You're all a bunch of posses

There's an interesting discussion of posse comitatus going on at Armchair Generalist and Lawyers, Guns, and Money. I've been chewing on the following excerpt from AG, and I just don't agree with the conclusion:

Folks, this administration is nearly over. With luck and hope, we won't see a third term of the Bush administration, and perhaps (maybe I'm being overly optimistic) the general public and the Democrats in particular will be better positioned in the future to stop egresses such as those we've seen. Let's not discount the advantages of having active duty military forces augmenting the federal, state, and local emergency responder community. Let's not view our military forces as some kind of Hollywood heavy-handed thugs - they're good people, just like us.

While I take the Constitutional concerns very seriously, there are also eminently practical reasons for keeping the US Army (and the other branches, for that matter) limited to missions outside US borders:

• Overstretching the military's capabilities. The US military has enough to do already. During the inevitable retrenching period to come, the DoD has to focus on increasing readiness and recruitment. We should be asking the military to be better prepared for its core missions, not to be responsible for more missions.
• Overstretching the military's prestige. During the last decade, many Americans have spoken about the military as if they were frighteningly omnicapable. If you want something done right--intelligence gathering, the political side of counterinsurgency, disaster relief--give it to the armed forces. Of course, the US military is extraordinarily skilled at what they do, fighting (or threatening to fight) particular kinds of conflicts. That's why the US public gives the military high marks, which may be at risk if Americans see the armed forces fumbling domestic missions for which they are not trained, equipped, or otherwise prepared.
• Continued erosion of federalism. Jason at AG thinks it's a good idea for the Army to supplement state, county, and city emergency responders. However, how many Americans even know what these lower levels of government can do? For that matter, how many Americans can name their mayor, state representatives, or district attorney? One of the themes of American politics for the next several years will be, "The federal government has its hands full, so what can the other levels of government do?"
• Confused lines of accountability. Another big theme will be accountability, for which we've all grown nostalgic in its absence. Introducing the US Army into situations for which state and local authorities should be accountable (and in operational control, in many cases) only muddies these waters further.
• The transparency of the US military. By necessity, the DoD is secretive with basic details--who's doing what, where they are, how much money is allocated to them--than their partners in domestic projects. One complaint (among many) about the Army Corps of Engineers' role before and after Katrina was the occasional lack of transparency into their organzation. How much worse will it be when you involve other parts of the military that, unlike the ACE, aren't already involved in domestic civil projects?

And, of course, there are all those Constitutional and legal problems, particularly with the weakening of privacy protections, habeas corpus, and other basic principles that Bush and Cheney attacked with a meat cleaver. It's not too hard to imagine scenarios when these concerns become all too real. Should Army units deployed to a major city during a riot have the right to indefinitely detain people? Should troops during a blackout be free to eavesdrop on cell phone conversations for any reason, such as catching looters?  And let's not forget the percentage of the US military that is now privatized: should  posse comitatus exemptions extend to them?

It's wrong to wave aside these concerns with straw man arguments about "Hollywood heavy-handed thugs." We might also look at some of the debates about regulars and militias during our country's early history as something more than quaint and antiquated. Many of the Founding Father's concerns are still valid.

Comments

[Jason]

I really ought to outline my argument better but the topic was very broad. I don't debate your points outlined above, but there's a very big difference in what ought to be and what is being done. Also people are consistently misinterpreting the basic points of the Army Times article. There's no question that the Army (writ large, which includes Guard and Reserve) has the mission of homeland defense and civil support. Has for decades. There is no question that the Army is stretched, and even in the DOD Strategy for HLD/CS, there is clear indication that the mission of civil support is tertiary to other missions.

But that wasn't the point of the Army Times article. What the article said was that the Army has developed a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, which eventually will be three units at about 4-5000 persons each, purpose of which is to respond to terrorist WMD incidents. One can debate this assumption, but OSD believes that DOD has unique capabilities in this area and that there will be multiple simultaneous terrorist WMD attacks. This is not a new discussion, and because the Army is stretched, it has delayed implementing this concept for a few years now.

Final point, DOD has acknowledged that the National Response Plan/Framework has identified a role for DOD as acting "in support of" DHS and other govt agencies in responding to a catastrophy. As such NORTHCOM is the appropriate command to coordinate and execute said responsibilities. So again, not a surprise that NORTHCOM will now take on JTF-Civil Support and any active/Reserve/federalized Guard units associated with that mission.

The debate over the article degenerated into a tangential discussion over the appropriateness of an active duty combat brigade temporarily assuming this role, and why such a unit would be developing non-lethal weapons capabilities and training on crowd/traffic control tactics. Oh my, shades of Kent State! but THAT WASN'T THE POINT OF THE ARTICLE or the intent of the Army leaders quoted in said article. What state/local cops did in Minnapolis/St Paul during the RNC is irrelevant to the proposed role of active duty Army units executing a CM role in support of the DHS response to a terrorist WMD incident.

That said, this is an important policy issue, and one must account for the abject failure of state and local authorities to prepare for and respond to catastrophies using their own funds and resources. Used to be (20 yrs ago) that state/local were responsible for 50% of the bill - no longer - evidently Katrina and Ike have set the new standard of zero funding responsibility. If DHS/FEMA were more capable and the state/local use of police and Guard units more credible, yes, no need for the active duty Army units.

But we don't have those assurances, so given the political and moral need for urgency in an unlikely but possible WMD incident, who you gonna call?

[Jason]

In addition, Bob Bateman's post on said issue may be of interest.

http://warhistorian.org/wordpress/?p=891#more-891

[Barry]

In addition, the high-level officials of the Bush administation will still be around, and form the nucleus of the next GOP administration. Everything that they got away with this time will be a *baseline* for what they try the next time.

[Barry]

"What state/local cops did in Minnapolis/St Paul during the RNC is irrelevant to the proposed role of active duty Army units executing a CM role in support of the DHS response to a terrorist WMD incident."

Bull f*cking shit - does anybody think that US troops will be under any more legal restaints than US police?

[Jason]

"Bull f*cking shit - does anybody think that US troops will be under any more legal restaints than US police?"

Ahhhh - yeah? That's what the original posts were about - posse comitatus? and again, for the reading impaired, the Army Times article was about supporting the federal response to a terrorist WMD incident with active duty specialists. Has nothing to do with law enforcement roles.

Barry and a whole lot of other commenters are reading too much into the discussion. Don't blow this up into what it isn't.

[Diodotus]

As Bill Adama once said, there's a good reason why governments separate their police from their military.

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