Harbinger of Things to Come?

Greenwald, ever the right guy to sniff out something amiss, posts today that last month The Army Times reported "that for 'the first time an active [U.S. Army] unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.' The brigade, the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, has spent most of the last four years fighting a war in Iraq, and will now be assigned on a permanent basis to engage in numerous domestic functions -- including, as the article put it, 'to help with civil unrest and crowd control.'

It should be noted that the Greenwald article links to a transcript of a radio convo he had with the ACLU's Jonathan Hafetz, who works in that group's national security project. Hafetz contends that this deployment differs from previous deployments in the U.S. in that it is a permanent assignment, whereas most others are done on an ad hoc basis, such as when troops were deployed to assist after Hurricane Katrina.

This deployment is also different from deployments of National Guard troops in that the U.S. Army is prohibited by the Constitution from performing civilian law enforcement functions.

Worst of all, there are very few details (naturally) coming out of the Bush administration about this change, which is why the ACLU has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information and documents related to this decision.

Why would an active Army unit, war-trained and combat-hardened from deployments in Iraq, be deployed stateside for "domestic functions?" Is there something that the U.S. government is preparing for? Is there a threat of civil unrest?

I don't want to sound paranoid, but a loss by Obama in this election, given his standing in the polls at this point, given what is likely going on behind the scenes by the RNC to prevent citizens from voting, might create a little unrest, some demonstrations. A loss by McCain might engender the same kind of reaction, but I would say it's more unlikely given the polling.