To those who have served or are currently serving...
 

Would you shoot down a fellow citizen in the street?

Its seems that as of Oct. 1st, the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team is now stationed in the US with a new mission to help with civil unrest and crowd control, as reported in the Army Times.

The timing is ...odd, if not bothersome. Are they anticipating riots in our near future?

The revolution is near, my friend.

Yea...I was kind of for the war because it was keeping the Army from police-ing me at home. (not really but why not try and look at the bright side)This will not last long, however...and the time is drawing nigh. It's time for me to figure out where the logical places for the checkpoints are....

Hmm interesting article - seems like pre-planning to me. Whats wrong with this?

I have no problem with the military helping out in a disaster on US soil as long as they leave the weapons at home.

Armed troops, performing law enforcement, is a violation of posse comitatus.

This is the part that bothers me "They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control."

When I was doing Katrina Relief work I heard some stuff....Not great. (about the troops and their behavior)

Its very unnerving.

from your link:

I don't understand what you are trying to say. The use of troops lasted ten years, but the act is still in effect today.

The act was in response to a very specific situation for a specific time frame. That quote was from your link BTW

Did you happen to see the first three paragraphs of my link? It uses the present tense to describe how the act currently prohibits the military from acting as law enforcement on US soil except in very specific extreme circumstances.

The act may have been in response to a specific situation that occurred during a specific time frame, but the act was not in effect for a specific time frame. It is still in effect today.

It reads: "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

I was wrong - After rereading it again there is a bunch of legalese in there and it was actually modified in 1981 and as recently as 2006 & 2008 by our current fearless leader. The exceptions make me wonder.
Perhaps they are simply being prepared in the event they are needed. I see absolutely nothing wrong with being prepared.

Yeah, well, the Bush administration doesn't believe the act applies to them anyway, so it's not worth the paper it's written on.

The Salon has a decent article on it.

I'm not against the military doing humanitarian help. But I'm very much against the US military shooting US citizens under any circumstances, even riot.

What if those "citizens were deemed terrorists and were perpetrating an act of potential horrific proportions.

I think thats what this pretty much comes down to is having some troops prepped in case they are needed for a natural or unnatural disaster where the local law enforcement would be totally over matched and in need of some additional manpower and expertise.

Still...the timing.

Yes, like tiananmen square.

Terrorists don't have large forces. They aren't armies. You don't need large numbers of armed soldiers to fight them.

I think it's great if the military is doing disaster preparedness and disaster response, as long as they leave their weapons at home.

If you were around in 1999, we had World Net Daily saying that the National Guard was getting equipment upgrades so that Clinton could declare martial law in order to stay in office after the disaster of Y2K.

When the Conspiracy takes over, you won't be frightened... because you won't even know it. Buhahahaha!!!!

If enough citizens are deemed terrorists that the military would be needed, then whoever is doing the deeming is probably the real problem.

Come to think of it, the last time military gear was used against civilians was 1994.

The President was Clinton. The Attorney General was Reno. And there was a little town called Waco...

!!!libertarian crisis noticed red alert all hands on deck!!! Man the guns -- over our dead bodies which they will surely be taken!!!

What is posted is here is merely my informed opinion, with assumptions based on my knowledge of the Army and our mission sets. The main mission of this infantry unit in support of NORTHCOM will be an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. Title 10 US Code is very specific about the use and the limitations on using US Military forces in the United States. I can think of two times soldiers have been deployed in the states during my service, the L.A. riots in the 90's and Katrina. Fire fighting missions happen every year; I have participated while on active duty...I'm wild land fire certified. I personally think that the setting up of a response to disaster and terror attacks is a good thing, and should be done. Especially in this day and age with the current climate in the world. Military Commanders, as well as the NCO corps are very aware of our role in most circumstances. I'd say more so then the civilians who are sometimes appointed as our top leadership. For instance the Armies policy, training and doctrine on interrogation seem to be quite a bit different than the current civilian leadership. I think that you can trust most commanders and SR level NCO's judgment. Can and will mistakes be made at the human level on the ground? Yes. Is it possible in an L.A. Riots scenario for a US Soldier to shoot a civilian? Yes. Is it orders of magnitude more likely to confront a terrorist cell composed of foreign national combatants on U.S. soil right now? Yes, I think so. I think the need for a unit prepared for that fight is paramount.

I appreciate your honesty on this.

I think that depends entirely on the civilian leaders directing the mission, and I also think that confronting terrorist cells on US soil is better left to law enforcement. The FBI, ATF, and local SWAT teams can handle that job.

Evidently the military was there, but they were not armed.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/bl090599.htm

So.... the brigade is deployed in the US.

They will be issued a new weapons package. (yes, nonlethal, yes, some of which have been used before.)

However these weapons are only to be used in a war zone.

