Posse Comitatus and Crossing America's Rubicon

In 49 B.C., then general Julius Caesar staked his life on a huge gamble and led his legions across the Rubicon into Rome.  Caesar knew that any general bringing his army into Rome faced execution but he went on to seize control of the Roman republic. 

In 1879 the U.S. Congress enacted the Posse Comitatus Act, that prohibited the deployment of U.S. Army troops within America "for the purpose of executing laws."  The intent was to prohibit the use of American soldiers against American civilians.  Like the Romans, Americans felt the need to proscribe the use of military force within the homeland.

Lately there's been an end run around the Posse Comitatus Act.  If you can't deploy the armed forces against the public, you can achieve pretty much the same result by militarizing law enforcement and bringing them under the wing of Homeland Security.  Equip the cops with combat gear, outfit them with modern military weaponry and deploy them in armoured military vehicles, all supplied for next to nothing, and - voila - problem solved.

Dennis Kucinich sees recent events in Ferguson, Missouri arising out of the police execution of a young African-American and the police response to the subsequent protests as a threat to American democracy.

The Declaration of Independence condemned King George III for, "keeping among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature."  Out of the Revolution, Americans emerged with an abhorrence of any military presence in their daily lives.

Kucinich points out that, over time, the apparent prohibition against a direct military role in civilian affairs has been gradually and steadily watered down, sidestepped and ignored. 

In 2006, George w. Bush persuaded Congress to enact an express authority for the use of military force:   "The President may employ the armed forces... to... restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition... the President determines that... domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order... or [to] suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy..."

Now the former Democratic Congressman is calling for reforms:

1. Congress must firmly re-establish the firewall between civilian law enforcement and the military by reinstating the intent of the Posse Comitatus law. As member of Congress I warned in 2007 the dangers of a bill which permitted the government to put troops on the ground in the US.

2. The Department of Defense must stop providing war-fighting equipment to local law enforcement.

3. All equipment provided to local law enforcement by the Department of Defense, must be inventoried and stored, not used except under an executive order from the top civilian authority in a state, the Governor, or under orders of the President of the United States.

4. The General Accounting Office and the Inspector General of the Department of Defense must be asked by Congress to determine the extent to which the training and equipping of local police by the DOD has created a culture in local law enforcement which is adverse to democratic values.

5. The Justice Department needs to fund programs which will train or retrain local law enforcement in racial sensitivity, constitutional protections of suspects, including the right to freedom of speech and right to assemble.

6. The Justice Department must also fund, support and mandate that all local law enforcement receiving any federal funds whatsoever create community programs for dialogue between local police and people in the neighborhood. Local police become an occupying army through emotional distancing, fear and lack of contact with the community. That can change by having police and the community meet regularly to discuss mutual concerns.

Those who serve in local law enforcement are given special trust, special dispensation to serve and protect. Their work is essential. Local police would like to be supported. But we must demand strict adherence to the Constitution and protection of the freedoms given to us by the Bill of Rights.

The reforms Kucinich advocates are so logical, so sensible that, in today's America, they won't get the time of day from its dysfunctional Congress.  But, unless and until such reforms are enacted, America will remain beset by a thoroughly militarized Main Street.

Michael Brown - Ferguson, Missouri - The War on Drugs

What does America's War on Drugs have to do with the execution/killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the riots it spawned?  The New Republic's John McWhorter believes they're inextricably linked and contends that the way to avoid future Ferguson riots is to end the War on Drugs.

We don't know the details yet, but it's apparent that, in spite of all we went through with [Trayvon] Martin so recently, in a clinch - the mean, messy place where these things always happen - the Ferguson cop Darren Wilson assumed that a big black guy was trouble, serious trouble, and shot him dead.  It's what happens in that clinch that matters and we can now see that no amount of articulate protest can cut through such visceral human tendencies as bias and fear.

...I'm the last one to say there should be no protest, but I am dismayed that we are at a point that it can serve only as a statement, not as a tool.  The rate is no longer such a novelty that white America will be scared into some concessions as it was in the late sixties.  Watching black Ferguson burn and wreck its own neighborhoods is not going to make America suddenly "get it."

If the looting and anger are the "it," it that's what we have up our sleeve as an indication that Brown's death was "the last straw," then we're nowhere.

...So, what will really make a difference?  Really, only a continued pullback on the War on Drugs.  Much of what creates the poisonous, vicious-cycle relationship between young black men and the police is that the War on Drugs brings cops into black neighborhoods to patrol for drug possession and sale.

...But that's the long game.  In the here and now, we are stuck.  Michael Brown was not "it."  The journalists assiduously documenting the events in Ferguson can serve as historians, but not as agents of change.

We can be quite sure that by next summer, another unarmed black boy will have been shot dead by a white cop scared in the moment.  Upon which in another hitherto obscure town there will be protests, something about the episode will be enshrined as a totemic gesture, the right-wing will hope the cop turns out to have been black (as they did this time for a blink) or will revel in predictable evidence that the victim was not always a choirboy in his behavior, and good-thinking people will hope that this time is finally "it."

Is Missouri America's New Mississippi?

Damn but this sounds like the south in the turbulent 50s and 60s.  The governor of Missouri has ordered St. Louis County police out of the community of Ferguson, the site of the recent killing of a young black man, Michael Brown.

"The governor [Jay Nixon] just called me and he's on his way to St. Louis now to announce he's taking away St. Louis County police out of the situation," Clay, a Missouri Democrat, said in a telephone interview.  He added that Nixon may ask the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to step in.

Clay said that he has been urging US Attorney General Eric Holder to "take over the entire situation because we will not get justice for Michael Brown and his family and friends if the St. Louis County police and prosecutor have a say."

Meanwhile, images of cops in Ferguson clad in full war-fighting gear have even military veterans uneasy.

Afghan veteran Paul Szoldra writes:

"While serving as a US Marine on patrol in Afghanistan, we wore desert camouflage to blend in with our surroundings, carried rifles to shoot back when under enemy attack, and drove around in armored vehicles to ward off roadside bombs.

We looked intimidating, but all our vehicles and equipment had a clear purpose for combat against enemy forces.  So why is this same gear being used on our city streets?

In Afghanistan, we patrolled in big, armored trucks.  We wore uniforms that conveyed the message, 'We are a military force, and we are in control right now.' Many Afghans saw us as occupiers.

And now we see some of our police officers in thius same way. 'The militarization of law enforcement is counter-productive to domestic policing and needs to stop.'