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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Congress Orders Deployment Of Army Division In CONUS |
| 2008-12-01 |
| The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said. There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement. But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. "May I see your internal passport, citizen?" |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #35 How 'bout we do a trial run, first, and station some 20,000 federales, er, federal troops along our southern border and see if they can halt the tsunami of sh*t-wage labor that Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee are determined to import? |
| Posted by: thibaud 2008-12-01 22:58 |
| #34 There is absolutely nothing, zero, zilch in NORTHCOMM's training program that precludes or prevents or discourages all of the other measures that the Feds, state and local officials can do in our defense. Agreed. It's designed to reinforce, not supplant measures that the Federal, state and local governments and agencies should and supposedly are taking. Based on my experiences tho, it will likely end up being a 'first response'. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-12-01 22:12 |
| #33 I see a huge problem here, the troops react,not prevent. That means the Govt has given up on prevention, and is only settingup for "Reaction" mode. Ever hear the phrase "defense in depth"? How about "don't put all your eggs in a single basket"? There is absolutely nothing, zero, zilch in NORTHCOMM's training program that precludes or prevents or discourages all of the other measures that the Feds, state and local officials can do in our defense. The reality is that it may not be enough to try to defend. We're an open society with a vulnerable infrastructure. Our enemy doesn't have a civilization to defend .... he wins if he destroys ours, while we try to defend the most vulnerable / critical areas AND sensibly have plans for coping with disasters (attack or natural) that might happen despite our efforts. Pretty basic, really. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-12-01 21:55 |
| #32 Which was created by the post Civil War resurgent Southern Democrats to remove federal troops from the voting stations in the south which they then took the opportunity to crushed the rights of blacks for nearly a hundred years. So much for the concept that it protects civil rights P2K, this is a result but not the whole reason for Posse Comitatus Act. The legaly elected Deomcrat State Senetors in Louisianna were forcibly removed from the Capital by Federal Troops at the request of the Government appointed Governor. The States, especially the mid-western states, then realized that if the Federal Government could do that to a Southern State it could do that to ANY State. This was the end of the Radical Republican domination of the Federal Government. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2008-12-01 21:46 |
| #31 lotp, I know people working on that, including systems and logistics work. Scary stuff. There are a lot of us old cold warriors that have the skills and are willing to volunteer. Maybe under the auspices of the Surgeon General, with "ranks" and cheap fatigues so the military heirachy can relate to it. I wish they would grab us old guys, and make a Federal "citizens guard" that would do the networking, support and other scut work (medical term), so that we could free up the Guard and regular units for actual field duty. Training would be simply getting certification in out tech speciality, and getting 1st responder (plus oxygen and AED) medical certification. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-12-01 21:34 |
| #30 I've got no problem with this - I worry a lot more about Obama's Civilian |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-12-01 21:30 |
| #29 I see a huge problem here, the troops react,not prevent. That means the Govt has given up on prevention, and is only settingup for "Reaction" mode. Not good, this almost guarantees such an attack will succede, and troops are only for "Mopup" afterwards. Time to hunker down and be as un-noticed as possible. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2008-12-01 21:16 |
| #28 Okay... in the early 50s we buried a years worth of crops under the tundra in Alaska (pre statehood) for emergencies like this... Does anybody remember where we put it? It might be important to remember. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2008-12-01 21:10 |
| #27 Bottom line: there are a lot more of us than in the past, we mingle a lot more but have very unequal living conditions and environment. Actually, in some respects, thanks to modern transportation and fossil fuels, I think we mingle a lot less. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2008-12-01 20:19 |
| #26 Not beyond the realm of possiblity, Snowy.  Over the last few decades we've seen massive movement of people back and forth between e.g. 3rd world countries and the west.  Already we have millions of people in the US with little or no immunity to e.g. smallpox since we've stopped immunizing for it. Similarly we have few people born here with natural immunity to many of the micro-organisms found in Africa and tropical rural areas.  Small changes in climate could facilitate the spread of plague out of the American Southwest, etc. etc. Bottom line: there are a lot more of us than in the past, we mingle a lot more but have very unequal living conditions and environment.  A while back the book The Coming Plague made the case for the likelihood of such a pandemic and it didn't posit terrorism at all. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-12-01 20:09 |
| #25 lotp, I don't know if you've seen it already, but a natural (as opposed to artificial) pandemic is part of the background to John Ringo's recent _The Last Centurion_. As well as an ice age and the _Anabasis_ as a reality TV show... |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2008-12-01 19:53 |
| #24 E.g. WORLD MIL FORUM/OTHER > any effective nuclearization of IRAN will symbolically mark not only the END = FAILURE of WORLD NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION EFFORTS [NPT = Treaty], BUT PERHAPS MORE IMPORTANTLY WILL MARK THE [PROTO-]NUCLEARIZATION OF ISLAMIST TERROR AND OTHER PRO-VIOLENCE RADICAL/XTREMIST MILITANT-ANARCHIST GROUPS OR MOVEMENTS??? * FREEREPUBLIC > FORMER JAPANESE AIR FORCE CHIEF SAYS JAPAN SHOULD DEV NUCLEAR WEAPONS. IRAN is already promoting the idea of regional and international Muslim nations to dev their own Nucprogs, ostensibly for domestic Energy!? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-12-01 19:43 |
| #23 It's part of the mission for NORTHCOMM. Let's try a little scenario.  Forget about dramatic nukes and huge explosions. Imagine some nice jihadis who did grad work in biochem in the States supply two dozen friends with packets of micro-organisms. Those packets reach the post-treatment water supply of a major city, or perhaps the feedlot of a major cattle supplier, or similar places.  Maybe one a week, here and there. Soon one city has a burgeoning epidemic, the food supply is starting to be iffy in places and each week for two months a new outbreak of something occurs. And begins to spread. How long before civil order totally breaks down in the country? And who could respond at the local or state level effectively???? I know what a friend of mine, a biodefense expert, thinks .... I've worked on my employer's pandemic influenza plan.  It has a section on dealing with frantic parents who try to storm the installation walls seeking vaccinations or immediate medical care for already sick and infectious loved ones. It also has a section on how to store thousands of bodies until there is time to bury them safely. And a section about setting up isolation wards using field hospital equipment, with triage weeding out many of the sick as medical personnel desperately try to contain the spread of the disease. And a section how to feed a couple thousand people for an extended period while maintaining social isolation of potentially infected people. And a section on maintaining sanitation as infrastructure deteriorates because 1/2 or more of the workers can't make it to their jobs as a result of their own or loved ones' illness / death. Tell me again about internal passports, why doncha??? |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-12-01 19:36 |
| #22 Maybe I missed something in the debate and article, but it doesn't seem like this is net new troops, only a new mission tasking/training for troops who are already stationed in CONUS. Sort of like an alert brigade from the 82nd, or a QRF responsibility that will rotate throughout CONUS units. I really don't think this is much more than another NORTHCOM mission tasking to add to their portfolio of responsibilities. Did anybody see net new troops? I didn't. |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2008-12-01 19:18 |
| #21 And it worked. Yes, the Democrats lost the Louisiana Governorship but they got the Presidency and the Congress out of it. I'm sure they cry about their "loss" from this all the way to the bank every payday. (Or whatever Freezer they're keeping their Cold Hard Cash in). |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2008-12-01 18:58 |
| #20 Katrina is a good example: the state of Louisiana and city of New Orleans failed, FEMA failed, but the coast guard and the army units we moved there succeeded. FEMA's problem was that it placed too much faith in the process. One can easily dig up the information as to how FEMA is supposed to respond (it's dated several years before Katrina). Essentially, the local disaster response authority determines that it can't handle it, so it goes to the county or state. Those decide that it's too big for them to handle and request FEMA assistance. What we had here was a non-existent local disaster authority, or even a functioning local government. Then for a myriad of reasons, the Lousy-anna government decided to play politics with peoples' lives. Did FEMA fumble? Yes. Was it entirely their fault? No. They put entirely too much faith in the process, and in the idea that people in charge at the local and state levels would be reasonable, fore-thinking, and concerned with helping their citizens rather than their political careers. Wow - kinda like the local and state homeland security organizations, what? |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-12-01 18:54 |
| #19 This was the intended purpose of State and Local Militias. Unfortunately they became politaclly run and motivated and have all but dissapeared. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2008-12-01 18:52 |
| #18 To follow on Pappy, I note that Article I, section 8 of the Constitution provides, amongst other things: To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces; To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; I don't mean to be a sea-lawyer, but part of what Congress does is to establish what our military does. If we need our military to handle the emergency response to a nuclear terrorist threat or domestic catastrophe, good, because we have a military to keep us safe. We can argue about the failings of our other government institutions in this regard, but we have a military to keep us safe in the most dire emergencies. Katrina is a good example: the state of Louisiana and city of New Orleans failed, FEMA failed, but the coast guard and the army units we moved there succeeded. If we have a catastrophe develop -- a nuke, widespread deadly influenza, Mumbai-style attack, etc -- I'd prefer that among our first responder be people who know what they're doing, and that's our military. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2008-12-01 18:36 |
| #17 Think of Mumbai. Add a "dirty" bomb. Now place it in East St. Louis, USA. What resources are there than can adequately handle it? None. It is apparently simply a large ghetto. Only the USA Federal military will be able to get there with enough trained people in a a short amount of time. (google was quite helpful in discovering that place). |
| Posted by: Lagom 2008-12-01 18:40 |
| #16 Ouch!! |
| Posted by: tipover 2008-12-01 18:31 |
| #15 Bush is still in Office but the Democrats run Congress. (See title of piece). Now that they have _their_ candidate who will be in charge after Jan. 20something they feel OK with expanding the exercise of executive power. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2008-12-01 18:28 |
| #14 We can't deal with pirates in Somalia but we need to deploy a division of troops in the US? This is the kind of standing army our forefathers fought against. How soon will we have to quarter them in our homes? I found seven examples of 'stupid' in this and I didn't finish reading the comment. "We can't deal with pirates in Somalia but we need to deploy a division of troops in the US?" Did you even bother to read the article? Somalia is not a threat to the U.S. right now. But somehow. for some reason, two of the three branches of the Federal Guv'mint have agreed that there is a threat to the U.S.: The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said. There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement. That tells me that state and local agencies tasked with responding are incapable. Whether it's greed, patronage, political attitude, or lack of seriousness, they can't do the job. Oh, and that the 'hothouse lovers of civil liberty' have their heads up their asses. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command. Where in that do you see the words 'quarter in our homes'? Again - this is happening because your local and state politicians and bureaucrats have failed. Screwed up. And when the shit hits the fan, I guarran-damn-tee that you and every one of your so-called liberty-lovin' claque is going to be screaming and crying and asking "what went wrong?" and looking for somebody to blame. I imagine this is Obambi and the Tranzistocracy's way of making sure that noone does to them what Blanco did to Bush during Katrina. Bush is still in office, but yes - I suspect that what happened at the local and state levels during Katrina are exactly what is feared will happen if an attack hits a U.S. city. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-12-01 18:20 |
| #13 I imagine this is Obambi and the Tranzistocracy's way of making sure that noone does to them what Blanco did to Bush during Katrina. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2008-12-01 17:55 |
| #12 Dollars to donuts, Uncle, they won't be stationed where they can actually do some good ... near our borders. |
| Posted by: WilliamMarcyTweed 2008-12-01 17:28 |
| #11 I'd be thrilled to have American troops quartered in my house. If things go that badly, I can't think of a better way to be kept safe. But I rather imagine the troops will continue to be stationed on their current bases, as there are bases of various sizes all over the place. On the other hand, where did the troops stay after Hurrican Katrina and Hurrican Ike? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-12-01 17:18 |
| #10 BTW, Pappy, you're dead on. |
| Posted by: Uncle Phester 2008-12-01 17:15 |
| #9 #8 These troops will be stationed ... where? Posted by: WilliamMarcyTweed 2008-12-01 17:01 If you have to ask, you may be of, er, "interest." |
| Posted by: Uncle Phester 2008-12-01 17:14 |
| #8 These troops will be stationed ... where? |
| Posted by: WilliamMarcyTweed 2008-12-01 17:01 |
| #7 Right, the headline is misleading. "some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role" hardly justifies that lurid headline. |
| Posted by: KBK 2008-12-01 16:38 |
| #6 That's true. About all Congress can do is write some legistlation repealing Posse Comitatus. |
| Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats 2008-12-01 15:59 |
| #5 I don't think the headline matches the story, but I wasn't aware that the congress could order the military to do anything. they are not in the chain of command. |
| Posted by: JRDickens 2008-12-01 15:39 |
| #4 We can't deal with pirates in Somalia but we need to deploy a division of troops in the US? This is the kind of standing army our forefathers fought against. How soon will we have to quarter them in our homes? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-12-01 15:37 |
| #3 "May I see your internal passport, citizen?" And as usual, the usual suspects are barking about the 'expanse of executive authority' and 'loss of liberty'. There are inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness; the right to leave them unattended wasn't included in the package. What it means (assigning an active-duty unit trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe) is that the various Federal, state and local agencies tasked with responding have failed to meet the challenge. If you you're worked up about 'showing your papers', it's because your local and state politicians, the Left, and your fellow travelers in Libertaria have consciously decided their agendas are more important than the country and its citizens. And when the shit hits the fan, I bet you won't be looking to any of them to fix it. Will you, Professor? |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-12-01 15:04 |
| #2 It would make sense to use transport units and other non-combat units that are trained to deal with large scale destruction response to help supplement the local guard and reserve units. As long as non-combat arms troops are used, I don't see any problem with this. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-12-01 15:01 |
| #1 Posse Comitatus Act Which was created by the post Civil War resurgent Southern Democrats to remove federal troops from the voting stations in the south which they then took the opportunity to crushed the rights of blacks for nearly a hundred years. So much for the concept that it protects civil rights. The liberals had no problem when Eisenhower or Kennedy used federalized and federal troops to carry through civil rights actions in the 50s and 60s, but you sure enough will hear the whine from the left if any centralist or conservative president employed the same tool. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-12-01 13:31 |