Army Strategist Exposes The Disturbing Parallels Between US Domestic Policing & Military Tactics Abroad

Authored by Major Danny Sjursen via TheNation.com,

This…thing, [the War on Drugs] this ain’t police work... I mean, you call something a war and pretty soon everybody gonna be running around acting like warriors... running around on a damn crusade, storming corners, slapping on cuffs, racking up body counts.… pretty soon, damn near everybody on every corner is your fucking enemy. And soon the neighborhood that you’re supposed to be policing, that’s just occupied territory.”

-—Major “Bunny” Colvin, season three of HBO’s The Wire

I can remember both so well.

2006: my first raid in South Baghdad.

2014: watching on YouTube as a New York police officer asphyxiated - murdered - Eric Garner for allegedly selling loose cigarettes on a Staten Island street corner not five miles from my old apartment. Both events shocked the conscience.

 

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It was 11 years ago next month: My first patrol of the war, and we were still learning the ropes from the army unit we were replacing. Unit swaps are tricky, dangerous times. In Army lexicon, they’re known as “right-seat-left-seat rides.” Picture a car. When you’re learning to drive, you first sit in the passenger seat and observe. Only then do you occupy the driver’s seat. That was Iraq, as units like ours rotated in and out via an annual revolving door of sorts. Officers from incoming units like mine were forced to learn the terrain, identify the key powerbrokers in our assigned area, and sort out the most effective tactics in the two weeks before the experienced officers departed. It was a stressful time.

Those transition weeks consisted of daily patrols led by the officers of the departing unit. My first foray off the FOB (forward operating base) was a night patrol. The platoon I’d tagged along with was going to the house of a suspected Shiite militia leader. (Back then, we were fighting both Shiite rebels of the Mahdi Army and Sunni insurgents.) We drove to the outskirts of Baghdad, surrounded a farmhouse, and knocked on the door. An old woman let us in and a few soldiers quickly fanned out to search every room. Only women—presumably the suspect’s mother and sisters—were home. Through a translator, my counterpart, the other lieutenant, loudly asked the old woman where her son was hiding. Where could we find him? Had he visited the house recently? Predictably, she claimed to be clueless. After the soldiers vigorously searched (“tossed”) a few rooms and found nothing out of the norm, we prepared to leave. At that point, the lieutenant warned the woman that we’d be back—just as had happened several times before—until she turned in her own son.

I returned to the FOB with an uneasy feeling. I couldn’t understand what it was that we had just accomplished. How did hassling these women, storming into their home after dark and making threats, contribute to defeating the Mahdi Army or earning the loyalty and trust of Iraqi civilians? I was, of course, brand new to the war, but the incident felt totally counterproductive. Let’s assume the woman’s son was Mahdi Army to the core. So what? Without long-term surveillance or reliable intelligence placing him at the house, entering the premises that way and making threats could only solidify whatever aversion the family already had to the Army. And what if we had gotten it wrong? What if he was innocent and we’d potentially just helped create a whole new family of insurgents?

Though it wasn’t a thought that crossed my mind for years, those women must have felt like many African-American families living under persistent police pressure in parts of New York, Baltimore, Chicago, or elsewhere in this country. Perhaps that sounds outlandish to more affluent whites, but it’s clear enough that some impoverished communities of color in this country do indeed see the police as their enemy. For most military officers, it was similarly unthinkable that many embattled Iraqis could see all American military personnel in a negative light. But from that first raid on, I knew one thing for sure: We were going to have to adjust our perceptions—and fast. Not, of course, that we did.

Years passed. I came home, stayed in the Army, had a kid, divorced, moved a few more times, remarried, had more kids - my Giants even won two Super Bowls. Suddenly everyone had an iPhone, was on Facebook, or tweeting, or texting rather than calling. Somehow in those blurred years, Iraq-style police brutality and violence - especially against poor blacks - gradually became front-page news. One case, one shaky YouTube video followedanother: Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, and Freddie Gray, just to start a long list. So many of the clips reminded me of enemy propaganda videos from Baghdad or helmet-cam shots recorded by our troopers in combat, except that they came from New York, or Chicago, or San Francisco.

BRUTAL CONNECTIONS

As in Baghdad, so in Baltimore. It’s connected, you see. Scholars, pundits, politicians, most of us in fact like our worlds to remain discretely and comfortably separated. That’s why so few articles, reports, or op-ed columns even think to link police violence at home to our imperial pursuits abroad or the militarization of the policing of urban America to our wars across the Greater Middle East and Africa. I mean, how many profiles of the Black Lives Matter movement even mention America’s 16-year war on terror across huge swaths of the planet? Conversely, can you remember a foreign policy piece that cited Ferguson? I doubt it.

