There was a terrific, terrifying story published yesterday in the Gray Lady by Matt Apuzzo, "War Gear Flows to Police Departments," detailing the massive militarization of local police forces in the U.S. It is a must-read:
[A]s 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.”With crime declining throughout the country, what excuse is there for a municipality to load up on MRAPs?
Military Equipment for Local Police
As the nation’s wars abroad wind down, many of the military’s surplus tools of combat have ended up in the hands of state and local law enforcement. Totals below are the minimum number of pieces acquired since 2006 in a selection of categories.
MRAPS BY STATE
WA
ME
432
= 1 vehicle
ND
MT
VT
MN
MRAPs
OR.
MA
ID
NY
WI
WY
Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles
MI
CT
NE
IA
NJ
PA
NV
OH
UT
MD
CA
IL
IN
CO
WV
VA
KS
KY
MO
NC
TN
AR
AZ
OK
NM
SC
GA
AL
LA
TX
FL
HI
435
44,900
533
93,763
180,718
Other armored
vehicles
Night vision
pieces
Aircraft
Machine guns
Magazines
The answer supplied by one police officer is that the war overseas can come home:
“You have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build I.E.D.’s and to defeat law enforcement techniques,” Sgt. Dan Downing of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department told the local Fox affiliate, referring to improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs. Sergeant Downing did not return a message seeking comment.And that is how it works. The nation spends a profligate amount in blood and treasure to send its sons and daughters abroad -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa -- to protect the homeland, and lo and behold! We have to arm up, turning our constabulary into Navy SEALs wannabes, to protect our communities from those very same sons and daughters when they come home.
The idea of rogue enlisted men wreaking havoc on Main Street is bullshit, of course. The real reason, though unacknowledged, for all those 100-round M-16 ammunition clips is to have the firepower at hand when the citizenry goes native. Unrest is coming, and it won't be just to a theater near you.
Militarization of the local police is one ominous sign of an impending crackdown. New articulations of a sophisticated police state are another. First, note how the Thai military is managing dissent after its recent coup. The story, "In Thailand, Growing Intolerance for Dissent Drives Many to More Authoritarian Nations," is by Thomas Fuller and it appeared this past Saturday:
The curfew imposed after the coup has been lifted in tourist areas and is loosely enforced from midnight to 4 a.m. in other parts of the country. Of the scores detained in the early days of the coup, most have been freed, including former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
But freedom of expression has been sharply curtailed. Thailand’s cacophonous news media has been partly silenced by the military junta, which closely monitors television news and has released detained journalists only under the condition that they not speak out.
The junta has also banned gatherings of five people or more — a rule that does not apply to its own attempts to manage the public mood, which have included staging performances in Bangkok titled “Return Happiness to the People.” The shows, which feature women dancing and singing in camouflage miniskirts, were organized by specialists in psychological warfare, according to the Thai news media.
Nearly every evening, the military announces on television the names of people summoned for questioning or detention. Democracy advocates, academics and anyone who speaks publicly about politics watch with anxiety to see if their names have been added to the list of more than 350 people already summoned. Those released from detention are forced to sign an agreement that bars them from taking part in “political movements.”
“If I violate these conditions or support political activities, I consent to face legal action immediately and consent to the suspension of my financial transactions,” says the military’s document, which the coup makers posted on their Facebook page. The army has threatened to try dissenters in military courts.Then there is Egypt, another prime example of how to implement a coup (brutal, bloodthirsty ruthlessness adorned with a display of popular support and a patina of constitutional legitimacy). Before handing over the scepter of government to president-elect Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, interim president Adly Mansour, former head of the Supreme Constitutional Court (to which he is returning), issued seven decrees, foremost of which was a new election law. According to David Kirkpatrick, "Egyptian Election Law Helps to Block Opposition":
The election law was the most significant new measure because it appeared designed to produce a compliant legislature instead of to promote political pluralism or a balance of power.
The measure allows election authorities to bar the candidacy of any supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that dominated Egypt’s free elections after the 2011 uprising but has been outlawed. Election authorities can disqualify any candidate who is deemed to support a religiously-based or religiously discriminatory organization — both criteria could apply to the Brotherhood. The law also allows the authorities to exclude candidates who support an organization that has been involved in violence; the government has already decreed the Brotherhood a terrorist group.The GOP is already hard at work at the state level trying to prevent people from voting. The next step is legislation, like that decreed by interim president Mansour on his way out the door, to block certain candidates from running. Already onerous filing requirements are the norm in most parts of the U.S. It is not a stretch to imagine something like what Egypt has popping up here.
What I'm saying is that it would not be prudent to believe it can't happen here.
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