After witnessing the Ferguson Police Force’s enthusiasm for militarized action, President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to transport the entire department to Iraq to fight in the campaign against ISIS militants.
Colonel Thomas Jackson, the chief of the Ferguson Police force expressed surprise at being suddenly recruited and flown to Iraq. “This came out of the clear blue for all of us. Sure, during the protests in Ferguson we used severe military tactics, we wore military fatigues, we aimed military rifles at unarmed civilians and employed armored military vehicles against them…I just don’t understand though why The President would see us as a military force.”
Upon arriving in Iraq (with many of the officers needing a change of underwear and many facial tissues), members of the Ferguson Police Department shared their concerns with reporters.
“These ISIS guys, they won’t be armed, right? I mean, we’re seasoned Ferguson cops, we’re used to dealing harshly with groups of unarmed enemies, we’re great at that. I just want to make sure we’re able to use our strengths here,” commented Officer Richard Head.
Officer Benjamin Dover who drove the M-RAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Proof) armored military vehicle in Ferguson and will be driving it in Iraq expressed dismay. “You mean I’m going to have to drive this in the middle of a war? What if I run over an IED or something? We need to be prepared for that! This is crazy!”
What was kept from the knowledge of reporters initially was that Officer Darren Wilson, the officer involved in the Michael Brown shooting, was back on duty and had joined them in Iraq.
In his first conversation with the press since the shooting, Wilson refused to discuss that topic but did share his thoughts about the deployment.
“I’ve seen footage of what’s been going on here in Iraq since ISIS invaded and I’m glad we’re here. I’ve seen a lot of video of these bad guys marching through towns right down the middle of street even though there’s plenty of room on the sidewalks, they have to be stopped,” Wilson stated.
When asked what the Ferguson Police’s strategy would be when it came to engaging ISIS, Wilson confidently explained, “It’s very simple and I don’t think it compromises us in anyway to say this publicly. We’ll shoot at them, they’ll run away, we’ll shoot more and when they turn around to surrender, we’ll have them right where we want them.”
The Ferguson Police will be treated as a troop under the command of General Lloyd J. Austin, Commander of CENTCOM who oversees U.S. military action in Iraq. General Austin was asked if he had any concerns about having a town’s police force transplanted into a war zone and responded, “My main concern about this, aside from having to put up with the non-stop crying and shivering in fear, is the policification of the military. I mean, if it infects our soldiers and they come to expect that the enemy will always be an unarmed group and run away when fired upon, we might as well just pack up and go back to the U.S. to become police.”
Nailed it, AdLib, and why would I think otherwise? I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but I think the Aussie Comedian Adam Hills has an extra platoon to join the cops in Iraq. See:
This is just too funny, AdLib, wouldn’t it be the perfect solution to send them all to Iraq? They are certainly dressed for it.
After a lot of thought, I would recommend this guy to head the Night Patrol. He looks as if it’s right up his alley. Telling members of ISIS to “Go F’ck Yourself” and “I’ll f’cking kill you…get back!” when pointing your “big” gun at them, is bound to send them running away in fear through the desert.
Officer ‘Go F*ck Yourself’ Points Giant Rifle at Camera, Tells Ferguson Protesters ‘I’ll F*cking Kill You’
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/cop-ferguson-ill-fcking-kill-you.html
Please tell me they didn’t take that excess military equipment, they have been so anxious to get, with them. If they did, I’m sure we will soon be getting reports of more U.S. military equipment falling into the hands of ISIS.
There will also probably be reports of U.S. police officers dressed in military uniforms surrendering to ISIS militants and vowing to fight against Amurika. After all, how dare they send them to a neighborhood where the residents are allowed to have arms just like the ones they have or better, and are allowed to fight back under the auspices of “WAR.”
This isn’t what the Ferguson police signed up for. They were told their opponents would be submissive, like shooting fish in a barrel. How could the government of Amuika be so dishonest. How could they stand them up against people who have the right to defend themselves. 🙂 LOL!!! Great article AdLib.
Thanks monicaangela!
Unfortunately, I think the FPD see the Iraqi Army as their role models. So, when faced with having to confront an equally armed swarm of militants, they are trained to drop their weapons, turn and rush off yelling, “Run away!”
LOL!!! So they would fit right in with the Iraqi military in that case…your suggestion is sounding better and better all the time. If we have to put boots on the ground, let’s use the Ferguson/St. Louis County police department. 🙂
My Dear AdLib–I hooted out loud in my library when I read the first line of your post. It is a brilliant piece of satire! And dead-nuts on target. Thank you so much for the laugh, and thank you for letting us see yet another side to this event.
