Police arrested several men on suspicion of explosives offences near a US airbase in Britain after a bomb squad examined vehicles on Sunday

British police arrested five men near the US air base at Fairford after a call about three suspicious vehicles heading toward it. Officers responded, took the men into custody on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act and explosive offenses, and set up a 400-meter cordon. Bomb disposal teams from the army examined the vehicles while 85 households in Whelford evacuated to a leisure center as a precaution. The Metropolitan Police and Gloucestershire force described the matter as contained and in early stages of investigation. The Constitution gives Congress power to provide for the common defence under Article I, Section 8, Clause 1. The founders kept a small standing army at home and relied on the militia for domestic threats, as set out in the Militia Acts of 1792. Washington called out the militia in 1794 to put down the Whiskey Rebellion and restore order without a large permanent force. Here the threat came from outside US soil, so the first duty falls on the British government to keep the peace in its own territory under its own laws. US forces at Fairford stayed vigilant and worked with British partners, consistent with the Jay Treaty of 1794 that bound the two nations to peaceful cooperation on border and security matters. The arrests protected American service members without any US domestic law enforcement role. The right to life comes first: government exists to secure the lives of its people so they may live in safety, as the Declaration states when it lists life among the unalienable rights and names that as the reason to form government at all.