San Francisco Bay Guardian News, March 10, 1999:
ONE NATION UNDER GUARD
by
Gar Smith
Forget the Middle East. Forget Kosovo. The United States
Marine Corps is convinced that its next major invasion may take
place on the west coast of the United States.
That's right: the marines are preparing to put down an
insurrection in a major American city -- say, San Francisco, or
Seattle, or Los Angeles.
They'll be practicing [across the Bay from San Francisco]in
Oakland March 15-18.
The Marines say the exercise, dubbed
[http://www.mcwl.quantico.usmc.mil/mcwl-hot/uw/index.html] "Urban
Warrior Advanced Warfighting Experiment," is designed to teach
the armed forces how to distribute humanitarian aid to a big city
after a disaster.
But a Bay Guardian review of hundreds of pages of military
documents, obtained through public records requests, from the
Marine Corps' Web site, and from the Alameda County Public
Library, reveals a very different mission.
The Marine Corps' plans for the invasion reveal that Urban
Warrior is designed to give marines practice in seizing control
of urban areas -- including taking over food and water supplies,
utilities, and communications systems. And statements and
articles by military leaders suggest that the armed forces are
preparing themselves to contain popular uprisings -- including
uprisings in U.S. cities.
The use of military troops to quell civilian unrest is not
unprecedented. But Urban Warrior represents a dramatic escalation
in the potential use of the military on American soil -- and
nobody in the local or national news media seems to have noticed.
Though San Francisco is no longer slated to serve as the
marines' laboratory, the Oakland political establishment, led by
Mayor Jerry Brown, is rolling out the red carpet for the troops.
Four days of mock fighting, including the firing of 24,000 blank
rounds, have been scheduled to take place at Oakland's abandoned
Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. The guns will open fire at 7:30 in the
morning and continue for seven hours at a stretch.
Over the course of five days Urban Warrior vehicles are
expected to consume 18,063 gallons of fuel and generate 1.21 tons
of air pollution. The nitrous oxides produced would be 3.4 times
greater than the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's
"significant threshold." (Those figures don't include air
pollution from fuel-inefficient military aircraft, since the
Marine Corps' environmental assessment ruled that its exhaust
gases would not fall into the urban "mixing zone.") During Urban
Warrior's grand finale at Oak Knoll March 18, marines will
discharge 60 smoke bombs and 8,000 rounds of blanks in a single
hour.
Three-block war
When the U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL)
first proposed staging Urban Warrior inside San Francisco's
Presidio National Park last year, it described a three-day
exercise involving 200 to 300 marines. By January the exercise
included five ships, 6,000 sailors and marines, fighter jets,
helicopters, and four days of simulated combat. National Park
Service officials decided the event had grown too large and
pulled the plug.
In an effort to save the Presidio invasion, Gen. Charles C.
Krulak (who founded the Urban Warfighting Laboratory in 1995)
wrote an op-ed in the San Francisco Examiner appealing to San
Franciscans to rally 'round the flag and allow the attack to
proceed. Krulak offered a rather implausible pretext for
exploding thousands of rounds of blanks inside a U.S. city.
"Marines will be transported to the Presidio, where they
will provide humanitarian assistance to 'victims' of an assumed
natural disaster," Krulak wrote. " 'Rebel' elements opposed to
the operation will then arrive. The situation will deteriorate
into conflict." Krulak didn't explain why "rebels" would be
opposed to humanitarian assistance in the wake of a natural
disaster.
"Humanitarian relief" effort involves marines handing out
"food, water, and diapers" to paid actors performing from a
prepared script, Urban Warrior press representative Col. Mark
Thiffault told the Bay Guardian. But Thiffault conceded that
"humanitarian assistance is not the primary goal. We're doing it
so we can figure out how to do urban warfare."
A review of hundreds of pages of documents regarding Urban
Warrior exercises around the country and in the Bay Area reveals
no plans for providing humanitarian assistance. The actual goal
of the operation is clearly stated: it is to "penetrate,"
"thrust," and "swarm" into urban settings to seize power plants,
TV and radio stations, and food and water supplies, to suppress
any local opposition -- and ultimately to control the cities.
Urban Warrior strategists envision a "future battlefield"
defined by stateless war in an urban terrain, against threats
including <sic> "criminals with computers" and "terrorists
searching for weapons of mass destruction." (Curiously, they
don't have them; they are merely searching for them.)
