U.S. Military Targets Southeast Colorado Part

U.S. Military Targets Southeast Colorado Part 1 of 3
- by Deanna Spingola ©, 24 April 2008

Property seizures in other countries are considered totalitarian. When they occur at the hands of the corporate-controlled U.S. government they are apparently condoned and even facilitated by the courts whose job it is to reign in this kind of abuse. The monopoly media, including "conservative" talk radio, is an information filtering system masquerading as "news." They habitually conceal government land grabs and other privatization schemes like the current controversy in southeastern Colorado. The army is attempting to seize property, claiming they need extra land to better prepare the troops. What's really behind this patriotic-let's-help-the-troops endeavor? Call it what they will, land seizure is land seizure and violates the public trust.

What is it about Colorado and the military? In 1989, George H. W. Bush's administration wanted to store dangerous radioactive waste at the Pueblo Army Depot but the state wisely objected.1 Toxic waste disposal is no longer an unmanageable issue - well-connected arms manufacturers use it for bombs and bullets - kind of a double whammy - if the bullets and bombs don't kill them, the lethal residue causes widespread cancer and horrific birth defects for future offspring of those who absorb, inhale or swallow the deadly dust. The Pentagon and their private contractors suppress the noxious nature of depleted uranium. Earlier, they didn't tell troops about Agent Orange. And the citizens of Anniston, Alabama weren't told about PCBs.2 There are thousands of such examples. The government consistently protects corporate profits rather than citizens.

Even though the Pentagon owns/occupies 31,700,692 acres in the U.S. and its territories and another 32,408,262 acres in foreign countries for a total of 64,108,954 acres, they claim to be strapped for a training area. The Department of Defense Base Structure Report (221 pages) dated September 30, 2006 (last report available) reveals that the Pentagon owns 577,519 structures worth over $712 billion situated on 86 bases in U.S. territories, 823 bases in foreign lands and 4402 military bases and/or military warehouses in the U.S. Their report boasts - "the Department of Defense remains one of the world's largest 'landlords.'"3 As a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, we have added at least 13 new military bases in the Middle East, ostensibly for the Global War of Terrorism (GWOT). The U.S. has literally surrounded Iran. There are about 63 countries with U.S. bases and thousands of U.S. military personnel (out of about 1.5 million) in 156 countries.4

According to another report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, dated April 10, 2008, the army claims they need to restructure and rebuild which will require at least $190 billion for equipment through fiscal year 2013.5 In 2007 alone, in order of rank, the Pentagon paid the following, often no-bid contracts: (1) Lockheed Martin Corp. $12,679,523,202; (2) Boeing Co. $7,300,000,000; (3) Northrop Grumman Corp. $6,821,000,000; (4) KBR Inc. (a spin-off of Halliburton) $5,517,070,621; (5) Science Applications International Corp. $4,412,146,628; (6) Raytheon Co. $4,068,752,346.6 Given these massive figures, one would justifiably trust that America is well-armed, impenetrable and protected.

However, trust is not a word that one would associate with any government function. There are "151 current members of Congress" who have personally invested millions of dollars in companies that have received large defense contracts. Some of those companies are probably listed above or in any of the other top 100 companies. This provides some evidence of why "our representatives" favor corporations; it pays better and that's in addition to hefty campaign contributions.7

Currently, the military (all branches) occupies 483,440 acres in Colorado.8 Fort Carson, an army post on 137,412 acres of range land located in southeast Colorado, is considered one of the world's premier locations to train and prepare soldiers for battle.9 The post had a total population of 10,566 in the 2000 U.S. Census and is located in both Pueblo County and El Paso County, Colorado. The census also revealed that there were 1,679 households and 1,620 families residing on base. There were 2,663 housing units.10 During World War II, the base functioned as a prison camp for non-threatening German, Italian and Japanese-American citizens whose lands had been seized.11

