Militarization: American Nation

* further to my earlier comments about using katrina to implement martial law (here and here), particularly about the very odd episode when Blinky gave Blanco a deal he presumed that she couldnt refuse, and she asked for 24 hours to decide.

In any case, I shuddered a little when Blinky said in his Jackson cathedral speech:

"It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces -- the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice."

William M. Arkin touched on the issue briefly in WaPo although he doesnt really get to the heart of the issue.:

"The President’s plan is both wrong-headed and dangerous.
I for one don't want to live in a society where "a moment’s notice" justifies military action that either preempts or usurps civil authority."

Laura Rozen gets a bit closer to the seriousness of the problem:

"Who calls for earlier resort to martial law as a policy just because he and his aides couldn't get their derrieres back to Washington from month long vacations? He can't be bothered to govern, he can't hire professional staff for his agencies, and now he wants to resort to martial law at the first sign of crisis? That's a very dangerous way to compensate for lack of competence, lack of discipline, lack of leadership."

Heather Hurlburt at DemocracyArsenal.org gets even closer:

"Remember that old cliche about everything looking like a nail when you've got a hammer?... But when a democracy reaches the point that the military is the first answer to any policy question that comes up, that is a scary place. Scary for society as a whole, but also for the military. It's interesting that conservative military writers have been putting out novels and policy analyses for a decade now, some approvingly and some alarmingly, imagining a dystopian future where the military is the last competent organization on a decaying American landscape."

Be afraid.