Gene Healy Has a Posse (Comitatus)

Via The Agitator, you can watch [Real] Cato's Gene Healy (my former landlord) on NewsHour discussing posse comitatus and the impulse to Send In the Troops for domestic law enforcement during crises. Pictures and a transcript are here.

Comments

[Lowdog]

No federal war on hurricanes! I sure hope not. That'd be another unwinable war.

[Sarnath]

I hear the Pres and Senator Warner want a "natural disaster" loophole added to the Posse Comitatus Act. I'm sure they'll find a way to get that pesky thing repealed before too long.

[Russ D]

What makes people think soldiers are any more honest and dedicated than police?

[Warren]

Russ,
Speaking only for myself. Every soldier I ever met was too stupid to be dishonest. And every cop I ever met was a corrupt lying bastard.

[David]

I though police and soldiers alike were all heroes and the source of our freedoms?

[Lowdog]

My Posse Comitatus is on broadway!

[Russ D]

Warren,

So the police will game the system, causing its breakdown - whereas the soldiers won't understand the system, causing its breakdown?

[Born Again Iconoclast]

My Posse Comitatus is on broadway!

**groan** thanks for dislodging memories best left forgotten. I'm sure Mix-o-lot thanks you for rembering him at whatever McDonalds he's probably flipping burgers at now ....

Seriously, as a combat veteran I always chuckle at how idiot Republicans think the military is a magic law-and-order fairy that can make any federal problem disappear with an M16 and a soundbite from "Semper Shredding" Ollie North.

After all, look at how we cleaned up that unnatural disaster known as Iraq!!

It's a sick sort of domination fetish I see in other men, particularly loud-mouthed chickenhawk GOP males who have never served in the military and therefore they idolize it in "Band of Brothers" and "Greatest Generation" wet dreams.

However, though the Democrats may complain about BUSH'S use of military for something best handled by first responders, once they get back in the White House with all their criminal buddies (as Sideshow Bob once put it) they'll use this same federal police power for their own military wet dream, "national service".

Better that all the draft-dodging neo-cons should read Rudyard Kipling's Barrack Room Ballads than another Tom Clancy novel.

[Warren]

Russ,
Not exactly. Police gaming the system doesn't cause it to break down, that's the way the system operates. Soldiers don't need to understand what they're doing, so long as they do what they're told. But when soldiers do what soldiers do, the system breaks down. That's the whole point of sending in soldiers.

But I agree with your overriding premise. Cops or grunts, either way the populace is fucked.

For the record I am very much opposed to ever using the military domestically. If I had my way, the military would only be used against foreign invaders.

[plunge]

Does anyone harbor any illusions that this whole discussion isn't motivated by any sincere policy ideas, but purely as a smokescreen to change the subject and cover asses? After all, it's not like this is a new issue or even a crucial one to Katrina. The mere fact that no one had bothered to think about this issue until the hurricane actually hit is bad enough, but the reality is: this act being in force is just NOT the reason that FEMA and state agencies screwed up. The reason they are focusing on it now is not because it's important, but because it makes it look like the feds screwup's were over them trying to respect those pesky cosntraining laws that tied their hands.

And so, we may end up gutting an important law for no reason other than to help the President save face.

[Bridget the Midget Fan Club HQ]

I note here dissenting voices only from ACLU and Pelosi; press wants this mod? More links here. This is a power grab, not just for saving face.

[M1EK]

Maybe if we weren't using the fucking National Guard to fight wars of choice in Iraq, we wouldn't need to use the fucking ARMY for hurricane relief.

[Evan Williams]

Is it not now painfully obvious that any and every disaster will inevitably be used by the political class to expand their power over the populace?

[Evan Williams]

M1EK: It has nothing to do with "need". We don't "need" to use the Army; hell, hand the reigns over to Wal-Mart, I say.

Bush and the rest of the power-mongoring feds just want even more power. Everything they do is to that end. Disasters like 9/11 and Katrina are, for them, like 10-foot wide holes in the D-line for a halfback. They scare the people into handing over more power to them, invoking the various bogeymen associated with said disasters as a method of convincing us.

This whole debate has nothing to do with the National Guard being in Iraq---it has to do with the beaurocracy exploiting yet another disaster in order to usurp more power.

[Mike]

It has nothing to do with "need". We don't "need" to use the Army; hell, hand the reigns over to Wal-Mart, I say.

I'm sure Target would agree with you whole heartedly.

[shecky]

Why not private armies, such as Blackwater?

[rob]

2 points...

1: M1EK, the National Guard is also military, hence it's actual title as the "Army National Guard" and the "Air National Guard."

2: There's no need to repeal PC to federal forces to respond. But it does requre the state's governor to invite the federal gov't and its troops in. The complaint that it took too long was because the governor never did what she was supposed to. The Feds, aptly, are like Dracula - in these situations, they must be invited/requested... That's a GOOD thing, even if it had a bad outcome this time.