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was previously located one mile west of Fort Carson at the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center. NORAD provides selective response to air, missile, and space attacks over U.S. and Canadian airspace. A faulty system must have failed miserably on 9/11 because no one was reprimanded or fired for incompetence. But wait; there was an upgrade in 1987 at a cost of $968 million and another one by Lockheed in 1993.12 Lockheed also received NORAD upgrade contracts in April 1999.13 Then after 9/11, the government spent about $700 million to upgrade the early warning systems at Cheyenne Mountain.14 By March 2005, thanks to Lockheed, NORAD had a newly refurbished, $14-million state-of-the-art control room - NORAD now "includes a station that receives Federal Aviation Administration data, flight plans and access to 50 FAA radars and 20 air-traffic control stations. NORAD can even tune into commercial airline radios and listen to chatter about unruly passengers."15 On July 28, 2006, it was announced that NORAD would relocate from Cheyenne Mountain to Peterson Air Force Base, also in Colorado. After the move, the government awarded another upgrade contract to Lockheed worth about $800 million.16 Meanwhile the levees, the bridges and thousands of America's roads are dangerously riddled with deepening pot-holes.

With the implementation of the Department of Defense's Military Housing Privatization Initiative of 1996,17 Fort Carson was selected as the Army's model for the development of the privatization initiatives.18 Privatization is the process of transferring ownership of resources and land from the public and private sector to fat-cat corporations who usually pay no taxes.19 Congress privatized the people's money with the treasonous Federal Reserve Act of 1913, placing the control of money into the hands of international banking families who have deliberately debauched our currency. The FED, a private corporation and a complicit Congress, wishing to retain power and popularity, have spent America into bankruptcy - paid for by the people's labor, land, resources and blood.

On February 10, 1998, the Defense Department, the enforcement arm of Wall Street20 notified Congress that they were transferring $15.82 million to the Fort Carson Family Housing Limited Liability Corporation, a division of J. A. Jones, a subsidiary of Philipp Holzmann AG, a Germany-based construction company that used concentration camp labor during World War II. The Fort Carson Family Housing Limited Liability Corporation of Charlotte, N.C. "won" this whopping contract worth more than $3 billion over the span of the contract.21 See how much Philipp Holzmann AG and others were gifted just in 1999. Between October 1, 1997 and September 30, 2003, out of $900 billion authorized expenditures, Philipp Holzmann AG received pentagon contracts amounting to $1,723,275,972. "Half of all the Defense Department's budget goes out the door of the Pentagon to private contractors."22 Other funds, 25%, apparently cannot be accounted for.

The private corporation built 840 new single and multifamily structures and revitalized existing structures. Rent for these 'privatized" units, now paid to the contractor is set at the soldier's Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH). Philipp Holzmann AG also built and maintains the roads, day care centers, schools, parks, picnic areas - literally all the infrastructure. The 50-year contract came with a renewable option of 25 years.23 The new and refurbished housing would provide housing for a total of 2,663 Fort Carson military families. Additionally, the Department of Defense has other privatization projects worth billions.24

Even before 9/11, expansion of the military as well as increased corporate take-over of public military facilities was part of the game plan. "Since 1997, Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) has directed each of the Services to develop an installation-level plan to respond to the growing need for quality affordable housing for military personnel by the year 2010. The Army's initial plan, completed in September 1998, called for the privatization of about 85,000 Army Family Housing (AFH) units over 5 years at 43 US locations." The army's billions-of-dollars housing privatization program is known as the Residential Communities Initiative (RCI) and is worldwide.25 See the entire program here, scroll down to view the full implications.

