Descent Into Tyranny II : Anti-Military Paranoia

One of the central theses of Alex Jones and other conspiracy theorists is that the military consists of nothing more than a bunch of jackbooted thugs on the verge of taking over the country. Now as a member of the military, I am personally annoyed by this, but I also have the advantage of easily knowing when he is lying, which is pretty much all the time anyway. Here are just a few examples, from page 58:

Police chiefs went public about these bizarre military takeovers of American cities. These exercises were carried out not only by Army Special Operations from Fort Brag [sic], but included foreign troops. Czechoslovakian troops, on American soil, were terrorizing the public, running around firing automatic weapons. The operations were to condition the public, and to acclimatize them to accept the military-with foreign troops – working with our local police.

I am first of all amused by his inability to correctly spell Ft. Bragg, only the largest and quite possibly the most famous military post in the world. Jones own source, however, shows that this exercise had absolutely nothing to do with martial law, it was simply a helicopter assault exercise by special operations forces. Perhaps most amusing is the presence of Czechoslovakian troops in an exercise in 1999. The country of Czechoslovakia no longer existed beginning in 1993.

From page 94, he continues with his theme of imminent UN takeover:

A headline from the CBC on October 30, 2001 read [sic], “Military Favors a homeland Command: U.S. bill calls for continental security perimeter.” They want hundreds of thousands of foreign U.N. troops on our streets. And the shadow government wants 365,000-plus U.S. troops to “patrol the U.S.” (to patrol our highways, our neighborhoods, our communities in total violation of Posse Comitatus).

Anyone who has ever worked in multi-national operations of course would find this ludicrous. For starters, where are "hundreds of thousands of foreign U.N. troops" going to come from? The largest UN intervention ever, took place in 1995 when 60,000 IFOR troops occupied Bosnia. Out of that number though, nearly 20,000 were US forces, and this was only after 3 years of a bloody civil war.

He continues, from page 93:

In February of 2002, two Special Forces trainees were killed by a sheriff’s deputy. You ask why? They were trying to disarm him (Asheville Tribune, February 25, 2002, “Soldier killing ‘tragic’ error”). They were trying to take over local law enforcement. This is the new type of training our military are [sic] being given- to overthrow the civilian government, the elected government right here in the United States.

While he is partially correct about what happened, he is blatantly lying about why it happened. I actually remember when this occurred, and the circumstances were widely publicized, so Jones has no excuse for his dishonesty. From CNN:

ROBBINS, North Carolina (CNN) -- A sheriff's deputy mistakenly shot and killed a U.S. soldier and seriously wounded another taking part in a role-playing field training exercise, the Moore County Sheriff's Department said Sunday.

The names of the soldiers, both stationed at Fort Bragg, were being withheld until they families could be notified.

The exercise, dubbed "Robin Sage," was the final stage of the qualification course for the U.S. Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets. The drill is conducted four times a year and stretches over nine North Carolina counties.

The soldiers were on what U.S. Army officials described as a reconnaissance mission Saturday afternoon when Deputy Randall Butler pulled them over in a traffic stop near Robbins. The soldiers were driving in an unmarked vehicle and dressed in civilian clothing, the sheriff's department said.

Butler was unaware the exercise was underway, while the soldiers believed the deputy was part of the training exercise, according to the sheriff's department statement.

"One of the soldiers attempted to disarm the officer, as the other was attempting to get to a military weapon that the soldiers had in their possession," the statement said. "At the time of the incident, the deputy believed that the two individuals intended on killing him, resulting in the deputy shooting both of the suspects."

The Army, which is conducting its own investigation, concurred that Butler likely did not know the exercise was taking place.

Jones can't even get the most basic facts right, only one soldier was killed. The other, SGT Stephen Phelps, was shot but survived. The Army later took steps to prevent a recurrence of this tragedy.