NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31

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Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!olivea!sgigate!sgi!cdp!esterling From: esterling@igc.apc.org (Eric Sterling) Newsgroups: alt.drugs Subject: National Guard & Drug War Expose Message-ID: <1301300231@igc.apc.org> Date: 24 Dec 92 16:33:00 GMT Sender: Notesfile to Usenet Gateway <notes@igc.apc.org> Lines: 288 Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1301300231:000:14457 Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!esterling Dec 24 08:33:00 1992 From "JUSTICIA", the newsletter of Judicial Process Commission, Inc., 121 N. Fitzhugh Street, Rochester, New York 14614 (716) 325- 7727, Clare Regan, Editor From December 1992 issue of JUSTICIA, page 1 NATIONAL GUARD INVOLVEMENT IN THE DRUG WAR by Ed Vaughn "Our Commander-in-Chief has declared war on drugs. Our mission as America's National Guard in this war is clear: make America drug- free in as short a time as possible using any means necessary no matter what the cots." Lt. Gen. John B. Conway, Chief, National Guard Bureau (Spoken at the 1991 National Guard Association Conference) National Guard Goals for the 90's: -Goal #3: A steadily increasing role in the War on Drugs - involving a rapid expansion of National Guard support of local, State and Federal law enforcement agencies in the interdiction and eradication of illegal drugs. (Posted at all National Guard armories and bases) To begin this paper, it is best to answer the question, "Why is the National Guard so involved in the War on Drugs?" The answer to this question goes far beyond the obvious fact that with the end of the Cold War, America's military has needed something to do with all the money and material that our Government supplies it with. The answer lies in legality. As Army Chief of Staff Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan said in a speech to the 1991 National Guard Association: "You (the National Guard) represent us in uniform in ways that the active forces cannot unless central laws are changed. You are part of a Total Army dedicated to protecting our values and our way of life." The "law" that General Sullivan refers to is a law called the Posse Comitatus Act of 1879. This law was designed to protect Americans against abuse by their own military by dictating that federal troops could not enter private land or dwellings, and could not detain or search civilians. The key to the National Guard's involvement in the drug war is the word "federal" contained in the Posse Comitatus law by hiding behind the state missions given it by the National Guard Bureau. The national Guard has, since 1912, had a two-tiered mission to serve both the State and Federal Governments. Under Public Law 100-456 passed by Congress in 1988 authorizing an "enhanced role" in drug interdiction and surveillance by the National Guard, Guardsmen can work under Title 32 of the United States Code in an "Active Duty for Special Work" status. This means that while the soldier's paycheck and other benefits such as medical care and retirement come from the Federal Government, he or she is working for the state governor and is not under federal control. The Guard members involved in counternarcotics operations are therefore not bound by the Posse Comitas Act. Guardsmen in Title 32 status can undertake vehicle searches, searches of buildings, and can enter private property without any sort of search warrant or any other legal permission. The only authorization a Guardsman on Active Duty for Special Work status needs to search anything is the permission of his or her immediate commander, i.e. the officer in charge of the group at the time. (National Guard Regulation 584-3, Section II, page 6) As of this writing, both the National Guard Association and the department of Defense are lobbying Congress to repeal the Posse Comitas Act of 1879. The Act has already been diluted in a major way. It used to be that an individual Guardsman on Active Duty for Special Work status was restricted to 179 days of such duty in a single year. As part of Public Law 100-456, this restriction was lifted, allowing Guardsmen to make a permanent assignment out of drug interdiction. As of today, the average time a drug- interdicting Guard member has been serving on active duty is a whopping two years and eight months, nearly as long as the average Active Army enlistment (National Guard personnel statistics, January 1992). Why are Guardsmen opting to go on active duty? The main reason is money. Ninety percent of the over 7,000 Guard members across the country serving on active duty for drug interdiction were in civilian law enforcement before they went on active duty (National Guard Almanac, 1991). These people were earning