The Police State Continues -- US Military to Patrol Mexican Border

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Apocalypse

Kinda just forgets about the Army Corps of Engineers which do the opposite of breaking.

They do many other things than just killing. Chem units especially...they never get into fighting.

A number of people in my forward support unit were very instrumental in helping get people drinkable water during the Katrina disaster a few months ago.

All of these units have a primary purpose of supporting the guys on the front lines, who are busy killing and breaking things

The Corps of Engineers should not be used the way they have as a crutch for domestic engineering projects, and their failings as being stretched too thin was apparent in the Katrina disaster

Your active duty unit was used because there weren't enough guardsmen (who SHOULD be doing it) because they are over in Iraq. Which is also stupid since Guard units shouldn't be used overseas, and should be domestic only.

So what we have now is a bunch of units designed for specific purposes being misappropriated. See a pattern?

Next let's just have the Army replace city police forces to complete the cycle.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


I've posted an article on an Army peacekeeping unit in Iraq several times and have given them mad props for actually doing peacekeeping the way they are supposed to be doing it

Yeah...most of the bad parts of Iraq are the ones the Marines are supposed to be in control of.

It is not like they were giving the bad areas either...some of them were areas the army had under control and the marines just allowed to go to hell.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


All of these units have a primary purpose of supporting the guys on the front lines, who are busy killing and breaking things

The Corps of Engineers should not be used the way they have as a crutch for domestic engineering projects, and their failings as being stretched too thin was apparent in the Katrina disaster

Your active duty unit was used because there weren't enough guardsmen (who SHOULD be doing it) because they are over in Iraq. Which is also stupid since Guard units shouldn't be used overseas, and should be domestic only.

Actually it is not an active duty unit. It is a guard unit from Virginia

They just received the medals this past weekend.

[Ted Striker]

LOL

The Marines tell me the opposite, they say the Army lets the areas go, but I tend to favor the Army, since it doesn't have the "KILL KILL KILL" mantra embedded in its brains.

Marines should not be in Iraq at all right now. They are not peacekeepers, period.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Apocalypse

Actually it is not an active duty unit. It is a guard unit from Virginia

They just received the medals this past weekend.

Well done

[SlowwHand]

A lot of people who join the Coast Guard or National Guard think they'll not see overseas duty.
Wrong.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


Same thing, you can't just pick out the parts you like and then claim to adhere to the Conventions

That pretty much undermines them and makes them about as legitmate as UN Resolutions, which are always cherry picked

Its not picking out parts, its interpretating the conventions themselves.

One of the major reasons the conventions give rights to combatants who act in a certain way, is to go them an incentive to do so. IF you wear a uniform, dont murder civilians,are part of an organized force, etc you get protection as an EPW. If not, not.

Now if theyre not protected as EPW, than they could be protected as civilians accused of a crime under US military occupation. Which is the case for insurgents in Iraq, which is why, AFAIK, the admin has NOT claimed Geneva to be inapplicable to them. But Afghanistan was not under US occupation.

Now others may interpret Geneva differently. Maybe the admin has interpreted wrongly. Theyve certainly interpreted it in ways that may prove counterproductive. But that doesnt mean either dropping Geneva, or having a police state.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
LOL

The Marines tell me the opposite, they say the Army lets the areas go, but I tend to favor the Army, since it doesn't have the "KILL KILL KILL" mantra embedded in its brains.

Marines should not be in Iraq at all right now. They are not peacekeepers, period.

I would have to say that much of the recruiting for the National Guard has a distrubing KILL mentality. Not my unit though. It is just cooks and transporation. The Military Police unit at my armory is fairly chill too. The band drills there also and they are so chill their kids come along to watch them practice.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


Well done

They did good...I didn't go so no orange medal for me.

[Ted Striker]

There is no "maybe" about it.

They have knowingly and proactively circumvented the Conventions. This is well documented and you can even find this crap on MSN of all places.

The problem with your overanalysis is exactly the problem of why innocent people are getting picked up and locked up for years. You can justify anything if you think about it hard enough.

Or you can rely on 60 years of solid wisdom that has led all civilized nations down the correct path.

