General Question

SquirrelEStuff's avatar

Is Bush militarizing our police?

Asked by SquirrelEStuff (10007points) October 21st, 2008

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/

“They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”

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9 Answers

forestGeek's avatar

Hasn’t this been going on since the riots in the 60’s? I believe that when protesters were shot at Kent State, that set the bar for protests here in the US, and said quite a bit about the direction our government was headed. The government will do anything it takes to control the people. We have the right to bear arms to keep the government in check, but if a protest gets to big, or a group starts stockpiling guns…

boxing's avatar

I honestly don’t see the problem of the statement, but maybe I am wrong.

jholler's avatar

who do you think took control in New Orleans after Katrina? Police departments are simply not equipped nor trained to deal with such large scale events, and it does say “US ARMY” on national guard uniforms.

Malakai's avatar

Militarization of civil police is symptomatic of a growing police state.

That’s the problem.

fireside's avatar

The answer is no. That article has nothing to do with the police.

I personally think it would be irresponsible of our government not to have some sort of trained military force here in the States. As honorable as our local civil servants are, they can’t all be expected to know the best way to deal with a rare storm or terrorist attack. They’re not all John McClain

Here’s a better quote from the article you posted:

“If we go in, we’re going in to help American citizens on American soil, to save lives, provide critical life support, help clear debris, restore normalcy and support whatever local agencies need us to do, so it’s kind of a different role,” said Cloutier, who, as the division operations officer on the last rotation, learned of the homeland mission a few months ago while they were still in Iraq.

SquirrelEStuff's avatar

What does restore normalcy mean?

One of the biggest reasons that the Posse Comitatus Act was signed was to prevent the President from using the military against the people. That trained military force may be Blackwater. They were during Katrina. Would you be ok with that?

http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/possecomitatus_foiarequest.pdf

fireside's avatar

Chris, you need to read your own article. That trained military force will be The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team

They will be redeployed after Bush leaves office, so he will not have a say in who takes over.

SquirrelEStuff's avatar

I read my own article. I know what it says in that article. My point is it opens the door for the use of military force. Since Blackwater carries out some military duties in Iraq, what makes you think it cant happen here?

It’s all about incrementalism. Once it is ok for the military to be here, it is not such a big deal for private mercenary armies to be here. Baby steps. Its all about baby steps.

jholler's avatar

who would you have had keep order and clean up after Katrina? I was there with my Guard unit, I didn’t see any Blackwater.

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