More on Military as a Police Force

[John/az2]

The site:

http://www.insightmag.com/articles/story3.html

The article:
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Deadly Force and Individual Rights

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By Kelly Patricia O'Meara
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U.S. special-operations military units are participating in civilian law-enforcement activities within the United States, raising questions of legality and ultimate purpose.

ix years after the siege on Mount Carmel, citizens and lawmakers alike are angry and shocked about details now unfolding concerning the raid that left 75 Branch Davidians dead. Allegations that military personnel were present and participated in the raid on the Davidian compound raise serious questions about mingling of military and civilian forces in direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which forbids such deployment.
. . . . Just one day after the siege at Waco, Texas, ended in a fiery horror, President Clinton gave the American people a glimpse of what to expect. The government could not be responsible for "the fact that a bunch of fanatics decided to kill themselves," he said. The commander in chief then warned that "there is, unfortunately, a rise in this sort of fanaticism across the world. And we may have to confront it again."
. . . . The tragedy at Waco by no means is the first or only example of violations of Posse Comitatus, but it does underscore the volatile cocktail that can result from mixing special-operations troops and civilian law enforcement. Separation of civilian and military forces long has been an American tradition, but under the guise of the "war on drugs" and the "war on terrorism," Congress in the last two decades has enacted piecemeal legislation allowing military intervention in civilian law enforcement, which many believe violates the intent, if not the letter, of the law.
. . . . For instance, in 1981 Congress passed the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Officials Act, which authorizes the military to "assist" civilian police in enforcing of drug laws. In 1989 President Bush created six regional joint task forces, or JTFs, within the Department of Defense, or DOD, to coordinate military and police agencies in the drug war. And, again in 1993, DOD and the Department of Justice signed a memorandum of understanding enabling the military to transfer technology to state and local police departments. The difference between the mission of civilian and military forces in this context is remarkable. Civilian law-enforcement personnel are trained to deal with situations occurring locally on the city, county or state level. They are trained to consider the individual rights of the citizen, regardless of the severity of the crime, and use of force is a measure of last resort. On the other hand, the mission of the military is national security. Troops are trained to concentrate deadly force on an enemy.
. . . . Furthermore, says a law-enforcement official who asked not to be identified, the distinction between the two forces rarely is understood by the general population. "Police don't have rules of engagement," he says. "They have a use-of-force policy. Every law-enforcement officer, office, agency or department in the United States lives by the same use-of-force policy. That is, police may use force only to the level necessary to neutralize a situation and may use deadly force only to protect themselves or the lives of others," he says.
. . . . Whatever term is applied, the fact remains that U.S. troops are participating in civilian law-enforcement activities inside the United States. Often the outcome is frightening and, as in the case of the raid on the Branch Davidians, can be disastrous. Nonetheless, special-operations military units, such as the 160th Special Ops group (also known as Delta Force) out of Fort Campbell, Ky., which has been implicated in the attack at Waco, for years have been training in U.S. cities for the possibility of "terrorist activities."
. . . . Training exercises known as Military Operations in Urban Terrain, or MOUT, have been carried out in dozens of cities throughout the United States. Residents of Charlotte, N.C., Pittsburgh, Houston and Chicago are among those who have been awakened in the dead of night by hundreds of military troops rappelling from helicopters hovering at treetop level, firing automatic weapons and exploding flash-bang and smoke grenades.
. . . . Col. Bill Darley, a spokesman for DOD, tells Insight that "these exercises are not law-enforcement missions. They're secret combat activities for very explicit purposes such as scenarios involving recovery of a weapon of mass destruction, incidents of terrorism and hostage rescue. The activities would be approximating the same situation as in a foreign country. We conduct these large-scale exercises in the Southern states as make-believe foreign countries. Charlotte, N.C., for example, could be Paris, Munich or any other built-up urban area outside the United States."
. . . . Darley continues, "What we're talking about is close-quarter combat. People engaged in shooting at each other. It's war gaming in the same way that troops prep for war gaming overseas. It's just easier to arrange the activities here than overseas. We arrange these exercises well in advance with the local officials, police and fire departments, and we do our best to go door-to-door notifying residents that there will be loud noises and so on."
