Mayor kicks Marines out of Toledo

www.nbc24.com...

The Toledo Mayor cancelled an urban marine exercise.

Was his decision based solely on his previous experience with this same group of Marines?

Since this was a miscommunication between the Mayor and a new police chief; do you feel the mayor should have let it slide this one time?

How does the ATS population feel about this incident?

What would YOU have done if you were Mayor of Toledo?

Do you feel the public should be shielded from warfare training?

Do you feel this is part of the "desensitization" to violence and warfare that has been prominent in our media?

Add any comments you feel are appropriate. I just wanted to open a discussion on this topic and won't be participating in the debate or discussion myself. I don't "do" debate.

He is a good man and what he said makes complete sense, "We have plenty of other places to accomodate the training." Don't have to put it downtown where a bunch of people will drive by and see it. Don't have to close down businesses and hurt your own economy because the Marines intelligence forces can't find somewhere else. I mean come on.

And just because it's the government, you don't have to bend over backwards out of fear of getting into trouble with them.

We need more people like this! Reading about them helps me keep going.

Edit: When I think about whether or not the public should be shielded from this, at first I thought yes. but you know it doesn't really matter. 95% of the public is in total fear of the government already, it's not going to matter much if they instill fear and desensitize them further. If it was my job though, I would argue the case of shielding them from it - as it only in some way perpetuates the military/state power, and takes away from the people. And in this case, it is obviously hurtful to the town - would have closed businesses for that day and weirded people out.

[edit on 10-2-2008 by Novise]

[edit on 10-2-2008 by Novise]

reply to post by Trexter Ziam


The mayor made the wrong decision, imo. People are not afraid of the military, unless they are paranoid by nature. They were to train on urban warfare tactics, so telling them to go out into the countryside is silly.

He just made it more difficult for our military to conduct their training. Pffft to him.