Source: WND - Michael Carl
Domestic agents could be used in 'shaping an environment before a conflict'
A newly released Rand Corporation report proposes the federal government create a rapid deployment "Stabilization Police Force" that would be tasked with "shaping an environment before a conflict" and restoring order in times of war, natural disaster or national emergency.
But civil libertarians are worried just exactly what the force would do, domestically or overseas.
Page 16 of the 213-page report says the new elite unit's purpose depends on where it is and who would be in command.
"The answer to this question (about its purpose) depends on the situation into which an SPF might be inserted. The SPF could be used for missions such as: shaping an environment before a conflict; law enforcement duties in an active conflict environment; or security, stability, transition and reconstruction (SSTR) operations after a conflict. It could operate as an independent entity under a U.S. ambassador or a U.N. Senior Representative to the Secretary General (SRSG), or as a force element reporting to a Joint Task Force (JTF) commander," the report states.
The purpose statement doesn't say where the new unit would be deployed. However, Rand Corporation report co-author Terry Kelly said the Army-commissioned study primarily focuses on a force that would be sent overseas.
"The unit is supposed to deploy to places like Iraq or Afghanistan or maybe even places like Haiti where there's a tremendous disaster," Kelly said.
"Really, the purpose would be to help our military forces or whoever is in charge of maintaining stability to catch terrorists or prevent major criminals from operating," he added.
Mark Taylor, a private investigator and intelligence analyst with experience in Iraq, says he can't see the purpose for such a force.
"With regard to overseas missions, there is the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. If they need assistance, you have private military contractors such as XE and DynaCorp," Taylor said.
"In my case, the company I worked for moved in, did the mission and left. Period. In the case of a federal bureaucracy, you will fund it and it will do nothing but grow into a bureaucratic nightmare," Taylor said.
Taylor believes the additional force would just add to the confusion in any overseas situation.
"In addition the military and private contractor options, there are always the United Nations blue helmets, for whatever good they do. A federal police force would amount to nothing more than another colored helmet," Taylor said.
Taylor's comments about the U.N. point to the command structure of the overseas force. One of the statements in the report says the unit could serve under a U. S. foreign service officer or under U.N. authority.
Kelly admits the U.N. connection.
"It might be a U.S. ambassador who is in charge. It could work for the U.N. because there are plenty of U.N. missions that are working in different countries," Kelly said.
"That would be the decision that our government would make that this unit would work under U.N. authority. Usually when we have our forces under U.N. authority they're operating for a U.S. commander who is working with the U.N.," she said.
Although the report by the federally funded think tank spends most of its pages on overseas deployment, civil libertarians wonder if the proposed unit will only focus on foreign operations.
Kelly confirmed the force could be deployed in the United States.
"If there were a major disaster like Katrina it could be deployed in the U. S. but that's not the purpose of the research," he said.
"It's important to point out that the goal was to create a force that's deployable overseas. If it's to be used in the United States it would be a secondary thing and then only in an emergency," Kelly said.
But Taylor believes there is no need for a federal police force to function in the U.S.
"I cannot see any positives in setting up a national police force. Cities, counties and states have control over their own law enforcement and it should remain that way. Granting the federal government the power to police each individual locality is a Gestapo waiting to happen," Taylor said.
"If it became necessary to supplement local law enforcement in the case of another New Orleans, where a disaster situation is made more dangerous by lawless thugs looting, it would be more practical to hire a private contactor such as XE or DynaCorp to send their highly trained professionals in to stabilize the area. Once the job is done, they go on to the next (assignment)," Taylor said.
Darrell Castle is a retired Marine Corps officer with service in Vietnam, a practicing attorney and the Constitution Party's 2008 vice presidential nominee. Castle is skeptical of the report and believes the unit could be used in the U.S. against Americans.
"First, you have to approach anything done by or for the federal government in light of what I believe the ultimate goal of the federal government to be," Castle said.
"As I see it, the goal is to do the bidding of the international cartel of central bankers and financiers in order to assist them in building a world government police state which would entail total surveillance, total control, and the absence of what we think of as constitutional rights," he said.
Castle added that even though the report focuses mostly on foreign deployments, some of the language leaves open the possibility for domestic use.
"To that end, the question becomes, how does a stability police force for the United States move the federal government closer to its goal of totalitarian control? When the question is asked in that manner, the answer becomes fairly obvious," Castle warned.
Castle believes the goal is power, and a major springboard for such a power grab comes from the economy.
"Conditions have been intentionally created within the United States which make some kind of chaotic catastrophe very likely. This event could be anything the mind of man can dream up due to the overwhelming public debt and huge deficit which is budgeted to grow by trillions over the next few years," Castle said.
"Hyperinflation and the resulting loss of the dollar's reserve status seems unavoidable. The United States is now at deficit spending which is 40 percent of the budget and climbing," Castle said.
To illustrate his point, Castle turned to history.
"The Weimar government in pre-Hitler Germany accelerated deficit spending to 70 percent of budget and when it did, hyperinflation occurred with its ruination of the German nation that started a cataclysmic chain of events in motion," he said.
"The Stability Police Force then is necessary to control the population much as the U.S. military is attempting to control the remaining population of Haiti right now. It is part of a long existing effort to mingle and combine all law enforcement, federal, state, and local with the military into one force," Castle said.
Castle is not the only one who thinks the Stabilization Police Force is the next step in establishing a totalitarian state. The Rand Corporation's Kelly said that since the report's release, he's received a number of letters and phone messages making the same claim.
However, Kelly insists the study is not a master plan for authoritarian rule.
"There are all kinds of aspects of government that can be manipulated in a bad way. But it would require a whole bunch of things to go wrong. Any means of coercion that exist in the government can be manipulated if the right things go wrong," Kelly said.
"Is it is conceivable that it could be used for a malevolent purpose? Yes, but it's not designed to do that and its purpose would not be for power. Frankly there would be much easier tools for someone with bad intentions," Kelly said.
"The two options we thought were viable were as a reserve option where call a whole bunch of police officers from a whole bunch of precincts. That's a really hard thing to do," Kelly said.
"If someone wanted to use the unit for a bad purpose it would require the cooperation of a whole bunch of people and a whole bunch of organizations," he said.
"The other option we picked was a military unit, to create a military police unit to do the specific tasks. Military police units do military police work, not civilian police work which is what you need in these countries like Iraq and Afghanistan," Kelly said.
"I don't think this unit will create any more danger than already exists. If somebody wanted to do something unfortunate, there are easier ways to do it than manipulating this force," Kelly said.
Command of the Stabilization Police Force is still a concern. Page 123 of the Rand Corporation report says the force would work best under a civilian federal agency or the military police.
"They (the data) suggest that the U.S. Marshals Service and the MP options are the only credible ones. The Marshals Service has sufficient baseline capabilities and a policing culture to build a competent SPF, and its location in the Department of Justice makes it well suited to achieve broader rule-of-law objectives. This finding is consistent with a significant body of academic and policy research, which strongly concludes that civilian agencies are optimal for the execution of policing functions."
Taylor's concerns about the creation of such a response force and placing the unit under a federal department come from seeing how federal operations have functioned in the past.
"Once you establish a government agency or program, it does nothing but grow into a huge bureaucratic monstrosity that feeds on the taxpayer. And, as with the case of health care, bank bailouts and the like, should the federal government even consider such an undertaking, it would amount to just another intrusion into the states' rights to govern and intrude into the liberties of the American people," Taylor said.