M Cubed, great to see you and thanks so much for the props! My pleasure indeed…and my apologies for getting you shushed at the library!
From http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/14/us/missouri-ferguson-police-tactics/
Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore knows a thing or two about this kind of thing, having been dispatched to New Orleans in 2005 to lead recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina. What authorities in Ferguson should have done, he said, is have “front line policemen” to face protesters, not a SWAT team.
His judgment: you’re in trouble when your SWAT team is on the front line of dealing with a civil disturbance.
“The tactics they are using, I don’t know where they learned them from,” Honore said Thursday on “CNN Newsroom.” “It appears they may be making them up on the way. But this is escalating the situation.”
Josh Weinberg, an Army veteran who focuses on security issues for the Truman Project, contends that police sometimes do “need high-powered weaponry” and other tools to go after “up-armored” and heavily armed criminals.
Veterans critical of police response
Josh Weinberg, an Army veteran who focuses on security issues for the Truman Project, contends that police sometimes do “need high-powered weaponry” and other tools to go after “up-armored” and heavily armed criminals.
“It’s really scary,” he says.
But that doesn’t mean the way Ferguson police used some of that equipment made sense, he argues.
Videos showed “a bunch of guys on top of an armored personnel carrier,” Weinberg said. “When we’re rolling around in Afghanistan and there is a threat of being shot, you don’t sit on top of an APC. That defeats the purpose.”
Weinberg says it’s unfair to the military to call what happened in Ferguson evidence of “militarization,” saying U.S. soldiers are well “trained in escalation of force.”
The police apparently “had their weapons up and pointed at protesters who are obviously unarmed,” he said. In the military, he learned that “your force posture matches the threat. You only raise your weapon if there is a threat that requires lethal force.”
With a pointed weapon, Weinberg said, “you could make a mistake, maybe get startled, put your finger on the trigger and shoot somebody who doesn’t deserve to be shot.”
And threatening people unnecessarily can increase the tensions and danger, exacerbating the situation, he says. “A crowd kind of has a mind of its own that develops over time, depending on what threat they perceive.”
Weinberg isn’t alone. “As someone who studies policing in conflict, what’s going on Ferguson isn’t just immoral and probably unconstitutional, it’s ineffective,” Army veteran Jason Fritz wrote on Twitter. Fritz is now senior editor of War on the Rocks, which analyzes national security issues.
His was one of the tweets included in a storify being shared widely online Thursday morning, with this line at the top: “The general consensus here: if this is militarization, it’s the s***iest, least-trained, least professional military in the world, using weapons far beyond what they need, or what the military would use when doing crowd control.”
In another, author and former Marine logistics officer Jeff Clement wrote: “Our (Rules of Engagement) regarding who we could point weapons at in Afghanistan was more restrictive than cops in MO.”
It’s good to read that military analysts are also appalled at the way this was handled, Murph.
I think that’s partly because these local police “officers” are a bunch of poorly trained yokels who don’t know the difference between sitting on top of an armored personnel carrier and going on a hayride.
If there’s one thing that’s been more than amply demonstrated, it’s that law enforcement in the whole area around Ferguson (and who knows where else in this country) is in serious need of examination, upgrade and retraining. And they need to take those ridiculous toys away from them — at least until they comprehend the use of them.
Until things are straightened out, it’s time for Barney Fife to take the bullet out of his shirt pocket and hand it over to Sheriff Andy.
HA! Love the Mayberry analogy!
I feel I did a disservice to old Barney in a way, Homie. He was a much nicer guy than most of them seem to be. And probably a bit more competent.
I would like to think that this really is a heavily armed Barney Fife syndrome….but…
I had lunch today with a senior deputy in the sheriff’s department in a nearby county who was a Missouri “big city” police officer and a trainer in their academy. He is 61. He had many insights that I need to gather. I told him that I would like to create an on-line article based on his reflection. He said he was fine with that as long as I shielded his identity. So I am going to work on it. Basically he says that current SOP’s have institutionalized a lot of bad practice which is amply illustrated by both the Ferguson office who did the shooting, but also the treatment of the crime scene afterwards, of the town’s people in the aftermath and of the crowds. Bad policing.
Not isolated. Not uncommon. In fact, the model for contemporary policy in the USA.
Murph, I saw Honore interviewed and expressing those views and it’s not surprising.
Someone who was actually in the military and understands military discipline has to look at these yahoos calling themselves police and be disgusted.
As others have mentioned, all the military equipment the FPD has was only meant to be used against enemies of the American people. Turning them against American citizens in such an unrestrained way is an offense to our citizens, police forces everywhere and the military.
