Here's some scary news from someone in a position to know:

Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.

....

In the magazine’s December edition, the former commander of the military’s Central Command warned that if terrorists succeeded in using a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) against the U.S. or one of our allies, it would likely have catastrophic consequences for our cherished republican form of government.

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Franks then offered “in a practical sense” what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack.

“It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.”

Franks didn’t speculate about how soon such an event might take place.

Already, critics of the U.S. Patriot Act, rushed through Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, have argued that the law aims to curtail civil liberties and sets a dangerous precedent.

But Franks’ scenario goes much further. He is the first high-ranking official to openly speculate that the Constitution could be scrapped in favor of a military form of government.

The usually camera-shy Franks retired from U.S. Central Command, known in Pentagon lingo as CentCom, in August 2003, after serving nearly four decades in the Army.

It strikes me that we are very fortunate that this has not already happened. For many years, my worst fear was that a nuclear weapon would somehow be detonated in New York, and that this would mean not just the end of New York, but the end of American freedom. September 11 came close to realizing that fear.

I live about five hundred yards away from a Wahhabist-style mosque and school, and while they were always good neighbors, the seeming tension between my natural libertarianism and seeing veiled women running around caused me to worry in an "irrational" manner.

By that I mean on an emotional level. I don't like to be ruled by my emotions, but this was just a feeling sort of thing. I tried to put these thoughts out of my mind, and to get it all out of my system I went so far as to "compose" a sort of musical cutup, expressing my utter dread, my fear and loathing, in an attempt to express in psychic terms what words could not.

It's a collage, and I guess General Franks' role in all this is as a sort of "psychic DJ" who inspired me to put it on my blog today. (Of course, reading about genuine blogger music may have also played a part.)

It is creepy and grotesque, and deliberately so. If you don't like it, well, I'm sorry. I didn't intend for it to be liked.

Title is "The Helmsman." I made it on July 21, 2001 -- the Summer Solstice -- and I have just now converted it to RealAudio format for ease in streaming.

You can click here if you want to listen.....

But don't say you weren't warned!