From Hell’s Heart, BushHitler Stabs At Thee With 20,000 Soldiers!

“This domestic troop deployment looks at best to be part of the Bush Administration’s last-minute plans to leave its fascist mark on this country in perpetuity before leaving. At worst it’s a sign that the current Administration has no intention of leaving at all.” — Brilliant at Breakfast

There seems to be –ahem — a lot of concern out there about the news that 20,000 troops are going to be stationed here in the US in order to help respond to a domestic catastrophe.

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department’s role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

…The Pentagon’s plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command.

If funding continues, two additional teams will join nearly 80 smaller National Guard and reserve units made up of about 6,000 troops in supporting local and state officials nationwide. All would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.

First of all, this isn’t as new as it seems; I wrote about the first 4000 troops assigned to this mission back in early October. Here’s a little sample from the piece that talks about the restrictions our troops are under when they’re on our home soil,

Instead, the soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., have been training to back up civilian authorities in providing medical care and dealing with chemical, biological, high explosive or nuclear attack.

…The brigade’s commander, Col. Roger Cloutier, said his soldiers, recently returned from Ramadi, Iraq, are excited about being assigned to help in America.

…Cloutier said he’s also drilling his troops on the rules they face when operating on American soil. His soldiers won’t act as cops; other wartime Army tasks such as intelligence gathering are also forbidden in America.

And while the Army is used to being in the lead, on domestic missions, they’ll be followers.

“We’re in a support role to a lead federal agency,” Cloutier said. “Every mission we do would be at the request of local and state officials.”

Here’s the reality of the post 9/11 world we live in, folks; we could be hit tomorrow with weapons of mass destruction across multiple cities in the US. Tens of thousands of Americans could be killed with weapons of mass destruction. Hundreds of thousands of Americans could be displaced. In that sort of mass chaos and panic, the locals, even in large cities, could quickly be overwhelmed. Granted, the governors of the affected states could call on the National Guard to help, but the Guard may not have the specialized training needed to deal with that sort of disaster.

So, what do you do? Do you assign the same people who are in charge of ICE or Airline Security to hire 20,000 new people for this? Do you have Obama create a creepy new domestic security force to deal with it? Do you just not prepare at all — or do you give a little extra training to the most competent military force on earth so they can help out in a pinch?

The reality is that our military is best equipped to handle this situation and honestly, there’s very little to worry about. As long as they’re not policing the population — and there’s no reason to think that they would be — I don’t think there should be a Posse Comitatus problem or any infringement on civil liberties. In fact, the biggest worry would be that we might be spreading our troops a little too thin. We don’t want to get in a situation where we’re leaving the homeland vulnerable to send troops overseas or vice-versa.

With all that in mind, I think this is a case of the government belatedly doing something right rather than an issue for people to be concerned about.

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