Washblog

Knowing the news is immersed in the economic crisis with Wall Street and the Bailout, elections, concern about theft of votes, and McCain's October Surprise in deciding he must suspend his campaign, is there a reason to be alarmed at what could be construed as military 'maneuvering' to better manage homeland unrest?  

'Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? ~ Abraham Lincoln

A little-noticed story surfaced a couple of weeks ago in the Army Times newspaper about the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team. "Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months," reported Army Times staff writer Gina Cavallaro, "the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks." Disturbingly, she writes that "they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control" as well.

The force will be called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force. Its acronym, CCMRF, is pronounced "sea-smurf."  These "sea-smurfs," Cavallaro reports, have "spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle," in a combat zone, and now will spend their 20-month "dwell time" -- time troops are required to spend to "reset and regenerate after a deployment" -- armed and ready to hit the U.S. streets.

With the Wall Street flatlining, the 'financial bailout'  bombshell, the warnings of economic collapse and the most severe economic repercussions since The Great Depression, do you think people will panic?  And will this Sea Smurfs brigade will be acting sooner than later?  

'Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? ~ Abraham Lincoln

Quoting an excerpt from Chuck Baldwin article at Baltimore Chronicle;

One of America's most sacred principles has always been that the U.S. military was never to be used for domestic law enforcement. The fear of standing armies ran very deep in the hearts and minds of America's founders. The tyranny and misery inflicted upon the colonies by British troops weighed heavily upon those who drafted our Constitution and Bill of Rights. In their minds, the American people would never again be subjected to the heavy weight of army boots. Furthermore, they insisted that America would have a civilian--not military--government.

And after the fiasco of the abuse of federal troops in the South following the War Between the States, the doctrine of Posse Comitatus was enacted into law. The Wikipedia online encyclopedia says this about Posse Comitatus:

read the entire article here.

of note (or perhaps bias): Chuck Baldwin (the author) was the Constitution Party's 2004 vice-presidential candidate on a ticket headed by Michael Peroutka of Millersville, Md., a graduate of Loyola College in Maryland and the University of Baltimore School of Law.

'Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? ~ Abraham Lincoln

 His article indicates bloggers who were blogging about it; the lack of any media mention or coverage and discusses The Posse Comitatus Act.

excerpt from his article at Salon

As is typical, very few members of the media even mentioned any of this, let alone discussed it (and I failed to give this the attention it deserved at the time), but Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein wrote an excellent article at the time detailing the process and noted that "despite such a radical turn, the new law garnered little dissent, or even attention, on the Hill." Stein also noted that while "the blogosphere, of course, was all over it . . . a search of The Washington Post and New York Times archives, using the terms 'Insurrection Act,' 'martial law' and 'Congress,' came up empty."

excerpt - his second update to his article

UPDATE II: There's no need to start manufacturing all sorts of scare scenarios about Bush canceling elections or the imminent declaration of martial law or anything of that sort. None of that is going to happen with a single brigade and it's unlikely in the extreme that they'd be announcing these deployments if they had activated any such plans. The point is that the deployment is a very dangerous precedent, quite possibly illegal, and a radical abandonment of an important democratic safeguard. As always with first steps of this sort, the danger lies in how the power can be abused in the future.

my thought; Oh, don't I shudder to think what John McCain, eager for war on any front would do if he is elected and assumes the expanded powers of the Presidency.

'Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? ~ Abraham Lincoln

No, I don't want it to be true, and yes, I'm a bit of a nervous nellie these days, still holding my breath till the November election. Again, a series of coincidences, and in stringing coincidences together raising my own anxiety level, my intent is not so much to pass anxiety on to others, as much as get this recorded in one place at WB.

In November perhaps I can look back at this diary and feel foolish and that's okay with me. I've become wary of this Administration for good reason; and an extension of that is being wary of the Republican machine at work as it marches on seemingly easily exploitable by small extremist factions intent on an agenda not widely understood or grasped within or amongst the larger party.  

here is link to video segment from C-Span of Rep. Brad Sherman's statement to the House of Representatives and quoted excerpt:

'many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday, that the sky would fall, that the market would drop 2 or 3 thousand points the first day, another couple thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be 'martial law in America' if we voted no.  That's what I call fear-mongering', unjustified, proven wrong. We've got a week, we've got two weeks to write a good bill.  The only way to pass a bad bill -- keep the panic on'

'Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? ~ Abraham Lincoln