Martial Law and the Militarization of Public Health:
The Worldwide H1N1 Flu Vaccination Program

The 2009 pandemic, which started in Mexico in April, is timely: it coincides with a deepening economic depression. It takes place at a time of military escalation. The epidemiological data is fabricated, falsified and manipulated. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an epidemic of worldwide proportions now looms and threatens the livelihood of millions of people. Legislation inherited from the Clinton administration, not to mention the post 9/11 Patriot Acts I and II, allow the military to intervene in judicial and civilian law enforcement activities. In 1996, legislation was passed which allowed the military to intervene in the case of a national emergency. In 1999, Clinton's Defense Authorization Act (DAA) extended those powers (under the 1996 legislation) by creating an "exception" to the Posse Comitatus Act, which permits the military to be involved in civilian affairs "regardless of whether there is an emergency". (See ACLU ) On the day following Bush`s October 4, 2005 Press Conference, a major piece of legislation was introduced in the US Senate. The Pandemic Preparedness and Response Act. [editor's note: this bill was introduced by Sen. Barack Obama along with Sen. Ted Kennedy and a few others]
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While the proposed legislation was never adopted, it nonetheless contributed to building a consensus among key members of the US Senate. The militarization of public health was subsequently embodied in the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007.

These far-reaching provisions allow the Armed Forces to override the authority of civilian federal, state and local governments involved in disaster relief and public health. It also grants the Military a mandate in civilian police functions. Namely the legislation implies the militarization of law enforcement in the case of a national emergency.

Journalist Jerome Corsi, who studied the directive states that it makes no reference to Congress and "its language appears to negate any requirement that the president submit to Congress a determination that a national emergency exists." In other words the new directive excludes Congress altogether from governance in a state of emergency.

While alluding to the "enduring constitutional government", the directive actually ensures the end of constitutional government as each branch, the executive, legislative and judicial, are stripped of equal authority and must answer directly and solely to the President.

Coinciding with the passage of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, a National Security Presidential Directive was issued in May 2007, (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD...) . NSPD 51 /HSPD 20 is a combined National Security Directive emanating from the White House and Homeland Security. While it is formulated in relation to the domestic "war on terrorism", it also includes provisions which allow for Martial Law in case of a natural disaster including a flu pandemic. Since their enactment two years ago, neither the John Warner Defense Authorization Act nor NSPD 51 have been the object of media debate or discussion.

NSPD 51 and/or the John Warner H.R.5122 could be invoked at short notice following the declaration of a national health emergency and a nationwide forced vaccination program. The hidden agenda consists in using the threat of a pandemic and/or the plight of a natural disaster as a pretext to establish military rule, under the facade of a "functioning democracy".

Okay, so you already knew this? Now pay attention to what follows:

"A nationwide flu vaccination program has been in the pipeline in the US since 2005."

According to the Wall Street Journal (Oct 1, 2005), the Bush administration had asked Congress for an estimated $6-10 billion "to stockpile vaccines and antiviral medications as part of its plans to prepare the U.S. for a possible flu pandemic." A large part of this budget, namely 3.1 billion was used under the Bush administration to stockpile the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu), of which the intellectual property rights belong to Gilead Science Inc, a company headed by Don Rumsfeld prior to becoming Secretary of Defense under the Bush administration. Consistent with its role as "lead agency", more than half of the money earmarked by the Bush administration for the program was handed over to the Pentagon. In other words, what we are dealing with is a process of militarization of the civilian public health budget. Part of the money for a public health is controlled by the Department of Defense, under the rules of DoD procurement.

Did you get that? Five years before the current pandemic 3-5 billion ear marked for a pandemic response was handed over to the military. As stated before, National Emergency Centers Establishment Act (H.R. 645) is a bill that never became law. However, reading it is very instructive if one is attempting to asertain how the DOD will use those "public health" funds. H.R. 649 mandates that "civilian facilities" be established on US military bases in cooperation with FEMA.

Once a person is arrested and interned in a FEMA camp located on a military base, that person would in all likelihood (under a public health emergency), fall under the de facto jurisdiction of the Military: civilian justice and law enforcement including habeas corpus would no longer apply. HR 645 could be used, were it to be adopted, in the case of public health emergency. It obviously bears a direct relationship to the economic crisis and the likelihood of mass protests across America. It constitutes a further move to militarize civilian law enforcement, repealing the Posse Comitatus Act. In the words of Rep. Ron Paul:

"...the fusion centers, militarized police, surveillance cameras and a domestic military command is not enough... Even though we know that detention facilities are already in place, they now want to legalize the construction of FEMA camps on military installations using the ever popular excuse that the facilities are for the purposes of a national emergency. With the phony debt-based economy getting worse and worse by the day, the possibility of civil unrest is becoming a greater threat to the establishment. One need only look at Iceland, Greece and other nations for what might happen in the United States next." (Daily Paul, September 2008, emphasis added)

The proposed internment camps should be seen in relation to the broader process of militarization of civilian institutions. The construction of internment camps predates the introduction of HR 645 (Establishment of Emergency Centers) in January 2009.

The article being quoted above begins with some quotes (which you should go read) and this opening statement: "The World is at the juncture of the most serious crisis in modern history."

War without borders, a great depression, a military adventure in the Middle East, a massive concentration of wealth resulting from the restructuring of the global financial system. The unfolding economic and social dislocations are far-reaching. Bankruptcies, mass unemployment, the collapse of social programs, are the untold consequences.... In this framework, the occurrence of "natural disasters", "pandemics", "environmental catastrophes" also plays a useful political role. It distorts the real causes of the crisis. It justifies a global public health emergency on humanitarian grounds.