you know you don't have a point to stand on when you only manage to dig up one single 80 year old example...

Perhaps you're right and the timing makes the whole thing a bit more sensitive. The needs of your armed forces are still there, though, and I'm guessing that these exercises reflect current training requirements.

I'm not a lawyer, so can you answer for me what this has to do with the third amendment ? Because I don't know what you're talking about either.

From an interview with George Soros:

As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself. “It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States."

From Wealth Wire, includes the link to the full interview.

Wasn't this what all those "secret congressional sessions" were about a few weeks ago? Training troops inside cities? It's probably a way to save money. The average cost of sending one individual through boot camp when I mustered out was upwards of $18K. And that's just "basic training". After that comes training in whatever occupational specialty was selected.

Brilliant defense of your logic there.

In other news of insanity, Serious Sam 2 is coming to Steam.

I don't think it's so much a matter of training the military to battle the US population; if it got to that point thing would already be well out of the government's control, and like you touched on it's likely a significant portion of the military would either refuse to engage the population, or may even side with the people (similar to what happened in Egypt). If there's anything more behind these drills other than just crappy timing then I'd consider it more along the lines of saber rattling directed at portions of the US population. Basically saying "We've been dealing with all you protestors using kid gloves. Keep in mind what kind of force we can actually bring to bear if you really push things."

EDIT: Just came across this interesting bit of history. Seems the US army (tanks and all) were used against peaceful protestors during the Great Depression. I wonder if we'll end up seeing a repeat of history if the Occupy protests get significantly larger.

That raises the question of just why the armed forces would suddenly need such an increased amount of training in urban combat, especially as we're supposedly trying to wind down the current overseas combat operations (unless, of course, we're now planning to invade Iran, which I wouldn't fully rule out). And even if one assumes that the military does need to conduct these kinds of exercises, there's the question of why the particular choice of location- conducting it in one of the largest population centers in the US seems designed to maximize its visibility, not minimize its impact and visibility to the population as one would think would be the more prudent course of action.

I can just see this happening...