The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: 1776 Rebel on December 01, 2008, 09:51:11 AM
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I can understand the current concern for security. I can understand an elevated state of awareness and preparation. But to be quite honest this stuff starts to really concern me. Its a long article so I clipped just the opening paragraphs. See the link below for the full article.
Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security
By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 1, 2008; A01
The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.
The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.
There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.
But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002217_pf.html
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If it is National Guard called up at the governers request only or with state(s) approval I would feel much better about this.
As it reads right now though, I am opposed. Posse Comitatus and the 3rd Amendment come to mind as very possible casualties.
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Yeah this will be great, couple this with Obama's "National Civil Security Force," and things may get very interesting in the future.
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Militarizing the nation...... hmmmmmm..... who else did that in history past?
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Answering as the average US citizen my answer is "I have no idea" or "Bush/Reagan". ::)
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I was thinking more along the lines of Stalin or Hitler or Castro or Chavez or Hussein (not Obama, the other one) or......
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I know, I was just letting you know how utterly lacking in historical knowledge the average citizen is.
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Works out to 400 troops per state. That's not much.
3rd amendment only forbids forcing citizens to take in soldiers stationed in their area.
According to posts in the past these are primarily "Specialist Troops" (Medical, NBC, Logistics etc) less than 5,000 are infantry, they are not even enough to provide security to the others.
This will give uniformity and better emergency response capability to to state and local agencies that have demonstrated a marked lack of professionalism in the past.
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I know, I was just letting you know how utterly lacking in historical knowledge the average citizen is.
Oh, your humor was lost on me.
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Works out to 400 troops per state. That's not much.
3rd amendment only forbids forcing citizens to take in soldiers stationed in their area.
According to posts in the past these are primarily "Specialist Troops" (Medical, NBC, Logistics etc) less than 5,000 are infantry, they are not even enough to provide security to the others.
This will give uniformity and better emergency response capability to to state and local agencies that have demonstrated a marked lack of professionalism in the past.
And since when has any govt program not grown and been perverted? This is a NO GO in my book.
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Tom maybe you didn't read the full article. They are not dividing the number up by states. That wouldn't make very much sense. Like any other military command it will be a force to be applied where ever needed. It will be bivouaced out of Georgia.
From the article...
The Pentagon's plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command
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I don't know about anyone else, but I sure as hell am not feeling the love in this move. I could be paranoid, but with the last five guns I bought, my back-round check was bumped to an agent. Could this be the beginning of the confiscation squads? The only thing the government does well is bloat and lie.
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Why do we need military after the "cat is out of the bag"? (sorry Haz)
As in....are we planning on repelling a strike force that will be active or are we just planning on picking up the pieces later? The words say picking up the pieces....the actions are preparing an organization that can coordinate then employ many tens of thousands of troops.
If you say to feed, house and protect refugee's...then we should see FEMA disbanded about the time this comes into place.
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I think we will see a fundamental shift in foreign policy by way of a pull back and when that happens the radical elements in country's will be disenfranchised by the moderates. Our policy is so harsh it lends well to extremists getting support from those middle ground citizens who would usually not support them. A shift in policy to a softer stance will leave the extremists without support. IMO troop build up in the US will be to secure and respond to attacks that will surely come in the future. I don't see 20,000 as being a red flag to our citizens.
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If you deployed the entire 20,000 troops into Oakland, Detroit, or Cleveland, SECOND rank cities, NOT LA or NYC, they would still disappear, The type of thing you folks are getting all worked up about would require between 100 and 200 THOUSAND troops MINIMUM. It would not be enough but that would be the numbers they would start with.
Do any of you Fire Fighters out there know how to deal with Sarin or other nerve agents, How about you Cop's ?
Do you know how to Decon or contain a radiation incident ? You EMT's how do you treat Radiation poisoning or the related burns,what do you look for when Triaging patients ? Doesn't really matter because you most likely would not recognize the symptoms and you do not have the proper detection equipment so you would all die, or at least become casualties thereby increasing the overload on medical facilities that were not directly effected.
That's what most of these troops are trained for, the infantry troops are to provide them security when local agencies discover that half their people ran away like in New Orleans.
Isn't Obama's ECONOMIC policy bad enough ? Do you have to look for black helo's as well ?
