Educating the Bloggers

For cryin' out loud. Glenn Greenwald has got his panties twisted up and is sounding the alarm over the assignment of the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team to NORTHCOM for the mission of defense support to civil authorities (DSCA), as they say in Pentagonese. Translated, this means that this unit will be in the forefront of any military support to DHS as the federal government responds to a declared disaster or catastrophic event. What makes this more interesting (to me) is that this unit is being officially designated as the interim CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force (CCMRF) for responding to terrorist CBRN incidents. The Army Times notes:

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

Training for homeland scenarios has already begun at Fort Stewart and includes specialty tasks such as knowing how to use the “jaws of life” to extract a person from a mangled vehicle; extra medical training for a CBRNE incident; and working with U.S. Forestry Service experts on how to go in with chainsaws and cut and clear trees to clear a road or area.

The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.

“It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it.”

The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.

Glenn breathlessly wonders if this amounts to a "permanent deployment" of military forces in American cities. He drags out the Posse Comitatus Act and talks about martial law, but backs off in his update and says:

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.

Now because other bloggers such as Balloon Juice and DailyKos have joined in on the hand-wringing concern over the legality of this action, I have to say "STFU, you ridiculous ninnies and stop manufacturing plotlines from the late 1960s I believe you are mistaken, sir." The facts are these.

• First - and most importantly - active forces do not DEPLOY in the United States, you simplistic throwbacks to Woodstock. They are already stationed within the United States, and they will be "on call" to respond as tasked by NORTHCOM. There is no "permanent deployment" of troops inside of American cities.
• Every time a declared disaster mandates a federal response, the military is called in - either by the state (using its National Guard) or by the president (federalized and active forces) - to assist. This is because the military has trained and disciplined personnel that can offer quick assistance, deployed as task forces that are self-sufficient.
• NORTHCOM has the designated responsibility to coordinate with DHS on supporting such a response. In the past, JFCOM was the combatant command that identified specific forces for domestic emergencies and deployed them accordingly. That relationship is shifting as NORTHCOM increases its ability to manage such events.
• There is an assumption - false, in my mind - that DOD response forces are the best qualified to respond to and act upon a terrorist CBRN incident, given its subject-matter experts, specialized equipment, and ability to deploy using internal assets (I think the threat is overblown and can be handled by state and local responders). The creation of a CCMRF concept has been underway for a few years now.

The more interesting issue that I pick out of that article (which frankly, slipped past me the first time - have to read more carefully) is that the DOD has not, for past year, been able to develop an active duty, full-time CCMRF and instead has to slap the label on an active duty BCT instead. ASD(HD) Paul McHale is on the record as saying we need three of these 4-5000 person forces, because the terrorists are going to hit us with improvised CBRN weapons in multiple cities at the same time. We're having trouble developing one CCMRF. The strain from multiple deployments to the Middle East has impacted the ability to create a permanent standing task force within the United States. This shows the real priorities within DOD - defending the United States is first, fighting the Long War is second, supporting the response to a terrorist CBRN incident is third. Good thing it's not a question of when, but if such an event happens.

The other interesting issue is this fielding of "nonlethal weapons" to the BCT. To me, the issue over nonlethal weapons is not a big deal. It's a different capability that is suited for particular missions, although I don't like the concept of general military forces mixing lethal and nonlethal weapons in combat operations such as Iraq. Keep it to the military police units. This idea of developing and sustaining a capability for the CCMRF to support "traffic and crowd control" missions does dangerously step into law enforcement lanes.

I'm not that concerned about posse comitatus - the military's lawyers are usually very insistent on getting the right guidance to commanders and working with the feds and state authorities. But honestly, I have to say (to the military this time), get your heads out of the 1960s. I really don't see that mission as required today or in the future. If there's an event such as the WTO or even a Katrina event, let the state governor worry about traffic and crowd control. They have lots of law enforcement and National Guard troops to take on the mission.

UPDATE: Rob Farley discusses Glenn's post, and Glenn and John broadside me in the LGM comments. Apologies for not recognizing that John is a former military guy. Lots of fun.

UPDATE 2: Discussion continued here with NORTHCOM and ARNORTH officials.