Cept that whole My Lai massacre thing, torture in Algiers, etc

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


All of these units have a primary purpose of supporting the guys on the front lines, who are busy killing and breaking things

The Corps of Engineers should not be used the way they have as a crutch for domestic engineering projects, and their failings as being stretched too thin was apparent in the Katrina disaster

"In 1824, however, the Supreme Court ruled in Gibbons v. Ogden that federal authority covered interstate commerce including riverine navigation. Shortly thereafter, Congress passed two important laws that, together, marked the beginning of the Corps' continuous involvement in civil works. The General Survey Act authorized the president to have surveys made of routes for roads and canals "of national importance, in a commercial or military point of view, or necessary for the transportation of public mail." The president assigned responsibility for the surveys to the Corps of Engineers. The second act, passed a month later, appropriated $75,000 to improve navigation on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers by removing sandbars, snags, and other obstacles. Subsequently, the act was amended to include other rivers such as the Missouri. This work, too, was given to the Corps of Engineers—the only formally trained body of engineers in the new republic and, as part of the nation's small army, available to serve the wishes of Congress and the executive branch. "

Damn, it was all John Quincy Adams' fault, I knew it.
May Ming forgive me, but Ted, you ARE an idiot.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


"In 1824, however, the Supreme Court ruled in Gibbons v. Ogden that federal authority covered interstate commerce including riverine navigation. Shortly thereafter, Congress passed two important laws that, together, marked the beginning of the Corps' continuous involvement in civil works. The General Survey Act authorized the president to have surveys made of routes for roads and canals "of national importance, in a commercial or military point of view, or necessary for the transportation of public mail." The president assigned responsibility for the surveys to the Corps of Engineers. The second act, passed a month later, appropriated $75,000 to improve navigation on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers by removing sandbars, snags, and other obstacles. Subsequently, the act was amended to include other rivers such as the Missouri. This work, too, was given to the Corps of Engineers—the only formally trained body of engineers in the new republic and, as part of the nation's small army, available to serve the wishes of Congress and the executive branch. "

Damn, it was all John Quincy Adams' fault, I knew it.
May Ming forgive me, but Ted, you ARE an idiot.

Thanks for posting EXACTLY what I was talking about.

As I have posted in other threads, the whole Corps of Engineers theory of trying to control nature, especially waterways, is completely outdated, and directly responsible for many of the latest disasters over the past 100 years, including Katrina, and the great flood in the Mississippi.

Since then we have learned a tremendous amount of knowledge of how to deal with things like flooding, instead of trying to do the Corps way of controlling the earth (which is always a losing battle), work with it to restore natural floodplains and wetlands to help absorb the water when it takes it natural course.

As I said, they should never be used as a domestic crutch for infrastructure projects. So bascially you are supporting an industrial age philosophy.

Maybe next we can return dirty coal power plants to the inner cities.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Aren't you a funny guy

For sure - occasionally

Each branch of the military is designed to kill people and break things

Some of them are just more effective at it than others

Those big Navy ships just carry cruise missiles on them because they look cool, they aren't designed really for killing people

Cruise missile units, battleship ditto, attack units etc. of course are "destrouying" units, but any army has other units, and no, iI'm not thinking about the cooks.

Of coruse those units has killing/destroying capacity, but if I said earlier (wich you ignored), they also has policing capabilities. Current danish units in Iraq are primarily police units, but they for certain still has offensive capabilities. I guess that the main problem with the US units is that they aren't trained in this duality.

[Dis]

military patrolling borders.

It only makes sense seeing as we are supposedly in a war against terrorism. Who cares what it looks like to the outside world. We are supposed to be in a war.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by BlackCat

Of coruse those units has killing/destroying capacity, but if I said earlier (wich you ignored), they also has policing capabilities. Current danish units in Iraq are primarily police units, but they for certain still has offensive capabilities. I guess that the main problem with the US units is that they aren't trained in this duality.

We're not talking about Danish military we're talking about the US military.

The typical operation has been the US on the frontlines and then the Europeans following up with the occupation.

I even posted a thread a few months ago proposing the US create a force and/or school directly related to Peacekeeping operations.

Apprently we had a school that opened a few years ago but then it was closed.