. . . . Pat McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte, says that he is unaware of anyone going "door-to-door" to notify his residents about the exercises and that he came away from the experience with an entirely different take on the urban-warfare training that occurred in his city two years ago. According to McCrory, "They basically misled us. They weren't up-front about the extent of the exercise. I had people calling me at home and I could barely hear them for the noise in the background. We literally had residents that were so frightened they were ready to pull out their guns."
. . . . "If an accident had happened," the mayor continued, "I would have had a tough time living with myself because I didn't ask enough questions of them when they first came to us about the exercise. Even my own police department and city manager were caught off guard and unaware of the extent of the operations. It took a few minutes before we realized this was the 'small exercise' the Army had planned. There were between 15 and 20 helicopters hovering above condominium buildings shooting automatic weapons. The noise and disruption were incredible."
. . . . Steven Barry, a 24-year veteran of Army Special Forces, is well-acquainted with urban-warfare training and not surprised by the secrecy surrounding it. "The official story put out by the Army is that they're running out of training areas. For the last couple of years they've been looking for old run-down buildings in cities for training. They never inform the public about what they're doing and, contrary to what is said, the gunfire residents are hearing is real. Delta Force doesn't train with blanks. They rely on bullet traps set up weeks ahead of time to avoid outside penetration of the gunfire. The reason the exercises are secret is because it's Delta Force. They operate outside the hierarchy of command and get their orders from the top. They've been called the president's army for a long time, and they don't move without his blessing."
. . . . "It's a slippery slope," warns GOP Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, "toward the militarization of civilian law enforcement. There isn't a more fundamental issue in our society than keeping civilian law enforcement separate from the military. The line was completely blurred at Waco, and because Posse Comitatus has never been prosecuted, this will be one of the most important areas of the upcoming hearings on Waco."
. . . . The lawmaker is equally troubled by the effort to turn military troops into the world's police. "There's more than enough money and equipment provided to the military for urban-warfare training," says Barr. "Our military has its hands full around the world and is being forced to operate on very tight budgets. Now we're adding the extra burden and saying, 'Let's spend more money so they can train domestically in police operations.' This only diminishes their true mission."
. . . . Adding to concern about military troops becoming active in civilian law enforcement is a 1994 survey that is very big among Internet conspiracy theorists. The poll asked 300 troops at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Training Center, Twenty-Nine Palms, Calif., "if they would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government." While the majority responded they "strongly disagreed," the author of the thesis and designer of the survey questions, Lt. Cmdr. Guy Cunningham, was surprised that 26 percent of those surveyed indicated they indeed would fire upon their fellow citizens. This is being taken as another sign that attitudes are changing and that the mission of the U.S. military forces has become blurred.
. . . . Darley says, "We're doing about 20 of these exercises a year," and adds the bizarre notice that "the helicopters used in these exercises are black. There is no external identification -- no flag or numbers. The markings on them are internal to the command. Anyone looking at them would not be able to tell if they are American helicopters or foreign."
. . . . It gets stranger, say critics. Should an accident occur or questions be raised about the military's participation in incidents such as the one at Waco, legislation recently passed as part of the DOD authorization bill makes it possible for the secretary of defense to withhold the names or personal information identifying "any member of the armed forces assigned to an overseas unit, a sensitive unit, or a routinely deployable unit." Delta Force falls within the "sensitive unit" category.
. . . . According to Darley, "The legislation is intended to protect the service member and his or her family from security risks associated with identifying information that may be available over the Internet." According to Barry, "This law looks to specifically protect Delta Force. They're just trying to shortstop things like Waco and situations in the future where special forces are used."

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John/az

"The middle of the road between the extremes of good and evil, is evil. When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!

