Grim:
As a practical fact, the United States Marine Corps has found itself assisting local law enforcment agencies in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. They have been helping to train police and other security forces, and they have been actively engaged in policing actions — everything from writing tickets for traffic violations, to investigating acts of terrorism for prosecution under Iraqi or Afghan law.
The Corps has decided to formalize this approach to some degree, and has now created some “Law Enforcement Battalions” consisting of military police and dogs.
Their reasons for doing so are understandable to all of us, but there are some concerns that we ought to voice. First of all, there is the political concern that these battalions not be employed to enforce the law at home. Unlike the Army and Air Force, who are covered by the Posse Comitatus Act, the Navy and Marine Corps are restricted from being used as law enforcement only by DOD regulation. Such a regulation is easily disposed-of by any sitting President.
We ought to consider whether we want Marine battalions deployed to enforce the law in places like Chicago (which, as Jimbo pointed out recently, is more deadly than Afghanistan), or if we would prefer to cleanly separate military and police functions here in America. Either way, we should ask candidates for Federal office where they stand, and tell them what we prefer.
A second concern arises from the question of whether this kind of training puts Marines at risk.
I question the following distinction from the original article, “Cops apply human rights law and Marines apply the law of war”. Have you watched the violence police have used against unarmed civilian demonstrators these day—not too different from the tactics used in Iran.
Maybe someone ought to ask Obama why our military are driving tanks down the neighborhood streets of St. Louis as a military “exercise.”