Pentagon Plans Could Mean Troops for Homeland DefenseSecret plans being considered by the Pentagon could lead to a relaxation of the Posse Comitatus Act's restrictions on using U.S. military forces to enforce laws within the country.
The plans under discussion would reduce the emphasis on fighting conventional wars and devote more resources to defending American territory and anti-terrorism efforts within our borders.
Consideration of the shift is at the center of an in-depth review of U.S. military strategy now being conducted at the Pentagon, as ordered by Congress every four years.
The Posse Comitatus Act was passed after the Civil War to prohibit the use of the military in enforcing laws. Its application to anti-terrorism efforts in the U.S. today is not totally clear, but the Pentagon plans could signal an intention to use regular troops, and not just the National Guard, to fight terrorism on our soil.
Current Pentagon strategy embraces the "two-war model," which calls for sufficient forces to launch a major campaign, like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while maintaining enough reserves to mount a similar campaign elsewhere.
But the current reassessment is the first by the Pentagon to seriously question the two-war strategy, according to a report in the New York Times.
"The concern that the concentration of troops and weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan was limiting the Pentagon's ability to deal with other potential conflicts was underscored by Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a classified risk assessment to Congress this spring," the Times revealed.
A decision to increase the emphasis on domestic defense and counterterrorism would have a significant impact on the makeup of the military.
The two-war model requires more high-tech weapons, especially warplanes, while a one-war model and increased counterterrorism duties would call for lighter, more agile forces, "more Special Operations units, and a range of other needs, such as intelligence, language and communications specialists," the Times reports.
The shift would be an acknowledgment that future American wars will most likely be against urban guerrillas and insurgents rather than conventional fighters.
Loren Thompson, an analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va., said, "What we need for conventional victory is different from what we need for fighting insurgents, and fighting insurgents has relatively little connection to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons."
But one senior military officer cautioned: "Whether anybody believed we could actually fight two wars at once is open to debate. But having it in the strategy raised enough uncertainty in the minds of our opponents that it served as a deterrent. Do we want to lose that?"
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/7/5/140143.shtml*FW Note:I'll be one of the first to promote using our troops to defend our borders, but we need to be
VERY, VERY careful about allowing the use of the military for "law enforcement" purposes, and be doubly wary about getting sucked into this "terrorism" fervor.
:shock:
