Where Is The First Brigade?
It is a pleasure to be part of a discussion with commentators so very sophisticated about these issues. As a layperson I still have many questions and probably not enough time to have them addressed given our time limit, but I do want to take this chance to put them out there to you all. As exciting as it is to consider the various scenarios presented for change, and as persuasive as the proposals are, I am not sure how the same constraints --in terms of the power of the defense industry not only to lobby for their own agenda, whether or not it is ours, but to affect decision-making itself--will not apply this time around.
And, perhaps more importantly, while I have all of your ears here in cyberspace, I turn the question over to you: where is the First Brigade? Many of you are plugged into information and have access to influential people not available to the Americans across the country who have been asking me about this. You could also let us know: what is their mission here? Why did Northcom's stated version of their mission change once questions were asked, from 'crowd control' to 'helping communities affected by weapons of mass destruction?' What information led to that change in mission? Are any other troops going to be deployed here or is this it? And why is the First Brigade here to duplicate tasks that are already covered by the National Guard and various emergency services?
Heck, I would be happy with just one answer to the first question: where is the First Brigade?
If you can find out from your colleagues or contacts will you please inform us? Because the New York Times and the wire services and CNN and Frontline haven't yet. Let's have a scoop once again on TPM. It is certainly a question that matters a great deal to ordinary citizens I am hearing from so it can't be so insignificant to those deputized with covering newsworthy events.
Thank you.
Let me ask you a question: What essential task would the military perform in the case of a large natural or unnatural disaster?
Crowd control, be it stopping looters or transporting people from affected areas to clean areas or whatever the scope of the disaster demanded. It is the same mission they explained before with an expanded definition to help allay the suspicions of the far left who don't know when to turn off their suspicious natures. I guess they assumed crowd control as a mission in such a situation would be very easy to understand.
The military is not going to take over the country a brigade certainly won't even take over a large, inner-city neighborhood like the Bronx or south Chicago or southeast Washington DC. They certainly couldn't secure some of our rural areas with tons of guns and an innate distrust of the government. Never mind the fact that it is militarily impossible, our military will never go for it. We are charged with upholding the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. We are specifically trained NOT to follow illegal orders. That doesn't even take into account that American Soldiers and Marines will never fire on America citizens in the sustained Guerrilla war that would be necessary to seize power in this country using military force.
You should really let this one go or at the very least get some context for your views, because to anyone more in the center of the political spectrum or anyone who is a vet, they sound like paranoid rants based on limited understanding of the military's structure, culture and history.
I think you make great points about disaster capitalism and our obligation to reign in American contractors being paid with taxpayer dollars, but you really need to do some more research about the US military. You risk your credibility with the center of American politics by continuing to dismiss all comments to your posts here that don't agree with the premise that the US military could be used to take the country over. That would be a shame, because I think you have much to contribute in the continued deprogramming of American conservatives with regards to certain aspects of our corporate-dominated state.
November 2, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
The military might not attack real Americans. Unfortunately, Republicans teach that at least half of us are not real Americans.
November 2, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Republicans" do no such thing. A dying ideology that is desperately trying to retain their position of power use that nonsense to fool perhaps 20% of the electorate, very few of whom ever served in the military.
November 2, 2008 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates are not only strongly insinuating that about half of all Americans are not real Americans, they and their spokespersons have directly said so.
It doesn't get more Republican than that, your own brain-warping ideology notwithstanding (notworthstanding).
Your Republican Party has rotted from the head down. You either leave your Party or die like the rest of it.
Love,
News Nag
November 2, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who said the person to whom you're responding -- or, rather, personally attacking and name-calling -- is a Republican?
He is correct: he is addressing conspirabunk. Not the incoherencies typical of conspirabunk in this instance:
1. Naomi wants to know where the First Brigade is. Yet there are, according to Naomi, so many Americans across the country concerned with this that they are aroused and paying attention -- yet they don't know, so can't simply inform her?
2. And tied in with that: The reports that the First Brigade is to be stationed within the US in violation of the "Posse Comitatus" Act -- how many of those shriekingly invoking that Act have actuallyt read it? -- has aroused alrmist declarations about that Act:
A. That stationing a military unit within the US violates the Act -- I've not seen any substantiation of that claim; and,
B. That this means that the Act has been "revoked" -- the correct term intended being "repealed" -- even though those who pride themselves on being on top of violations of the Act -- far-right lunatic fringers since at latest the early 1990s -- would know and report such repeal.
Naomi was relatively balanced about issues until she bit on this one: she, of the Left, has fallen for a paranoid far-Right lunatic-fringe anti-gum'mint rant because she forgot that under our Constitution We the people are the gov't, and We the people cannot be the enemy of We the people.
November 3, 2008 4:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
We often quarrel on some things, but I totally agree with your take on this one. Fringe ideology doesn't really allow for sound analysis of the situation.
November 3, 2008 7:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't know we quarreled, let alone frequently. But I will say I enjoy your posts because I love approximately half of Teddy Roosevelt (and tend to be a conservative in the ORIGINAL meaning of that term) -- the domestic policy half -- and you are clearly informed on those issues, on the broader and longer political history, without which anchor in history and reality are the extremist ideologues. (Probably more directly than I, as I come to Teddy R. through the prism of Mark Twain.)
November 3, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps "quarreled" is too strong a term. Approached things from different perspectives is more accurate. I, too, have discovered a streak of conservatism in myself that didn't come out until this election when contrasted against some voices on the left.
November 3, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
My first hero was Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, from the moment I first heard his principle, when I was 8-9 years old, "Everybody equal before the law."
My final two years of high school* were consumed, as to reading, by/with Mark Twain. He was a Republican, and conservative in the original meaning of the term (per Teddy R.): "to conserve".
The meaning of the term d/evolved into "reactionary" some time at latest early in the 20th century.
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*Yes, there were high schools 'way back then, though there were only holes in their walls because windows and doors had yet to be invented. Roughest, though, was the walking to school: twenty miles uphill both ways in six feet of snow year 'round.
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All that even though I became a Democrat with the JFK campaign/election, and increasingly progressive with growing political awareness, maturation, and the pressures of US involvement in Vietnam and my multi-faceted conflict with being draft-eligible: whether allow myself to be drafted, to enlist, or to "dodge". (I did the latter on legitimate grounds, and that freed me up to be full-time active against that involvement.)
Being conservative about as few people dying from unnatural causes as possible is a no-brainer. And it was Twain who crystalized my pacifism.
November 3, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
It never ceases to amaze me at the people who find their way online, especially her at TPM. I think you need to blog more often, based on what I read above.
I became an independent during Clinton's years because I couldn't handle the hypocrisy. Reagan ensured I would never be a republican. I find it very ironic that it took a democrat to make me join the republican party in an effort to yank it back to its roots.
I can't stomach the idea of one of two major political parties being in the hands of zealots. It is my mission to recruit as many moderate democrats and independents as I can to help transform the republican party into one we can all be rpoud of, even if everyone doesn't always agree with our methods.
November 3, 2008 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
When the government is taken over by a junta (Bush/Cheney/Rove) and becomes the enemy of America, then it is time for Americans to become the enemy of that government.
The government of the last eight years is no more the government of the American people than a cancer is an organ of the individual who suffers with the cancer. An oncologist is brought in to attack the cancer with chemicals, radiation and even surgery. The problem is destroying or removing the cancer without destroying the patient.
Removing the Bush administration presents a similar problem - removing it without destroying the American nation that it attacks and then returning to the Constitutionally-based American nation in which the government is representative of the American people.
To say that the government is of and by the people ignores the clear current example that the American government can be hijacked. Then it becomes time for the people to recognize that the hijacked government has become the enemy of the American nation. The Bush/Cheney/Rove government does not belong in America and the American people are in the process of removing it.
November 18, 2008 8:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are obviously unable to understand the shift that happens each generation with political parties.
Claiming the democrats were progressive in the 1990s or during Reagan's tenure is to stretch the definition to absurd lengths. A little historical context before throwing epithets would be wise.
Cleaning the windows of your glass house before tossing stones is immaterial.
No political party is beyond reproach in America because the American electorate has never paid attention in numbers that make a difference.
November 3, 2008 7:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
PS: If you bothered to read any of my posts or even my profile here at TPM, you would know I am a progressive conservative in the Teddy Roosevelt model and am voting for Barack Obama, as is a large portion of my fellow republicans. If your goal as a "democrat" is to heal this country, perhaps you might start with yourself.
November 3, 2008 7:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
you suggest that those of us on the left have an unduly suspicious nature towards the military, but that those (presumably more "centrist") rural folks simply have an innate distrust of government. why the different spin on the essentially same concern based on (faulty) political divisions?
you sounds more like one whose experiences with the military have personally blinded you to the very real and possible dangers -- anywhere, anytime, anyplace -- inherent in a militarist mind-set. it's a pretty well-established pattern of human behavior, don't ya think?
whose "nature" -- the "paranoid" left or reasonable that-could-never-happen-here centrists -- has served us better on such matters as...
