Posted on 07/29/2002 5:02:09 AM PDT by Boonie Rat
July 28, 2002
Bush is becoming downright dangerous
By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor
NEW YORK -- Of all the bad ideas that have been pouring from the Bush administration - the faux war on terrorism, the Palestine mess, invading Iraq, curtailment of civil liberties, unilateralism, growing deficits, farm subsidies, steel tariffs - among the very worst is the dangerous proposal that U.S. military forces be given domestic police powers.
Bush administration officials, notably the chief of the newly created Northern Command, Gen. Ralph Eberhart, have been calling for the Pentagon to assume a much greater domestic role in the so-called war against terrorism. A role, apparently, that would give the military power to conduct investigations and surveillance, use troops to "maintain order and security" and arrest American citizens. Canadians might be next, since Canada has been involuntarily placed under the U.S. Northern Command.
This frightening plan comes on the heels of Bush's cutely named but sinister TIPs program, a network of citizen informers that recalls evil memories of ubiquitous Soviet and Chinese civilian informers, children denouncing parents, and East Germany, where a quarter of the adult population spied for the Stasi secret police.
In the magisterial Roman Republic, father of all our western democracies, consular armies were forbidden by law to enter the city. The Romans realized over 2,400 years ago that soldiers had to be strictly kept out of politics. The Roman Republic died during the 1st century BC civil wars after military leaders Marius, Sulla and, later, Caesar, brought their armies into politics.
America's Congress - which was patterned on the Roman Senate - clearly recalled this history when it passed the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which outlawed the use of federal military forces for domestic law enforcement. Congress was intent on maintaining supremacy of civilian rule and protecting civil liberties. Properly restrained, the military was a useful tool; unrestrained, a dangerous and ruthless master.
Soldiers are trained to kill enemies, not to perform complex police duties that require professionalism, restraint and knowledge of the law. Long, painful experience around the world has repeatedly shown that once the military is brought in to "maintain order" or perform policing, it almost inevitably becomes corrupted, despotic and politicized.
One need only look at the doleful history of Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Egypt, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile and Venezuela to see that when soldiers take over internal security, they inevitably end up taking over the government as well. When soldiers are allowed to police, they suddenly realize their latent power and go from being second-class citizens to cocks of the walk. Law quickly gives way before raw power. Those who have served in the military - as this writer has - have a healthy fear of military justice and its drumhead implementation.
Interestingly, the Soviet communists were even more sensitive to this threat. Lenin repeatedly warned of "Bonapartism" and urged the party to keep control of internal security and police in the hands of civilians.
The Posse Comitatus Act was amended by the Reagan administration to allow use of the military in an earlier bogus "war" - the war on drugs.
In this case, the military was sent to identify and intercept drug smugglers outside America's borders. At the time, the idea seemed reasonable. But in retrospect, the inflow of drugs has barely been reduced while the military has ended up with a boot in the door of domestic law enforcement.
In 1997, Congress gave the military the power to co-operate with other government departments in countering biological or chemical attacks. This made sense because the military had an arsenal of biowarfare detection, neutralization gear, vaccines and the training to use them. But Congress expressly forbade the military from arresting civilians during biowarfare operations.
Now, some of the far-rightists who populate the darker corners of the Bush administration are using public fear and hysteria generated by incessant claims of imminent nuclear or biowarfare attack to press for what amounts to the beginning of national martial law. We hear calls for greater surveillance of phones and e-mail. Next will come calls for limits on speech and dissent. George Orwell laid out this whole grim process in his epochal novel, 1984. Anyone who wants a feel of what martial law would be like should see the gripping Burt Lancaster film about a Pentagon coup against the White House, Seven Days in May.
Fortunately, Congress, much of the top brass and even Pentagon super-hawk Donald Rumsfeld seem opposed to this daft idea. Good for them. Separation of the civil and military is even more basic and sacred an American concept than separation of church and state.
The voice Americans should be listening to is that of the closest thing the United States had to a noble Roman tribune - former president Dwight Eisenhower. As this great American and former general was leaving office, he warned his people that the gravest threat they faced was not from abroad but from their own military-industrial complex.
The U.S. has ample civilian law enforcement agencies to ensure domestic security - perhaps too many. Americans don't need soldiers to act as super-cops. Osama bin-Laden and the far right must not be allowed to stampede the U.S. into military policing.
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Eric can be reached by e-mail at margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com. Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com or visit his home page.
Boonie Rat
MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66
Election of the next "Demo president" will be assured with the briiliant political judgements of people like you. Be sure to always cut the legs off the good guys and shoot the wounded. That way the monsters are sure to win and you can whine about what lousy candidates the GOP were.
Either way, the fringe-dwellers get to bitch from the sidelines without ever lifting a finger.
You know what you can lick.
History shows us that where a power exists, it will be abused by despots. Maybe, just maybe, George won't abuse it, BUT, if it is on the books, HE MAY, or the next president MAY, or the one who's in office when my grandchildren come of age. It scares me to leave this legacy to my children and grandchildren. I do not believe that ANY politician has MY, or MY CHILDRENS, or MY GRANDCHILDREN's best interests at heart.
