Who Are You Guys, And Why Are You Digging A Mortar Pit In My Lawn?

So, have you noticed the camo-ed up folks skulking through your woods lately? Does the clerk at your local convenience store bear more resemblance to G.I. Joe than Mr. Apu of late? Does your postman click his heels before depositing your mail in your mailbox?

Well, probably not, but that's no reason to give up on paranoia yet. There's every chance it'll come in handy soon. King Of Zembla has an excellent post on the use of super-secret commandos within the U.S. Go read. It'll make your day.

Posse Comitatus has never been a favorite of the Reagan-Bush axis; during the Iran-Contra hearings, you will recall, Congress learned of a plan Oliver North had helped to draft for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), details of which included

suspension of the constitution, the imposition of martial law, internment camps, and the turning over of government to the president and FEMA.

He alleged that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which has long been accepted as prohibiting such deployments, had simply been misunderstood and misapplied.

Gonzales will have a field day with that one, nez pas?

In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.

One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets performed a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons headed toward a target in the United States. In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon — but that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and Defense officials say.

Even if the full extent of their duplicity were known, we doubt the Bush administration would have much to fear from a population of willing -- make that eager -- dupes. But you can certainly see why, if worst came to worst, our beloved leaders might not wish to reject outright the option of interposing an armed division between the White House and the angry, pitchfork-wielding mob.

Keep in mind that all these schemes are just as much to silence you and me as they are to combat "terror". You see, we are just as much terrorists to this administration as a nuclear-explosives-garbed Islamic fundamentalist, the minute we decide not to shut up and drink our Kool-Aid.

Go read. It's a hoot.