Where’s the NG? Deployed, or quite easily ineffectual because they are victims of the problem they might be working to solve. Though that might not necessarily be the case I would expect a competent government to have a contingency on the shelf if it were.

Then it struck me it might be more to the point to ask: what reason have we to believe the US’s military exercises in subjugating populaces in foreign countries over the last decade or more of strategically-brainless interventions is not intended as practice for the control of the American people?

This is what the National Guard is for; the fact that they’re all overseas is wrong but the DOD’s need for troop rotations has forced this.

Using battle-hardened infantry brigades for ‘crowd control’ is overkill, though.

Active duty units have been used for “public works” projects (ie, privates setting out chairs for massive Bingo tents) just like the national guard for years. A private is a unit of labor, that’s all. Jaws of life employment? Firefighting? Sounds like cross MOS training. SFW?

While they may *learn* crowd control with non lethal weps and techniques (much like every freaking unit that has done MOUT training on American soil has done for years), this doesn’t imply they’re going to ever, ever, be used in this capacity on our soil. Most of the national guard troops that showed up for Katrina duty were completely unarmed, just like an AD unit would be if deployed to do anything but active counter insurgency on the domestic front.

Hell, put engineers on the southern border and start practicing installing claymores and other defensive works.

With the way cops and people like the Atlanta mayor act, you guys should refocus your angst on an aggregate risk basis.

Sadly, I would agree. If the Army is unleashed on America’s populace, most will follow orders – that’s how the military works. Those that didn’t obey would pay a steep price. You would likely have some lower-ranking enlisted personnel go AWOL or desert, but it would really be up to officers to stand up and say “I’m not doing this, and I wont order my soldiers to do it, either, it’s an unlawful order!” I don’t know too many that would, but some might…we still have honorable soldiers and leaders in the military.

Their can be a huge divide in the thinking of civilians and active-duty military personnel, I know because I was one. I tend to think any revolutionaries would be viewed as traitors by many soldiers. Sad, but true. The real traitors run our government and rape the Constitution on a daily basis…

The Consequences they will be responding to being the angry peasants upon finding out just how badly they’ve been screwed by their lords.

I used to think that I was half crazy thinking shiat like that. Not so much anymore.

You should be scared. This is an attempt to create a Federal version of the National Guard.

Everything these guys do is done already by the National Guard.

The nation needs these active duty Army troops to fill in for the National Guard, because the National Guard is busy filling in overseas for active duty units.

Right?

Just wait until the “Civilized Society Act” passes. The one that effectively outlaws personal firearms for protection.

“You don’t need self protection in a civilized society! We have the Consequence Management Response Force to protect you.”

Just wait.

Talk about Orwellian.

There are those who say that “oh our soldiers won’t do anything to violate the Constitution even if ordered to…they’re patriots after all” but that is so much bullshit. They’ll do exactly as ordered. They did in New Orleans. They forcibly disarmed American citizens. Violated the 2nd and 4th amendments Posse Comitatus among other crimes. They did it without question. They got away with it too. Not one soldier involved was ever charged. No commander was ever charged. They simply walked over American citizens in the most vile of ways and did so with impunity.

Ironically enough they did just what British redcoats tried a couple of hundred years ago but “our” soldiers did it successfully and without any sort of repercussions from either the legal system or from those they were brutalizing. Hopefully if the situation ever happens again it will more 1775 and less 2005.

You should be scared. This is an attempt to create a Federal version of the National Guard.

Everything these guys do is done already by the National Guard. However, the National Guard is really the remnants of what used to be state militias, and state governors retain control over them.

The only reason to set up these schemes is if the U.S. military wants to develop the capability to do National Guard missions when the National Guard is incapable or uncooperative.

I can understand the incapable part; so many guard units are on active duty that there is a distinct possibility that a natural disaster could leave a governor with too few forces to face a crisis. However, in such a scenario, the governor could, in theory, request units from neighboring states be activated by their governors and sent to help out.

On the other hand, if a governor is uncooperative, or perhaps disagrees with national security directives, the federal government now has a unit that is tasked with the state militia assignments of quelling riots and imposing martial law in times of crisis. Most scarily, this unit will have soldiers drawn from all over the United States. A soldier is hesitant to shoot the guys who were customers in his hardware store two days ago. A guy from New York may have fewer qualms about shooting some hippie from Oregon.

For the first time in a long time, the U.S. president will have active duty units on call among whose missions are the requirement to quell uprisings by the American people and will have no particular loyalty to the people living in the area it operates in. And worst of all, there will be no constitutional crisis as occurred when JFK federalized Alabama NG in order to forcibly desegregate the schools there. Regardless of the justness of the president’s cause, you want such actions to be very difficult and damaging politically. Now, the president picks up the phone and calls the General in charge of Northcom. No publicity or fuss.

This sort of thing has happened before. Hell, in his first term as President, George Washington led the U.S. army in an invasion of Pennsylvania (the so-called Whiskey Rebellion). But every time that it has been attempted, it has been pretty awful (I think the last time the U.S. army went after U.S. citizens was when Douglass MacArtur attacked World war I veterans in Washington DC during a sit-in demanding pensions). And, more to the point, they’ve always been temporary, ad-hoc affairs. This is permanent.

Funny, anyone notice how the movie “The Siege” is never played on TV anymore?

Surely you, as members of the Working Class, will appreciate being protected from the At-Risk rioters.

Certainly the swing voters among you will appreciate being protected from supporters of one of the two candidates for president who tend to riot when they don’t get their way. Right, swing voters?

(This is the October Surprise. It ain’t a bomb, it ain’t hostages, it ain’t anything except swing voters being told that the Military is in the streets because the negroes might riot.)