In the segment nearing 19 minutes he says "force on the left, respects Posse Comitatus restrictions on the use of force inside the US. Force on the right is going to obliterate it.

These are some scary guys. What they are talking about sounds reasonable on the surface and in limited and foreign use as part of a rebuilding effort might make sense, but when they start tossing lines like that in I sit up and pay attention. The Posse Comitatus act was there for a reason.

Watch the details close, we might not like them.

Watch the details close, we might not like them.

I agree, this man I think is a pure realist, he knows the rules will be bent, broken and ignored when you take out another country's structure by force. There is no nice way of waging war. You can fantasize about that all day, but there is none. People will die. Horribly. His dream is that it will be quick and that democracy and peace will get established the same year or so, thus sparing the lives of thousands who would otherwise suffer a dictator. Had Iraq been a full-fledged peaceful democracy in mid 2004, people like me, who opposed the war, might have to concede that it probably was the right thing after all.

I'd think it's a bit more than that. A trained peacekeeping force we seem to need if we're going to nation-build, though I'd question our right and need to do as much of that as we seem to want to. If it was as simple as that I'd never have posted. We aren't talking about force in another country, but our own. Not with that line at least.

Posse Comitatus has no impact or relevance in any overseas action, the description from the Wiki page reads in part as follows. If he expects this new force to not just violate but "obliterate it", we might want to start thinking hard about what he's really talking about. It isn't just overseas.

It generally prohibits Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act substantially limit the powers of the Federal government to use the military for law enforcement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

"You can fantasize about that all day, but there is none. People will die. Horribly."

I've got no fantasies or illusions left and have had few for decades, believe it. Maybe one day I'll post a little about that if it's relevant. But not today. Blood I've seen, problems I've seen, solutions I'd like to work on if we'd just start to pay attention to the details more. Don't assume fantasy or whatever on my part and I won't make assumptions about you.

This might help to explain it. Written by a Major Craig Trebilcock, member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in the U.S. Army Reserve. The Myth of Posse Comitatus. It's been being eroded for a couple of decades now and it isn't an accident, it's an open debate and one that's well documented. What the above suggests is not just more erosion but trashing it entirely. Yeah, that does get my attention. http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/articles/Trebilcock.htm

I don't do conspiracy theory, and I don't do moral arguments of any sort let alone of a particular political brand. I show what I can prove and skip the rest for the most part. Drug war and media reform mostly but I've been doing it for years and am pretty comfortable with the law in general, especially where it concerns civil rights and use of force, or the limits of the Constitution.

If I say these are some scary guys because of Posse Comitatus then it probably doesn't have a lot to do with any delicate sensibilities about war or anything else and the assumption that it does in spite of the statement otherwise seemed out of place, ticked me off a little I grew up on the streets or in lockups, you don't raise delicate people there. Over the last 20 years or so Posse Comitatus has been being chipped away and I don't think that's a good sign with the other impressions I'm getting of the direction we're heading these days. The last thing they need is more power with less restraint and oversight.

Ok, I'm sorry I didnt mean to imply that you had fantasies etc, my point was that the rules get fuzzy in war.. I dont think Barnett intends to use his sys-admin force in domestic policy, but rather as a tool in post-war Iraq(or any other country that desperately needs its brutal dictator replaced by democracy..)

No problem, and sorry I got a bit pissed off about it. I shouldn't have, I just get tired of the process I guess. Every time I start in a new place I've got to convince a new group that I'm neither left nor right, conservative nor liberal. I'm pretty fed up with partisan politics in general and just down to checking the results and going with what works. Checking the results we don't seem to do much these days, on any side.

It's not that I don't like or trust this guy in particular, it's more than this is the way the process works these days. Tax breaks for the rich were sold under claims of foreclosed farms due to inheritance tax. Problem was that when asked to source or prove it they couldn't come up with a single example. None.

Iraq was sold as self defense, people today still argue that it was bad intelligence rather than lies but don't bother to explain things like how Curveball turned from a source we had never properly met and those who did handle said was mentally unstable, but when Powell spoke to the UN the info he gave was that the single source had turned into a claim of multiple sourced and confirmed.

We've got media consolidation, was supposed to increase the variety of programming but what we ended up with is 200 channels of garbage that all looks the same and is all run out of the same dozen or so corporate offices. We think what we think these days because for the last few decades some of those most in need of being controlled themselves controlled our only means of news and communication.

We've got the drug war, who could argue that? At least at first, it was about protecting the kids after all. After a 6 times growth in the prison/jail population that's now left us as the single most imprisoned nation in the world both per capita and in raw numbers with a 6-8 times *increase* in the death rates of cocaine and heroin, now things aren't so clear anymore.

We're too easily impressed by ideas that *sound* good and we don't watch the details, again and again we end up wishing that we had watched them. In the early 1900's psychology found its way into advertising and after the politicians found how well it worked it found its way into politics as well, these days manipulation is most of what both "sides" do. Even the supposed good guys have to play the game simply because the other side does, eventually all are corrupted by the process. Watch the details, they don't mention too much that they really should and hide one aspect behind others. If overseas action is the only or even main goal here then why is it expected to "obliterate" Posse Comitatus?

It shouldn't be there, period. The rest I didn't have a problem with, just that angle, and for foreign use I see no reason for it to be there in the first place. If he thinks it should be then he's got to explain it better than that and define any limits that would remain. Obliterated doesn't imply any left. Posse Comitatus restricts the use of the military against American citizens, we're going to need better reasons to get rid of it I'd think. Even if we trusted him and how he wants to use it, he isn't going to control it. Bush will, Hillary will, or whoever comes after them will.

It's not a matter of can we trust this individual with it. It's a matter of can we trust the worst we can expect to hold that office with it and are there appropriate checks in place to stop abuse. That's why in the past it required Congressional approval, but we're chipping those checks away. Precedent isn't partisan and once we allow a line to be crossed a little bit we have less reason to stop them from crossing it at all. The law is as much precedent as what's on the books and we've been setting some bad ones. Yeah, it does worry me, the future of this nation isn't bright the direction we're going these days.

erm, how about no war?!

*dead

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