60 Minutes Propaganda: “Counterinsurgency Cops” in Massachusetts

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
May 6, 2013

In the brazen propaganda piece below, CBS’ 60 Minutes lavishes praise on the latest gimmick in the militarization of police. Leslie Stahl travels to Springfield, Massachusetts to cover “counterinsurgency cops,” state police who have adopted COIN (an acronym for counterinsurgency) operations cloned from Iraq and Afghanistan to address drugs and gangs. Appropriately, the segment is subtitled “Military tactics fight street crime.”

In December, 2009 I wrote about an article published in Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement. The article, available as a PDF, argues that suspected criminals in the United States should be treated the same as “insurgents” are in Iraq. The author of the article, Donald J. Mihalek, suggests cops borrow tactics from General David Petraeus, who formulated an eight point counterinsurgency plan to deal with elements in Iraq opposed to the occupation of their country.

“It’s important to recognize the most important overarching doctrinal concept that our Army, in particular, has adopted — the concept of ‘full spectrum operations.’ This concept holds that all military operations are some mix of offensive, defensive, and stability and support operations. In other words, you’ve always got to be thinking not just about the conventional forms of combat — offensive and defensive operations — but also about the stability and support component,” Petraeus told Foreign Policy.

The 60 Minutes piece dwells on the stability and support component of the so-called counterinsurgency program in Massachusetts, but says little about offensive and defensive operations. We see friendly police officers interacting with the community and a SWAT police raid on a suspected drug house, but are not told about the darker and more ominous side of the operation that is invariably present when police act like soldiers in a militarily occupied country.

The drug and gang problem in Springfield does not require a quasi-military response and “counterinsurgency” techniques devised by the CIA. The idea that government is responsible for curing social problems was alien to the founders and they are not addressed in the Constitution.

First and foremost, the so-called “war on drugs” has done the exact opposite of what government leaders and officialdom claim it was created to do. If drugs were decriminalized and government prevented from enforcing archaic and counter productive drug laws, gang violence would disappear almost immediately. Gangs in large cities like New York and Chicago thrive on dealing illicit drugs and gang violence is directly related to turf wars only marginally different from those engaged in by Mafia operations during government enforced prohibition.

Moreover, the violence plaguing Chicago and New York would disappear in short order if government in those cities repealed restrictions on the Second Amendment. Criminals understand that an unarmed populace is easy to victimize and intimidate.

Instead of common sense solutions to social problems, we are told over and over – as we are in the feel-good 60 Minutes segment above – that only government wielding an increasingly heavy-handed “zero tolerance” military response bundled with tough love is capable of solving problems created by government in the first place.

The federal government continues to fund and promote this kind of military response. The feds, however, are not interested in curing social ills. The federal government is primarily interested in establishing a military presence – a standing army of the kind abhorred by the founders – in society at large in order to maintain a corporate and bankster status quo.

It is also interested in establishing a high-tech surveillance and police state in order to prevent political opposition. History is replete with examples of government engaging in this sort of behavior under the guise of protecting citizens who are regarded as either victims to be fleeced or enemies to be eliminated.

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Permalink Reply by Cryptocurrency on May 6, 2013 at 7:04pm

In December, 2009 I wrote about an article published in Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement. The article, available as a PDF, argues that suspected criminals in the United States should be treated the same as “insurgents” are in Iraq. The author of the article, Donald J. Mihalek, suggests cops borrow tactics from General David Petraeus, who formulated an eight point counterinsurgency plan to deal with elements in Iraq opposed to the occupation of their country.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff on May 6, 2013 at 8:43pm

Send in the drones !!

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Permalink Reply by DTOM on May 7, 2013 at 6:56am

Folks may find it interesting to read up on COIN military (and police) procedure from the classified documents on http://publicintelligence.net/

Notably, the following link - http://publicintelligence.net/dod-support-civilian-law-enforcement/

DoD Issues Instructions on Military Support of Civilian Law Enforce...

April 11, 2013 in Featured

Soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 321st Field Artillery Regiment, XVIII Fires Brigade train last December to “respond to an escalating civil-disturbance situation caused by unhappy simulated hurricane victims.” According to an article produced by the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, the training was designed to prepare the soldiers “for their upcoming assignment as a quick reaction and rapid response force for U.S. Army North Command in support of emergencies in the United States.”

Public Intelligence

The Department of Defense has issued an instruction clarifying the rules for the involvement of military forces in civilian law enforcement. The instruction establishes “DoD policy, assigns responsibilities, and provides procedures for DoD support to Federal, State, tribal, and local civilian law enforcement agencies, including responses to civil disturbances within the United States.”

cont.

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Permalink Reply by Christopher on May 7, 2013 at 9:59am

I believe that the paper; ARE COPS CONSTITUTIONAL? - written by Roger Roots - Seton Hall Constitutional L.J. 2001, 685 - speaks volumes to this issue “counterinsurgency cops”/Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement.

Thanks to Jeff Wiitala, for his posting of the .pdf document on June 27, 2012

POLICE AS A STANDING ARMY
It is largely forgotten that the war for American independence was initiated in large part by the British Crown's practice of using troops to police civilians in Boston and other cities.

Professional soldiers used in the same ways as modern police were among the primary grievances enunciated by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. ("[George III] has kept among us standing armies"; "He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power"; "protecting them, by a mock trial....").

If pressed, modern police defenders would have difficulty demonstrating a single material difference between the standing armies the Founders saw as so abhorrent and America's modern police forces. Indeed, even the distinctions between modern police and actual military troops have blurred in the wake of America's modern crime war. Ninety percent of American cities now have active special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams, using such commando-style forces to do "high risk warrant work" and even routine police duties. Such units are often instructed by active and retired United States military personnel.

Source: http://12160.info/profiles/blogs/are-cops-constitutional

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Permalink Reply by Cryptocurrency on May 7, 2013 at 11:52am

Thanks for the links gents.

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Permalink Reply by joe banana on May 7, 2013 at 9:49pm

Nice idea, except you're fighting the wrong "gangs". You swore an oath to the constitution, do you remember it? About the part "all enemies, foreign and domestic". The biggest threat to liberty, freedom, and life, is the US government. The Obama cartel have infiltrated our Republic. Wake the F UP.How do you feel about a person who signs off on killing children? Infants? Woman? Every drone strike authorized by Obama does just that. There are stories of children so splattered, their parents couldn't tell which were theirs. Body parts all mixed together, and scattered around. Nice, huh?