If all that military equipment given to the police is not to put down a race riot, what's it going to be used for?

Bud Norman: Tanks for nothing

Our friend is a conservative of the old-fashioned law-and-order variety and couldn’t understand the controversy that had briefly boiled up about in right-wing circles, even if it was a result of an Obama administration program, but he had to admit we had a point when we wondered if the President and his Attorney General intended that the equipment would be used to put down a race riot. The notion that the government was gearing up to put down broader dissent against some planned outrage would have once seemed paranoid to both our friend and us, but we agreed that these days it doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

[snip]

Seen in the broader context of the president’s efforts to assure the rioters that he understands their rage about police officers defending themselves against deadly threats, it appears likely that those reviews will find fault with any use of the equipment for such routine law enforcement responsibilities as putting down race riots. A generous interpretation would be that he’s merely trying to keep the story alive for a few more days to distract attention from his executive order legalizing five million or so illegal immigrants and thus inviting millions more in to enjoy the blessings of post-racial America, and that the executive order was merely meant to distract attention from the eight trillion or so of national debt that has already been added during his administration, or any of the scandals at the Internal Revenue Service or the National Security Administration or Department of Justice that make the more paranoid theories seem not at all far-fetched, but we still can’t help wondering how all the surplus military equipment is intended to be used.

Police militarized to combat returning vets?

It seems that police are being armed with armored vehicles, armed helicopters and other weapons of war to battle returning military vets.

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.

The fact that returning vets don't seem to be terrorists doesn't deter them.

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.

So this is what America's streets now look like.

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.