an average of $24,000 per year, the average salary of a police officer in the United States (U.S. Dept. of Labor). When a Guard member goes on interdiction duty he or she is paid as if they were at war. Below is an example of the earnings of these soldiers. The rate of pay used is that for an E-4, the most common rank in the Army, one which an enlisted man typically reaches after four years of Guard service and that of a Captain, a rank a Guard officer typically reaches after four years of service. Monthly E-4 Base Pay $ 1250 Basic Quarters Allowance 450 Hazardous Duty Pay 500 Combat Pay 400 Subsistence Pay 300 Total Monthly Pay 2900 Total Yearly Pay 34800 Also, remember that only the base pay is taxable. In other words, out of that $34,800 per year, only $15,000 is subject to any income of Social Security taxes. Also, Guard members on Title 32 duty are eligible for all active duty benefits, including full medical and dental care for the Guardsman and his family, non-contributory 20- year retirement, and exchange and commissary privileges. Higher ranking people, of course, make even more. The average rank of an Army helicopter pilot or leader of a hemp chopping team of 12 soldiers, called a squad, is 0-3, or Captain. When a Guard Captain goes on active duty to spot pot patches from the air or to lead a squad of soldiers on harvesting missions, here's what he or she gets paid by Uncle Sam for the job: (This pay is based on four years' service, average for a Captain.) Monthly O-3 Base Pay $ 2250 Basic Quarters Allowance 500 Hazardous Duty Pay 500 Combat Pay 400 Flight Pay 450 Subsistence Pay 300 Total Monthly Pay 4400 Total Yearly Pay 52800 Only $7,000 of that ius taxable. You can see that there are people that have enormous incentive to keep the War on Drugs going full tilt. Another side of this monetary situation is that of military contractors. These private companies have much to gain from continued escalation in military spending. Everyone from the builders of military helicopters to the manufacturers of infrared night vision equipment have a large stake in the War on Drugs. Let me share with you some of the prices of some major pieces of drug interdiction equipment to illustrate just what sort of financial stake these companies have in the drug war. Cessna Citation interceptor jet $678,000 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter 247,000 UH-43 Apache helicopter 127,000 Litton individual night vision goggles 6,000 Litton aircraft night vision system 247,000 General Motors Wheeled Light Armored Vehicle 785,000 Obviously, these companies, such as Litton Microwave Instruments and General Motors, want the Government to order as many of these items as it can find uses for. (Source for prices: Actual military logistics lists.) National Guard activities in drug interdiction have been steadily increasing since 1983, when the California Guard supported the state's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, or CAMP. CAMP set the precedent for the Guard activities that continue today. As of October 1992, counterdrug Guardsmen on active duty numbered about 7000. As of August 1992, 19,495 National Guard-assisted arrests were made this year, almost three times as many as for the entire of 1991. Also, figures indicate that 529,756 pounds of marijuana were seized by the Guard as of the end of August 1992. The total for the entire year of 1991 was 183,281 pounds. How did the Guard accomplish this marvelous achievement? Simple. Guardsmen have searched 120,000 cars so far in 1992, as opposed to only 45,000 in all of 1991. Also, Guardsmen have entered 1,230 privately owned buildings so far in 1992, compared to only 436 in all of 1991. Guardsmen, as of October 1992, have made 6,537 uninvited intrusions onto private property as opposed to about 2,500 in all of 1991. (Source: Department of Defense statistics.) The number of Guardsmen on drug interdiction active duty during any given month has increased from about 300 in 1988 to the present 7,000. In 1989, the first year that Congress actually earmarked funding for National Guard counterdrug activities, $40 million was budgeted. In Fiscal Year 1992, that budget was $295 million, which amounts to 27 percent of all non-capital Guard spending. For FY 1993, Guard counterdrug budget estimates are running about $420 million. "America is caught up in the most pervasive drug epidemic in history. An epidermic that transcends the health, economy, and general well being of our nation. The rapid growth of this drug scourge has shown that military force must be used to change the attitudes and activities of Americans who are dealing and using drugs. The National Guard is America's legally feasible attitude- change agent." Col. Richard R. Browning, III, Chief, Drug Demand Reduction