Will The Military Become The Police? - 7

The Pentagon pays for these with your money.

Regular readers at Dredd Blog know that the military has been developing martial law plans for a long time.

In this series we have wondered why they are doing so.

One thing that came up was a federal law known as Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C. § 1385).

To get around it the military trains the police in military tactics and gives them military hardware, including helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, and various armored vehicles, such as the one shown above.

The citizens of Davis, California, did not like the idea of a militarized police force, so they went to a city council meeting and demanded that it stop:

More of this, please! In Davis, California, the city council has given local police 60 days to kindly dispose of the military vehicle it was gifted from the federal government. According to CBS Sacramento, the Davis City Council acted Tuesday under pressure from residents who had been circulating a petition against the mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicle and demanding the local police department "tank the tank", as one protestor's shirt read.

(Reason, cf. video below). The city council told the police to tone it down and get rid of the ~$700,000.00 vehicle, which was not really given to them for "free."

The Pentagon buys them with taxpayer dollars then gives them away, so in effect the tax dollar of the U.S. citizen is what really goes to the Pentagon "for free."

Warmongering weapons manufacturers like the police being militarized because sooner or later military replacements will have to be purchased with even more taxpayer dollars.

Now the scary part that Dredd Blog has been telling regular readers about for a long time:

A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.

“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” said the War College report.

The study says economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S.

(Will The Military Become The Police? - 3). The military manuals say that they will take command of police forces and use them to implement martial law.

As was pointed out yesterday (Banker Jekyll Will Hyde Your Money - 11), when such a financial crisis will develop is any expert's guess, but the military has been planning for it for a long time.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.