Wednesday, February 04, 2009

How Do You Feel About National Emergency Centers on Military Bases

Of course there are other terms for these used through the years. But it all is just ominous, creepy.

Nothing good can come of this.

A BILL

To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers on military installations.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘National Emergency Centers Establishment Act’.

SEC. 2. ESTABLISHMENT OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY CENTERS.

(a) In General- In accordance with the requirements of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish not fewer than 6 national emergency centers on military installations.

(b) Purpose of National Emergency Centers- The purpose of a national emergency center shall be to use existing infrastructure--

(1) to provide temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster;

(2) to provide centralized locations for the purposes of training and ensuring the coordination of Federal, State, and local first responders;

(3) to provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations; and

(4) to meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

This would blur the mission of the military. And I suspect that Obama's ham handed attempts at diplomacy will make a strong military even more important to America.

christian soldier said...

a danger to our Best of the Best stationed at any one of the military installations deemed a 'National Emergency Center'..
C-CS

Rolf Krake said...

The USSA is going insane, this is Hitleresque, merging military and civil affairs, politicizing....

Anonymous said...

This may be a bad idea for many reasons, but I don't believe this has anything to do with Obama's talk about creating a national community service force. To me this looks like the Dems response to "Katrina".

When Obama talks about his national service plans he means federally funded community organizing. Billions for ACORN etc. It's not paramilitary. They won't wear creepy uniforms.

Obama's national service, community organizing or neigborhood rebuilding initiatives are much more insidious. While you get worked up about these Emergency Centers, the Obama Jugend is coming to your community to organize you and your children.

Also Obama will work his magic through the education system and "press reform" and as always conservatives will be clueless about what is going on under their noses.

Outrider said...

It does have to do with merging the Department of Homeland Security with a military mission, which doesn't sound like good news to me.

I have no problem with using closed military posts, but I suspect there are not that many available any more.

Peter-- Many of us are capable of multi-tasking. We can concern ourselves with more than one issue at a time, addressing the particular issue being addressed at the moment.

midnight rider said...

Peter -- we're pretty much getting worked up about all of it here. So much so we're not quite sure which way to turn. So it's back to back and shoulder to shoulder. Glad you're with us.

To me merging civilian defense (for lack of a better word) with military is a bad idea. It's inherently dangerous to both parties and from there only a short step to posse comitatus issues.

Once more unto the breach dear friends once more

Anonymous said...

Actually (b)1-3 don't sound too bad. After all, the military is good at training - and doing - rapid response and coordination. And I don't see any real posse comitatus problems. After all, the National Guard is called in all sorts of emergency situations.

No. 4, on the other hand, that "other...needs" stuff. Words like "detention" and "reeducation" kind of drift into consciousness.

midnight rider said...

Eeyore -- I don't see any outright posse comitatus either but rather suggest once something like this is in place it is only a short step from hey we'll take you in here to hey we're the law now. Then young confused American troops fire on young stupid American protestors or rioters and our Constitution begins to go up in flames.

I also don't have a problem with training for rapid response. Understandable. But neither do I think we should be housing civilians on a military base under military control if you will. That just seems to fly in the face of everything the U.S. i supposed to be about.

I don't have a problem with the guard stepping in during emergencies. That's part of their mission. It is not, as far as I know, part of the regular Army's. Too much room for abuse and , as you said yourself, detention and reeducation.

I think there's too much risk for the gain supposedly achieved.