That law was enacted in 1942 to shield deployed military personnel from financial stress.
Why then did they not emulate the French and the Germans who deployed military transport?
Several opposition Web sites and exiled leaders said the authorities had deployed military snipers and commandos to suppress the unrest.
Marine snipers, who can drop a target from hundreds of yards away, have also been deployed, military officials said.
Saturday's statements also evoke a possible replay of the period after Mubarak's ouster, when the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces deployed military police to the streets.
He urged me to consider that the government had deployed military personnel to attend to survivors of the tsunami in Tamil areas.
Especially skeptical was the Pentagon, long suspicious of Russian intentions in Syria, since the Kremlin first deployed military forces there to help Mr. Assad a year ago.
The government, which is portraying the protest as an attempt to instigate riots, has deployed military units to the outskirts of the capital, and the riot police are conducting their own rehearsals.
After what was described to me as a "brawl" broke out at one of the gates of MetLife Stadium, in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the gates were shut and the police deployed military hardware to disperse concertgoers.
In the district of Bogra, the government temporarily deployed military units on Sunday after followers of the country's biggest Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, attacked a local police station, the authorities said.
"You've got Bush who's already commander in chief, and has deployed military forces in a successful way, and has proven what he's willing to do," said Bill Dal Col, a Republican political consultant.