Comments

[Glen Tomkins]

Redefining normal

The point of concern over this designation of an AD brigade to "homeland security", is not that it makes the use of the AD military any more likely in some sort of military coup, but that it makes it easier for the president to misuse the AD military in many other more likely, if less extreme, scenarios.

On the low end of the spectrum would be misuse as props in some October Surprise fake terrorism scenario. Not that it is entirely fantastical to imagine that a CBRN attack might take place on US soil, but as you allude to, the military's potential usefulness in response is about 100% eyewash. The thing is, if they gin up some repeat of the Anthrax Scare in order to terroze the electorate into voting their way, it could backfire if they can be portrayed as having let the incident happen through negligence. They have to have some measure they can point to, like designating this brigade as part of the response to things like an anthrax attack, to show that, far from being asleep at the wheel, they were prescient geniuses. Even if they do not spring a specific October Surprise, merely designating a brigade for a mission that is real-world pure-d eyewash, but tends to heighten the general level of baseless fear of terrorism in the PR world, is an abuse of the military for political ends. Let that start, and be legitimized by the lack of challenge as we see in Greenwald's article, and where will it end?

The high end of potential abuse, a military coup, is both unlikely and not clearly much aided by this designation. If there were generals willing to go along with such a thing, a designation wouldn't much matter (though it is possible that if a brigade is attached out of one command and into another, it's to get it under a cooperative general). But one reason a military coup is unlikely, despite the strong need BushCo has to not hand over control of the evidence and prosecutors to a Democrat, is that a judicial coup would be easier to arrange, more likely to work, and carry far lesser adverse consequences for them of it doesn't work. But they don't know how extreme a steal they will require of their friends on the Supreme Court this year until after the election results come in. A really egregious steal might inspire resistance in some cities. In such circumstances, where the rights and wrongs of following perhaps extreme orders are unclear, but the risk of doing nothing also seems extreme, I would want there to be in place every opportunity for as many generals as possible in the chain of command to say, "No sir, that's an illegal order." In such grey area scenarios, in which it won't be clearcut if use of force against US civilians is legitimate, it could make a huge difference in likelihood of successful abuse, if the unit has a formal mission that can be made to seem, at least prima facie, legitimately includes doing whatever it takes to preserve "order" in our cities. I really don't like the idea of having a unit designated with the specific mission of securing the homeland against "terrorists" when we have a president in office who has been given the legal authority to designate anyone, citizen or not, an enemy combatant, and whom I sure don't trust to use that power to designate enemy combatants against only real threats to the national security, as opposed to threats to his continued life outside of the prison that his actions the past 8 years merit.

I don't like putting a brigade in such a grey area of potential abuse, not when there's no upside to this eyewash designation anyway.

[J.]

Glen - good comments. I think my major issue with Glenn's original post is that he does not separate those concerns - 1) should active duty military units assist in federal responses to catastrophies as opposed to relying solely on traditional Guard units and state forces? 2) should active duty forces be permanently assigned under NORTHCOM? 3) is there the chance of a president - this current president - abusing said arrangement? (my point of view, yes, no, yes)

Instead he jumped straight into "we can't trust the man!" arguments that (I believe) are not suited for today's political environment. These discussions on DSCA have evolved since 2001, it's been a slow and serious discussion primarily because everyone is acutely aware that the main show is overseas and we're not able to fill that, let alone an additional requirement for standing forces inside the United States.

And Bush is going to be out in a few months (thank the gods), Obama's going to be elected, and we can all repair the damages done to our military and our society. So why is Glenn reacting like this?

[LT Nixon]

Greenwald has kind of made a cottage industry over alarmism about the military. He's repeatedly claimed that DoD public affairs is a nefarious right-wing system of manipulating the public mind. Whatever can get you readers there guy.

[NK]

Perhaps Glenn Greenwald got a little carried away trying to pursue a political angle on this story, but if you'd been present for the RNC in St. Paul a few weeks ago and witnessed what it is like for an American city to turn into an Occupied Zone overnight, you might be a little bit paranoid yourself.

... Particularly given the Army Times statement that "they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control."

