On many occasions over the past five years I've observed the United States military being deployed in ways I would previously have found surprising, disturbing and antithetical to received legal and Constitutional interpretation. Just maybe
the pattern of militarisation of civil government administration should worry us all.
Too many seemingly unrelated issues have been used by Bush to increase the military's role in civilian administration in ways previously regarded as illegal or ill advised:
- the 9/11 aftermath and site security and clean up
- the anthrax scare (still unresolved)
- a 5-year rolling "State of National Emergency"
- long-term foreign deployment of the state National Guards and integration with the core federal military
- shifting of intelligence collection and assessment to DoD and creation of a NorthCom domestic intelligence role
- propaganda and psy-ops to influence global and American media coverage
- disaster intervention following Hurricaine Katrina
- the bird flu scare
- and now, border security
It may just be that I am paranoid after being lied to so very consistently by the Bushistas. It may be that I don't support the troops enough. It may be that I don't appreciate the scale of the challenges facing America in the changed geo-political context of this new century.
Does anyone really believe anymore that Congress or the Judiciary has oversight on what Bush is doing with the military? How do we know what the limits are if Congress will not investigate and the judiciary won't restrain?
Before 9-11 the federal military was forbidden any law enforcement roles on US soil under the Posse Comitatus Act, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or the Congress. Too often since 9-11, and particularly with the creation and empowerment of NorthCom, the president has seemed to use US forces on US soil in ways which are either questionable or downright illegal.
When I read what the military now does, such as this story from the Washington Post blog, I get a really queasy feeling each time I see the envelope of military deployment on US soil pushed further.
That's where Granite Shadow comes in. U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), the military's new homeland security command, is preparing its draft version of CONPLAN 0400 for military operations in the United States, and the resulting Granite Shadow plan has been classified above Top Secret by adding a Special Category (SPECAT) compartment restricting access.
The sensitivities, according to military sources, include deployment of "special mission units" (the so-called Delta Force, SEAL teams, Rangers, and other special units of Joint Special Operations Command) in Washington, DC and other domestic hot spots. NORTHCOM has worked closely with U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), as well as the secret branches of non-military agencies and departments to enforce "unity of command" over any post 9/11 efforts.
Further, Granite Shadow posits domestic military operations, including intelligence collection and surveillance, unique rules of engagement regarding the use of lethal force, the use of experimental non-lethal weapons, and federal and military control of incident locations that are highly controversial and might border on the illegal.
I don't like to polish my tin foil hat in public, but let's not forget that the General Eberhart that Bush put in charge of NorthCom - the first military command on US soil in 125 years - is the same General Eberhart who was in charge of Norad when it mysteriously and unaccountably stood down on 9-11. And look how he describes his job:
"We must start thinking differently," says Air Force Gen. Ralph E. "Ed" Eberhart, the newly installed commander of Northern Command, the military's homeland security arm. Before 9/11, he says, the military and intelligence systems were focused on "the away game" and not properly focused on "the home game." "Home," of course, is the United States. . . .
"We are not going to be out there spying on people," Eberhart told PBS' NewsHour in September. But, he said, "We get information from people who do." Some of that information increasingly comes not from the FBI or those charged with civilian law enforcement but from a Pentagon organization established last year, the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA). . . . CIFA, moreover, has been given a domestic "data mining" mission: figuring out a way to process massive sets of public records, intercepted communications, credit card accounts, etc., to find "actionable intelligence."
Now Bush wants to put the same General Hayden who provided General Eberhart with the product of his warrantless domestic wiretapping, surveillance and data collection in charge of the CIA.
The pattern scares me, the more so because any attempt to question use of the military is met with fierce attacks on our patriotism. It says something about the direction of America which I wouldn't have believed possible just five years ago.
Update [2006-5-15 5:5:47 by LondonYank]:: I just changed the poll, so apologies to all sombrero wearers who were inadvertantly targeted as the enemy.