As I was reading around blogs that I like to check I came upon this very interesting and somewhat disturbing article from the Army Times. The article is the one mentioned in the diary title
Army Times: U.S. Army North up and running
This article was distrubing because it talked about the following
"As part of Army transformation, USARNORTH was formed to become the dedicated Army service component command to Northern Command, the unified command responsible for defending the homeland and coordinating defense support of civil authorities."
I thought to myself why does the U.S. Government need an Army service component that does this. Isn't this is what the National Guard is for, to respond to emergencies and things like this. The article also mentions in bulleted list form what this Army branch would do according to their mission.
* Execute homeland defense and defense support of civil authorities missions.
* Provide training and readiness oversight of certified weapons of mass destruction--civil support teams.
* Conduct the Army-to-Army portion of the theater cooperation mission with Canada and Mexico.
* Coordinate the activities of defense coordinating officers and their elements assigned in each Federal Emergency Management Agency region.
* Organize up to two task forces that, with augmentation, can become joint task forces and deploy within the operational area to command and control Department of Defense forces responding to homeland defense or civil support operations.
Not to wear my tinfoil hat too tightly but it seems that it sure would be nice to have a fully equipped regular army command staffed up and ready to quell or "keep the peace" on any thing that might happen. Stuff like this makes me wonder what the Government thinks it is going to do with a force like this.