[Kosh]

Is the for real?

CHP to Conduct Sobriety/Driver’s License Checkpoint

The Morongo office of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) in conjunction with the  San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department and the USMC military police will conduct a joint sobriety/driver license checkpoint on Friday, December 12, 2008, somewhere in the unincorporated/incorporated area of San Bernardino County.

Why are they having marines help with this?

[karajorma]

Cause declaring martial law outright might actually cause controversy and Bush is counting on apathy to grant him a 3rd term.


Seriously though there really should be a damn good reason why they're getting the army to do the police's job  no matter how well intentioned this is.

[NGTM-1R]

It's pretty close to Camp Pendleton, and the (not unreasonable) expectation is a lot of the folks who get busted are going to be Marines. This is not at all unusual.

[Nuclear1]

This is nothing new. Our own post's security forces operate jointly with the local police nearly 24/7, especially during the holidays. It's intended more to scare servicemembers out of doing anything illegal, not Martial Law Lite.

On a lighter note, never mix up the two services. Seriously, go up to a Marine and call him a soldier (part of the Army). See how it goes.

[WMCoolmon]

That page doesn't completely account for other legal factors. See the page on Wikipedia on Posse Comitatus for more details, specifically, the assertion that the Posse Comitatus act that the article refers to does not apply to the Marines (Reading the text of the law, which was actually linked to in the blog, that appears to be a correct assertion). The page on Wikipedia mentions that a directive from the Department of Defense restricts the Marines from acting as police, but doesn't go into details as to what sort of exceptions might apply.

As for whether or not it's right, practically speaking, nuclear1's explanation makes a lot of sense as far as keeping the peace goes. A car full of drunk marines are a lot more likely to be able to cause trouble than a car full of drunk civilians.

If Bush's master plan for world domination is to do us all a favor by locking up drunk drivers, well, I can't say that I have many complaints. At least for this stage, anyway.

[Kosh]

This is nothing new. Our own post's security forces operate jointly with the local police nearly 24/7, especially during the holidays. It's intended more to scare servicemembers out of doing anything illegal, not Martial Law Lite.

On a lighter note, never mix up the two services. Seriously, go up to a Marine and call him a soldier (part of the Army). See how it goes.

Funny because in my 20 years of living in the US I never saw a marine at any sort of check point anywhere outside of military property.

[NGTM-1R]

Funny because in my 20 years of living in the US I never saw a marine at any sort of check point anywhere outside of military property.

And just how often were you driving down roads that lead to or away from military bases?

[Mars]

There are people from all branches of the military all over the Denver Metro Area, IDK why we have Army and Marines - we're not next to any borders or seas, but w/e. Colorado is the hub of NORAD, but that can't be the only reason. I guess they recruit a lot of people here.

[Fearless Leader]

In trouble areas around my post the MP's patroll with the cops, the cops pick up the locals, and the MP's break up drunken soldiers. It is better that way. Because a drunk soldier has more respect for another soldier than for a cop, and no MP is going to rough up drunken soldiers to teach them some kind of lesson