Civilian National Security Force: Obama Youth?

Several months ago Senator Barack Obama quietly outlined his intent to establish a “civilian national security force.” His adoring media minimized this and except for a few attentive bloggers it escaped notice. Yet, this is back in the news. Why?

In Obama’s World-Series-delaying infomercial last week, he stated the need to “rebuild the military.” Rebuild?

Senator Barack Obama originally attracted liberal Democrats to support his candidacy by endorsing the Caucus for Priorities. At the time he said:

First, I’ll stop spending $9 billion a month in Iraq. I’m the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning. And as president, I will end it. Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems, and I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary spending. Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop new nuclear weapons. I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material, and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals.

Back in September, having secured the Democratic nomination, Obama appeared to begin shedding some of his long-held positions. Among changes, he now wanted to increase the size the military. As CNN reported, McCain quickly pointed out the flip-flop.

“Sen. Obama told the extreme left what they wanted to hear during the primary, now he’s trying to tell you what he thinks you want to hear,” McCain responded in Missouri. “My friends, you may not always agree with me but you will always know where I stand.”

But not so fast. Maybe Obama’s really talking more literally. He did say “rebuild the military”. Which military? Recall that a short while back on July 2nd, Obama announced:

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” he said Wednesday. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”

First, is he saying that the military is failing? Why else would you not continue to rely upon it for our national security?

And secondly, create a parallel “civilian” military that is “as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded”?

He hasn’t established a need, nor has he been forthcoming on his plans. The comment has been scrubbed from his campaign Web site. As well, the media has covered this up—the video clip exists (above) but I cannot find a single mainstream newspaper that has reported on this.

What is Obama’s Civilian National Security Force? Is it Nazi Brown Shirts? An institutionalized version of ACORN, Public Allies, and some of his cult following? A state version of Saul Alinsky’s disciples?

But, more seriously, as he set out to cut the military, a consistent position until after his July 2nd announcement about creating a “civilian national security force”, does he mean to rebuild the military by creating this parallel Civilian National Security Force?

Charles Lemos writes in NoQuarterUSA on July 20, 2008:

Is he referencing the ATF, FBI, or DEA? Or something new and different say like the Defense of the Revolution Brigades that they have in Cuba and Venezuela where neighbors spy on neighbors? Surely he can’t mean the US Foreign Service and the Peace Corps et al be funded in the billions of dollars. Whatever he is referencing it sounds like a dramatic departure from current practice and current funding. And why did it take the press so long to catch the discrepancy between the speech as delivered and the prepared remarks? Why are the references in the transcript to this deleted or omitted? Should we be worried? He was rather emphatic about it so I doubt that he just got carried away and ad libbed it.

I admit that I do not hang on Obama’s every speech and go through them with the a fine tooth comb but perhaps I should, for the press is not doing its job. It is, apparently, in the business of unadulterated adoration. If he is proposing something new and different, shouldn’t we be asking questions especially since it sounds rather open-ended and, to be frank, worrisome for civil liberties.

Commentors to Lemos’ article asked if this was to be our version of a Republican Guard (Ownaa). Another, Fred C. Dobbs, asks, “Komsomols? Young Pioneers? Spetznatz? Winnie Mandela Football Club? Patrice Lumumba University Marching and Chowder Society? Legion Etrangere?”

Ani next wrote in NoQuarterUSA, Arrogant Thing, You Make Everything…Horrid, on July 22, 2008:

I now understand Senator Obama thinks our military isn’t enough and wants to employ a civilian national security force? Can you say Blackwater? Does this scare anyone else?

Then, RobWarrior shared an example of Obama’s civilian national security force, in NoQuarterUSA, The Case for David Freddoso, on September 20, 2008:

However, [David Freddoso] who wrote a well researched book, made a mistake. He dared to question the chosen one. So when he was scheduled to appear on a Chicago radio show on Monday night, Obama’s minions went to work. The Obama action alert went to the e-mails of his devoted followers and future brown shirt wearing members of his Civilian National Security Force.

Included in the e-mail was the following:

“David Freddoso has made a career off dishonest, extreme hate mongering,” the email claimed. “And WGN apparently thinks this card-carrying member of the right-wing smear machine needs a bigger platform for his lies and smears about Barack Obama — on the public airwaves.”

