WTF....you thought you could take on the Natl Guard eh...well, how 'bout them Devil Dogs?? http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-07-22-17-33-46
I do not like this. In a time of drawdown and pull out from Asscrackistan, they want to stand up 3 battalions of Marine Corps MPs totalling 1,500 personnel?
I would think DHS is all over this concept and working with the various branches to create such units. They could easily co-opted to do DHS missions in a time of hostilities. Regardless of our civilian population disagreeing with the use of military to police and enforce- the escalation of force is already a built-in skill set to be used, as DHS direct's to control the masses!!
Why stand these units up in the Marines and not the Army? Could it be the stereotype of the "jarhead" (which I do not agree with) thinking they would be less likely to critically think about orders and be more disciplined and loyal to orders? I have a tremendous amount of respect for the discipline the Marine Corps instills in their Marines, but are they likely to "just follow orders" even if they are oppressing the domestic population?
I think you just answered your own question. If you had to pick, which group would be more likely to smoke your @$$ if they were ordered to do it AND be good at doing it?
The Army MP's that I was good Friends with back when I was in, were a very professional bunch. I have one of my best Friends that was a Marine MP, he was exactly the same, a guy that could have my back any day!! I think all branches are true to their profession and follow orders just the same. There is little doubt in my mind that they would do exactly what they were told to do, minus something so egregious as a very apparent un-lawful order. The bigger picture is the concern I have, how is the government intending on using these skill sets against the citizens of the US. I strongly believe there is a true MP mission in a combat zone- but where that zone is, my backyard potentially, has me paying attention. We all see the militarization of the LEO force, they are just a combat multiplier to the military, but yet a formidable threat to our freedom. I think we are seeing the growing change in the US military mission as not a major engagement force, but light tactics witch lend themselves to policing their AO.
The Army already has a very large MP force with Battalions at virutally every major base all over the world.
But...isn't this what we're all thinking now? ...troops firing on citizens? Marines are trained to kill, not think....and they still get to play with bayonets. So, why do you re-direct trained killers for domestic crowd control? A marine follows orders...period, regardless of mission. It's part of their training. I agree with you that all MPs will do their job and do it well. One of my best friends was an MP in the Air Force. He busted a big shot for DUI and was told to "fix" the ticket, basically letting the big shot go. He fixed the ticket, but also made an anonymous call to the local M.A.D.D. chapter. I just don't think a Marine would have done that. My dad is a Marine...a general theme in all of his stories is that you don't question your orders.
I will not disagree with your dad, I am a vet as well. But when a vet is telling you a story of how they performed a mission, they were talking about taking the hill, or overcoming a machine gun nest, or capturing hostiles in a foreign land. When you are told to shoot, move and communicate, that is exactly what you do, when you are told to do it, as you or your buddy may not live to tell the story at the end of the day, because you hesitated in the heat of battle. We have gone down this road in other threads but I will say this anytime. Regardless of your training, you always have your morality and sense of right and wrong. You are not going to shoot an unarmed civilian in general, because we are all heavily trained and operated with use- of force rules and guidelines for all missions. If you are ordered to do something such as harming or shooting unarmed civilians, I guarantee that 95% of time, there will be an understanding that they are being told to execute an unlawfully order and not do it, regardless of branch of service. You always have the 5% that don't think and just do as they are told. We have many points in our history for this lack of judgment creating crimes of warfare, by the few that did not do the right thing. You have to remember that these actions would be taken on our homeland and that will create a host of trouble for commanders to effect any order against a community at large, right or wrong beyond securing the area. Nobody is going to buy into the thought that we need to harm a community in the US. You will have mutiny and desertion quickly in a full scale clamp down on citizens of this country. In SHTF situation, troops are going to want to get home just like everyone else and take care of their friends, family and neighbors. In the standard op-order, you will typically get consistent performance of escalation of force, as trained, for a LEO. You stick any service member in the same situation, the results will escalate much faster due to training and most often go to deadly force right away if the threat justifies in the eye of the troop. You yell at them and give them crap, you may get butt-stroked in the head. You shoot in their direction or display a hostile action- you are going to take some lead coming your way. You will have orders followed to the letter performing direct actions against targets based on a defined mission. Soldiers, Marines and all other serviceman will understand very quickly when things have escalated beyond that and at that point all bets are off for continued service. I would expect their to be a quick breakdown in the chain of command, moral of the forces, and a basic dissolution of the force once everyone grasp what the gooberments mission truly appears to be. Then there can be a militia constructed out of the remnants of the military, LEO's and civilian defenders of our way of life.
