Barack Obama pledged to reduce the US troop presence in Iraq and there are many Americans who voted for him for just that reason. Now there’s another deployment he needs to stop – the US troop deployment within the United States.

According to press accounts, the US military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011. The first 4,700 active duty combat brigade has been ready and available at Fort Stewart Georgia since October.

The Bush Administration says it’s all about helping state and local officials respond to nuclear terrorist attacks and other unnamed domestic threats.

And that’s supposedly why Congress has gone along. Quoted in the Washington Post December 1, an assistant defense secretary, Paul McHale, said that just five years ago, this kind of deployment "would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable" but apparently 9-11 and Katrina have changed all that. Says McHale the realization that civilian authorities may be overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted a fundamental change in military culture.

Now The Pentagon’s calling for three rapid reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. Secretary Robert Gates appears to be all for it.

Civil libertarians are furious. There is such a thing as the Posse Comitatus Act — which prevents the government from using the military as a tool for law enforcement, without express authorization from Congress.

But welcome to the legacy of Bush: under-resource civilian authorities sufficiently — and bingo — the people’s Congress will okay domestic troop deployments.

Didn’t like how police cracked down on demonstrators in St. Paul this summer?
No worries. Next time it’ll be soldiers. Didn’t like domestic spying? Try domestic militarization.

Cause a disturbance this Christmas and it may not just be toy soldiers showing up in your town.

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