"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." - Justice William O. Douglas
Boonie Rat
MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66
I was opposed to TIPS, but this level of comparison is over the top.
Interestingly, the Soviet communists were even more sensitive to this threat. Lenin repeatedly warned of "Bonapartism" and urged the party to keep control of internal security and police in the hands of civilians.
One would think that Margolis could come up with a better argument than this to bolster his position. Lenin's successor Stalin was a civlian, after all, for all the good it did for the millions he had killed.
(If any FReepers can name me a "far-rightist" in the any corner of the Bush administration, let fly.)
You know, that's a bunch of BS.
Remotely criticize the President? What planet are you living on?
George W. Bush is possibly attacked more than Clinton was on this forum and these stupid flame wars break out routinely whenever some anti-Bush piece is posted (daily) and the Bush-is-Hitler fringe 'conservatives' come out of the woodwork to unload their daily ration of venom on the President, attempting to paint him as some sort of stealthy ursurper of their freedom, as - in their fevered imaginations - Bush, Ashcroft and Cheney continually hatch plots to enslave them. Good grief!
I'm just sick of seeing this whining from the fringe that keeps insisting we're all gonna have our homes invaded by the U.S. military, be thrown in jail and then we're probably all gonna die if Bush isn't attacked daily here on Free Republic. The disconnect from reality and the seeming desire to fantasize about government conspiracies to enslave them appears to be the driving force behind a lot of these anti-Bush rants.
My guess is that they would find fault with President Bush no matter what he did, including cutting taxes, strengthing the military, cutting off the insane Koyoto treaty, scrapping the ABM treaty with Russia, cleaning out the Taliban in Afghanistan, stuff like that. Oh, Bush did all that! Of course, he also signed the CFR bill, negating everything else he's accomplished - in some folks minds. Right. Then the fringe Bush-bashers cry that they don't get no respect. Boo Hoo. Can't imagine why not.
The fringe has it's opinions about the Bush administration and a lot of other FReepers disagree. Deal with it and maybe consider the fact that you could actually - for the first time in your life, I'm sure - be wrong about something and that President Bush isn't the Clinton clone you insist on making him and that America and the world actually has changed since last September 11th.
Freedom has no expiration date.
Apparently, neither does political paranoia and knee-jerk opposition to anything coming from a Republican administration.
The Bush administration may not always do the right thing - they're politicians, not saints - but the constant shrill attacks and claims of being a day away from an American police state are just wrong and tiresome when repeated endlessly.
Pithy slogans are fine and you may deny it all you wish but the U.S. is under attack from enemies within and without and while it's a complicated situation, some things will have to change. Throwing out absurd comments about losing all of our freedoms and comparisons to the Soviet Union are simply hyperventilating and do not hold water. Bush and company get it wrong in some instances but the comparisons made in the lead article are just nuts and the ready agreement from some is rather discouraging.
I really don't care who is proposing these policies. It is these policies we oppose - national id, ending posse comitatus, TIPS program, the PATRIOT Act, not the politician. I didn't like it when Clinton tried to pull these things, and I don't like them now either. In fact, I wouldn't support any of these policies if my own mother proposed them. Sh!t doesn't taste good, no matter who is your waiter.
but the constant shrill attacks and claims of being a day away from an American police state are just wrong and tiresome when repeated endlessly.
There are proposals for National ID, for using the military as cops, for infesting our population with more snitches than even the STASI had. These aren't just the road to a police state - they define a police state. Just how much are we supposed to put up with before we say something?
In case you haven't noticed, the people have but one chance at heading off power grabs, and that is when they are first proposed. Once any policy or new department is in place, no matter how abusive or terrible, it is there forever. When looking to get new powers, government sends up trial balloons. If even the sheeple won't tolerate their ideas, they drop their proposal (at least for a while). If no one says anything, they take it as a green light. Our government never gets smaller. Just try getting them to drop just one program. Just one agency. Just one power. It will never happen. If we don't speak up now, we have lost our only chance. So I'm speaking out. If you and others don't like it, that's fine. Ignore me, debate me, call me names if you must. But I absolutely will not ever sit by silently as this country becomes just another banana republic, someplace I'd be ashamed to call home.
Throwing out absurd comments about losing all of our freedoms and comparisons to the Soviet Union are simply hyperventilating and do not hold water.
People in many countries did not have the benefit of hindsight when their leaders talked them into dubious ideas in the name of some 'common good'. We do. We've seen just how various tyrants have come to power. We've seen countries become oppressive police states. Do you think the people of these unfortunate hell holes intended things to end up that way? Of course not. They were decieved. We know better now. We've seen what not to do. We will not be fooled.
Do I understand then that you support giving the military power to conduct investigations and surveillance, use troops to "maintain order and security" and arrest American citizens? That a program such as TIPS, where over a million Americans will act as informants about any suspicious activity they observe among their neighbours and the people they visit in a professional capacity is good. And you feel that these things are going to keep you safer?
Boonie Rat
MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66
And you sir, can kiss my grits.
Then get down on your knees and thank God that should your nation ever be invaded or struck by terrorists, that you have a GOOD friend in President Bush.
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