I'm not talking about un-armed civilians. I'm talking about YOU (us,we): DHS orders ALL people to turn in all weapons, Marines sent around to confiscate. You say no...come and take them. How's that gonna turn out? I guess now we know what they're planning to do with all those bodybags FEMA ordered. Or...fresh out of the sandbox, Marines are sent to quell protests that could possibly turn into a riot situation....some DHS lackey throws a pack of firecrackers in a crowd of Tea Party protestors.........instinct takes over. I was never arguing that Marines would become a modern-day Gestapo. Some cops...yes, they already see us as the enemy.
Honestly, I don't see anything potentially ominous about the standing up of these battalions. It seems a clear case of one MOS of one of the branches scrambling to validate their continued manpower and funding, when, for the Marines (there may still be some Army units there), Iraq is a past war, and Afghanistan is rapidly winding down. Frankly, I'd rather see Marine MPs used this way, than just sitting outside the service clubs on base and following people back to their barracks, looking for probable cause for a traffic stop, assuming they can get a DUI out of it. I would actually prefer that these units be used to assist domestic law enforcement agencies, rather than using average ground pounders. Marines were sent into LA during the riots some years back, so the precedent has been set in our time - the military will be used in the event of mass disturbance; but the average infantry Soldier or Marine is ill-suited to law enforcement duties. These MPs are much more likely to have a basic understanding of civil rights than is the average grunt. Will they still shoot you? Absolutely, but you're not as likely to be shot out of hand. MPs and SPs have to follow two sets of rules and, to an extent, serve two masters, and they're used to it. They must obey their military chain of command, but they also have to follow the rule of law. The basic infantryman may be accountable to the law of land warfare, but I'm not sure how much that is emphasized these days; and how apparently applicable the restrictions of the law of land warfare would be to the average Soldier or Marine serving in an ancillary capacity to law enforcement in this country. I related this story to another member some time back in a PM; and I think it is applicable here. Quite a few years ago, my Marine unit was conducting some joint training with a British Marine unit on the island of Sardinia. Several local thieves ran through our encampment in the middle of the night (obviously something they had done before), grabbing anything that wasn't tied down. We only had a couple of people up on gear watch, assuming that this was a safe area, so they couldn't stop the group before they had made their get away, but with the night vision equipment that we had, it didn't take long to catch up to them and capture a couple of them and regain our stolen equipment. We secured the two thieves, and sent someone off to fetch the local police, which took a while. In the meanwhile our surly captives continued to make snide insulting remarks, and occasionally one of the guys would go over and give one of them a boot to the head and tell them to shut their mouths (it's really insulting to be talked down to by third world thieves with badly accented English). After a while, an Australian officer, who was attached to the Brits as an observer came over and said, "I know I'm not in your chain of command, but answer me this: Would you be roughing up those fellows if they were enemy prisoners of war?" It made us all feel about two inches tall when we had to admit that we absolutely would not be treating enemy prisoners of war in that manner. Why? Because we had firmly entrenched rules regarding the treatment of enemy prisoners of war. We had none regarding civilian thieves. I think that is something to remember when dealing with the average Soldier or Marine who has been sent in to assist law enforcement in dealing with a civilian disturbance. They have no entrenched rules regarding the treatment of civilians outside of a combat zone. They are way more likely to bust a cap in you, because they are used to reacting to threats, perceived or real, with deadly force. In fact, it is the only recourse in which they train. See threat - pull trigger. See more threats - pull trigger faster, call in air support. I think you would be more likely to get a considered response from an MP or SP. And Yard Dart, I would love to fully agree with your post; but I'm just not that confident. I related another story (I've got a million of them) in another thread a few months back, when we were discussing whether or not our military forces would fire on American civilians. I recounted that as the Officer of the Day on this particular weekend, shortly before my retirement, I was tasked with, amongst other duties, making sure that a group of young Marines who had committed some minor infraction didn't enjoy their weekend. They had to sit with me in the duty hut all day, and I was supposed to make them miserable. I decided that rather than send them out on their 100th police call that day, I would hold a group discussion with them, focused on the law of land warfare. I was quite shocked by their responses when, to a man (including a corporal), they told me that they would, without hesitation, follow the order of a superior officer or NCO, even if that order was to shoot an unarmed civilian. They looked at me like I was pulling their leg when I pointed out to them that they could face court martial and imprisonment for following an unlawful order. They had all exited basic training at different times and from different recruit depots, but none had any idea what I was talking about when I tried to point out to them their personal responsibility to examine an order for its legality, and to report unlawful orders through their chain of command. I might as well have told them that it was cool to be gay in the Marine Corps. Oh wait, it is now. My bad. Anyway, I don't know how many young Soldiers and Marines would follow their conscience rather than their orders.
