President-elect Barack Obama has listed his intentions regarding the military. While nost if it is to be expected and not necessarily bad, his goal for the National Guard is purely out of touch with history and law:
Restore the Readiness of the National Guard and Reserves
* Barack Obama and Joe Biden will provide the National Guard with the equipment it needs for foreign and domestic emergencies and time to restore and refit before deploying. They will make the head of the National Guard a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to ensure concerns of our citizen soldiers reach the level they mandate. They will ensure that reservists and Guard members are treated fairly when it comes to employment, health, and education benefits.
The National Guard was established to protect the homefront during WWII. This went to the crapper when it was nationalized and is now used as nothing more than part of the standing army. Mr. Obama, why not just pass it back to the States where it belongs? They then can respond to any homeland emergencies with no delay.
Furthermore, since we're on the topic of military, let's go to the disdained Constitution of the United States. The existence of a standing army was one of the greatest avoidances for the drafters of the constitution. The only mention of raising an army is part of Article I, Section 8, which states that part of congressional duty is "To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term and two Years;". Everything else is exclusively militia, from calling up to "organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed i the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;". I'm seeing clearly that a standing army in federal service may be unconstitutional. On top of that, the States only remaining defense is taken away from the to be used in "foreign and domestic emergencies".
The States should be assigning the officers, operating the military bases, and training the militia according to the general government standards and the president should only be involved when the militia is called up. This policy was established to prevent the use of the armed forces against the citizens and, should it occur anyway, to give individual States a way of defending themselves. We need to return to this policy soon, before the military is forced to turn against the people they have risked their lives to protect. The military bases in individual States should be turned over to the host State and the military units assigned to that base are to be passed to the governor with exception to those already deployed. In the case of deployment, the unit will be passed to the governor upon return. The general (federal) government will maintain control over the Marines who will be assigned to coastal and riverine bases only, as they are a branch of the US Navy and the presidents temporary force to be used in defense of the United States until the militia can be called up and a proper army be raised.
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