* vietnam
* cointelpro
* iraq
* WMDs
* torture
* domestic spying
... to name but a few. and while you're recommending a broad contextual view on the military and it's "culture", revisit...
* the bonus army
* the tuskegee airmen
* general smedley butler
... to balance out some of that unduly pro-military non-paranoia.
snarkiness aside, most people keeping an eye on this topic do so out a _healthy_ concern over excesses, not because of paranoia (although these last eight years have shown that even knee-jerk paranoia is more of a legimate political philosophy than conservatism!)
good luck to all of us in the ongoing deprogramming efforts...
November 2, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
When will you be reading the Posse Comitatus Act to determine for yourself that it is being violated?
As for all the gun-nuts and their specific paranoia that the gum'mint is gonna take their guns away: the gov't isn't afraid of their pop-guns; it has mortars and rockets, bazookas and tanks, airplanes and bombs. It can take out those gun-nuts without having to come into range of those pop-guns.
Last but not least -- and giving the full facts is too estensive for this thread, but:
The Founders/Framers' debate was not militia v. gov't; it was militia v. standing army, and they chose militia because standing army was viewed as a threat to GOV'T. (Thus the paranoia about the alleged deployment of the First Brigade within the US.) The militia, before that debate, and during that debate, and ever since that debate, was always UNDER rule of law, and its commander-in-chief was the state's governor; is it the governor's role to "defend against" the gov't of which he is simultaneously head? And see US Con. Art. I., S. 8., C. 15 and 16.
November 3, 2008 5:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
i never claimed posse comitatus was being violated. my point was to question the broad-brush smearing of those on the left who have concerns about the historical and on-going mis-use of the military.
the debate between the founding "fathers" is also irrevalent; the neo-con rethugs have demonstrated just how easy it is to disregard the law at the highest levels with impunity.
November 3, 2008 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
i never claimed posse comitatus was being violated.
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Why not -- as that is the heart of the issue for the alarmists making hay over this issue.
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my point was to question the broad-brush smearing of those on the left who have concerns about the historical and on-going mis-use of the military.
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Are you "on the left" as concerns historical context? What I find alarming are the acontextual history-illiterate fallings for lunatic fringe -- the traditional designation --political views which are not only blatantly non-mainstream but far-right by those who believe themselves to be on the left. Ron Paul is an example: not only to the right of the Bushit criminal enterprise, but far-right liassez faire "free market" loons who would go even farther than that enterprise with the deregulation of the economy.
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the debate between the founding "fathers" is also irrevalent; the neo-con rethugs have demonstrated just how easy it is to disregard the law at the highest levels with impunity.
_____
Non-sequitur: you are evaluating the "neo-cons rethugs" violations of law against what backgreound? That of the founding fathers (why the quotes? were they are third sex?).
Thus the Founders/Framers' debates are CENTRAL to the issue -- and is understood to be (even if the content of the debates is left to far-right fantasists). Which is, of course, the point I've made here (and elsewhere) several times.
November 3, 2008 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was simply showing that there may be the same sort of distrust of the military on the far left and the far right, but that doesn't make it any more realistic.
I was in the Navy for ten years, responded with a huge force of Army, Marines and Navy to hurricane Andrew in 1992 as one of the first things I did in uniform. To suggest that a single brigade of American soldiers being deployed to provide "crowd control" during natural or man-made disasters is somehow the opening salvo in a coup de tat is absurd.
Sorry, that is just the way I see it from long years of experience with the military, something Naomi can't claim no matter how hard she tries.
November 3, 2008 8:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
sorry, but the opening salvo of a de facto coup de tat occurred a long time ago, when corporatism met militarism and the modern american empire was born.
as for the historical references, they were meant to show that your naive defense of all things american-military was off-base and historically unsupported, and that indeed the military has been mis-used for domestic political suppression before.
smedley butler turning in the conspirators wasn't the point, his long record of being a tool for american corporations was. his military training didn't help him have the courage to come out-of-the-closet about it; that had to wait until he was again a "civilian".
google's great; now combine it with common sense and consistent (not ideologically-driven) universal human values and perhaps you're on to something.
November 3, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, yes, we have a long history of Imperial Aspirations that stretch back as far as the eye can see. At least until the 1950s anyway.
I wasn't disputing that fact.
We aren't talking about our history of military, corporate and government collusion, however. We are talking about the modern, all-volunteer military firing on American citizens in some sort of absurd bid to take over this country militarily.
The one name you trotted out to counter that assertion was the only general in modern history to be recruited by business interests to overthrow the elected US president. As can be seen from the historical record, that didn't turn out quite the way the conspirators would have liked.
Common sense? Absolutely. I agree we should apply common sense to this question.
My only point was that paranoid fantasies such as the ones postulated on this blog are not helpful to the liberal cause if they seek to keep moderate conservatives working for progressive and sustainable change.
November 3, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, yes, we have a long history of Imperial Aspirations that stretch back as far as the eye can see. At least until the 1950s anyway.
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As far back as the 1890s and the Spanish-American War, at latest.
And I find a 1629-30-ish Massachusetts-Bay Colony statute moving the AmerIndians westward in order to make room for more white colonists.
November 3, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
True enough. The Philippines was pretty freaking outrageous as well. I was trying to keep the context semi-modern.
November 3, 2008 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Philippines were the heart of the Spanish-American War (excellent website on the history of anti-/imperialism: google Jim Zwick).
November 3, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS: You're talking about ancient history as far as the modern, volunteer military is concerned. Not a single one of your references is recent. We are talking about today's military, not the Vietnam era. As far as Marine General Smedley Butler, you know he actually turned those business leaders in when they tried to recruit him to overthrow FDR. Google is your friend.
November 3, 2008 8:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jason,
At the risk of sounding paranoid I see this First Brigade move as just another one in a line of
questionably legal actions regarding the Constitution. Remember FISA, something that might have seemed unthinkable 10 years ago.
Crowd Control? As to what the military will or will not do, remember Kent State. And read of how brutal some of our troops have been to captives and on the battlefield. Being in the military doesn't make one angelic.
Don't forget, we're dealing with human nature here.
November 2, 2008 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kent State was a national guard, ordered out by a governor and was at a totally different time in American history. They were not the modern, highly-trained and savvy American military. They were scared kids getting bottles thrown at them. It was tragic but hardly an example of US troops conducting warfare on US citizens.
November 3, 2008 8:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jason,
you made the first post here and in doing so you opined that Naomi Wolf is insinuating a military takeover of the Country. Nowhere in her column do I see that.
Miss Wolf simply asked a few questions about the Brigade in question, and rather than answer her you practically accused her of warning about a '7 Days in May' scenario.
November 3, 2008 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
This isn't the first post Ms. Wolf has posited that the 1st Brigade's mission is something we should be worried about and that it indicates some sort of nefarious plan to break posse comitas.
I didn't accuse her of anything. I simply explained why her paranoid reading of the situation doesn't actually jibe with my hands-on experience with the military. You can disagree as you will, but I am hardly calling anyone anything other than naive and uninformed.
Your continued misreading of my points isn't really doing much to sell your case.
November 3, 2008 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason,
here's what you said to start the posting:
I'm obviously not misreading your posts. There was nothing in the author's article that claimed such.
November 3, 2008 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is, however, in the thrust of her several posts on the issue which clearly imnsinuates or implies and is alarmed about a "military takeover".
Perhaps you should bone up on the long ideological paranoid hysterics over "posse comitatus" beginning at latest in 1989 -- online -- and being jumbled up with other favorite far-RIGHT lunacies such as the anti-taxers, the fake "militia movement," the "common law courts," the gun-nutism, etc.
And while you're at it, learning the traditional political landscape/spectrum so you are then able to distinguish traditional left and right from each other, and thus not swallow and regurgitate traditional far-RIGHT lunatic fringe anti-gum'mint nonsense while claiming to be a LEFTist.
November 3, 2008 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
JN,
I have absolutely no idea how you misread me so badly.
November 3, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
The misreading/denial is yours. I've been confronting the "Posse Comitatus" extremists for nearly twenty years. I recognize their folderol regardless how encoded or deeply buried.
But none of those facts actually need be invoked, because this is Naomi's at least second post on this issue, and it is -- yes -- centered around Posse Comitatus, which allegedly prohibits domestic uses of the military (the militia/national guard being the "alternative"*), and allegations of violations of Posse Comitatus by the deployment of the First Brigage domestically.
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*The debate for and among the Founders was not about militia v. state -- there is no "right of revolution" outside the non-law propaganda screed "Declaration of Independence" -- but about militia v. standing army. That is the "source" of the paranoid hysteria about Posse Comitatus and using the military -- as if militia/national guard AREN'T military -- domestically.
There is a healthy distrust of gov't and military. But the gov't and military are, ya know, our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, cousins, sons and daughters . . .
November 3, 2008 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
JN,
I've been posting here for many months, and posting on a variety of different subjects.
For you to say about me, that I:
tells me one of the following;
1- You're addressing someone other than me.
2- This is your first time here so you have read none of my other pro/con posts over time.
3- You're simply misreading everything I say.
