Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security
Posted by: Joshuah in Police state, Terrorism, tags: Center For Strategic And International Studies, Civil Liberties Groups, civil unrest, Domestic Security, Domestic Threat, Homeland Defense, Nuclear Terrorist Attack, Paul Mchale, posse comitatus, Sept 11 2001, Weapons Of Mass DestructionOne of the outcomes of 9/11 and shows us a gearing up by the US Corporate State for the impending civil unrest, which is apparently slated for 2012 at the latest…
Source: washingtonpost.com
The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.
The long-planned shift in the Defense Department’s role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.
There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military’s role in domestic law enforcement.
But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, dedicating 20,000 troops to domestic response — a nearly sevenfold increase in five years — “would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable,” Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said in remarks last month at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But the realization that civilian authorities may be overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted “a fundamental change in military culture,” he said.
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