Located 150 miles southeast of Fort Carson is the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS). The $26 million dollar "purchase" was completed on September 17, 1983 through the government's use of eminent domain. It was opened in the summer of 1985 to provide critical maneuver lands for larger units.26 The relocation of 11 landowners who refused to sell required an additional $2 million. Their land was acquired through the detestable process of condemnation, aided by the very people who are supposed to make us "secure in…our "houses."2728

The government's eminent domain power, the Takings Clause (or the Just Compensation Clause), is part of Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution - …"nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." This clause is not a positive power grant allotted to the government. Instead, it imposes a strict limitation on the government. The Constitution was designed to protect individual rights from an abusive government. The founding documents clarify that "the government's only legitimate power is to secure the rights that are guaranteed to the people."29

Just compensation means fair market value, moving expenses, and any "losses incurred while you establish yourself elsewhere." "The victim must be 'made whole' meaning that he is economically no worse off as a result of the taking." For decades, "public use" meant just that - use by the public. However, the Takings Clause has been "transformed and perverted. Today, 'public use' means 'public benefit.'"30

The eminent domain floodgate of abuses opened early in the twentieth century with the 1936 New York City Housing Authority v. Muller case which forever changed American property rights - public use became public benefit. The court, ignoring private property rights and apparently biased against the poor, decided that "slum clearance" was a public benefit. This "sociological experiment" established an "acceptable means of perverting the Takings Clause." This was a "front for violating private property rights to acquire land for their pet projects."31

This led to the despotic condemnation process which later enabled the Rockefeller (one of the Federal Reserve banking families) land grab of a thirteen-block tract of Manhattan which was unlawfully condemned in order to erect the World Trade Center Complex. Read about it here. The Port Authority issued tax exempt bonds which would completely fund the project.32 The Port Authority privatized the Center on July 24, 2001 for a fraction of its value by leasing it to Larry Silverstein's private corporation - lucky for him that he heavily ensured them against terrorist attacks.33

In 1981, General Motors, another wealthy corporation, directed the government to condemn the 465-acre community of Poletown, a suburb or Detroit, Michigan so they could build an assembly plant. GM got their plant while "3,468 people were displaced and had their homes confiscated by the government. The Constitution's public use requirement was intended to protect against just this sort of usurpation."34 One thousand residences, six hundred businesses and numerous churches were bulldozed.35

About half of the land for The Pinon Canyon Manuvere Site (PCMS) was seized through the condemnation process. "In 1983 the unwilling sellers were pretty much on their own, battling to hang on to their homes. They wrote letters and attended meetings for the procedurally required Environmental Impact Statement. But in the end they were just a handful of ranchers, forced to move off of their land by the power of the United States Army."36

Victims of eminent domain rarely receive "just compensation" and often face endless litigation fighting for the constitutional rights the government is supposed to regularly protect. Private property abuse is rampant! According to the Castle Coalition, there were 10,382 governmental attempts to condemn private property in the last ten years.37

Apparently, because of the money-siphoning (626 billion dollars in 2007)38 Global War of Terrorism, the Department of Defense wants to greatly expand the Pinon Canyon Manuvere Site (PCMS). In June 2007, the Army released the Phase I map identifying the first 418,000 acres they want to acquire. "When combined with the current 235,896 acres of training space there, the Pinon Canyon site would become the Army's largest training ground."39 The Army indicates that they want as much as 2.5 million acres, the entire southeast corner of Colorado because it simulates some of the terrain in Afghanistan and Iraq.40

On May 3, 2007 Governor Bill Ritter signed Colorado House Bill 1069 withdrawing the state's consent to the federal government in their quest to acquire land through eminent domain for their expansion of Pinon Canyon Manuvere Site (PCMS).41

Constitutional statutes were designed to "protect the citizens against the abuse of power" by government agents. Unfortunately, a majority of elected officials have shirked their constitutional, decision-making responsibilities to highly-paid private contractors, who have taken over much of the government's responsibilities. The problem is, these contractors are not covered by constitutional laws - therefore they are not culpable. Federal agencies do not exercise oversight, demand accountability or set performance standards for federal contractors. Effective Congressional investigations are rarely convened.42

This is a much bigger problem than the dedicated ranchers of Colorado. But for them, it is their life and their livelihood. The next time you are enjoying a hamburger or a steak (if you can still afford one), thank a rancher, the government didn't produce it. If the government can target Colorado's ranchers, they can target anyone! Oh and that land grab - it has nothing to do with training soldiers! Stay tuned for parts two and three.