One other thing; here's my first post to Jason;
As anyone can see, the thrust of my post was the Constitutionaly legal aspect of this Brigade move
and human nature when you have a gun and authority. What do you find "anti government"?
By the way, I never mentioned "Posse Comitatus", nor did it enter my mind.
You said:
Maybe you should self examine before you accuse others of "far-RIGHT lunatic fringe anti-gum'mint nonsense".
November 3, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is, however, in the thrust of her several posts on the issue which clearly imnsinuates or implies and is alarmed about a "military takeover".
Perhaps you should bone up on the long ideological paranoid hysterics over "posse comitatus" beginning at latest in 1989 -- online -- and being jumbled up with other favorite far-RIGHT lunacies such as the anti-taxers, the fake "militia movement," the "common law courts," the gun-nutism, etc.
And while you're at it, learning the traditional political landscape/spectrum so you are then able to distinguish traditional left and right from each other, and thus not swallow and regurgitate traditional far-RIGHT lunatic fringe anti-gum'mint nonsense while claiming to be a LEFTist.
November 3, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's the inference that something devious is going on. She has posted blogs on this topic before. It seems a bit overwrought to me.
November 3, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anything that originates on the paranoid far-RIGHT which is then invoked by the paranoid LEFT tells me the person invoking same is essentially politically clueless.
Then there are the ideological structures involved: generally, the LEFT is FOR gov't intervention for the "good of all" -- the several socialisms as example; the RIGHT is AGAINST gov't intervention -- the emphasis on individualism, to the extreme of putting individual above society/rule of law.
In other words, the LEFT generally considers gov't to be "our friend". So when the LEFT starts preaching against gov't, it is regurgitating RIGHT-wing ideological "positions".
November 3, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
jem,
Your "hands-on experience with the military" has led you to two contrary conclusions, but in either case we shouldn't worry.
(1) There is no difference between regular and part-time military units, they are both DOD employees (above) and so we have nothing to worry about.
(2) There is a large difference bewteen them, citing Kent State where the Guard troops "were not the modern, highly-trained and savvy American military" and so we have nothing to worry about.
November 3, 2008 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am saying we have nothing to worry about because in our 230+ year history, each one of those years with hundreds of thousands or US troops stationed on US soil, we haven't even come close to using the US military against US citizens in a long-term, military coup de tat.
It hasn't happened.
The ONLY Americans who can complain of such abuse are Native Americans and our country still continues to abuse them in various and sundry ways. I am suggesting that if the left wants to discuss ways to dismantle our vast military then the best way to approach that task probably doesn't start with convincing half the country you are unhinged and paranoid.
November 3, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
jem,
This is not a US history class. We're talking here about current events and what may happen in the future. Your historic examples are irrelevant, and your head-in-the-sand attitude is naive and unrealistic. This is a unique time in US history so past examples no longer apply.
*The USA is now engaged in a bilateral "global war on terror" which has no defined limits in time or space. It is expected to be "generational" and it includes the USA as a theater of war.
*The USA has never had a "combatant command" organized in the country before, but now as a part of the "GWOT" it does. This combatant command has now been manned with a combat brigade which is learning to use powerful weapons (Tasers) which are obviously meant for use against US citizens. The various changing reasons explaining this unit are totally unconvincing and even laughable.
*The USA has never so blatantly engaged in the large-scale incarceration and torture of foreign citizens by the US military before, but now it has, and not only that but US citizens have been subjected to the same treatment (Padilla).
Considering all of this evidence it's understandable why you are calling realists "unhinged and paranoid" -- you have no logical case and no other available course but childish ad hominem remarks.
November 3, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I am calling the way you are approaching the discussion unrealistic, paranoid and unhinged.
I am saying that if your goal is to convince people who don't agree with you that we need to reign in our military conquests that you are working counter to your stated objectives. I agree that we need to drastically draw back our imperial machine and perhaps cut defense spending by as much as three-quarters.
I am not the mainstream of America, however, so I caution a little more reasoned and rational approach than the one you are currently taking. Agree or disagree as you will.
November 3, 2008 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
jem,
Your "hands-on experience with the military" has led you to two contrary conclusions, but in either case we shouldn't worry.
(1) There is no difference between regular and part-time military units, they are both DOD employees (above) and so we have nothing to worry about.
(2) There is a large difference between them, citing Kent State where the Guard troops "were not the modern, highly-trained and savvy American military" and so we have nothing to worry about.
November 3, 2008 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason, I'm an independent, I disagree with you on this and feel it is every American's duty to ask questions such as the one that Wolf has posed. I prefer hard questions and Patrick Henry's sage advice:
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”
Patrick Henry
Any activity that involves the use of the military on US soil is a red flag we should all pay attention to.
If you doubt that, go take a look at the 2006 section 333 changes that Congress made to the Insurrection law that governs the president's ability to deploy the military in the US. The 333 additions were repealed in 2008. Nonetheless, the fact that the section 333 amendment was EVER slipped into a defense appropriations bill and passed into law by our Congress should clue all Americans into the importance of carefully monitoring all activity in this arena. Here is a user-friendly version of the amendment that bolds the changes so it's easy to understand—just scroll down to section 333 on the chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act
The words "incident or other condition" under 333A is lawyer-speak for "it's okay to fill in the blank with anything you like and we'll call it 'legal'." This amendment also gave the president the power to use the military in the US without further Congressional approval.
November 2, 2008 10:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Patrick Henry asked* to be appointed head of his state's militia. His colleagues refused to do so because they viewed him as unstable.
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*Who did he ask? His state's legislature. Why would he ask them? Because the militia was under the rule of law, and its officers appointed/approved -- or not -- by the state's law-making body, the legislature.
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You have the usual uninformed view of the role of the militia. It's purpose is to protect the community -- ultimately, to protect the gov't and system of laws. The issue for the Founders/Framers was not militia v. gov't; it was militia v. standing army (thus the paranoia about the alleged deployment of the First Brigade within the US), because they viewed a standing army as a threat to GOV'T.
They consistently -- including, conspicuously, with the "Declaration of Independence" -- stipulated that the military -- regardless kind -- would always be UNDER CIVILIAN control. Standing armies, by contrast, have a history of overtrhowing civilian government. That "too"-radical "revolutionary" Sam Adams put it in these words:
"The military power is always in exact subordination to the Civil Power." ALWAYS: that means no militiary power -- whether militia or standing army -- has the authority to "defend against" the rule of law/civilian gov't under our system of laws. And those who asserted the opposite view -- the anti-Federalists -- LOST the argument: see US Con. Art. I., S. 8., C. 15 and 16.
November 3, 2008 5:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Said it much better than I could. Thanks!
November 3, 2008 8:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've been dealing with precisely these issues for decades -- sometimes it feels like hundreds of years. These directly on point are in print:
Creating the Bill of Rights: The Documentary Records from the First Federal Congress (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1991), Ed. by Helen E. Veit, Kenneth R. Bowling, and Charlene Bangs Bickford.
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This shows the Second Amendment beginnings in the inchoate -- and undistingushed mishmash of military concerns -- militia, standing army, conscientious objection -- all the concerns with which we are familiar. Through debate they were disentangled and distinguished . . .
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The Bill of Rights and the States: The Colonial and Revolutionary Origins of American Liberties (Madison, WI: Madison House, 1992), Edited by Patrick T. Conley and John P. Kaminski.*
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Key re. that title is understanding that there were several phases in American "colonial" history:
1. "Colonial," beginning roughly 1606 and ending circa 1680;
2. "Dominion," beginning circa 1680 and ending circa 1686;
3. "Inter-gov't" beginning circa 1686 and ending circa 1691;
4. "Provincial," which began circa 1691 and ended circa 1775-76;
5. "Colonial" -- an invocation, apparently false/political, of "colony" status beginning during the 1760s, in the lead-up to the "revolution," and continuing until the adoption by each of the "colonies" of their first constitutions in 1776-77 and 1780 (the latter MA-Bay).
The point being that the sources of Articles of Confederation, and Constitution and Bill of Rights -- all being SUBSEQUENT to the "Declaration of Independence" -- were existing COLONIAL law -- state constitutions and bills of rights: "Magna Carta" and "English Bill of Rights" were IRRELEVANT, as that source of law had been expressly thrown off with the "Declaration". (The roots of the "revolution" actually extended back to the foundings of the colonies, and the evolution of colonial law independent of the British.)
It's also important, of course, that except for the period roughly 1686 through 1691, there was no period -- before or after that period -- during which there was "no gov't". One of the fundamental errors made by the history-/law-illiterate gun-nuts/pro-"revolution" fools is the false assumption that there was no gov't throughout the "revolution". There were gov'ts, and they were run by the "revolutionaries".
And their legislatures passed no small number of laws before, during, and of course after the "revolution". One that comes to mind was the 1645-ish MA-Bay "Militia Act" which was repealed/amended/re-enacted in January, 1776, by the "REVOLUTIONARY" legislature. The "Minutemen" at Lexington-Concord may have been "yeoman farmers" (or tradesman; or merchants; or whatever); but they were ALSO ENLISTED in the militia UNDER and in accordance with the exising "Militia Act," and the command structure consisted of elected public officials, judges, and other such "pillars" (conservative) of the community who could be trusted both to be able to read, and comprehend, the laws, and to know on which side their bread was buttered.
