Woah, not cool! 20,000 unit domestic army by 2011

[DMUCMU]

So it looks like our new president is getting a new army for him to keep us in line... MSNBC also says that they are planning on "the event of a nuclear weapon being detonated in a U.S. city" by 2011 geez, where have we heard that before??? Here's the link. Pentagon to detail plan to bolster security - Washington Post- msnbc.com

Edited December 2, 2008 by john doe
let's play nice, please

[talisyn]

Can you imagine being one of those soldiers? Patrolling in Iraq is bad enough, but to know you're using all you learned in the military against your own people has got to mess with your mind.

[FunkyTown]

So it looks like our new president is getting a new army for him to keep us in line... MSNBC also says that they are planning on "the event of a nuclear weapon being detonated in a U.S. city" by 2011 geez, where have we heard that before??? Here's the link. Pentagon to detail plan to bolster security - Washington Post- msnbc.com

Hahah. Yeah! Stupid George Bush, I agree, I...

Wait, wait... This was an Obama slam, wasn't it? 'Cause... Y'know... Obama's not in power yet and didn't plan this.

Edited December 2, 2008 by john doe

[deseretgov]

Can you imagine being one of those soldiers? Patrolling in Iraq is bad enough, but to know you're using all you learned in the military against your own people has got to mess with your mind.

They obviously use some technique to rationalize it. And everybody said, "Oh no that will never happen." Guess what it did! And we called it years ago!

Told yah so!

[a-train]

We are moving into a police state and the sounders of the alarms are called kooks and idiots while the mass media now covers it.

-a-train

[Heavenguard]

Really, the Obama hate is becoming distasteful and this brings it to the edge of "anti"-like behaviour, if not already there.

There's a whole square month before he comes into power, how could you possibly cast him as the one moving this forward?

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.

I'm not pro-Obama, but neither am I against him. I'm just saying you shouldn't blindly throw hate at a man.

[a-train]

Really, the Obama hate is becoming distasteful and this brings it to the edge of "anti"-like behaviour, if not already there.

There's a whole square month before he comes into power, how could you possibly cast him as the one moving this forward?

I'm not pro-Obama, but neither am I against him. I'm just saying you shouldn't blindly throw hate at a man.

?

-a-train

[deseretgov]

Too bad it's not only the media calling us kooks but all the other sheeple that are being lead into the slaughter house.

[Heavenguard]

a-train, I meant in reference to the OP's

So it looks like our new fuhrer is getting a new army for him to keep us in line...

[deseretgov]

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.

Maybe they missed this part of the Constitution:

Article 1, Section 8:

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions

Homeland defense is the Militia's responsibility. Of course when was the last time Bush read the Constitution?

[Hemidakota]

So it looks like our new president is getting a new army for him to keep us in line... MSNBC also says that they are planning on "the event of a nuclear weapon being detonated in a U.S. city" by 2011 geez, where have we heard that before??? Here's the link. Pentagon to detail plan to bolster security - Washington Post- msnbc.com

Denoting a Nuclear device is not a simple process no matter the media hype. At this time, unless they hired a Russian Nuclear Scientist, or others of that caliber, worked in this field, most likely be a dirty bomb but not on the order of splitting an atom.

Edited December 2, 2008 by john doe

[abqfriend]

The article mentioned nothing about the new future leadership in Washington bringing about this change-as it has been talked about for years.

The new administration does not take effect until Jan 20th 2009.

I have no problem with increased security in our nation-ideally by our local and state agencies supplemented by our National Guard.

Recent Tragedies elsewhere-heighten the threat that anything is possible or to be expected from terrorist groups.

The Boy Scout Oath sounds good to me: "Be Prepared."

-Carol

So it looks like our new president is getting a new army for him to keep us in line... MSNBC also says that they are planning on "the event of a nuclear weapon being detonated in a U.S. city" by 2011 geez, where have we heard that before??? Here's the link. Pentagon to detail plan to bolster security - Washington Post- msnbc.com

Edited December 2, 2008 by john doe

[a-train]

a-train, I meant in reference to the OP's

Ahhh... I didn't catch that this was a reference to Obama. I always thought our new president was George W. Bush and that he is intending not to step down in January.

