National Security

This post was originally written on 3/25/2012

I've already covered my thoughts on what the US military is supposed to be there for in the pieces about Foreign Affairs, so I'm not going to rehash that here.  By now you should get the whole Defending Our Country thing.

     National Security has to do with more than just our military forces though.  It's also about keeping random people out of the country who aren't invited guests, and making sure that people who are supposed to be here don't do anything stupid like send a map of where all our weapons are stored to a foreign government that's planning to attack us via the internet.  Plus there's the really cool spy shit that the CIA does to learn about where other countries are hiding all their weapons, just in case we ever have reason to need that information handy.  We've also got agencies that keep track of and handle the whack jobs who would like to over throw our elected government, track down folks who make fake money, and a whole host of other things that could fuck up the relatively good thing we've got going for ourselves.

     Sometimes we have criminals who get caught doing bad shit by our military outside of the US that we don't want to lock up in our prisons with the run of the mill American criminals, so we have to figure out what to do with those folks while we decide what we're gonna do with them.  That's kind of a national security thing too, since letting them go on bail isn't likely to keep our nation very secure.

MILITARY

     A few things DO have to be said about the US Military in relation to National Security.  One, it's a good idea to have them constantly recruiting and training soldiers, so that when we do need them, they are ready to go.  Whether they need to be working for the military and getting paid to play war games all the time is a little less certain.  I'm kind of a National Guard fan myself- they do their weekends, help out around the house when they're needed, and are ready to deploy when it's necessary.  In my mind, that's preferrable to having several hundred military bases and training facilities and who knows what else with their light bills running up 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, all over the damn world.  Secondly, much as some people would like to see our military put to good use in securing our borders, it isn't going to happen, because the real military isn't allowed to just suit up and go fight off each intruder who comes in the door uninvited one by one.  They aren't allowed to do much of anything inside the US except for train to go fight on some other country's soil.

     Some people make the argument that we're not supposed to have a standing military at all, which is very possibly in line with what the founding fathers had in mind.  After all, they didn't have a bunch of soldiers hanging out, training, collecting a paycheck, and eating on the taxpayer's dime during the short periods of peacetime they had.  The military back then was more of a "More invaders, everybody grab your guns and follow me, you're in the Army now son" kinda deal.  Except for the Navy, that was a going concern, patrolling the coastal waters and providing protection for trading vessels.  But it's hard to argue against the idea that having the training part already taken care of, when the need arises for a military, is a good thing.  Definitely it's a better idea to let people sign up of their own free will and make a career out of being ready to kill other people, if need be, than to have a forced period of military service like some countries have, or a draft like we've seen in our own history.  A well trained military who chooses to fight definitely has better survival rates than one made up of people just dragged out of their homes and handed guns they don't know how to use.

     The only thing that seems more logical to me that what we have going on now, is that it might not be a bad idea to locate the places within our country, where our military forces hang in uniform when they aren't busy fighting wars, a little closer to the places where we actually have security problems going on.  Maybe relocate some of those bases that we have in other countries throughout the Southwest and down in the Florida Keys.  Maybe even a couple up along the Canadian border, they can practice Moose wrangling.  Just a thought.

BORDER CONTROL

     Bunch of people all pissed off about illegal immigration during this election cycle.  I'm not a big fan of the whole hate on the brown people agenda, but we do need to have an orderly system of immigration in place that is being enforced.  We really need to close up the borders tighter than a tick's ass so that we have some idea about whether the folks who are coming here are doing it for a good reason, or because they want to get their hands on a plane to fly into a building.  Aside from the flying into buildings thing, we really need to know whether these folks have a plan for what they're going to do after they get settled in, and whether that plan is realistic with regards to being able to take care of themselves.  If they really need to come here because they are going to get killed back home if they don't, well, we kinda need to know that too so that we can get them hooked up with some folks who'll help them get acclimated and on their feet.

     As I've stated before, not all that many of us have grounds to get up on our high horses and criticize other people for wanting to come here from what we would consider to be a shit hole of a homeland.  Without people who decided to do just that, we wouldn't be the proud owners of some of the best real estate on the globe.  Those of us who can figure out where our immigrant ancestors came from mostly don't get to preach about how they did it the "right" way either, because up until fairly recently, the "right" way was a whole hell of a lot easier to pull off too.  Even those of us whose parents or grandparents did manage to jump through all the hoops that the INS has put up for immigrants to jump through can't swear that if circumstances had been different, their ancestors would have just stayed in their home countries waiting for an approval letter until they died.  I'd say that it's doubtful that most of them would have, since once a determined and adventurous person makes up their mind to do something, they usually find a way to pull it off- even if it means bending the rules.  You definitely have to be determined and adventurous to pack up and move away from everything you've ever known without knowing for sure what you're going to find once you get to your destination.

     I've already mentioned the idea of setting up more of our regular military bases in border lands.  I'm also not opposed to the idea of some physical barriers.  What is really going to turn the tide though is real immigration reform that gets potential immigrant's applications processed faster, and allows them to come here legally.  Investing in a border patrol that is well staffed, well trained, well equipped, and SENSITIVE to the situations of those caught trying to enter our country illegally is also of paramount importance.  This is a much better investment for our tax dollars to be going to than maintaining a military presence in every corner of the globe.  Actually, the globe is round, so that expression is an oxymoron.

Just an idea...