The militia was NOT authorized or allowed to shoot at -- "defend against" -- the Founders/Framers' gov't/s: see both Shay's and Whiskey rebellions for ACTUAL "original intent" on that point.
_____
The Complete Bill of Rights: The Drafts, Debates, Sources, & Origins (NY: Oxford University Press, 1997), Edited by Neil H. Cogan.
_____
This is expensive, but if you put it in your Amazon cart and watch it's price will fluctuate. In time it will drop to a price within the reach of most.
November 3, 2008 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
For the most part, I fully appreciate your reasoning, input and reassuring viewpoint. Still, I'm not at all sure we're on the same page. I wasn't talking about the militia, I was talking about the standing army. Feel free to show me anything I said about the purpose of the militia or further educate if I'm missing something here.
I might have confused the issues with the quote. Wolf's question and some responses to her question brought to mind the Patrick Henry quote. My point was to note that some-- myself included--believe it's important to vigilantly guard liberty if you want to keep it. (i.e. I think questions like Wolf's are important ones to raise and process) I went on to point to a dubious (repealed) amendment as an example of why I believe it is important to pay attention, ask questions, explore and learn
If Wolf's question turns out to have been unnecessary, I will still be glad—if unpleasantly pained--that she asked the question. I think many Americans are highly skeptical these days. It's hard to escape the fact that if Americans had been a bit more skeptical in the recent past, we might have had the chance to prevent some of the destruction and duplicity of the last eight years before it was too late.
November 3, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Logico,
after eight years of Bush/Cheney and their associates, its my belief that a healthy dose of paranoia is a rational adjustment to just about anything new coming from this gang.
November 3, 2008 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's be cleasr on the uses of the word "paranoia". Not to be overly technical, but as foundation:
"Fear" -- has an object.
"Anxiety" -- fear without an object.
There are two kinds of paranoia:
1. Clinical. This is so clear cut that anyone with reasonably developed criticial faculties -- a grasp of logic, and ability to discern non-sequitur -- can recognize it. If someone seriously tells you that the moon is God's pocket watch, and wonders why you don't hear it ticking . . .
2. Lack of knowledge. Usually combined with lack of thought. Person A comes screaming into the room that the Posse Comitatus Act is being violated, and tells person B how. Person B runs off like Paul Revere telling everyone that the Posse Comitatus Act is being violated!
Meanwhile, back at reason: Have Person A and B READ the Posse Comitatus Act? If so, have the READ the relevant materials concerning the alleged violation? Or are they simply, lacking sufficient and correct information, knee-jerk distrusting the gov't based upon a remark made by the florid Patrick Henry?
November 3, 2008 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
NJ,
you seem to be obsessed with Posse Comitatus, almost to an illness.
November 3, 2008 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
We agree. (semantics aside, as I'm confident you were talking about common sense and not clinical paranoia) I would add that Bush, Cheney and gang would never have been able to go so far off the deep end of backward governance if the majority of both parties of Congress had not chosen to stand back and allow it to happen and facilitated it when necessary.
November 3, 2008 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Logico,
agreed. I can see the Republicans going along with the Bush/Cheney gang, but the Dems are supposed to be the opposition. Many are just political cowards more concerned with their re election that defending the Constitution.
November 4, 2008 8:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
We usually agree more than we disagree on things, but I just don't see this as being anything more than a paranoid rant based on a limited understanding of the historical context of US military forces.
I am much more concerned that we are continuing to militarize the globe through federally subsidizing our military industrial complex than I am about a brigade or two with a mission to respond to incidents on American soil.
We have had troops stationed on American soil since the founding of the republic. We have had a standing army almost as long. We have yet to have a single military-led coup in all that time. In fact, the one coup in modern history that was successful was done using the courts and voter suppression tactics.
I find blogs like this to be a distraction from our real problems.
November 3, 2008 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
PS: That isn't to say you are the one being paranoid or ranting, just that the underlying premise of this blog is such.
November 3, 2008 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
i think the question that most here who disagree with you might ask is: why can't we be concerned about both?
November 3, 2008 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is "concerned" and then there is paranoid. I am not saying we shouldn't ensure the civilian control of the military or to ignore our many military misadventures overseas or even the unaccountable military industrial complex, but I am suggesting liberals might make the case with a little more aplomb and common sense in order to gain widespread support from Americans more in the center of the spectrum.
November 3, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hear you and am thankful for your voice on many issues, especially ones like this as you have firsthand military experience.
Hopefully, in a short 36 (?) hours, Americans will begin a new journey that warrants a restoration of the lost faith that seems to be everywhere these days.
November 3, 2008 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ditto. :O)
November 3, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
"We are specifically trained not to follow illegal orders."
What about the incident at Wounded Knee? And Abu Ghraib? The whole Iraq war, which as Pat Tillman pointed was "so fucking illegal."
November 3, 2008 6:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Those are not issues for our troops to sort out. As far as the military is concerned, they are following legal orders from the president and the war was authorized by Congress. Abu Gharaib was a tragedy and a travesty to be sure, but is hardly an indictment of the entire Army.
It's conversations like this that made me join the republican party this year instead of the democratic party. At least a good portion of the republicans are starting to realize they are fucked up and are looking to change.
The democrats are hardly going to consider they may be wrong as they are on the way up. No wonder we can never get the pendulum to actually stop in the middle.
November 3, 2008 8:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Pick one - either they are not issues for our troops to sort out, or our troops are trained to disobey illegal orders. It's an either/or question.
The unfortunate fact is that because our troops have not addressed the issues in question(for whatever reason), there is a risk in the future that they may be held responsible for their actions, quite possibly in the same venue as another group of military officers asserted that they were simply following orders.
November 3, 2008 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whether or not the Iraq wart was authorized is immaterial to the troops. That is too gray an area. Whether or not to fire on American citizens isn't a gray area at all. I though I had made a fairly clear point here.
November 3, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS: Comparing the US military to the Nazis is probably not the best way to make your case.
November 3, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
jem,
Having been in the navy you probably don't realize that crowd control is not a normal function for a combat brigade. Police units are specifically trained for this function. So using a combat brigade is automatically suspicious. Wrong. The enlistment states in part: ". . .that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, . ." There is NO custom of not following illegal orders in the army, only a custom of following orders. Being wrong on everything else, you have no choice but to resort to personal attacks.
November 3, 2008 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Make that the enlistment OATH.
November 3, 2008 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the oath states that we will protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic. That we will follow all LAWFUL orders of the President of the United States and his appointed representatives.
November 3, 2008 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
jem,
You're wrong. Making up your own enlistment oath is not an option, except for the desperate.
November 3, 2008 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
jem,
You're wrong. Making up your own enlistment oath is not an option, except for the desperate.
November 3, 2008 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not wrong. I took the damn oath, Don. Did you? It says all LAWFUL orders. Ask anyone in the military.
November 4, 2008 6:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
November 4, 2008 6:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Greatly respect Naomi Wolf's paradigm-shifting thesis put out in her Shock Doctrine but I think, in this particular case, she may be too alarmed, the truth may be more prosaic.
Or so we should hope...
November 2, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's the truth. If the worst possibilities were true, I doubt we could do very much to stop them.
November 2, 2008 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Naomi Klein wrote The Shock Doctrine. Naomi Wolf is a different person. That explains why one makes an informed, meticulously documented argument, while the other is a paranoid kook.
I made the same mistake myself for a while ;)
November 2, 2008 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am having the hardest time with my memory!! I apologize to Naomi Wolf for the mistaken identity, and thanks eatbees for the catch, maybe I should change my name to eathumblepie!
November 2, 2008 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who is the Disaster Capitalism writer? That one is very well informed. I think I made the same mistake.
November 3, 2008 8:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
People, attention. Naomi Wolf did not write the Shock Doctrine. Naomi Klein wrote the Shock Doctrine.
In this case, two Naomis are better than one.
November 2, 2008 7:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_Massacre
Joe Walsh - Turn to Stone Lyrics
Well there's a change in the wind
You know the signs don't lie
Such a strange feeling and I don't know why
Its takin' ... such a long time ...
Backyard people and they work all day
Tired of the speeches
And the way the reasons they keep changin'...
Just to make the Words Rhyme...
And you know its getting stronger,
Can't fake 'em out much longer
"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world."
Ralph Waldo Emerson's Concord Hymn (1837),
November 2, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Get the facts:
The "embattled farmers" were ENLISTED in the militia and acting UNDER LAW. They were not simply gun-totin' "patriots" who "showed up" out of "love of country".
The Founders/Framers no more tolerated armed gangs roaming around outside the law and shooting at THEIR gov'ts than had their forebears. They were not history-illiterate extremists. They were not history-illiterate gun-nuts.
It's a simple reasoned principle: No sane society leaves dangerous substances and objects lying around unregulated. Exactly as gun control has existed since the advent of guns, armed groups have always been either outside the law and criminal, or under the law and thereby regulated and controlled.