Marine Corps documents explain that the Bay Area operation
will pit "an enhanced Combat Operations Center ... against a
well-trained, well-equipped opposing force with the capability to
detonate WMD [a biochemical 'weapon of mass destruction'] in an
urban environment."
While the planners of Urban Warrior gloss over the purported
humanitarian work, the experiment's war-fighting components are
proudly detailed.
Helicopters will hover 1000 feet above the ground. Humvees,
light armored vehicles, and five-ton trucks will add to the din.
Monstrous 88-ton, 88-foot-long hovercraft, each big enough to
carry four M1A1 tanks, will move supplies and vehicles from ships
to shore. Over the course of the five-day exercise, Urban
Warrior's 1,500-member force would subject East Bay residents to
14 waves of hovercraft landings, more than 40 aircraft
overflights, and the detonation of 60 "flashbang" grenades and
24,000 rounds of blanks.
The purpose of all this disruption is to hone soldiers'
skills in fighting what is known as "the three-block war." The
strategies practiced in Urban Warrior experiments are designed
for capturing and holding modern cities dense with high-rises.
"Urban terrain offsets many of the strengths in the
traditional American way of war," Urban Warrior documents report.
They go on to state that the effectiveness of satellites is
severely reduced, rubble from buildings lends the defender a
strategic advantage, and massive numbers of civilians are likely
to get caught in the crossfire.
Urban troops should rely on the "opportune use of indigenous
resources," the documents state. "Developing our ability to
effectively forage for power, water, and fuel may provide a
significant reduction in the logistics requirement on the
seabases."
Unfortunately, such foraging would mean seizing resources
from the indigenous population. But that can have its own
advantages.
To gain "leverage in establishing control over the urban
environment," Urban Warriors are advised to seize power plants,
water plants, and food storage and distribution centers.
Another section of the Urban Warrior game plan is more
direct, recommending operations "designed to collapse essential
functions."
Urban canyons
To enter cities in real-life warfare, the marines plan to
use existing underground passageways, including underground
transit systems like BART and sewer and utility tunnels. "Sewer
and underground utility systems offer one of the most clandestine
avenues for penetrating the urban environment," Urban Warrior
documents state. Special troops equipped with air-quality
sensors would slither through city sewers and utility tunnels on
special sleds and trolleys to reach strategic positions. (As a
practical matter, the Urban Warrior invasion plan warns, the
"firing of conventional weapons in an environment with a high
methane content may pose unacceptable risk.")
Marines may also enter from above. The documents envision
marines deftly maneuvering through cities via paragliders,
parachutes, and powered parafoils.
To fight in the spaces between skyscrapers, which the
marines refer to as "urban canyons," the 21st-century marine is
being trained to move up the sides of buildings like a human fly
and skitter from one high-rise to another on rope webs and cable
suspension bridges.
The military has developed special weapons to enable U.S.
forces to shoot over the tops of skyscrapers, firing on enemy
troops hiding on adjacent streets. Other weapons blast holes
through steel-reinforced concrete to destroy the inhabitants of a
specific room deep inside a high-rise. Self-loading automated
weapons systems can be left parked in intersections or within
buildings, controlled and fired by gunners sitting in front of
computer screens on ships floating safely 12 miles offshore.
Urban Warrior's conceptual experimental framework (CEF)
treats civilians and noncombatants as bothersome inconveniences
and logistical nuisances. "Noncombatants and refugees may be as
formidable a factor as the urban infrastructure," the CEF states.
"Refugees are likely to clog roads, inland waterways, airfields,
and ports as well as presenting commanders with humanitarian
support issues."
A section addressing crowd control contains photos depicting
helmeted military police with shields and truncheons surrounding
an armored personnel carrier as it rolls toward a crowd of angry,
unarmed civilians.
The marines hope to deal with these crowds using such
"non-lethal" weapons as exploding nets, nausea-inducing
ultrasound weapons, blinding laser lights, incapacitating (and
potentially asphyxiating) sticky foams, and quick-drying
substances that can be used to seal doorways, windows, pipes, and
"subterranean avenues of approach."
The vast majority of these technologies, the CEF states,
were developed for local police to handle the antiwar and civil
rights protests of the 1960s.
This kind of fighting is notable not for its humanitarian
ends but for its high body count. "Urban fighting has always
been one of the most destructive forms of warfare," wrote Maj.
Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr., the commandant of the U.S. Army War
College at Carlisle Barracks, Pa., in the October 1998 issue of
the Armed Forces Journal. "In the Vietnam War, the numbers of
Marines killed in the battle for Hue exceeded the losses in
WWII's amphibious assault on Okinawa."
