Paul Joesph Watson - In an interview with Fox 59, a Morgan County, Indiana Police Sergeant
admits that the increasing militarization of domestic police
departments is partly to deal with returning veterans who are now seen
as a homegrown terror threat.
In a chilling story entitled Armed for War: Pentagon surplus gives local police an edge,
we learn how a Mine Resistant Vehicle (MRAP) which was once used during
the occupation of Afghanistan will now be “patrolling the streets of
central Indiana,” according to the report.
Sgt. Dan Downing of the Morgan County Sheriff’s
Department states, “When I first started we really didn’t have the
violence that we see today,” adding, “The weaponry is totally different
now that it was in the beginning of my career, plus, you have a lot of
people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and
knowledge to build IEDs and to defeat law enforcement techniques.”
Downing goes on to relate how citizens approach the
vehicle when it stops at gas stations to express their concerns that the
militarization of police is about arming cops with the tools required
for mass gun confiscation programs.
“We were actually approached when we’d stop to get fuel
by people wanting to know why we needed this…what were we going to use
it for? ‘Are you coming to take our guns away?’” said Downing. “To come
and take away their firearms…that absolutely is not the reason why we go
this vehicle. We got this vehicle because of the need and because of
increased violence that we have been facing over the last few
years….I’ll be the last person to come and take anybody’s guns.”
Indiana seems to be a major trial balloon for the
militarization of law enforcement given that the Indiana National Guard
has also just purchased two military UH-72 Lakota helicopters which
will also be used by local police and the DHS for “homeland security
missions”. Downing’s claim that armored tanks are necessary to deal with
violent crime doesn’t jive with actual statistics which suggest that violent crime is in fact on the decrease.
Downing’s admission that the armored vehicles are partly
about combating the threat posed by returning veterans correlates with
similar rhetoric at the federal level.
An April 2009 DHS intelligence assessment listed returning vets as likely domestic terrorists. Just a month later, the New York Times reported on how Boy Scout Explorers were being trained by the DHS to kill “disgruntled Iraq war veterans” in terrorist drills.
The FBI has also repeatedly characterized returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan as a major domestic terrorist threat.
It seems to have been completely forgotten by police
departments, the media and Americans in general that having
military-style tanks patrol the streets is symbolic of a collapsing
banana republic or an authoritarian Communist state.
Perhaps the main reason why police officers are being
trained that veterans are a major threat is because returning vets are
in a perfect position to recognize that America is beginning to resemble
an occupied country like Afghanistan.
Such warnings have come from people like former Marine Corps Colonel Peter Martino,
who was stationed in Fallujah and trained Iraqi soldiers. Martino went
before a New Hampshire city council meeting last year to assert that the
Department of Homeland Security is working with law enforcement to
build a “domestic army,” because the federal government is afraid of its
own citizens.
Indeed, the city’s Police Chief justified the necessity for the acquisition of an armored ‘Bearcat’ vehicle by citing the “threat” posed by libertarians, sovereign citizen adherents, and Occupy activists in the region.
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