[M1EK]

Rob,

Man, you enjoyed sucking up those RNC talking points, didn't you? What do they offer these days? Good health plan? Snacks?

[rob]

M1EK,

Wow, that was certainly a stinging counter to the facts! I'm not using talking points (as if I ever would!)

I suppose that if you're suckered by a bunch of partisan talking points, you might be prone to believe that anything anyone else says is from the other side's talking points. Besides, if just because some partisan knucklehead points out that gravity works or the sky is blue doesn't invalidate that info.

(Hint: If you're going to go for a personal attack, try not to use one that points out that you are doing what you accuse the other side of...)

Warning: blatant appeal to myself as something of an "authority" follows:

Y'know, I'm not completely clueless regarding Posse Comitatus (PC). I actually am pursuing a Master's Degree in Military History, and writing my thesis on the domestic employment of the military. My statements on this topic come from my particular line of study, since a good chunk of my thesis has already been written. (Though there has recently been plenty of new information to tuck into my thesis - it's going to take a serious re-write...)

In other words, M1EK, stop being such a gomer.

[M1EK]

"I'm not using talking points"

The claim that the Louisiana governor did not call for help in time is an RNC talking point.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/site/newsweek/

Pages 3 and 4 specifically.

And as for the rest of your point, one does not need to be ignorant in order to be willfully misleading.

[rob]

M1EK:

Let me repeat it for you: "Besides, just because some partisan knucklehead points out that gravity works or the sky is blue doesn't invalidate that info."

Do you think you could actually provide something that talks about what you're talking about, instead of a link to a pages-long document? I scanned the linked article, but only saw this:

"In the inner councils of the Bush administration, there was some talk of gingerly pushing aside the overwhelmed 'first responders,' the state and local emergency forces, and sending in active-duty troops. But under an 1868 law, federal troops are not allowed to get involved in local law enforcement. The president, it's true, could have invoked the Insurrections Act, the so-called Riot Act. But Rumsfeld's aides say the secretary of Defense was leery of sending in 19-year-old soldiers trained to shoot people in combat to play policemen in an American city, and he believed that National Guardsmen trained as MPs were on the way."

I think it's been fairly well established that the whole "the troops were in Iraq" has been proven to be a talking points canard.

[M1EK]

"I think it's been fairly well established that the whole "the troops were in Iraq" has been proven to be a talking points canard."

Not to me, it hasn't. I haven't seen a credible debunking of this yet. How about a link from a non-partisan site? And no, before you ask, I don't buy the BS from your side that Newsweek et al are partisan liberals.

The parts of that article you were looking for were:

"Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a motherly but steely figure known by the nickname Queen Bee, knew that she needed help. But she wasn't quite sure what. At about 8 p.m., she spoke to Bush. "Mr. President," she said, "we need your help. We need everything you've got."

Bush, the governor later recalled, was reassuring. But the conversation was all a little vague. Blanco did not specifically ask for a massive intervention by the active-duty military. "She wouldn't know the 82nd Airborne from the Harlem Boys' Choir," said an official in the governor's office, who did not wish to be identified talking about his boss's conversations with the president. There are a number of steps Bush could have taken, short of a full-scale federal takeover, like ordering the military to take over the pitiful and (by now) largely broken emergency communications system throughout the region. But the president, who was in San Diego preparing to give a speech the next day on the war in Iraq, went to bed."

and

"Early Wednesday morning, Blanco tried to call Bush. She was transferred around the White House for a while until she ended up on the phone with Fran Townsend, the president's Homeland Security adviser, who tried to reassure her but did not have many specifics. Hours later, Blanco called back and insisted on speaking to the president. When he came on the line, the governor recalled, "I just asked him for help, 'whatever you have'." She asked for 40,000 troops. "I just pulled a number out of the sky," she later told NEWSWEEK."

I guess it was too hard to click the little "3" and "4" and search on "Blanco". Somehow, I managed.

[rob]

M1EK,

To get troops deployed in a domestic situation requires more than a phone call. Gov. Blanco had time to draft up a request for economic assistance for small businesses after the hurricane, but not actual federal assistance?

C'mon... If you understood what it takes to over-rule PC, and why it's important to have those checks in place, you'd understand why it takes more than a phone call.

"Not to me, it hasn't. I haven't seen a credible debunking of this yet."

Try looking at sources other than DNC talking points, M1Ek.

Here's a few:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050909/pl_afp/usweatherresponse_050909142952

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N29473442.htm

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0929/p01s03-usmi.html

Type in katrina military in Google. I think you're going to find that there are plenty of reasons other than Iraq for why the response wasn't ideal. Maybe you could Google up some evidence for your talking point: "Maybe if we weren't using the fucking National Guard to fight wars of choice in Iraq, we wouldn't need to use the fucking ARMY for hurricane relief."

That's plenty of debunking for one session, I'm out and into the sunshine!