Precisely what I gathered from the interview.
Thanks for the reply.
I had lunch today with a senior deputy in the sheriff’s department in a nearby county who was a Missouri “big city” police officer and a trainer in their academy. He is 61. He had many insights that I need to gather. I told him that I would like to create an on-line article based on his reflection. He said he was fine with that as long as I shielded his identity. So I am going to work on it. Basically he says that current SOP’s have institutionalized a lot of bad practice which is amply illustrated by both the Ferguson office who did the shooting, but also the treatment of the crime scene afterwards, of the town’s people in the aftermath and of the crowds. Bad policing.
I hope to get it together in the next day or so.
Your article has gotten some nice attention at Yabberz. I wish you also published at DK.
Please, oh please, can we also send the Bundy ranch militia under the leadership of Ted “My-underwear-is-camo-colored-already” Nugent? They fight the best in exactly these same conditions. Only they have more experience with unarmed and dehydrated 6 year-old girls from Central America. But — hey — we all have our specialties, don’t we?
I know! How about Westboro Baptist too? Let’s send them! Their real strength is dealing with deceased people who can’t fight back, I hear.
This will definitely be a military cost-cutting exercise too, since they’ll all only require one-way tickets. Totally brilliant on the part of the President.
When they get there, they should be sure to let ISIS know that this police action is being undertaken — not only because they are the Real ‘Murrikins in this country (using the code word “infidel” might help make that point) — but because their particular brand of intolerance is representative of all of Christendom as well. It won’t be long at all before we hear those familiar words once more: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
Thanks for another great post, AdLib!
I think we should send all RW talking heads too. Could you just picture O’Reilly, Hannity, Coulter, Limbaugh, Ingram and the others, on the front lines, bullets whizzing past their pointy little heads?
How could I have forgotten them, Homie? You’re so right! They need to be “embedded” (face down, presumably) in this operation.
Do you think that if we threw in Palin it would be too much? Would that amount to a war crime and merit a visit to the Hague? Maybe I need to dial this back a bit….
Kes, I think you’re onto something! We should put together an American Injustice League and send them into Iraq! Including:
The Bundymen – Super Powers: Invulnerable ignorance, ability to love inanimate objects that fire bullets.
The Fergusons – Super Powers: Chameleon-like powers to appear like military troops, race-vision
The Westburrows – Super Powers: Bitten by radioactive rodents, they have the ability to descend lower than any other humans, can make anyone appear reasonable just by standing next to them.
Down, down and away!!!
This is really shaping up nicely, AdLib.
I just remembered another group that qualifies for overseas duty (why did it take me so long?) — that oldie-but-goodie, the Klan! Their outfits are already a sort of male-cover-up — a Bro-qua, if you will. So they’re gonna fit in pretty seamlessly. Super power: the ability to masquerade as paunchy good ole boys by day. And transform into paunchy psychos by night. Also, they come pre-armed. No need to supply them with military issue weaponry.
And as KT has suggested, our embedded reporters will be the entire FOX staff — with Limbaugh thrown in as auxiliary pharmacist.
LOL!!! Excellent suggestion Kes. 🙂
Hi there I just linked this story to Yabberz – https://www.yabberz.com/ –
My intro: “This is Very Funny…linking Iraq, ISIS and the Ferguson PD…is no easy trick but Ad Lib from PlanetPOV did it. Enjoy and then ponder. Ad Lib’s funnies are meant to provoke considered response.”
NOW, for a real challenge to ISIS, let’s also send a battalion of sharpshooting Patriots from the Bundy Ranch standoff to engage ala the SEAL and Rangers…that’s who they pretend to be….
Thanks Murph!
Yes, they should be the next to go to Iraq. They want so desperately to use their guns and fight for liberty, send those militia nuts to Iraq and let them see how far their posing with guns will get them then.
remember those two bozos at the store a couple of days past….can I volunteer them for an advance force…..
They’re used to paper targets. Paper targets don’t shoot back.
Haha! Jinx, Murph. I was typing and talking on the phone and when I hit “submit” — lo and behold there was your comment about the Bundy Bunch! I made the same suggestion.
Great minds…and all of that…doncha know!
Did the FPD take its training at the Ted Nugent School of Military Defense?
Very funny but kind of awful commentary, AdLib. Sorry to think it’s probably true. Sigh.
CL – Nice to see you!
The FPD is trained???
It’s so easy to be brave when you’re armed like a military force against unarmed citizens but put some of these bullies in an actual battle surroundings, where such equipment is intended to be use and I know many of them would be running for the hills.