You thought President Obama had his hands full sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan? That’s small potatoes compared to the other big military plan on his agenda: returning 200,000 troops from other countries to the U. S. Northern Command in preparation for an imminent civil war at home.

At least that’s the word from some on the right wing-fringe — in this case, LewRockwell.com and pastor and former presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin. And from where did they get this surprising information? The European Union Times (EUT). In the likely event you’re unfamiliar with it, that online publication carries links to American white supremacist publications like American Renaissance (whose editor says black people cannot sustain civilization) and carries section headings that include “European Pride” and “Survival.” Among the stories in the first category are pieces about Christians in Moldavia tearing down an outdoor menorah, and the decline of mixed marriages in Russia. Stories featured in the “Survival” section include another citizens’ “grand jury” planning to “indict” Obama — this time in Tennessee — and the “great victory” in Switzerland, where voters recently backed an arguably referendum to ban the erection of minarets. A third section carries a litany of accounts of black-on-white crimes.

The EUT claims that Obama has issued orders to “begin immediately” preparing for a 200,000-troop increase to the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based U.S. Northern Command, formed seven years ago to oversee homeland defense. That’s so it can prepare for “an expected outbreak of civil war within the United States before the end of winter,” the EUT claims. The supposed implosion of the nation’s banking system will foment this explosion of violence. “Russian military analysts” are the source for this shocking news, as well as “reports,” which claim that there are “over 220 million American people armed to the teeth and ready to explode.” Of course, no actual analysts or reports are named. But that didn’t stop somebody named Michael Gaddy writing for LewRockwell.com, and Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party’s presidential candidate in 2008, from hyping the story.

Rockwell is a libertarian commentator and blogger and former aide to U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), as well as current chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Auburn, Ala. Gaddy is a contributor to his website. Gaddy’s only qualifications appear to be that he is an Army veteran of Vietnam, Grenada and Beirut. “Either the government is anticipating a total financial breakdown, there are plans to confiscate firearms, a new false flag event is in the works, or any combination of the three,” he concludes from the EUT story.

“On the minds of many Americans and politicians is exactly how will the military and law enforcement react if told to confiscate firearms or move American citizens to FEMA camps,” Gaddy added on LewRockwell.com. “Brace yourselves and prepare, this is going to get real ugly.”

Not to be outdone, Baldwin also dug up the FEMA camp canard — a central, and completely groundless, conspiracy theory of the militia movement of the 1990s — in a piece he wrote on his website last Friday. “This would help explain the reports of all those potential detention camps that have been constructed (including the abandoned military installations that have refurbished fences, guard towers, etc., around them),” he wrote.

Baldwin called for a “revolution of the individual states: to reclaim their sovereignty and fight for the liberties of their sovereigns (We the People). Furthermore, such a revolution would be constitutional, lawful, moral, and, yes, in compliance with the laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Still, the Pensacola, Fla., pastor hedged on the reliability of the EUT story, saying that Obama “might be” worried about a civil war. That, however, was reason enough for him to write a lengthy, alarmist essay about it.