Mexican agents headed for U.S.?
Federal drill to focus on response to terror
Posted: July 18, 2009
12:25 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh
2009 WorldNetDaily
Agents for Mexico soon could be roaming the roads of several southern states – along with representatives of Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom – under a Federal Emergency Management Agency exercise that is going to focus "exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection."
The event is called National Level Exercise 2009 and is part of an annual series of exercises formerly called TOPOFF, for Top Officials, under the National Exercise Program that "serves as the nation's overarching exercise program for planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating national level exercises."
The idea has some bloggers stunned.
"Imagine, armed Mexican troops protecting us from 'terrorism' in the United States! Don't you feel safer already? ¿Dónde están sus documentos?" wrote an alarmed blogger at TargetFreedom.
"Rumors of foreign troops on our soil have been circulated for a long time. BUT this is not a rumor. It is a blatant fact as stated by FEMA on their government website. THIS IS AN INVASION," the blogger wrote.
Not quite, the government said. In an announcement on the FEMA website, officials described it as a "White House directed, congressionally-mandated exercise that includes the participation of all appropriate federal department and agency senior officials, their deputies, staff and key operational elements."
Oh, yes, various "state, tribal, local, and private sector" interests will participate and "this year the United States welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom in NLE 09."
The government's announcement said the exercise will focus on "intelligence and information sharing among intelligence and law enforcement communities."
The scenario "will begin in the aftermath of a national terrorist event outside of the United States, and exercise play will center on preventing subsequent efforts by the terrorists to enter the United States and carry out additional attacks. This scenario enables participating senior officials to focus on issues related to preventing terrorist events domestically and protecting U.S. critical infrastructure."
The exercise will "allow terrorism prevention efforts to proceed to a logical end (successful or not), with no requirement for response or recovery activities," the government said.
FEMA Region VI, including the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Texas, will be the field of operations for the exercise starting July 27 to test intelligence collection and sharing, counterterrorism investigation, security, infrastructure protection and other facets.
During a previous similar exercise, WND reported that Gen. Victor E. Renuart, the commander of USNORTHCOM, confirmed he would deploy U.S. troops on American soil if the president declared a domestic emergency.
USNORTHCOM, which was established in 2002 with a responsibility for "homeland defense" of an area including U.S. Canada, Mexico and parts of the Caribbean, would be ready to come to the aid of law enforcement agencies or National Guard units if needed, officials confirmed.
When another terror drill, involving the detonation of a "nuclear" device, was conducted, media outlets funded by billionaire George Soros were warning it may be a "false flag" operation that would involve the detonation of a real bomb to set the stage for martial law.
The 2007 drill was in Portland, Ore., and brought together federal, state and local efforts.
At the time, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, suggested then, "Maybe the people who think there's a conspiracy out there are right."
But many have not yet forgotten that the same government running the exercise only weeks ago described ordinary protesters in the U.S. as "low-level" terror suspects.
The U.S. Department of Defense had included in a training course a question that defined protesters as terrorists.
According to the letter from the Northern California ACLU, the DoD's "Annual Level 1 Antiterrorism (AT) Awareness Training for 2009" tells department personnel "that certain First Amendment-protected activity may amount to 'low-level terrorism.'"
Specifically the training "Knowledge Check 1" asks, "Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?"
The multiple choices are: Attacking the Pentagon, IEDs, Hate crimes against racial groups and Protests.
The correct answer in the training course is "Protests."
The Pentagon later withdrew the question.
"They should have made it clearer," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Les Melnyk told Fox. He declined to specify when the line would be crossed from one into the other.
But he said all of the 1,546 people who took the exam and saw the question will be notified of the "error" and told that there is a difference between lawful objections and violent unrest.
The whole episode developed just weeks after a scandal erupted over a Department of Homeland Security report that described as "right-wing extremists" those who oppose abortion and support secure national borders.
Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, said his organization sued over the DHS "extremism" report.
The DHS report was "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." WND has posted the report online for readers to see.
The report linked returning veterans with the possibility of terrorism, and when it was released it created such a furor for Napolitano she has given several explanations for it, including that she would have reworded the report and that it was issued by a rogue employee.
She later apologized to veterans for having linked them to terror.
But Thompson noted that the report also targeted as "potential terrorists" Americans who:
- Oppose abortion
Oppose same-sex marriage
Oppose restrictions on firearms
Oppose lax immigration laws
Oppose the policies of President Obama regarding immigration, citizenship, and the expansion of social programs
Oppose continuation of free trade agreements
Are suspect of foreign regimes
Fear Communist regimes
Oppose a "one world" government
Bemoan the decline of U.S. stature in the world
Are upset with loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China and India, and more
Thompson told WND no apology has been offered to the members of any of those classes of citizens.
Thompson said the original "extremism" report was "the tip of the iceberg. … Conservative Americans should be very outraged."
Tue Sep 01, 2009 10:07 pm by akumamenra
