Toward a Police State

The infamous incident at Waco was an illustration of the fact that the U.S military was being groomed as an enforcement arm of their Uncle in Washington (as opposed to our Father in Heaven). The intervening years have seen a steady erosion of the Posse Comitatus.

A parallel development has been the militarization of local police departments. A study sponsored by the Cato Institute entitled Warrior Cops: The Ominous Growth of Paramilitarism in
American Police Departments (by Diane Cecilia Weber) details both of these developments.

Since its publication in 1999, the sitiuation described in the study has only worsened. Here is a brief statement of the problem:

Over the past 20 years Congress has encouraged the U.S. military to supply intelligence,
equipment, and training to civilian police. That encouragement has spawned a culture of paramilitarismin American law enforcement.

The 1980s and 1990s have seen marked changes in the number of state and local paramilitary
units, in their mission and deployment, and in their tactical armament. According to a recent academic survey, nearly 90 percent of the police departments surveyed in cities with populations over 50,000 had paramilitary units, as did 70 percent of the departments
surveyed in communities with populations under 50,000.

There's a major problem with this:

State and local police departments are increasingly accepting the military as a model
for their behavior and outlook. The sharing of training and technology is producing a shared mindset. The problem is that the mindset of the soldier is simply not appropriate for the civilian
police officer. Police officers confront not an “enemy” but individuals who are protected by
the Bill of Rights. Confusing the police function with the military function can lead to dangerous
and unintended consequences—such as unnecessary shootings and killings.

The paper also exposes the other side of the issue, which is increasing use of the military for law enforcement purposes:

•The U.S. military played a role in the Waco incident. In preparation for
their disastrous 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound, federal
law enforcement agents were trained by Army Special Forces at Fort Hood,
Texas. And Delta Force commanders would later advise Attorney General
Janet Reno to insert gas into the compound to end the 51-day siege. Waco
resulted in the largest number of civilian deaths ever arising from a law
enforcement operation.

•Between 1995 and 1997 the Department of Defense gave police departments 1.2
million pieces of military hardware, including 73 grenade launchers and 112
armored personnel carriers. The Los Angeles Police Department has acquired
600 Army surplus M-16s. Even smalltown police departments are getting into
the act. The seven-officer department in Jasper, Florida, is now equipped with
fully automatic M-16s.2 •In 1996 President Bill Clinton appointed
a military commander, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, to oversee enforcement of the
federal drug laws as the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

•Since the mid-1990s U.S. Special Forces have been going after drug dealers in
foreign countries. According to the U.S. Southern Command, American soldiers
occupy three radar sites in Colombia to help monitor drug flights. And Navy
SEALs have assisted in drug interdiction in the port city of Cap-Haitien,
Haiti.

•The U.S. Marine Corps is now patrolling the Mexican border to keep drugs and
illegal immigrants out of this country. In 1997 a Marine anti-drug patrol shot and
killed 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez as he was tending his family’s herd of goats
on private property. The Justice Department settled a wrongful death
lawsuit with the Hernandez family for $1.9 million.

•In 1998 Indiana National Guard Engineering Units razed 42 crack houses in
and around the city of Gary. The National Guard has also been deployed
in Washington, D.C., to drive drug dealers out of certain locations.

•In 1999 the Pentagon asked President Clinton to appoint a “military leader”
for the continental United States in the event of a terrorist attack on
American soil. The powers that would be wielded by such a military commander
were not made clear.

Did that last point resonate with you? Plans were made for military involvement in civil enforcement two years before the 9/11 attacks. That tragedy provided the occasion to implement the plans. According to the website of the U.S Northern Command:

U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) was established Oct. 1, 2002 to provide command and control of Department of Defense (DoD) homeland defense efforts and to coordinate defense support of civil authorities.(emphasis added)

Doesn't "coordinate defense support of civil authorities" sound so much nicer than "enforce martial law"? Bureaucrat-speak! You have to love it.

It bears repeating that, although the powers that be tout these developments as "anti-terrorist" measures, they also carry within them the potential of becoming instruments of terror in the hands of power-hungry, corruptible, sin laden human beings.