The ongoing war on the American People by John Whitehead

From Global Research, a very insightful analysis.

www.globalresearch.ca...

The militarization of police in the US has brought bad things for society.

Any thoughts?

a reply to: Salander

My thoughts? Glad ya asked.

I don't click links from my phone and have no clue what your thread is about.

a reply to: Salander

Any thoughts? Yes and yes.

While I respect our military, I am wary and jaded by our government that ceaselessly send us into war.

I know it ain’t popular, but as I’ve said before, America closes a fraction of our global bases and watch healthcare and education, infrastructure and job-building take place at home

Keep on rockin in the free world I guess?

But yeah, you need to work on your OP skills and not just leave links. This ain’t the Insta crowd....

a reply to: Salander

Whereas I totally agree that some of these "isolated" incidents are tragic, one of them the father of 5 in California, was not just an illegal alien, he is also a wanted man in Mexico...for murder.

Again, tragedies do occur, but without a capable police force an insane amount of crime on a vastly more horrific level would take place.

a reply to: slatesteam

psst its about the police, not the military

originally posted by: Salander
From Global Research, a very insightful analysis.

www.globalresearch.ca...

The militarization of police in the US has brought bad things for society.

Any thoughts?

Yes, why has the government allowed smuggler gangs to get "militarized" ?

The criminals are killing more than the police.

The smugglers in the US has brought bad things for society right?

💥💥✅💥💥

a reply to: xuenchen

yep, rape murder and slavery,vparticularly females right here in the "fly-over" US of A

originally posted by: KawRider9
a reply to: Salander

My thoughts? Glad ya asked.

I don't click links from my phone and have no clue what your thread is about.

Sorry about that. I guess you phone doesn't show thread titles either?

The full title of the article is "Battlefield America: The ongoing War on the American People"

It is an article about the growing gulf between law enforcement and citizenry, the vastly expanding practice of "Us versus them" mentality that pervades so much of the police and citizenry dynamic these days, both ways.

a reply to: Salander

Deep, deep down under the layers of hyperbole and the carefully selected extreme examples of excessive police force, there's a writer who doesn't like the police.

For all the appalling examples of brutality they're outnumbered by the good done by the police. The implication of the article is there are no good LEOs and they all operate as one boot stomping on the neck of citizens and the Constitution. He doesn't offer a glimmer of balance in his argument which, for me, undermines a healthy topic for debate.

a reply to: xuenchen

Once the militarization phenomenon starts, both sides participate. The police treating the citizens like criminals, the assumption of criminality that is so much a part of police work, demands a price be paid.

I think it's gone way overboard in the last few years, and so I, for example, no longer support FOP and other police efforts to contribute to their causes.


With so many police officers today being former military in the war on terror, military tactics and behavior reflect a "take no prisoners" attitude.

That's my take anyway.

a reply to: Kandinsky


What balance would YOU apply to police tazing an 87 year old woman trimming flowers?

What greater good is served by arresting a man and taking him away from his wife going into labor, leaving her alone at that time?

What justice was served by killing an unarmed man attempting to turn in a stray dog? How does that work, anyway?

Would a debate on those issues be healthy, or is it best to just pretend it didn't happen and that the "offenders" were in the wrong?

Can you imagine how citizens would respect police officers acting in that manner?

Cherry picking those events is completely dishonest to use when talking about law enforcement as a whole.

There are over 12,000 police dept's in the US and something like 800,000 officers. Real cases of abuses by officers are very rare and many of those are just misrepresented by Cop haters. It's a shame that less than honest people like to make it seem otherwise and even more shameful that those outside the US are led to believe it's actually true.

its illegal to use the military aganst citizens

but legal to take ex military vets give them military hardware and use them aganst citizens

maby its just me but it seems like its the same thing with extra steps

a reply to: Salander

Rhetorical questions. You're using the same style of debate as the author of the article. I read the whole thing from top to bottom and didn't notice any suggestions or solutions from the author. Then I had a browse of the site and didn't see more than police criticism and allusions to the Constitution.

It's your OP (what there was of it) so you should be offering ideas rather than lobbing rhetorical questions in my direction.

a reply to: BlueJacket

The police have global bases??

I see the title, and MY point is, if we are talking war on the US public, our stance politically, both foreign AND Domestic is one of aggressive and hostile policies.

