Recall earlier this month during Bush's snoozer of a press conference that he slipped in a little bombshell about the possiblity of using the US military to enforce quarantines in case of an outbreak of Avian Flu:
The policy decisions for a president in dealing with an avian flu outbreak are difficult.
One example: If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?
It's one thing to shut down airplanes. It's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu.
And who best to be able to effect a quarantine?
One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move. So that's why I put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have.
(full text)
Congressional debate? Well, its been a over a week since then and you know our little George, he's twitchy; he doesn't like to wait.
Now, when the President hinted that the nation might do well to brush aside the 125 year-old Posse Comitatus Act (which strictly curtails the use of the US armed forces on US soil) and usurp the role of state Executives to control the National Guard in their own states, some nattering nabobs were decidedly negative:
But Dr. Irwin Redlener, associate dean of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and director of its National Center for Disaster Preparedness, told The Associated Press the president's suggestion was dangerous.
Giving the military a law enforcement role would be an "extraordinarily Draconian measure" that would be unnecessary if the nation had built the capability for rapid vaccine production, ensured a large supply of anti-virals like Tamiflu and not allowed the degradation of the public health system.
"The translation of this is martial law in the United States," Redlener said.
And Gene Healy, a senior editor at the conservative Cato Institute, said Bush would risk undermining "a fundamental principle of American law" by tinkering with the act, which does not hinder the military's ability to respond to a crisis.
"What it does is set a high bar for the use of federal troops in a policing role," he wrote in a commentary on the group's Web site. "That reflects America's traditional distrust of using standing armies to enforce order at home, a distrust that's well-justified."
(full text)
Others raised questions about state's rights, and wondered why the military should fill a role so obviously better suited to other Federal agencies-- the Dept.. of Homeland Security, and FEMA, for example. Most just rolled their eyes and threw the President's comment on the scrap-heap with previous Napoleonic fantasies and wondered, yet again, how they might cajole him into reading his job description after five years.
Well, unlike Georgie's Mars Adventure, and any evidence of his possession of basic human compassion, the President's plan to expand the domestic role of the US military did not vanish overnight.
Thus sayeth El WaPo:
The U.S. military is planning a more rapid, robust role for active-duty forces in responding to catastrophic disasters or terrorist attacks, a senior Pentagon official said yesterday, describing the demand for large-scale military resources in such cases as "inevitable."
Huh. Good thing the Congress had that lengthy debate on the subject. I know it made me feel better to know that our elected representatives had ample time to address the complexities of a policy that fundamentally alters the country by changing the domestic use of military resources. Oh wait...
There's more:
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, at a conference with Central American defense ministers in Florida, yesterday advocated closer military cooperation as a way to better address threats from terrorists and drug traffickers, as well as natural disasters.
So, not only is FEMA not the entity to handle disaster response and DHS not the agency to deal with terrorism, it turns out the Drug Enforcement Agency isn't the department to deal with drug trafficking. Wow!
"It is almost inevitable that the Department of Defense will play a very substantial role in providing resources, equipment, command and control, and other capabilities in response to a catastrophic event," McHale said. Only the Pentagon can "marshal such resources and deploy them as quickly . . . during a time in which thousands of American lives may be at risk."
Oh, I get it! Why fix FEMA or sear the billions of dollars worth of pork out of the DHS and finally get it to do something other than color between the line of fear when you can just hand everything over to the military! Why, if you tie this together with the creation of the first-ever US military command whose territory includes the domestic United States it almost seems like they've been planning this all along! And who says our George isn't smart?
Ahem.
All snarking aside, this is a dangerous and transparent power-grab by the Federal Executive that makes it substantially easier to roll US troops and tanks into US streets. This cannot be tolerated. We must cry out to our representatives in Congress and urge them to take the reigns on this issue and stop the Neo-cons from militarizing our domestic Federal agencies.
Update [2005-10-13 6:12:57 by kingubu]:
Be sure to also see Cedwyn's excellent post for deep background on Posse Comitatus and more detail on Bush's nefarious scheme.