Pass in Review
by Moises Saman for the NYTThe history of totalitarian regimes is reflected
in the evolution and perfection of the instruments of terror
and more especially the police
--Carl J. Friedrich
_______________
"Declare Victory and Leave Iraq" covers a lot of ground which Ranger has been traversing since Day 1. The article covers the memos of Colonel Tomothy Reese, a senior American military adviser in Baghdad, who suggests it is time for the U.S. military to leave Iraq. The article speaks for itself, but the photo of Iraq police parading through Baquba accompanying the article deserves comment.
Look at the formations -- these are not police, they are assault troops, pure and simple. Is this our vision and hope for a democratic Iraq?
If so, we have missed the mark, because historically militarized police are part and parcel of authoritarian governments. Was this our gift of freedom to Iraq, our vision for a democratic future? How does this vision differ from that of Saddam Hussein, Iran, North Korea, or the governments of any other despot that we disdain?
Our tax dollars are equipping, training and employing questionable organizations and are doing so in our name. It is time to stop this corruption of liberal philosophy.
How would you feel if your local police force was trained equipped and organized as these Baquba police are? This is not an Iraqi issue, but rather an American one. Why have we imposed this type of policing upon another country we claim to be leading in our image? This is not democracy.
Ranger's Rule: Police forces enforce civilian law and protect and serve the citizenry of a nation. They respect the life of both criminals and law-abiding members of society. Militarizing police forces negates this philosophy.
Labels: col. timothy r. reese, iraqi national police, militarization of iraq police force, police powers, U.S. Adviser’s Blunt Memo on Iraq: Time ‘to Go Home’, war on terror, wot
posted by rangeragainstwar at 12:28 PM
12 Comments:
American police do not, as far as I know, march in formation like the Iraqis you show but they often look like Imperial Stormtroopers when massed against civilian demonstrators. The Olympia-Lacey-Thurston County police who attacked non-violent citizens during the 2007 port protests looked nothing like "the friendly cop on the block."
RD,
To protect and serve.
That's the motto.
I stop laughing shortly.
jim
Protect and serve used to come well before "enforce the law." Just one example of our upside down/wrong-side-out world.
GSJ
GSJ,
We see these pics like the Iraqi Cops and it just blows past our eyes. It took me 3 days to glom onto the meaning of that pic. We all tend to accept the bullshit or at least just let it roll on by.
jim
But the Iraqi "police" tradition, like most Middle Eastern dictatorships, include these paramilitary "policeman".
I saw this and immediately thought of the police in Belfast. Sure, the coppers there wear military ballistic vests and carry MP5s but they look like coppers and generally act like coppers. I understand that during the worst of the Troubles that the beat cops had to have a squad of Brits to escort them...but they still went to work in their blue and their cop hats and carried a pistol and a club instead of an SMG.
We fucked this dog, and in the end, it's going to attack and eat its master. There'll be a coup in Baghdad within a decade. Mark my words.
a decade chief? also, does that clock start now, or after we've dragged our sorry asses and what's left of an entire generation of young people back home?
to paraphrase louis XVI:
apres toi, le deluge...
Chief and MB,
This dog will bite us also. It'll come home.
Chief, why can cops have mp5's but the citizens can't? Um!
jim
Jim: The peeps in Belfast DO have MP5s - or AKs or Uzis - which is why Belfast was such a fucked up place for so long. I'd argue that giving a cop anything more than a Remington 870 means that you're no longer living at peace. Belfast was at war, hence the automatic weapons.
And while I love my rifles, but I'm also a real curmudgeon who suspects that 99.4% of all people around me are fucking idiots. Giving an idiot a smoke-pole seems to me the best way to turn your town into a free-fire zone.
The U.S. has a great tradition of gun ownership. I don't want to see the day when peaceful target shooters, hunters, and just plain people who enjoy and use firearms accurately and safely is legislated out of existence. But I don't like the numbers of jackholes I'm seeing wandering around with a weapon acting like it makes their cock bigger or something. We either need to do something to get the average Jack to respect firearms as the useful tool that they are, or figure out a way to keep these morons disarmed.
That's all I'm sayin'. Assholes with guns help closen the day when firearms are going to get outlawed.
Declare victory?? You can declare anything you WONT, but that doesn't necessarily make it true. I, Range, a Black dude, have been declared a gorilla or a baboon for decades, but that doesn't make me one. Besides, as I've probably said before, methinks the military victory (as we know it) died in August of '45 with the advent of the nuclear bomb.
Chief,
I accept your viewpoint-so why have we eliminated the DCM? It's now contracted out to the CMP.
I leaqrned to shoot in the Boy Scouts with DCM free rifle and ammo- the rifle was a 1922M2 Springfield of which I'd love to have today.
Anon,
If it means anything to you - I apologize for all those comments that you listed.
We can't afford victory any more than we can racism.
jim
jim
Nothing to apologize for, Range. I was merely making an analogy about the farce of "declaring victory".
Anon,
This entire PWOT has been a farce except for the death/destruction etc..
I for one favor anything that will stop these senseless wars. I'd even admit defeat.
jim
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