I say it's time to start the pool for the first US civilian death by taser at the hands of a US soldier.

Joe, I would tend to agree with this,
but does that really help when those commanders and NCOs get their marching orders to move in on a crowd? I'm not usually an anti-government conspiracy nut, but this is profoundly disturbing to me.

Right, but was it not a military tank (operated by fbi i suppose) that breeched the back walls to insert the (flammable) tear gas?

Goddammit. I'm not going to be able to keep up today, I can tell.

We've had our f*cking fill of being "deemed" this or that. We have a system of LAW with rules. Abandon or ignore those rules, and we're back in the freakin jungle. Who rules there? The dudes in the camos with the guns. Just stop it.

Whose doing the "deeming"?! Oh my god, we've been down this road before. What are you afraid of? You can't PREVENT something bad from ever happening. It's not possible.

Besides, who's job is it to maintain law and order? Hmm? The police. Local and state police. An army is for war, not for policing. Sure, you can just call in an air strike and settle those fuckers' hash post haste, but it is a momentary pleasure at best and bound to get you talked about.

And to whom shall the military troops report? Naturally, their commander in chief is the president. You, classicman, are showing far more confidence in the officeholder's ability to handle such responsibilities than I can summon or even imagine. For a disaster that has already happened? Ok. I can handle that. Walking around, like a cop on a beat, "handle civil unrest or crowd control". You're kidding right? How can handling civil unrest be anything other than I have a gun so you better lie down and put your hands on your head? Civil did you see what I did thar? That means "applying to ordinary citizens as contrasted with the military; "civil authorities" " NOT military. So what, you got machine guns and tanks and planes and... Ok, good point. I surrender.

Is that what you think should happen? That the army should handle this kind of stuff? If you had a badass junkyard dawg you let roam your property, you'd have some good protection of your turf. But would you let the dog patrol the house, negotiating who is taking too long in the bathroom or who forgot to put the dishes in the machine?

glatt is right on at least one important point. At a minimum, no weapons. Nope, no. This topic blows my mind. Best we don't start down this path.

Or, if you want to train for humanitarian relief efforts, don't be the Army. Be something else. I don't want soldiers on my street, lookin at me like a perp. Dammit.

Esp. if the current "laws" for homegrown terrorism are especially loose. It isn't lawless anymore. It's all laid out.

Hey thanks, Big.

Texas National Guard?

It is neat how freaked the right was about Clinton violating posse but it couldn't possibly be a problem with Bush. Of course Clinton only burned right-wing nuts so Bush is expected only to seek symmetry.

Well, I'm not in favor of deploying troops in the US. My first post was an off the cuff opinion of the possibility of confronting terrorists here, reacting to a large emergency, and possibly using troops to do so. I don't think it's something we should rule out, the criteria for doing so should be very strict. Domestic law agencies are the first go to agencies for this work. I agree whole heartedly.

AND...this group has JUST came back from Iraq. They are battle-hardened....prepared to fight.

I suspect its the last thing they want as well.

My husband was a marine and he seems to think that you couldnt get these guys to follow orders to shoot to kill.

I wonder.

[spacing added for clarity]

Hey joe:

Thanks for you participation in this thread. I appreciate the input from someone that is knowledgeable and articulate—you’re both.

I don’t have a problem with our military. I’m not afraid of them; I’m not ashamed of them. I have less confidence in the governmental leadership responsible for issuing orders to units deployed domestically. And I have practically no confidence in the general public’s ability to think and act rationally about any serious subject for a sustained period, never mind in a crisis. And it is these last two factors that make me very uneasy about a plan like this. I have little doubt the troops will do what they’re told. I fear that what they’ll be told, by the governmental leadership, will be suspect and that the general public’s behavior in a crisis will give them apt reason to yield to the panic.

I think our military is a first class organization, built for fighting war. I think the further the mission strays from that core responsibility, the more trouble we’re asking for. And to compound that risk, we’re doing it here at home.

I’m glad you’re wildfire certified. Honestly, thank you. I live in the Evergreen State, and up here fire==bad. But the portions of the article that talk about “helping with civil unrest and crowd control” chill me. If we’re talking about disaster relief, I’m all for it. But if we need the military to cope with these kinds of inevitabilities, it is a symptom of two larger more important problems. One, we’ve dangerously underfunded the civilian protective infrastructure and two, we’re changing what our military is.

I won’t be ungrateful if y’all show up when we’re on fire or the earthquake flattens us. I’ll be extremely grateful for the help and for the fact that you’ve trained in order to deliver that help. But I need y’all to do other jobs I can’t do, jobs my local community can’t do. And that’s be soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines. You know, “Over there!”, shooting stuff. I can’t do that part. I can make sure my first responder community is properly designed and funded and trained. I can make sure my community has the right resources to maintain law and order. Of course, that means an enormous political and governmental and community effort to “stand up” the appropriate civil units. But it can be done, and should be done. Because I don’t want your job. You’re awesome at it and I’m profoundly grateful. Please keep your eye on that ball.