The RNC was a "National Security event" so the Secret Service and the FBI and so forth coordinated with the local authorities - police, sheriffs, etc - to turn St. Paul into a police state, even going so far as to stage preemptive raids on protesters houses.

I've lived in Minnesota my entire life, and I witnessed the mayhem firsthand (not as a protester, as a resident and observer).

Nobody needed "manufacture" any "plot lines from the 1960's" during the RNC - the oppressive use of state power to crush dissent pretty much took care of that. The police were totally out of control - bullying, threatening, intimidating, maceing, gassing, and beating the shit out of anybody they felt like.

It was, to put it mildly, really fucked up - and the idea that they could add actual soldiers into the mix down the road, for any reason, is pretty disturbing. Maybe that's not the most salient point to take away from the Army Times article, but it seems like a legitimate concern to raise.

Add to all that the Bush administration's aggressive assaults on our basic civil liberties such as habeas corpus, or his massive domestic spying program, and on and on and on ... Well, frankly, no - we can't "trust the man" can we? That's been proven time and again these last 8 years, and I don't see any reason to start trusting "the man" on this issue, out of the blue, in light of what we know.

[John of Argghhh!~]

Heh. As someone who spent his last two years on active duty as the Plans, Training, and Operations Officer of the WMD RTF-West (back when 1st and 5th Army split the country between them for the MSCA mission) all I have to say is... um, so what?

If we needed active duty troops to meet a requirement, we picked up the phone, called DOMS at the Pentagon, gave them the requirement, and if they agreed it was a good mission, they canvassed the Services for who was available at the time, and taskers went out and people and stuff started moving.

I had a CD, updated monthly, with reams of data of what was available - because you never know when you might want to use a ship to provide on-shore power or water, etc. Or need some AF assets to move Army generators, or a battalion of infantry to do some firefighting.

The Marines at the time were standing up the CBRNE force, they and 59th Ordnance were always high on the list for those sorts of concerns.

All this does is stick someone on active duty with the rose that is *already* stuck on Guard units.

Color me unconcerned.

[Galrahn]

Jason,

I believe liberalism in America is stunted in its growth primarily due to the ignorance combined with alarmist tendencies among the liberal pundits and thinkers regarding the military.

From my perspective, that makes the work people like Phil Carter, Rob Farley, and you do very important to the national security debate this country needs to have among the citizenry.

Keep up the great work here sir.

[fnord]

This is being discussed over at Intel-dump as well. Quite a few military folkis are worried too. Especially this line got to me, from Army Times:

“It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it.”

As NK points out, the republican convention was like a livefire exercise in policestate mentality. If you get armyunits with tasers (wich they brag about in the article) thrown into the mix and think Seattle, its an unsettling picture. You dont have to be paranoid to be worried about the development of the US civil liberties and the methods of the various law enforcement agencies.

[T. Jefferson]

It is easy to point the finger at "liberals" and call them alarmists when they react to a situation like this.

It is just as easy to point the finger at Conservatives, and call them alarmists, because they want to invade every country that talks about nuclear power, or asserts their sovereignty.

The problem is that these labels serve no productive purpose, in fact it is the exact opposite, they divide us and keep us at each others throats just long enough for the real villains in this story to laugh their asses all the way to the bank with our money, liberty, privacy--pretty much everything that made this country great.

Right now we are in an economic crisis because of this exact situation. Right now exists the presidential authority to suspend the 2008 elections, right now anyone can be declared a terrorist/enemy combatant, just as easily as it was to declare someone a witch in the 1600s.

The constitution is being shredded more and more every day and no one seems to care... the president, the congress, and the military all took an OATH; it is their DUTY to protect and uphold the constitution, not beat you over the head with it, after they taser you to death.

Remember that America, is NOT a democracy, it is a Constitutional Republic. whats the difference?

in a democracy, 51% of the people can take away the rights of 49% of the people.

In the Constitutional Republic our forefathers created, not even 99% of the people can take away the rights of 1% of the people.

The founding fathers despised democracy, and they despised the idea of a two party system...

they would be so disappointed right now.

If none of what I have said here matters to you, at least consider this:

If you have to take away someone's freedom to protect it, you FAILED.

