Tag Archives: Militarization

The EU Eyes New Horizons, by Melkulangara Bhadrakumar

Posted on March 2, 2022 | Leave a comment

Germany is increasing its military spending and capabilities, in part to fulfill its desire to be the dominant nation within the EU. From Melkulangara Bhadrakumar at strategic-culture.org:

Germany’s military build-up is a poignant issue in European politics, and what trajectory it will take once the dust settles, only time can tell.

Three developments in the past week herald a profound shift in European politics. It is tempting, but ultimately futile, to contextually place this shift as a reaction to the Russian decision to launch military operations in Ukraine. The pretext only provides the alibi, while the shift is anchored on power play and has a dynamic of its own.

Without doubt, the three developments — Germany’s decision to step up its militarisation, the European Union’s (EU) decision to finance arms supplies to Ukraine and Germany’s historic decision to reverse its policy not to supply weapons to conflict zones — mark a radical departure in European politics since World War II.

In a speech Sunday during a special session of parliament in Berlin on Germany’s response to the situation around Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a plan to beef up German military, earmarking for the armed forces an additional €100 billion ($112.7 billion) out of the 2022 budget as a one-time allocation and underscoring his promise to reach the 2% of gross domestic product spending on defence. He said the additional spending would include investments and armaments projects for the German military.

As for the rationale behind the decision, Scholz said, “It’s clear we need to invest significantly more in the security of our country in order to protect our freedom and our democracy.” As it is, Germany has a record high defence budget (€53 billion) for the current year, which is an increase of 3.2% over the previous year. The proposed €100 billion additional financial outlay will boost acquisition of drones, new fighter jets, etc. and fund investments in medium and long term defence build-up. Scholz also committed that the hiked up defence spending of 2% of GDP is going to be a permanent norm.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military

Tagged ,

Engineering a Race War: Will This Be the American Police State’s Reichstag Fire? by John W. Whitehead

Posted on June 10, 2020 | 1 comment

The government and the people who pull its string will use any excuse—Covid-19, race riots—to expand government’s power and shrink what remains of people’s liberty. From John W. Whitehead at rutherford.org:

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”— George Santayana

Watch and see: this debate over police brutality and accountability is about to get politicized into an election-year referendum on who should occupy the White House.

Don’t fall for it.

The Deep State, the powers-that-be, want us to turn this into a race war, but this is about so much more than systemic racism. This is the oldest con game in the books, the magician’s sleight of hand that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.

It’s the Reichstag Fire all over again.

It was February 1933, a month before national elections in Germany, and the Nazis weren’t expected to win. So they engineered a way to win: they began  by infiltrating the police and granting police powers to their allies; then Hitler brought in stormtroopers to act as auxiliary police; by the time an arsonist (who claimed to be working for the Communists in the hopes of starting an armed revolt) set fire to the Reichstag, the German parliamentary building, the people were eager for a return to law and order.

That was all it took: Hitler used the attempted “coup” as an excuse to declare martial law and seize absolute power in Germany, establishing himself as a dictator with the support of the German people.

Fast forward to the present day, and what do we have? The nation in turmoil after months of pandemic fear-mongering and regional lockdowns, a national election looming, a president with falling poll numbers, and a police state that wants to stay in power at all costs.

Note the similarities?

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Government, History, Insurrection, Politics

Tagged , , ,

Is Terrorism Transforming America Into a Police State? by Ted Galen Carpenter

Posted on July 7, 2017 | 1 comment

Some local police forces have become basically military forces. From Ted Galen Carpenter at strategic-culture.org:

The militarization of America’s local police proceeds unabated

For at least three decades, experts have noted the growing militarization of America’s police forces. The proliferation of Special Weapons and Tactics forces, or SWAT forces, is the most obvious example of that trend. Originally, such units were designed to deal with exceptionally dangerous situations (such as mass hostage incidents) in which lightly armed police would be outgunned. Not surprisingly, the first SWAT contingents originated in America’s largest and most dangerous cities.

