Should Looters be shot?

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco warned looters yesterday that National Guard troops are ordered to shoot and kill to end the violence that is rampant in New Orleans.

Announcing the arrival of 300 Arkansas National Guard troops in New Orleans fresh from service in Iraq Blanco said, "these troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded."

"These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will," she said.

A few comments.

1- Gov. Blanco's words are meant to be a warning to deter the looters in Louisiana. This is all well and good. Only one problem as Dr. Steven Taylor points out, the people in the city aren’t getting any outside information. They probably aren't, no electricity means no television, no internet. Admittedly there is word of mouth and the radio, but from the news coverage it looks like the city's inhabitants know little of what is going on outside the area.

2- Is Governor Blanco's order, an appropriate response? James Joyner at OTB writes.

These are desperate times which, I'm told, call for desperate measures. Having the American military shooting suspected looters on sight, however, is an outrageous precedent from which we may not recover.

Indeed, were I still on active duty, I would refuse this order as illegal. Not only does the use of the military for domestic law enforcement rather clearly violate the posse comitatus law but shooting unarmed civilians violates all the ethics of professional soldiering that I learned. It is ironic, too, that we are treating an American city suffering from the worst natural disaster in memory as a hot fire zone while our soldiers fighting in Iraq are under much, much tighter rules of engagement.

My own take is I wouldn't be worried about legal precedent. Anarchy is ruling the city right now, Snipers have shot at rescue convoys, people are being raped. Violence is over runing the city. Jails are uninhabitable. What are we supposed to do with the criminals? Somehow we need to get the message across this behavior is not going to be unpunished.

All that said, you have to look at this from the angle of the troops and policeman. Most of these people have conscience, they will not want to shoot people without it being warranted. Will they want to live the rest of their lives with the fact they shot someone who was stealing?

There are no easy answers. God help the people of Louisiana and Mississippi.