HARPER: MILITARIZATION/ISRAELIZATION OF US POLICE

In 1990, when Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contained Section 1208, authorizing the Secretary of Defense to "transfer to Federal and State agencies personal property of the Department of Defense, including small arms and ammunition, that the Secretary determines is suitable for use by such agencies in counter-drug activities; and excess to the needs of the Department of Defense."  The "1208 Program" thus established, was updated in 1996 and became the "1033 Program" after Section 1033 of that year's NDAA.  1033 created a Law Enforcement Support Office  within the Defense Logistics Agency to manage the dispursal.          

Not surprisingly, given Dick Cheney's close ties to major defense contractors, the program was boon to the arms industry.  Police and sheriffs departments around the country received old military hardware, including humvees and other armored vehicles, which required ongoing maintenance contracts, spare parts, etc.  The program clearly established a militarization of police and sheriffs forces that has proceeded apace ever since.  I am told that the biggest expansion of the 1033 Program has occurred under the present Obama Administration.  According to a report in Newsweek on Aug. 15, so far $5.1b in military hardware has been transferred to the local police since the outset of the program.  The Defense Logistics Agency, which coordinates the dispursal of the Pentagon equipment to the police and sheriffs have rebuffed efforts by the ACLU to obtain the list of which departments have requested access to tactical equipment like M16s, MRAPS, and grenade launchers.  According to the Defense Logistic Agency's own website, half a billion dollars in equipment was passed to law enforcement agencies in 2013 alone. The New York Times reported in June that the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq and Afghanistan has accelerated the delivery of military hardware to the local police and sheriffs.  "Former tools of combat--M16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more--are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice."  Some police departments have even received military aircraft, in addition to night vision scopes, armored cars and camouflage gear.  In addition, many local police departments, including the Ferguson police, have received additional military equipment via grants from the Department of Homeland Security, including the APCs used recently in Ferguson.

 

But the 1033 Program tells only half of the story.  Not only are police and sheriffs departments encouraged to adopt military hardware for counter-narcotics and now counter-terror operations.  They are being offered specialty training in Israel under the sponsorship of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).  Both the St. Louis County Police Department and the St. Louis Police Department have participated in the training programs in Israel.  Journalist Max Blumenthal has labeled this process the "Israelification of America's security apparatus." 

According to the ADL's own website, since 2004, over 175 American law enforcement officers have been sent to Israel--all expenses paid--to attend ADL's National Counter-Terrorism Seminar" where they "study first hand Israel's tactics and strategies... from senior commanders in the Israeli National Police, experts from Israel's intelligence and security services, and the Israeli Defense Forces."  All told, executives from 100 American law enforcement agencies have participated in the past decade alone in the ADL program.

In the same decade, JINSA has hosted a parallel program, their Law Enforcement Exchange Program (LEEP) which "takes delegations of senior law enforcement executives to Israel to study methods and observe techniques used in preventing and reacting to acts of terrorism."  JINSA claims to have sent 9.500 to Israel under the LEEP program since 2004.  And many more American police and sheriffs have been brought into JINSA seminars in the United States, where Israeli experts have been imported to train and indoctrinate American cops in the Israeli approach to counter-terrorism.  If the recent razing of Gaza is any indication of the kind of training provided, the process of militarization of American law enforcement has gone a long way, just in the past decade.  ADL has been conducting its program for at least the past 30 years.  The program came under scrutiny in 1992, when the San Francisco District Attorney opened a criminal investigation into one San Francisco Police officer who had been outright recruited to spy for Israel and had illegally obtained California Department of Motor Vehicle records and other confidential data on thousands of individuals, including labor and civil rights activists, pro-Palestinian academics and activists and anti-apartheid organizers (that data was passed on through a Los Angeles private detective on the ADL payroll to South Africa's Bureau of State Security for lucrative payments).                                                               

 

Comments

[Cee]

All,

As if there aren't competent people here to train our police officers.

Israel helped South Africa do the same thing.

So much for that model of democracy there.

http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/Pinui_Final_for_Web.pdf

[Peter C]

Nice interactive map of counties of who got what from Uncle Sam.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/15/us/surplus-military-equipment-map.html

[Robert44]

An all around excellent article although the Gaza operation in military and not police.

But due to the situation of de facto Apartheid in Israel the police there more than other places have quasi military functions.