U.S. Military Targets Southeast Colorado Part 2
- by Deanna Spingola ©, 12 May 2008

Between 1980 and 2000, Colorado lost 1.5 million acres of ranchland. The 1960s per-acre price went from "less than $200" to thousands per acre.1 Land doesn't spontaneously increase in value but is a function of calculated inflation (the hidden tax) - driven by sudden surpluses of Federal Reserve Notes that decrease the value of currency already in circulation while escalating all prices.

Evidenced by the acreage figures cited in part one of this multi-part article, the Pentagon does not "need" more land. The army's proposed expansion would give them a total of 2, 577,304 acres (thousand square miles), just at the Piñon Canyon Manuever Site, as shown on the map or this map. The federal government owns more than 5.1 million acres classified as "vacant." U.S. land dedicated to military purposes equals 2.4 percent. U.S. land owned by the federal government, as of September 30, 2004, is 653,299,090.2 acres or 28.8 percent of the country. Most of Nevada, 84.5 percent, is owned by the federal government.2

Obviously, land is not the issue. It is however, a huge issue to the ranchers and is fundamental to their livelihood. If their land is seized, ranchers cannot pack up their cows and move elsewhere. Ranchers still become emotional when they reflect on the first and supposedly the last time that the army "took" their property, lands that had belonged to families for generations. Courts have distorted the law, and have become "instrument[s] of plunder," seizing land from the citizens they have pledged to protect.3 Given these desperate circumstances, "between 2000 and 2004, 19 percent of Colorado farm and ranch deaths were reported as suicides."4

The army's Colorado land grab, a scheme to cleanse the area, is merely the tip of the globalist iceberg which concerns, not only ranchers, but the entire middle class. The army, literally acting against American citizens, is not alone but merely the first offense - the patriotism ploy! Others are involved - smug, obedient bureaucrats, environmentalists and tax-exempt foundations.

Investigative Congressional committees attempted to halt the powerful influence exerted by private foundations (4,162 of them in 1951).5 Foundations have no voters, no clientele, and no investors. They enable the elite to reshape civilization using billions of tax-exempt dollars. Congressman Cox's investigation, starting in 1952, failed as most of the witnesses were "officers and trustees of large foundations" and their associates. Cox unexpectedly fell "gravely ill during the investigation and died before a report could be filed." The Reece Committee, facing obstacle after obstacle, resumed the investigation with Norman Dodd as research director. Almost immediately, instructions from a complicit "White House" to "kill the committee" ended all inquiries.6

In June 1998, Ron Arnold, then executive vice-president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise gave congressional testimony that resulted in a detailed report entitled Battered Communities, followed up by a comprehensively-researched book - Undue Influence. Arnold confirmed "Rural communities are suffering unprecedented social and economic losses. All segments of natural resource goods production - water development, farming, ranching, mining, petroleum, timber, fishing, transportation, and manufacturing projects - are being systematically attacked, thwarted, and eradicated. Natural resource production and related jobs are being forced offshore."7

In The Law, Bastiat stated: "Life, faculties, production - in other words, individuality, liberty, property - this is man."8 "Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property."9 In addition to land-seizure concerns, ranchers are at the mercy of huge monopolies which control the market and manipulate cattle prices without the expense of owning production. They sometimes finance a few "large feedlot owners who lease ranches and run cattle for them," a way of controlling prices through "captive supply." Independent ranchers, with ever-increasing overhead, get less and less of every retail dollar. Justifiable resistance to this corporatism could result in retaliation and economic ruin, an object lesson to silence other ranchers.10

Price fixing and profit manipulation, as John D. Rockefeller discovered, was best achieved by refining and selling oil rather than extracting it from the ground. Skilled carpenters, factory workers, ranchers, farmers, and meatpacking workers labor for decreasing returns while monopoly capitalists, comfortable in luxurious boardrooms, control markets to enhance their personal fortunes without loyalties or consideration for America's economy. Consider construction - individuals cut lumber, assemble fixtures, pour cement, install a roof, paint and together build a house. Who benefits the most? Not the producers - rather the fractional-reserve banker who extorts usury on a paper-only loan.

Congressional leaders, financial benefactors of corporatism, broke up the Chicago-based beef trust (Armour, Cudahy, Morris, Swift and Wilson) through the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 - an example of Hegelian Dialectics. Create a crisis and then fix it with pre-determined government regulations that typically only burdens small business firms. Reasonable competition existed until Reagan's Administration.

In 1972, a 200 member Business Roundtable, through the merging of the March Group, the Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable and the Labor Law Study Committee, was established. The group was comprised of the heads of major industrial corporations, commercial banks, insurance companies, the largest retailers, and the biggest transportation and utility companies. This forum of corporations dismissed their "competitive differences" to arrive at a "consensus on issues of social and economic policy for America." Members of this elite group rejected national interests in favor of the prospective profits of economic globalization. Members organized "aggressive campaigns" to gain political support for their agenda. They enrolled 2,300 U.S. corporations in their newly-created front organization, USA*NAFTA. They furtively promoted the trade agreement despite widespread opposition.11

The Roundtable "bombarded Americans" with assurances, editorials, news releases, editorials and radio and television commentaries claiming that NAFTA would prove beneficial, stop Mexican immigration, provide high-paying jobs and raise environmental standards. "Roundtable members enjoyed privileged access to the NAFTA negotiation process through representation on advisory committees to the U.S. trade representative." NAFTA went into effect on January 1, 1994. However, during the prior twelve years, nine Roundtable corporations had already outsourced about 180,000 jobs to Mexico.12

Public Relations firms produced "facts," opinion pieces, expert analyses, and managed public polls, telephone solicitation, direct mail, and created "citizen" advocacy groups and "public-image-building campaigns for their corporate clients. One firm, Burson Marsteller, enjoyed net billings in 1992 of $204 million. "The top fifty public relations firms billed over $1.7 billion in 1991." Public relations employees, who outnumber news reporters, manipulate the news "to serve the interests of paying clients." By 1990, almost 40 percent of the news originated from public-relations press releases.13 Public Relations firms continue to influence public opinion according to who purchases their unique services.

Booz, Allen, & Hamilton, Inc. (hereafter Booz Allen),14 a public relations firm has been paid $500,000 a year for their Piñon Canyon "expansion planning" including managing invitation-only meetings with southern Colorado residents. Booz Allen, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, has clients such as the Air Force, Federal Transit Administration, Labor Department, the Navy and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Ex-CIA director and Rhodes Scholar, James Woolsey, became Vice President of Booz Allen on July 15th, 2002."15 He served as counsel for major corporations in both commercial arbitrations and the negotiation of joint ventures and other agreements. Woolsey is one of the signers of the January 26, 1998 Project for the New American Century (PNAC) letter to Clinton urging military action against Iraq. Dov S. Zakheim (CFR), Pentagon Comptroller from May 4, 2001 to March 10, 2004 also became a vice president at Booz Allen on May 6, 2004. This was after he was unable to explain the loss of $1 trillion dollars at the Pentagon (in addition to the $2.3 trillion on September 10, 2001).1617 PNAC, promoters of American imperialism and "Full-spectrum" dominance, is funded by the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation and the Bradley Foundation.