-a-train

Edited December 2, 2008 by john doe

[Hemidakota]

We need carefully review his senate seat status on which board he sat. He may have something to do with this plan.

[Hemidakota]

Ahhh... I didn't catch that this was a reference to Obama. I always thought our new president was George W. Bush and that he is intending not to step down in January.

-a-train

Man, we get rid of Hitler and now we have Stalin for a replacement.

Edited December 2, 2008 by john doe

[a-train]

Man, we get rid of Hitler and now we have Stalin for a replacement.

I would say more Lenin. He was of mixed heritage and had a connection to a terrorist in his past.

-a-train

[Bookmeister]

Federal law clearly states that the militia consists of all able bodied men (and now presumably women) between the ages of 17 and 58, who are not already serving in the military.

The various national guard units are not the "militia", and neither are military reserve units.

Also under federal law, the use of regular army active duty troops is not allowed within the continental US. This does not apply to state national guard units, since those units are first under the control of the state government, not the federal government.

Now, am I stupid enough to believe that an out-of-control federal government wouldn't bring regular army (and yes, I'm including the navy and air force, although getting a battleship to Denver could be problematical) into the streets? Nope.

Would government leaders who supported the use of military personnel to enforce federal and state laws actually live very long after taking that position, particularly if someone's Aunt Suzie was blown away as a "looter"? I don't think so.

It's interesting to me how varied the "checks and balances" system of our government work. If you can't do it above-board and legal, then you just gotta do it underhanded and illegal.

Edited December 2, 2008 by Bookmeister
typo

[georgia2]

On a radio interview several years ago Obama stated that if he were elected president he wanted to institute a NON military army within the United States. Of course they were replaying it during the pre election hoopla.

[annewandering]

the law was changed fairly recently to allow our own troops to deploy in the states. and if you check i believe they are already deployed as of last month unless that was set back.

the thing to remember for all the 'haters' is that a republican president allowed it and a democratic congress voted for it. both can share the blame for this one.

[Hemidakota]

Then we have FEMA camps that are currently being built around country....hmm...sounds fishing.

[ruthiechan]

Here is the full article, I found it because someone had posted it on another forum in its entirety with a link back to the original article. The article is no longer available at the link the OP posted.

Pentagon to detail plan to bolster security

Plan would dedicate 20,000 uniformed troops inside U.S. by 2011

By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson

The Washington Post

updated 10:46 p.m. CT, Sun., Nov. 30, 2008

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.

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, dedicating 20,000 troops to domestic response -- a nearly sevenfold increase in five years -- "would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable," Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said in remarks last month at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But the realization that civilian authorities may be overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted "a fundamental change in military culture," he said.

The Pentagon's plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. 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.

If funding continues, two additional teams will join nearly 80 smaller National Guard and reserve units made up of about 6,000 troops in supporting local and state officials nationwide. All would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.

Military preparations for a domestic weapon-of-mass-destruction attack have been underway since at least 1996, when the Marine Corps activated a 350-member chemical and biological incident response force and later based it in Indian Head, Md., a Washington suburb. Such efforts accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, and at the time Iraq was invaded in 2003, a Pentagon joint task force drew on 3,000 civil support personnel across the United States.

In 2005, a new Pentagon homeland defense strategy emphasized "preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents." National security threats were not limited to adversaries who seek to grind down U.S. combat forces abroad, McHale said, but also include those who "want to inflict such brutality on our society that we give up the fight," such as by detonating a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city.

In late 2007, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed a directive approving more than $556 million over five years to set up the three response teams, known as CBRNE Consequence Management Response Forces. Planners assume an incident could lead to thousands of casualties, more than 1 million evacuees and contamination of as many as 3,000 square miles, about the scope of damage Hurricane Katrina caused in 2005.

Last month, McHale said, authorities agreed to begin a $1.8 million pilot project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through which civilian authorities in five states could tap military planners to develop disaster response plans. Hawaii, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Washington and West Virginia will each focus on a particular threat -- pandemic flu, a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake and catastrophic chemical release, respectively -- speeding up federal and state emergency planning begun in 2003.