[Jason Kitta]

160th special ops group (also known as Delta
Force)

Um, its the 160th SOAR (special operations avation regiment). Used to be called TF 160. They are helo pilots based at Ft. Campbell.

The 1st special forces detachment delta (Delta force) is based at Ft. Bragg in NC.

The article talkes of three issues, which may or may not have anything to do with each other.

Abuses of the Pose Comitatus act (which is not based on the constitution. It was pushed by the southern states who did not like the union army enforcing the reconstruction laws after the civil war)

The article rightly points out the danger of using the army as the police due to the different mindsets used in each organisation.

As to the complaint about the military exersises (hundred of troops, gee they used every member of delta including the support guys?), and the point is? The military scared the hell out of people?

This is a general rant because the article is lacking in, oh a central point. Using cliping like that you can make the boy scouts sound like the SS.

Good lord, my writing turned out to be almost as coherent as this article.

Jason

[Dr.Rob]

I disagree.. the article is RIGHT ON. Posse Commitatus is a GOOD LAW.

Its also coming to light that FORIEGN spec op troops were at Waco as well, namely the SAS. (I don't think they were armed but "observing their american counterparts")

Looks like Waco is a big **** sandwich that everyone is gonna take a regrettable bite into.. from us gun owners to the architects of the failed atf raid to the fbi and everyone invloved.

Do you REALLY want a nineteen year old kid with an automatic rifle interpreting YOUR rights and the law? At least the police are TRAINED in LAW, Jurisdiction, the appropriate use of force, and the IDEA is that the cops are FROM the community they police (now we know that's NOT always true). But literally that's what we are getting at. There is NO NEED for a no knock machine gun toting warrant "search warrant" when the county sheriff could walk right up and say "hey david we need to have a look at all y'alls guns."

Armies are trained in the language of war. They preach urban pacification (read destroy urban areas), Interdiction bombing (read bombing civilans), engagements other than war (read sneaky commando stuff), etc.

Cops are SUPPOSED to be here to "protect and to serve" their communties.

The purpose of our armed forces is to project american political policy and interests abroad.

Yeah I know that GI's swear to protect against enemies "foriegn and domestic" but ANY american soldier who fires on an american civilian on american soil had better be prepared to be shot back at.

The constitution was Founded by english citizens who were sick of english troops enforcing unfair taxation, unlawful searches, and unlawful billeting of troops whose sole purpose was to keep the colonies "in-line".

Maybe its time for someone to throw the tea in the harbor again, just to remind us of who we are and how we got here.

Are we SO SCARED of DRUGS and TERRORISTS that we WANT Unaccountable shcok troops replacing investigation and arrest with "probable cause" bombings? (case in POINT, regan bombed Libya over a "terrorist act in germany" REAL FACT 2 GI's in a DRUG deal in an seedy german club got offed with a hand grenade.

Case in point #2 Clinton launches cruise missle attacks into the taliban and destroys a chemical plant becasue they were suspected of "harboring terrorists" that were involved in embassy bombings in africa. Even RENO almost flipped her wig over that, we had NO SUCH proof.

Well remember.. military errors are generally looked on as OOPS sorry about that but hey war is hell. The military doesn't need "probable cause" to drop a rock from orbit on a target, if they get it wrong they just say oops collateral damage.. sorry. Blew up a bridge covered with refugees? Sorry the bad guys tanks were rolling behind them.

And Military manuvers don't give a rat's ass about your rights or beleifs or laws. You are one of three things to an army 1. a target, 2. an ally 3. a non combatant in the WAY of getting to the target. Armies don't LIKE to have thier hands tied, it gets thier soldiers killed.

Well guess what? I'm not ready to give up my rights as a citizen to a kid with an automatic rifle who thinks MY nieghborhood is a free fire zone.. wether he's a gangbanger OR a united states marine.

My two cents and I'm off my soapbox.

Dr.Rob