Home
In this issue
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Sept. 28, 2005 / 24 Elul, 5765

Prez's actions could shake the Pentagon to its core

By Tony Blankley


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | With the president's suggestion that the military should play a bigger role in future major emergencies, he has set in motion a cascade of policy shifts that, if reaching fruition, may shake the Pentagon to its foundation and recast the lines both between the states and the federal government, and between civil and military domestic jurisdictions. It might not be too portentous to say that many serious people may see such a policy shift as having constitutional implications.

On its face, the rightness of the idea seems obvious. In extreme emergencies, state and local governments are not up to the task. Only the federal government and, specifically, the military have the resources, personnel and logistic capacity to act effectively.

In Katrina's aftermath, the president's critics (and many of his friends) blamed him for not stepping in and taking command soon enough. But if ever something were easier said than done — such prompt presidential pre-emption would be it.

It is true that the Insurrection Act gives the president the power to overrule governors and take military and economic command under certain situations. But overriding an unwilling governor hasn't been done in a half a century. And organizing the resources to make such action effective will challenge historic principles of governance.

At the heart of such a reorganization lies the dual missions and dual controls of the National Guard. Currently, the state guards are commanded by the governors unless they are activated for military duty abroad or federalized for domestic activity.

But if the several state guards are to be the president's primary instrument for effective preemptive federal action, then their doctrine, training and resource management would need to be within the president's purview even on a regular basis — in order to be effective when needed. The president cannot be expected to be responsible for their performance if he is not responsible for their training and equipping. Governors will resist giving up such day-to-day control.

At the same time that the Guards are more effectively trained for such responsibilities (including duty in response to WMD terrorists attacks), their ability to be simultaneously indoctrinated and trained to their war fighting duties abroad will tend to be degraded. (e.g. Our soldiers patrol rifles up in Fallujah, but rifles down in New Orleans.)

The regular active military, rightly or wrongly, has long quietly believed that the Guards are not up to the active military's standards. However, the Guard's able service and sacrifice in combat over the generations is a source of justified pride — and the Guard, as an institution, would fiercely resist the end or reduction of that proud heritage.

If the Guard did become less likely to serve abroad, the active military would be too small (without the Guard supplement) to carry out its missions abroad. Thus, such a realignment would create pressure to increase the size of the active forces.

The logic of a more robust and interventionist federal military role in domestic emergencies may tend to evolve into the Guard becoming something like a domestic army — perhaps commanded (when federalized) by the recently created, currently soldierless, Northern Command — whose somewhat ambiguous mission is to protect the country domestically from and during terrorist attacks.

When in such a federalized status, what would be their relationship to civilian federal agencies, state and local law enforcement and first responders? Would, for example, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report in the chain of command to the federalized Guard if the distribution of vaccines were in dispute between the Guard general and the secretary of HHS? Or would the president have to personally intervene to resolve such disputes between legal equals at a moment when minutes and hours may make a strategic difference?

At the state level, would local police, state troopers, firemen, ambulance drivers, etc. be federalized along with the Guard? Would governors and mayors want that? And if not, would we run the risk of disputes between the two forces (such as whether to force at gunpoint homeowners to leave their homes, as happened in New Orleans — where the Army refused to carry out the mayor's orders to force evacuation).

Meanwhile, the domestic implications of a national guard force trained and indoctrinated to domestic interventions at the discretion of a more interventionist-minded president is discordant with American traditions that go back to our revolutionary days. Fear of a standing army was memorialized in the third amendment, which bars the quartering of troops in private homes even during war unless prescribed by law.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 debarred the military, with a few exceptions, from acting as a domestic law enforcement agency. The American military establishment has long been committed to both the letter and the spirit of that act — and has resisted any domestic law enforcement assignments.

Notwithstanding these and other concerns, the mood on Capitol Hill this week, if my Hill sources are accurate, is that for different reasons, the Senate may be prepared to legislatively authorize changes.

While legislative details have not been formalized yet, Republicans may be inclined to support the president's initiative, while Democrats seem to think that somehow such changes will compromise troop strength in Iraq and lead to an earlier withdrawal. Personally, I rather doubt the president intends to lower such troop levels until we have success.

But such is the odd mood in Washington at the moment, that both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, for different reasons, may support the president's initiative.

However the Republican House may, in this instance, play the Senate's traditional role of the saucer that lets the legislative brew cool before being voted on.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.


Archives


© 2005, Creators Syndicate

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works