As for your last paragraph, we disagree.

I think the likelihood of a civilian casualty at the hands of a US soldier is far greater than a confrontation between a US soldier and a terrorist cell of foreign national combatants on US soil. I am certain of that. There are 300 million citizens on the ground here. What is the population of the terrorists? How will you make the distinction? Please don't take offense at this, but the same effort in Iraq, for example, has produced many civilian casualties. And in Iraq the proportion of bad guys to good guys is much much higher. Still civilians die. I don't want ONE civilian to die here. I think we're all begging for trouble if we take the safeties off here at home.

Shoot to thrill, play to kill
I got my gun at the ready, gonna fire at will
Cause I shoot to thrill and I'm ready to kill
I can't get enough, I can't get my fill
I shoot to thrill, play to kill
Yeah, pull the trigger

Pull it, pull it, pull it, pull the trigger

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

And with our new economy, the best thing we could have done is privatize Social Security.

And the President can be trusted to go to war only when it is justified.

And Americans don't kidnap and torture because we are the good guys.

A President can be trusted to not corrupt the United States government such as unlimited wiretapping, breaking into Watergate, and attempting to subvert the elected government of Australia.

Even John Lennon was declared an enemy of America because we can always trust the powers that be. How quickly people forget the lessons of history even 30 years later.

Reasoning that soldiers can be trusted assumes corruption does not exist at the highest levels of government. At what point do we forget the lessons of Prof Zimbardo and those Stamford U psychology experiments? We can trust those in power to not abuse that power? Hardly.

Guantanamo demonstrates that Americans must especially ration power selectively. Our society depends on it.

Those who least can be trusted are those who only know what they are told - rarely ask those embarrassing questions. We are expected to learn from Hitler’s Mein Kampf. To subvert German society, he had to disparage the bourgeois and intelligencia. Then tell the 'brown shirts' how to think. That's all it took for Hitler to completely subvert the German government AND earn popular support for "Pearl Harboring" other nation.

Lessons of history (and even psychology) are quite blunt about giving any government and military too much power. Never forget lessons from the song "Ohio". Americans - especially soldiers who never learn to ask why and doubt - are easy enticed by the Dark Side.

Good post, tw.

It's about damned time.

It must truly be a difficult task to plan for and execute the defense of the United States. BigV, TW....you bring up some very good, and valid points. What is the effect of the decisions, and actions of our highest levels of leadership on our own civil population. We must take into account history in our actions, also that we don't give up our great freedoms in search of our defense. I am glad that you are both here to remind us. Thank you.

Rest assured, the US Government has circumvented armed clashes between its military and civilian populations by outsourcing augmentation of civilian law enforcement for domestic crisis intervention. The Whitewater Corp. (there's irony for you), a subsidiary of Blackwater USA, is retained by contract to perform that function should the need arise. Contingency planning for simultaneous crises in multiple US locations charges France with deployment of the French Foreign Legion under UN command to such locations as approved by UN Security Counsel resolution (seems fitting, they owe us) and the US Government shall therefore be held harmless of infringing on the rights of its citizens in the eyes of the international community.

[Judy Tenuta] "It could happen!" [/Judy Tenuta]

The foreign troops will take care of that.

How close to TEOTWAWKI are we now?

No wait. It's just me. Never mind. :blush:

Heh. There's slang. :) Holy Heartbreak batman!!

AWKI? It's already happened. This new page looks just like the beginning of the old page, though. History repeats itself, remember? But I'm really focused on the economic facets of the current turning. The political and social aspects, while fully integrated with the others are less clear to me.

To those who have not served.

The oath we took when we raised our right hand, states in part: "I will obey the lawfulorders of the officers and seniors appointed over me.

It is not lawful to open fire on the citizenry. Or is it?

Have you tried to hijack an airliner and crash it into the White House lately? Bet you don't make it. Even stray out of the flight corridors around DC and RR Int'l and you will have a close up view of our nation's finest pilots flying F-16s fully armed as they escort you to an airfield so that you can talk to the nice men in dark suits who will meet you there.

I was once polled to see if I would be willing to fire on civilians in time of unrest and I said no. Nearly all of the crew did. The few who did not were found out (it was supposed to be secret) and shunned for a while.

I think the US military is still of this mindset. It could be OUR loved ones on the other side of that barricade. Could YOU shoot your own brother or parents? I couldn't.

Brian

You are all very very fucked.

Have a nice day. :)

The laws are getting askew. What is lawful now is not always right. Thanks to the Patriot Act and Homegrown Terrorism Laws........Of course I sound like a cliche, but I really don't care.