The expanding cozy relationship, known as "contract bureaucracy," between the federal government and Booz Allen began with the Nixon administration. In 1969 Donald Rumsfeld was appointed as director of the Office of Economic Opportunity with Dick Cheney as his assistant. Rumsfeld brought in Booz Allen to reorganize the agency. The government uses contractors for policy advice and management services, a taxpayer-supported, multibillion-dollar giveaway to private management consultants, experts and think tanks.18

Reagan, and his globalist handler/vice president G. H. W. Bush, ignored anti-trust legislation and allowed corporate mergers to devour smaller firms. In 1970, the top four meatpacking firms slaughtered about 21% of the nation's beef. By 2000, ConAgra, Iowa Beef Processors (IBP, nation's largest red meat producer), Excel Corporation and National Beef (fourth largest processor) slaughtered about 84% of the nation's cattle and consequently controlled prices.19 Since 1979, Excel Corporation has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cargill, infamous for animal abuse.20

Many meatpacking plants have returned to the exploitative, dangerous conditions described in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Wages, once protected by organized labor, have plummeted. By 1983, worker's wages "fell below the average U.S. manufacturing wage" and had further declined by 25 percent in 2002. Immigrants, willing to work for less, have replaced many middle class laborers. Rather than outsourcing labor to Third World countries, the meat and poultry industries are importing Third World laborers and "reproducing developing country employment conditions here."21 Transnational corporations enhance their profits by exploiting labor and sales elsewhere. Earlier this year, Tyson Foods announced that they were "forming a joint venture with Jiangsu Jinghai Poultry Industry Group Co. Ltd., to raise, process and sell chickens in east China under the Tyson brand name. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Tyson will own 70 percent of the venture."22

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush authorized an eligibility verification pilot program for foreign laborers with nine participating companies. Clinton expanded this program in 1995 to the "Basic Pilot" program with 1,000 employers.23 Non-enforcement of immigration laws allowed IBP and other corporations to "import" cheap labor. The Basic Pilot program, now complete with federal database, was "designed to help big employers of foreign labor." Additionally, Clinton's "Bosnian refugee resettlement efforts" supplied 6,000 refugees to IBP in Waterloo, Iowa. A total of 80,000 Balkan refugees settled in the Midwest. Bombing foreign countries to smithereens evidently provides cheap labor to corporate America.24

Tyson Foods targeted competitor, Hudson Foods, but Hudson wasn't serious about selling until Clinton's Department of Agriculture swat team descended on Hudson Foods with a beef recall (August 12, 1997). The USDA illegally closed a plant and destroyed their business. Then Tyson Foods, a huge Clinton contributor, purchased Hudson's chicken operation at a fire-sale price. "Tyson's buyout bid" was an offer Hudson couldn't refuse. That purchase complemented "Tyson's distribution and production system." IBP, "a major supplier to the Hudson," bought the beef operation.25 By 2001, Tyson, the world's largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork combined, won the bidding war against Smithfield, to purchase IBP, the nation's largest beef producer.26 A Smithfield purchase would have encountered more "regulatory delays" than the Tyson deal.27

John Munsell, a small businessman and agricultural whistle-blower, discovered E.coli in an order of ConAgra hamburger and informed the USDA which had an "aggressive see-no-evil, non-interference policy" with powerful agribusiness corporations who prefer and lobby for self-regulation. Rather than investigating ConAgra, the USDA shut down Munsell's operation for four months and investigated his business.28 The beef, 19 million pounds, was recalled in July 2002. In September 2002, ConAgra began transferring their meatpacking operation to HM Capital Partners LLC, a Dallas-based private (corporate raider) equity firm owned by Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst, and Booth Creek Management Corporation becoming the second largest processor of beef and pork in the world. The deal was completed in 2004; the resulting joint venture was called Swift & Company. Then in July 2007, Swift & Company was purchased by JBS, S.A., the acronym of the founder, José Batista Sobrinho. J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. brokered the massive transaction.29 JBS is acquiring National Beef Packing and Smithfield Foods' - No. 3 and 4 of the five largest beef companies in the United States. JBS will then control 10 percent of the world's beef supplies with only two major U.S. competitors - Tyson and Cargill.30

Beef trade, by JBS Swift & Company, to South Korea will resume in May 2008 after a four-year ban due to the 2003 mad-cow scare which closed most Asian doors to U.S. beef. JBS intends to penetrate global markets anywhere they can - Asia, Russia and elsewhere.31