Two More US Military Units Assigned for Homeland Security

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Two More U.S. Military Units Assigned For Homeland Security

 

Northcom to train 4,700 service members for “specialized domestic

operations”

 

Paul Joseph Watson

Prison Planet.com

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Northcom has announced that two more

U.S. military units will be assigned for domestic homeland security

missions, bringing the total number of combat ready service members

operating inside the U.S. to around 4,700, as fears grow about the

increasing militarization of law enforcement.

The announcement follows the

controversy surrounding a September 8

Army Times report (revised on September 30),

which revealed that the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat

Team, fresh from combat duties in Iraq, would be operating inside

America for tasks including “civil unrest and crowd control,” a detail

that was later denied by

Northcom despite the concession that forces would be armed

with both non-lethal and lethal weapons as well as having access to

tanks.

“In the next three years the military

plans to activate and train an estimated 4,700 service members for

specialized domestic operations, according to Air Force Gen. Gene

Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command, which was created in 2002

for homeland defense missions,” reports the Colorado

Independent.

“It’s to help us manage the

consequences of a large-scale event,” said Renuart. “We have one [unit]

now trained and equipped and assigned to the Northern Command. We’ll

grow a second one this calendar year of 2009 and a third one in the

calendar year 2010 so we can provide the nation three sets of

capabilities that could respond to an event of the size of 9/11 or

larger.”

But as Mike German, national security

counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative office in

Washington., D.C., points out, “This isn’t a military police brigade or

a civil affairs brigade. This is actually a combat brigade being

assigned a domestic mission.”

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

“It’s fine for the general to say

that,” said counter-terrorist operations specialist German. “But we

want to know what the policies actually are, what the roles are and

what the regulations are to see whether this is actually complying with

the law.”

The ACLU has filed a Freedom Of

Information Request demanding more information on the purpose and scope

of military assets under Northcom control being deployed domestically.

Despite Northcom’s insistence that

the deployments are purely related to natural disaster and mass

casualty response, the original Army Times report quoted 1st BCT

commander Col. Roger Cloutier as saying that the unit would be trained

in the use of “nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous

individuals” for the purposes of “crowd and traffic control”.

The use of U.S. troops in law

enforcement duties is a complete violation of the Posse Comitatus Act

and the Insurrection Act, which substantially limit the powers of the

federal government to use the military for law enforcement unless under

precise and extreme circumstances.

Section 1385 of the Posse Comitatus Act

states, “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly

authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any

part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to

execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more

than two years, or both.”

Under the John Warner Defense

Authorization Act, signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006, the

law was changed to state, “The President may employ the armed forces to

restore public order in any State of the United States the President

determines hinders the execution of laws or deprives people of a right,

privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and

secured by law or opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the

United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.”

However, these changes were

repealed in their entirety by HR 4986:

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008,

reverting back to the original state of the Insurrection Act of 1807.

Despite this repeal, President Bush attached a signing statement saying

that he did not feel bound by the repeal.

Fears of active duty military assets

being called upon to administer martial law in the aftermath of an

economic collapse or a large scale terrorist attack were heightened after we

revealed the existence of

a FEMA-run program which is training Pastors and other religious

representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their

congregations to “obey the government” in preparation for a declaration

of martial law, property and firearm seizures, and forced relocation.

Debunkers and

“urban myth” websites - such as The Museum of Hoaxes - dismissed the

story as a hoax, yet it was later confirmed in triplicate

by mainstream news reports.