VLVL Cold War paranoia and then some

[pynchonoid]

[...] the little-known and only confidentially
traveled FEER, or Federal Emergency Evacuation Route
[...] the end of the classified freeway, labeled only
"National Security Reservation" [...]
-Vineland (249-250)


2004 begins with massive military mobilization in US
cities
By David Walsh
3 January 2004

The new year began in the US under conditions of an
unparalleled mobilization of police, army and federal
law enforcement agents in major urban centers.
Alleging a heightened threat of terrorist attacks and
operating under the Department of Homeland Security’s
“Orange Alert,” the Bush administration undertook
measures such as were never seen during the Second
World War or at the height of the Cold War.

Major events scheduled for New Year’s Eve and New
Year’s Day took place under bizarre circumstances.
Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge declared that
Americans “need to go out and celebrate New Year’s,”
even as he banned flights over New York City, Chicago
and Las Vegas and ordered Black Hawk military
helicopters to hover over Manhattan’s Times Square,
where some 750,000 people gathered to welcome in the
new year, the Las Vegas strip, and the Rose Bowl
football game in Pasadena, California.

Snipers manned the rooftops over Times Square, while
New York streets and its harbor were flooded with
thousands of police, including many plainclothes
officers. Bomb-sniffing dogs were on duty in New York
and counter-terror units carried equipment to detect
chemical, biological or radiological contamination.

Authorities suspended oil shipments for two days from
Alaska’s major port of Valdez as part of “a continuing
effort to ensure the security of our homeland,” in the
words of a Department of Homeland Security official.

These measures, aimed at terrorizing and intimidating
the population, must be taken as a serious warning of
the aims of the Bush administration in 2004 and
beyond.

The military and police mobilization over New Year’s
failed to produce any arrests or evidence of a
terrorist plot. Yet this far-flung operation did not
provoke the slightest skepticism or criticism from
within the media and political establishment. Not a
single voice—least of all from the Democratic
Party—suggested that the government should be required
to substantiate its claims or justify its
extraordinary measures.

This posture of unquestioning faith in the good word
of the Bush administration follows the thorough
exposure of its pre-war statements in support of war
against Iraq—from lurid tales of WMD stockpiles to
allegations of Iraqi links to Al Qaeda—as a tissue of
lies. No one on the public airwaves so much as
suggests that a government that lies in order to drag
its population into war should not be given a carte
blanche to militarize all aspects of daily life within
the US. [...] 

...continues:
<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jan2004/2004-j03.shtml>

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