
The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012 (1992) [pdf] - nkurz
http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/articles/2010winter/dunlap_jr.pdf
======
dforrestwilson1
[http://www.duffelblog.com/2013/12/general-mattis-crosses-
pot...](http://www.duffelblog.com/2013/12/general-mattis-crosses-
potomac-100000-troops-president-senate-flee-city/)

Former Marine here. I thought this article was funny when it recirculated just
prior to the recent election. But I also sort of thought to myself "Yeah I
would vote for him over HRC or Trump."

Now I worry. A few thoughts:

1\. If the military remains the most-trusted branch of government that's a bad
thing. We need to take steps to reduce its power now.

2\. If the Freedom Caucus is really committed to reducing the powers (and
spending) of government they should be fervently resisting budget plans to
expand the armed forces and pull us back from pointless non-productive
conflict in the Middle East.

3\. It is critical that Congress finds ways to reverse the rise in income
disparity or we're going to have an even more dissatisfied and formerly
middle-class voter base next cycle.

4\. If Congress remains gridlocked by partisanship we are surely heading down
the Road to Serfdom, and voters will either cede more power to Trump, or
perhaps worse, be dissatisfied and demand an even stronger strong man.

~~~
ocschwar
"2\. If the Freedom Caucus is really committed to reducing the powers (and
spending) of government they should be fervently resisting budget plans to
expand the armed forces and pull us back from pointless non-productive
conflict in the Middle East."

Unfortunately, there's the slight matter of the Carter Doctrine, the idea that
the US has a vital interest in the continued uninterrupted flow of oil from
the Persian Gulf.

The US can't just withdraw from the Middle East until Middle America
withdraws.

There's a large portion of our population that has arranged their lives in
such a way that they literally cannot leave their homes and return with a jug
of milk, without getting in their cars and driving a long drive.

And so if the flow of oil from the Gulf is interrupted, the ramifications
stateside would have them screaming bloody murder.

Ironically, these people are unable to see that it's their choices that lead
to this: you choose where you live, you choose where you work, and you choose
how you get there.

And until there's a sober discussion of the problem, there will be a US
presence in the Middle East.

~~~
openasocket
I think you're over-estimating the impact of Middle East oil in the US. Only
about 12% of US oil consumption is from oil from the Middle East, half of that
from Saudi Arabia. Losing that would be damaging but wouldn't be as bad as the
gas rationing under Carter. Middle Eastern policy now has a lot more to do
with terrorism, with the exception of Saudi Arabia.

~~~
faceyspacey
Yes it's all about oil price stabilization. It's also a plan put in motion
almost 30 years ago when we first attacked Iraq. So yes as solar and other
developments change the landscape we are still foolishly following an old plan
to insure the Middle East are willing client states able to be controlled by
the global monetary system rather than erratic despotic wrenches in the
system.

Terrorism and 9/11 likely is a false flag for ulterior motives. The motives
can't be made so clear or nobody would believe the false flags and the media.
We aren't to know just how important oil price stabilization is to the ruling
elite's master plan.

Do you really think all the lives and money lost in the past 16 years has been
the appropriate cost for just 3000 dead? We need to speak up and completely
pull out of the Middle East immediately. The plan might have overall been good
for the world but they were wrong and their dishonesty has destroyed people's
faith in government and has made an entire region far more "terrifying" than
they ever were. We are following an outdated strategy by outdated people that
don't know better. That is to say they were never evil, but just impatient
operating on a small big picture. I'm referring to the Bush Family, members of
the Bilderberg group, the Rockefeller's, what remains of Standard Oil in
obscured new company names such as Exxon and Mobil, and the tip top banking
institutions that have been so arrogantly proud of the fact that money can be
used to control the world and maintain peace rather than war as in past
generations--for if everything can be controlled by money rather than might,
we have the makings of a more peaceful world. So they thought...

~~~
fdupoo
Oil price stabilization? War in the area seems to have caused the opposite
effect for the better part of the last 2 decades.

~~~
jwatte
There you go again, trying to apply facts to a global political power game
much bigger than you'd ever be allowed to even know about.

------
mabbo
One piece of this was poorly predicted: rising violent crime.

In the late 80s and early 90s, there were lots and lots of predictions that in
another decade, violent crime would be at crisis levels. It was steadily
increasing year over year and there was lots of disagreement as to the cause.

Then we reached 1994 or so, and everything started going down[0]. Lots of
possible reasons, popularly that Wade vs Roe had been 21 years prior but lots
of other competing theories may explain it, or be part of it.

I'm not saying that the future predicted by this story isn't alarming in some
of its predictions but that this particular prediction was made by a lot of
people and it turned out to be pretty clearly incorrect.

By 2012, America was probably as safe as it had ever been and continues to
become safer despite popular belief to the contrary.

[0][https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Pro...](https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/ldah6rdp6ukvngoyqi1fcg.gif)

~~~
brilliantcode
Freakonomics talked about the decline of crime in the 90s as being directly
attributed to rise of abortion.

Basically, offsprings from poverty or low socio economic statuses tend to grow
up without education and exposed to violence and dysfunctional families with
parents who are likely uneducated and addicted to substances.

Growing up without fathers, young men adopt gang culture as a surrogate for
the lack of positive role models.

It makes perfect sense that in the 90s there were lot less would be criminals
(not by choice but genetic, environmental and socioeconomic factors) being
born.

