Intro: "The U.S. military has some of the most advanced killing equipment in the world that allows it to invade almost wherever it likes at will. We produce so much military equipment that inventories of military robots, M-16 assault rifles, helicopters, armored vehicles, and grenade launchers eventually start to pile up and it turns out a lot of these weapons are going straight to American police forces to be used against US citizens."
US military tank. (photo: Wikipedia Commons)
Pentagon Offers US Police Full Military Hardware
06 December 11
he U.S. military has some of the most advanced killing equipment in the world that allows it to invade almost wherever it likes at will.
We produce so much military equipment that inventories of military robots, M-16 assault rifles, helicopters, armored vehicles, and grenade launchers eventually start to pile up and it turns out a lot of these weapons are going straight to American police forces to be used against US citizens.
Benjamin Carlson at The Daily reports on a little known endeavor called the "1033 Program" that gave more than $500 million of military gear to U.S. police forces in 2011 alone.
1033 was passed by Congress in 1997 to help law-enforcement fight terrorism and drugs, but despite a 40-year low in violent crime, police are snapping up hardware like never before. While this year's staggering take topped the charts, next year's orders are up 400 percent over the same period.
This upswing coincides with an increasingly military-like style of law enforcement most recently seen in the Occupy Wall Street crackdowns.
Tim Lynch, director of the Cato Institute's project on criminal justice told The Daily, "The trend toward militarization was well under way before 9/11, but it's the federal policy of making surplus military equipment available almost for free that has poured fuel on this fire."
Thanks to it, cops in Cobb County, Ga. - one of the wealthiest and most educated counties in the U.S. - now have an amphibious tank. The sheriff of Richland County, S.C., proudly acquired a machine-gun-equipped armored personnel carrier that he nicknamed "The Peacemaker."
This comes on top of grants from the Department of Homeland Security that enable police departments to buy vehicles such as "BearCats" - 16,000-pound bulletproof trucks equipped with battering rams, gun ports, tear-gas dispensers and radiation detectors. To date, more than 500 of these tank-like vehicles have been sold by Lenco, its Massachusetts-based manufacturer, according to a report in the Orlando Sentinel.
"It's kind of had a corrupting influence on the culture of policing in America," Lynch says. "The dynamic is that you have some officer go to the chief and say, people in the next county have [military hardware], if we don't take it some other city will. Then they acquire the equipment, they create a paramilitary unit, and everything seems fine.
"But then one or two years pass. They say, look we've got this equipment, this training and we haven't been using it. That's where it starts to creep into routine policing."
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Comments
This is nuts!
GOP stands for Greedy One Percent!
NEVER EVER VOTE REPUBLICAN!!
Making Egypt appear more American than us.
Susan my tag line always makes sense, anyone who votes republican is either brainwashed, misinformed, or rich!
And no, I do not vote for Rs and now I no longer blindly vote for Ds. In my opinion anyone who votes for either one is "brainwashed, misinformed or rich".
A third party candidate will only have a positive impact in a presidential race when there are two third party candidates to choose from. Otherwise a more liberal 3rd party candidate will only hand the election to the GOP if that candidate is popular enough.
I am not brainwashed because I believe the country would be in much better shape had Gore been elected over Bush in 2000. There are still very big differences despite the corruption in the Democratic Party. I believe change will have to come first at the grass roots level, in local elections and in Congress.
It is not necessarily a problem being rich but it is a problem voting republican!
Ex.: Michael Moore and Bill Gates.
Please!
of cause being rich but NOT republican
Do you know what "revisionist history" means? It mostly started under the sonny Bush era...along with torture and other anti-democratic events.
You can have your own opinion...but not your own facts!
It was paid for by our taxes.
We pay for the military hardware that will be used against us.
How is that for irony?
It's Us vs. Them!
The effect of this action on the American public?
"It's kind of had a corrupting influence on the culture of policing in America. They say, look we've got this equipment, this training and we haven't been using it. That's where it starts to creep into routine policing."
Our country is sick. Congress is completely worthless. Americans need to petition to repeal the 1033 act or bill or whatever it was.
OUR COUNTRY IS SICK.
No, it began a long time ago...most notably with the election of Reagan.
It's been downhill from there, and for that I mostly blame the fourth estate which has kept us ignorant. The only saving grace today is the "fifth estate" - the internet. If we lose control of that you can KYAG!
BTW, isn't it wierd that you never hear anythin about fixing the voting in this country so 2000 & 2004 never happens again? OWS should put that on their agenda also.
Oh, well. Back to sanity. At least for a minute I got you to think like the right-wingers do all the time.
People get the government they deserve.
The more localized enemy -as anybody who's been paying attention for decades, especially since Bush 11 (the twit) and has seen all this gradual buildup, are the finks, blacklegs and informants (cowards) who work behind the scenes and in the shadows trying to pick holes in any attempts at solidarity and community, like OWS and it's offshoots a.k.a. "divide and conquer".
You can always pick these types out 'cause they won't debate you nor do they really have a stance of their own and are therefor thrown back on right-wing defensive-attack rhetoric or flight, especially the lackeys of "Americans for Prosperity" and such like sweet sounding titles (like, as Kipling said "The smile on the face of the Tiger (about to spring)!
Watch out for these types in your communities.
Otherwise, I stick my middle digit up at drones and military might; it's all a manifestation of the fear-mongers and desperate measures to try and engender collective madness.
Courage, stay together (and start tax protests).
These are coward's weapons!
How many hosueholds have sniper capability....I am not advocating violence...just making a point. 99%
The law wasn't passed under Obama, but under Clinton. Congress was Republican at the time.
Obama had nothing to do with this.
Your police force is one of those local agencies that has an impact on your life, directly and indirectly. It is to them you need to address your concerns; it is to them you need to protest in the strongest of terms. Write and call and set up an appointment to sit down and talk with your local police chief. Ask for justification of such purchases. File suit against purchases of military weapons, against the militarization of the local police department. It is a run-around of the posse comitatus law and a great injustice to foist off on local police the means to suppress free speech and the right of the people to gather together to affect change.
Anyhoo, why are they so blind to this grotesque and dangerous waste of taxpayer funds?
The Milatary is extending itself to the local levels to solidify their power as all military in those countries who have not slashed their budget.Military dictatorships are not new.
Cut the State Department budget so that Hillary will stop her politically motivated support of Israel's desire to subjugate the middle east, because of an idiots rantings.
The US has been a fascist state for a long time in the technical sense that fascism exists when corporations take control of the government. But the US has always avoided the outward appearance of fascism, understanding that the outward trappings of democracy are much better at controlling people. Let people think they are electing governmental officials to represent them. For some reason, the US is now moving over to the outward expression of fascism. We are beginning to look like Latin America in their days of the military dictators. I guess it is clear to the corporate thugs who run the government that they have lost all legitimacy. Now they will turn to brute force to remain in control. They are beginning to show their true natures -- brute force. They've shown it for 100 years in the third world. Now the third world is coming home.
great observation - but it seems that SA - like Brazil the trend to democracy is positive - compared to USA
The military's primary purpose is no longer war. The war was over years ago. Now, they're just policing the colonies.
The police's purpose has stopped being to protect citizens, but rather, to make American voters "the enemy".
It's getting to the point where there's really only two countries left on Earth. One of them is global and includes most of us. The other one is a gated community. The military / police is just trying to keep everyone else from touching the gate.
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