NEW YORK - Of all the bad ideas that have been pouring from the Bush Administration - the faux war on terrorism, the Palestine mess, invading Iraq, curtailment of civil liberties, unilateralism, opposition to a war crimes tribunal, growing deficits, farm subsidies, steel tariffs - among the very worst is the dangerous proposal that US military forces be given domestic police powers.
Bush Administration officials, notably the chief of the newly created Northern Command, Gen. Ralph Eberhart, have been calling for the Pentagon to assume a much greater domestic role in the so-called war against terrorism. A role, apparently, that would give the military power to conduct investigations and surveillance, use troops to `maintain order and security,' and arrest American citizens. Canadians might be next, since Canada has been involuntarily placed under the US Northern Command.
This frightening plan comes on the heels of Bush's cutely-named but sinister TIP's program, a network of citizen informers that recalls evil memories of ubiquitous Soviet and Chinese civilian informers on every block and in every factory, and `heroic' children denouncing their parents as enemies of the state. And of East Germany, where a quarter of the adult population spied for the Stasi secret police.
In the Roman Republic, father of all western democracies, consular armies were forbidden by law to enter the capitol city. The Romans realized over 2,400 years ago that soldiers had to be strictly kept out of politics. The Roman Republic died during the 1st Century BCE civil wars after military leaders Marius, Sulla, and later, Caesar, brought their armies into politics.
America's Congress - which was patterned on the Roman Senate - clearly recalled this history when it passed the landmark Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which outlawed the use of federal military forces for domestic law enforcement. Congress was intent on maintaining supremacy of civilian rule and protecting civil liberties. Properly restrained, the military was a useful tool; unrestrained, a dangerous and ruthless master.
Soldiers are trained to kill enemies, not to perform complex police duties that require professionalism, restraint, and knowledge of the law. Long, painful experience around the world has repeatedly shown that once the military is brought in to `maintain order,' perform policing, or fight corruption, it almost inevitably becomes corrupted, despotic, and politicized.
One need only look at the doleful history of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria, Egypt, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, and Venezuela to see that when soldiers take over internal security, they inevitably end up taking over the government as well. When soldiers are allowed to police, they suddenly realize their latent power and go from being a second class citizens to cocks of the walk. Law quickly gives way before raw power. Those who have served in the military - as this writer has - have a healthy fear of military justice and its drumhead implementation.
Interestingly, the Soviet communists were even more sensitive to this threat. Lenin repeatedly warned of `Bonapartism' and urged the party to keep control of internal security and police in the hands of civilians.
The Posse Comitatus Act was amended under the Reagan Administration to allow use of the military in an earlier bogus `war,' the war on drugs.
In this case, the military was sent to identify and intercept drug smugglers outside America's borders. At the time, the idea seemed reasonable. But in retrospect, the inflow of drugs has barely been reduced while the military has ended up with a boot in the door of domestic law enforcement.
In 1997, the US Congress gave the military the power to cooperate with other government departments in countering biological or chemical attacks. This made sense because the military had an arsenal of biowarfare detection, neutralization gear, vaccines and the training to use them. But Congress expressly forbade the military from arresting civilians during biowarfare operations.
Now, some of the closet totalitarians who populate the darker corners of the Bush Administration are using public fear and hysteria generated by incessant claims of imminent nuclear or biowarfare attack to press for what amounts to the beginning of national martial law. We hear calls for greater surveillance of phones and email. Next will come calls for limits on speech and dissent. George Orwell laid out this whole grim process in his epochal novel, `1984.' Anyone who wants a feel of what martial law would be like should see the gripping Burt Lancaster film about a Pentagon coup against the White House, `Seven Days in May.'
Fortunately, Congress, much of the top military brass, and even Pentagon super-hawk Donald Rumsfeld seem opposed to this daft idea. Well they should be. Separation of the civil and military is even more basic and sacred an American concept than separation of church and state.
The voice Americans should be listening to is that of the closest thing the United States had to a noble Roman tribune, President Dwight Eisenhower. As this great American and former general was leaving office, he warned his people that the gravest threat their democracy faced was not from abroad but from their own military-industrial complex.
The US has ample civilian law enforcement agencies to ensure domestic security. Americans don't need soldiers to act as super-cops.
Foreign Correspondent