[Cheryl Rofer]

They have lots of law enforcement and National Guard troops to take on the mission.

But isn't this the nub of the problem? National Guard troops are being sent to Iraq, so they're not available at home. So the solution is this NORTHCOM, which seems to fly in the face of how the military is supposed to relate to the, er, homeland.

Ah well, I guess it's just another grab of states' rights by the Bush Socialists, nationalizing yet one more of our precious decentralized capabilities.

[J.]

I think it's a deeper issue, and I don't want to expound on this forever, but it goes back to the idea that Dana Priest had in the book "The Mission" - use active duty military forces to get the job done because we can't count on State/DHS/other govt agencies to do it competently and fast. Instead of fixing the process, the executive govt works around it, because it's easier.

No doubt that the Bush admin has worked (ironically) to push back state rights on issues such as activation and control of NG units. No doubt that the Guard is stretched due to Iraq/Afghanistan. But I reiterate, Glen and others are misinterpreting the article, this work has been ongoing for a while to enable NORTHCOM to quickly move active duty forces in support of - not supplanting - DHS and state response efforts.

[BillT]

No doubt that the Guard is stretched due to Iraq/Afghanistan.

Stretched, but not snapped. Most Army National Guard (ARNG) Divisions are multi-state units, and Governors of states with large numbers of deployed ARNG members traditionally ask neighboring governors for an assist in the event of an emergency.

The critical element in an emergency is *time*. It can take up to three days to activate, assemble, and transport a battalion-sized ARNG relief force, because Guardsmen don't live in the armories (or even within fifty miles of one, in some states). And, once assembled, the force has to be transported to the scene, and it can take up to 12 hours *after* the force arrives at the transportation site to get it rolling.

Actives live where they work, reducing assembly and move-out time; and, since Army posts are either co-located with Air Force bases or in close proximity to one, that further reduces the time needed to get an AD relief force rolling.

[James]

wow there are some crazy ppls in this world but hey even if it did happen theyed probbly run the country more effectivly than our congress

ooo also theres the prommised obama "youth camps" to teach our children how to lie..oh and the civilian army he wants to make thats as well armed and funded as our army....wait why would we need those again?

[Rich Rostrom]

1) The ANG is the Army. ANG has used for emergencies, including civil disorder, many many times.

2) There are obvious benefits to having an active-duty unit permanently on-call for this function. ANG units must be mobilized for the occasion, which means either they take longer to respond, or they must be mobilized in advance. In the latter case, this means mobilizing every time such an event is possible. That would be extremely wasteful, and highly disruptive to the lives of ANG personnel, who aren't supposed to be full-time. CPT Jason van Steenwyk of the Florida ANG has blogged about how his unit was mobilized several times in less than two years. Many Guardsmen are college students: a three-week mobilization pretty much ruins a semester. There's also the waste from providing training and gear to 50 separate organizations, some of which may never use it, and trying to coordinate the actions of multiple forces if the affected state's ANG is overwhelmed.

Having said all that, I'm not sure this role should be filled by the Army. Maybe there should be a Federal disaster relief service, organized on quasi-military lines (as police and fire are) - perhaps something like a land version of the Coast Guard.

[daskro]

These kind of posts are why I come to this blog, really fascinating stuff, top notch.

I do have a question related to the PCA. A friend of mine in the Air National guard 190th Refueling wing (Topeka Kansas) would often work with State Troopers in SWAT drug busts. His explanation was that Air National Guard were sanctioned by the Governor to participate in high risk drug raids since the State Troopers did not have the manpower/training/assets to do the raids themselves. Does this have anything to do with the PCA?

[J.]

I'm not the right guy to ask, Rob Farley is more up on PCA and others probably would answer this better than I. My understanding is that PCA is largely applicable only to active duty/reserve/federalized NG units and their role in law enforcement. If the state governor wants to use his NG troops to augment state troopers, the Guard units are considered state assets, that's his\her call. I just don't know if a formal declaration is required or something written at the least that makes it okay for the state to do this on an ad hoc basis.

But to be clear, NORTHCOM is not suggesting using the 1st BCT for law enforcement purposes (nor are the feds).