Section, National Guard Bureau. The following table, taken from the National Guard Almanac, shows the rapid growth of National Guard Activities in Drug interdiction and eradication. Fiscal Year Participating No. of Guard Jurisdictions * Missions 1983 4 4 1984 14 14 1985 20 209 1986 21 222 1987 25 376 1988 32 456 1989 53 1811 1990 54 5155 1991 54 5815 *50 states plus Guam, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and American Samoa According to the National Guard newspaper, "On Guard," sixteen different counterdrug missions have been approved for the Guard, including reconnaissance, ground radar support, vehicle inspection, marijuana detection, marijuana eradication, drug lab detection, film processing, and weapons support. This "weapons support" includes everything from the M16A2 automatic rifles and 9 mm semi- automatic Beretta pistols that individual drug eradicating soldiers are armed with and have authority to use against civilians with a mere word from their commanding officer, to the Hawk missile radar and OV/ID infra-red detection equipment used so often now. The Active Army is also lending large amounts of support to the drug war while barely skirting the bounds of the posse Comitatus Act. In fact, drug interdiction has been adopted as one of the Active Army's major missions for the 1990s. In a publication issued by the Army Chief of Staff in January 1990, the Army's two strategic roles of utmost importance are as follows: - Maintain combat-ready ground forces in the Continental United States for deployment worldwide. -Participate in disaster relief, emergency assistance, interdiction of illegal drug traffic and eradication of domestically produced illegal drugs. In an Active Army publication titled "Tomorrow's Missions," Lt. Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III, the Army Chief of Staff for operations and Plans, asserts that in the Army of the 90's, "military forces are required to provide domestic nation assistance such as internal peacekeeping and anti-drug operations and support of civil authorities to maintain stability in a rapidly changing America.: "We can look forward to the day when our Congress repeals the Posse Comitatus Act and allow the Army to lend its full strength toward making America drug-free." - Stephen M. Duncan, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Spoken at the 1991 conference of the Association of the United States Army) The Active Army is supporting the drug war in a number of indirect ways. The following facts come from "Soldiers" magazine, the taxpayer-financed official magazine of the U.S. Army, distributed monthly to about a million Active and Reserve soldiers and Army Guardsmen and civilians. -The U.S. Army Military Police School at Fort McClellan, Alabama is providing, free of charge, training in advanced police techniques and military aggression tactics to any law enforcement organization or member thereof who requests it due to drug problems in his jurisdiction. In fact, the most often requested course is the Field Tactical Police Operations course, which is designed for law enforcement personnel involved in marijuana eradication programs. Some of the subjects offered in this course include courses in shotgun and submachine gun usage, night drug raids, and land navigation. -A Large Active Army unit based at Headquarters, Forces Command in Fort McPherson, GA arranges drug interdiction logistical and command support for civilian law enforcement agencies. This unit, Joint Task Force Six, is one of three task forces organized to help fight the drug war. These three task forces are manned by a total of 2,600 Active Army personnel and about 400 Army civilians. -The Active Army operates the National Interagency Counterdrug Institute, a school at Camp San Luis Obispo, CA, which is staffed by soldiers who train civilian anti-drug law enforcement personnel in drug eradication and interdiction and also teaches civilian agencies how best to make use of military assets in support of counterdrug operations. The Active Army is able to get under the Posse Comitatus Act in operating this school by staffing it with California Guardsmen and because Camp San Luis Obispo is owned by the Guard. The paper attempts to effectively portray the rapidly escalating role of America's military in the War on Drugs. While it certainly does not cover all that could be possibly covered, the obvious aggression against the American people and the military's ruthless attack on individual freedom in the name of perpetuating their bureaucracy is well documented. Also, this paper is a very effective synopsis of what I know about the Guard's escalating role int he War on Drugs. (Ed Vaughan is a former member of the military who is deeply concerned about the use of the military in the drug war.)