The Army tasks a brigade with a Homeland Security Mission.  Paul Watson – and 190 commentors-  promptly freak the f*** out and get their panties in a collective twist:

Ominously, the report states that, “The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.”

The unit would also be deployed to deal with hostile crowds of Americans in the aftermath of a massive economic depression, potential food riots and race riots, if one defines the term “crowd control” to match its reasonably applicable scenarios.

Calm down before you hurt yourself, please.

Stuff like this happens all the time – you just never notice.  Units get assignments like this like my Aunt Masie loads up on desert. It’s only news because of the novel command and control arrangement.

When you read about a battalion of Marines flying up to Yellowstone to help fight forest fires?  Secondary tasking.  The jarheads who deployed to support the National Guard in LA last time they had a riot?  Secondary tasking.  Those guys were already on call for that stuff and had a modest amount of training for the task.  Sometimes very modest but there you go.

And .. seriously.  So ‘they’ are planning an October Surprise.  What in the world is a brigade combat team going to do?  It’s a battalion of infantry, with guns and air support.  Call if 5,000 guys at the most.

It’s a big country.  If the entire place goes up in flame and smoke, a BCT is going to be a drop of water on a hot grill.

So the Army could send a brigade to take over … Tulsa.  And if they want Tulsa they can have it.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.