Nonetheless, take a moment to consider the ways in which counterinsurgency abroad and urban policing at home might, in these years, have come to resemble each other and might actually be connected phenomena:

1. The degradations involved: So often, both counterinsurgency and urban policing involve countless routine humiliations of a mostly innocent populace. No matter how we’ve cloaked the terms—“partnering,” “advising,” “assisting,” and so on—the American military has acted like an occupier of Iraq and Afghanistan in these years. Those thousands of ubiquitous post-invasion Army foot and vehicle patrols in both countries tended to highlight the lack of sovereignty of their peoples. Similarly, as long ago as 1966, author James Baldwin recognized that New York City’s ghettoes resembled, in his phrase, “occupied territory.” In that regard, matters have only worsened since. Just ask the black community in Baltimore or for that matter Ferguson, Missouri. It’s hard to deny America’s police are becoming progressively more defiant; just last month St. Louis cops tauntedprotestors by chanting “whose streets? Our streets,” at a gathering crowd. Pardon me, but since when has it been okay for police to rule America’s streets? Aren’t they there to protect and serve us? Something tells me the exceedingly libertarian Founding Fathers would be appalled by such arrogance.

2. The racial and ethnic stereotyping. In Baghdad, many troops called the locals hajis, ragheads, or worse still, sandniggers. There should be no surprise in that. The frustrations involved in occupation duty and the fear of death inherent in counterinsurgency campaigns lead soldiers to stereotype, and sometimes even hate, the populations they’re (doctrinally) supposed to protect. Ordinary Iraqis or Afghans became the enemy, an “other,” worthy only of racial pejoratives and (sometimes) petty cruelties. Sound familiar? Listen to the private conversations of America’s exasperated urban police, or the occasionally public insults they throw at the population they’re paid to “protect.” I, for one, can’t forget the video of an infuriated white officer taunting Ferguson protestors: “Bring it on, you f§ § king animals!” Or how about a white Staten Island cop caught on the phone bragging to his girlfriend about how he’d framed a young black man or, in his words, “fried another nigger.” Dehumanization of the enemy, either at home or abroad, is as old as empire itself.

3. The searches: Searches, searches, and yet more searches. Back in the day in Iraq—I’m speaking of 2006 and 2007—we didn’t exactly need a search warrant to look anywhere we pleased. The Iraqi courts, police, and judicial system were then barely operational. We searched houses, shacks, apartments, and high rises for weapons, explosives, or other “contraband.” No family—guilty or innocent (and they were nearly all innocent)—was safe from the small, daily indignities of a military search. Back here in the , a similar phenomenon rules, as it has since the “war on drugs” era of the 1980s. It’s now routine for police SWAT teams to execute rubber-stamped or “no knock” search warrants on suspected drug dealers’ homes (often only for marijuana stashes) with an aggressiveness most soldiers from our distant wars would applaud. Then there are the millions of random, warrantless, body searches on America’s urban, often minority-laden streets. Take New York, for example, where a discriminatory regime of “stop-and-frisk” tactics terrorized blacks and Hispanics for decades. Millions of (mostly) minority youths were halted and searched by New York police officers who had to cite only such opaque explanations as “furtive movements,” or “fits relevant description”—hardly explicit probable cause—to execute such daily indignities. As numerous studies have shown (and a judicial ruling found), such “stop-and-frisk” procedures were discriminatory and likely unconstitutional.

As in my experience in Iraq, so here on the streets of so many urban neighborhoods of color, anyone, guilty or innocent (mainly innocent) was the target of such operations. And the connections between war abroad and policing at home run ever deeper. Consider that in Springfield, Massachusetts, police anti-gang units learned and applied literal military counterinsurgency doctrine on that city’s streets. In post-9/11 New York City, meanwhile, the NYPD Intelligence Unit practiced religious profilingand implemented military-style surveillance to spy on its Muslim residents. Even America’s stalwart Israeli allies—no strangers to domestic counterinsurgency—have gotten in on the game. That country’s Security Forces have been training American cops, despite their long record of documented human rights abuses. How’s that for coalition warfare and bilateral cooperation?

4. The equipment, the tools of the trade: Who hasn’t noticed in recent years that, thanks in part to a Pentagon program selling weaponry and equipment right off America’s battlefields, the police on our streets look ever less like kindly beat cops and ever more like Robocop or the heavily armed and protected troops of our distant wars? Think of the sheer firepower and armor on the streets of Ferguson in those photos that shocked and discomforted so many Americans. Or how about the aftermath of the tragic Boston Marathon Bombing? Watertown, Massachusetts, surely resembled Army-occupied Baghdad or Kabul at the height of their respective troop “surges,” as the area was locked down under curfew during the search for the bombing suspects.

