BY WAYNE MADSEN / WAYNE MADSEN REPORT http://www.waynemadsenreport.com

WMR has been investigating a covert operation involving active duty and reserve US military personnel who infiltrate anti-war groups in the United States, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan veterans groups opposed to the Bush administration’s war policies.

The move by the Bush administration appears to be a resurrection of Operation Garden Plot, a 1960s program that saw the use of National Guard units to quell civil disturbances in the United States, in addition to the infiltration of anti-war groups by National Guard and Reserve intelligence personnel.

On April 11, 2002, Major General (ret.) Richard Alexander, the executive director of the National Guard Association of the United States, tipped his hand on Garden Plot when he testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Homeland Defense.

Alexander stated, “Oversight of these homeland security missions should be provided by the National Guard Bureau based on the long-standing Garden Plot model in which National Guard units are trained and equipped to support civil authorities in crowd control and civil disturbance missions.”

The use of “plants” and infiltrators, in all their various forms, was commonplace with Garden Plot and COINTELPRO in the 1960s and 70s. The practice has been renewed by the Bush administration, and with the state of current technology, in ways that could only have dreamed about by the original Garden Plot/COINTELPRO planners.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington based investigative journalist. His website is: http://www.WayneMadsenReport.com