Death Squads in America?

The soil for death squads to form and operate within the United States is fertile and very real.

Ann Coulter, armed and dangerous

(Calgary, Alberta) - Anyone who has followed events outside the U.S. over the last few decades has heard of the death squads. They have been active as extrajudicial killing forces in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Peru, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and others elsewhere in the world.

Anyone familiar with American history, knows that Death Squads didn't originate, but were certainly active in The land of the free and the home of the brave.

After the Civil War the Ku Klux Klan lynched African-Americans, often with the tacit approval of local and state governments in the American south. In the introduction to his book Death Squads in Global Perspective: Murder With Deniability Bruce B. Campbell described the KKK as "one of the first proto-death squads," which "conducted death-squad-like killings and other terrorist acts against recently freed black slaves…and those thought to have collaborated too closely with agents of the victorious federal government engaged in ‘reconstructing’ the recently rebellious South." Campbell noted that the main difference with modern death-squads was that the Ku Klux Klan was associated with elements of a defeated state rather than the ruling governmental entity. "Otherwise, in its murderous intent, links to private elite interests, and covert nature, it very closely resembles modern death squads.”

Greg Grandin, in a Salon.com post, accuses the United States of being responsible for training and setting up death squads in South and Central American countries. The School of the Americas, run by the US Army in Georgia, has been accused by many of having trained "500 of the worst human rights abusers in the hemisphere”. And, lest we forget, Osama bin Laden was originally trained and funded by the CIA.

The soil for death squads to operate within the United States is fertile and very real.

According to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies the United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world . Canada has about 30 guns per 100 people.

Add that much firepower to a disintegrating social fabric, and it is virtually inevitable that some people will decide for themselves, or in cooperation with others of like mind, that the plight of the U.S. is caused by those who think differently—primarily “liberals”. A beginning to this has already been seen with the bombing of abortion clinics and the assassination of doctors who performed abortions. When Jared Lee Loughner tried to assassinate Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona last year, my first thought was that it was beginning.

It won’t take much to tip a lot of people over. Ann Coulter, in her book Treason wrote:

“Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason. You could be talking about Scrabble and they would instantly leap to the anti-American position. Everyone says liberals love America, too. No they don’t. Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence….Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America….This makes them enemies of America….We won’t have any enemies because we’re going to kill them.”

An American bloodbath appears to be increasingly likely every day.

Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Daniel Johnson as a teenager aspired to be a writer. Always a voracious reader, he reads more books in a month than many people read in a lifetime. He also reads 100+ online articles per week. He knew early that in order to be a writer, you have to be a reader.

He has always been concerned about fairness in the world and the plight of the underprivileged/underdog.

As a professional writer he sold his first paid article in 1974 and, while employed at other jobs, started selling a few pieces in assorted places.

Over the next 15 years, Daniel eked out a living as a writer doing, among other things, national writing and both radio and TV broadcasting for the CBC, Maclean’s (the national newsmagazine) and a wide variety of smaller publications. Interweaved throughout this period was soul-killing corporate and public relations writing.

It was through the 1960s and 1970s that he got his university experience. In his first year at the University of Calgary, he majored in psychology/mathematics; in his second year he switched to physics/mathematics. He then learned of an independent study program at the University of Lethbridge where he attended the next two years, studying philosophy and economics. In the end he attended university over nine years (four full time) but never qualified for a degree because he didn't have the right number of courses in any particular field.

In 1990 he published his first (and so far, only) book: Practical History: A guide to Will and Ariel Durant’s “The Story of Civilization” (Polymath Press, Calgary)

Newly appointed as the Deputy Executive Editor in August 2011, he has been writing exclusively for Salem-News.com since March 2009 and, as of February 2012, has published more than 180 stories.

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