Bush's Shadow Government Dictatorship
Posted March 17, 2002 at the thepeoplesvoice.org

by the EDITOR

The Bush administration used the September 11 terrorist attack as an opportunity to implement a "shadow government," based on old plans prepared during the Cold War. More than 150 officials were initially evacuated by helicopter to different locations in mountainous regions of the eastern United States. In late October the temporary arrangement was made permanent, officially establishing the new regime. Since then Bush has added hand picked people from top levels of the civil service who will carry out his commands unquestioningly. Legal documents have been drafted to give these officials the full powers of government in the event of a catastrophe.

The sinister and illegal "shadow government" consists entirely of executive branch officials only. No members of the legislative and judicial branches of government are included in the secret plan. This is a flagrant violation of the concept of "Separation of Powers" as embodied in the Constitution. In the event that this "shadow government" seizes power, it will function as a dictatorship exercising military and police powers, without any legislative oversight or judicial control.

The Bush plan is not based on presidential succession as defined in the US Constitution. Strangely in the event of a serious threat, vice President Dick Cheney is in charge and Bush is his subordinate. The third and fourth in the order of succession, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate President Pro Tem Robert Byrd, were not even aware of the plans existence.

The Bush administration is in direct violation of a 1988 executive order on emergency preparedness issued by President Reagan, which requires the National Security Council to "arrange for Executive branch liaison with, and assistance to, the Congress and the federal judiciary on national security-emergency preparedness matters."

In television interviews the leading congressional Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, confirmed that neither he nor any other congressional leader had been consulted about the plan. When asked whether this constituted a secret government, he replied, "I don’t know. I don’t know what their role is, what their current authority is, because we haven’t been informed. You’d think one person in Congress would know, and whether a congressional and judicial component is included."

The Bush administration has used the "war on terrorism" to implement sweeping changes in American foreign policy and political life, establishing a radical right-wing militarism abroad and attacks on democratic rights at home. The greatest threat to the American people comes, not from foreign terrorists or Islamic fundamentalists, but from the Republican Party itself. The "war on terrorism" has become the foundation on which the Bush administration has begun to erect a military-police dictatorship.

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