Friday, March 22, 2013

A Springfield Success Story

Remember years ago when bloggers were screaming the methods of foreign wars would soon be brought home? 

"US soldiers and state and local police who learned counterinsurgency in foreign war zones, are using similar techniques here

Remember when that was all pooh-poohed by those in authority? 

Wake TF up, America.

"To counter gangs, Springfield adopts tactics from war zones" bCarolyn Y. Johnson  |  Globe Staff, August 20, 2012

SPRINGFIELD — US soldiers’ strategies to stop insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan have found a new application in an odd place: a tough neighborhood in Springfield.

State and local police, led by troopers who learned counterinsurgency in foreign war zones, are using similar techniques here, in an attempt to combat gang violence. And there are early indications the three-year-old experiment is working, according to an analysis by Harvard students. The team hopes its efforts here will yield lessons for police elsewhere in the United States and soldiers abroad.

“We want to make Springfield a laboratory, the way Framingham is for heart disease; let’s turn this into a science,” said Harvard professor Kevin Kit Parker, who himself worked in counterinsurgency during deployments in Afghanistan.

Oh, tyranny already is one, sir. Governments have been imposing it on people for thousands of years.

The idea to adapt counterinsurgency tactics for Springfield grew out of a simple observation: Gang members, like terrorists in a war zone, rely on the passive protection of a community. The majority of the residents are law-abiding but not motivated to turn in the bad guys.

So do governments.

“Terrorists and insurgents operate in failed states. Gang members move into failed neighborhoods,” said Michael Cutone, a state trooper and Green Beret who is one of the leaders of the effort.

The early results show that arrests are up in the neighborhood, even as Springfield police found crime has fallen sharply and become less serious.

Related: The Vile Statistics on Violent Crime

Just wondering if you are SICK of BEING LIED TO YET!! 

But measuring other aspects of social change here has proved challenging....

The Springfield initiative is not the only effort to deploy counterinsurgency in unusual situations. Sylvia Longmire, a former special agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and author of the book, “Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico’s Drug Wars,’’ said she is contributing to a Department of Defense project that will study the possible utility of counterinsurgency tactics to the Mexican drug war. 

They are already using them, especially the gun-running Fast and Furious programs. 

You know, the kind that get arms into the hands of Taliban and terrorists, too? Good way to keep wars and the war profiteers going, as well as give the oppressors another excuse for tyranny. 

Quite frankly, I'm tired of typing about it.

Peter Mansoor, a professor of military history at Ohio State University who previously served as executive officer to General David Petraeus when he led American troops in Iraq and helped edit the Army’s counterinsurgency manual, said much of the strategy is based on lessons from history. The success of the technique often depends on the particulars of the situation, but he said the analogy to policing makes sense. 

“We put police stations in our community to do what combat outposts do in an insurgency,” Mansoor said. “That’s to be among people, to get information from the people, to make them feel more secure, to put a police presence on the streets to tamp down potential violence, to get people to call in tips.”

Yup, police stations are occupation posts now. I guess that's why they are so militarized these days. 

--more--" 

Related

"In Springfield, ranked the 12th most dangerous city in the United States in 2012 by the FBI, Gregorczyk and his fellow troopers joined an innovative program that uses the counterinsurgency model from Army Special Forces to target gangs in the city’s North End, which has had a dramatic uptick in crime and violence during the past decade." 

Hey, whatever lie works at a given time. When tyranny needs to be called a success crime is down; when the oppressors that rule us feel more needs to be applied crime and violence are up and the media mouthpiece dutifully fall in line.

UPDATE: Tragedy of US police training by Israeli companies

Didn't read about that in my newspaper, but it sure explains a lot of the police conduct we see around the nation. Of course, it's only a tragedy for $ome, if you know what I mean.