Hot-worded emotionalism mislabeled "patriotism" is not a substitute for knowledge of the actual history, and the role of law in protecting the civilian population, and gov't, FROM the military. For shorthand histories of the Founders/Framers' ACTUAL views -- those they implemented in law AND ACTION -- see the histories of Shays' and Whiskey rebellions.
November 3, 2008 5:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
From its mission statement: "USNORTHCOM plans, organizes and executes homeland defense and civil support missions. . .Per the Posse Comitatus Act, military forces can provide civil support, but cannot become directly involved in law enforcement."
http://www.northcom.mil/About/index.html
but according to Homeland Security --
"The Posse Comitatus Act is often cited as a major constraint on the use of the military services to participate in homeland security, counterterrorism, civil disturbances, and similar domestic duties. It is widely believed that this law prohibits the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps from performing any kind of police work or assisting law enforcement agencies to enforce the law. This belief, however, is not exactly correct. . . . The biggest error is the common assertion that the Posses Comitatus Act was enacted to prevent the military services from acting as a national police force."
http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/Articles/brinkerhoffpossecomitatus.htm
and --
"Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion."--US CODE TITLE 10-332
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/332.html
November 2, 2008 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
And Title 10 is the former "Militia Act" of 1792, by means of which US Con Art. I., S. 8., C. 15. and 16. -- and the Second Amendment -- were and are implemented.
Assignment:
1. Read those clauses of the US Constitution TOGETHER WITH the Second Amendment; and,
2. Title 10.
Reading only those will provide you more accurate information than 99 per cent of gun-nuts have in their anti-intellectual noggins. And, in advance, NO: doing so will NOT affirm the gun industry-front NRA's anti-Constitutional smut.
November 3, 2008 5:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
But how do we even find the First Brigade?
November 2, 2008 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I took a look around. No sign.
So Winnipeg's all clear.
November 2, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you just need to keep an eye out for Sheriff Bud B. Boomer.
November 2, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the Soutwest there are Border Patrol checkpoints on the inland freeways and on secondary roads, some as far as fifty miles from the national border. The agents usually wave motorists through, but sometimes conduct more rogorous inspections, which causes backups. (The Supreme Court has ruled that such inspections are legal if they don't cause considerable delay.)
Recently at one of these freeway checkpoints there was a long line of traffic. At the checkpoint there was a large sign warning of "enhanced inspection" and all trucks, campers and buses were in secondary inspection, with men and dogs looking inside. The most interesting aspect was that there were not only the regular brown uniforms of the Border Patrol but also young men wandering around in varied civilian clothing, one even wearing a pork-pie hat. (My wife thinks they looked like "young punks".) All these young people in civilian clothes had one thing in common: black flak jackets with "Federal Police" stenciled on the back.
Now who knew that we had federal police? I searched the web and could find no evidence of federal police, or of the hiring of federal police. So now, I'm thinking, in response to Naomi's urging, that these young men in the new Federal Police were possibly First Brigade members.
November 2, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmmm...
Thanks for the info. Talk about creepy, there is no actual animal that I'm aware of called "Federal Police", but it might be a new policy to blanket DEA, ATF, or any real agency. I guess the public policy would be that agents would identify if asked.
Not that I would wander over and ask for trouble by asking, which is one of Naomi's points. Simply discouraging curiosity enables a police state.
November 2, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gee, like there need be an agency or entity specifically named "Federal Police" for there to be legitimacy to the term "Federal Police".
ATF, DEA, and any number of other agencies are FEDERAL. Each has POLICE. FEDERAL POLICE. And it is possible that the maximum number of FEDERAL POLICE is fixed so that they are dispersed among agencies, and can be drawn together as needed under the jurisdiction of a given agency.
We the people are the gov't. Are we the people the enemy of We the people? Are left wingers now indistinguishable from right wingers, the latter having always been the enemy of gum'mint?
November 3, 2008 5:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Until now, practice has been to use jackets that say "FBI" or "DEA" in large letters. Since we will not find an agency in the phone book called "Federal Police" I think the point holds that this is a change of practice, inaccurate at best, and misleading.
There is an advantage in field operations to having personnel showing which unit, or supervisor, they are following. I don't see a tactical advantage to the generic term.
In DC, where I grew up, there are something like fifteen different police forces, and they all identify themselves, whether DC, Capitol, Parks, or Special Executive Protective Service.
November 3, 2008 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
What is the LAW on the issue?
(Our is "A system of laws, and not of men." -- John Adams.)
November 3, 2008 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gee, like there need be an agency or entity specifically named "Federal Police" for there to be legitimacy to the term "Federal Police".
ATF, DEA, and any number of other agencies are FEDERAL. Each has POLICE. FEDERAL POLICE. And it is possible that the maximum number of FEDERAL POLICE is fixed so that they are dispersed among agencies, and can be drawn together as needed under the jurisdiction of a given agency.
We the people are the gov't. Are we the people the enemy of We the people? Are left wingers now indistinguishable from right wingers, the latter having always been the enemy of gum'mint?
November 3, 2008 5:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don, the "federal police" have been around for years. The last time I encountered some was in 1977, at the mouth of the Klamath River in Northern California during a Yurok Indian fishing protest. There were two of them, and the local Yuroks called them "Starsky & Hutch." During one of the "Fish Court" sessions, I and a friend got talking with these two guys - at first they tight lipped, but "unit pride" took effect and they started blabbering. It was very interesting. They were trained at Quantico, and operated like an interagency motorpool - in other words various branches of government could requisition them for law enforcement projects. In this case, it was the Department of Interior, and their mission was to issue tickets to Indians who were fishing a night. I don't really know what the official name is - perhaps just "Federal Police."
November 3, 2008 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason,
You make a very good point that the military is sworn to protect and defend the Constitution. And when President Obama is sworn in then we will have a centrist administration- so that some of us who are 'left of center " should be made less paranoid about NorthCom . Its also worth remembering that in post Katrina NOLA that it was the uniformed military that did stand down the worst elements of rouge law enforcement/Blackwater mercs that were terrorizing citizens.
More generally I expect we will see much more institutional pushback from all of our military structure to the abuses that gwb43 heaped upon all services- including arcane one like the CIA's ground branch - ( read the new book "Operation:Hotel California) . I even have hopes that General Taguba's report on Abu Gharib will be fully vetted and made available- war crimes have been committed .
I am alot more comfortable with a moderate centrist executive having a brigade stationed in the United States then I am with the current radical right wing executive having that same Brigade at NorthCom .Especially if we have total transparency regarding mission and deployment of these brigade members .We do need to know for example if they were deployed at the Republican Convention - we do need to know that their primary mission is to respond to a WMD attack in CONUS .
I guess meanwhile me , Ms Wolf , and Alex Jones will still be "keeping our powder dry "..
November 2, 2008 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess I would say we have had multiple divisions of federal troops stationed throughout the US, under both republican and democratic presidents, without some paranoid idea that they are taking over the country.
They practice with live ammunition. The travel our streets in armed hummvees on their way to different based. They are all over our country, in every state and jurisdiction. It has been this way ever since John Adams and Alexander Hamilton violated the Constitution and formed our first standing army.
Thanks for point about the active-duty troops being the real heroes of Katrina. It was the same during Andrew when I was in the military, though we didn't really have mercenary "security" forces back then.
I would much more concerned with unaccountable private armies than I am our uniformed, active-duty soldiers. But at the end of the day, this country is too large and too well armed to be taken over by a military of any size, let alone a brigade or a couple hundred thousand mercenaries.
We can't even take over a country of 22 million with those assets. No freaking way can we take over a country of 300 million, many of whom are Vietnam and Iraq vets. Good luck with that, if someone was stupid enough to think it is possible.
November 3, 2008 8:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jason said:
Apples and oranges, the troops you mention above
didn't have this new mission.
Jason, as I said in another post, these private armies you're concerned with are ex US Military.
Now I'm not convinced that a military takeover is in the offing, but the idea that the country is too well armed to stave it off is laughable.
Wait till the gun lovers get a load of an armored division or the 82nd Airborne.
November 3, 2008 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just like the Iraqis huh? You are really stretching the "facts" to back up your claims.
November 3, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason,
What facts am I stretching?
November 3, 2008 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
November 3, 2008 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason,
You claimed the country was too well armed for a military overthrow, my mention of the 82nd Airborne (along with an armored division) was simply an example of what gun lovers would face if the military did get involved in an overthrow.
As to the 82nd Airborne, I'm a WWII paratrooper who fought in Europe. The 82nd is my old outfit.
I jumped into Normandy, Holland, fought in the Bulge and crossed the Rhine at Cologne advancing to the Elbe where Slim Jim Gavin took the surrender of the German 21st Army. Along the way, I took part in the liberation of the Woebbelin concentration camp near Ludwigslust Germany. I was in for one month short of 4 years.
Its the last war I supported.
November 3, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the service. Sincerely. Please don't get me wrong. I abhor war. A military takeover of this country would be about as successful as Iraq has been, but only bloodier, longer and more widespread.