That’s not just lies, fabrications or embellishments, it’s libel.

Obama’s thugs were instructed to inundate WGN with phone calls, e-mails and anything else to disrupt the Freddoso appearance. Yes, they did the same thing a few weeks ago, when the same show booked Stanley Kurtz, who is one of the few people actually bothering to find out what really happened with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

The show went on and Freddoso made his case. And there wasn’t a hateful word spoken, despite the actions of Obama’s Chicago gangsters. There is not a hate mongering word in Freddoso’s book. Of course, they wouldn’t know that since they haven’t bothered to read it.

Eastan McNeal discussed at NoQuarterUSA in Obama’s Civilian National Security Force in National Horror 101 on September 30, 2008:

It may come to no surprise that a Civilian National Security Force (CNSF) like the one Obama suggests can be and have been proposed or implemented in places like Cuba, the Soviet Union, China, Venezuela, North Korea and East Germany. But we live in what is now considered a country that values individual freedom and freedom of choices.

To make this concept even more disturbing, Obama has also called for greater integration between his CNSF and public schools, so that young Americans are better prepared to be active citizens. He said he would make federal assistance conditional on school districts establishing service programs and setting the goal of 50 hours of service a year for middle and high school students.

“Just as we teach math and writing, arts and athletics, we need to teach young Americans to take citizenship seriously,” he said.

This sounds like coerced patriotism for the lower and middle class. Get out there and volunteer for something, kid, or we’ll have to shut down the library and charge you double for your books. Private schools, like the one Obama’s daughters attend will be inherently exempt, of course. His girls will never be forced to take target practice lessons and patrol the borders of Hyde Park, protecting the locals from moderate low information interlopers who may try to climb the gates for a better look onto how the other half lives. You know – like the One who…. today is running for the right to conscript your kids into his brown shirt urban army.

Soldier4Hillary had a comment about THAT, as did others:

Soldier4Hillary | 2008-09-30 09:20:10 |

I read No Quarter every morning before I leave for my appointments for the day and out of all of the times I have done so this article has affected me the most.

“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

I am done with the Democratic party. Done. That one quote gives the impression that were incompetent. That quote gives the impression that we are all part of the “failed administration of the last 8 years and should be replaced”.

We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set

Is he attempting to state that we have failed to keep out country safe? That we have failed in on our mission? What “national security objectives that have been set where we dropped the ball? This is like a slap in the face. So what happens to us when he gains office now that the Democratic party has basically stated we are no longer needed? We have law enforcement agencies already so what exactly is this “civilian force” that needs to be stronger than our current military and just as strongly funded? No one is going to fight on behalf of us if the Dems win if they are already plotting how to replace us.

I honestly do not know what the future will holds. It used to be worrying about medical treatment and my current medical board I am going through but the more these people talk it seems I may have more to think about.

This plan for a civilian military goes against EVERYTHING I believe in. They need to go and stroll through the halls of Walter Reed and tell them that they see that they haven’t achieved there “national security objectives”. Go to Landstuhl and visit those there and tell them we haven’t achieved our goal. I am disgusted and pissed off. People have sacrificed so many things and not once, not once can Obama open his mouth and say one good goddamn thing we have done. I am tired of reading this type of shit. We volunteer for this. The same way people make the choice to become police officers, firefighters etc etc. I am tired of people looking the other way and letting this shit fly.

Comment by Agust304 | 2008-09-30 23:48:21:

Soldier

You are so right on.

My brother-in-law is an Air Force vet like me. He is republican. My wife is old democrat. My kids are mostly independent in their voting, as am I.

I do not see my choice to reject Obama as anything other than me exercising my right to be a citizen who has an opinion and feelings.

One feeling I have is don’t mess with my kids. One opinion I have is I am not ashamed of my opinion.

Thanks for piping in. I always like your stuff.

Comment by TeakWoodKite | 2008-10-01 00:39:56

What “national security objectives that have been set where we dropped the ball?

That must sting like a slap in the face to all that serve.

What a DumbAss he is, Sargent…

While I normally do not read or quote WorldNetDaily, Joseph Farah has also asked about Obama’s Civilian National Security Force. Writing on July 15th he asks:

What does it mean?

If we’re going to create some kind of national force as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces, isn’t this rather a big deal?

I thought Democrats generally believed the U.S. spent too much on the military. How is it possible their candidate is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, and Air Force put together?