So it should be frightening to Americans that their police will have quasi military training for the function of ostensibly serving communities.

Americans should be questioning why this is happneing?

[MRW]

The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the militarization of local US law enforcement. Using Israel is a proxy. It should be stopped. Israel is training our police to treat anyone the way Israelis treat Palestinians, which has now disgusted the world. This kills two birds with one stone. Indoctrinates our police force to forgive Israel's murderous and subhuman outlaw actions, and earns money for their security industry. I say let them suck the teat of some other freier (sucker) country on earth.

Israel is the perfect biological parasite: in biology, the smart parasites take over the brain of the host. They make the brain think that the parasite is a part of the body that must be protected.

[MRW]

"Americans should be questioning why this is happneing [sic]?"

I heard that Michael Chertoff ordered it as one of his acts as head of Homeland Security: that all LEAs (Law Enforcement Agents] had to be trained by Israel. Since he is a dual-citizen, it's not hard to see why this traitorous unAmerican would do it. (Makes you wonder what dual-citizen Fisher is up to at the Fed.)

[Tyler]

There's a lot of parallel themes running around here.

One is that the breed of criminal has gotten nastier. Send Officer Friendly into Baltimore and you'll get him back in pieces. Does this mean that the police in Podunk need an MRAP? Hardly.

However when something does happen there's often very little reflection and reality based observations. If ISIS got creative and decided to nail a non-suspect metro area like Flagstaff, Wilmington (DE), or Mobile, I don't suspect that there's going to be a lot of understanding by the residents that the police aren't there to deal with suicide bombers. Instead, you'll get something like the "Bear Patrol" bit from the Simpsons.

Humans aren't always rational animals. However any police chief is going to be rational enough to know that talking about his concerns about the "militarization of police" to a town hall full of soft people who just discovered that they're on the front line of a war isn't going to go over well. If they find out he left gear or training on the table, he'll likely be out on his ass. Look at Boston cheering the police who were kicking down doors shoving rifles into people's faces looking for the Boston Bombers - cheers and accolades.

People continually put more and more of the responsibility for their safety into the hands of others. Be it safety of the Republic or personal safety, they don't want to mess with it and give it to someone else, and that's how we get in this mess on a grand scale.

[Hank]

Problem is we cheer until the police invade,our house. As long as it is the current group of ire; Arabs, Muslims, Hispanics, blacks, terrorists we are fine with it. When it is our son or daughter, our dog, our home invaded by armed militarized swat teams serving a simple warrant then we get upset. Militarized police are a threat to every citizens liberties and freedom and adds little to our security.

[Allen Thomson]

A point of detail, but does anyone know how the logistics of transferring equipment from the military to the police is handled? Is there a depot somewhere that receives stuff from the military, inspects/cleans/refurbishes it and then ships it to various police departments?

[William R. Cumming]

Cee! Is Israel a democracy? Arguments for and against?

[William R. Cumming]

MRW! The PCA [Posse Comittaus Act] codified in the US Criminal Code Title 18 of the US Code at Section 1385 does not apply to states and their local governments law enforcement but only federal armed forces. It would be a much more useful statute if the word "criminal" was added to the language since in its inception it was designed to be restricted to criminal law enforcement only.

The PCA as codified has some exceptions to its restrictions on law enforcement by federal armed forces.

[William R. Cumming]

MRW! My guess is the FED is aprroving off the book loans for Israeli ops in GAZA! With the subject of number of USA passports and citizenship for the totality of Israeli citizens being a state secret for both the government of Israel and the USA I would argue that together with visa waiver Israel is a de facto US proxy in MENA.

[William R. Cumming]

GSA also auctions off at reduced prices US government equipment declared surplus and often involves weaponary from the civil agencies involved with LE! See 28 CFR Part 65 defining the LE community!

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks Harper for this excellent post!

There is a related issue. Peerhaps as much of local police forces and FIRE SERVICE personnel are in the National Guard or Active Reserves. Screening of those forces could well reveal that critical personnel at state and their local governments [perhaps even the federal government] should not be in the paid NG or Active Reserves because of their critical roles in the civil sector or civil LE sector.