My only point in all this is that liberals have a chance to yank this country back to the center from the far right place it has been for 40 years. To ensure that happens, matters like this need a little more reserve to make it through the all the crap we have been fed since at least the end of World War II.
Deprogramming an entire country is a delicate process and bashing people over the head doesn't work, which is why Barack is winning.
November 3, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, American troops have been dispatched on American soil to respond to natural disasters as well as man-made throughout our entire history. Typically this was the national guard and reserves (who are also DOD employees) but active-duty have done so as well, most recently during Hurricane Katrina. That a combat brigade would be stationed stateside to specifically train for that mission isn't some grand conspiracy to round us all up and ship us off to detention camps.
November 3, 2008 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Comparing an active-duty regular army combat brigade to weekend warriors who are "also DOD employees" is inaccurate and misleading.
Additionally, in the situation under discussion, regular troops would be much more likely to treat citizens harshly than would national guard troops from the same neighborhood, and this could be the reason that that the government is doing it.
November 3, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
National Guard are not DOD employees, though they are all combat vets thanks to this disastrous war. Either way, though, they will have the same exact qualms about shooting Americans, regardless of who cuts their paycheck. There are no "weekend warriors" in America anymore.
November 3, 2008 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
1st Brigade Combat Team, 3d Infantry is stationed at Ft. Stewart, GA.
http://www.stewart.army.mil/3didweb/1st%20BCT/1stBrigadehom.htm
November 2, 2008 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
There have been some rather ominous statements made by world leaders during the past 10 days:
"There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring. It dipped slightly and is now rising again within the context of severe. The threat is huge. We have done all the things that we need to do, but the threat is building - the complex plots are building." Lord West, national security adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
"The devastation that could be wreaked by one major nuclear weapons incident alone puts 9/11 and almost everything else to the category of the insignificant," Alustralian PM Kevin Rudd
In addition to the rather direct and clear language above, Collin Powell, Bernard Kouchner (French Foreign Minister), and Matelaine Albright used less clear language that seemed to indicate they were privy to intelligence that is pointing to something serious.
Might there be groups who would want to disrupt our elections? Do the world leaders know things we do not? Maybe the administration is legit on this issue and the brigade was brought home in case there is a serious terrorist strike.
November 2, 2008 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I can think of one group that would want to disrupt or nullify our elections and that is the criminal wing of the Republican Party.
I pray that I am worried over nothing but the fact is the Bush faction was not elected but installed by an extralegal coup via the Supreme Court. It isn't completely wacky to think there might come a day when they might refuse to relinquish their illegitimately acquired power through force. Granted, I do think it very unlikely. I'm just saying that after what we've seen starting in 2000 it is not out of the question.
November 2, 2008 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
If there wer such specific knowledge, then such specific threat would be nullified.
But thanks for your out-of-context quotes: I enjoy deliberately scaring myself in effort to find credibility in the Bushit criminal enterprise.
November 3, 2008 5:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Where Is The First Brigade?
Excerpted from Senate Report 110-335 - NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009; Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, 110th Congress, 2d Session, Chairman Carl Levin, May 12, 2008:
Excerpted from U.S. Northern Command gains dedicated response force, US Northern Command News, September 30, 2008:
See also:
Units assigned to CCMRF gain insights for new response mission, US Northern Command News, September 19, 2008.
November 2, 2008 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where is the STATUTE based upon the "sense of Congress" REPORT -- the REPORT itself NOT BEING LAW?
That "Report" concerns Defense Authorization (which is routine) -- money for national defense. The specifics of the REPORT are not necessarily STIPULATIONS as to how the defense authorization is to be spent.
November 3, 2008 5:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think there is a lot of over-concern here. After all, we have had a bunch of active armed forces units assigned to their bases all over the country since about 1789 or so (some predate the founding of the republic, including my alma mater, West Point), and they have not threatened the safety of the people or the future of our democracy.
Assigning a brigade (out of the 37 the army has on active duty) to support local authorities does not seem to be a big deal to me. Yes, an asshat is currently the president, so concern is understandable.... But this seems like not too much to be worried about.
November 2, 2008 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. If this was a legitimate concern, we would have suffered through multiple military coups over the years since Adams and Hamilton decided a standing army would be just fine despite what we wrote in the Constitution.
November 3, 2008 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
And the Taser weapons that the 1st of the 3rd has been issued and is now training with won't be used domestically by these non-combatant representatives of the combatant command, they will only be used in other countries against those poor stiffs who weren't smart enough to be born American and don't like Americans. Sure. Increasing demand for that, as more people hate us.
November 2, 2008 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
chuck DC,
One brigade is not that troubling - but what may be more troubling is that posse commitatus has been suspended by executive asshat order .
I am very confident that the uniformed military would never obey an 'illgal order " to make war on our general populace - I am concerned about the asshats re Cheney , Addington & Dubya might try to prevaricate & fabricate a scenario that could lead to the uniformed military thinking that its needed to "restore domestic order" .
Its still quite troubling that the anthrax attacks have never been fully investigated , much less solved -( and no the dude that worked for Ft Detrick that committed suicide still leaves too many loose strings dangling ) - What happens if we have more white powder dispersed over a large geographic area the last week in December 2008 and Cheneybush orders out the military to start taking into custody those associated with this WMD "event" .
Hopefully this question of suspending posse commitatus will be fully vetted and made transparent -even moot - after the general election -and when President Obama is sworn into office. And shortly thereafter every asshat exeutive order /signing statement of the last eight years will be rescinded.
November 2, 2008 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
One brigade is not that troubling - but what may be more troubling is that posse commitatus has been suspended by executive asshat order .
_____
SUBSTANTIATE.
November 3, 2008 5:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jason,
You make several points I have used, especially that the soldiers are not likely to attack Americans. I have more concerns about the Blackwater mercenaries than our troops.
I am essentially of the opinion that holding a possibility like this up to examination is not a bad thing. It may be far-fetched but I gather the Trojans never imagined that horse, while we had plenty of warnings, that were ignored, for 9/11.
I've argued with a few people enraged over the suspicions of voter suppression and vote counting fraud because this was somehow not helpful or could be harmful. Well, compared to even 2006, there is clearly a lot of awareness by the population that they need to verify their registrations, check their voting location, go early if possible and have the right ID. Because they have been warned and informed about the potential problems.
The threats of some new incident puts the first brigade mission in a new light. Unfortunately, even those of us who have considered the WOT an excuse for our own aggression, do not doubt that there are terrorists who still hate us and might well try something else. We also know that the former USSR nuclear weapons were not very well guarded for some time.
Well, I think I will go back to anticipating the election. No hand wringing, just waiting out the hours until it is a done deal. With Tuesday devoted to GOTV
November 2, 2008 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, Ginny, that we should certainly be aware of what's going on around us and be willing to discuss the various and sundry items that go on each and every day.
I guess my main concern was the entire discussion is premised on the idea that American troops would be willing to wage extended warfare on American citizens. In 200+ years of a standing army on American soil we have never had a single incident of this happening except during the Civil War.
I won't go into the whole subjugation of the American west using the Army or our various misadventures around the world, as I think that is a much more startling use of our military forces and deserves much-needed criticism to ensure it doesn't happen again, but the points raised in this blog are a distraction and can actually hinder more conservative Americans from discussing the issue because it starts from a frame of paranoid indifference to historical facts.
Having said that, this thread has actually been pretty productive.
November 3, 2008 8:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ginny said;
Ginny, lets not forget where Blackwater gets its employees, the vast majority are ex US Military with many others being ex foreign military.
As I said earlier, we're dealing with human nature and the mentality is the same whether or not you're in the Army or working for Blackwater.
November 3, 2008 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the vast majority of Blackwater contractors are special forces, which is a very small subset of the military as a whole and have a culture all their own.
Further, these guys are ex-military for a reason, usually a lack of discipline and an inability to follow orders, which makes them an even smaller subset.
Most career military look down on Blackwater types for that very reason.
November 3, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jason,
you're reaching and starting to sound silly.
November 3, 2008 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jason,
here's what you said earlier in this thread, a response to my mention of Kent State;
Now you're saying of these modern, highly trained and savvy Special Forces soldiers who work for Blackwater;
November 3, 2008 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
You said that the fact the Blackwater has "ex military types" that it backs up your assertion that we should be wary of the military in general. I showed how that was an erroneous reading of the facts. But, by all means, believe whatever you want about the military. I prefer to rely on my own first-hand experience from over ten years in uniform.
November 3, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason said;
I made no such assertion.
and, you said;
You showed no such thing, though you may have offered an 'opinion.'
November 3, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
November 3, 2008 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason, this is what I didn't say:
I'm not afraid of the military in general, you yourself claimed these private armies concern you and I made the point that these private armies are staffed with ex-military which you then proceeded to disparage. What changed in people's attitude when they left the military for employment with a Blackwater? It all goes back to one of my initial concerns, human nature. Too many people running around with authority and loaded weapons.
I remember watching TV showing the aftermath of Katrina when General Honore ordered a soldier to "shoulder that rifle!" Good for Honore.
Look, this is going around in circles, take the last word.
