Small Wars Journal Publishes “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland” – War-gaming Against the Tea Party

You’ve all heard the rumors…so it must be asked: is the US Army War-gaming a military response to Tea Party?

The influential  Small Wars Journal published the article by Gen. Wesley Clark disciple, COL Kevin Benson: Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A “Vision” of the Future.

Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars looked into the story – and it is as bad as you think:

Bringing the War Back Home. “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland”: Getting the military to start preparing for the violent repression of its own citizenry. US Army “deep thinker” creates an “enemy” out of the Tea Parties & “extremist militias.” “Red Teaming” from an Ignorance-Inspired Faulty Premise.

Before we plunge into this column, a little background is in order. The first thing for the reader to understand is where this ill-thought, offensive and dangerous article appeared:

The Small Wars Journal (SWJ) is an electronic journal and website focusing on counter-insurgency. Aside from its online journal, SWJ hosts an accompanying blog and the Small Wars Council discussion board. Other site features include an online reference library, recommended reading and event listings.

Contributing authors to SWJ include Gary Anderson, Matt Armstrong, Robert Bunker, Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, General Martin Dempsey, Thomas Hammes, Jim Gant, Gian Gentile, Robert Haddick, Frank Hoffman, David Kilcullen, Robert Killebrew, Peter Mansoor, William “Mac” McCallister, John Nagl, Malcolm Nance, John Sullivan, Bing West, Paul Yingling and Michael Yon among others.

The title Small Wars Journal is a reference to the 1940 Marine Corps Small Wars Manual, which used “small wars” as a catch-all term for unconventional and guerrilla warfare, also encompassing foreign internal defense (FID), military operations other than war (MOOTW) and military operations in urban terrain (MOUT). — Wikipedia.

To say that the Small Wars Journal is influential in current military thinking circles is an understatement.

The scenario that supposedly leads to a tea party insurrection….

The Great Recession of the early twenty-first century lasts far longer than anyone anticipated. After a change in control of the White House and Congress in 2012, the governing party cuts off all funding that had been dedicated to boosting the economy or toward relief. The United States economy has flatlined, much like Japan’s in the 1990s, for the better part of a decade. By 2016, the economy shows signs of reawakening, but the middle and lower-middle classes have yet to experience much in the way of job growth or pay raises. Unemployment continues to hover perilously close to double digits, small businesses cannot meet bankers’ terms to borrow money, and taxes on the middle class remain relatively high. A high-profile and vocal minority has directed the public’s fear and frustration at nonwhites and immigrants. After almost ten years of race-baiting and immigrant-bashing by right-wing demagogues, nearly one in five Americans reports being vehemently opposed to immigration, legal or illegal, and even U.S.-born nonwhites have become occasional targets for mobs of angry whites.

In May 2016 an extremist militia motivated by the goals of the “tea party” movement takes over the government of Darlington, South Carolina, occupying City Hall, disbanding the city council, and placing the mayor under house arrest. Activists remove the chief of police and either disarm local police and county sheriff departments or discourage them from interfering. In truth, this is hardly necessary. Many law enforcement officials already are sympathetic to the tea party’s agenda, know many of the people involved, and have made clear they will not challenge the takeover. The militia members are organized and have a relatively well thought-out plan of action.

Hokay. Several things he gets dangerously wrong right off the bat…uh, if there’s a change in the White House in 2012, a Republican is now in charge, so wouldn’t the “insurrection”  most likely going to be coming from the left? Any budget cuts that are made are not going to inspire the tea party crowd to go full metal jacket. That angry mob would be the already revolutionary Occupy crowd. Is this guy nuts?  “A vocal minority directs the public’s fear and frustration at nonwhites and immigrants? “  Excuse me – the people trying to stoke a race war are the racialist loons on the left.  “U.S.-born nonwhites have become occasional targets for mobs of angry whites.” The exact opposite is happening RIGHT NOW! Mobs of angry young blacks have been attacking whites in alarming numbers. There is simply no reason to believe that there will soon be mobs of angry white racists out there attacking blacks and Hispanics. It’s hard to believe a supposedly intelligent expert in insurrections could get so many things wrong.

With Darlington under their control, militia members quickly move beyond the city limits to establish “check points” – in reality, something more like choke points — on major transportation lines. Traffic on I-95, the East Coast’s main north-south artery; I-20; and commercial and passenger rail lines are stopped and searched, allegedly for “illegal aliens.” Citizens who complain are immediately detained. Activists also collect “tolls” from drivers, ostensibly to maintain public schools and various city and county programs, but evidence suggests the money is actually going toward quickly increasing stores of heavy weapons and ammunition. They also take over the town web site and use social media sites to get their message out unrestricted.

When the leaders of the group hold a press conference to announce their goals, they invoke the Declaration of Independence and argue that the current form of the federal government is not deriving its “just powers from the consent of the governed” but is actually “destructive to these ends.” Therefore, they say, the people can alter or abolish the existing government and replace it with another that, in the words of the Declaration, “shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” While mainstream politicians and citizens react with alarm, the “tea party” insurrectionists in South Carolina enjoy a groundswell of support from other tea party groups, militias, racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, anti-immigrant associations such as the Minutemen, and other right-wing groups. At the press conference the masked militia members’ uniforms sport a unit seal with a man wearing a tricorn hat and carrying a musket over the motto “Today’s Minutemen.” When a reporter asked the leaders who are the “red coats” the spokesman answered, “I don’t know who the redcoats are…it could be federal troops.” Experts warn that while these groups heretofore have been considered weak and marginal, the rapid coalescence among them poses a genuine national threat.

Okay, again, the Tea Party would not have anything to do with the KKK or other white supremacist groups. They are anti-racist/fascist/socialist  so  those people are persona non-grata  and every tea partier knows it.

Ex KKK Grand Dragon David Duke, the American Nazi Party, US Border Guard, and White Revolution have all endorsed Occupy, however.

That is only a small snippet from the report, but the whole thing is based on a ridiculously faulty premise.. See SSI for the rest.

The question is — how could this retired Col. have everything so ass-backwards?

Is it because he really doesn’t know shit from shinola, or does he know something about how things are going to look in the not too distant future, but cannot share the truth  with the general public, so he replaces the truth with common left wing myths to fool people with? The tea party is the natural enemy of Marxists/Statists/Socialists/Communists/progressives.  Keep that in mind.

It’s all very unsettling.