Follow- up on Obama's Military Purge

Hat tip to New Jersey Patriot.

Last night's post had a brief addendum that treated Obama's ongoing purge of non-compliant militarily commanders. New Jersey Patriot covered this same subject today:

http://newjerseypatriotblog.newjerseypatriot.us/?p=3002#comment-13146

President Obama Transforms Military In His Image By Firing 197 Officers – Investors.com

"Via Investor’s Business Daily.

Every so often word comes out about Obama’s purge of the military. This is a pretty good summary of what has happened to date. They confirm the “rumor mill” on General Ham and Admiral Gaouette.

The bottom line is that Obama is creating a political military. Perhaps it will be his own praetorian guard. Perhaps it is being primed to follow orders blindly, especially when Obama want to declare martial law............................

Obama’s Military Coup Purges 197 Officers In Five Years

Defense: What the president calls “my military” is being cleansed of any officer suspected of disloyalty to or disagreement with the administration on matters of policy or force structure, leaving the compliant and fearful.

We recognize President Obama is the commander-in-chief and that throughout history presidents from Lincoln to Truman have seen fit to remove military commanders they view as inadequate or insubordinate. Turnover in the military ranks is normal, and in these times of sequestration and budget cuts the numbers are expected to tick up as force levels shrink and missions change.

Yet what has happened to our officer corps since President Obama took office is viewed in many quarters as unprecedented, baffling and even harmful to our national security posture. We have commented on some of the higher profile cases, such as Gen. Carter Ham. He was relieved as head of U.S. Africa Command after only a year and a half because he disagreed with orders not to mount a rescue mission in response to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi.

Rear Adm. Chuck Gaouette, commander of the John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group, was relieved in October 2012 for disobeying orders when he sent his group on Sept. 11 to “assist and provide intelligence for” military forces ordered into action by Gen. Ham.

Other removals include the sacking of two nuclear commanders in a single week — Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, head of the 20th Air Force, responsible for the three wings that maintain control of the 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and Vice Adm. Tim Giardina, the No. 2 officer at U.S. Strategic Command............................"

-From previous Hot Gates posts:

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/09/military-personnel-being-disarmed.html

".......Today I thought about another piece of the puzzle of the big picture. This the neutering of our military and its personnel in the face of an ever-growing threat of national and other police that operate under the umbrella (including Task Forces) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). If our military is not actively engaged in combat operations (away from home), it can now barely do anything to protect its own personnel and others on a military base.

I have little doubt that this is no accident - the military is being rendered utterly unable to protect the People in the event that the Hydra that is DHS and its attached agencies/task forces are used to put down an uprising (even a peaceful one like the beginning of Obama's celebrated :Arab Spring") of the People against a government that is unrecognizable to one who adheres to our Constitution.

I have been on active and reserve military duty and am a retired law enforcement officer. I can assure you that military personnel consider themselves more like the People than do many cops. The latter are much more likely to have an "us against them" mindset than members of our military....

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/08/retired-marine-colonel-on.html

The militarization of police, at all levels of government, in the United States is certainly an issue of great concern. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 effectively prohibited US military personnel from being employed to enforce criminal/civil law within the nation. Federal troops can be deployed in situations in which a state of emergency has been declared, such as with the Los Angeles riots of 1992, but these are to be used in a support status and coordinated with civil authorities.

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

Law enforcement personnel, including those under the supervision pf the Department of Homeland Security (a body seemingly growing in scope and authority by the day), are in contrast specifically charged with the task of enforcing the Law. Historically, these agencies were not well-equipped to handle situations such as barricaded suspects. Enter the SWAT team; the officers units had training and equipment that would enable them to do what the officer on standard patrol duty could not.

After being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps and being hired by a local law enforcement agency, I served on my agency's SWAT team from the early to late 90's. During that period, I noted that our equipment, training, and structure was becoming quite militarized. We also began to acquire equipment and training from the Federal government. A change in mindset accompanied this development. Officers who had never served in the military started to labor under the impression that their level of training not only approached* (Which was not even close) but surpassed that of actual military personnel. One in particular had big plans - he had designs to make his unit "....better than the SEALS". That claim left me utterly speechless. I mean, he just had no clue whatsoever.

