Military power being concentrated in El Paso and Southern New Mexico will be "on call" for use against terrorist threats on the nation's Southwest border and local disasters, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of United States Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
Everything from 1st Armored Division soldiers, to a new missile defense unit being created at Fort Bliss, to the F-22 Raptors that are coming to Holloman Air Force Base will be available to defend homeland security, Renuart said Wednesday in an exclusive interview with the El Paso Times.

Renuart, who visited Joint Task Force-North, which is under his command, declined to discuss any details of threats uncovered along the border with Mexico, but he said many agencies, including JTF-North, have made "it a very difficult border for someone to take advantage of."

"It is prudent for us to assume that any of these established trafficking routes, whether it's human trafficking or drugs or arms or money, any of those could be used, and so we want to keep our eyes and ears on all of those to ensure that they are not used in that regard," Renuart said.

Both the F-22 and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile -- designed to destroy short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles as they re-enter Earth's atmosphere -- are recent additions to the nation's arsenal. A THAAD unit is being created at Fort Bliss.

I was really disturbed to see the use not only of mlitary but of contractors when the Katrina disaster happened. And I have heard of the military on the border here, but I thought, apparently mistakenly, it was because Bush had cut the number of border guards and that was to be rectified. I also thought that the Posse Comitatus Act was to prevent use of the mlitary for law enforcement actions. I see I'm wrong, as of 2006 under a Republican Congress.

In early 2006, the 109th Congress passed a controversial bill that grants the President the right to commandeer federal or state National Guard Troops and use them inside the United States. This bill, entitled the John Warner Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (H.R. 5122.ENR), contains a provision (Section 1076) that allows the President to

“...employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to... restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States..., where the President determines that,...domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order; suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy...”

Senator Patrick Leahy and others have condemned Section 1076 because it effectively nullifies the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C. 331-335) and gives the President the legal ability to define under what conditions martial law may be declared.