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MARTIAL LAW, FINANCIAL BAIL-OUT AND WAR MARTIAL LAW, FINANCIAL BAIL- WAR “OUT AND The Bush administration fostered the predatory lending practices that led to the current global financial crisis, and now the US Army is ready to deploy troops in case of mass public unrest in America. The US Treasury's Financial Bail-out t is becoming clear that the bail-out measures of late 2008 may have consequences at least as grave for an open society as the response to 9/11 in 2001. Many members of US Congress felt coerced into voting against their inclinations, and the normal procedures for orderly consideration of a bill were dispensed with. The excuse for bypassing normal legislative procedures was the existence of an emergency. But one of the most reprehensible features of the legislation, that it allowed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to permit bailed-out institutions to use public money for exorbitant salaries and bonuses, was inserted by Paulson after the immediate crisis had passed. According to Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vermont), the bail-out bill originally called for a cap on executive salaries, but Paulson changed the requirement at the last minute. Welch and other members of Congress were enraged by "news that banks getting taxpayer-funded bailouts are still paying exorbitant salaries, bonuses, and other benefits". In addition, as Associated Press reported on 25 October 2008, "Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock. 'There are far better uses of taxpayer dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders," he said." Even more reprehensible is that, since the bail-outs, Paulson and the Treasury Department have refused to provide details of the Troubled Assets Relief Program spending of hundreds of billions of dollars, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has refused to provide information about its own bail-out (using government-backed loans) that amounts to trillions. This lack of transparency has been challenged by Fox TV in an FOIA suit against the Treasury Department and by Bloomberg News in a suit against the Fed. The financial bail-out legislation of September 2008 was only passed after members of both congressional houses were warned that failure to act would threaten civil unrest and the imposition of martial law... administration fostered the The US Army's new role Given that threats of martial law were used to get this reprehensible bail-out legislation passed, it is entirely appropriate to link such talk to the Army's rapid moves to redefine its role as one of controlling the American people, not just protecting them. In a constitutional polity based on balance of powers, we see the emergence of a radical new military power that is as yet completely unbalanced. This new role for the Army is not wholly unprecedented. The US military has been training troops and police in "civil disturbance planning" for the last three decades. The master plan, Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, or "Operation Garden Plot", was developed in 1968 in response to the major protests and disturbances of the 1960s. by Peter Dale Scott, PhD © 8 January 2009 From the Global Research web page: http:/Avww.globalresearch.ca NEXUS ¢ 11 FEBRUARY — MARCH 2009 www.nexusmagazine.com