U.S.
Military Targets Southeast Colorado
Part
1
By
Deanna Spingola
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. 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. 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.’”
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 HYPERLINK "http://www.heartland.it/map_centro_asia_ring.html"
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.
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.
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. 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.
Currently,
the military (all branches) occupies 483,440 acres in Colorado. 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. 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.
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.
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. Lockheed also received NORAD upgrade contracts in April 1999.
Then after 9/11, the government spent about $700 million to upgrade the early
warning systems at Cheyenne Mountain. 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.” 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. Meanwhile the levees and bridges
are failing or weak 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, Fort Carson was selected as the Army’s model for the
development of the privatization initiatives. 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. 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 Street
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. See how much Philipp
Holzmann AG and others
were gifted just in HYPERLINK "http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/L03/fy99/99l03.htm"
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.” Other funds, 25%, apparently
HYPERLINK "http://benfrank.net/patriots/news/national/pentagon_missing_trillions"
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. 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.
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. See the entire program HYPERLINK "https://www.housing.army.mil/Documents/afhmp/New/Main%2003-09%20PB%20final.pdf"
here,
scroll down to view the full implications.
Located
150 miles southeast of Fort Carson is the Piñon Canyon Manuvere 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. 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.”
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.”
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.’”
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.”
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 HYPERLINK "http://www.antiqueradio.com/Sep02_RadioRow_Steinhardt.html"
here.
The Port Authority issued tax exempt bonds which would completely fund the
project. 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.
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.”
One thousand residences, six hundred businesses and numerous churches were
bulldozed.
About
half of the land for The
Piñon 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.”
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
HYPERLINK "http://www.castlecoalition.org/"
Castle
Coalition,
there were 10,382 governmental attempts to condemn private property in the
last ten years.
Apparently,
because of the money-siphoning (626 billion dollars in 2007) Global War of
Terrorism, the Department of Defense wants to greatly expand the
Piñon 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 Piñon Canyon site would become the Army’s
largest training ground.” 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.
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 Piñon
Canyon Manuvere Site (PCMS).
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.
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!
HYPERLINK ",%20http:/query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE7D8123FF933A25752C1A96F948260"
U.S.
Seeks to Store Nuclear Waste at Army Bases to Save Plutonium Plant,
By Keith Schneider, November 10, 1989
HYPERLINK "http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08669thigh.pdf"
Restructuring
and Rebuilding the Army Will Cost Billions of Dollars for Equipment
but the Total Cost Is Uncertain, Highlights, April 10, 2008, United States
Government Accountability Office,
testimony
before the Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces, Committee on Armed Services,
House of Representatives
The
Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order by Michel Chossudovsky,
pg 11
HYPERLINK "http://www.publicintegrity.org./pns/report.aspx?aid=385"
\l "4" Outsourcing
the Pentagon,
Who benefits from the Politics and Economics of National Security? By Larry
Makinson, March 31, 2006
Constitutional
Chaos, What Happens When the Government breaks its Own Laws by Judge Andrew
P. Napolitano, pgs. 65-78
Ibid
Ibid
Bonds:
Port of New York Authority to Raise $100-Million by John H. Allen, The New
York Times, February 28, 1968.
Constitutional
Chaos, What Happens When the Government breaks its Own Laws by Judge Andrew
P. Napolitano, pgs. 65-78
Constitutional
Chaos, What Happens When the Government breaks its Own Laws by Judge Andrew
P. Napolitano, pgs. 65-78