Last Monday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ordered defense officials to review whether the military, Guard and reserves can respond adequately to domestic disasters.

Gates gave commanders 25 days to propose changes and cost estimates. He cited the work of a congressionally chartered commission, which concluded in January that the Guard and reserve forces are not ready and that they lack equipment and training.

Bert B. Tussing, director of homeland defense and security issues at the U.S. Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership, said the new Pentagon approach "breaks the mold" by assigning an active-duty combat brigade to the Northern Command for the first time. Until now, the military required the command to rely on troops requested from other sources.

"This is a genuine recognition that this [job] isn't something that you want to have a pickup team responsible for," said Tussing, who has assessed the military's homeland security strategies.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute are troubled by what they consider an expansion of executive authority.

Domestic emergency deployment may be "just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority," or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU's National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of "a creeping militarization" of homeland security.

"There's a notion that whenever there's an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green," Healy said, "and that's at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace."

McHale stressed that the response units will be subject to the act, that only 8 percent of their personnel will be responsible for security and that their duties will be to protect the force, not other law enforcement. For decades, the military has assigned larger units to respond to civil disturbances, such as during the Los Angeles riot in 1992.

U.S. forces are already under heavy strain, however. The first reaction force is built around the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, which returned in April after 15 months in Iraq. The team includes operations, aviation and medical task forces that are to be ready to deploy at home or overseas within 48 hours, with units specializing in chemical decontamination, bomb disposal, emergency care and logistics.

The one-year domestic mission, however, does not replace the brigade's next scheduled combat deployment in 2010. The brigade may get additional time in the United States to rest and regroup, compared with other combat units, but it may also face more training and operational requirements depending on its homeland security assignments.

Renuart said the Pentagon is accounting for the strain of fighting two wars, and the need for troops to spend time with their families. "We want to make sure the parameters are right for Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. The 1st Brigade's soldiers "will have some very aggressive training, but will also be home for much of that."

Although some Pentagon leaders initially expected to build the next two response units around combat teams, they are likely to be drawn mainly from reserves and the National Guard, such as the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade from South Carolina, which returned in May after more than a year in Afghanistan.

Now that Pentagon strategy gives new priority to homeland security and calls for heavier reliance on the Guard and reserves, McHale said, Washington has to figure out how to pay for it.

"It's one thing to decide upon a course of action, and it's something else to make it happen," he said. "It's time to put our money where our mouth is."

[NeuroTypical]

Perhaps now is a good time to let everyone know I recently finished my Citizencorps CERT training? I don't get a gun, but I do get a green hat and an overinflated ego...

In the training, they went over a bunch of potential disasters - some of which we've never seen in this country yet, but we might eventually. So yeah, we did get a basic overview of bomb vests, IED's, land mines, bio and chemical attacks, and yes, nuclear - both dirty bomb and actual detonation.

They had a clever chart mapping out the risk and damage of various attacks. A nuclear event of some kind was on the low risk, high damage end of the chart.

I also learned how to get reimbursed for any CERT activities in an area declared a disaster area, so I guess that means I'm now officially working for da man. Guess I'll have to keep a closer eye on DMUCMU and a-train...

Edited February 18, 2009 by Loudmouth_Mormon

[prospectmom]

The sad thing is our National Guard who are suppose to be here to protect the homeland are being deployed to Iraq. My son goes in April... Our congress is trying to stop the over use of our homeland troops but I doubt it will work.....

[Hemidakota]

Here is the full article, I found it because someone had posted it on another forum in its entirety with a link back to the original article. The article is no longer available at the link the OP posted.

Pentagon to detail plan to bolster security

Plan would dedicate 20,000 uniformed troops inside U.S. by 2011

By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson

The Washington Post

updated 10:46 p.m. CT, Sun., Nov. 30, 2008

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.

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, dedicating 20,000 troops to domestic response -- a nearly sevenfold increase in five years -- "would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable," Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said in remarks last month at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But the realization that civilian authorities may be overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted "a fundamental change in military culture," he said.

The Pentagon's plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. 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.

If funding continues, two additional teams will join nearly 80 smaller National Guard and reserve units made up of about 6,000 troops in supporting local and state officials nationwide. All would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.

