Posted on 11/04/2018 5:41:19 AM PST by Moseley
t is absurd to claim that our military cannot defend our borders. Yet "That is illegal!" shout internationalists who never wanted our U.S. border protected anyway. Activists proclaim that the U.S. military is crippled under an 1878 law, the Posse Comitatus Act, found at 18 U.S.C. § 1385. We can do nothing but watch helplessly, they argue, as foreigners flood across the frontiers.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the use of the military for law enforcement purposes. There is actually a lot of scholarly analysis published by legal experts in law review journals. But most political rhetoric is muddled propaganda.
So is it a 'law enforcement' function to stop invaders from another country from crossing our border? Is it a military function if citizens of a foreign country approach our border to enter illegally? Or is that a police function?
If securing our nation's borders is not a proper military role, then what is? Are foreign adventures around the world meddling in other countries' affairs (to use the rhetoric of opponents of military power) the only proper role of the military? What kind of thinking says it is okay to send the military around the other side of the planet, but not to defend our own country's borders at home?
[THIS IS AN EXCERPT -- READ MORE AT THE LINK to American Thinker]
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Look at it this way. Let’s say that the thousand of foreign nationals heading for our border were Russians and they all were with military grade arms. Would it then be ok for the US military to stop them? I suspect there would few arguments against this. Is not one group of foreign invaders as bad as another? It’s our border.
That's "Only someone who went to public school in the last 40 years..."
Nailed it, Ma’am!
That’s “Only someone who went to public school in the last 40 years...”
Sad, but I fear you are correct.
Ten four..
That was the big argument when LBJ sent the 101 and 82nd to Detroit during those riots.
The 101st and 82nd were deployed in Detroit during those riots.
ALWAYS bear in mind “The Constitution is not a suicide pact.”
Someone may have already posted that little goodie ...
(I would further extend that to any legislation making it so (i.e., a suicide pact), and thereby not in congruence with the Constitution, makes said legislation obviously unconstitutional.)
It is a law enforcement problem but that does not exclude the fact that it is ALSO a military responsibility.
It not an either or proposition. Posse Comitatus refers to the military's interaction with US citizens domestically not alien nationals violating US Borders.
Examples:
Little Rock Central High School 1957
Watts 1965
Detroit 1967
Washington, D.C. 1968, 1969
Los Angeles 1992
>The military has been used numerous times to protect US citizens within our own borders.<
One forgotten use of our military to protect our citizens within our borders was President Coolige’s ordering the US Marines to ride and protect trains in Oregon during the 1920s.
Anarchists and communists were robbing mail trains going after the first-class and registered mail which in those days was the usual means of transferring cash and valuables throughout the land.
The train robbers took the cash and other valuables to finance their activities fighting the American government.
It didn’t take the Marines long to stop train robberies and shut down the “Reds” financial pipeline.
Hooray for the president and General Smedley Butler.
The Posse Comitatus Act does NOT bar the President from enforcing Federal Law.
Immigration and border law are FEDERAL LAWS.
Eisenhower used Federal Troops in Little Rock to enforce SCOTUS decisions.
Yeah. We need to fix that.
Yep good examples
American thinker isn’t either American or a thinker.
I guess the idiot author think if we are invaded by a foreign army that only the police can respond.
I forgot Mexican Border, 1916. My grandfather played in that one. Troops were both Federal troops and Federalized National Guard.
>”It is as legal as using the US NAVY to patrol US Territorial Waters.”
Actually, I believe that this is tasked to the US Coast Guard, not the Navy.<
The Navy, (which incidentally, is the first federal armed force created by congress), was ordered to patrol the sea lanes to suppress piracy and project American power throughout the world.
The Coast Guard began as the Revenue Marine to combat smugglers that were trying to bring in goods by sea and not pay their tariffs. The Revenue Marine was joined with the Life Saving and Lighthouse Service and renamed the Coast Guard.
The USCG patrols the ocean fisheries well beyond our own coasts, does search and rescue both at sea and along our coastal and river waters.
The Coast Guard are maritime police. By law, a Coast Guard officer is on US Naval vessels patrolling our coasts, to arrest drug and human trafficking smugglers. The Navy has no powers of arrest at sea, only the Coast Guard does.
As the world grows in complexity we find the USN and USCG have overlapping, but necessary functions.
Both the Navy and Coast Guard guard our interest within our territorial waters, and far out at sea in international waters.
And this is as it should be.
The Pentagon does not refuse requests. It takes orders. Period. The president does not ask the Pentagon for permission to use troops. He orders.
Fake news from anons... is still fake.
My father took us on a trip to Europe in 1959 when I was twelve. We took a luxury train from Paris to Madrid and about sunrise, we approached the Spanish border. I could see on both sides of the tracks Spanish soldiers each holding rifles with ammo belts over their shoulders for at least a mile with about ten feet between each one. You had to hand it to Franco when it came to domestic security.
My granddaddy started his Army career in they Coast Artillery. He was switched to anti-aircraft in early WWII.
The use of the National Guard at Kent State was perfectly legal. If I’m not mistaken, the military can only be deployed at the request of the state governor.......
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