guard. While the Constitution reserves to the states the power to deal with law enforcement and disaster relief, states can petition for federal help to deal with insurrections. Thus there is a role that Washington can play in helping to restore order in the Gulf states.
It is worth pondering, however, what might happen if the "insurrection" foretold by Michael McGee and his cohorts materializes, and metastasizes.
In a May 1996 interview in Dallas, I discussed a scenario of this sort with Aaron Michaels, founder of the New Black Panther Party and a close associate of McGee.
"We are seeing the beginnings of a new civil war," he replied, explaining that while the initial spark would come from conflict between races, the conflagration would eventually become a full-blown, Marxist-inspired class war: "The next civil war that will be fought in the United States will not be a civil war between black and white. It will be between the haves and the have-nots. It’s already happening. You see white people, poor white people, fighting against the government.... We have a low-intensity war that is being fought right now."
In New Orleans, those who could afford to leave got out. Most of the poor who remained behind were black. This unspeakable human tragedy is even now being exploited by demagogues eager to sow and cultivate antagonisms that could blossom into the racially tinged class war described by McGee and Michaels.
During the early 1990s, UN military intervention was undertaken to suppress the multi-ethnic, multi-racial conflicts that erupted in the former Yugoslavia, particularly in Bosnia and Kosovo. Were a similar breakdown to occur in the United States, the resulting violence would make Bosnia look like a slap-fight — and international intervention would become palatable to millions of Americans.
But it’s important to recognize as well that the "battle-tested" National Guard troops deployed in Louisiana are veterans of a UN-instigated mission abroad. From its beginnings in 1990, the ongoing conflict in Iraq has always been conducted under the purported authority of the United Nations Security Council, rather than a constitutional declaration of war by Congress. In principle, we are already seeing a form of UN "peacekeeping" take place on the streets of an American city.