Now, maybe he was misquoted by the Congressional Quarterly and the Chicago Tribune. I guess it’s possible. If so, you would think he would want to set the record straight. Maybe he misspoke. That has certainly happened before. Again, why wouldn’t the rest of my colleagues show some curiosity about such a major and, frankly, bone-chilling proposition?

Are we talking about creating a police state here?

The U.S. Army alone has nearly 500,000 troops. That doesn’t count reserves or National Guard. In 2007, the U.S. Defense budget was $439 billion.

Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that?

If not, why did he say it? What did he mean?

So far, despite our attempts to find out, the Obama campaign is not talking.

….

Who will Obama appoint to administer this new “civilian national security force”? Where will the money come from? Where in the Constitution does he see justification for the federal government creating such a domestic army?

The questions are endless.

Yes, the questions are really endless.

As Obama has not been forthcoming in what he means by his “civilian national security force” and by his call to “rebuild the military” one has to look at several of the people he has hired. WordNetDaily writes in Camp Obama in Who is Jamillah Muhammad:

The list of people that Obama has worked with over the years and now has involved in his campaign does help answer some questions. It also reflects the dark side of Obama’s intent:

Sen. Barack Obama hired Jamillah Muhammad, an early community organizer friend in Chicago, to help train young volunteers in the “ruthless” agitation tactics of the late socialist organizer Saul Alinsky. The training sessions have been held at something called “Camp Obama” inside the campaign’s Chicago headquarters.

As WoldNetDaily explains, Jamillah Muhammad “led anti-military counseling in Chicago during the Gulf war” and her Chicago Coalition of African-American Religious Women sponsored “peace clubs”. Her agenda “dovetails with Obama’s plan to slash military spending and shift national resources to nonmilitary service, creating an army of young community organizers, such as those who work for the radical nonprofit ACORN.

Jamillah Muhammad served “as director of resource and program development for Jesse Jackson’s PUSH for Excellence in Chicago.” She previously “worked with Obama as a community organizer in the housing projects on Chicago’s South Side.”

“We have to support our troops from a different perspective than white people, because our soldiers are going to return home to the same lousy situation they left,” she said. “Patriotism means something all together different for us.”

….

Obama hired his old friend and colleague as a senior trainer at his Camp Obama, which has trained more than 2,000 young campaign volunteers in the techniques of community organization originally popularized by radical Saul Alinsky in order to organize voters and help win the election. Alinsky was a street agitator who sought to “rub raw the sores of discontent” and provoke a socialist revolution in America.

Camp Obama’s director is Jocelyn Woodards, another former Obama colleague who worked with him early last decade at an ACORN subsidiary to help get out the vote during Carol Moseley-Braun’s Senate campaign.

Woodards has taught campers to “be absolutely ruthless” in turning out the vote for Obama.

Obama recently told supporters in Nevada, a hotly contested state, to sharpen their elbows in the final days of the campaign. Confront Republicans, he said, and “get in their faces.”

American Thinker has a useful take on Obama’s civilian national security force. Lee Cary wrote back in July that Obama’s intent is “about turning America into one, giant, community organizer’s sandbox at enormous cost to taxpayers.”

The immediate context for that amazing statement was a preview of parts of his plan to vastly expand community service opportunities for Americans of nearly all ages. He said,

“People of all ages, stations, and skills will be asked to serve.”

Obama Youth? Not if our vote means anything!

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Suggested reading. There really isn’t that much, but if you have a few minutes I suggest you read the several NoQuarter articles I’ve referenced above (Charles Lemos Obama’s Civilian National Security Force, Ani Arrogant Thing, You Make Everything…Horrid, National Horror 101), several by Joseph Farah at WorldNetDaily (Obama on ‘civilian national security force’, Barack Obama’s $439 billion secret, Barack Obama’s $439 billion secret,‘Civilian national security force’ redux, About that ‘civilian national security force’, Who is Jamillah Muhammad?), and the last article, by Lee Cary (Obama’s Civilian National Security Force. Two other views are by Jim Lindgren at The Volokh Conspiracy, Funding Barack Obama’s “civilian national security force.”, and Gateway Pundit, Obama’s Plans For Civilian Security Force Rings Marxist Bell.

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Cross-posted on my blog, The Independent View.