If 'The X-Files' is to be believed, the Pentagon is involved in a nefarious plot to take over the world using the budget process to make Americans obese.
At least, that's what Military Times took away from the show's recent season opener, in which Joel McHale played a conspiracy theorist who sounded an awful lot like Alex Jones of Infowars fame.
During Sunday's the Jan. 24 episode, McHale’s character alleged that a shady group of global elites are trying to keep the world in a constant state of war while using "tools like the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act, which abridge the Constitution in the name of national security."
If Military Times heard McHale right, his character also claimed that the military is also assisting corporate America to "to fatten, dull, sicken and control a populace already controlled by consumerism."
The goal of all of these efforts is apparently to use tissue harvested from aliens to create alien-human hybrid babies. When the bad guys strike, they will knock out U.S. power grinds using electromagnetic pulse weapons so that no one can get money from ATMs. What they plan to do next is unclear.
In order to figure out whether any of this is within the realm of possibility, let's start with the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the Pentagon's first attempt to get the money it needs. Since our elected leaders are at war over taxes and spending, defense spending gets used as a pawn for each party to try to extract concessions from the other. The end result is the afterbirth of partisanship.
The Pentagon is the Defense Department's headquarters.
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Military Times asked the Defense Department if the NDAA calls for funding any of the nefarious activities mentioned in the X-Files.
"Thanks for your weird question," replied intrepid Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright. "The FY 2015 NDAA did not allow for funding of any alien/human hybrid colonization, whatever that means. The 2016 NDAA also did not allow for this, nor is DoD asking for anything similar to that in our upcoming budgets.
"We also have no programs of any kind intended to make Americans become obese. I can't imagine why anyone would possibly think that the DoD would be involved with something like that. Not only would it be illegal and immoral — it would also be stupid. We look for healthy, intelligent young Americans to recruit as members of our armed forces of tomorrow."
That doesn't mean that all criticism of the NDAA is invalid. Past NDAAs have allowed the U.S. government to indefinitely detain American citizens accused of being part of al-Qaida or other terrorist groups, said Rachel W. VanLandingham, who teaches law at Southwestern Law School.
Jose Padilla spent more than three years in the Navy brig at Charleston, South Carolina, without being charged. He was later sentenced to 21 years in federal prison after being convicted of charges of supporting al-Qaida.
Since Padilla was held at the brig, President Obama has vowed not to hold Americans indefinitely without charge, VanLandingham said. Moreover, the House version of the 2015 NDAA would have banned the U.S. government from using drones to attack U.S. citizens, such as Anwar al-Awlaki, but that was not included in the final bill.
'The X-Files' had its season premiere on Jan. 24.
Photo Credit: Fox Broadcasting Co.
Beyond the murky NDAA/alien/hybrid/obesity conspiracy arc, some of what "The X-Files" predicts is not so far-fetched. When it comes to the threat posed by electromagnetic pulse weapons, "The X-Files episode is not only plausible — it understates the real threat," said Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, executive director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security, which advises Congress.
Most people believe EMPs can only be created by nuclear explosions, but an EMP attack could also be launched with radio-frequency or RF weapons, which are easy to build, Pry said.
"When I worked for the Counter-Terrorism Panel of the House Armed Services Committee, we did an experiment to assess whether terrorists could build RF weapons," he said. "We gave a little money to a person with a degree in electrical engineering, a couple of students to help, and tasked them to build an RF weapon, using unclassified design information available on the internet, and using only parts available through Radio Shack. In a year, they built not one, but TWO, weapons, which were successfully tested at Aberdeen Proving Ground."
"The X-Files" creator and executive producer Chris Carter could not be reached for comment by deadline on Thursday. In April, Carter told Military Times that his grandfather served in World War I and his father served during the Korean War.
When asked why the U.S. military come across in the show as the enemy of democracy, Carter replied: "That's a misconception. Two recent experiences renewed my faith in our military leaders: My trip to the Pentagon last spring and seeing Robert Gates speak last month. Secrecy is the enemy of democracy, but some secrecy must be maintained for national security. Are there transgressions? I only know what I read."
