More Sea Smurfs

Remember the Sea Smurfs?

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Sea Smurfs was the mercifully shorter nickname given to NorthCom's 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, the Consequence Management Response Force, which, as reported in Army Times, is a military unit to be deployed within the US to deal with "homeland scenarios" where among other duties they "may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control".

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Yeah, yeah, I know, the Posse Comitatus Act and all that, but since Bush attached a little note to the repeal of its repeal last year, if you can follow that, to say he does not feel bound by it, we are not greatly reassured.

More smurfs : Reporting on a National Homeland Defense and Security Symposium in Colorado last week, the Colorado Independent newspaper tells us the Sea Smurfs are about to grow by at least two more military units over the next two years, bringing their number to an estimated total of 4,700.
A worried ACLU is busy filing FOI's, while the commander of NorthCommand makes suitably soothing noises: "These are medical personnel, they’re chemical decontamination teams, they’re engineering teams, they’re logistics folks."

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Ok, but they've got tanks and guns too , although a public-affairs officer for Northern Command has stated that "any decision to use weapons would be made at a higher level, perhaps at the secretary-of-defense level".

Army Times previously reported that they'll be using "a non-lethal crowd control package" and "military tactics, including some tested in Iraq" within U.S. borders but has since retracted those statements. Did I mention that these smurfs previously hailed from 15 months in Iraq?

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As we discovered back in February : "Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other's borders during an emergency".

The definition of just what would constitute "an emergency" along the 100 mile deep "Constitution-Free Zone" on the U.S.-Canada border continues to worry me.

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Good little vid on one man's reaction to the Sea Smurfs from ACR.
Cross-posted at Creekside