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There have been hints about this for some time, small training camps, special uniforms and the like. They all seemed to disappear as soon as the light of publicity was shone upon them.
This isn't about black helos, Tom, it is about the idea that Federal (standing army) troops would be deployed within the US against US citizens. I was reminded that in Arkansas, the 101st Airborne was used, had forgotten that. But as the article and others have stated, it is planned to be cleanup and security after the fact, much like LEOs do today - they don't actually prevent anything unless specifically deployed for that. And when they are, the BGs go somewhere else, where the LEOs / troops aren't.
One of the more troubling aspects of the US military's more recent history (since Nam) is that most of the conflicts have been urban in nature - Panama, Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq, etc. We have ignored jungle environments such as in Uganda, in part because our national interests weren't served there. And Afghanistan had to be done, plus it served nicely as a stepping stone into Iraq. But is it just a coincidence that we now have an extensive military trained to operate in urban environments?
Just askin' . . . . 8)
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I would not get too worked up about this for two primary reasons.
First, this unit is comprised basically of first responders to deal with a WMD attack, primarily chemical and/or biological (but we can't rule out Nuclear.) Our civilian medical structure is not equipped to deal with these types of incidences on a major scale. Additionally, these types of attacks employ military style weapons and as such, the military is better equipped to deal with it.
Second, regardless of what the role this "Homeland" unit will serve, the President (any President) doesn't really need it. As soon as a major incident occurs, the President (with full legal authority) will declare a State of Emergency and impose Martial law and suspend the Constitution. When that happens, all military units, including the National Guard are at his disposal. The military doesn't really need to "hide" a dedicated unit in the US. The can access any units needed once Martial law is declared.
But is it just a coincidence that we now have an extensive military trained to operate in urban environments?
I really don't think this is an issue. Our military has always trained to operate in urban environments. Most of WWII, once the allies landed in Europe. Korea, not so much. Vietnam, the Tet offensive and the battles in Saigon and Hue. The entire cold war in Europe with the Russians. True, there have been a lot of operations in the last two decades in urban areas, with the exception of Afghanistan, but I don't think it's a secret that there is no military or insurgency that can stand toe to toe with the US Military. The first Gulf war opened the eyes of the world. At the time, Iraq had the 4th largest military in the world. It took a beating like no other force in the history of warfare. Everyone quickly realized how good our men, equipment, training, and technology really was and that the only way to fight any type of conflict was through an insurgency hidden amongst the population with the goal of slowly dragging out the fight until the US public got tired of the war. The US is gonna fight the enemy wherever they are, recently that focus has taken us into urban areas of the world.
USSA-1
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the President (with full legal authority) will declare a State of Emergency and impose Martial law and suspend the Constitution.
Could you provide info on how a President can suspend the Constitution? I suspect that this is urban myth.
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the President (with full legal authority) will declare a State of Emergency and impose Martial law and suspend the Constitution.
Could you provide info on how a President can suspend the Constitution? I suspect that this is urban myth.
Not an Urban myth, the mechanism has been in place at least since Lincoln did just that during the Civil war.
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Let me disagree. Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus. That actually is expressly part of the Constitution.
Article 1 section 9
The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
http://supreme.justia.com/constitution/article-1/51-habeas-corpus-suspension.html
Look at what is going on now with Gitmo. Even though the President wants to hold these guys SCOTUS basically told him to go pound salt. Today and with the status of understanding of the Presidential powers the suspension of the constitution isn't going to happen. To do so would mean there is NO GOVERNING LAW to the nation. It would mean the dissolution of the US of A. No matter what the President MAY want to do he only has the powers under the Constitution and is accountable under the Constitution. And that means review by the courts. They may not rule the way we want but that doesn't mean the Constitution is suspended.
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I would think, though there would be some "boots on the ground" that the 20,000 troops would really be a management team and that troops would be easily transferred under the command of the new Pentagon focus. Meaning, the ranks can swell immediately and have command and control so 20,000 is really only a token (red herring?) of what could actually be deployed.
I think it's really a matter of who do you want to do this. An advanced type of police force or the military. If we're going to get the military in this...it's time to pare back on the police-type agencies and relegate them to traffic control and domestic-type disputes in the so stated emergencies....????.....???? No need to pay for two people doing the same thing.