Lawful, yes. Wacked? Another yes.....

Thank you, tw. I had hoped someone would remember Kent State.

Satan has promised me a nice room with satellite tv, satin sheets, and a minifridge.

Whatchoo got? :rolleyes:

I gots a fancy new job with Homeland In-Security...I gets to goes ta work and spy on peeps from the Kentucky Fried Chicken. I'mz a reaal bad mo' fo'. Don't you rat on me tho'. My jobz iz a reeel serious-osity. It's too bad I got mah-self booted from the army, they don't know what they'z uh missin'.

from the Kentucky Fried Chicken.

:lol:

Srsly...:( I can't even make that shit up. Though funny..Fo' Sho'.

How many disapproved of torture and yet openly endorsed Guantanamo? Denied Abu Ghriad until the pictures made it impossible to deny. And then said torture was necessary to protect America. I don't have your optimism.

Simply go back to 2002 The Cellar when the few who were posting accurately denied 'Saddam has WMD' myths AND then used basic military doctrine to deny mythical WMDs justified war. Back then, the majority believed outright lies and doctrine that violated basic American principles. That same mindset also loaded live ammunition in rifles at Kent State and fired on student - killing many who were only walking to class.

I have seen the majority routinely let their feelings make decisions for them. I have no doubt that a significant minority if not the majority of soldiers would fire on civilians. History says they would. Psychology experiences showed people shocking screaming victims only because they were told to do so. I believe history and those science experiments long before I believe your reasoning.

Too many do not understand how to ask embarrassing questions - a need to know why. You saw me actively opposing others who *felt* 'Saddam has WMDs' only because they were told to believe it.

Too many foolishly and openly advocated torture only because they *felt* torture worked. Openly advocated torture even when professional interrogators said torture results in no useful knowledge. Why did so many (if not the majority) advocate torture? For the same reason that soldiers would fire on civilians if ordered to do so.

Did you forget My Lai? You must to believe soldiers would not fire on angry and demonstrating brothers.

This just in
 

From here.

I may have to rethink my position on this and add fuel to TW's fire.

I didn't used to think this could happen, but..

Then a friend passed me this article.

Now, I'm not so sure.

The question is who are you going to take your anger out on and blame? Bush or the Congress that approved it?

:: puts on devil’s advocate hat:: Look, letting the military off the leash against US civilians is not a good thing. That would be bad. Agreed. I am not a military planner, at least not at the level we are talking about. If I were, it would be just plain bad planning for me not to think about a time when I might have to put US troops on the ground in the US. I'd have to think about all the things that would lead me to do that. I'd really have to analyze this. There are times of large disasters, manmade and not manmade, when it is a good call to put troops on the ground, so they can help. Many of us have put forward many assumptions, based on the past, as to what might happen if we put troops on the ground in the US. These are not facts, they are assumptions. We want to validate, or invalidate these assumptions. We do this with things like exercises. I'm sure this exercise will answer many questions about the who, what, when, where, should we? of this course of action.

Just to throw out a question off the top of my head. What happens if MS13 decides to take over every aspect of their turf pulls out the smuggled and stolen AT-4 rocket launchers, and belt fed weapons and kills a fair amount of law enforcement? What if, they do this in multiple cities, synchronized. Hmm...while I'm brainstorming about possible scenarios, what if this same group allies themselves with a common enemy of the US state, say some jihadists from the middle east?

The civilian population of the US has charged me with their defense. Should I let the fears of some of these civilians in my country dissuade me from finding out what is viable, or not, through actual experience? Especially when that experience can be gained without casualties, in a situation where no one will be hurt or killed?

Who are the "we", that are putting forth these assumptions? What are the assumptions? What the hell will these exercises prove, except everyone involved on your side understands the pecking order and what frequency to tune?
If these exercises are to determine how to assist my side, in case of a disaster, and not just practice on seizing control of the country, how will this exercise answer how it will work? Do you really think the John Wayne motherfuckers out here are just going to say, " Duh, whatever you say boss"? I gotta move just because you say so, without a damn good reason? I don't think so, I don't care how many fucking exercises you held. :eyebrow:

Better pick another boogeyman. M-13 is a parasite. They know if their host dies, they die.
No, you're charged with the defense of the country from foreign powers, the police are charged with the defense of the people from internal threats.

No, our oath says "all enemies, foreign and domestic".

'"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

http://www.history.army.mil/faq/oaths.htm

Most would do it, but plenty of people would question it. It depends on what is being asked. Training and exercises make those action more like reactions, it is how you learn to stay alive in a hostile environment. I think they would have more problems with Guard and Reserves since they are from the home towns. But hey, I remember Kent State, so I guess anything is possible.

Defend the Constitution of the United States, not the people of the United States. Not the government, for that matter. :haha: