Saturday, March 31, 2007

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.

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12 Comments:

At 31 March, 2007 09:04, Blogger Unknown said...

Uncomfortable Questions: Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job?

 
At 31 March, 2007 09:05, Blogger MarkyX said...

It's really pathetic that one has to force themselves to lie just to get their point across or appear valuable.

 
At 31 March, 2007 09:12, Blogger Unknown said...

Oh and on the subject of the book, Jones is a fact-distorting lier, who scaremongers gullible people so they'll spend money buying his books, DVDs and his merchandise.

Nothing new really.

 
At 31 March, 2007 09:24, Blogger Civilized Worm said...

He's also one of the most respected members of the twoof movement.

I'm not sure how much he actively intends to mislead though, he does seem to be a genuinely paranoid individual in need of psychiatric help.

 
At 31 March, 2007 09:42, Blogger ConsDemo said...

AJ's crap is straight out of the militia movement's rhetoric in the 1990s: military takeovers, UN soldiers, etc. I suppose he thinks Timothy McVay is an innocent victim too. I just wonder how he is able so sleep at night with so many government conspiracies around him and so many people out to get him...

 
At 31 March, 2007 10:37, Blogger Civilized Worm said...

He probably doesn't sleep well, he probably has nightmares about giant owl monsters.

 
At 31 March, 2007 10:45, Blogger Unknown said...

Civilized Worm said...
I'm not sure how much he actively intends to mislead though, he does seem to be a genuinely paranoid individual in need of psychiatric help.


Very true - he does seem to get very emotionally involved in this stuff.

Example of this is the excerpt of his show that was posted on here when he was talking about (fake) Pat's admitting to the debunking groups being incredibly corrupt and conspiratorial in their own right.

He began to talk about what he's trying to achieve, and started to break down...

He's bought into his own crap.

Civilized Worm said...
He probably doesn't sleep well, he probably has nightmares about giant owl monsters.


I lol. =D

 
At 31 March, 2007 11:55, Blogger Alex said...

That incident with the SOF soldiers...I almost had the same thing happen to a few of my buddies. We were doing a domestic response exercise, these guys were playing the enemy force, and they decided to do a "drive by shooting" of a VCP while dressed in civilian clothing and driving a civilian vehicle. Unfortunately there was a police cruiser parked by the VCP at the time. Luckily a couple of the soldiers manning the VCP were able to tackle the cop before he got a chance to squeeze off any rounds, otherwise the whole thing would have been a lot messier.

 
At 01 April, 2007 06:36, Blogger Der Bruno Stroszek said...

Alex Jones is the Kent Brockman of the twoof movement. "The government calls it 'the army', but a more alarmist name would be... THE KILL-BOT FACTORY!"

 
At 01 April, 2007 08:35, Blogger Triterope said...

Alex Jones is just an exaggerated version of the conspiracy theorists we deal with all the time. He didn't start out insane, he just chose to subscribe to the conspiracy belief system, and gets ego gratification in thinking he's a dangerous guy with establishment-rattling ideas.

The difference is that Alex's fantasies are being constantly reinforced by his 15-hour-a-week radio show. Imagine a guy who thinks he's Napoleon, and give him a job where he has to talk about invading Russia, and take phone calls from other fantasists applauding him on his decision to do so. Do you think that would make him more crazy, or less crazy?

The whole thing is reminiscent of how people get sucked into cults. People who take on leadership positions in cults have a much harder time escaping the cult than the rank-and-file members do, because it consumes their entire lives.

Most of the kids who believe this Loose Change nonsense have enough other influences in their life that they'll eventually move on. Not Alex Jones. He doesn't have any other influences in his life. Every waking moment is a constant search for more proof of a conspiracy that doesn't exist -- not just for his own sake, but for his livelihood, and because he's convinced himself the fate of the free world depends on his efforts. What a mindjob that must be.

He can't escape his own prison. The only thing he can do is go all the way in. Which explains why he's so over-the-top and uninquisitive about everything. His world is an incredibly fragile one.

Still, you've got to wonder what kind of cognitive dissonance this guy goes through. He's under constant pressure to produce material for his radio show, he reports on news items of tremendous importance, every sentence he speaks could be the one that gets him sent to the secret prison camps... and nobody cares. 99.999% of the world ignores him or laughs at him, he walks around Austin, Texas like every other irrelevant slob, and the NWO hasn't so much as said "boo." Does he ever wonder why?

If it's possible to drive yourself insane, this would be an effective way to do it.

 
At 01 April, 2007 12:58, Blogger Civilized Worm said...

Excellent point, Jones reminds me of the stories about how L. Ron Hubbard ended up believing his own bullshit and trying to rid himself of thetans.


Alex Jones is the Kent Brockman of the twoof movement. "The government calls it 'the army', but a more alarmist name would be... THE KILL-BOT FACTORY!"

Hahaha, that's spot on!

 
At 05 April, 2007 15:59, Blogger Unknown said...

There is a lot of information which is "widely publicised" this doesn't make it true.
In this incident "the other was attempting to get to a military weapon that the soldiers had in their possession" one must ask why?

 

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