[turcopolier]

Allen Thompson

The Defense Supply Agency is the executive agency in this. pl

[turcopolier]

Hank

I am a clan guy. I have always disliked cops. pl

[turcopolier]

All

N.B. that the media does not mention all the Israeli training for US cops. pl

[Cee]

All,

An important read from Richard Silverstein

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/08/23/former-israeli-supreme-court-justice-israel-fabricated-rocket-fire-to-launch-deif-assassination/

I've said before that I believe that ISIS is, if not headed by, has been infiltrated by people who act on behalf of Israel...lesser extent the corrupt Saudi regime. Muslims haven't benefited one bit by their crazed actions. IF the warning about a domestic attack becomes reality, you know who I blame.

[Cee]

William,

It never was.

Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel.

“Accordingly we, members of the People’s Council, representatives of the Jewish community of the Land of Israel and of the Zionist movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over the Land of Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.”

Later on, the declaration touches on important issues such as equality, justice, peace, development, openness and assisting fellow citizens. But nowhere in the entire document was the word democracy mentioned.

Is Israel a democracy? Maybe it is an oligarchy, or an aristocracy, or some sort of anarchistic monarchy? What I do know for sure is that no one actually cares.

The writer is a former brigadier-general who served as a division head in the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency).

Translated by Hannah Hochner.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Is-Israel-a-true-democracy-352445

[Cee]

Hank,

As you were saying...

http://6abc.com/pets/illinois-police-officer-fired-after-fatally-shooting-dog--/226107/

[Fred]

Cee,
This declaration did not establish the government. The rights of citizens there are determined by the legislation.

[Anna-Marina]

Is not it amazing that one person, a 5-deferral patented coward, happened to be so instrumental for securing super-profits for the military-industrial-corporate complex? - All while damaging the USA along all dimensions...
And now his loyal student, Nuland-Kagan, is on a conquest of Ukraine by creating a civil war there (with the help of neo-nazis). Never mind that this civil war has a potential to become transformed into WWIII.

[Charles Dekle]

Harper,
Thanks for the article.

All,

I would think that the surplus equipment would be better used if distributed to the National Guard (NG) rather than local police. According to GAO-07-60, Actions Needed to Identify National Guard Domestic Equipment Requirements and Readiness, Jan 30, 2007, "The high use of the National Guard for federal overseas missions has reduced equipment available for its state-led domestic missions, at the same time it faces an expanded array of threats at home." The GAO made five recommendations, two of which were not implemented. The most concerning, IMO, is the last one: "The Army has not yet developed a detailed plan for equipping Army National Guard forces under their new modular configuration. The Army's 2010 Equipping Strategy noted that National Guard forces would be provided equipment for their domestic missions, but it has not defined readiness standards and measure to track domestic mission readiness."
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-60

I also found this Association of the United States Army report on Lt General Steven Blum's 2007 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. He stated that, "... the Army Guard, in particular, has only 40 percent of its equipment on hand for the homeland defense mission and much of that is old and unusable overseas."
http://www3.ausa.org/WEBINT/DeptAUSANews.nsf/byid/PGRH-72BPTV

So for the $5.1 billion mentioned in Harper's article, I think that the nation would be better served by DoD quipping and training the NG rather than the local police.

Regards,

[MRW]

Agree. Which is precisely what Israeli-training is teaching: to hate The Other, as their Sparta society endorses.

[curtis]

Something to remember from the past.

"First they came for the Communists but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists but I was not one of them, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews but I was not Jewish so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."

http://www.searchquotes.com/quotation/First_they_came_for_the_Communists_but_I_was_not_a_Communist_so_I_did_not_speak_out._Then_they_came_/232961/

[Anonymous]

At the time of Chertoff's tenure almost every homeland security grant was given to some jewish institution. This pattern probably hasn't changed substantially since, so that the same process of corruption employed by organized judaism in the political sphere is now being applied to the policial domain.

Of course, the same way it took an almost infinite time for people to realize that jewish corruption of the political process was never devised to favour the interests of the american people, this corruption of the police force while not being devised for the protection of americans, will be thought to be so by most peole for a long time to come.

Expect police chiefs to start acting as if the protection of jewish institutions, jewish neighbourhoods and general oligarchy were a priority above all other, while working to keep dissidents in the back end of the promotion lines, just like politicians and editorial managers have being doing for ages, albeit this time with less subtlety and more morguery.