While the narrative promoted at the moment is that President Obama is winding down America’s wars, what is actually happening is that the machinery and war expertise are being shifted from use abroad to use domestically. Never mind the Constitution; police departments all over the country have been transformed into heavily-armed military occupation forces.
…as President Obama ushers in the end of what he called America’s “long season of war,” the former tools of combat — M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more — are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice.
During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.
The equipment has been added to the armories of police departments that already look and act like military units. Police SWAT teams are now deployed tens of thousands of times each year, increasingly for routine jobs. Masked, heavily armed police officers in Louisiana raided a nightclub in 2006 as part of a liquor inspection. In Florida in 2010, officers in SWAT gear and with guns drawn carried out raids on barbershops that mostly led only to charges of “barbering without a license.”
Using military tactics and equipment for ordinary law enforcement used to be associated with totalitarian dictatorships.
What are ordinary citizens supposed to do about such a menace? Who is in charge of these police departments? I mean, we elect mayors and city councils, but the police departments just do whatever they want, and if they want tanks, grenade launchers, and drones, they just seem to get them, and it doesn’t seem to matter who is elected.
Fascinating to see it happening in a free country like the United States. As to why there isn’t more outrage, Americans just don’t seem to appreciate freedom the way they once did.
(It’s probably worth bearing in mind that a lot of recent immigrants come from places where brutal police state tactics are simply a given, so why would anyone expect them to be shocked?)
Comments
3 responses to “Bringing the war home”
No complaints from the right when bush was doing the same to surpress anti war movement like so called free speech zones now you want the left cry when obama uses military power against the right? Its your turn to be on the receiving end of the next kent state! Look what happened in vegas sunday. The police need fire power to deal with tea baggers.
[…] did a recent post on the militarization of the police Bringing the war home. He notes: “Using military tactics and equipment for ordinary law enforcement used to be […]
No complaints from the right when bush was doing the same
You have any link for that cap?
I’d like to see some proof.