BLACKFIVE: Fear the Military Takeover

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Fear the Military Takeover

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

The CATO Institute has a paper out bemoaning the fact that the military is planning and training for a possible nuclear, chemical or bio attack or a natural disaster large enough that our police and the Guard would be unable to handle it on their own. They throw up so many straw man arguments that I went ahead and made my own with the title, although they state they do not fear a coup. Just the sight of active duty troops helping America in an emergency.

The mainstream media has finally gotten around to reporting that the Pentagon has assigned active-duty troops to a homeland defense mission, a historical first. On Oct. 1, the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, freshly redeployed from Iraq, began a year-long assignment as a domestic "chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force," or CCMRF ("Sea-Smurf"). The 1st BCT is the first of three CCMRF teams, who will comprise 15,000-20,000 soldiers, according to the Army. The other two will come from the Army National Guard or reserves.

Neither the terrorist threat nor the hazards of bad weather require rethinking our traditional reluctance to use standing armies at home. We need not fear a coup, but we should worry about misusing our busy military for civilian tasks and developing an tendency to rely on the troops to answer every scare.

If they don't train for it then how will they be able to answer the very real threat posed by an attack with a mass casualty device in the US. In addition they assume that police and Guardsmen would be able to handle any contingency, completely ignoring the lack of a national command structure for either. The point of this is that it is possible something very bad could happen and we ought to have a plan. Sorry that gets your knickers in a twist fellas.

Initial reports were that the 1st BCT might be used to deal with civil unrest and crowd control, missions that would be in severe tension with the Posse Comitatus Act, the longstanding federal statute that restricts the president's ability to use the U.S. military as a domestic police force. In September, the Army Times described the unit's training as "the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded," including beanbag bullets, Tasers and traffic roadblocks.

I'm not sure if these bright lights from CATO are aware, but once kinetic operations give way to counterinsurgency, then all these tasks become part and parcel of a unit's mission.

That report, along with the Bush administration's claim that the Constitution allows that president to use forces as he sees fit, no matter what Congress forbids, created well-founded fears that the CCMRFs first attack would be on Posse Comitatus.

Nice straw man you set up there fellas. You wanna get me a quote that comes anywhere near that over reach.

Yet Pentagon spokespeople deny that forces will be used for law enforcement purposes. And one suspects that the Bush administration's monarchial view of executive power will be out of fashion come January.

Just in case we wondered whether these guys had open minds, they ensure we know they do not.

That shouldn't placate us. The real trouble is what is legal, not what isn't. Even when it doesn't lead to collateral damage, the use of standing armies at home can, to quote Jefferson, "overawe the public sentiment," and acclimate Americans to a militarized home front inconsistent with democratic life.

There has been no proposal anywhere to make this a regular thing. Matter of fact this is the ultimate in contingency planning for events everyone hopes never happen.

But there is no good argument that domestic militarization is necessary to keep us safe. Civilian officers have been successfully keeping the peace and responding to disasters for a century or so, occasionally supplemented by National Guardsmen under the command of their state governors. Every state's National Guard force is now equipped to cope with attacks using unconventional weapons. Their ranks will be bolstered as the war in Iraq winds down.

I have to agree that these forces have been tremendously effective in handling the many nuclear, biological and chemical attacks on the US. They have been able to control the millions of panicked citizens and did a marvelous job of securing the entire country against the well-planned, comprehensive attacks in multiple locations. Oh that's right nothing like this has happened, thank God, so the idea that we shouldn't have a plan for it is naive.

The regular military is wonderful for destroying enemy troop formations or bombing their command centers, but not for finding hidden killers like terrorists. Intelligence and old-fashioned police work are our most potent counter-terrorism tools.

Which is why nobody has said that is even part of this. This is making sure we have an answer if AQ manages to get a nuke or a dirty bomb or a chemical agent. Any of those deployed in multiple locations could spook enough people to overwhelm our police and the Guard. Heaven forbid our enemies actually deploy multiple Mumbai attacks. Personally if that happens I would welcome the firepower and building clearing abilities of our blooded and extremely competent military. When was the last time a SWAT team faced attackers with auto weapons and grenades in a huge hotel? They haven't and it is not difficult to imagine a scenario where they would be overwhelmed.

Neither does Hurricane Katrina justify a domestic army.

No one is proposing that you straw man assembly line.

The problem there was the mismanagement of the National Guard and local first responders, not their lack of capacity.

Oh really, so all those helicopters saving lives during Katrina were Guard only? NOPE, plenty of active duty birds were in the air and I can't imagine these clowns would rather they had stayed on the ground. They need to remember that active duty troops are Americans and if they happen to be around during a disaster or a major attack they would be Americans first, and it hurts no one to have plans reflecting that.

Moreover, using troops at home undermines military readiness. When soldiers are forced into the role of police officers, their war-fighting skills degrade, according to a 2003 General Accounting Office report that looked at some of the homeland security missions the military carried out after 9/11. The GAO also found that, naturally, such missions also put a serious strain on a military already heavily committed abroad.

As I mentioned before the role of responding to a domestic disaster or attack mirrors the counterinsurgency mission that we now can see is vital in our two current battlefields. And maybe it slipped past their deep look at this, but the planet's first responder is the US military. We are there whenever something bad happens performing all the functions these folks think we should deprive our own home front of.

Yet creeping militarization continues, and few in the media or Congress object. The militarized future to fear isn't one that ends in a dictatorship or martial law. Our troops' commitment to civilian rule prevents that. The danger we face is one in which the public embraces the notion that civilian institutions are weak and messy, and that when you want the job done, you call in the boys in green. That approach will make us no safer – only less free.

Since Katrina showed a failure at every level of civilian response already, particularly glaring at the city and state level contrary to the fable, perhaps Americans deserve a chance to be helped by whoever actually can. I'm sorry the CATO brainiacs fear the idea, but plenty of us can reasonably see scenarios that are more than our civilian agencies and Guard can handle. Instead of making up a "Fear the Militarization" fairy tale, we would prefer those charged with our safety to use all available tools to keep us safe. Lighten up Francis.