``...NORAD...They are inept. They make huge mistakes...The lesson is taught over and over, that our military is not meant to provide `national security' by to provide for imperial extension...'' Jerry Monaco
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I think that is exactly right. Except I would phrase the purpose to be any offensive action. The parallel with the domestic police forces is similar. They do not prevent crimes, they merely track down perps and otherwise oppress the lower orders of society. In other words their function is offensive, not defensive.
When the two have to work together as in `Homeland Security' or during natural disasters like Katrina, well, it's Keystone Cops time all over again.
I had completely forgotten this insight, which I once had after a particularly bloody anti-draft demo here almost forty years ago. It finally occurred to me these fuckers are just offensive forces of the state. It is pure propaganda that they `prevent' crime or protect anything by the abstract status quo. The most common crimes like burglary and auto theft are usually solved through bureaucratic paper work chases and almost never by the cop on the beat.
CG