That unit spent 35 months out of the prior 60 months fighting in Iraq, and they are battle-hardened and glad to be home.
But this new assignment is the first-ever permanent allocation of a military unit for a domestic military mission. Technically, the unit reports to NorthCom {U.S. Army Northern Command), but their orders will actually come from the Department of Homeland Security.
Based at Fort Stewart in Georgia, the 3ID-1BCT is already preparing for sudden deployment anywhere inside the U.S.A. to enforce security or manage humanitarian efforts in the event of natural or man-made catastrophe, or maybe to put down any sort of insurrection or civil unrest or mass demonstrations that the federal government wants quelled – especially if such mass protest is triggered by bad-faith actions by that same federal government.
(Civil unrest would normally be addressed by state governors calling out the National Guard. But two problems pertain: the National Guard in many states is depleted from service in Iraq, and not all governors kowtow to the President.)
Why is this option suddenly available?
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was cancelled with passage of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act for 2007, signed into law in October 2006. After much uproar, that reversal of the 1878 law was revoked in the Defense Authorization Act for 2008, but in January 2008 President Bush issued one of his infamous ‘signing statements’ declaring broadly that provisions of the new act might inhibit the authority of the President.
And the assignment of the 3ID-1BCT under Homeland Security is one result.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was put in place to prevent certain excesses of the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era, and in fact the issue has a long history, back as far as the English Civil War (circa 1642).
That act of 1878 prevented the use of federal troops as law enforcement, the use of combat-trained soldiers against the people of this country, as military action per se.
But the Federalist Society and P.N.A.C. and other components of the Corporatist-Fascist conspiracy to revoke the U.S Constitution feel the need for armed troops with loaded weapons as a tool in the implementation of their plan for totalitarian (i.e. ‘unitary executive’) rule of this country.
The Republican Party forced the issue in Congress (with the usual stealth manipulations), and the weak-kneed cowards of the Democratic Party buckled and allowed the present situation.
The new assignment of the Third Infantry Division, First Brigade Combat Team is AS posse comitatus.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has positioned seven U.S. Navy battle groups (major vessels and all their support ships) inside the Strait of Hormuz, i.e. off the coast of Iran. (The prior sentence is not a breach of national security: the Iranians know, and the Russians & Chinese have satellite photos, of course.)
Three of those battle groups are aircraft carrier groups, which can deliver American W.M.D. by air far into the interior of Iran (for example) or just install mini-nuke warheads on Tomahawk missiles and do damage from offshore.
Operation Sitting Duck? The narrowest part of the Strait of Hormuz is twenty-one miles across, which is less than from Catalina Island to San Pedro or Long Beach harbors in California. The seven battle groups will be accomplishing a great thing merely by not bumping into each other, and even more of an accomplishment in managing NOT to ‘accidentally’ violate Iranian territorial waters.
The war-hawks in America get what they want the easy way if Iran sends even a teeny boat to attack or confront the U.S. fleet – but the leaders in Iran are not that stupid.
The present leadership of America is, however, either stupid or incompetent or both, or possibly worse. The massive U.S. military presence off Iran’s coast is a threat to them – intended and perhaps perceived as such – and a happy result for the war-hawks would be any kind of incident where shots are fired.
Accident? Provocation? Who fired first? Black-flag assault on them or us? Any one of these crises will work, and the facts will be left to historians prevented from access to any actual records for ‘national security’ reasons.
The terrible and likely scenario in the coming weeks and months is that a tiny mouse-size event occurs, the war-hawks declare Pearl Harbor III, and that is all it takes to begin World War III and Armageddon and The End of Civilization.
Something happens to the ‘sitting duck’ fleet off the coast of Iran, Dubya or McCain shoots from the hip and uses W.M.D. without authorization from Congress, Congress collapses in a Constitutional crisis, and riots or protests follow.
And waiting in the wings is the 3ID-1BCT, now Homeland Security’s Domestic Assault Force. The President calls them out to ‘restore order’, U.S. citizens die in the streets of America from federal bullets, and the President declares himself dictator per Presidential Directive 51 (still up on the White House website).
And the United States of America ceases to exist as either a democracy or as a republic, but instead metastasizes into the Federalist-Corporatist-Fascist heaven, a dictatorship.
With twenty-trillion dollars in debt, tanks and APCs patrolling the big cities, no jobs, no food, and no Constitution.
Vote carefully on November 4th: Your life and your country are at stake.
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