Close to home
While Urban Warrior's promoters say such exercises train
marines to enter foreign trouble spots, military documents
challenge that assertion.
There are few 15-story urban canyons in third world cities.
And the photographs in Urban Warrior's strategic documents
portray targets much closer to home -- Seattle, Miami, San Diego,
New York City, and San Francisco.
In a rare reference to non-Western countries, the conceptual
framework points out that urban warfare is fundamentally unsuited
to most cities in the developing world. "The squalor and highly
inflammable nature of building materials within many non-Western
urban areas -- coupled with the wide use of propane or natural
gas for heating and services -- creates a risk of catastrophic
fire," the document states.
Meanwhile, plans are afoot to increase the military's power
in the event of a national emergency.
Earlier this year a disturbing proposal to commission a
supreme military commander to take charge in the event of a
"terrorist threat" received a favorable nod from the White House.
A Jan. 28 story in the New York Times reported that "The
Pentagon has decided to ask President Clinton for the power to
appoint a military leader for the continental U.S. because of
what it sees as a growing threat of major terrorist strikes on
U.S. soil."
The Times reported that "top White House officials have
reacted favorably," despite concerns from civil libertarians that
"such military power could slowly expand to threaten the privacy,
liberty, and lives of private citizens."
The U.S. Marine Corps document "Why Urban Warrior?" suggests
that foreign terrorists aren't the only domestic threat the
military is readying itself to address.
According to Urban Warrior strategists, approximately 85
percent of the world's population will live in cities by 2025,
and these cities will contain "all the classic ingredients for
conflict. There will be social, cultural, religious, and tribal
strife between different groups.
"Many areas will have scarce resources, including the most
basic ones like food and shelter. AS populations grow and
RESOURCES SHRINK even further, the chances for conflict will
naturally grow with it."
In a January article in Armed Forces Journal International,
Col. James A. Lasswell, head of experimental operations for the
MCWL, puts it even more directly: "There will be widespread
economic problems and cultural, ethnic, and tribal tensions, many
caused by wave after wave of immigration."
In another issue of the same publication, Major General
Scales minces no words about the military's role in urban warfare
in the decades ahead -- TO FIGHT ON BEHALF OF THE RICH AND
AGAINST THE POOR.
"The future urban center will contain a mixed population,
ranging from the rich elite to the poor and disenfranchised," he
writes. "Day-to-day existence for most of the urban poor will be
balanced tenuously on the edge of collapse.
"With social conditions ripe for exploitation, the smallest
tilt of unfavorable circumstance might be enough to instigate
starvation, disease, social foment, cultural unrest, or other
forms of urban violence.
"The enormous problems of infrastructure and the demand for
social services that threaten to swamp governing authorities in
the urban centers of emerging states will most likely worsen,"
Scales predicts. "Moreover, THE PROXIMITY OF THE DISENFRANCHISED
TO THE RULING ELITE provides the spark for further unrest and
sporadic violence."
Spokesperson Thiffault _volunteered_ that the marines have
no plans to take over U.S. cities.
For all the frightening clarity of the military's plans, the
documents leave one vital question unanswered. Urban Warrior
proposes nothing but open-ended battles for urban terrain. What
happens after the marines swarm ashore and successfully seize a
city? At what point would they stop blasting holes in the urban
infrastructure?
"That's one of the difficult points," Thiffault said. "When
do we get OUT? Who defines how we get out?"
He didn't offer any answers.
Copyright 1999 San Francisco Bay Guardian
[Gar Smith covered antiwar organizing and the military for the
Berkeley Barb. He is now editor in chief (on sabbatical) of
Earth Island Journal (winner of the Alternative Press Award for
best scientific and environmental reporting for 1997 and 1998).
He is the winner of three Project Censored reporting awards.]
DISTURBING THE PEACE
This isn't the first time the military
has practiced war games in U.S. cities
San Francisco Bay Guardian, March 10, 1999
* Kingsville, Texas
On Feb. 8, 1999, a squadron of eight black helicopters
flying at treetop level dropped a team of elite special
operations soldiers into the center of Kingsville. For the next
two hours the Army's Delta Force and Night Stalkers conducted a
"mock battle" with live ammunition and real explosives that
inadvertently set a building on fire. Elderly residents relaxing
on benches outside a retirement home watched in disbelief as
explosions blew out the windows of a large office building
nearby.
