Tag Archives: NORTHCOM

Colorado College closes doors on public lecture about Northcom, NORAD & the War on Drugs against Mexican people

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COLORADO COLLEGE- Today’s presentation by Brigadier General Daniel Hokanson, on the role of NORAD and NORTHCOM in the War on Drugs on the US-Mexico border was abruptly closed to the public, for reasons not made clear to community members who might have appeared to offer a critical reception. Was it something we said, or didn’t get to say, except through our signs held outside Worner Center? What’s wrong with NORTHCOM & PENTAGON OUT OF COLOMBIA & MEXICO? Who can argue with this arithmetic: CRIMINALIZED + MILITARIZED DRUG WAR = DEATH & TYRANNY? Although I suppose neolibs would deny DRUG WAR IS U.S. EXCUSE TO SUPPRESS REBELLION. Popular with students was: WAR ON DRUG IS AS BOGUS AS WAR ON POVERTY. We’d compare it to the so-called Global War on Terror, but at a neoliberal institution like CC, who knows how that would be interpreted. If I’d been able to ask any question at all, it would have been to the Political Science Department. Why hadn’t they invited a second speaker to offer a corresponding critique of US Latin American policy? Turnout for the talk was sparse, and the sponsoring faculty member expressed his bemusement at our diligence to protest what he thought had been scheduled under the radar. So we beat NORAD at its own game.

‘Vigilant Shield ’09’? More like just scary and crazy…

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putinPurely by coincidence, my daughter and I were out walking on a rather warm Colorado Springs night with our ‘PEACE” dog, Harriet. Little did we know???? As we walked under the stars Wednesday night, my daughter asked me what bright star was that high above Cheyenne Mountain? And I looked….

…and we looked… and we looked.

‘Heck, that’s no star at all’, I said. ‘but what is it?’

And the more we looked, the more we noticed that it was too bright to be either a star or a planet. And then we noticed another more faint light, kind of red light. Then we noticed that there was many more than just one or two unusual lights up there! And they were moving slow and creepy like!

‘What is this?, asked my daughter with increasing anger. I, having grown extremely accustomed to much military nonsense when she was several years younger watching the Navy pilot training play center over Corpus Christi Bay, plus many other similar glimpses at the over militarization of our country, I really did not get to emotional this night at the “Boys with Toys’, but my daughter kept getting angrier and angrier as she became aware that the entire sky seemed taken over by their UFOs. She was hardly calmed down by me mentioning that these flights by the UFOS seemed to slowly criss cross between Cheyenne Mountain, Peterson Air Force Base, and the Air Force Academy. What was going on?!!!! she wanted to know?

I told her that I had no idea what this was all about. However, today I have now learned that it was some sort of bullshit nuclear game role playing called ‘Vigilant Shield ’09’ kickoff from the NORAD bunker here in our fair city. In the olden days of my youth, I would have fallen to my knees, placed my hands behind my head, and stayed close to the floor. I guess the training for this has gotten rather cold now post former Soviet Union times and I did not even inform my daughter how to best protect herself from a nuclear bomb ala ’50s Red Scare days.

‘Cover Up, Honey! You don’t want to get radioactive or pulverized into vapor!’

Here is a good question? What Is NORTHCOM Up To? Let’s follow that by What is Braxton Technologies up to?

I don’t really feel much safer with this going on, and in fact it makes me think maybe Southern Argentina might be a safer place to live than Colorado Springs, which will be Ground Central for a Nuclear Holocaust? Do you feel safer now that Braxton Technologies and others like them are out there making a killing? If you do, then I’d like to know WHY? These fools seem to think that they actually can ‘win’ a nuclear war! More than just a bit scary… Our neighbors here in Colorado Springs are just plain scary and crazy both. 601st Air and Space Operations Center

Death of a Democracy

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The domestic news is bleak across the board. Brother Jonah has already weighed in on the government’s latest post-9/11 power grab. Here’s a little more on the subject.
 
From the Army Times:
Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.
IT STARTS NEXT WEEK

…this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.
IT’S UNPRECEDENTED

After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one.
IT’S PERMANENT

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.
THE POWERS WILL BE UNLIMITED

The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.
AND AIMED DIRECTLY AT US

“If we go in, we’re going in to help American citizens on American soil, to save lives, provide critical life support, help clear debris, restore normalcy and support whatever local agencies need us to do, so it’s kind of a different role,” said 1st BCT Commander, Roger Cloutier.
IT’S POWERED BY THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

For the past 130 years, the Posse Comitatus Act, along with the Insurrection Act, has prohibited the government from using the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement. However, the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill allows the federal government to deploy the military here at home basically whenever they feel like it. This new “federal freedom” will most likely be used to limit our Constitutional liberties and suppress dissent.

Who’s minding the store? How are these bills — including one that throws out more than 100 years of American history with a single pocket veto — passing without a whimper? Why don’t we know? And why don’t we care?

In the words of Willy Loman, “Attention must be paid!”

Colorado Springs military community

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First Army Division
I was working on a poster to protest the Ft Carson expansion meeting, to challenge the notion that more military investment will benefit the city. Will it? FIVE MAJOR MILITARY INSTALLATIONS ALREADY AND THE CITY AND COUNTY ARE BROKE. But I picked up a brochure at the meeting which boasts that our city is beneficiary to more than the five.

Did you know there’s a Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce Military Affairs Division charged with Service, Support and Advocacy of the military. Specifically:

– To sustain and cultivate the long-standing tradition
      of support to our military community and;
– To advocate and facilitate defense industry growth.

The Colorado Springs military community comprises:
  North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)
  US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM)
  Air Force Space Command
  US Army Space and Missile Defense Command /
      Army Forces Strategic Command
  7th Infantry Division -Fort Carson
  21st Space Wing -Peterson AFB
  50th Space Wing -Schriever AFB
  United States Air Force Academy
  Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station
  302nd Airlift Wing (AFRES) -Peterson AFB
  310th Space Group -Schriever AFB
  Space Innovation and Development Center (SIDC)
  Joint National Integration Center (JNIC)
  Joint Functional Component Command –
        Integrated Missile Defense (JFCC-IMD)

Regional non-DoD organizations include:
  Military Affairs Council (MAC)
  Area Chiefs of Staff (ACOS)
  Defense Mission Task Force (DMTF)
  Colorado Defense Mission Coalition (COMC)

Operation OMG

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Slim Pickens rides againNorthCom, Pacific Command and NORAD, along with the Department of Homeland Security, are planning an anti-terrorist training exercise called Operation Vigilant Shield. It will take place October 15-20 and will prepare the military for a martial law scenario. The exercise will be a mock up of a radiological weapons catastrophe. I’ve read elsewhere that the military will use members of the clergy to encourage cooperation in the event of martial law.

I called the telephone number on the Operation Vigilant Shield Fact Sheet(PDF) and spoke to one Tony Hill. I am not sure of his rank. NORAD is today in the process of moving desks and boxes to a new home at NorthCom and didn’t have the usual operator in place. He chatted amiably with me about Operation Vigilant Shield, assured me that it was going to take place, assured me that it wasn’t all that unusual.

On September 11, 2001, NORAD was conducting a training exercise called Operation Vigilant Guardian. This ensured that our military air fleet would be tied up over the Atlantic and that no adequate defense to hijacked airliners could be launched.

I think I’ll be a ghost come Halloween.