Will the US be under martial law by June, 2004? That is the impression some are expressing after witnessing a recent episode of Nightline (4/7/2004), with Ted Koppel. On this particular program Koppel is host to Richard Clarke, former Reagan officials Edwin Meese III and Kenneth M. Duberstein; former Clinton official Sally Katzen, author James Mann, and former Bush official Richard Clarke. The subject matter is named The Armageddon Plan.

Because many US citizens hold favorable views of Richard Clarke he was playing a key role. His affability enables him to convey the dark plans of the Bush Regime to critical observers without alarming the unconcious masses. On this program Clarke was on to inform elite audiences that they better get used to the idea the Bush Regime will sponsor a cataclysmic event in order to plunge the US under martial law.

Richard Clarke is already a legend in the world of propaganda. So far the Bush Regime has parlayed his "defection" from them with great success. As Karl Rove probably surmised, The Left Gatekeepers (e.g., Democracy Now! and Counterpunch, etc.) have been only very eager to treat Clarke's mild disagreements with the Bush Regime as their outer limit of permissible dialogue. With the liberal US media regarding Clarke's thesis that the Bush Regime was merely negligent about 9-11 as if it were the only idea possible the White House sailed through the 9-11 Commission/Coverup proceedings.

Now that the 9-11 Commission/Coverup has been safely wrapped for the Bush Regime the mainstream media is now giving some focus to James Mann’s curiously-timed book (Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet, Viking Press, 2004)). Vulcans concerns the efforts of present and past White House officials to establish a set of procedures for the highest-levels of government to follow should a catastrophic attack occur on US soil.

(Note that Nightline has dropped the moniker Rise of the Vulcans for the more Regime-friendly The Armageddon Plan. The latter conveys a greater sense of a Regime reacting to a stimulus, not being the source of it.)

The segment began with congenial chatter between the past and present government officials. As if he is hosting a dinner party Koppel smoothly has his guests reminisce fondly about past drills performed by high-level government officials to test their emergency preparedness. Koppel then imagines an attack that decimates the US Congress. They break for a timely commercial. After the break Koppel immediately launches into the key part of their script: “…aren't [we] left for at least the foreseeable future with some sort of martial law anyway?”

Duberstein agrees with Koppel, adding “You have to suspend rights.”

Koppel continues by saying: “…And during that period, then, and given the sense of panic that is inevitable under circumstances like this, the executive branch of government takes on extraordinary power, doesn't it?”

Clarke agrees by saying: “I think in any war where Washington were [sic] destroyed, inevitably, there would be a period of, for lack of a better term, something like martial law.  The key here is, though, that the plans all call for going back to a normal three-branch system, as rapidly as possible.”

Koppel reacts to Clarke's ideas by suggesting what he has said is a new idea to many leaders in Washington. Sure it is, Ted. The conversation quickly winds down.

Nightline's very efficient use of Richard Clarke to prepare elite viewers for martial law is leading other observers on the Net to reluctantly conclude the merciless Bush Regime is actively planning the catalyst for their own Armagaddon Plan. In a different world perhaps, the journalist leading a nationally-televised discussion about the prospects of the US government under martial law would look Clarke in the eye and ask him if the Bush Regime isn't planning to set off some nukes shortly in some city close to Washington DC (e.g., Baltimore). It really isn't that hard to imagine that the prospect of ruling planet Earth from a secret, underground bunker would gladden Dick Cheney’s venal heart. He's been practicing in secret locations for decades in gleeful anticipation for such a moment.

As the prospects for survival under the Bush Regime becomes increasingly dire it should be obvious by now that the only way to stop them is to continue spreading the truth about 9-11, Richard Clarke and the Left Gatekeepers notwithstanding. Specifically, the last idea the Bush Regime wants people to receive is the revelation that jet fuel burning black cannot possibly melt steel. So anti-war activists, it is high time that we tell everyone about this that we can.