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I would think, though there would be some "boots on the ground" that the 20,000 troops would really be a management team and that troops would be easily transferred under the command of the new Pentagon focus. Meaning, the ranks can swell immediately and have command and control so 20,000 is really only a token (red herring?) of what could actually be deployed.
I think it's really a matter of who do you want to do this. An advanced type of police force or the military. If we're going to get the military in this...it's time to pare back on the police-type agencies and relegate them to traffic control and domestic-type disputes in the so stated emergencies....????.....???? No need to pay for two people doing the same thing.
One thought I had reading this is that there aren't that many US troops to begin with - maybe 135,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment? Total force is what, 350,00 world wide? To be effective across the country - assuming there aren't mass defections due to the blatantly illegal orders coming from higher up - that our bases around the world would be emptied. That means some really bad stuff would be happening for us to walk away from the world. Really bad stuff.
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I would think, though there would be some "boots on the ground" that the 20,000 troops would really be a management team and that troops would be easily transferred under the command of the new Pentagon focus. Meaning, the ranks can swell immediately and have command and control so 20,000 is really only a token (red herring?) of what could actually be deployed.
I think it's really a matter of who do you want to do this. An advanced type of police force or the military. If we're going to get the military in this...it's time to pare back on the police-type agencies and relegate them to traffic control and domestic-type disputes in the so stated emergencies....????.....???? No need to pay for two people doing the same thing.
Did you look at what the Other units are? they are all NBC, or logistics units, we went over all this a couple months ago when they announced that the were assigning the infantry Brigade. If you READ the OOB and thought about it you would sleep better instead of going batshit with misplaced paranoia.
There are plenty of VALID reasons for not trusting the Gov. with out freaking out about something that actually should have been done YEARS ago. Remember Aum and the Tokyo subway ?
Haz I'm shocked at YOU of all people since you should KNOW what those units are .
PS Washington sent Army in to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Va., Lincoln or his predecessor used Marines under command of Army Capt. R.E.Lee (yes, That Lee) to retake the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, 82nd in Little Rock, had NOTHING to do with rebellion, or insurrection, neither did using the Army at Wounded Knee in 1973. Oh, I almost forgot about 1946, when they used Marines to put down a riot at Alcatraz. The whole PURPOSE of the Army is to operate on US soil, Whether defending from foriegn invaders or suppressing indians or chasing bandits like Pancho Villa.
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Could you provide info on how a President can suspend the Constitution? I suspect that this is urban myth.
Sorry about that, I got a little ahead of myself. The President can not suspend the Constitution per se, as in saying, "I am suspending the Constitution." The imposition of Martial Law suspends parts of the Constitution, like your example of Habeas Corpus. Although after doing some research, it most likely won't be called Martial Law. The new PC term is State of Emergency. While the Constitution supposedly gives limited powers to the Executive Branch under Martial Law or States of Emergency, there are several Executive Orders in effect which provide the President almost unlimited power and since the Courts, by definition of Martial Law, are incapable of operating, there is no way to challange the EO's during the time a State of Emergency is declared. This is very similar to what happened during Katrina where Ray Nagin ordered Martial Law and suspended certain civil rights, including the 2nd Amendment and authorized LE to confiscate weapons. It wasn't until well after Katrina was over that the lawsuits were filed (when the Courts were operational again.) Nagin and the City lost the lawsuits and will have to pay some damages for violating Civil Rights eventually, but this is little comfort that first night they took away your firearms and you had no way to defend yourself or your family from the roving gangs (who they never seemed able to disarm.)
Here are a few EO's I found to make you say WTF!
Martial law is defined as: military rule or authority imposed on a civilian population when the civil authorities cannot maintain law and order, as in a time of war or during an emergency.
Executive Order 10995: All communications media are to be seized by the Federal Government. Radio, TV, newspapers, CB, Ham, telephones, and the internet will be under federal control. Hence, the First Amendment will be suspended indefinitely.
Executive Order 10997: All electrical power, fuels, and all minerals well be seized by the federal government.
Executive Order 10998: All food resources, farms and farm equipment will be seized by the government. You will not be allowed to hoard food since this is regulated.
Executive Order 10999: All modes of transportation will go into government control. Any vehicle can be seized.
Executive Order 11000: All civilians can be used for work under federal supervision.
Executive Order 11490: Establishes presidential control over all US citizens, businesses, and churches in time of "emergency."