Military preparations for a domestic weapon-of-mass-destruction attack have been underway since at least 1996, when the Marine Corps activated a 350-member chemical and biological incident response force and later based it in Indian Head, Md., a Washington suburb. Such efforts accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, and at the time Iraq was invaded in 2003, a Pentagon joint task force drew on 3,000 civil support personnel across the United States.

In 2005, a new Pentagon homeland defense strategy emphasized "preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents." National security threats were not limited to adversaries who seek to grind down U.S. combat forces abroad, McHale said, but also include those who "want to inflict such brutality on our society that we give up the fight," such as by detonating a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city.

In late 2007, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed a directive approving more than $556 million over five years to set up the three response teams, known as CBRNE Consequence Management Response Forces. Planners assume an incident could lead to thousands of casualties, more than 1 million evacuees and contamination of as many as 3,000 square miles, about the scope of damage Hurricane Katrina caused in 2005.

Last month, McHale said, authorities agreed to begin a $1.8 million pilot project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through which civilian authorities in five states could tap military planners to develop disaster response plans. Hawaii, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Washington and West Virginia will each focus on a particular threat -- pandemic flu, a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake and catastrophic chemical release, respectively -- speeding up federal and state emergency planning begun in 2003.

Last Monday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ordered defense officials to review whether the military, Guard and reserves can respond adequately to domestic disasters.

Gates gave commanders 25 days to propose changes and cost estimates. He cited the work of a congressionally chartered commission, which concluded in January that the Guard and reserve forces are not ready and that they lack equipment and training.

Bert B. Tussing, director of homeland defense and security issues at the U.S. Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership, said the new Pentagon approach "breaks the mold" by assigning an active-duty combat brigade to the Northern Command for the first time. Until now, the military required the command to rely on troops requested from other sources.

"This is a genuine recognition that this [job] isn't something that you want to have a pickup team responsible for," said Tussing, who has assessed the military's homeland security strategies.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute are troubled by what they consider an expansion of executive authority.

Domestic emergency deployment may be "just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority," or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU's National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of "a creeping militarization" of homeland security.

"There's a notion that whenever there's an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green," Healy said, "and that's at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace."

McHale stressed that the response units will be subject to the act, that only 8 percent of their personnel will be responsible for security and that their duties will be to protect the force, not other law enforcement. For decades, the military has assigned larger units to respond to civil disturbances, such as during the Los Angeles riot in 1992.

U.S. forces are already under heavy strain, however. The first reaction force is built around the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, which returned in April after 15 months in Iraq. The team includes operations, aviation and medical task forces that are to be ready to deploy at home or overseas within 48 hours, with units specializing in chemical decontamination, bomb disposal, emergency care and logistics.

The one-year domestic mission, however, does not replace the brigade's next scheduled combat deployment in 2010. The brigade may get additional time in the United States to rest and regroup, compared with other combat units, but it may also face more training and operational requirements depending on its homeland security assignments.

Renuart said the Pentagon is accounting for the strain of fighting two wars, and the need for troops to spend time with their families. "We want to make sure the parameters are right for Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. The 1st Brigade's soldiers "will have some very aggressive training, but will also be home for much of that."

Although some Pentagon leaders initially expected to build the next two response units around combat teams, they are likely to be drawn mainly from reserves and the National Guard, such as the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade from South Carolina, which returned in May after more than a year in Afghanistan.

Now that Pentagon strategy gives new priority to homeland security and calls for heavier reliance on the Guard and reserves, McHale said, Washington has to figure out how to pay for it.

"It's one thing to decide upon a course of action, and it's something else to make it happen," he said. "It's time to put our money where our mouth is."

Where is the prophecy statement when our military is spread to thin........?

[Guest Godless]

The sad thing is our National Guard who are suppose to be here to protect the homeland are being deployed to Iraq. My son goes in April... Our congress is trying to stop the over use of our homeland troops but I doubt it will work.....

*nods* I've been over there twice already (Reserves). The fact that our government is thinking about beefing and activating up domestic forces while we're fighting two foreign wars is absolutely appalling.