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.
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.
Thoughts? Wade? Ron?
Well, I have no problem with it. Currently they have to cobble together a reaction force from whatever units are in country at the time. This will allow a faster and more cohesive reaction. Sounds good.
ReplyDeleteNow, that might scare some people, but as long as I have my guns I will sleep soundly...
How many guns do you have, Wade? ;-)
ReplyDeleteWow, pressure's on when you're called out by name...
ReplyDeleteIn principle, I have no problem with the change because given the current status of local law enforcement and rapid-response groups, there is no one to deal effectively with a major catastrophe. I'm not particularly concerned about posse comitatus in the event of such a major crisis, since we've seen local law enforcement collapse in the face of the natural disasters that recently struck southern parts of the US. The military would require oversight, to ensure respect for rights, but without a rapid deployment people's rights are going to be violated by the mobs in the streets.
My bigger concern is the one that they get to at the end of the article, that of strain on the military. Our overworked professional military doesn't really have the spare capacity to deal with these extra tasks as long as current numbers of enlistment and deployment continue. Granted, it looks like we're getting much of the Iraq force out over the next 16-32 months, but a good chunk of that is going to Afghanistan, and the new administration may want to use the military to get reinvolved with humanitarian interventions. Either the Army has to grow or a new force dedicated to these situations has to be set up. We can't keep piling tasks on the military.
And, Michele, Wade isn't going to tell you how many guns he has - he's got to keep the bad guys guessing.