Here, at least, the connection is undeniable. The military has sold hundreds of millions of dollars in excess weapons and equipment—armored vehicles, rifles, camouflage uniforms, and even drones—to local police departments, resulting in a revolving door of self-perpetuating urban militarism. Does Walla Walla, Washington, really need the very Mine Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) trucks I drove around Kandahar, Afghanistan? And in case you were worried about the ability of Madison, Indiana (pop.: 12,000), to fight off rocket propelled grenades thanks to those spiffy new MRAPs, fear not, President Trump recently overturned Obama-era restrictions on advanced technology transfers to local police. Let me just add, from my own experiences in Baghdad and Kandahar, that it has to be a losing proposition to try to be a friendly beat cop and do community policing from inside an armored vehicle. Even soldiers are taught not to perform counterinsurgency that way (though we ended up doing so all the time).

5. Torture: The use of torture has rarely—except for several years at the CIA—been official policy in these years, but it happened anyway. (See Abu Ghraib, of course.) It often started small as soldier—or police—frustration built and the usual minor torments of the locals morphed into outright abuse. The same process seems underway here in the as well, which was why, as a 34-year old New Yorker, when I first saw the photos at Abu Ghraib, I flashed back to the way, in 1997, the police sodomized Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, in my own hometown. Younger folks might consider the far more recent case in Baltimore of Freddie Gray, brutally and undeservedly handcuffed, his pleas ignored, and then driven in the back of a police van to his death. Furthermore, we now know about two decades worth of systematic torture of more than 100 black men by the Chicagopolice in order to solicit (often false) confessions.

UNWINNABLE WARS: AT HOME AND ABROAD

For nearly five decades, Americans have been mesmerized by the government’s declarations of “war” on crime, drugs, and - more recently - terror.

In the name of these perpetual struggles, apathetic citizens have acquiesced in countless assaults on their liberties. Think warrantless wiretapping, the Patriot Act, and the use of a drone to execute an (admittedly deplorable) American citizen without due process.

The First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments - who needs them anyway? None of these onslaughts against the supposedly sacred Bill of Rights have ended terror attacks, prevented a raging opioid epidemic, staunched Chicago’s recordmurder rate, or thwarted America’s ubiquitous mass shootings, of which the Las Vegas tragedy is only the latest and most horrific example. The wars on drugs, crime, and terror - they’re all unwinnable and tear at the core of American society.

In our apathy, we are all complicit.

Like so much else in our contemporary politics, Americans divide, like clockwork, into opposing camps over police brutality, foreign wars, and America’s original sin: racism. All too often in these debates, arguments aren’t rational but emotional as people feel their way to intractable opinions. It’s become a cultural matter, transcending traditional policy debates. Want to start a sure argument with your dad? Bring up police brutality. I promise you it’s foolproof.

Comments

erkme73 TBT or not TBT Jan 13, 2018 11:24 PM Permalink

Police abuse has nothing to do with race.  The only color police don't beat the shit out of (given the chance) is fellow blue.   That's what gets lost in the BLM movement.  It isn't that they're black... it's that they're not blue.    Take any rich white kid who gets pulled over.  If that kid doesn't immediately identify himself as a cop, and doesn't jump the instant he's told to, he'll get the same tasing, teeth-kicked-in, stomped into the ground treatment as any black or brown person.

 

Cops have a deadly us-vs-them mindset, and your color simply doesn't factor into the equation.

In reply to by TBT or not TBT

MK ULTRA Alpha TBT or not TBT Jan 13, 2018 11:29 PM Permalink

I've seen estimates of nationwide gang members in the millions. These inner cities are loaded with every kind of gang. I guess the author would like us to give the cities over to gangs.

I guess the author would allow those gangs to sell more opiods to kill more people? I was a combat soldier, I'm from a different era, the author has been influenced by communist indoctrination. We should eliminate the threat of gangs, foreign drug cartels, foreign anti-Americans, domestic race terrorist who broadcast their intention of killing off white America.

There are many dynamics to the equation and the author's thesis of lets just give up and die is bull shit.

In reply to by TBT or not TBT

Treason Season resistedliving Jan 14, 2018 5:09 AM Permalink

You know I'm glad you said that because now I can plug a guy I've recently discovered. Brandon O'Connel appears to be the real deal. I strongly recommend his tube channel. Essentially Brandon has been focusing on Israel's highly advanced IT capabilities vis-a-vis military capabilities. He claims Hezbollah is going to get hit by new  weapon systems way beyond anything they've seen yet. In addition of course, he talks about Israeli companies having  a global network of advanced information gathering because they created the systems in the first place and have backdoors on all of it.

 

 

In reply to by resistedliving

PrintCash Jan 13, 2018 11:18 PM Permalink

The war on drugs, just like the war on terrorism, is mostly a make work program for government employees and a windfall to the businesses who know how to bribe.

besnook Jan 13, 2018 11:32 PM Permalink

proles are just inmates in the asylum beaten into compliance with a system rigged against them, yet, they do nothing about it so fuck them.