November 3, 2008 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny. I'll take the last word because I am young and impetuous. We actually agree on most of the broad strokes, just not some of the details.
I am concerned with the mercenary armies because they are staffed with many bad seeds from the military, not because they are staffed with ex-military. At least, that is the impression I get from what I have read of Blackwater.
Seems to me that stand-up military folks would stay active-duty if they were inclined to more martial careers rather than getting out to join such an outfit as Blackwater.
November 3, 2008 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Demand removal, now: a relentless call for NOW! This move of Pentagon armed combat forces on US soil, IMMEDIATELY sets off alarm bells. Please America, wake-up. Something big is up.
Excuses for its deadly presence as friendly and benign are a ruse. We must ask who benefits when our national defense is poised to attack us? Yes, us. Look around. No enemy, just us. Am I the only one who smells a stench?
November 2, 2008 9:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Step away from the tin foil.
November 3, 2008 8:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are recent rumors, they started 2 days ago, that are now beginning to hit the main media. Evidently iran has tested two underground nuclear weapons. Our administration has expected this since August. It sent a massive naval armada to Iran, and, of course, brought home the 1st Brigade. Google "Iran tested nuclear weapon" Hang on.
November 2, 2008 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Evidently"?
At this point the most one could say is that some Israeli, presumably with an agenda (election of McCain?), has started what you accurately describe as a "rumor."
November 3, 2008 12:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen Yes, "evidently" is poor word choice. Probably only a rumor. That is good, I am in favor of this not being true. However, I am one who believes the world is falling apart, not getting better. I think we, or our children, will one day see all out chaos.
November 3, 2008 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I just did - the only return was this very page.
November 3, 2008 1:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, removing the quotes seems to have some effect...
Of course, the only current non-Israeli one on the first page was telegraph.co.uk, who speak of any "test" as a potential future occurrence, not a fait accompli.
November 3, 2008 2:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
YOUR "administration" -- not the majority's.
I for one am fed up with the repetitions of the same lies used against Iran that were used against Iraq.
More than that, I am angry that stupid-assed suckers/trolls such as you STILL swallow, and regurgitate, the SAME lies as if MAYBE THIS TIME they'll be TRUE! ANYTHING but accept the fact that liars are not to be trusted, regardless how many times they cry wolf at the same time every night.
November 3, 2008 5:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Grown men weep at the idiocy of some in our country.
Must be that liberal media keeping it a secret that Iran tested a nuke. My favorite BS (via Rush, likely, heard from co-worker) was Iran could launch a missile from a tanker offshore here, sink the tanker, and get away without anyone being able to pin it on them. Fun to pull that apart, I leave it to you to enjoy.
November 3, 2008 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want you to all know that I revere Talking Points Memo and am honored to be allowed to write here. I know that I am as newbe as it gets but I am already disturbed.
I write this in no way to be mean or judgmental, but rightly or wrongly, I felt lied to or at best, zealously mocked. Yes, right here where we practice free exchange of ideas, mocked. Wow, bamm-didn't take long at all! Well, let's have at it and may the best human start acting like the divine light that we really are. And who knows me anyhow?
November 3, 2008 12:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hang in there, Bob. The Talkies tend to frown on heavy use of caps and exclamation marks, as well as calls to action from folks who haven't demonstrated a deep knowledge of the subject.
When talking about this kind of stuff, it's important to stay with fact and persuasion, and eschew talk that's more like scaring ourselves around a campfire. We've been known to go off on tangents. (Although we've also been known to stick to it on issues and reveal new, important information.)
You weren't being personally attacked, just warned to substantiate....
November 3, 2008 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is silliness. Are we discussing the possibility of a coup? You lost me.
November 3, 2008 12:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
More likely we're discussing "slippery slopes" and "camels' noses and tents."
There does seem to be some rhetorical confusion between two different matters: the stationing of U.S. troops on American soil and the purpose thereof.
As chuck DC points out, U.S. troops have always been "stationed" on U.S. soil -- but that doesn't or shouldn't end the discussion.
Federal forces are "in barracks" when state-side (training and reprovisioning prior to deployment). They have never been given standing orders to train for and respond to orders to fight (make war on -- oops! control as in "we now 'control' Baghdad") American citizens at home. And that's what 1st Battalion is, apparently, being trained to do.
Is that what we want?
November 3, 2008 1:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, if that is what we are talking about.
I wouldn't like that at all. The military should be exclusively in the ass-kicking business, and should leave policing and such other authorities.
I need to go back and read the sources cited in this thread and comment again in the morn, becuase I'm too tired at the moment.
November 3, 2008 1:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen said:
I think you're right.
November 3, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen said:
I think you're right.
November 3, 2008 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
While it's tedious to lay on conspiracy rhetoric, I can't help but remember the Watergate mentality and Iran Contra as examples of deliberate subversion of our system of checks and balances.
I want to trust the good judgment of our uniformed military. I want to see an end to the Blackwater mercenaries. I want to see any uniformed general officers who speak from the pulpit immediately cashiered.
This is such serious business that warm and fuzzy expectations of restraint are not helpful.
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance" is engraved in our civic consciousness and yet we have tolerated terrible abuses by civilian leadership, by military leadership, and by corporate entities that have repeatedly succumbed to the arrogance of power.
That makes me a bit testy, but not necessarily paranoid.
November 3, 2008 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey JNag My guess is you talk like that only when you are in your car, or behind a computer. You are a little guy, right? One of those guys who got picked on while growing up, so now you are an annonomous tough guy, right?
November 3, 2008 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Permit me to recap a bit.
A US Army Brigade Combat Team, the 1st Brigade of the 3d Infantry (1/3), stationed at Ft. Stewart, Georgia, is now assigned to NORTHCOM, which is a so-called "combatant command" recently formed in the US. The primary function of 1/3, like other army combat units, is to accomplish whatever mission it is given, usually to capture objectives by destroying enemy units using firepower and maneuver. The individuals in the unit's fighting units are highly trained on various weapons systems and motivated to use them.
Other US combatant commands are EUCOM, designed as they say to keep the Russians out and the Germans down, PACOM, responsible for fighting in the Pacific area, CENTCOM, responsible for conducting the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia, and the new AFRICOM, which no doubt will have future war-making assignments in the dark continent. So NORTHCOM is in this nature, again, a "combatant command," another component of the US military empire.
Naomi has pointed out, correctly, that 1/3's stated mission, before it was changed, was crowd control. Now crowd control can be benign, but recently there has been a tendency, as we saw in St. Paul, to get over-reactive and hurt people. Hurt them badly. We don't know what might happen, but one might safely assume that combat veterans assigned to a combat unit in a combatant command are not going to be your usual street crossing guards when it comes to confrontations with US citzens. In fact, the 1/3 has recently been issued Taser weapons and has been training with them. They say that these weapons won't be used on Americans, but various police are already using them on Americans as we know (don't tase me, bro). There are some interesting tasering videos on YouTube. Should we assume that combat units would be less violent than police forces? No, of course not.
The new revised story is that 1/3 will be used for "consequence management" after a terrorist attack. Now, Naomi is asking, with all the disaster relief, fire and police units in this country, with all the National Guard units which have always served us well, why do we now have a trained combat unit assigned to a combatant command for "consequence management" if not for armed action against Americans? There apparently has been no intelligence report that indicates that there might be enemy combat units on US soil at such a time. What else might they do if not to combat US citizens? Or, as I suggested above, might these troopers be used individually as members of a new federal police force? Inquiring minds want to know.
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It should be noted that the original mission description in the Army Times stated that the brigade had been trained in the use of "non-lethal" weapons.
This does not automatically mean tasers. The military has contracted for much larger weapons, such as the Active Denial Systems. These systems have not only not been thoroughly tested to verify their non-lethality, but such large systems would greatly multiply the (allegedly "non-lethal")force that a brigade could deliver.
In as much as the published mission description has changed since this redeployment came to light, and it poses posse comitatus issues anyway, I think a healthy dose of skepticism is completely appropriate.
November 3, 2008 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
from the Army Times (excerpts):
The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.
The package is for use only in war-zone operations, not for any domestic purpose.
“It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it.”
The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.
“I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” said [Colonel] Cloutier, describing the experience as “your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body.
“I’m not a small guy, I weigh 230 pounds ... it put me on my knees in seconds.”
Correction:
A non-lethal crowd control package fielded to 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, described in the original version of this story, is intended for use on deployments to the war zone, not in the U.S., as previously stated.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/
Another change in mission and procedures. Sure. Those Tasers they've been issued and are training to use won't be used for "consequence management" in the US. How gullible are we?
November 3, 2008 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also many of those non-lethal measures wind up unintentionally (or intentionally) killing people. When they are deployed in chaotic circumstances, like say against a crowd of citizens not used to being deployed-upon, it can get lethal. Even that kewl sticky spray goo immobilizing goo; you don't want to wind up face-first in that.
November 3, 2008 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
And by the way, Naomi, if you are reading these comments, the ACLU's website has a description of the Maryland State Police's surveillance of activist groups.
