When might Bush invoke NSPD-51? My own guess would be Spring ‘08, after Bush is "forced" to attack Iran, perhaps with nuclear weapons, and Iran then fails to cooperate, attacking US ships in the Gulf and Mediterranean instead of accepting our offers of assistance. Even if Iran denied Bush his basic objective by refusing to be goaded into reacting beyond its own borders, the resulting global economic chaos and spontaneous popular reactions beyond Iran could compel Bush to invoke NSPD-51, quite apart from whatever our new enemy might undertake. On the other hand, under NSPD-51 any provocation of Bush could lead to him creating a pretext for declaring a national emergency. For example, Ralph Nader quotes Massachusetts Rep. John W. Olver (D), who has a PhD from MIT, when presented with the votes of 13 Town Meetings [real Town Meetings, not the media events staged for candidate performances] in Olver's congressional district calling for impeachment of Cheney and Bush, Olver responded that he opposed any impeachment move against Bush because "the current autocratic executive [Bush] would attack Iran from the air, declare a national emergency, institute marshal law, and call off the 2008 elections were the Democrats to initiate impeachment."
Should Bush declare a national emergency and begin exercising the many powers available to him in law, and the ever expanding powers claimed by fiat, the nation would cross into a world increasingly difficult to predict, largely beyond our national experience, except perhaps for our revolution and civil war, subject to ad hoc, unchecked decision making, with genuine rule of law no longer an available guide. It would likely become increasingly difficult, in the absence of reliable information, to understand and deal with the originating crisis, however real or contrived. And to distinguish it from the difficulties arising from the declaration of a national emergency itself. However, this sort of thing has sadly occurred in many other countries, with the result here likely to be not much different: a self-sustaining crisis, in which the chief rationales for continuing the national emergency are the effects of the national emergency themselves, compounded by errors in governance and crimes by those who seized power, sustained by their fear for what would happen to them should they give it up. The longer term prospect would likely include national decline and insurrection, with an even more unpredictable array of international consequences starting with a widening war.
In the short term, one can imagine Congress, demonstrating its usual wisdom and courage, expressing concern about the clearly large, though secret, number of American citizens "detained," surprise at the scope of property and asset seizures, discomfort with the pace of executions under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and outrage at being locked out of its capital offices due to a classified biological threat of undetermined duration, thus preventing Congress from voting to set benchmarks for Iran and to demand our readmission to NATO. But Congress would likely find some comfort in the "delay" of the 2008 elections, given Bush's decision to allow all incumbents, including those temporarily detained, to remain in office, which many in Congress would praise for its "unifying bipartisan comity," and await the president's determination when it is safe for Congress and the Supreme Court to actually meet again. Just as many in corporate American would appreciate the need to "delay" collecting capital gains and corporate taxes in the interests of helping the economy in a time of national crisis. Besides, how could anyone resist the perfectly Orwellian logic of declaring a dictatorship to insure "Constitutional Continuity" for the “homeland,” while setting aside the actual Constitution of the United States?
Whatever unknowable future a declaration of national emergency might bring, clearly many are going to be profoundly unhappy with such a turn of events. And that may be why Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, is already building detention centers around the nation to “support the rapid development of new programs” that could accommodate those incompatible with Constitutional Continuity, the dead-enders who actually protest or resist, plus the usual suspects who might think to object.
But how would all those potential incompatibles, certainly tens of thousands and likely far more, find their way to an appropriate detention center? After all, the Bush administration has managed to prosecute only a handful of businesses for hiring illegal aliens who number in the millions. Its clearly a matter of priorities. So, despite such distractions as hurricane Katrina, the Justice Department has been conducting mass arrest exercises code named Operation Falcon, whereby thousands of law enforcement officers from federal, state, county and local agencies arrested some 10,000 individuals within seven days, working from lists provided by the U.S. Marshall’s Service, all coordinated to commence across the country simultaneously. Since practice makes perfect, three mass arrest exercises have been conduced: Two national (Falcon I April 4-10, 2005 arresting 10,340; Falcon II April 17-23, 2006 arresting 9,037); and one “eastern half of the country” (Falcon III October 22-28, 2006 arresting 10,733).
What can not be found among these data is mention of any legitimate law enforcement purpose served by these mass arrests. While some arrested were serious criminals, most were of the unanswered warrantee and support payment delinquent sort, soon released. The important element here appears to be getting operational experience and, perhaps most critically, habituating state and local police agencies to conducting mass arrests from lists provided by the federal government. In the eastern regional Falcon III alone, 103 state agencies, 430 county sheriff's offices/departments and 482 police departments did just that according to the U.S. Marshals Service web site. At the current pace, perhaps Falcon IV, for the western half of the U.S., will be the last drill and then the real thing: Operation Falcon V.
So its likely, when Bush addresses his fellow citizens after declaring the national emergency, many of his critics will be listening most attentively to detention camp loud speakers. As for how detainees will be treated, one can assume every effort will be made to maintain our current standards for indefinite detention without trial and torture assisted interrogation, where little slip-ups under the press of numbers and emergency conditions are likely to be of little consequence. What is certain, should coup d'etat by national emergency take place, is it will be denied even as it unfolds, and this is likely to be followed by assurances it will be temporary, lasting "not one day more than it needs to," followed by accusations the resistors are responsible for prolonging the state of emergency, and finally appeals to turn in others if you want your own relatives released soon from detention or your property/assets returned; all lies to sustain a long planned, permanent state of national emergency.
What is likely to be important in most corporate media is demonstrating our determination to carry on by shopping as well as selecting the proper anthem for our new world order. I'm hoping for something stirring along the lines of "Deutschland Uber Alles," except with a touch of Texas twang as in "Dallas Uber Alles," in an arrangement using fewer trombones plus a weeping steel guitar. However, since this is such an important decision, our new anthem, with its companion national prayer and corporate logo, should be selected by ‘We the people of the United States’ from among three finalists chosen by our First Lady, in our first-ever national referendum, proving yet again our commitment to democracy and putting all those new voting machines to use in November '08 after all.
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