"The translation of this is martial law in the United States," [View All]

[LynnTheDem]

Bush Asks Congress for Martial Law

Overturning Posse Comitatus would allow troops to break into houses and apartments and sweep the streets for flu victims, and forcibly contain them in Guantánamo-style camps. They could seal off cities or whole states. These extreme measures could also be deployed against U.S. citizens after hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, or even election disputes--whenever and wherever a president decides they are necessary.

"The translation of this is martial law in the United States," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, associate dean of Columbia University's School of Public Health and director of its National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Redlener called Bush's proposal to deploy troops on American soil an "extraordinarily Draconian measure." Even Gene Healy, senior editor at the right-wing Cato Institute, said Bush's proposal would undermine "a fundamental principle of American law" that "reflects America's traditional distrust of using standing armies to enforce order at home, a distrust that's well-justified."

Travel to other countries and you'll find that a society's freedom is inversely related to the number of guys wearing camouflage, brandishing big guns and pulling people over at roadblocks. Blurring the distinction between policing and soldiering, as do the military police in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and Middle Eastern countries like Syria and Jordan, is a defining characteristic of repressive states.

Civilian cops may be rude or even abusive, but they're not supposed to shoot you without a good reason. You're their boss, or at least they work for the mayor you elected. Not so with soldiers. Military troops are responsible only to their chain of command, which is likely to end thousands of miles away in Washington. They shoot sooner and quicker than cops, and they have much bigger guns. Regimes that use the military to maintain order tell their citizens: do what we tell you, or else. They rely upon violence rather than tacit consensus to stay in charge.

Rule under the point of a gun is not democracy.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1012-29.htm