Military surplus equipment: Good deal or 'shadow armies' in the making?

[unhappycamper]

http://www.tauntongazette.com/article/20140824/NEWS/140828184/1994/NEWS

No longer needed on the battlefield, thousands of pieces of surplus military equipment have made their way to police departments across the country in recent years.

Military surplus equipment: Good deal or 'shadow armies' in the making?

No longer needed on the battlefield, thousands of pieces of surplus military equipment have made their way to police departments across the country in recent years.

The gear includes everything from first aid kits and wrenches to armored vehicles, machine guns and grenade launchers.

Some civil rights groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, have raised concerns over the use of military-grade equipment and tactics in law enforcement. Some lawmakers are also focusing attention on the issue.

“It’s as if shadow armies built up in police departments through the war on drugs and war on terror and have come out into the streets and suppressed First Amendment rights,” Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Project at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said after seeing scenes of heavily armed police clashing with protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.

[merrily]

1. "No longer needed on the battlefield?" Why? Seems as though we are always

"keeping the peace" somewhere or other. Seriously, first aid kits not needed? Wrenches?

Is that really because we got peaceful all of a sudden, or because we order too much and don't want to stop ordering too much?

But, let's assume fo the moment that the military does not need them. Why do local and state police need them?

Supposedly, it's that 911 made us realize suddenly that local police were not equipped to fight terrorists. Tell, me, how could local police have stopped terrorists on 911? Hell, the federal government, military and all, couldn't stop them from hitting the Pentagon.

I think, on 911, the federal government got the bright idea that "national security," esp. "Homeland Security," and "terra" were magic words. That we were so shocked and so frightened by 911, that we would sit still for just about anything we dreamed thought was going to keep "us" safe.

Yeah, I don't think this is about local police fighting terrorists. I think this is about making sure that any uprising by Americans can be quashed before it threatens the rich and/or powerful.

[Demeter]

2. All we need is an uprising taking over that military equipment

and it's goodbye, 1%!

And thanks for all the fish!

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. When climate change balkanizes the country

All of the small warlords are gonna need lots of equipment to control the peons. The government is just prepping things.