The militarization of America

[99th_Monkey]

The militarization of America
By Bill van Auken * OpEdNews * 7/26/2013

This week's deployment of Blackhawk helicopters in Chicago is only the latest in a series of "urban warfare training" exercises that have become a familiar feature of American life.

As elsewhere, this exercise was sprung unannounced on a startled civilian population. Conducted in secrecy, apparently with the collusion of local police agencies and elected officials, Democrats and Republicans alike, the ostensible purpose of these exercises is to give US troops experience in what Pentagon doctrine refers to as "Military Operations on Urban Terrain."



Such operations are unquestionably of central importance to the US military. Over the past decade, its primary mission, as evidenced in Afghanistan and Iraq, has been the invasion and occupation of relatively powerless countries and the subjugation of their resisting populations, often in house-to-house fighting in urban centers.

The Army operates a 1,000-acre Urban Training Center in south-central Indiana that boasts over 1,500 "training structures" designed to simulate houses, schools, hospitals and factories. The center's web site states that it "can be tailored to replicate both foreign and domestic scenarios."

What does flying Blackhawks low over Chicago apartment buildings or rolling armored military convoys through the streets of St. Louis accomplish that cannot be achieved through the sprawling training center's simulations? Last year alone, there were at least seven such exercises, including in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Tampa, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Creeds, Virginia.

The most obvious answer is that these exercises accustom troops to operating in US cities, while desensitizing the American people to the domestic deployment of US military might.

Preparations for such deployments are already far advanced. Over the past decade, under the pretext of prosecuting a "global war on terror," Washington has enacted a raft of repressive legislation and created a vast new bureaucracy of state control under the Department of Homeland Security. Under the Obama administration, the White House has claimed the power to throw enemies of the state into indefinite military detention or even assassinate them on US soil by means of drone strikes, while radically expanding electronic spying on the American population.

Part of this process has been the ceaseless growth of the power of the US military and its increasing intervention into domestic affairs. In 2002, the creation of the US Northern Command for the first time dedicated a military command to operations within the US itself.

Just last May, the Pentagon announced the implementation of new rules of engagement for US military forces operating on American soil to provide "support" to "civilian law enforcement authorities, including responses to civil disturbances."

The document declares sweeping and unprecedented military powers under a section entitled "Emergency Authority." It asserts the authority of a "federal military commander" in "extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the president is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances." In other words, the Pentagon brass claims the unilateral authority to impose martial law.

These powers are not being asserted for the purpose of defending the US population against terrorism or to counter some hypothetical emergency. The US military command is quite conscious of where the danger lies.

In a recent article, a senior instructor at the Fort Leavenworth Command and General Staff College and former director of the Army's School of Advanced Military Studies laid out a telling scenario for a situation in which the military could intervene...

"The Great Recession of the early twenty-first century lasts far longer than anyone anticipated. After a change in control of the White House and Congress in 2012, the governing party cuts off all funding that had been dedicated to boosting the economy or toward relief. The United States economy has flatlined, much like Japan's in the 1990s, for the better part of a decade. By 2016, the economy shows signs of reawakening, but the middle and lower-middle classes have yet to experience much in the way of job growth or pay raises. Unemployment continues to hover perilously close to double digits..."

In other words, the Pentagon sees these conditions -- which differ little from what exists in the US today -- producing social upheavals that can be quelled only by means of military force.

What is being upended, behind the scenes and with virtually no media coverage, much less public debate, are constitutional principles dating back centuries that bar the use of the military in civilian law enforcement. In the Declaration of Independence itself, the indictment justifying revolution against King George included the charge that he had "affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power."

Side by side with the rising domestic power of the military, the supposedly civilian police have been militarized. An article published by the Wall Street Journal last weekend entitled "The Rise of the Warrior Cop" graphically described this process:

"Driven by martial rhetoric and the availability of military-style equipment -- from bayonets and M-16 rifles to armored personnel carriers -- American police forces have often adopted a mind-set previously reserved for the battlefield. The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the US scene: the warrior cop -- armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties."

The article describes the vast proliferation of SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) units to virtually every town in America, fueled by some $35 billion in grants from the Department of Homeland Security, "with much of the money going to purchase military gear such as armored personnel carriers."

More: http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-militarization-of-Amer-by-Bill-van-Auken-130726-22.html

[newfie11]

1. Kick for later

[Egalitarian Thug]

2. It can't happen here.

After it does, we will be assured that this is the way it has always been.

[99th_Monkey]

4. Posse Comitatus <--gone tits up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

[bbgrunt]

3. k and r

[KT2000]

5. happened where I live

Last week - In the next town over, Port Angeles, population 17,000, the Blackhawks circled neighborhoods for a few hours around midnight. They directed lights into back yards. They came from Joint Base Lewis McChord without any warning to local authorities so when the calls came in from the citizens, no one knew what was going on. JBLM commander said they would inform law enforcement next time.

A couple weeks before that three of us were standing on a bluff on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, between Canada and the US, watching an eagle fledgling in her nest when a Blackhawk going up and down the shoreline came back and circled above us several times.

We already have 50 Border Patrol agents with nothing to do and a brand new $3 million jail built for their needs. They also have just about every toy you could think of to do nothing.
So far they have taken into custody a legal citizen and apprehended a man who has been here 16 years - he was selling his home grown vegetables at the farmer's market. They also chased man they suspected of being "illegal" through the forest where he eventually ran into a river and drown.

One BP agent got in trouble for trying to choke his supervisor during a staff meeting.

Yeah - America...............

[99th_Monkey]

6. damn!

I've always thought of Port Angeles as a sleepy little berg.

Who knew there "might" be a terrorist lurking in your back yard?
;sarcasm:

[JEB]

7. Big scam to get all those tax dollars

into private hands.

[L0oniX]

8. Cops and the patriotic enlisties we praise will kill us. I expect it will eventually happen.

Maybe someone can explain to me how and or why it is now legal for US military to fight and or harm the US people who may be demonstrating and or protesting against government actions and or inactions ...and violations of the principles laid out in the Constitution. Who has the authority without the consent of of the majority to change the interpretation of the Constitution? Don't tell ma all about the SCOTUS that I did NOT vote for. IMO all 3 branches are to represent the majority of the US people and if they don't then they should be forcibly removed from office since they have clearly violated the principles laid out in our Constitution to which they swore a moral oath to uphold. I submit that only the majority of the represented US people have the real authority to change the Constitution through elected representatives when those said representative actually do represent the will of the majority of the US people. While they do represent a majority of the voters who voted for them those said voters are not the all inclusive population of the majority to which they are to represent. So in actuality they do not represent the majority if they should pass any bill or amendment that clearly does not represent the majority of the voting and non voting people of the USA. You want an example? Most recent is the national gun background check. There was and still is a majority of the US people who want this and our facade of representatives would not follow the will of the majority. If they do not represent the majority then they have no right to govern over us. They were elected to serve our interests, not corporate or military interests. They don't represent us and they will not really represent us unless the money is removed from their cold dead hearts! You want to see a militarized US ...just try and stop the 1%!

[99th_Monkey]

9. The 1% showed their fangs at Occupy Wall St.

but just you wait until that Iron Fist comes ALL the way out of
its Velvet Glove: all shit's going to break loose.