really great piece on the meaning of the term coup d'etat, shrubya, pappa bush, etc.
COUP 2K By John Dee
It was the Republicans who first bandied the term "coup d'etat" to describe the 2000 presidential election. Jack Kemp, Dole's running-mate in 1996, flat-out called Florida Supreme Court rulings that ordered the votes should be counted a "judicial coup d'etat." The theme was echoed in a chorus that included Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and other right-wing propagandists. Since then, observers ranging from Studs Terkel1 to the London Observer2 have turned the tables and labeled the Bush victory a coup. But how much of this is merely rhetoric? During the election crisis, the absence of "tanks in the streets" was often cited as a sign that however wacky things were, democracy was still intact. And indeed, the popular conception of a "coup d'etat" is of a violent uprising, usually by the military, with shooting in the streets, mass arrests, secret executions and torture. Sometimes even the presidential residence is blown to smithereens. In reality, this perception of coups is somewhat mistaken. Strictly speaking, that sort of military overthrow is more properly considered a "putsch." Coups are often a different breed of covert action altogether, and often much quieter. In fact, much of what we just witnessed not only matches historical examples from the CIA's past history of election rigging and outright overthrows, but can be found in a respected coup "manual" authored by a one-time advisor to President Reagan. While a detailed analysis of the election along these lines would easily fill an entire book, here are some key points for consideration. What is a Coup d'Etat? One of the landmark studies of the mechanics of coups d'etat was first published in 1968 by Harvard University. Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook was written by Edward Luttwak, a conservative scholar with a long career in the national security system. During the Reagan-era, he served as a "consultant" to the National Security Council and the State Dept. Currently, Luttwak is a senior fellow of "Preventive Diplomacy" at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank with close ties to US intelligence. He is also a member of the National Security Study Group of the Dept. of Defense.3 In his study, Luttwak writes that while a coup may have characteristics of other, more violent forms of extra-legal seizure of power, "the coup is not necessarily assisted by either the intervention of the masses, or, to any significant degree, by military-type force."4 But if a coup does not use warfare or a mass uprising to seize control, then where does it get the power to do so? "The short answer," Luttwak says, "is that the power will come from the state itself
A coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder."5 Normally, a coup does not seek to destroy the basic structure of the existing government, which is more typical of a revolution or a war for liberation. Instead, Luttwak explains, those undertaking a true coup d'etat "want to seize power within the present system, and [they] shall only stay in power if [they] embody some new status quo supported by those very forces which a revolution may seek to destroy."6 (Emphasis in original.) In other words, the coup takes advantage of the governmental structure itself, as well as the bureaucratic nature of modern governments. There is an established hierarchy, an accepted chain of command, and standard procedures that are followed when instructions come down this pipeline. So long as the instructions come from the appropriate source or level of authority, they will almost always be followed even if from a new, and illegitimate, holder of that authority.