     Just another idea I've had- someone should see how gators and piranha like living in the Rio Grande.  Maybe train up some lions and tigers to work as a team with Border Patrol agents.  Not that we should let them eat people of course, but just as a deterrent.  Kind of a "Fuck No!  I'm not climbing over that fence, they've got lions and shit over there!" sort of scenario.  The gators and piranha would be kind of hard to control though, people would just be taking their chances with them

GUANTANAMO BAY

     Right bloody sticky situation there, isn't it chap?  When we send our military out to catch bad guys who try to blow up our shit, we have to figure out what to do with them once they're caught.  Just shooting them on sight isn't the best idea, because then the militaries of other countries tend to want to do that with our people that they happen to run across too.  So we've got to hold them somewhere until we work out just what type of criminal justice procedures we're going to follow in assessing their guilt and meting out punishment.  That's a tricky call to make when we have to consider how the governments of the countries they call home are going to react if they disagree with how we try and punish them.

     Definitely we need to expect our military to behave in this type of situation by treating others the way that they would wish for themselves, their mother's and their grandparents to be treated.  Their actions are being judged by the world, and the opinions of those who might wish to threaten our safety are influenced by what they see.  Those of us who are not in the military are being judged based on their actions as well.  With this in mind, it is not sufficient to just be "not as bad as the other guy."  Something that would go a long way towards making this standard easier for our forces to live up to would be to stop putting children in the spotlight under stressful situations.  Recruiting our military from our high schools and then teaching them everything about weapons and nothing about how to not be assholes isn't the best plan we can come up with.  If it is, then we've got big problems that we haven't even scratched the surface of.

     I find it difficult to believe that our government cannot find a way to maintain a prison for those our military must detain that isn't on a par with the best run prison within the US for domestic criminals.  We obviously have within our population people who know how to design and maintain these prisons- talk to them and find a way to use their ideas!  If we don't understand the culture of those we are detaining, and that is causing problems, well guess what?  I bet we have smart people who've studied that too!  And above all, make it someone's job to actually keep working on getting these people's cases settled before they die of old age!  Just because you're not running through the traditional US courts system doesn't mean that you just throw all the concepts of a legal system out the window.

BIG BROTHER

     Break out your tinfoil hats people, it's time to talk about the eye in the sky, the internet police, and the radio transmissions eavesdroppers.

    For just about as long as their have been forms of communication that go beyond simply speaking face to face, there have been people who think that someone is spying on them.  Sometimes they're right, but for the most part (at least until Google came along) it wasn't nearly as bad as those people imagined.  The US Postal  Service has never made it standard practice to read everyone's mail for clues about their activity, Ma Bell wasn't ever in the business of recording everyone's telephone calls, and there is no giant repository for every email that every person has ever written that the government pays people to read.

     As far as National Security goes, there are some things that the US government has to worry about.  Just because our form of government is all nice and let's people think and say what they want doesn't mean that some of the assholes who've happened to have been born here aren't thinking and saying things that involve planning to take over the country and the world.  We've bred our fair share of Brain's to go along with all the Pinky's that you see down at the Walmart.  Having a guy or a bunch of guys sitting in a dark room, sifting through lists of fertilizer purchases and scanning through Google's databases for IP addresses that have searched the terms 'homemade atomic bomb", isn't going to catch all these yahoos before they fuck some shit up, but it doesn't hurt to try.

     Now that we all have the internet to enjoy and waste time with, there are responsibilities that come with it, and risks as well.  Since the interwebs connects people from all over the world, there is a real concern that a modern day Rosenberg could use it to email some super secret shit to some super bad arch nemesis type people who want to blow up the US.  We're all just gonna have to chill out and deal with the fact that yes, it is our Government's job to spy on our porn viewing history to protect us from the stupid and evil people we have living within our midst.  I personally have never known anyone to be even exceptionally inconvenienced by any Big Brother type shit that they didn't bring on themselves by being stupid and shady.  I personally have searched for and done some really odd things on the internet, FBI hasn't knocked on my door yet.

Worst Alien Invasion Movie Ever

     When it comes to the "Internet Kill Switch" and "Martial Law" and all that stuff, I'm not really a big fan of the freakout either.  Maybe that comes from watching all the apocalypse and alien invasion movies that my husband likes so much, but I figure that once the bombs start dropping or the spaceships start landing, the last thing I'm going to worry about is whether I have internet to use my right to free speech to bitch about it with.  Hell, take away my internet and I'll go back to talking out loud.  Take away might right to freely speak my mind and 1.) You'll have to catch me first, and 2.) I'll just plot against you quietly in the privacy of my own head when I'm not busy with taking care of my kids and fighting off the alien scum.  Until that time comes, I'm going to keep on trusting in the system of government that we have, and in our President, to not get too crazy with the restrictions on my freedom.

     You'd better believe that if the shit hits the fan, all bets are going to be off on the constitution and everything else.  Martial Law and all that is the norm whenever there is a crisis, read some history books.  No form of government has ever lasted through major turmoil without some kind of change occurring at least while the crisis is at hand.  The more flexible the government is, and the more transient the crisis, the more likely it is to come out on the other side basically intact.  Should the US ever be in a situation where an Internet Kill Switch was used, that would not be the worst shit going down.  Martial law would be background to the more important issues of basic survival.  Once we were all pretty sure that we could keep eating and breathing and stuff, then we'd get busy figuring out whether to revive the good old US of A, or if it would be better to just start over with Walmartland.  Definitely people who have lived as Americans, with the freedoms that we have enjoyed, are not going to settle into a repressive system under a totalitarian regime.  At least not unless the only ones of us who are left are the folks who think that a theocracy sounds great!

     And this concludes our lesson on National Security.  Wow. I think all this typing has drawn all the blood from my brain into my poor cramped little fingers.  I'm getting a little dizzy.