The financial burden on divorced men with children is far too skewed in
benefiting divorced women in North America. My fear is children being born
from this generation of turbulent and unstable familial organization as the
middle class slowly erodes and job security disappears due to automation.

~~~
chiph
One of the theories (which I think has a lot of merit) is the elimination of
leaded gasoline, and the subsequent reductions in environmental lead
contamination.

~~~
tjalfi
[http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-
exposure...](http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-
gasoline-crime-increase-children-health) is an interesting article about this
topic.

------
djrogers
This broke down right away:

"After the President died he somehow “persuaded” the Vice President not to
take the oath of of ce. Did we then have a President or not? A real
“Constitutional Conundrum” the papers called it. Brutus created just enough
ambiguity to convince everyone that as the senior military of cer, he
could—and should— declare himself Commander- in-Chief of the United Armed
Forces"

Taking these two items in reverse order - Article 2 of the constitution is
clear - the President is the CIC - full stop, period, no alternatives.

As far as the VP not taking the oath, that would pretty clearly make him/her
fall in to the 'Inability' side of the Resignation or Inability statement,
triggering Presidential Succession Act [2], which opens with the following
language:

"If, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or
failure to qualify, there is neither a President nor Vice President to
discharge the powers and duties of the office of President"

Refusal to take the oath of office would fall under 'failure to qualify' and
'inability', as taking the oath is required by Article 2 (section 1, clause
8)[1] before executing the office of President.

There's more, such as the 25th amendment, but that doesn't contradict anything
here...

All of that is completely setting aside the deeply ingrained establishment of
civilian control of the military in all modern liberal democracies - as
established largely by the US constitution.

[1] [https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-
constitution/arti...](https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-
constitution/articles/article-ii) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Succession_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Succession_Act)

~~~
mikeash
One thing we're rapidly learning in recent weeks is that the Constitution and
the laws don't matter unless there are people able and willing to enforce
them. Nothing is automatic, and if nobody with power will stand up to Brutus,
then it can work even if it's supposedly not allowed.

I think that "deeply ingrained establishment of civilian control" you mention
is the real problem with this scenario.

~~~
killjoywashere
I'm honestly shocked a warrior monk like Mattis took the SECDEF job. I am
sincerely concerned that upon meeting Trump, he decided to take the job simply
to keep it away from real crony.

~~~
mikeash
My thoughts exactly. I'm further convinced that Trump picked him solely
because of the "Mad Dog" nickname.

------
NoGravitas
One bit I found funny was that the narrator argues that being forced into
police work has made soldiers too restrained to function as warriors, when in
our timeline, the opposite has happened -- police have become too aggressive
to function as peace officers.

~~~
unit91
I actually think both have happened: the military has increasingly adopted
traditional police tactics and mindset [1], while law enforcement has become
more paramilitary it its equipment, tactics, and mindset.

[1] Personal experience. I was shocked to receive so much instruction from
LEOs instead of infantrymen prior to my own deployment to Afgh. While there,
we did a lot more arresting, and not nearly as much killing, as I think the
situations I encountered warranted. ETA: not saying there _wasn 't_
instruction from the Army, but there was a _lot_ from beat cops contracted to
train us.

~~~
Jtsummers
Depending on when you were going through training, a lot of that had to do
with the early (in Iraq and Afghanistan) issues of the military having no real
concept of policing (the thing they were tasked with after the initial
invasions) and going on to do things like abuse prisoners. The training was
essential because our early actions or lack of restraint was a losing strategy
(it directly led to insurgent numbers growing and propaganda against the US
and US military, completely counter to the intended purpose of the missions).

------
splitrocket
There has already been an attempted American military coup:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot)

~~~
InitialLastName
"Attempted" seems like a strong word to use... even the Wiki article you
linked, in the introduction, seems to put it somewhere between a hoax and a
few people contemplating a coup (far from "attempting").

------
doktrin
I'm surprised this was written back in 1992, at a time when I personally
hadn't noticed the rising tide of military adoration that the country
experienced post 9/11.

~~~
Jtsummers
It was on the increase then, a backlash against some of the vehement (or at
least widely spread and popularized) anti-military rhetoric of the 60s and 70s
(Vietnam-era). But not quite to the fetishization that happened post-9/11
where saying anything against the military (even straight up facts) could get
you labeled anti-American.

------
cmurf
The author won a competition with this paper, Colin Powell honored the author
at the awards ceremony. I was an undergrad in polisci when this paper came
out, and we took it semi-seriously. I'm pretty sure the class was about South
American military juntas.

------
JosephOsako
The biggest problem I see with this is that is assumes something not in
evidence - that the concept of 'freedom' actually means anything, ever meant
anything, or could possibly ever mean anything. But then, that is true of
nearly everything people believe in; self-deception is, IMAO, the primary
nature of the human brain.

~~~
Infernal
I would argue that far from the concept of 'freedom' not meaning anything, it
means many things - it's heavily overloaded. For example - I have the freedom
to reply to your comment if I choose. The concept of freely choosing to take
or not take an action is surely meaningful.

I'll assume that you're not making the statement literally, that 'freedom....
could [not] possibly ever mean anything', and instead ask /which/ meaning of
the word 'freedom' do you believe to be an eternally-meaningless self-
deception?