That situation has changed dramatically. Small cities and even some modest-sized towns now have such heavily armed units utilizing military hardware and traveling in armored vehicles. They look—and act—far more like military combat units than anyone’s traditional conception of police. And the missions of SWAT forces have greatly expanded since their original formation. Increasingly, local authorities use them in routine matters that involve little or no danger of major violence from the targets of police action.

A recent incident in Hutto, Texas, a sleepy, outlying suburb of Austin, illustrates just how dangerously promiscuous the utilization of SWAT teams has become. On June 26, local police conducted a raid to implement a search warrant on a house in a low-crime, middle-class neighborhood. The alleged crime? Police suspected that some residents of the target house were involved in gambling. Investigators were backed up by a SWAT unit with nearly a dozen officers in full combat regalia pouring out of an armored vehicle.

 

Needless to say, the neighbors were both stunned and alarmed to see such an operation take place in their quiet community. One mother stated: “I went to my daughter’s room and looked outside their window to see if I could get a better view of what was going on, and there was a man in fatigues with a sniper rifle laying in my neighbor’s driveway.”

What was even more striking is that the police spokesman admitted to a reporter that the authorities “had no reason to believe” that the residence undergoing the search was involved in any violent activity. In other words, police were using paramilitary tactics and forces to execute a search warrant involving a nonviolent (indeed, victimless, crime) in a low-crime neighborhood. Such arrogant bullying should alarm anyone who cherishes domestic civil liberties.

1 Comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Government, Uncategorized

Tagged ,

If the Public Shouldn’t Have Them, Why Does the IRS Need AR-15s? by Michael Krieger

Posted on June 23, 2016 | 1 comment

Here’s the shocker sentence from this article: “The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000).” From Michael Krieger at libertyblitzkrieg.com:

Here we go again. Stuck in the aftermath of a horrific shooting and all politicians think to do is scheme about how to take more rights from the citizenry. There are no good guys here. The Democrats want to railroad over due process by denying firearms to people on Orwellian watch lists, while Republicans plot to give the FBI more warrantless surveillance powers. This is the authoritarian knee-jerk response to tragedy we get from the U.S Congress.

Hypocritically, when it comes to foreign policy, all we hear are incessant calls for more militarism, more war and more regime change. As I warned in yesterday’s post, Is the Syrian War About to Experience a Major Escalation? — 51 State Department officials just issued a cable calling for the bombing of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. An event likely to lead to direct confrontation with Russia.

While all of that is bad enough, the U.S. government continues to eagerly and aggressively arm non-defense federal employees with weapons of war.

As Adam Andrzejewski of Open the Books and former U.S. Senator Tom Coburn noted in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed:

The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000).

For more, let’s take a look at a few excerpts from their piece, Why Does the IRS Need Guns?

Special agents at the IRS equipped with AR-15 military-style rifles? Health and Human Services “Special Office of Inspector General Agents” being trained by the Army’s Special Forces contractors? The Department of Veterans Affairs arming 3,700 employees?

The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000). In its escalating arms and ammo stockpiling, this federal arms race is unlike anything in history. Over the last 20 years, the number of these federal officers with arrest-and-firearm authority has nearly tripled to over 200,000 today, from 74,500 in 1996.

What exactly is the Obama administration up to?

On Friday, June 17, our organization, American Transparency, is releasing its OpenTheBooks.com oversight report on the militarization of America. The report catalogs federal purchases of guns, ammunition and military-style equipment by seemingly bureaucratic federal agencies. During a nine-year period through 2014, we found, 67 agencies unaffiliated with the Department of Defense spent $1.48 billion on guns and ammo. Of that total, $335.1 million was spent by agencies traditionally viewed as regulatory or administrative, such as the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Mint.

To continue reading: If the Public Shouldn’t Have Them, Why Does the IRS Need AR-15s?

1 Comment

Posted in Government

Tagged