Again my point about closing bases, would ease the strife at home. Or did you miss that?

And now my turn to eat crow, my apologies. I was responding to the title alone since our OP failed to do his poster duty and fill us in.

a reply to: slatesteam

Listen, Im not here to be angry with people, just trying to point out critical points.

a reply to: Salander

The thing is, that the war on the American people is not just about the police, or the armed forces. The war on the American people, begins and ends with the American government, and the parts of it that you are not allowed to know enough about, to protect yourself from. Its the same way here in Britain.

We in the west like to tell other countries and regions how to run their affairs, because it makes our leaders look noble and decent in comparison. What they never admit openly, and refuse to comment on in the slightest way, is that it is western nations trading arms with nations in conflict zones, and western intelligence agencies making money from drug profits and smuggling routes, for their black project funds, that puts the people and their liberty and freedom in the greatest danger.

Our governments operate proxy armies in the form of the religious fundamentalist terror groups, and narco-cartels, and have been for decades, a point which is made and ignored every time it comes up, because, like any problem worth solving, its simply too complicated for most people to want to deal with. People want scapegoats and easy, quick fixes. The people who believe a hardened border with Mexico will stop drugs and guns from being massive problems in the states, that the hard border will stop illegal immigration, that it will cut the power to the gangs dealing narcotics in America, are fooling themselves because its easier to accept a comforting falsehood, than entertain a harrowing reality.

The reality is that the US government is responsible for the problems in America, and only changes in its structure, behaviour and power to affect the lives of citizens, will ever solve the issues inherent in life in that country. For a start, Americas government needs to purge its intelligence agencies, of all parties who are in any small way responsible for liaising with "assets" south of the Mexico/US border, because it is these agents and their masters, who organise the safe passage of drugs and guns, human cargo for trafficking purposes, and the like. They also need to purge the people who have been running the proxy war in the Middle East and North Africa, who were in control of assets like Osama Bin Laden until his apparent death, and indeed the current iteration of the fundamentalist proxy army, ISIS as well as others.

We know full well by this point, that the wars in the Middle East were about PROFIT not justice, not righteousness, or wanting to do the right thing. That is simply a fact, one which cannot be avoided without deliberate attempts on the part of individuals, to ignore the overwhelming evidence which has built up over the years. We know also that the American government has a decades old history of powerbrokering south of the US/Mexico border, a history which includes its own agents being directly responsible for assassinations of leaders, bombing of aircraft, and the setting up of narco-terror groups which, to this day, are operating in a manner which undermines any socialist or even slightly less capitalist nation that they are pointed at by the US government. Between that, and the economic hitmen whose operations are designed to undermine the economies of nations which do not toe the line that America likes to scribe in the dirt at its feet, there is no place to lay blame for ANY of the effects of what goes on south of the border, other than the government of the United States, and the offices of its intelligence agencies.

The war on the American people is directed by the same forces. They want their military spending to be obscene, but ineffectual, so that despite all the money spent, there are still supply and demand problems when it comes to procurement, still staffing issues in key areas, still trouble with getting enough ships on the water and planes in the air, so that next budget season, the military can bleat to the executive branch about how poor it is. You note, that in a similar fashion to the PARLOUS state of the American healthcare system, from an outcomes perspective, an awful lot of money goes in, for relatively little quality of product coming out. Sure, certain parts of those systems work really well, but for that money, EVERY part of that system should be gold edged and operating with mechanical precision, and it doesn't, not the healthcare that costs way over the odds, or the severely over inflated spending on the military which has only minimal effect or capacity to improve the situation. Why? Because the effectiveness of those financial injections is deliberately minimised, in order to justify more and more spending, spending which winds up filling private pockets, RATHER than achieving aims which render patients or servicepersons in better stead than they were.

Its all a massive con, and the thing is that a component of the war on American people, is tricking them into accepting war against everyone or anyone else, war that is for profit, not morally or ethically acceptable, but simply lucrative for a small few. Its a massive part of it. The war on drugs is even more lucrative, because those pulling the strings of those selling the drugs, are those selling the guns that are used to fight the narco gangs, the guns the narco gangs use to fight the police, and therefore the puppet masters in the intelligence agencies and private military groups, earn THRICE from it. The drugs, the guns, the guns again.

