The Oil on Water Question

07-02-10

THE WEEKLY INFORMATION RESOURCE FOR VETERANS AND ALL PATRIOTIC AMERICANS

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(continued from page 6) simply threatens to catapult this country over that cliff at a velocity faster than I had anticipated, because it may strike a sudden, unanticipated, and perhaps fatal blow not only at the regional economy of the Gulf States but also at the national economy at a time when the entire financial system is shaking itself to pieces as the result of entirely independent causes. Of course, no one should lightly attribute to anyone in America’s Armed Forces a desire to employ a domestic crisis as a pretext for setting up a national para-military police state. On the other hand, one should point out that, in light of the magnitude of the catastrophe that is pouring out of the bowels of the Gulf of Mexico and the destruction from which could put this country’s economy into an irreversible tail-spin, the Armed Forces by themselves could never muster enough “boots on the ground” to restore order, let alone enough people in those “boots” competent to set this country back on the road to economic, political and social stability. The Armed Forces could be uniquely useful, though, in assisting the rapid revitalization of the Militia. In constitutional principle, the Armed Forces and the Militia should always be working in tandem, albeit with the Militia in the forefront domestically, because (as the Second Amendment declares) the Militia and only the Militia are “necessary to the security of a free State”. At home, the Militia should always be “the first responders”. But they cannot respond at all until they have been revitalized. To that end, they will have to rely to some degree on the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces are perfectly situated to supply instructors and basic equipment to the first units of the Militia as they are enrolled, trained, and deployed. And retirees from the Armed Forces—in the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Disabled American Veterans, or simply as patriotic individuals—would be uniquely valuable as Militia advisors, trainers, leaders, and core members. One would anticipate that if Colonel Nelson were involved in such an ORI (or whatever the	How many miles of shore front did they say?
	process might be called), he would agree that “[t]hat’s huge”. It may be, as Colonel Dagher said, that “Americans can sleep better knowing that [the Air Force] can provide defense support to civil authorities in the United States”. But one suspects that the average American would surely sleep even more soundly knowing that he and other Local people have been thoroughly trained and equipped to take care of themselves and their own communities in the very likely event that the Armed Forces simply cannot respond to a crisis in their own back yards. Well, State and Local public officials—well, State and Local politicians looking towards the 2010 and 2012 elections—well, Mr. Obama, as ostensible “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States”—well, Mr. and Mrs. America...here is the crisis—the danger and the opportunity—washing up in all its black horror on America’s beaches. Now what do you intend to do about it?	In particular, what can readers of this commentary do? If you live in one of the Gulf States—and even if you live somewhere else—you can contact your State legislators, governors, leading political figures, and opinion makers and encourage them to start the process of revitalizing their States’ Militia. After all, we are all in this together. The immediate problem has started in and will first likely devastate the Gulf Coast, but its consequences—particularly if they are severe—will surely spread throughout the country, with the inexorability of oil on water. So mobilizing Americans for the solution cannot be limited to the Gulf. And the Constitution tells us how to do it. © 2010 Edwin Vieira, Jr. - All Rights Reserved Edwin Vieira, Jr., holds four degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School). For more than thirty years he has practiced law, with emphasis on constitutional (continued on page 8)