Army officials subsequently confirmed that soldiers had used
live ammunition, sometimes within a few hundred feet of startled
civilians. The officials emphasized that troops had only used
"training ammo," which employs plastic slugs and a smaller powder
charge. Soldiers had fitted the targeted buildings with "bullet
traps" designed to keep wayward bullets from flying outside the
designated training area.
The only people in Kingsville who had known about the
surprise raid (code-named Operation Last Dance) beforehand were
the mayor, the city manager, and the police chief.
According to World Net Daily, city officials were told not
to discuss the exercise "for national security reasons."
"Safety is our number one priority in these things," Fort
Bragg Army Special Operations Command spokesperson Walt Sokalski
insisted. Denying reports that the helicopters had opened fire
on the town, Sokalski offered this assurance: "The unsurity of
using [live] ammunition from ... aircraft ... is an unacceptable
risk that we do not want to put the citizens that are supporting
us in this training in."
* San Antonio
In May 1998, San Antonio refused a U.S. Army request to
stage urban warfare games in the city. "We're not going to go
someplace where we're not wanted," Sokalski claimed.
Nevertheless, the army continued to plan war games in the
vicinity of San Antonio.
According to World Net Daily reporter David Bresnahan, San
Antonio police chief Al Philipius complained that the military
had attempted to bribe local officials to encourage them to allow
the exercises.
* Chicago
That same month, the U.S. Marine Corps brought their Urban
Warrior act to Chicago. "I don't think we could have picked a
better city," marine public affairs officer Lt. Col. Jenny
Holbert told the Chicago Sun-Times.
During the exercise, a small contingent of marines STUDIED
CHICAGO'S BRIDGES, TUNNELS, SUBWAYS, SEWERS, WATER TREATMENT
PLANT, AND ELECTRICAL AND COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS.
* Pittsburgh
One summer night in 1996, nine army choppers and troops from
the Special Operations Command turned sections of Pittsburgh,
into a war zone, terrifying residents with gunfire and explosions
and sending one woman into premature labor. Pittsburgh police
were besieged with calls from fearful and angry citizens.
The remainder of the exercise, scheduled to last a week, was
canceled the next day. In its defense, the army insisted that it
had in fact notified police and residents in the "immediate
vicinity" several hours before the surprise attack.
"It is outrageous to give only a few hours' warning," Ian
Williams Goddard wrote in the Washington Times.
"It shows utter disregard for the sovereignty and dignity of
the people and their communities ... Is this an act of
intimidation? Is it an effort to teach people to tolerate
military occupation?"
--G.S.
______________________________________________________
SENDING IN THE TROOPS
East Bay city leaders rush to approve Urban Warrior
DESPITE protests from neighbors and environmentalists
by Angela Rowan
San Francisco Bay Guardian, March 10, 1999
One Sunday evening a year and a half ago, Pat Lynch was
preparing dinner when he was disturbed by the sound of
machine-gun fire less than a block away. "It sounded like there
was a gang war happening on the playground next to my house," the
Alameda resident said. When he called police to complain, the
dispatcher didn't know what the cause of the commotion was.
Lynch later discovered the noise was coming from U.S. Army
special forces, who were using explosives and firing blank
automatic weapons to stage an antiterrorist operation at the
former Alameda Naval Air Station, 250 feet from Lynch's home.
That evening the police department got calls from some 200
other Alameda residents, many of them parents of students of a
nearby elementary school. The city quickly moved to put an end
to the war games, which were stopped around 10 p.m. the night
they began. Alameda mayor Ralph Appezzato apologized to
residents and vowed never to allow unannounced military tests on
the former base, which was closed in 1997.
Two years later Appezzato, along with Oakland mayor Jerry
Brown, is welcoming another simulated military operation, a
four-day event that will involve nearly 1,600 marines, navy
sailors, and support personnel, dozens of helicopter trips from
Alameda to Oakland, 24,000 rounds of blank ammunition, and about
60 "flashbang" grenades. This time, the plans for the exercise
were announced a full six weeks before the exercise.
Some community members wonder what good the announcement did
-- since Alameda city manager James Flint and Oakland city
manager Robert Bobb had already written letters to the United
States Navy and Marines expressing their support for the
military's proposal.
Residents never had the opportunity to push city leaders to
block the training or meaningfully change the plans.
At a Feb. 25 community meeting, Bobb called the approval of
the event, the Urban Warrior Advanced Warfighting Experiment, an
"administrative decision," one that could not be vetoed by
residents concerned about the potential for noise problems and
environmental damage.
