I the US army fit to protect our homeland, or should we as citizens begin to protect ourselves?

Question

I heard it on NPR (National Public Radio) and was curious to find out what we should do. I think it would be pretty cool to be able to defend our homeland if worst came to worst, thats if it happens.

Answer 1

I am surprised it was on NPR because it is not there position normally. It has always been up to us to protect our self.

Answer 2

that is what the second amendment is for. hello!

Answer 3

Um, the US Army is a collective of US citizens, but yes, if we were ever to be invaded in a way that the army couldn't  handle I think everyone would be trying to protect what they could.

Answer 4

Historically, We have been reluctant to turn the Army on the citizens.  That smacks of dictatorship

Answer 5

My question is: From -what-?  When has our military EVER been used to protect our homeland from an invasion?  Not the Civil War, for sure, that was just between us.  Maybe in 1812 when Brits marched down from Canada to sack Washington, but even that was not really an invasion, an attempt at takeover and occupation, like we have done in Iraq in the last few years.

Our military has always fought overseas.  Not to defend our homeland but our 'interests', however those were seen at the time.  There  have been a few wars you and I would agree were important, and many others where, in retrospect, we can see we shouldn't have gotten involved.

Think for a minute about who our real enemies are, ragtag guerrilla armies, terrorists, international crazies.  Are they going to mount an invasion--storm the shores of California or New Jersey in landing craft?  I sure doubt it.  They might do some terrorism, and we are doing what we can to protect against that, but as we have seen, you can't fight terrorism with a military, it's just the wrong tool.

Think of big countries with big military capabilities, like China or Russia.  Are they going to cross an ocean to invade and occupy the US?  Why would they do that?  They really have nothing to gain by it.  Not to mention that we do more than half the military spending in the whole world--more than the rest of the world combined, and 16 times all the countries that might wish to do us harm COMBINED.

You know how they say 'We are always fighting the last war'?  Well we are worse than that, we are still fighting WWII!

Answer 6

It has always been the case.  It is up to us to defend our homeland.  It is citizens that make up our military.  It is citizens that provide the non-military support to the military.  Also, remember Pearl Harbor?  Our pacific navy was destroyed.  Our west coast was open to attack.  The question was asked as to why Japan did not attack the USA, mount an assault on our country.  The answer was because most US citizens are armed and would fight to protect their homeland.