It will be a dark night in Chicago if National Guard arrives

Soldiers from the Illinois Army National Guard were seen patrolling downtown Chicago streets last weekend, just as Illinois Gov. Rod "Gen. Omar Bradley" Blagojevich had offered a few days earlier.

Hundreds of thousands of people witnessed the National Guard squadrons marching on Wacker Drive and stationed onboard ships just off Navy Pier.

Of course, the soldiers armed with combat-style rifles in downtown Chicago had been deployed by a Hollywood casting office and not by the governor or the mayor. The Guard is highly visible while on duty in a number of scenes during the latest hit Batman film "The Dark Knight."

The movie was shot in Chicago, aka Gotham City, last spring and summer. That was before former FBI boss Jody Weis was hired by Mayor Daley to run the embattled, real-life city police department.

Now, after just a short time on the job, Superintendent Weis is being pressured to stop a surge in street crime, gang warfare and juvenile killings. During meetings with the mayor, aldermen and community activists, Weis is being squeezed like some of the mobsters he used to pursue as a G-man. He must feel like his head is in a vice, one of the most efficient procedures of mob enforcers, who tighten the crank until cooperation is achieved or an eyeball or two pops out.

"Violent crime in the city of Chicago is out of control," Gov. Blagojevich said last week in offering to send in the National Guard, or the less-splashy state police. "I'm offering resources of the state to the city to work in a constructive way with Mayor Daley to do everything we can possibly do to help stop the violence," the governor said.

I don't know if Mr. Blagojevich got the National Guard idea from the movie or dreamt it up himself. But while watching the Chicago-esque Batman movie in a packed theater when it debuted here last Friday, you couldn't help but think about what our streets would look like if there was actual, widespread, out-of-control madness and mayhem here.

"Welcome to a world without rules," was the line that adequately summarized the fictional, Gotham City crime and corruption depicted in The Dark Knight.

Gotham was being blown up, set afire, trashed and terrorized from the lake to the West side. While the cellulose city's police superintendent was far more hands-on than Chicago's Weis, he was just as beleaguered.

"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain," said the Gotham prosecuting attorney, in what seems to be a fitting, virtual description of what Weis is about to experience and indeed all of Chicago's superintendents have eventually faced.

Regardless of how long Mr. Weis' occupancy continues at police headquarters, it seems unlikely that either he or Mayor Richard M. Daley will ever allow the National Guard to ride columns of tanks and armored personnel carriers into the Loop.

Not that the Guard is unqualified to perform such an urban march and rescue.

Back to the days when it was a state militia and Abraham Lincoln was a captain, the Illinois Guard has been a successful fighting force through numerous wars and civil disturbances. There are some good Constitutional questions, however, about whether they can or should be used for police work.

Before real consideration is given to using any of the 13,000 Illinois National Guard soldiers or airmen in Chicago, or Guard helicopters overhead, elected officials should remember the definition of soldiers' duties provided by retired Gen. Colin Powell. "A soldier's duty is to kill the enemy," he said.

Recently, guardsmen have been used to patrol the U.S. border with Mexico and on the streets of New Orleans. But the miscast role of the Guard at Kent State University in 1970 hangs over any decision to deploy the National Guard. Four students were killed and nine wounded during anti-Vietnam war protests on the Ohio campus.

In Italy this summer, the government has deployed 2,500 soldiers to patrol city streets in an effort to control crime. While the move has been criticized, although not as vigorously as it would be here, Italy's Defense Minister concludes that "often just seeing a (soldier's) uniform can be sufficient as prevention. I don't see what the problem is."

For now, the general street crime problem in Chicago is less staggering than in Italy. And unlike the Batman movie, we also don't have a sociopath Joker with a fondness for knives running the Outfit here. The city's main hospital has never been blown to bits and a tractor trailer hasn't done a somersault on LaSalle Street during a chase with a superhero.

You are more likely to see Superintendent Weis dismissed than you are seeing helmets and camouflage on State Street.

Because in Chicago, when the mayor hires you as police boss, you are either forced to retire as a hero ... or you live long enough to be fired as the villain.

Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by email at chuckgoudie@gmail.com.