A whole different can of worms
The report of the imminent terrorist WMD attack on U.S. soil by 2013 recommends stationing at least 15,000 trained military troops, prepared for quick response, inside the country by 2011, in addition to the National Guard and local law enforcement. The imminent, of course, gives rise to the inevitable: legitimate questions and concerns about violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which precludes the federal government from using the military for domestic purposes.
But I’d be much more inclined to get in a tizzy about the potential suspension of the Posse Comitatus if this story didn’t come on the heels of Black Friday, during which those of us who holed up at home, still grooving on the turkey, were treated to the news of a deadly gunfight at a Toys ‘R’ Us in California and an equally deadly stampede at a Wal-Mart on Long Island that ripped the doors off their hinges and trampled to death a Wal-Mart worker untrained in crowd control and unprepared for quick response. (I’ll leave the Mumbai situation out of this, since it’s not a U.S. soil issue.)
If this is how people behave when low-priced goods are at stake, what are the chances they will behave in an orderly fashion and cooperate with the authorities — whose competence in these matters is justifiably suspect — to contain and control the damages when the imminent and inevitable panic strikes?
Somehow, while the memories of the Wal-Mart pileup are still fresh, the long-term dangers of potential abuse of the Posse Comitatus loom less threatening than they should.
Just sayin’…
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I am distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of assigning active duty military units to a task of domestic policing.
I do wonder if this is simply a ploy to use our underpaid military as a replacement for the real salaries they would have to pay non-military agency officers to do the same job.
I will withhold ay condemnation until I see how the troops are used, but the whole situation is a ticking bomb that is guaranteed to end up in the courts the first time they are actually deployed.
Does the army have equipment (tanks/choppers/powerful stuff I don’t even know about) that the National Guard doesn’t and that will help it contain and quarantine a contaminated area when the Wal-Mart shoppers try to stampede out of it in a random fashion, spreading viruses far and wide? OK, Stephen King’s novels The Stand and Dreamcatcher, and the movies Outbreak and 12 Monkeys made an indelible impression on me, I admit. But I’m not sure it means I’m being histrionic.