Professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment has a post about General Tommy Franks' recent interview (warning: NewsMax) which starts this way:
Friends, the Republic is in real danger. It is not the UN black helicopters that threaten it, but elements of the United States officer corps. That is, if their thinking is in any way exemplified by Tommy Franks. Franks has speculated that in the wake of a major WMD attack, the US will scrap its constitution and adopt a military government. I can't imagine a more fascist, irresponsible thing for him to say.
Cole goes on to make points near and dear to my heart. The officer corp is overwhelmingly Christian conservative Republican, making them view many Americans with contempt. Cole points out that, militarily, terrorism is nothing. We suffered tremendous loss of life in the past without destroying the Constitution. And anyway, the military's performance in Iraq and elsewhere gives no confidence that they would be better than the FBI in preventing terror attacks.
Would the military ever take over the government in the event of, say, a nuclear bomb being detonated in a major city? And would the people acquiesce? I think the greatest danger is in a frightened government asking the military to step in - to restore order, to help with logistics and aiding victims, and to impose a curfew while the FBI goes about its work, looking for more terrorists and more plots. In my view, the greatest danger is that posse comitatus would be either repealed or ignored, and the military becomes an everyday form of government authority for Americans. The public thus habituated, the military then would have real political power. Of course, the tradition of civilian control runs deep in our military. It would take a lot for officers to abandon that tradition. But a nuclear bomb - or the threat of another one - might do it.
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