Soldiers, marines, sailors and airforce personnel are inculcated with the imperative to comply with the orders of their superior officers with almost pavlovian conditioning. To question orders, even bad orders, and orders that are morally questionable requires the kind of moral courage that is not particularly encouraged by the military culture. Some soldiers will disobey a command that they may find morally objectionable, or unlawful, but even then, they may pay a heavy price for doing so, even if morally and legally justified. Whistlebowers are often treated as pariahs, even if their whistleblowing is for the ultimate good of the nation, and the service. Cohesion within the military will have to fall significantly before there will be widespread disobedience to command structures directives. The Milgram experiment and other social research into group dynamics and the application of coercive force tends to indicate that even a person in a white lab coat and a clip board exerting authority can influence subjects to apply apparently excruciatingly lethal force to their putative victims.
Once again tulianr ...the voice of reason. I was venturing into 'Tin Foil Hat' territory (purposefully to hear ideas), but one of my points was above. The other point was: why now? We didn't do such a thing after Desert Storm. I know a few guys in the Navy...who were on the way to be lifers who were just told that they're basically being laid off on a certain date with no possibility of being re-hired. So, it wouldn't surprise me for the Kenyan to just tell these guys that their services are no longer needed. To me, the stars are aligning....you hear about Fusion centers, FEMA body bags, the .gov preparing for massive civil unrest (begs the question who is going to deal with said unrest); then you get a story like this, which states the Marines are. Now, maybe there may not be a connection. But, I would be foolish to not notice the mountain of evidence pointing in that direction.
FWIW, a friend's son is in the Marines. He's been told that when his hitch is up, he's gone. Good performance marks or not, the needs of the service prevail, and downsizing is under way. At that rate, the number of military available for control of civilians is getting cut back, not increased. Wonder why I think these battalions of DHS related soldiers is a way to keep the Pentagon's forces closer to ready instead of force reduction overall?
I 'spose that I would rather have the Marines doing this (i.e., crowd control) than to have it contracted out...perhaps to Blackwater. But....BUT...isn't this dangerously close to a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act IN SPIRIT? So, the Act only applies to the Army/Air Force (begs question for drones), so, then, the Marines would be a perfect choice...but, they have had internal regulations against this. WHAT HAS CHANGED?? http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/posse comit.htm From the DOD pdf (internal regulations):
The most recent National Defense Authorization Act changed the paradigm of the relationship between military and law enforcement. Maybe Posse Comitatus prevented the military from routinely assisting law enforcement in policing a civilian citizenry, but under the provisions of the NDAA you just have to redefine your vernacular to make everything perfectly legal. Replace the words "policing a civilian citizenry" with "eliminating the clear and present danger of enemy combatants on American soil" and we no longer have a problem. It doesn't matter that the "enemy combatants" are the same people as those formerly defined as "civilian citizenry." Now, they may be legally declared combatants, and may be pursued with all the force available to our military forces. I wish that I didn't believe that such a scenario was possible. Ten years ago, I would have laughed at anyone suggesting it. How things can change in ten years, even if it is only your perception of a reality that has changed.
Our hope would also be this..... that one or two steps above your grunts is a commander willing to give his men an order true to the tenets of the Constitution. My Dad is dead now, but he retired from the Army Guard and was a Commander of a couple of local Army Guard units. I would like to believe he was man enough not to shoot innocent persons who upheld the Constitution of our Country. I wish I had the opportunity to ask him some of these questions now but alas its too late. I just don't see him giving an order to fire on Americans. I see him doing the right thing and then taking the blame onto himself, thereby protecting his men ... I could be wrong.... but don't think so....
You and I are unarmed civilians my freind until we declare we are armed. I have the right to bear arms, searches without my consent or a court order are illegal and I am innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. When the time comes for that to change so be it, but until then we are all unarmed civilians in theory. If a US Marine or the local LEO came knocking on my front door declaring a search and confiscation of weapons- I will already know why they are there- we are all paying attention daily and will know when we need to hold our ground!! When that time comes- we will be hostile combatants and that is the point when the government starts getting the black eyes- the hard way. I would much prefer to take on the local LEO as I do know the sledge-hammer the military machine comes with. As Tulinar said- I have no overall concern with the creation of these battalions as they are standard issue with the Army and nothing new. But as we discussed earlier, what is that second level of use that the government may have in mind when you add in all the other indicators, of a system that demands the obidience of the people vs the intent of the constitution.
