Almost a year ago, I posted about the increase in “moral waivers” for military recruits (see here, here and here). What was being seen was that the military was admitting folks in with very sketchy backgrounds, including known KKK members and people with known memberships to infamous street gangs.

Often, I hear people talk about how we should send prisoners over to fight in Iraq but, this is darned close and a lot of military folks are concerned about serving alongside people with such backgrounds.

Now, it appears that, because more bodies were needed for the “surge”, an even greater increase of these waivers has occurred. In fact, the Army doubled the number of these waivers and the Marines increased their waivers by some 70%.

So, how bad does it get. Just read the following:

According to the new data, the Army and Marines have allowed recruits who have been convicted of assault with a dangerous weapn, burglary, drug abuse, sexual assault; in a few instances recruits were cleared to join after convinctions on terrorism or bomb-threat related charges.

“I understand that there can be valid reasons for personnel waivers and recognize the importance of providing opportunities to individuals who have served their sentences and rehabilitated themselves,” Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the Oversight Committee’s chairman, wrote in a letter (.pdf) to an undersecretary of defense. “At the same time, concerns have been raised that the significant increase in the recruitment of persons with criminal records is a result of the strain put on the military by the Iraq war and may be undermining military readiness.”

The military only provided data on felony waivers from 2006 and 2007, saying information from prior years or about personnel waivers granted for misdemeanor convictions had been lost due to poor record keeping, according to Waxman’s letter. The committee chairman requested more internal documents about the protocol for granting waivers, whether the increase had to do with meeting tougher recruitment goals and any studies of the effectiveness of recruited felons the military might have produced.

Something tells me that these “lost records” might have some very disturbing truths to them. When the military is starting to do this to meet recruiting goals, doesn’t anyone else see that something is not working?

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I honestly believe that the tactics once used solely to suppress dissent from people of color are now being utilized on the public at large. As black people, we know of the long history of COINTELPRO and its devastating effects on our forward progress as a people but, I believe that, in addition to it being a program, it was also a grand experiment. America didn’t squeal too loudly when it happened to people who didn’t matter much so, perhaps, it might not squeal much if enacted on America as a whole.

In post-9/11 America, we continue to silently accept the erosion of our rights and “experiments” like these continue to go on using people who still don’t matter much as the test subjects.

I say all that to say this — once again, another program has been uncovered that shows us just how badly we can expect our rights to be trampled. During the last Congress, the Posse Comitatus act of 1878 was abolished. You don’t know what it is, you say? Don’t be ashamed — until last year, I didn’t know either. The act basically said that the U.S. military could not be used against U.S. citizens. Now, some in power recognized that U.S. citizens may not easily accept having the last of their rights stripped from them, should martial law be declared so, they had a brilliant idea — they would train members of the clergy to suppress opposition. These groups, known as “Clergy Response Teams”, are U.S. Government-trained ministers who are deployed into areas under martial law to help quiet things down.

Now, just as I hypothesized, people of color were used as the guinea pigs of this experiment. A “Clergy Response Team” was used in New Orleans right after Hurricane Katrina.

Sounds Orwellian, you say? Just check out this excerpt from the piece on them:

Such clergy response teams would walk a tight-rope during martial law between the demands of the government on the one side, versus the wishes of the public on the other. “In a lot of cases, these clergy would already be known in the neighborhoods in which they’re helping to diffuse that situation,” assured Sandy Davis. He serves as the director of the Caddo-Bossier Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

Yes, you read right — Homeland Security and the clergy working hand-in-hand to “diffuse” these situations.

But, this part is even more chilling:

For the clergy team, one of the biggest tools that they will have in helping calm the public down or to obey the law is the bible itself, specifically Romans 13. Dr. Tuberville elaborated, “because the government’s established by the Lord, you know. And, that’s what we believe in the Christian faith. That’s what’s stated in the scripture.”

A few weeks back, I wrote about how mega-preacher Creflo Dollar had written a letter to his followers admonishing them to be unquestioningly loyal to the guidance of George Bush. Please trust, such calls did not begin or end with Creflo Dollar so, we have to believe that this message was played out in congregations across this country. Now, this program seem to be its next, logical evolutionary step.

Below is the link to the video of KSLA’s story on this program.

See video here

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