I wonder if their helicopters are black?

William Arkin’s Early Warning Column in the Washingron Post looks to be required reading for people who need something real to feed their paranoia. Today’s column focuses on “Granite Shadow. . . an unclassified name for a classified plan” that—if Arkin is correct—concerns military action within the United States in the event that no civilian authority is in charge.

As my comment on this posting points out (scroll down), I don’t have problems with worst case military planning. The military is supposed to prepare for the worst. I do have a problem with a level of secrecy so great that they actually invented a new classification for it. This is particularly troubling as the program actually needs a measure of publicity if it is to be successful in an emergency.

And that’s where the paranoia comes in. I can’t be the only person who realizes that public debate confers a legitimacy that would be essential for gaining quick cooperation in the face of a terrible emergency. If that is not important to them, then the next question is, logically, what is Granite Shadow’s real purpose?

Probably, of course, its real purpose is as stated. As Robert Heinlein once noted in in “Logic of Empire”, I may“have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity." But secrecy, particularly in regards to military planning for situations in which civilian leaders are dead, lends itself to such confusion.

Oh yes. The military is supposed to be conducting a"'demonstration'" in D.C. today. I doubt if they will be carrying signs.