Typically, further investigation has revealed that the program was a tad more comprehensive than originally stated.
November 3, 2008 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on NORTHCOM:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2008/03/mil-080311-afps01.htm
Oh goody, maturing relationships with the FBI.
November 3, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don,
I saw Mullen testify before a Congressional Committee, he's an arrogant pr**k, reminded me of Burt Lancaster's James Matoon Scott in Seven Days in May. I don't trust him.
November 3, 2008 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
John,
I think that he just seems arrogant. It's a ruse. He's a blue water sailor who is faced with a lot of responsibility for a huge problem, several of them, really, involving land combat and occupation armies and foreign politics none of which he has a clue about. And now he's got Petraeus, 43 and 44's buddy, for a direct subordinate.
November 3, 2008 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just for fun, a list of domestic military interventions:
IDAHO 1892 Troops Army suppresses silver miners' strike.
CHICAGO - 1894 Troops Breaking of rail strike, 34 killed.
IDAHO 1899-1901 Troops Army occupies Coeur d'Alene mining region.
COLORADO 1914 Troops Breaking of miners' strike by Army.
WASHINGTON DC 1932 Troops Army stops WWI vet bonus protest.
DETROIT 1943 Troops Army put down Black rebellion.
DETROIT l967 Troops Army battles African Americans, 43 killed.
UNITED STATES l968 Troops After King is shot; over 21,000 soldiers in cities.
SOUTH DAKOTA l973 Command operation Army directs Wounded Knee siege of Lakotas.
LOS ANGELES 1992 Troops Army, Marines deployed against anti-police uprising.
UNITED STATES 2001 Jets, naval Reaction to hijacker attacks on New York, DC
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
I was assigned the 75th Engineers at Ft. Lewis, WA, in 1967 when we were put on alert for deployment to civil unrest hot spots. The reaction among us GIs is noteworthy. I'd estimate that about 25% were deeply troubled about the prospect of firing on US civilians, while the rest didn't seem to see it in any way other than following orders. Fortunately it didn't happen.
November 3, 2008 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, neo, for a posting to this thread that adds light instead of just heat.
A trend that has not been discussed here is the gradual 'righting' of the all-volunteer force that has occurred since the abolishment of selective service. Some of the Air Force officer corps (for example) have taken a decided turn to the right, and to the Conservative Christian tendency. They've also gotten somewhat sloppy with their nuclear weapons, but that's another story. Cases such as Mikey Weinstein's reveal only a small part of the phenomenon.
We have yet to see whether loyalty to the Constitution would trump the opportunity given to a few senior officers (and the people in their commands, who really are NOT trained to either recognize or disobey unlawful orders) to support a chance to remake the US as a "Christian Nation." Hopefully, we will never have to test our military in that way.
It has been argued here that no single brigade could occupy territory in the United States successfully. That is indeed a rational position to take. However, under the scenario described above, senior officers commanding a ground force with air support (and the ideological impetus of "God's Will") might well make an irrational decision to try and stir things up, especially if they perceive that they would receive support from a significant number of the "gum'mint hating" civilian gun nuts (many of which also have leanings toward that whole "Christian Nation" thing and no sworn oath to protect the Constitution) - ultimately it would probably fail after a bunch of people got killed and a bunch of stuff got broken.
That's my straw man argument, and I'm sticking with it.
Eternal vigilance, indeed.
November 3, 2008 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Father Guido Sarducci,
I'm sure these "rogue" senior officers could find some recruits in the Alaskan Independence Party, expecially if they gave commissions to Sarah and the First Dude. :-)
November 3, 2008 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
A scene from Jason's army:
SEGEANT BADASS: Miller, get your sorry ass in there and clean the latrine.
PFC MILLER: Sergeant, I can't do it.
SB: You can't do it? You #$%^&*%%, get in there right now. I want to see nothing but ***hole and elbows.
PM: I can't do it because it's an illegal order. Lieutenant Shavetail talked to us in class today and said that we should refuse to obey illegal orders. I'm not on the duty roster for latrine detail today. PFC Smith has the duty, and he's over at the day room shooting pool. So you're giving me an illegal order and I refuse to obey.
SB: Well, excuse me, private. I didn't realize my order was illegal, so pardon me all to hell. I will mosey on over to the day room and roust Private Smith, for certain, and I hope you have a nice evening.
November 3, 2008 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
A scene from Jason's army:
SEGEANT BADASS: Miller, get your sorry ass in there and clean the latrine.
PFC MILLER: Sergeant, I can't do it.
SB: You can't do it? You #$%^&*%%, get in there right now. I want to see nothing but ***hole and elbows.
PM: I can't do it because it's an illegal order. Lieutenant Shavetail talked to us in class today and said that we should refuse to obey illegal orders. I'm not on the duty roster for latrine detail today. PFC Smith has the duty, and he's over at the day room shooting pool. So you're giving me an illegal order and I refuse to obey.
SB: Well, excuse me, private. I didn't realize my order was illegal, so pardon me all to hell. I will mosey on over to the day room and roust Private Smith, for certain, and I hope you have a nice evening.
November 3, 2008 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don,
or,
Lieutenant Jack Armstrong; "Sgt JohnW, take a combat patrol into the woods over there and get a fix on the enemy."
Sgt JohnW: "Wait till I call my Lawyer to see if this order is legal." :-)
November 4, 2008 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I commented that maybe the 1st brigade's homecoming is related to the scanty reports that Iran has tested nuclear weapons. My comment made one guy cuss, and another man, who claims to be full grown, to weep.
Whether or not Iran has tested a nuclear weapon is not yet known. Probably not, but who knows? There are a couple of dozen sites on the internet that are reporting the story but basically only repeating the original. That Iran may soon have nuclear weapons, though, has been reported by the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/opinion/29milhollin.html?n=Top/News/World/Countries%20and%20Territories/Iran
I consider it quite believeable that Iran will soon have, or now has, nuclear weapons. About equal, on the believeability scale, as the contention that the current administration indends to use the 1st Brigade for nefarious purposes. Frankly, I think they are both believeable.
November 3, 2008 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
JEM -
Unlawful orders were issued pertaing to Abu Gharib torture - yet only lower ranks were ultimately punished. How & when do uniformed military decide an order is unlawful & not obey the chain of command ? If in the context of a "major WMD" event that was dispersed across a large swath of CONUS,and over several weeks - would the military be prepared to disobey unlawful orders such as the arrest of large number of "suspected domestic terrorist allied with al Qaida " . Recent history suggests that a domestic WMD event could be staged (we still do not know who tried to disrupt our governance with the anthrax attacks-but at least four innocent American civilains died, and that the anthrax used was militarized ) -The antrax attacks could be an " domestic event"- akin to the "attack" on our Navy in the Gulf of Tokin -that we now know was a prevarication -and led to some very bad outcomes ( I do recall there was one Army officer who tried to stop Calley at May Lai - that man must be remembered as a hero ).
IMHO opinion all Senoir Civilan Leadership under gwb 43 have potentially committed war crimes -and we need to have some kind of court proceedings to ascertain just who ordered all of the anti constitutional, unAmerican crap we have been subjected to the last eight years .
And further IMHO , given the current status of the gwb43 we all need to be aware of "what could happen " before January 2009 . I repeat from a previous comment on this thread until the new administration is sworn in myself , Namomi Wolf , and Alex Jones will be keeping our collective powder dry .
November 4, 2008 6:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not going to go back through all the annals of US military history to show where soldiers have refused to follow unlawful orders. Granted, during war that line becomes much grayer.
However, we are talking about a massive undertaking to overthrow the US government using the US military and that is a fantasy. There is no way that a large enough percentage of the military is going to wage that kind of war without serious consequences to the efficacy of the forces in question.
My ONLY point is that regardless of chimeras and conspiracy theories, we have never come close to that scenario in the 230+ years of the republic, despite whatever specific scenarios can be dragged out to "prove" such a thing is possible. Further, if the end goal is more accountability for the military and a drastic reversal of our imperial ambitions then paranoid fantasies of the military takeover of the US is not the best way to go about convincing a majority of Americans to push their representatives toward that as a solution.
At the end of the day, it is the American voter who holds the civilian leadership accountable for their illegal actions. If we don't demand better, this is what we are left with - fringe ideologies fighting it out online and on talk radio.
In my opinion, that is not the most effective way to change a nation. Barack Obama is proving that opinion this year. How far do you think he would get with the talking points on this blog? Not very far, I would wager.
November 4, 2008 7:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
JEM ,
I have absoulte faith that our trained professional military would never knowingly subvert their oath to Protect & Defend the Constitution. I do also believe that the current administration must not be allowed any chance of disrupting the peaceful election of President Obama. ( And if this means I wear tinfoil til Jan 2009 -well so be it ..)
I also wish to thank you for making good faith efforts to find a middle ground , a broadening of consensus for governance . The Bull Moose Party - was pretty progressive for its time - certainly would like to see what TNR would do with this current bunch of greedy slugs we have that were responsible for destroying our markets .
President Obama will also broaden this consensus in 'these United States " - feel that first temblor -thats the coming electoral landslide ..
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