From the October 2005 Idaho Observer:

Bush administration turns federal incompetance into promise that military force will help win coming flu fight

by The Idaho Observer

The World Health Organization (WHO) is creating worldwide hysteria over what they consider the potential for a real flu pandemic this winter. With 100 confirmed human cases and 64 deaths from a specific avian form of the flu virus, H5N1, since November 2003, the WHO is moving into high gear despite the lack of any cases proving the virus has been transmitted from human to human.

What surprises many researchers are the obvious questions that have yet to be addressed. With over 100 million birds dead either from the avian flu or destroyed to prevent its spread, we need to know what environmental factors played a role in these birds being particularly susceptible to acquiring this disease.

What was in their food, their water and the air they breathed? By understanding that a specific pathogen must also have the right environmental factors for its survival and proliferation, shouldn’t these factors be the main focus of the WHO’s research? And, if humans are now coming down with a flu that matches the strain found in birds, we need to know their health profiles for further research.

As we analyze the current epidemics and deaths from cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases, the deaths from avian flu seem to pale in comparison. If the WHO hasn’t effectively addressed the annual increase in the numbers of people affected with these current epidemics of chronic ailments, why should we trust them when they sound the alarm on a "potential" avian flu pandemic?

With no proof of human-to-human transmission, less than 100 human lives lost over a two-year period and many questions remaining unanswered regarding their medical records, the discerning should be very suspicious that another agenda is playing out.

As I have shown, logic and reason are not part of the equation when it comes to promoting an agenda that has been in the wings for nearly a decade. In July, 1999, The Idaho Observer published an article summarizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) broadcast of "Preparing for the Next Influenza Pandemic" to public health officials and nurses all over the country February 25, 1999. The purpose of the program was to alert health professionals and community leaders that a world-wide influenza pandemic is not only imminent but inevitable, and that preparations must be made now to handle what is expected to be millions of sick people.

After 9/11, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson went into high gear, promoting along with the CDC the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA). Lawrence O. Gostin authored MEHPA and was paid $300,000 each year for three years to develop the plan. In states where it was adopted, MEHPA gives each state governor dictatorial powers in the event of a public health emergency, whether the emergency is real or considered imminent. Once a public health emergency is declared, local authorities have the power to enforce quarantines, vaccinate people, ration medical supplies, confiscate food and fuel and seize and destroy private property without compensation or court order.

Only seven states—Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and New Hampshire—and the District of Columbia passed portions of MEHPA. No state passed all, or even nearly all, of the model MEHPA legislation. A dozen states—California, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming—affirmatively rejected or shelved MEPHA, while four others—Louisiana, South Dakota, Utah, and Vermont—effectively rejected the measure by passing alternative bills.

Not to be defeated in its bid for medical martial law, the Bush administration pushed for passage of Project BioShield which President Bush signed into law in June, 2004. Project BioShield bypasses states’ rights by giving the secretaries of the Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) exclusive authority to declare a national emergency, whether real, potential or imagined.

Under Project BioShield, Donald Rumsfeld and Michael Leavitt could trigger the infrastructure for mass vaccinating or medicating the entire U.S. population with experimental (unlicensed and untested) drugs.

On April 1, 2005 President Bush added pandemic influenza to the list of diseases for which quarantine is authorized under executive order 13295.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, governors Kathy Blanco (Louisiana) and Haley Barbour (Mississippi) never conceded their authority in the chain of command to FEMA. In fact, a few sheriffs, disgusted by FEMA’s tactics and delayed response, refused to allow the feds into their counties.

Not to be defeated in his legal attempts for a complete federal power grab, at a press conference October 4, President Bush seized on the threat of an avian flu pandemic to push for the legislative changes necessary to grant him the power to deploy the military in police operations on American soil.

When a reporter posed the question of how real the threat of an avian flu pandemic was and what he proposes to do, Bush responded:

"The policy questions for a president in dealing with an avian flu outbreak are difficult. One example: If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine? When — it’s one thing to shut down airplanes; it’s another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to affect a quarantine? One option is the use of a military that’s able to plan and move. So that’s why I put it on the table. I think it’s an important debate for Congress to have."

The president’s talk of deploying troops to enforce quarantines has no precedent as a public health measure in the U.S. Historically, quarantines have been applied against individuals and families diagnosed with an infectious disease, or used in extreme circumstances to prevent the congregation of large groups of people in areas where a disease is spreading. But sealing off whole regions of the country by military force and preventing anyone from entering or leaving them has more in common with civil war measures than preventive health care.

It is not clear why the military would be needed for such an operation, unless it would be to set up roadblocks and shoot down anyone attempting to escape a region placed under quarantine.

Even public health professionals blasted the proposal, warning that the president’s remarks were indicative of his administration’s failure to prepare for the looming flu threat.

Referring to the danger of a flu pandemic, Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, warned that the U.S. government is phenomenally unprepared for an influenza pandemic. He described Bush’s proposal as "extraordinarily draconian," and added that "the translation of this is martial law in the United States."

Bush’s call for using troops in the event of a flu pandemic follows his insistence in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that the Pentagon take charge of all major disaster response and relief. The response to the devastation in New Orleans was itself delayed until the U.S. military was able to amass a large number of combat-equipped troops—a delay that caused immense suffering and several deaths for those trapped in the city.

As a result of the failed emergency response to Katrina, Bush and other administration officials have repeatedly urged Congress to repeal or amend the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 statute that bars the use of the military in domestic policing, except in the case of suppressing an insurrection.

It is clear that the Bush administration is attempting to take advantage of growing concern over a potential pandemic to advance a political agenda that has nothing to do with the threat to public health.

As in the Katrina disaster, the Bush administration’s response to the flu threat combines criminal incompetence and negligence with conspiracies against the American people.

The administration is seizing upon every social crisis, both real and potential, to push for the unrestricted power to impose martial law. Amazingly, neither the political opposition in the Democratic Party nor the mass media has subjected these proposals, including the absurd call for using troops against the flu, to probing criticism.

Several factors are merging to set the stage for a national economic crisis. This looming economic threat, combined with unprecedented class polarization between the financial elite and the masses of working people, are creating conditions for major social upheavals. The political response is to gradually set the stage for a police-state dictatorship. The potential of an avian flu pandemic has now become their "Pearl Harbor" for locking down the country and imposing medical martial law.

The new game plan

In a brilliant piece of investigative sleuthing, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny uncovered this year’s 10-point flu scare campaign plan:

1. Start where your audience is

2. Don’t be a afraid to frighten people

3. Acknowledge uncertainty

4. Share dilemmas (public health deliverers and public)

5. Give people something to do (rehearse, prepare mentally)

6. Be willing to speculate—responsibly

7. Don’t get caught in numbers game

8. Stress potential magnitude over probability

9. Guide the adjustment reaction (worry, fright, drugs)

10. Inform the public early and aim for total candor and transparency.

For the full article, send $2 for a copy of the Fall, 2005 edition of The VacLib Letter or go to www.redflagsdaily.com/articles/2005sep12.html. But knowing what you now know about Flu Scare 2005, you are able to discern, even from this brief outline, how the plan above is being implemented.