Executive Order 12919: Directs various Cabinet officials to be constantly ready to take over virtually all aspects of the US economy during a State of National Emergency at the direction of the president.
Executive Order 13010: Directs FEMA to take control over all government agencies in time of emergency. FEMA is under control of executive branch of the government.
Executive Order 12656: "ASSIGNMENT OF EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS RESPONSIBILITIES", "A national emergency is any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States. Policy for national security emergency preparedness shall be established by the President." This order includes federal takeover of all local law enforcement agencies, wage and price controls, prohibits you from moving assets in or out of the United States, creates a draft, controls all travel in and out of the United States, and much more.
Martial law can be declared due to natural disasters, Y2k Crisis, Stock Market crash, no electricity, riots, biological attack, .... anything leading to the breakdown of law and order.
And these are just a few I found. I've will continue to tell anyone who comes through our training courses. Only YOU are responsible for your own security at all times. Sometimes you may have help, other times you won't. Prepare accordingly.
USSA-1
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USSA-1, I hear ya about Martial Law and EO's.
Again I am not a lawyer but my views are as follows. Martial Law is not seperate from the Constitution. The UCMJ applies and it is governed by the Constitution. That again is what the GITMO litigation is about. Next lets use the Katrina example. Nagin LOST the lawsuits. That means he was acting ILLEGALLY. Yes they confiscated guns. (the following is my humble opinion) BUT that is because cops don't have any qualms about breaking/ignoring the law. Whether it is Bull Connor or Ray Nagin's boys most have the mentality of "they ARE THE LAW".
Yes there are lots of EO's. But that doesn't make them legal. I suspect that the collection of EO's that have accumulated over the last 50 years represent some out of date concepts of Executive power and plain over stretching. Again that doesn't mean the gov't wouldn't act on them, but I trust they haven't invoked them because they realize they will be challenged and loose. That said, I don't and never will trust any of the agencies of government.
In sum, you are absolutely dead on when you say that "Only YOU are responsible for your own security at all times". Do what you need to do. There might be legal consequences but that is the tradeoff between life/freedom and harm.
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Here is the National Archives website with all the EO's. Drill down on the disposition tables. You will note that some EO's like 11000 (from John Kennedy) have been superceded several times by newer EO's. That is what makes me think a lot of this stuff is not as the web says.
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/
The current EO's in effect are all visible in the Codification of EO's. This describes what is included in the volume....
Documents not included in this volume
If a proclamation or Executive order had no legal effect on January 20, 1989, its text is not included in this volume. As indicated in the final disposition column, these documents are revoked or superseded; temporary, that is, effective for a period of time stated in the document, or executed and now obsolete; hortatory; or the authorities under which they were issued have been repealed or otherwise affected.
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Police State 2009: Pentagon to Militarize USA with
20,000 Armed Troops « Therearenosunglasses’s Weblog
You see, a financial collapse in Washington is
imminent. This Federal Reserve bailout is just
short-term cover that accomplishes nothing. You can’t
save an economy from endless bad debt by creating yet
more bad debt. With the derivatives market hovering
somewhere beyond $500 trillion, it will be impossible
for the Fed to bail out all the failures without
bankrupting the U.S. taxpayers and destroying the U.S.
currency first.
With a defunct currency and the inevitable riots and
social unrest that always follows the massive theft of
money from the people, the U.S. will be ripe for
Balkanization, or the breaking up of regions that will
declare their own sovereignty. One Russian analyst
famously predicted several weeks ago that the United
States would break into seven new nations, each with
its own laws, its own military and its own political
power.
What’s the best way to prevent such a breakup? Show up
with 20,000 troops and force the member states to back
down at gunpoint.
But you might ask why wouldn’t the federal government
just use the National Guard to accomplish this? Why
does it need Pentagon troops? The answer is simple:
Because the National Guard troops are controlled by
the STATES.. It is, in fact, the National Guard troops
that will be fighting for the freedom of their
regions, fighting to break off from the tyrannical
federal government that has already engineered the
greatest financial swindle in history and now wants to
maintain power over all the states, too.
This is the new civil war that will be shaping up:
National Guard troops vs. the Pentagon’s troops. And
that is why the Pentagon is calling 20,000 troops into
the homeland right now: It’s preparing for a civil war
and the potential breakup of the nation.