The response to the Columbine slaughter exemplified both the drawbacks of overt militarization of our cops and the fact that cops simply do not think like soldiers do. Waiting for backup and the arrival of sufficient numbers if SWAT personnel to conduct a textbook SWAT operation, the responding patrol and later SWAT officers waited - for a very long time, while students were being killed and. Once enough arrived to do things "by the book", they crept through the school ever-so-slowly while severely injured students went without medical attention. To them, every nook and cranny needed to be cleared before the unit moved to the next room or hallway.

Militarily personnel are trained with a Mission First -Troops Second mentality, cops are not. An infantry unit, if given the order, will attempt to accomplish the mission with the troops and and equipment available at the time. They will move through hostile forces if need be. Police dogma does not even come close to this.

SWAT teams do not have the same level of training as do military personnel, but they think that they are actually more highly trained, and that its frightening.

Also frightening is the fact that, as the Colonel noted, police agencies are not only acquiring armored vehicles and other types of equipment that one would expect to see at a military base, it is also standardized, often down to the same exact model. With the streamlining of Emergency Incident Response procedures and Mutual Aid agreements, it is guaranteed that officers can be detached and and reassigned to units comprised of officers from other agencies quite seamlessly. In a scenario in which the People are being targeted for standing up for their rights, officers would not even have the advantage of working with officers with whom they are familiar, something which often provides a natural "braking mechanism" when given orders that are problematic. Old friends have ways of letting their partners know that they see something wrong without saying a word - a good start if officers need to decide on their own to "stand down".

When equipment is issued or subsidized at state or national level, local agencies are obligated by contract to dispatch that equipment, along with trained officers, to large-scale events. These are referred to as "Task Forces". Several cops from your town or county could be away for days or weeks at a time. Following September 11th, officers from across the nation were assigned to and received training for a rapid reaction force, the name of which escapes me at the moment, for deployment to emergencies anywhere in the state or nation. Jurisdictional authority would be provided simply for "swearing in" the responding offers to give them powers of arrest in that state. They were used in events such as Katrina, but an "emergency" is subject to interpretation, and your officers could well be two or more thousand miles away dealing with a body of Americans who are standing up for their rights.

The Colonel was correct in noting that the Federal Government is effectively creating an army that is not restricted by the Posse Comitatus Act, which brings me to the most frightening part:
In order for military units to go into action, be it to destroy an opposing force, suppress a movement of the People, or prevent a necessary movement of the People from being suppressed, a tremendous amount of steps need to be followed. Orders must be given to all combat and support units. This includes issuing of operation orders, weapons, transportation, equipment, fuel and other necessities. A military unit, even if its command staff and troops know that something is dreadfully wrong and that action must be taken, is almost powerless to act if an order has not been sent via the chain of command. Virtually an entire battalion of staff officers has to be of the same mind in order for such an act to have a chance of happening. A smaller unit attempting such a move will see its officers relieved of command and detained and the troops confined to barracks - prohibited of course from any contact outside of the base or post.

In a similar scenario involving the dispatch of police forces, it is far easier. Police agencies have their equipment on hand, and their operational procedures are much more conducive to an immediate deployment at the word of a Chief or other superior officer. Federal and State agencies are massive in size and have sufficient assets to operate for weeks. The mind-boggling amount of ammunition that has been purchased and stored across the nation by the Department of Homeland Security allows for an almost unlimited supply. Add the call for to-be-attached officers from local agencies with their issued equipment, and the new army, which takes its orders from Civil authorities, is a tool that can be wielded in an unchecked manner against the People. When the cops are told that the targets are in violation of the Law, their minds are geared towards making arrests. They also have not been educated to appreciate their mission to protect the People, Constitution, and the nation as have military personnel. I was in both worlds, and I can assure you that the mindset is as different as can be."