Environmentalists say the aircraft activity at the former
base might stir up toxic sediment at the Alameda seaplane lagoon
and release it into the bay. "The site has been recommended by
the United States Environmental Protection Agency for the
Superfund list twice," Lynch told us. "This is not a place for
the marines to be playing games."
Some activists question the authority by which Oakland and
Alameda leaders signed off on the deal in the first place. Navy
guidelines prohibit the use of former navy bases for military or
civilian training or exercises without the approval of the local
base reuse authority. The Alameda Reuse and Redevelopment
Authority, a 10-member panel that includes Appezzato and Brown,
never held a meeting on the matter. The Oakland Base Reuse
Authority (OBRA), of which Appezzato and Brown are also members,
discussed Urban Warrior at its Feb. 22 meeting but didn't vote on
the proposal because navy representatives told members that the
decision could only be made by the mayors.
We asked Ed Levine, facilities manager for the Alameda Reuse
and Redevelopment Authority, how city officials could give the
navy the go-ahead without getting approval from the base reuse
authorities. He told us Appezzato had reasoned "that since the
navy still owns the naval air station, they have jurisdiction and
authority over what happens here."
Appezzato was mistaken. Jeff Young is a public information
officer for the Engineering Field Activity West, the naval agency
that handles the closure, cleanup, and conversion of Bay Area
naval bases. "We have no local authority to approve military
training at the bases," Young told us.
"Normally the military would contact a city's local reuse
authority [LRA]," he said. But he suggested the navy could
ignore that policy if it would be politically expedient to do so.
"Given the visibility and recent history of Urban Warrior in the
San Francisco area, we thought it best to work with the mayors of
Oakland and Alameda," he said. "These are the cities' highest
elected officials. They have a close and daily working
relationship with the LRAs."
Oakland mayor Brown declined to comment for this story.
Speaking through press agent Stacey Wells, Brown told us, "On
this subject, our respective positions are so far apart that
further discussion would be unproductive."
In public statements on the issue, Brown has brought up the
military's promise to pour at least $4.5 million into Oakland's
economy and has expressed his desire to support U.S. military
preparedness. Oakland City Council member Nancy Nadel, who
recently debated Brown on the issue on KPFA, says the military's
claims are spurious, since the military plans to provide room and
board to the marines and sailors participating in the exercise.
"The only economic boost is to our prostitutes on San Pablo," she
told us.
Nadel, who is also a member of OBRA, pushed to have the
issue heard by the council. The council's Rules Committee voted
not to schedule a hearing.
But the deal isn't in the bag yet. Neighborhood groups,
peace activists, and environmentalists plan to file suit against
the military for not allowing adequate public participation and
for failing to do an adequate environmental assessment (E.A.) to
prove that the operations will have no negative environmental
impact.
The public had two weeks to review the E.A. and submit
comments to the military, which can make changes in the plans
based on public input.
According to a 16-page letter sent to the navy March 1 by
Arc Ecology, a nonprofit that monitors base cleanups, the E.A.
fails to consider traffic impacts and noise pollution from
low-flying aircraft and, most important, doesn't adequately state
the potential dangers of hovercraft landings at the contaminated
Alameda lagoon.
The navy's Sam Dennis, group leader for active bases,
defended the E.A. He was confident the mock invasion wouldn't
pollute the bay. "The contaminated areas in the lagoon are in
areas away from our operations," he said.
Neighbors and peace activists say the two-week public
comment period, which ended March 1, wasn't enough time to review
the 200-page E.A. Military and city officials rejected requests
to extend the public comment period and hold a public hearing.
Dennis told us that the navy is reviewing the public comments but
that it doesn't expect to find any significant problems with the
E.A.
He said the navy is expected to give final environmental
approval to the experiment by March 14 -- the day before the
exercise begins.
Arc Ecology executive director Saul Bloom told us the only
chance community members had to speak out was at the Feb. 22 OBRA
meeting. "They gave each person a minute to talk," he said.
"This is fairly typical of the Department of Defense's 'public
participation' process."
"But I was really disappointed in the city." Bloom says he
feels betrayed by Brown and suspects the mayor's support for
Urban Warrior is intended not to bring prosperity to Oaklanders
but to further his own career. "It's tragic to see him waste a
considerable amount of support from his core constituents," Bloom
told us. "I just hope he thinks his future aspirations for
national office are worth the price."