MuffDiver69 Jan 13, 2018 11:39 PM Permalink

It’s come full circle in Baltimore. The citizens and politicians are now complaining the police have basically vanished under the Consent Decree. Problem is same as military in that they can’t find suitable candidates to fill the hundreds of empty slots. They recently went to turn the heat on in schools and most didn’t work and nobody bothered to use the allocated money to fix them earlier..on and on..There is no going back and it has become third world outside the downtown area around Johns Hopkins and nearby University Maryland Medical Center..The Police,schools , name it are all a symptom of cultural and economic rot ...Story of thousands of towns and cities..

gwar5 Jan 13, 2018 11:39 PM Permalink

The police have some military equipment but I call a little bullshit on tactics I'm seeing on the ground with all the stand down orders given to the cops in Berkeley, Baltimore, Ferguson, and Philly against violent groups Antifa and BLM. 

In Charlottesville, the cops herded the much smaller pro-statue group into the much larger violent Antifa group to encourage violence.

 

Juggernaut x2 gwar5 Jan 13, 2018 11:45 PM Permalink

All by design- an pissed-off, heavily-armed white society that takes matter into their hands is the last thing that TPTB want. It's optics- the govt is like "See what could happen if the cops don't protect you-  the blacks would run wild in the streets"- so they let them run wild in Ferguson and splash it all over the TV. A full-blown race war- how long would that last- maybe a week?

In reply to by gwar5

vonmisesrises Jan 13, 2018 11:46 PM Permalink

Every civilization slowly becomes more repressive after it peaks as politics overtakes economics as the basis of empire and source of prosperity. Since the founding days of the republic America has been owned and run by a powerful oligarchy of men and business interests. A country is like a farm which needs to be managed properly and in order to achieve these ends you are given just enough to survive, reproduce and remain productive so the owners can skim off any excess for themselves and their plans. During this process it is essential you are kept in ignorance so you don't figure out what or whom you are working for and possibly rebel. America was not, is not and never will be run by the people or for the people as civilization doesn't work like this. The current owners and architects of this nation know this as truth. This is what the Illuminati know. Welcome to the club.

Of course the American system has been fairly successful especially since the industrial revolution and it is now often arrogantly assumed that the end of history is upon us as the optimum form of government has been found. However please do remember all successful civilizations in the past have been created and maintained by a minority of the population with coinciding interests. To think America is any way differs from the historical norm is quite simply bullsh*t. Sure during the early days when the Western areas of the nation were virtually empty (bar the Indians) there may have been a sense of freedom, especially if you arrived before the government or big business interests. But they own it now. Get over it.  

Modern American prosperity has not been granted by god or earned by the genetic superiority of its inhabitants but has been managed and created by a powerful oligarchy which has managed to build a globe spanning technological empire of proportions unseen before in history. America is very fortunate to be in a good defensive position globally without any significant enemies bordering us. The vast resources of both labor and land have allowed us to gain global military and economic dominance for the last 70 years. We are merely tools in this process. And you wonder why government keeps the population down - because they own this country and everything in it. Your freedom is an illusion. Pay your interest. Pay your taxes. Shut up. Welcome to the desert of the real.  

WTFUD Jan 13, 2018 11:57 PM Permalink

We need our own Community Snipers, as a deterrent. A leaf out of Kim Jong Un's book. Gotta make it difficult, otherwise the Internment Camps around the country will just grow.

My partner invited a good friend (& kids), recently separated, around over Christmas. As soon as she told me her new boyfriend was a cop i did a disappearing act. 8 hours later on my return home, i found out he'd eaten 3 plates of the mac&cheese i'd made that morning and drank 4 of my cans of Stella Artois, leaving behind some dodgy German beer he'd brought with him.

The cunt at least has some good taste. 

Green2Delta Jan 14, 2018 12:04 AM Permalink

This guy isn't a fast learner. Realized right away it was all bullshit; stayed in until he reached major. Got married, had a kid, divorced, remarried and had more kids. He's either really dumb, a glutton for punishment or both. 

I have a feeling he and I were on the same FOB in Iraq at times that crossed each other. I was there '05-06.

Just about every officer I met I wanted to see die over there. I absolutely hated those motherfuckers. Same goes for sergeant majors. Fuck them too. 

frontierland Jan 14, 2018 12:16 AM Permalink

The infowars-tier media exposed this years ago.

 

What they didn't tell you was the actual !RACIST! reason.

MultiRacial Shit-Holes like the US require a Police State to re-inForce Our Greatest Strength!

An Shrubbery Jan 14, 2018 12:19 AM Permalink

I noticed the author offers no solutions, only criticism and whining.

Should we disband the military and police altogether?

Or just change their uniforms to rainbow colors, and only give them unicorns and lollipops as tools of the trade? 

Please enlighten us further with your masterful insight.