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I don't see the nation splitting up. Too many different types of people living together in the same cities and states to allow that. Riots possible? Yes. Higher crime? Yep. Wyoming threatening to succeed. Possible. It happening, not likely. (Not enough tax base.)
I'm going with the theory that these troops are going in where-ever a terrorist strike hits. Why? Because after going through a devestating hurricane, I've seen first hand how swamped FEMA and the National Guard are with the handing out water, and food, and trying to help coordinate security with the local police. (And this was a realtively small community of roughly 70,000 people that helped each other out.)
Now we all saw the chaos that happened in New Orleans during Katrina. Imagine if there is a boioogical or (God Forbid) a Nuclear attack in New York, D.C., L.A. or any large city. Just think of the PANIC that would bring! The National Guard is going to need back up and those 20,000 troops are the best choice to provide it. (You don't want Blackwater do you?) How long would it take to get troops from Iraq or Afghanistan over here in a hurry and are they trained for such an event? Having a group of soldiers specifically trained for this event will allow the National Guard to do what they were trained to do. (As for local police, If their equipment is destroyed, they are going to be spending half their time and resources trying to get up and running before they can get out and help.)
You might say I'm being polyanaish, but I'd rather have our soldiers help us than a group like Blackwater anyday.
You can't stop a storm, but you can be ready to clean up the mess it leaves behind.
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Police State 2009: Pentagon to Militarize USA with
20,000 Armed Troops « Therearenosunglasses’s Weblog
You see, a financial collapse in Washington is
imminent. This Federal Reserve bailout is just
short-term cover that accomplishes nothing. You can’t
save an economy from endless bad debt by creating yet
more bad debt. With the derivatives market hovering
somewhere beyond $500 trillion, it will be impossible
for the Fed to bail out all the failures without
bankrupting the U.S. taxpayers and destroying the U.S.
currency first.
With a defunct currency and the inevitable riots and
social unrest that always follows the massive theft of
money from the people, the U.S. will be ripe for
Balkanization, or the breaking up of regions that will
declare their own sovereignty. One Russian analyst
famously predicted several weeks ago that the United
States would break into seven new nations, each with
its own laws, its own military and its own political
power.
What’s the best way to prevent such a breakup? Show up
with 20,000 troops and force the member states to back
down at gunpoint.
But you might ask why wouldn’t the federal government
just use the National Guard to accomplish this? Why
does it need Pentagon troops? The answer is simple:
Because the National Guard troops are controlled by
the STATES.. It is, in fact, the National Guard troops
that will be fighting for the freedom of their
regions, fighting to break off from the tyrannical
federal government that has already engineered the
greatest financial swindle in history and now wants to
maintain power over all the states, too.
This is the new civil war that will be shaping up:
National Guard troops vs. the Pentagon’s troops. And
that is why the Pentagon is calling 20,000 troops into
the homeland right now: It’s preparing for a civil war
and the potential breakup of the nation.
You've GOT to be f&$#@ng joking.
Don't you understand what a militarily insignificant force 20,000 troops are in a country of 300 MILLION.
There are more than 20,000 STREET CORNERS in a city like LA. They would be out numbered by gang bangers. This whole thread is asinine paranoia. (My spell check just taught me there is only ONE s in asinine, HUH, 2 made sense)
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1776,
Good catch on the EO's. I only did a quick search and the site I used did not have effective dates for the EO's.
I still think the issue regarding the EO's is valid. Regardless of whether of not the Supreme Courts rules the EO's Constitutional, they won't be challanged until after the incident that caused the State of Emergency is over. During the actual emergency, the Govt. will be acting under the authority of those orders and there won't be time or possibly a Court available to challange the Constitutionality of the EO's until much later.
Until then, you are on your own.
USSA-1
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USSA-1
I absolutely agree with ya...Just making sure that this "suspending the constitution" stuff is understood properly.
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You've GOT to be f&$#@ng joking.
Don't you understand what a militarily insignificant force 20,000 troops are in a country of 300 MILLION.
There are more than 20,000 STREET CORNERS in a city like LA. They would be out numbered by gang bangers. This whole thread is asinine paranoia. (My spell check just taught me there is only ONE s in asinine, HUH, 2 made sense)
You're right about paranoia, Tom, but I know a few guys who would believe that whole thing. Then again, they see black helicopters behind every treetop and building. ;)