In the meantime, they are responsible for millions of deaths all over the world, from terrorism they sponsored and fostered and nurtured, to the drugs they helped smuggle, and the violence played out to distract the worlds population from discovering the real culprits, and all the while, the propagandists, fascists and other walking detritus, spend as much time blaming the victims of western interference for their troubles as is physically possible.

Again I say, my nation is responsible for these things too, although much less on the drugs front, oddly enough given its history. No, we sell arms to anyone and everyone, and helped the US fund and create the fundamentalist groups who have dominated the news for ages, I am in no doubt or confusion over that. But the trouble here is that me being aware of these things is par for the course. I am a socialist, living in a nation run by people who are not like unto the people living in this country, by that, I mean people who are not skint and tired of being used. So of course, I am prepared to be told that my government is toxic to the world, and accept the harder reality, rather than bowing under the pressure to believe the comfortable lie.

And if you want an example of a comfortable lie, you can deal with the heading of your own thread. The war against the American people, is a lie. Its Americas war against everything else that is the problem, and leads to organisations having the power to harm American people in the first place. Stop the wars, the money dries up and the power evaporates.

originally posted by: slatesteam
a reply to: BlueJacket

The police have global bases??

I see the title, and MY point is, if we are talking war on the US public, our stance politically, both foreign AND Domestic is one of aggressive and hostile policies.

Again my point about closing bases, would ease the strife at home. Or did you miss that?

And now my turn to eat crow, my apologies. I was responding to the title alone since our OP failed to do his poster duty and fill us in.

Apologies to all here. I had wrongfully assumed that readers would read the article. Apologies for not understanding that many here at ATS expect the OP to also regurgitate the article somehow or other.

Yes, the point is that the 20 years on militarization of the police here in the US has had severe, perhaps unintended, consequences.

And I have learned my lesson, that ATS readers like to be spoon fed, preferably with a pro-state view, the authorities can do no wrong. Live and learn.

a reply to: Salander

Insulting people who take the time to read the article and consider what's in it is not part of a discussion or debate. You have had some opinions given that you don't agree with so your reply is basically, I'm right and you're wrong and I don't want to discuss any thoughts that disagree with me.

This is not anywhere near a police state or Marshal Law. as the article alludes to. A few cherry picked examples of bad behavior in a group of people as large as law enforcement officers does not a pattern make. It reads like it was written by a cop hater and quite frankly it's dishonest and dishonest on purpose to target a specific group

What is it you propose to solve the problems you see?

In any group of about 800,000 people you will find bad apples and bad behavior by a few. Even now with the Internet and literally tens of thousands of news and opinion sources we see only a very few examples of genuine bad behavior. As often as not what we do see is not exactly what those who hate law enforcement claim it is. Generally its a case of cherry picking and presenting edited or partial videos of what happened without context.

Yes there are some truly bad cops out there and there really is a blue wall of sorts, but for the most part law enforcement does it's job, undermanned, with inadequate resources and putting their own lives on the line. Is it any wonder they garner more respect than people who clearly hate the laws which won't allow them to do as they wish.

Believe it or not, most if not nearly all of us go through our lives never having anything but positive experiences with LEO's and when we don't, we don't then immediately jump to all cops are bad and its a conspiracy to round us all up under Marshal Law in a mythical Alex Jones hysterics kind of world.

I was arrested a couple of times when I was a young dumb kid and I deserved it. I acted civilly, admitted guilt while cooperating and guess what, my record was expunged after dealing with a very nice judge and with the blessings of law enforcement. I was the cause of what happened to me.

The giant conspiracy idea is not something I buy. There is no controlling giant cabal plotting and planning to declare Marshal Law and round us up and turn us into slaves of the State. Articles like that do work people up so they can sell them books though.

a reply to: Blaine91555

What you've said there would have made a better OP if the OP had fleshed out his post with it. None of us think the police are perfect and far less have high opinions of the State. Even fewer are happy to see police driving armoured vehicles and dressed like special forces. No-knock raids are horrific when they go wrong. Kids with toy guns shouldn't be killed under any circumstances.

Then again, none of us want to live through riots like they had in LA or in parts of England. People are throwing Molotovs and looting private businesses. We rely on the police to call order and they're not going to do that in squad cars with bull horns. In those situations armoured, fire resistant vehicles are a necessity. That leads to a discussion about when and where such vehicles should be deployed. Baton rounds and water cannon or bull horns and shields?

The OP could have generated a great discussion.