Coincidence or not, the fact that hundreds of National Guard troops are returning to Wisconsin today fresh from battling insurgents in Iraq is sure to alarm union protesters who labeled Governor Scott Walker’s move to put the Guard on alert last week a “threat” designed to intimidate demonstrators who are currently massed around the Capitol in Madison.

In case of a widespread walkout in response to his “budget repair bill,” Walker told reporters last week that he would use National Guard troops to be “prepared…for whatever the governor, their commander-in-chief, might call for. … I am fully prepared for whatever may happen.”