Let me second Jason Sigger's shredding of Glenn Greenwald's handwringing regarding the assignment of a Brigade Combat Team to NORTHCOM, the combatant command responsible for the continental United States. Jason ably dismantles Greenwald's terror that the Army is coming to repress us, but I'd like to concentrate on something else; Greenwald's notion that Posse Comitatus represents, in any way, a safeguard for democracy. Glenn:
For more than 100 years -- since the end of the Civil War -- deployment of the U.S. military inside the U.S. has been prohibited under The Posse Comitatus Act (the only exceptions being that the National Guard and Coast Guard are exempted, and use of the military on an emergency ad hoc basis is permitted, such as what happened after Hurricane Katrina). Though there have been some erosions of this prohibition over the last several decades (most perniciously to allow the use of the military to work with law enforcement agencies in the "War on Drugs"), the bright line ban on using the U.S. military as a standing law enforcement force inside the U.S. has been more or less honored -- until now.
Huh. Why do you think that a "bright line" was created between the military and law enforcement following the Civil War? I'll give you nine guesses, and the first eight don't count. If you say "to protect democracy", then sorry, you have only the most tenuous grasp of the history of the United States. If you say "to protect Southern terrorist organizations during Reconstruction from the federally controlled United States Army, thereby securing white supremacy in the American South for four generations", then you win a kewpie doll. Glenn links to Alan Bock to provide historical context, but sadly Bock badly botches the history; it's as if he doesn't grasp that, absent the protection of the Army, it was simply impossible for African-Americans to exercise their voting rights in Southern states.
The utility of Posse Comitatus is debatable, even apart from its origins. Glenn calls it "an important democratic safeguard", but I'd like to know if other major democracies have anything on their books even resembling this prohibition. Moreover, the Army is useful in crisis situations (such as the aftermath of Katrina) not because of its ability to shoot people, but rather because of its tremendous organizational capacity. It's good at responding to crises because it's an organization designed to respond to really big crises. We can either take advantage of the capacity that such an organization affords us, or we can pretend that it's coming to repress us. Glenn's a smart guy, and he should know a hell of a lot better than to take this crap seriously.
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