Who helped Militarized the Police? The Pentagon

[Ichingcarpenter]

The Pentagon gave nearly half a billion dollars of military gear to local law enforcement last year



One of the ways police departments have armed themselves in recent years is through the Defense Department's excess property program, known as the 1033 Program. It "permits the Secretary of Defense to transfer, without charge, excess U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) personal property (supplies and equipment) to state and local law enforcement agencies (LEAs)," according to the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center.

The 1033 program has transferred more than $4.3 billion in equipment since its inception in 1997. In 2013 alone it gave nearly half a billion dollars worth of military equipment to local law enforcement agencies, according to the program's website.

The program provides things like office equipment, tents, generators, pick-up trucks and ATVs, according to a PowerPoint presentation on its website. But law enforcement agencies can also use it to obtain military aircraft, weapons (including grenade launchers), and heavily armored tactical vehicles. You can see an example of one of these vehicles below, pictured in Ferguson (although it's unclear if local law enforcement there received the vehicle through the DOD program).


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/14/the-pentagon-gave-nearly-half-a-billion-dollars-of-military-gear-to-local-law-enforcement-last-year/


Who trains them in tactics?

Report: Israeli model underlies militarization of U.S. police
By Muriel Kane
Sunday, December 4, 2011



The extreme militarization of American police forces has been brought to public attention by the tactics employed against Occupy protesters, which often appear more appropriate to counter-terrorism operations than to the control of non-violent protest. According to investigative journalist Max Blumenthal, however, the proper term for this ruthless suppression of dissent should be “Israelification.”

In an article which begins with examples of American police training alongside Israeli security forces, Blumenthal writes, “Having been schooled in Israeli tactics perfected during a 63 year experience of controlling, dispossessing, and occupying an indigenous population, local police forces have adapted them to monitor Muslim and immigrant neighborhoods in US cities. Meanwhile, former Israeli military officers have been hired to spearhead security operations at American airports and suburban shopping malls, leading to a wave of disturbing incidents of racial profiling, intimidation, and FBI interrogations of innocent, unsuspecting people. The New York Police Department’s disclosure that it deployed ‘counter-terror’ measures against Occupy protesters encamped in downtown Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park is just the latest example of the so-called War on Terror creeping into every day life. Revelations like these have raised serious questions about the extent to which Israeli-inspired tactics are being used to suppress the Occupy movement.”

According to Blumenthal, the transformation began after September 11, when American law enforcement officers began to look to the Israelis for counter-terrorism expertise and in response the Israel Lobby “provid[ed] thousands of top cops with all-expenses paid trips to Israel and stateside training sessions with Israeli military and intelligence officials.”

Many of these trips and training sessions were arranged by JINSA, the stridently pro-Israel organization whose advisors have included such prominent Neocons as Douglas Feith and Richard Perle.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/04/report-israeli-model-underlies-militarization-of-u-s-police/


Or No training at all



When the ACLU asked officials in the town of Farmington, Missouri (less than a 90 minute drive from Ferguson) to provide a copy of training materials for its Special Response Team, which is roughly like a SWAT team, the town sent only a copy of a single article. The article warned that "preparations for attacks on American schools that will bring rivers of blood and staggering body counts are well underway in Islamic training camps," and went on to say that "because of our laws we can't depend on the military to help us ... By law, you the police officer are our Delta Force."

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/14/6003239/police-militarization-in-ferguson


The department of Defense is
really where we need to start
asking the questions that need to be asked........


Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown

Social science is being militarised to develop 'operational tools' to target peaceful activists and protest movements

A US Department of Defense (DoD) research programme is funding universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world, under the supervision of various US military agencies. The multi-million dollar programme is designed to develop immediate and long-term "warfighter-relevant insights" for senior officials and decision makers in "the defense policy community," and to inform policy implemented by "combatant commands."

Launched in 2008 – the year of the global banking crisis – the DoD 'Minerva Research Initiative' partners with universities "to improve DoD's basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the US."

Among the projects awarded for the period 2014-2017 is a Cornell University-led study managed by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research which aims to develop an empirical model "of the dynamics of social movement mobilisation and contagions." The project will determine "the critical mass (tipping point)" of social contagians by studying their "digital traces" in the cases of "the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the 2011 Russian Duma elections, the 2012 Nigerian fuel subsidy crisis and the 2013 Gazi park protests in Turkey."

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jun/12/pentagon-mass-civil-breakdown

[littlemissmartypants]

1. Very interesting...

Thank you for your interesting and informative post.
Love, Peace and the Righteous Fight.
~ Lmsp

[littlemissmartypants]

2. You should cross post in Good Reads. eom

[countryjake]

3. Here's Blumenthal's original article on that training...

http://mondoweiss.net/2011/12/from-occupation-to-occupy-the-israelification-of-american-domestic-decurity.html


Thanks for a great thread, Iching!

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. Events don't happen out of Pentagon just by

Aleatory


and frankly they are the governmental entity that Eisenhower warned us about.

Nevermind the $3trillion that Rumsfeld said was missing the day before the very agency in the Pentagon that was investigating it was destroyed the next day on 911


Now each of these questions and topics I choose in this OP can be expanded upon but the pieces do fit a symptom of nefarious behavior.

[countryjake]

5. Those "social contagions" will spread fast once climate-change...

hits critical mass, so all of their MRAPs will come in mighty handy to control us. With our West coast burning, I noted that coincidence last week when I read that a small town in our area got one hell of a deal on one of those monsters.

People who attend should be on the lookout for guys with suits and sunglasses. Yzaguirre said the FBI and ATF agreed to take part this year. “I’m not sure what that looks like, but I’m excited to have more agencies participate,” Yzaguirre said.

Attendees should also expect to see some giddy cops who are proud of their new behemoth.

The price tag on the MRAP vehicle says $733,000, but Green said the police department only paid the $8,000 shipping fee to get the state-of-the-art vehicle.

Officer Jim Hoagland took the chief and a News-Times reporter for a spin in the vehicle around the city shop this week. It was a remarkably comfortable ride. Hoagland said it handled well for being such a beast.

http://www.whidbeynewstimes.com/news/269613431.html

[Lee-Lee]

6. I am very familiar with the 1033 program and the other DOD ones

Having worked in logistics for the Army for years before I became a deputy of course I ended up managing it.

When not abused, it can be a big help to an agency struggling.

We never got armor or weapons. I did get my department hundreds of cots and blankets for use in shelters, some Chevrolet 4wd trucks and blazers to use when the weather got bad, and a bunch of other stuff like that. Even got us a bunch of desks for the deputies, as for a long time in the patrol room we just had to rickety tables to write reports one.

The most "tactical" thing I ever got us was some night vision.

But lots of departments get stupid. One not far from us got an M113 armored personnel carrier- they played with it a bunch for a few months, it broke, then it sat broken for years because they didn't have the money to buy parts or anyone trained to fix it.

The same donation programs are also available for nonprofits of almost any type, including soup kitchens, homeless shelters and suck- and also any other government agency including schools and such. It actually has a very good side when not abused.